Alexander blinked. The words didn't go away. He waved his hand through them. His fingers passed through empty air, but the text remained floating.

  “What the...” he whispered.

  “Alex?” Chris said, voice shaking. “What the hell? What's happening?”

  He couldn't answer. His focus tunneled on the glowing text.

  New lines formed, pulsing in front of him:

  CHOOSE PATH TO BEGIN

  A grid unfolded in his vision:

  CULTIVATION

  THEURGY

  NATURAL MAGIC

  SOLOMONIC BLACK MAGIC

  Solomonic? Like King Solomon? His master's thesis had covered the Solomonic grimoires as context for Renaissance magic. The old Biblical king was a big part of the lore of many traditions, including all those medieval demon-summoning manuals that academics treated as historical curiosities, but believers claimed could be traced to Solomon himself.

  “Alex?” Chris's voice repeated, small and broken. “Alex, what... what was that thing?”

  “No idea.” The adrenaline was fading, leaving him cold. “I don't know what the hell that was.”

  His breath hitched. The grid still covered his vision, presenting him with choices, but no instructions nor explanations. Just the titles hanging over the darkened gym.

  He wondered for an instant if he had consumed something, if someone had spiked his protein drink, or if he was dreaming. But the burning sensation on his forearms and the horrid smell were all too real. The screams outside were too real.

  Another line appeared beneath them:

  AFFINITY: BLACK MAGIC — 97%

  Was this... video game HUD coaxing him to make that choice?

  And stating that he could somehow become a real sorcerer? Someone with magical powers?

  His hand hovered toward Theurgy. He knew what it was: the binding and summoning of angels. It felt strangely comforting. Even safe. That must be the right thing, wasn't it? He wasn't really religious, but in Western lore, that particular school of magic usually implied daily good deeds, selflessness and sacrifice in order to call upon angels.

  AFFINITY: THEURGY — 16%

  Although, compared to the other option it did not seem like that would get him very far.

  No… there was something else, something in his chest pulled toward that final option: Black Magic.

  Despite his years of study, memorizing sigils and translating cryptic scribbles, he felt like an absolute novice. He had never practiced any of it. Aside from casually reciting divine Hebrew names before a test or a stressful day.

  If this was real, and because of the unnatural creature he had just killed, he was now almost certain. He didn't know what being an actual sorcerer meant. Didn't know the cost. But the pull was unmistakable. It felt like a lock finding its key.

  His finger twitched upward, as if the choice were physical.

  The text flashed:

  CONFIRM: BLACK MAGIC?

  YES / NO

  Outside, screams and strange growls echoed nearby.

  Chris whimpered.

  The words pulsed faster, like a heartbeat.

  Alexander swallowed, jaw clenched.

  He selected YES.

  A shock ripped through him, as if every nerve lit at once.

  And then it faded, as quickly as it had come. The words dissolved, soon replaced by others.

  Please contact your nearest coven for initiation.

  INITIATION REQUIRED

  Text appeared in his vision again:

  Name: Alexander Dee

  CLASS: BLACK MAGICIAN

  LEVEL 2

  MP: 200/200

  HP: 82/82

  EXP: 0/200

  [ATTACK: 12]

  [DEFENSE: 6]

  CORRUPTION QUOTIENT: 0%

  Then:

  BINDING CAPACITY: 3

  And finally:

  Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

  SKILLS AVAILABLE: xxxx

  And... was that it? He'd expect at least fire to come out of his palms. What was this initiation supposed to be like? And what was that corruption stuff?

  His instincts reacted at the sound of something slithering close.

  Another hideous thing was crawling through the window.

  He stepped back, pulling up the axe, still dripping with black demon blood, and wiped it with the towel. Then, he slid it into his hoodie.

  His phone buzzed one more time. He pulled it out with shaking hands, finding seven missed calls and texts flooding in faster than the phone could load them. Marion, the older crystal lady who came for the Pilates machine, was calling him.

  She was a regular client who'd always given him strange looks.

  Marion: IT'S REAL. ALL OF IT. GET TO SAFETY. THEY'RE COMING.

  What was that about?

  In any case, he knew that she was right. He turned slowly, facing his client.

  “Chris,” Alexander said quietly. “Get up. We need to get the hell out.”

  “Where? What if... what if those things come again?—”

  “Get up, man, right now.”

  Chris lifted himself up, his knees buckling.

  “What's happening?” Chris whispered.

  “No idea, man. But this place ain’t safe anymore.”

  Another window shattered. Two more of those things—smaller than the first but just as horrible—oozed through the opening.

  To Alex's surprise, words appeared on top of the creatures.

  [SHOGGOTH]

  [HP: 78/78]

  [SHOGGOTH]

  [HP: 66/66]

  Shoggoth? He'd heard the word before. Yes, from the horror writer H. P. Lovecraft. So the old freak had been onto something after all. They weren’t just fictional abominations.

  A jolt of confidence pushed through him. Chris wasn't doing much to protect himself, so it'd be Alex's duty after all.

  He had just killed one of those things.

  And he could do it again.

  Alexander picked up the blood-slicked weight plate.

  The creatures slithered toward them, making that grease-popping sound.

  Alexander swung the plate like a discus. It caught the thing in the face and sent it spinning into a squat rack. The other one crouched and scuttled across the floor like a centipede.

  Alexander dropped on it with his knees. He grabbed the plate with his bare hands and slammed it against it.

  It thrashed, one of its limbs cutting a line across his forearm. Blood welled up, and pain flared instantly.

  [ALEX HP: 73/82]

  He pulled the axe out of his hoodie, held its head in place, and beheaded it with one swing.

  Black blood jetted, ruining the mat.

  [SHOGGOTH: HP - 0]

  Alexander shifted his stance, raising the axe. The second creature stalked sideways, head twitching and muscles bunching for a strike. Its movements came in sharp bursts, before it finally lunged, clawed limbs forward.

  Alex swung the axe. The creature twisted around the swing and scraped past his ribs. He pivoted and the axe head bit into the floor where its torso had been an instant earlier.

  It came again, straight for his throat.

  He dropped his weight and snapped the haft upward. Steel met flesh. The blade split through cartilage and muscle and buried deep into its chest.

  The monster slammed back into the ground, pinned there by the axe as it writhed. That wet shriek tore from its mouth and didn't stop.

  Alexander planted a boot against its torso and forced the weapon deeper, then swung again until the struggling slowed.

  He didn't move for a second. Breath dragged in and out of his lungs. His forearms trembled from the effort. Heat burned along the cut on his arm, sweat trailing down his temple. He wrenched the axe free, brought it back up into guard, and listened for the next thing coming.

  [SHOGGOTH: HP - 0]

  [EXP + 10]

  [EXP: 10/200]

  Both creatures were dissolving now, leaving puddles of that oily black substance on his gym floor.

  Alexander leaned against the wall, breathing hard.

  This video game HUD was strangely comforting. He was bleeding, exhausted, but he had killed three unnatural abominations.

  “We need to get upstairs,” he said. His voice sounded distant. “To my apartment. We can lock the door and bar the windows.”

  “Your apartment?” Chris let out a broken laugh. “Did you see what's out there? This is everywhere. This is—”

  “Yes, Lovecraftian horrors are crawling around the neighborhood,” Alex pushed off the wall and moved to his first aid kit on the wall. He slid into the bathroom, washed the wound with water first, pushing through the pain. He disinfected it, pressed it, dried it up, and asked Chris for help holding the gauze. “Alright, man,” Alex said. “Let's go. We're not staying down here with the windows blown out.”

  He moved to the front desk, pulled out his gym bag. The axe went in. He grabbed his keys, his phone, and a flashlight.

  They took the back stairs to his apartment. The stairwell was dark, but his flashlight beam showed the way. Every shadow looked threatening and every sound could have been something coming for them.

  He unlocked the door, pushed Chris inside, followed, and locked it behind them.

  The apartment was not huge. It consisted of a small office space with a sofa. A small bedroom, a bathroom, and combined kitchen and living area. Bookshelves covered every wall, crammed with occult texts, grimoires, and historical analyses. His desk sat by the window, covered in translations, notes, and comparisons of different manuscripts.

  Alexander walked to the window and looked out over Seattle.

  The city was burning, and the sky itself seemed torn in places, like reality was a curtain that had been shredded. Things moved through those streets. Things that should not be.

  His phone buzzed. He checked and found another text from Marion:

  Are you alive? Answer me.

  He typed back:

  I'm alive. Barricaded in my apartment above the gym. What the hell is happening?

  Three dots appeared immediately. Then:

  Magic is real. Everything in your studies was real. The entities, the summoning, all of it. Someone opened the gates to multiple horrible dimensions. I'm coming to you with my coven. Don't leave. Don't go outside. And whatever you do, DON'T try to use any of the rituals from your books until I get there.

  Alex stared at the message.

  Coven? What was she, a witch?

  Yes. He'd always thought Marion was eccentric. She came to the gym three times a week, worked on flexibility and light weights and Pilates.

  And Alex had never told her about his studies. She had asked him once if he was related to John Dee, and Alex’s only thought was that she was just an eccentric who shared an interest in the occult.

  Another message came through:

  Your bloodline is active, is it not? You have the system. You're a Dee. Your ancestor was one of the greatest summoners who ever lived. But if you try to use that power without training, it will kill you. Or worse.

  I'll be there in an hour. Stay alive.

  Alex set the phone down on the desk.

  But if Marion was a witch... and he... too, somehow, if the video game text in front of him seemed to indicate…

  What could he do? And how useful was his power?

  “What the hell,” he muttered.

  Chris had collapsed on the couch, eyes staring at nothing. “We're going to die.”

  “Maybe.” Alexander moved to his bookshelves, pulled down the first volume of his Dee collection. “I want to figure out what the hell is happening and how to survive it.”

  Outside, something roared. The building shook.

  Alexander opened the book and started reading.