Manhattan (Hell's Kitchen), NY

  Everything between my ears and eyes hurt. Every light, every shape, every word reverberated through my mind and resonated with Euclid’s definitions, postulates, and theorems. More so, it was as if my Third Eye was cackling, and that kept echoing in the already cracked walls of my psyche, doubling everything a car moving in the opposite direction blinded us with high beams –or worse, honked their horn.

  The tiredness from before was back and did so with interest. My arms which Wol had scratched up stung and itched at the same time. My legs were sore and it hurt to just sit. I’d never done so much running in my life. My abs too, they hurt. My neck, my feet, everything.

  I realized the burst of high tension after reading the book had been akin to someone trying crack cocaine for the first time. It had jump started my brain with the cosmic equivalent of a stimulant, tricking my body into thinking it was ok. It brought to my mind questions of whether it had been purely a biological response to psychic stimuli related to my brain, or if it had been a supernatural high brought on by my occultic madness.

  I needed to start listening to Wol more.

  It shouldn’t have taken this long to get to Hell’s Kitchen. But there had been a strange amount of traffic on the road. Then again, it was the day before Christmas Eve. Everyone was probably scrambling to visit family in upstate, Long Island, New Jersey, and Staten Island where people could actually afford homes. Not to say New Yorkers were poor, but even the rich lived in lofts and fancy doesn’t necessarily mean home.

  There were others too. Younger people, without kids, who’d be drinking it up to celebrate the end of their work year and getting ready for the holidays. I could imagine the mess at the airport. Snow always messed up the airport, which was already messed up even without inclement weather changes.

  The image of people paying hundreds and thousands of dollars to fly during the holidays, then being kept waiting –half their money was spent on just waiting at the airport and visiting fancy lounges with their maxed out credit cards. They were paying to just waste time and pretend it was a novel experience. That was the smartest marketing tactic I’d ever heard of.

  Then there was me.

  In the back of a limo, with a girl who wasn’t really a girl –or a human girl at the least– on my way to hunt a monster-driven-mad with eldritch knowledge.

  Where was my Christmas Eve?

  The longer we drove, the less cars we encountered. There were less people on the streets too. I saw a ghost, then another, two, three, and more. They were fading at the edges, all dressed in jackets too big for them and wrapped in sleeping bags that had been torn open. They were the ghosts of people who had died in winter.

  I increasingly saw more of them as we approached our destination.

  Hell’s Kitchen is a part of Midtown, right on the west side of Manhattan. Some people hear ‘Midtown’ or 'west side' and think it’s going to be some fancy place. I guess it is, now. Apparently that wasn’t always so. Like every other Manhattan neighborhood it started as a sprawling hub for Irish immigrants trying to look for a better life, offering jobs as dockhands and railroad workers, and later other Europeans.

  No one really knows where the name Hell’s Kitchen came from. But what they will tell you is that it likely had a lot to do with it being one of the scary parts of town. The Gophers, Hudson Dusters, Westies –all gangs with roots deep in Hell’s Kitchen. A lot of places in Manhattan have histories similar to Hell’s Kitchen; they’ve just been overshadowed by skyscrapers and modern art museums.

  I cracked open a window and felt the air beginning to change. It was a subtle thing. The way it nipped at me felt harsher, not maliciously but as if the wind itself was trying to warn me to turn back. Alleyways seemed to be easier to find, their entrances more sinister and the shadows more protective of whatever lurked within.

  It was snowing again.

  By the end of the hour-long car ride, I was drenched in cold sweat and fighting not to groan with every bump.

  The limo stopped and I barely managed to get myself out.

  “How’s your head?” Wol asked.

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  I grumbled something that barely counted as words and looked around the dock.

  Hell’s Kitchen had changed from a place renowned for gang violence into a residential neighborhood where every yuppie couple and their dog –I believe they’re called DINKOD– settled down. But contrary to that, the docks were more commercial than I had expected. Long stretches of boat houses took up the majority of real estate, and I even saw some signs of tourism. Closed food stands, garbage on the street, and restaurants built into the dock.

  The place felt empty. No, empty wasn’t the right word. It felt barren.

  “This is weird,” I said to no one in particular.

  “What is?” Wol asked.

  “It’s eve of Christmas eve. It’s dark, but it’s not that late yet. People should be walking home, taking the subway, cab, bus, something. But it’s like the whole place is deserted.”

  Wol listened carefully. “Focus, Practitioner.”

  I closed my eyes half-way and tuned in on myself, reaching towards my Third Eye which was still damaged from reading the book. But it answered readily and opened up my other senses. Instead of sight, I focused on everything else. Hearing, Smell, Touch, and instinct.

  More ghosts occupied the docks. Floating aimlessly without a sound. The Hudson had nearly frozen over and the waves were too far for me to hear, which only made the silence more vast. Endless snow fell from the sky, piling up on the roads again.

  And between all that, was a needle thin string of noxiousness that tickled my nose.

  A fine thing that I wouldn’t have noticed unless Wol had pointed out for me to look for it.

  I reached out with a hand, seeing if I could touch the string. I couldn’t.

  “What is that?” I asked.

  “A sign that this place is empty. It’s become a hunting ground of a predator. Something that preys on people at night,” Wol explained as Abigail walked near us.

  I felt an emotion between nervousness and fear well up from my chest. I swallowed it down. “So what? It’s been picked clean?”

  “It’s been abandoned before it could be. It’s not deserted, it’s abandoned. Humans haven’t survived more than a millenia by frequenting places haunted by creatures of the night,” Wol said, “Enough disappearances, enough unexplained things… and that’s more than enough for the entire village to avoid it.”

  I nodded in understanding. “This feeling… can non-practitioners feel it too?”

  “To a certain degree. Some more so than others,” Wol said. “Part of the reason why this place like this are avoided, especially after dark.”

  “Would it be like this at the places of power that the Wickerman mentioned?”

  “Most likely,” Wol confirmed. “But I think you are right. This is not the work of a nameless being.”

  I dragged myself over to the car and reached inside, bringing out the brown paper bag full of things that Abigail had got for me. I started shoving them in my pink backpack in no particular order.

  Wol came over, leaving no pawprints behind him. “Practitioner, there’s something you should know.”

  “Mmm-hmm,” I answered. The headache kept coming and going in waves, like it was waiting.

  Hwari floated over too. ‘Let our Caller sense it.’

  I lifted an eyebrow. “Sense what?”

  Wol nodded at Hwari. “Focus again, but this time, go deeper.”

  I stopped what I was doing and did as Wol instructed. The Third Eye opened itself wider this time, more focused and ready to see. But I didn’t just stop to gaze, I went deeper, trying to look ratheer than see.

  The string was gone, but it had been replaced by a mound of smoking… something.

  It was everywhere.

  Piles of them in the rough shape of a pyramid were scattered throughout the dock. Each of them smoking. Brownish-black and steaming, they gave off a foul odor similar to that of rotten eggs or a chemistry experiment gone wrong.

  It was dung. I was looking at dung.

  They’d also been rubbed over the walls of certain buildings, giving me a hint of what we might be dealing with. It had fingers but not the human kind. Wherever the creature had left its mark, it was in the shape of claw marks dug into the surface. The docks, the store walls, even some of the boats bore the remnants of its foul signature.

  “It marked its territory,” I said quietly. “And we’re in the middle of it.”

  Fear gripped my heart in a locked vice. Like hikers who find themselves in mountain lion territory, or hear the growl of a bear looking straight at them, I realized I was an intruder here; that I’d walked in on something’s hunting grounds. The conversation before hadn’t drilled it into me, but seeing it? Smelling it?

  I quietly zipped up my bag.

  “Do you know what this thing is?”

  Wol nodded. “The scent. I recognize it.”

  Abigail stood nearby, her eyes on the water. But I saw her eyes flicker over to the steaming piles of dung more than once, looking worried. Her tension was infectious, and it made me more nervous than I already was.

  “Infernal,” He spat. “We’re dealing with a daemon.”

  ? Smoll Seriouss Business ?

  by Alexanders

  The people of the good city of New York know what their city is like. The mafia runs rampant everywhere, and worst of all, they are aware that they are only seen as prey or money to further their plans.

  Among the multiple organizations that are vying for control over the city one that stands among the rest is the 'White Concord'. A family who stands in the middle of the underworld, keeping tight control over those who attempt to make a name for themselves, be it upstanding members of society, underworld workers, or even one of the echelons of society as a Mage or Knight.

  Trixie White is the princess of the White Concord and the hidden ace of their family, she alone is the reason they keep their power, the hidden trump card, the reason they manage to stay afloat even when the other families hire two or three circle mages. She also is five years old.

  And she may be... slightly evil. But even so, she only wants to enjoy her Tea time, play with her dolls and maybe get the attention of her Papa!

  Someone stole Papa's money? Remove their head!

  Someone broke her toys? Remove their head!

  Someone bought the last candy? Remove their head!

  Someone gave this series .5 stars? Remove their head!

  Wait, what was that last one? Who cares, either way. We will remove their head ;3

  [LitRPG] [Evil] [Will attempt to be written as a comedy so it ends as Evil] [Mayhaps somewhat slow burn]