1st 5 Pages July Workshop - Bohan Rev 1

Name: Patrick Bohan
Genre: Young Adult Urban Fantasy
Title: Into the Inferno

There’s a storm demon in my shed. San Francisco is pouring rain, my eye bags have eye bags, I still don’t have a prom date, and now there’s a freaking demon in my shed. That all changes tonight.
 
I check my watch. 2:12 a.m. I’ve got less than forty-eight minutes till the witching hour begins. Perfect.
 
I grab Jimmy the duffel bag, and root through the tools, making sure everything I need is in there. Yeah, I named my duffel. I get lonely sometimes.
 
Digging through the bag, I find three red candles, two feathers, four chunks of chalk, and a box of cinnamon rolls. But no silver bell. I drop the duffel to search my bedroom shelves. 
 
If I can’t find my bell soon, I might have to use myself again. I’ve already donated a quart of blood this month just to keep the lights on, but I can’t chat with a demon empty-handed. It’s like showing up to a company potluck without any food -- you just don’t do it. Especially when the host can bring a thousand volts down on your head. Just another day at the office.
 
I should introduce myself. My name’s Paul Bernelli, and I’m a sorcerer. 
 /Sorcerer/ is the fancy way of saying I cast spells. That I do magic. It means I brew up love potions, summon demons, and sneak into abandoned sheds to shout biblical Aramaic at three in the morning. But to everyone else, /Sorcerer/ just means that I’m crazy. I’ve gotten pretty used to the snickers and dirty looks.
 
Where /is/ that bell? I peek under my bed, then tear through a pile of old sci-fi magazines. Nothing.
 
I dig into the pockets of my ratty black jeans, then fumble underneath my mattress for the silver bell. No luck.
 
BANG! Something porcelain shatters upstairs.
 
“It’s not here, Linda. Where the hell is it?”
 
“Jesus, Randy, I’m not responsible for your crap.”
 Uh-oh. My aunt’s fighting with her boyfriend. Again. And judging from the horrible noises upstairs, I should get going as soon as possible. Whenever I get involved in these scuffles, somebody always gets punched in the face. And this time, it’s probably not going to be my aunt’s new ex-con boyfriend who gets the knuckle sandwich. I’m lucky to even be here. Better just mind my own business.
 
I root through my dresser drawers, turning over a mess of socks and t-shirts. Not there either.
 
That was a pure silver bell, handmade in Romania. It took me two months of blood donations, hustling, and makeshift yard sales to afford that bell -- I can’t just lose it!
 
My eyes turn to my desk chair. AHA! A shiny piece of metal peeks out from under the cushions. I pounce, raising the metal up to the light. It shines in my hands.
 Aunt Linda opens my bedroom door and, seeing the expensive silver bell, her beady eyes light up like a kid on Christmas morning.
 
“Give it to me, Paul,” she says. “Don’t make me ask twice.”
 
“No! I need this. It’s important!” I duck away, cradling the bell in my hands.
 “What’s important is that you learn to show your aunt some respect! Sixteen is old enough to help out with the bills, bug-eyes,” she says. “Besides, I thought I told you I didn’t want that freaky Satan stuff in my house. Gives me the creeps.” She shudders, seeing the duffel bag full of ritual tools. My tools.
 
Aunt Linda isn’t exactly religious, but she still can’t stand seeing my occult stuff in the apartment. I never understood why. As hobbies go, magic is harmless. It has me learning all about history, Latin, and sometimes, even anatomy! Sure, most of those anatomy lessons involve voodoo dolls and goat dissections, but it all seems pretty edifying to me.
 
“I’m not giving it to you! I paid for this. I need it!”
 
“Why you ungrateful little…” Aunt Linda reaches for the bell, but I easily dodge out of the way. She makes a few more clumsy grabs, tripping over her own feet. I smirk. Dodging drunk people has always been a favorite of mine. In life, you’ve got to enjoy the little things.
 
“You lousy disappointment. Just you wait!” she screams and storms out of the room.
 I hear Aunt Linda yell something about silver and brat from outside the doorway. A few seconds later she comes back into my bedroom, only this time she comes with Randy, her scary-looking boyfriend of the month. He raises a huge fist and I yelp, throwing both hands into the air like a total clown. Randy grabs my right arm, twists, and pulls the bell away. The two go back to bickering, this time about what pills they can buy with their loot.
 
Dammit. Getting my bell snatched sucks, but it’s not earth-shattering. I’ll just have to use blood. It was careless to bring anything remotely paranormal home, and now, I’m paying for it. Another reminder to always play it safe when it comes to magic.
 
Throwing the duffel over my shoulder, I bound out the bedroom door, eager for tonight’s evocation. Whenever I’m feeling blue I go out to my shed, light a few candles, and cast spells. They usually work. Besides, if a ritual doesn’t solve my problem, a part of me still enjoys having a dark secret. It’s like being a superhero, without having to fight crime, or wear underwear outside my pants. Even if everyone thinks I’m nuts, I know the truth, and the power is nice. Who wouldn’t want to be able whip up a luck spell, or talk to spirits with a Ouija board? Everybody needs an escape. My escape just happens to involve pentagrams and storm demons.
 
I grab a box of stale pastries on the way out the apartment, scale the building’s creaky steps, and start the long march to my shed. Since I’m self-taught, demonic evocations are always tricky as hell. All the old Latin and Aramaic grimoires might as well be gibberish Fortunately, I have access to the most magical tool of all: the internet. It’s taken me years of pouring through Wikipedia pages and occult blogs written in all caps, separating the real spells from the fake, but I’ve finally got it down. You can learn just about anything online these days. I guess that’s why moms and dads put parental controls on their kids’ computers. But I never had parents. I had an aunt. A very busy aunt, who was just glad I wasn’t breaking into homes like mom and dad.  
 
Tonight, I’m summoning Paimon, a demon of storms and forbidden knowledge. Paimon grants me the occasional wish or occult secret in exchange for goodies. He’s also one of my only friends.
 I walk down the apartment stoop to the sidewalk and shudder as a gust of cold wind slaps my face, rain pelting my coffee hair. I wrap my striped scarf tighter around my neck.
 
I live in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district. The name comes from Mario Fillipi, a Mafioso who’d bribe the broke and underpaid police force with household items. As he famously put it, in the Tenderloin district, or “TL,” you can “pay the sumbitches in steak.” The name stuck.
 
Drugs. Crime. Hookers. None of those are in short supply in the Tenderloin. It’s not all bad, though.