Terrible Friend

15

Albert stepped into the dark space and looked around. He watched as Beverly kicked her shoes off on the concrete floor and then stepped onto the rug. A small space, sectioned off by black velvet stretched across wooden racked enclosed the space. An altar of some kind had been set up here. A collection of heavy black velvet curtains had been hung hight on the walls and bunched up in piles on the floor. Another curtain of the velvet was draped over a table that was nestled in the corner.

Two edges ran along the wall. It appeared to be shaped perfectly to fit against the corner. It sat on top of a deep dark red colored rug with a gold pentagram weaved into the middle of it. On the table, a row of seven candles, flames flickering, lined the two edges against the wall. In the middle was a large, round, stone tablet with a pentagram in the middle of it and random numbers circled the edge of it. Directly to the left of the slab was a dagger. It had an intricately carved wooden handle. The blade was a very smooth and sharp looking two sided number. A small cauldron sat toward the left at the top near the candles. A tiny burner of some kind kept the liquid in the pot simmering gently.

To the right of the tablet was a long, tapered wand. It was made from two types of branches, painstakingly twisted together witha narrow length of black silk ribbon. It was intertwined and tied off at the wider end. The extra length of the ribbon pooled on the table beside it. Above that as a goblet. The stand of the glass looked like it was made from a red dragon's foot. The claws pointed upward and the glass sat neatly between the long black talons. The liquid in the glass was clear. There were various types of stones and crystals spread around the table, and two tapered candles stood directly in the middle between the goblet and the cauldron. They were a dark, blood red, almost purple color. The flames on top of them seemed frozen. The dyd not flicker and dance like the candles in the back.

Albert kicked his shoes off and watched as Beverly carefully and graciously approached the table. "Please step inside the circle and be as still and quiet as possible." She whispered to Albert.

He took a large step into the circle and stood there motionless.Questions riddled his brain,but he remained quiet.

Beverly leaned forward and lifted the necklace up over Albert's head. Albert braced for what should have been the worst noise in his head. Instead, it was quiet.

Beverly turned away from Albert and took a deep breath. She set the necklace down on the stone slab and lowered herself to her knees. She gently lifted the curtain that was draped over the front of the altar. She pulled out a large wooden box and set it to her right. She lifted the lid and began stretching and pulling on compartments until the box was stretched to three times it's original size.

Albert folded his arms and stood there watching her lean over the box to take something out and sprinkle it over the cauldron. He listened as she chanted words he did not understand. She did this several times. As she did, Albert noticed the necklace started to glow. With each new ingredient, the glow changed color.

Albert felt Jax start to stir inside him. He couldn't have explained it if he wanted to. Jax was normally nothing more than an irritating noise I his head. Now, though, just now, he seemed to have a presence. Like he was sharing the space with him. Albert didn't like it.

"Stop! What are you doing?" Albert exclaimed.

Beverly shot to her feet and spun around to look at Albert. She placed her hands gently on Albert's arms. She rubbed softly. "I'm changing the spells on the necklace so you can use it without causing Jax any pain. Why, what happened?"

"I don't know how to explain it. It's like, I feel like I"m sharing my body with him now. It hasn't felt like that before. What did you do?"

"Hmmm," Beverly stopped and thought for a moment. "Are you sure?"

Albert shifted himself around a little. The feeling had faded. "NO, I don't feel it now."

Beverly turned back toward the alter and continued her spell casting. "Ok, I'm almost finished and you should be able to wear the necklace without it affecting Jax. It will give you a bit of added protection from demonic things and negative energy as well."

"Will it still let me see things like it did before?"

"I don't know. I don't know why that happened. It wasn't something I put into the charm and I don't know of a spell that will do that. Magic doesn't work that way. Are you sure it was the necklace that did it?"

"It had to be. It had never happened before I found the necklace."

"That means the necklace was probably amplifying your own ability. That's interesting. You never had that happen before? Even slightly?"

Albert thought for a long moment. Trying to recall any previous instances that he was able to see things before they happened. Not like this. "Not like that. No."

"You had never been attacked like that before either though? It would be a self-preservation thing. So being attacked would not be the only thing to trigger it. Have you ever noticed, or had a sense of seeing things before they actually happened, no matter how briefly?"

He recalled lots of instances where he could look at a situation and see the probable outcome, but he had never thought of that as visions. "I don't have a psychic ability. That's always been Jax."

"What do you mean it's always been Jax. That isn't one of his powers. He has the ability to sense things that are lost and lots of other things, but even he cannot see into the future. Not even a second."

"I can just think ahead. It's not a special power or anything. I don't see the future. I just think about all of the possible outcomes in a situation. It's not the same thing."

"And yet, with the necklace, it appears that it is."

"It's not. Jax has the ability. He is the reason for the business. It's not what I've always dreamed of doing, but we find lost things because He can't stand to know that something is lost or missing. He gets quite irate about it actually. He can only find things that are misplaced though. Things that have been stolen or given away, he can't find. It's weird."

"That shouldn't seem strange, if you realize that he is the God of Lost Things."