Daniel Chesterfield – Mage

 

Back to Daniel Chesterfield

Back to Rayne

 

 

“… you don’t need to see his identification.”

 

 

 

Daniel started as a student of acting at Roosevelt University in Chicago.  Coming from a privileged family, he grew up not wanting for anything.  His choice of educational pursuits seemed strange to his family, but Daniel proved to be very good at it and so his family accepted it as what he wanted to do.

 

Halfway through his 5^th semester, Daniel’s sister, Erica, went missing.  While his parents tried the more traditional methods of finding her – the Police, the FBI – Daniel went another route.  Using a name one of Erica’s friends gave him, Daniel went to visit Gordon Rayne, a PI.

 

After listening to the story, Gordon and his cousin Stephen decided to help.  Daniel, acting every bit the spoiled kid he was, insisted on coming along. 

 

It was on the rescue mission that Daniel really started seeing (and experiencing) things that shouldn’t really belong in the “normal” world.

 

 

 

A few days after the rescue, Daniel started having dreams.  His dreams were always filled with visions of himself doing things he normally shouldn’t – that no one should.  After several nights of the same dreams, he went over to talk to Gordon and Stephen.  Gordon was gone on a visit to New Orleans, but Stephen was there, and had been experiencing the same thing.  The content of the dreams was different, but the overall theme was the same.

 

As they were talking (and smoking and feasting on coffee and donuts) both men heard the sounds of talking coming from upstairs.  They went to investigate (armed, of course) and found no one there.  The voices were still audible and seemed to be coming from above them as they stood in the library.  On instinct Stephen reached for a book (Shadows in the Attic: A Guide to British Supernatural Fiction 1820-1950 by Richard Turner © 2001) and removed it from the shelf.

 

Click.

 

A section of the bookcase swung away revealing a set of spiral stairs leading up.  Going up, the two were confronted by a very bizarre sight.  The attic was filled with shelves of books, old and dusty.  A large library table occupied the center of the room, its leather surface also dusty.  Stacked and scattered around the room, filling every available flat surface other than the table were boxes, crates, chests, sacks, even an old elephant foot umbrella stand; all filled with unusual items.

 

Sitting on the library table was a large leather-bound tome, open to a page marked by a blood-red silk ribbon.  On the page were lines and lines of names and dates, as if a roll-call roster.  The last two names were Stephen’s parents.  The dates next to the names were not their birthdays and, if correct, would have placed both of them in their early twenties and recently married.  Sitting next to the book was an old-fashioned ink well and stylus.  Ironically enough, there was ink in the well and it was still liquid.

 

Daniel, acting on an unconscious impulse, grabbed the stylus, dipped it into the inkwell and wrote his name and that day’s date on the next available line.  He watched in fascination as the ink was absorbed into the paper, completely disappearing.  As he started to show Stephen, who was watching in abject horror and curiosity, the ink reappeared on the page, glowed once and settled back into black ink, dry and permanent.

 

As the glow settled, Daniel blinked once, twice and then threw his hands up over his eyes, stepping back at the same time.  Pulling a pair of sunglasses out of his pocket he put them on and opened his eyes.  The greater part of the room glowed a bright white.  Concentrating he looked around and saw that the light was coming from many of the objects in the room, and many of the books as well.  The longer he looked, the light started to fade.  Risking it, he took off the shades and looked around again.  His vision was a little clearer than before, and the intense glow was gone.

 

Finding one of the objects that he had noticed glowing before (some sort of wooden stake with a faded, dark stain on the end of it) he looked at it, concentrating.  It started glowing again, this time more subtlety.  Looking around he concentrated on another object with the same results.  He was about to say something to Stephen when a hand reached out grabbed the sunglasses and ripped them from Daniels hand.  Looking up he saw Stephen put them on, walk over to the book, grab the pen and sign his own name.

 

When Stephen lifted the pen from the page, Daniel saw … and felt … a crackle of energy fill the room.  As the ink faded the energy seemed to settle on the page.  When Stephen’s name reappeared, a bolt of pure white light shot from the book, surrounded Stephen and then slowly faded from both the man and the tome.

 

“What the …” was all Daniel heard Stephen say before things went dark and Daniel blacked out.

 

Daniel woke up and found himself laying on the floor of the attic library. Checking his watch he found that he had been out for just under 4 hours.  Looking around he saw Stephen crumpled in a heap a few feet away.  Getting up, he walked over and kicked Stephen’s boots until he stirred.  As Stephen stood up, Daniel handed him a cigarette and walked over to the book on the table.  It was closed.

 

Daniel reached out to open the book when he heard a distinctive click.  Raising his head he saw Stephen looking at him, his pistol raised and aimed at Daniel.  Stephen gestured with the gun for Daniel to step aside, which he did.  Smiling around the cigarette, Stephen holstered the Colt and stepped forward.

 

“Me first” was all he said as he moved the book to be in front of him.  Embossed in the deep brown leather cover were golden letters, the gilding starting to flake off, reading “The Raijnes”.  Stephen opened the front cover to reveal a family tree done in small, neat script.  Looking at it Stephen started to mouth some names at the ends of some of the branches.

 

“Ben, Gordon, Stephen … Daniel?”

 

On hearing that, Daniel moved forward and peered over Stephen’s shoulder.  Sure enough, there on a branch several generations removed from Stephen and Gordon was the name “Daniel Chesterfield”.  Scanning up the tree he found where the two lineages merged, Daniel smirked a bit as he looked at Stephen.

 

“Cousin” Daniel said holding his arms out to Stephen.

 

“Fuck off” was all the reply he got.

 

The rest of the day was spent looking over the contents of the attic.  Apparently Stephen and Daniel came from a long line of powerful and hunted mages.  By hearing the call of the book (the call of their ancestors inviting them to join the “family”, actually) and placing their names in the book they unlocked their innate magical capabilities.  The books in the attic library were all about mages, magic, magical abilities, spells, artifacts, the history of magic … and so on.  For three days Daniel and Stephen spent every waking moment in the attic reading, studying, practicing.  It was on the fourth day they heard someone come into the kitchen, when they weren’t expecting anyone.  Drawing their weapons they silently went downstairs  to the kitchen …

 

… where Stephen promptly shot Gordon who had returned early from New Orleans.

 

A vampire.

 

Did I forget to mention that?

 

 

 

Some time after awakening to their powers (and finding out that Gordon was a vampire, Julie was a werewolf, Michael was a werewolf and Carter was just a dick) Stephen and Daniel read about a bookshop in one of the library’s many books that was reported to be a good location for finding books on all sorts of occult topics.  Stephen remembered, as they entered the shop that he had been here before.  The books here were “top shelf”.

 

As they entered the front door, the proverbial bell rang.  The bookshop had an old, but well-cared for feel to it.  Books were stuffed all over the place and the whole place had a faint smell of incense to it.  A moment later a woman emerged from the back room carrying a couple of books in her hand.  She looked at who entered and she and Daniel meet each other’s gaze for a brief second.  She was attractive, with a slightly erotic exotic look to her.  She was dressed casually with her hair almost in place.  A pair of wire-rimmed glasses rested on her head.  She smiled slightly and Daniel felt something inside of him shift.

 

Since high school Daniel had always been surrounded by the “beautiful people” - his own kind.  Girls found him particularly irresistible and his bed was never empty on a Friday or Saturday night.  On a couple of occasions it was somewhat more crowded.  It seemed as if all he had to do was suggest, even in an off-handed casual way, that a girl drop her pants and it ended up with both of them naked.  Starting in the Spring semester of his sophomore year of college he settled down a bit with a steady girlfriend.  That relationship lasted almost 12 months before ending … badly.  Since then he has had only a couple of brief encounters, but nothing like his past exploits.

 

She broke eye contact when Stephen walked up to her and asked about a book on some topic that Daniel ignored.  He kept staring at her almost to the point of stalking.  Realizing what he was doing, he turned his attention elsewhere.  The woman pointed Stephen in a direction towards the back of the bookstore and started organizing some things on the counter.  Pulling himself together he walked up to the counter and began some small talk.  The talk turned into some flirting on his part which, to his satisfaction, was not completely ignored.

 

Stephen came back up to the counter a couple of times to ask about a book he found or if they had anything on some other topic.  The second time up he caught Daniel’s eye, rolled his own eyes and went back to the stacks.  As he receded into the back a man came up front from the back room to stand very close to the woman and softly addressed her as Martina.

 

Daniel’s heart briefly dropped until he realized that this other man could only be the woman’s twin brother, the similarity between them was that strong, although he was much slighter than his sister.  He whispered a couple of things to Martina and then turned to go back in the other room.  As he turned around he said in Daniel’s general direction “Nice shoes”.  As he passed from sight into the back Daniel noticed that he was barefoot.

 

As Martina watched her brother go, Stephen caught Daniel’s eye again and, raising pinched fingers to his lips, imitated taking a puff.  Daniel rolled his eyes this time and turned his attention back to Martina.

 

Stephen finally came back up to the counter, arms loaded with some larger books.  Setting them down he started to pull out his wallet to pay when both felt what they now recognized as the crack of magic being performed – strong magic by the feel.  They almost simultaneously snapped their heads up, noticing at the same time that Martina did the same.

 

Could she also be a mage? Daniel thought to himself?  Of all the dumb-fucking luck.  He quickly noticed that she had seen Stephen and Daniel react to the magic and tried to cover for it.  Stephen was a bit quicker on the draw.

 

“Did you hear something?  Sounded like something fell.  Do you have a cat?”  He then chuckled and went back to fishing cash out of his wallet.  Martina looked at Stephen as if he was an idiot and replied with a vaguely timid “no.”

 

What a lame start, Daniel thought.  But since Stephen initiated it was up to Daniel to go with it.

 

“Well, I didn’t hear anything,” he said to Martina.  He can see that she doesn’t exactly buy it yet, but is caught a bit off guard by the conversation.  Daniel presses the advantage, “But then again my ears aren’t as experienced as his,” gesturing towards Stephen with a small smirk on his face.  “You would know your place better and the sounds it makes.”  Leaning in a bit, he adds in a hushed voice, “I bet you do have a cat.” 

 

Seeing that she had gotten a bit flustered, Daniel went in for the finish.

 

“Hey, I noticed coming in that the shop closes at 8:00 tonight.  How about I come back about 8:30 and take you out for a bite to eat?”

 

She hesitated, stammered something about her brother, Martin, and how he had been through a rough time recently and she couldn’t leave him.

 

“No problem,” Daniel countered.  “I understand; I have a sister myself and recently had to help her out of a tight spot.  How about just coffee?  I saw a Dunkin Donuts just a block down.  I could come by, we could walk down, grab a cup of coffee, maybe a donut.  You’d be back here … 30 minutes, tops.”  He flashed a quick smile.

 

Martina blushed a bit, glanced back towards where Martin had went and consented.

 

Stephen paid for his books and they left, Daniel giving a brief wave as they exited through the door.

 

 

Daniel arrived at the bookshop at 8:28 exactly.  He parked down the street a bit, not sure how Martina would react to his brand new Audi – a gift from Gordon after his Mustang got blown up outside the house.

 

He stepped up to the front door and tried the knob.  It turned and he pushed the door open, setting off the bell again.  Closing the door he caught sight of Martina coming down the stairway that was behind the counter.  She had changed clothes from earlier; still a skirt and sweater but it seemed to Daniel that the fit was a bit snugger than earlier, a fact he appreciated.

 

She smiled as she grabbed a set of keys off of the counter and walked towards Daniel.

 

“Ready to go?” he asked.  Martina responded with a slight nod of her head and Daniel opened the door again, holding it open for her as she left.  He turned off the light and closed the door behind him, allowing Martina to lock the door.  Taking the chivalrous position between her and the sidewalk they started off down the street.

 

Five minutes later found them sitting at a small table in the Dunkin Donuts, a cup of coffee and a donut in front of each.

 

Daniel was bout to break the ice when Martina asked who the old guy in the bookstore earlier was.

 

“Oh him,” Daniel responded.  “That’s just Stephen, a 5th cousin twice removed or something of that nature, I don’t remember the specifics.  His father’s grandfather’s great uncle was my mother’s great-great-great-great grandfather’s nephew - or something like that.”

 

“So, why a bookshop?” Daniel asked, switching topics.

 

Two hours later they were on their third pot of coffee, talking and laughing over Daniel’s description of a really bad play he was in at school, a musical called “Freud!”  Daniel was in the midst of taking a sip of coffee when he felt the strong magic again.  He could tell that it came from down the street, in the direction of the bookshop.

 

Daniel finished taking his sip, taking a quick look at Martina over the rim of the cup.  He saw that she, too, reacted to the magic by cursing softly and spilling a bit of coffee on herself.

 

“Something wrong?” Daniel asked, hoping to catch her off guard.

 

Martina mumbled something about not realizing how late it was and having to get back to Martin.  She got up and headed for the door.  Daniel, using the reflexes learned in Tae Kwon Do, rose as well and got to the door in time to open it for her.

 

They walked quickly back to the bookshop in silence.  Daniel could tell that there was something wrong – he didn’t need magic for that.  He rambled on about something unimportant in an attempt to help calm her down.  As they approached the door, a man exited the shop the same time they got walked up.  He glanced at Daniel seemingly without much interest, but Daniel could tell that this wasn’t the case.  He leaned over and softly said a few things to Martina in a language he didn’t know but that was slightly familiar anyway.  Martina nodded once and the man walked started down the street.

 

“Who was that?”  Daniel asked, his eyes following the man.

 

She responded simply that he was one of the staff who always came in after closing to tidy up, re-shelve misplaced books and, in general, prepare the store for the next day.  She then smiled, said she had a good time, was sorry that she ended things so abruptly but that Martin really did need her.  She reached into her purse, pulled out a business card, wrote a number of the back and handed it to Daniel.  As he took the card, she reached up and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, turned, entered the store and closed the door behind her, leaving Daniel standing slightly stunned on the sidewalk, the smell of her perfume lingering.

 

Looking down at the card he saw that she had written a cell number on it.  He put the card in his pocket and turned to walk back to his car.  As he did, he caught a slight movement above him out of the corner of his eye.  He glanced up at the building in time to see a curtain being lowered back into place.

 

He decided not to worry about that right now.  With the feel of her kiss still on his cheek, he walked down the block to his car, got in and drove back to the house.  He had already calculated in his head how long he needed to wait before he called again.

 

He hoped he could wait that long.

 

 

As it turned out, Daniel didn’t have to wait to call Martina again.  Stephen needed another book - he was doing research into some fanciful uber-gun he had concocted – and decided to head down to the bookshop and see what they had on the shelves.

 

Daniel, of course, tagged along.

 

That second visit lead to a third, then a fourth until both fell into an easy rhythm; with Daniel coming by a couple of times a week for further dates down the street.  Martina seemed to like donuts and coffee as much as Daniel did, which was good because she was reluctant to be too far away from the store.  Daniel learned that Martin was slightly autistic and had a habit of forgetting to do some of the things everyone takes for granted, like blowing out a candle before going to bed or leaving the oven on, which explained why Martina was reluctant to leave him alone for very long.

 

Each date ended the same way, with Martina giving Daniel a kiss before going back inside the shop.  The nature of the kiss changed as time passed, having abandoned the cheek fairly quickly.  It never went further than that, a fact that initially surprised Daniel when he considered his own past.  For some reason, he didn’t want to push it too far too fast.

 

Daniel didn’t sense any more strong uses of magic, but the more time he spent with Martina (and the more his power grew) the more he was convinced that she and/or Martin were mages; and relatively powerful ones at that.  Daniel was very uncertain how to react to this.  The group’s encounter with the professor, his questions about which tower they were connected to and his surprise when they didn’t know what he was talking about confused him.  In many ways he wanted to come right out and ask about it, but he was also fearful that she would think he was a nut.  Or worse, a mage himself.

 

During this time Daniel discovered that his mental powers were growing exponentially.  Each day he seemed to be able to do more than the day before; more than what he should be able to do, according to the books in the library.

 

At first Daniel proceeds with caution, practicing control, and sometimes failing miserably.  At one point he was walking down Michigan Avenue over the noon hour, talking on his iPhone to Erica.  She was being somewhat belligerent about Daniel’s opposition to her current boyfriend and started down a path of conversation that was well traveled.

 

“Stop, just stop!” Daniel spoke into the phone loudly.  He felt, rather than saw, the environment around him change.  The throngs of people normal to this street were still there … they were not moving at all.  The silence was eerily palpable.  Scared and excited at the same time Daniel looked around and, with a flourish born of the stage, shouted “And … GO!”

 

The crowd surged on as the noise hit him all at once.

 

He told Erica he would call her back, hailed the nearest cab which deposited him back at the house in record time.  He spent the rest of the day in his room thinking.

 

Eventually he felt he had a better understanding of what was going on and ventured downstairs.  He found Stephen talking into his cell, obviously to Michael given the nature of the names being used, “Dog” being the most common.  After a few moments Stephen snapped the phone shut and said that we were off to Wisconsin in the morning.  Something about needing to save Gordon’s ass … again.

 

Daniel walked outside, planning on stopping by Doug’s for the usual when his phone rang.  It was Martina wondering if he could come by the store and that she had a surprise for him.  Daniel turned around, walked back upstairs and got ready.

 

 

 

Back to Daniel Chesterfield

Back to Rayne