Security gates opened, and Junhyung’s black limousine swerved into the driveway, the Golden chauffeur expertly maneuvering the car through the barred gates into an underground parking garage.

Lee Hyori lurched sideways and fell against the sodden Golem sitting on her right-hand side. Its body squelched with the blow, and spatters of foul-smelling mud squirted everywhere.

Junhyung, sitting directly opposite, grimaced in disgust and scooted as far away from the creature as he could.

He was on his cell phone, talking urgently in a language that had not been used on earth in more than three thousand years.

A drop of Golem mud splashed onto Hyori’s right hand. The sticky liquid ran across her flesh … and erased the curling symbol Junhyung had drawn on her skin.

The binding spell was partially broken. Hyori dipped her head slightly.

This was her chance.

To properly channel her auric powers she really needed both hands, and unfortunately, the ward Junhyung had drawn on her forehead prevented her from speaking.

Still …

Hyori had always been interested in magic, even before she met the poor bookseller who later became her husband.

She was the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, and in the tiny village of Cheongwon in South Korea, where she had grown up, she was considered special.

Her touch could heal- not only humans, but animals, too-she could talk to the shades of the dead and she could sometimes see a little of the future.

But growing up in an age when such skills were regarded with deep suspicion, she had learned to keep her abilities to herself.

When she first moved to Paris, she saw how the fortune-tellers working in the markets that backed onto the great Notre Dame Cathedral made a good and easy living.

She set herself up in a little booth in sight of the cathedral.

Within a matter of weeks she built a reputation for being genuinely talented.

Her clients changed. No longer were they just the tradespeople and stall holders, now they were also drawn from the merchants and even the nobility.

Close to where she had her little covered stall sat the scriveners and copiers, men who made their living writing letters for those who could neither read nor write.

Some of them, like the slender, dark-haired man with startling pale eyes, occasionally sold books from their tables.

And from the first moment she saw that man, Lee Hori knew that she would marry him and that they would live a long and happy life together.

She just never realized quite how long.

They were married less than six months after they first met. They’d been together now for over six hundred years.

Like most educated men of his time, Jung Jihoon was fascinated with alchemy- a combination of science and magic. His interest was sparked because he was occasionally offered alchemical books or charts for sale or asked to copy some of the rarer works.

Unlike many other women of her time, Hyori could read and knew several languages- her English was better than her husband’s-and he would often ask her to read to him.

Hyori quickly became familiar with the ancient systems of magic and began to practice in small ways, developing her skills, concentrating on how to channel and focus the energy of her aura.

By the time the Codex came into their possession, Hyori was a sorceress, though she had little patience for the mathematics and calculations of alchemy.

However, it was Hyori who recognized that the book written in the strange, ever-changing language was not just a history of the world that had never been, but a collection of lore, of science, of spells and incantations.

She had been poring over the pages one bitter winter’s night, watching the words crawl on the page, when the letters formed and re-formed, and for a heartbeat she had seen the initial formula for the philosopher’s stone, and realized instantly that here was the secret to life eternal.

The couple spent the next twenty years travelling to every country in Europe, heading east into the land of the Rus, south to North Africa, even into Araby in an attempt to decipher and translate the curious manuscript.

They came into contact with magicians and sorcerers of many lands, and studied many different types of magic.

Jihoon was only vaguely interested in magic. He was more interested in the science of alchemy.

The Codex, and other books like it, hinted that there were very precise formulas for creating gold out of stone and diamonds out of coal.

Hyori, on the other hand, learned as much as she could about all the magical arts.

But it had been a long time since she had seriously practiced them.

Now, trapped in the limo, she recalled a trick she had learned from a strega- a witch- in the mountains of Sicily.

It was designed for dealing with knights in armor, but with a little adjustment ….

Closing her eyes and concentrating, Hyori rubbed her little finger in a circle against the car seat.

Junhyung was absorbed in his phone call and didn’t see the tiny ice white spark that snapped from her fingertip into the fine-grained leather.

The spark ran through the leather and coiled around the springs beneath.

It shot, fizzing and hissing, along the springs and into the metal body of the car.

It curled into the engine, buzzing over the cylinders, circled the wheels, spitting and snapped.

A hubcap popped off and bounced away …. And then abruptly, the car’s electrics went haywire.

The windows started opening and closing of their own accord. The sunroof hummed open, then slammed shut. The wipers scraped across the dry windshield, then beat so fast they snapped off. The horn began to sound out an irregular beat.

Interior lights flickered on and off. The small TV unit in the left-hand wall popped on and cycled dizzyingly through all its channels.

The air tasted metallic. Tendrils of static electricity now danced around the interior of the car.

Junhyung flung his cell phone away, nursing suddenly numb fingers.

The phone hit the carpeted floor and exploded into shards of melted plastic and hot metal.

“You… ,” Junhyung began, turning to Hyori, but the car lurched to a halt, completely dead.

Flames leapt from the engine, filling the back of the car with noxious fumes.

Junhyung pushed the door, but the electric locks had engaged.

With a savage howl, he closed his hand into a fist and allowed his rage to boil through him.

The stench of smoke, burning plastic and melting rubber was abruptly concealed eanth the stink of sulfur, and his hand took on the appearance of a golden metal glove.

Junhyung punched straight through the door, practically ripping it off its hinges, and flung himself out onto the cement floor.

He was standing in the underground car park of Cube Enterprises, the huge entertainment company he owned (LOL. It’s just a story :B) and ran in San Francisco.

He scrambled back as his hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar custom-made car was quickly consumed by fire.

Intense heat fused the front of the car into irregular clumps of metal, while the windshield flowed like candle wax.

The Golem driver was still sitting at the wheel, unaffected by the intense heat, which did nothing but bake its skin to iron hardness.

Then the garage’s overhead sprinkler system came on, and bitterly cold water sprayed down onto the fire.

Hyori!

Soaked through, doubled over and coughing, Junhyung wiped tears from his eyes, straightened and used both hands to douse the flames with a single movement.

He called up a tiny breeze to clear the smoke, then ducked his head to peer into the blackened interior of the car, almost afraid of what he would find.

The two Goelsm that had been sitting on either side of Hyori were now nothing more than ash.

But there was no sign of the woman- except for the rent in the opposite door that looked as if it had been hacked by an axe.

Junhyung folded to the ground with his back to the ruined car and beat both hands into the filthy mixture of mud, oil, melted plastic and burnt rubber.

He hadn’t secured the entire Codex, and now Hyori had escaped.

Could this day get any worse ?

Footsteps tip-tapped.

From the corner of his eye, Yong Junhyung watched as pointi-toed, stiletto-heeled black boots came into view.

And he knew then the answer to his question.

The day was about to get worse. Much worse.

Fixing a smile on his lips, he rose stiffly to his feet nd turned to fce one of the few of the Dark Elders who genuinely terrified him.

“Davichi.”

The ancient Irish had called her the Crow Goddess, and she was worshipped and feared throughout the Celtic kingdoms as the Goddess of Death and Destruction.

Once there had been 2 sisters, Haeri & Minkyung, but the others had disappeared over the years- Junhyung had his own suspicions about what had happened to them- and Davichi now reigned supreme.

She stood taller than Junhyung, though most people stood taller than the doctor, and was dressed from head to foot in black leather.

Her jerkin was studded with shining silver bolts, giving it the appearance of a medieval plate, and her leather gloves had rectangular silver studs sewn onto the back of the fingers.

The gloves had no fingertips, allowing the Davichi’s long spearlike black nails to show.

She wore a heavy leather belt studded with small circular shields around her waist.

Draped over her shoulders, with its full hood pulled around her face and sweeping to the ground behind her, was a cloak made entirely of ravens’ feathers.

In the shadow of the hood, the Davichi’s face seemed even paler than usual.

Her eyes were jet-black, with no white showing. Even her lips were black.

The tips of her overlong incisors were just visible against her lower lip.

“This is yours, I believe. “ The Davichi’s voice was a harsh whisper, her voice ragged and torn, like a bird’s caw.

Lee Hyori came forward, moving slowly and carefully.

Two enormous ravens were perched on her shoulders, and both held their razor-sharp beaks dangerously close to her eyes.

She had barely scrambled out of the burning car, desperately weakened by her use of magic, when she’d been attacked by the birds.

“Let me see it, “ the Davichi commanded eagerly.

Junhyung reached into his coat and produced the metal-bound Codex.

Surprisingly, the Crow Goddess did not reach for it.

“Open it,” she said.

Puzzled, Junhyung held the book in front of the Davichi and turned the pages, handling the ancient object with obvious reverence.

“The Book of Abraham the Mage, “ she whispered, leaning forward, but not approaching the book.

“Let me see the back. “

Reluctantly, Junhyung turned to the back of the book.

When the Davichi saw the damaged pages, she hissed with disgust.

“Sacrilege. It has survived ten thousand years without suffering any damge, “

“The boy tore it, “ Junhyung explained, closing the Codex gently.

“I’ll make sure he suffers for this. “ The Crow Goddess closed her eyes and cocked her head to one side, as if listening.

Her black eyes glittered and then her lips moved in a rare smile, exposing the rest of her pointed teeth.

“He will suffer soon. My children are almost upon them. They will all suffer, “ she promised.

Uh oh, Seungho’s in trouble trouble trouble ~~ Hehehe :B

Probably last update before I go into a SHORT hiatus :B Because of school. Sigh.

Will update tomorrow if I can.

Where’s all my readers & comments ? ):