The Sharp Edge Of The Veil Ch 01

In the Beginning There Was Darkness

The fist hit my nose like a malformed sledgehammer. It hurt. And when I say hurt, I don't just mean in the physical way. It hurt my pride more than anything. The fist was withdrawn once more and the face of the ugly man wielding it showed through a swimming of stars.

"Give me one reason why I shouldn't hit you again."

I blinked the tears out of my eyes and worked my mouth, trying to form words. It went all right.

"You shouldn't hit me," I mumbled, blood running down from my nose into my mouth. "Cause your girlfriend's pussy tastes like salmon."

The last word came more like sermon due to a broken lip. But he got the drift. The fist hit me again.

My name is Jakob Jeshuia Hieronymus Alexandrite Hermeticus Schwartsmüller Gyllenborst. But since that was a mouthful even to my not so dear departed mother, most people call me Jakob Gyllenborst. And I am a wizard extraordinaire. And by extraordinaire I do not mean that I am exceptionally good. No. There are wizards out there who are a thousand times more powerful than I am. By extraordinaire I mean that I do not conform to the ordinary lines of wizardry. I am not a black wizard, with all the human sacrifice and shit, nor am I a white wizard, striving for balance in the universe and shit like that. I like to call myself a grey wizard. I walk the line between light and darkness. Although to be honest, which I am, bluntly at most of times, I do drag my left foot in the gutter of black magic most of days.

And I'm not talking fucking Star Wars dark side shit. No. I'm talking the real stuff. Yes. Hate is there. Powerful as fuck. But there are only so many people who can really, truly hate properly. What I live on is your run of the mill everyday bad stuff. Envy. Lot of that shit to go around. Sloth. You have no idea how many people just waste their days away in front of any type of screen. Just doing nothing. Or watching cats fall of buildings. Or people. Or whatever. Gluttony. Now that's a big one. Although I hear that my colleagues in the States have it much better when it comes to that, obesity not being such a big thing here in the Nordics. Pride and greed. Always in fashion. Always handy when needed. You can draw power from the lesser feelings as well. Sadness. Anger. Hopelessness. But you need more of it to work properly.

And then there's Lust. The big L. The one I make all of my money from. And by God is it a rush. But as every page have two sides, so does Lust. Because, let's face it. Without Lust I wouldn't be the horrible man I am today.

And that's what brings me to this little pickle. The pickle of having a fist repeatedly shoved in my pretty face.

"Do."

The fist hit once more, breaking skin and more than one tooth.

"You."

Thud.

"Want."

Thud. This time with a cracking sound in there somewhere.

"More."

The beating stopped for a second. The room swam into view again and I saw the face furious man above me. And oh. I forgot to mention one source of energy for a wizard of my predilection. Wrath.

"Yes," I slurred. "One more please," I said shaping my hand into a point where it was taped to the chair.

The man. I believe his name was Lobomir, but I am not quite certain, these Russian mobster fucks all have names that sound like someone from Lord of the Rings. Furthermore, I have a tendency to not remember the names of disgruntled husbands, lovers, boyfriends and other hang arounds of the girls I am with. The meatbag raised his fist and the fury swelled like the Hindenburg right before rupturing. I drew on it and watched with glee as all his wrath drained. Into me. Into my hand. Into my now clenched fist.

He sailed through the air like a discarded fast food wrapping and hit the opposite wall with a satisfying crunch. I ripped my hands free and gingerly felt my nose. That was going to take a lot of power to fix. I staggered towards the fallen man. He drew ragged breaths and looked up at me with fear in his eyes.

There's not as much power in fear as you may think. But it's always good to be feared. Especially when you want to intimidate someone.

"Do you want to live after sundown," I said with the best growl my blood-filled mouth could muster.

He stared up at me. Then he nodded.

"Good. Then I suggest you forget about me having my cock shoved down your girl's throat for the best part of last week. And head home to whatever rat-infested crack house you live in and never set your foot in my office again. Understood?"

The man nodded again. It was not completely true. I had only had my cock in his girlfriend's mouth twice. But he didn't have to know that.

"Go," I said, spitting some blood on the carpet.

Fuck. Now it was going to need cleaning again. And that shit's expensive.

In retrospective, kicking a mid-level mafioso's ass was probably not the smartest thing I've done in my life. But then on the other hand, I've done some pretty dumb stuff, so this didn't even make the top 10.

But hold up. I'm confusing you. You cannot take someone straight into action without some context, right? So, let's back up the tape a week or so. To a time when my nose did not resemble a steak tartar.

*

"Lift your arms up."

She hesitated for a second. Her arms were still firmly across her chest.

"Straight up. Like this," I said raising my own arms. "I need to examine them if you want me to get this done.

She slowly uncrossed her arms and lifted them up like I had shown her. She had, in fact, very nice tits. Smallish. But I guess that's why she had come to see me. But other than that, they were almost perfect. I looked up at her face. Her eyes were squeezed shut. I opened my mouth to tell her that I had to touch her now but realized that I had completely forgotten her name. I looked at my notepad. And there, between a faun with a huge cock and a silly little bimbo doodle was her name. Madelene Svensson. Madelene had shoulder length blonde hair and when her eyes were not squeezed shut, they were the blue of an early summer sky.

"Madelene. I have to touch you now."

I waited for some kind of reaction, but none came, so I rubbed my hands together and then reached out placing one hand over each breast. I drew in a long breath as my palms connected with her skin. I could feel her nipples stiffening slightly as I started slowly massaging her breasts. It was not technically true that I had to touch her tits, but she didn't need to know that. Madelene was my third client this week who looked for enlarged breasts. I had apparently reached some kind of pivot point where I no longer needed to advertise my skill when it came to bodily modifications, word of mouth did that for me.

"Is it true that it only costs five thousand kronor?"

I looked up at her face. I had been so focused on my hands massaging her tits that I had completely missed that she had opened her eyes again. She flinched as I pinched her nipples lightly.

"Yes. That's correct. The fee is five thousand."

"I want D-cups."

I looked at her. She had much more certainty in her voice now. I nodded, squeezing her tits a bit more.

"I can do that. But it will require two sessions. Were you referred to me by someone you know?"

She nodded. Good. That made things easier. I prefer my women willing, or at least willing to do whatever they needed to get what they wanted from me. Although I do, from time to time, practice a little mind control on women to get what I want faster. There's a kind of thrill to that as well.

"Did this friend tell you about how the procedure works?"

Madelene nodded. I always liked that about girls, they talked to each other. No secrets among girlfriends.

"All right," I said letting go of her tits and picking up my notebook. "I think I have a time for you in ..."

I doodled a little more in my notebook, adding another cock behind the bimbo girl.

"Three weeks."

I kept doodling. I pretty good at doodling. I think it comes from all of the very precise figures I have to paint when trapping demons. You do not want a demon to escape just because you messed up a stylized letter I and confused it with a J.

"I was hoping for something sooner."

I looked up at the Madelene, pretending not to understand her. I shook my head slowly.

"I don't think I can do anything faster than that. My schedule is packed," I said looking down onto the page with the three obscene figures on it.

"I can pay extra."

I shook my head slowly.

"You cannot rush magic."

Her face fell.

"Well you can. But not with money."

She took the bait. Just as I had planned.

"What can then?"

"I would need to extract power from you, personally."

She raised an eyebrow, but I was pretty sure that was just for show.

There was a knock on the door, and before I had the chance to take my cock out of Madelene's mouth the door opened.

"Hey! That door was locked. I−"

I stopped talking at that point. The woman who stepped through the door had all kinds of crazy written on her face. And it was the good kind. She had long hair dyed purple and a face that was sharp enough to cut yourself on. Her eyes were an emerald green of the like I had never seen before.

"Get out," she said and for a moment I thought she was talking to me.

Madelene stumbled backwards, grabbing for her clothes.

"Let's reschedule. Shall we?"

The poor girl, nodded, tripped and fell, landing on her back. The purple haired woman stepped over her and stood right in front of me. I could feel power oozing out of her.

"You're Jakob Gyllenborst. The wizard."

I did my best not to flinch as she threw the words at me. Having my semi-erect cock hanging out of my pants did not help the situation.

"The very same," I said, discreetly trying to tuck my cock back into my pants.

"You're very rude!" Madelene complained and got up from off the floor.

"Fuck off," the purple-haired woman said, not even looking at her.

I shrugged and Madelene did then just that. She fucked off. One dissatisfied customer to end the week. But I had done worse.

The purple haired woman walked up to me and stood her ground an arms-length away from me.

"Do you mind if I continue where she left off?"

"I ... er ... well."

I'm not usually this socially awkward. But having a stunning girl grab your cock and ask if she can suck it can do that to a man sometimes. She didn't need more however and soon she was on her knees in front of me. I gasped as she sucked deep on my rapidly growing cock, her emerald eyes locked on mine. I had to reach out to hold onto a bookcase not to fall over. She blew me for a good five minutes before I erupted in her mouth. Then she stood up, wiped her mouth and said:

"My mother is gone."

I used to have a good thing going before Luna walked through my door. A couple of breast augmentations. A few love potions. Not the real thing. I really mean Lust potions. Lust potions are basically the thaumaturges version of roofies. Although the victim truly believes that she, or he, has an amazing time. Love potions on the other hand ... love potions are heroin, crack and meth, put into one single purple-reddish concoction. That shit's scary as fuck and I try to stay the fuck away from it. More madness has been done in the name of love than that of any religion.

But that was all before Luna came into the picture.

Whoever said don't put your dick in crazy, never knew how good it feels.

*

"Hey, Siri. Play something for me," I said turning out onto the highway.

The engine in my old Mustang roared as I put my foot on the accelerator.

"Sweet home Alabama!" Came the shrill voice out of the opening where the tape recorder should have been. "Where the skies are so blue!"

"God! Can't you guys play anything else?"

The music stopped and a tiny face looked out at me from the tape recorder opening.

"You may have summoned us and bound us to this dimension. But you do not dictate what we play, wizard," the tiny female daemon said, her face set in a frown. "And by the way. Nothing good has been written since 1979. That's just a fact," Siri said.

Siri is a minor daemon from the Outer Voids, and none had been more pissed than her when a certain company had appropriated her name for their voice recognition service. I summoned her and her band about a year ago when the old tape recorder gave out. I tried with some more modern variants, but they all broke down all too quickly. Electronics and magic do not run well together. At least not my magic and electronics. There are progressive mages that apparently does wonders with electronics, but I mostly manage to set them on fire. Which is useful for the most part unless you actually want to use them as intended. My old Mustang is the least electrical car a person can get a hold of these days. And I've replaced the battery with a small electricity elemental who is more than happy to give juice to the old car as long as he can have the high beams on all the time. Cops don't like that, but I don't like cops either, at least not he male ones. We all walk away happy when they stop me. After me having wiped their memories and replaced them with something better, usually depraved sex.

"Can you at least not play Skynyrd?"

Siri glowered at me then she turned around and crawled back in.

"Fine!" came the shrill voice, and a moment later the first notes of Africa came out of the speakers.

The fields south of Lund glowed golden in the last of the late summer sun as I drove along the 108. I thought back to the strange visitor from earlier that day. Luna.

"She just walked out of the house and poof. She's gone. That was a week ago."

Luna had walked over to one of my armchairs and sat herself down. I, very discreetly, tucked my cock back into my pants and walked over to sit down next to her.

"Have you tried calling the police?"

Luna raised an eyebrow.

"We don't associate with the police."

I should have known that was a bad sign. I don't associate with the police either and look at me, I don't want to have to deal with the likes of me. That's just plain dangerous.

"And my men are better at finding missing people than the police. Trust me," Luna said reaching over and picking up a small voodoo doll I had made of one of my middle school teachers.

I winced as she snapped the thing's leg. Poor Mr. Jansson. He wasn't a bad man. I had just been a horrible student. I picked the doll out of Luna's hands and did my best to put the leg back in place so that the old guy could at least try to heal.

"I see," I said nodding.

I did not see. I had no fucking clue why she had come to see me. But saying I see at least makes it look like you know what the fuck you're doing. That and it stalls for time.

"Is it true that you can make tits bigger?"

I reeled by the shift in conversation. I nodded.

"Do you want bigger breasts?" I said hesitantly.

This girl really had me off the rails.

"Absolutely not. Mine are perfect," she said pulling her top down to reveal her tits. "I want you to find my mother."

I looked at her tits. She was right. They were perfect. And they did not need to get bigger than they were.

"Will you help me find her?" she said pulling her top up again.

Stall for time. That's what I had to do.

"I charge twelve hundred kronor per hour. Minimum six hours per day."

"Done."

Fuck. So much for stalling.

"Plus expenses," I hazarded.

"Whatever you need."

I closed my eyes trying to think of what to say. I'm not normally this unsettled. But this girl ... I tell you there was something so off with her it made my inner daemons run and hide behind my prettiest memories.

"I do need something personal of hers."

Luna reached into a pocket and pulled out a silvery lock of hair. I took it. It was coarse against my fingers. An old lady's hair.

She had left shortly after. But not before putting a thick wad of five-hundred kronor bills on my desk. There was at least fifty thousand there, enough to keep me on retainer for the better part of a month. Normal people don't walk around with fifty thousand kronor in cash. I didn't have touch the money to know it was dirty. If I had known how dirty they were I never would have picked them up.

I had just passed Marieholm when I heard a noise from the back seat.

"Aaahhh," a voice said behind me.

I swerved and almost hit a truck going the other way. The whole band was screaming as we missed the front of the onrushing truck with a hand's width.

"For fucks sake Andy!" I screamed. "How many times have I told you not to do that!"

"So-orry," the invisible man said from behind me, not sounding at all sorry. "I was asleep."

"You nearly got us all killed, you stupid bastard. Your father should have drowned you in that cauldron."

"Hey!" Andy objected. "Don't you dare say that about my old man. He may have been an evil bastard of a necromancer. But he was a good dad. No one can take that from me."

Invisibility potions are darned expensive, and Andy's father planned to make a killing by buying up all the materials and making them in bulk and then selling them at a premium. Only problem was his toddler son fell into the darned cauldron and drank almost all of it, turning him permanently invisible. Or at least the invisibility hadn't worn off by the age of forty.

His father on the other hand gone bankrupt and had to sell his soul to the devil to pay off the mortgage. Not a good week for him all in all. To his credit he had taken care of his invisible toddler. Something that is much harder than to take care of a regular, visible toddler. So, I had to agree. He had been a good father until the day the devil had come to collect.

Andy never did talk about his mother. And given who his father was, if he didn't want to talk about his mother, I was not going to ask.

There was some jostling as the invisible Andy moved from the back seat to the front. The pair of sunglasses that lay on the dashboard were picked up and put on his face. He looked at me.

"What do you need?"

He may be a bastard, but he's the best private eye in all of Sweden, hell, probably all of Europe. Being permanently invisible does have its advantages. That and the fact that his father had left him another gift, the ability to read minds. At least partly. He was just the guy I needed to find. And you have no idea how hard it is to get a hold of an invisible man who doesn't believe in phones.

I glanced over at the pair of sunglasses riding along beside me.

"Someone came to see me."

"Ooh. Someone sexy. I can tell."

I did my best to clear my head of any emotions. And then wove a shielding around my mind.

"Hey," Andy objected. "That's not fair."

"I've told you not to read my mind."

"Whatever. Just tell me about the sexy girl," Andy said, putting on a pair of leather gloves that he keeps in my glove compartment.

He knows I prefer if I know where his hands are. At least he's considerate that way.

"Her name is Luna. And she's loaded. Probably drug money."

"Ooh. Drug money Luna. I like her already."

I told Andy about my encounter with the mysterious Luna and the job she had given me to find her mother. The sunglasses nodded along next to me.

"Did you have sex with her?" Andy asked, the leather gloves drumming on the dashboard to the beats of Staying Alive that the band was playing at a very reasonable volume. I reminded myself I had to get Siri an extra rabbit for dinner tonight.

"Is sex all you think about?"

"Hey," Andy said, the leather gloves rising into the air. "I'm a man ain't I. Doesn't matter if I'm invisible or not. Still got needs."

We rode in silence for a few moments, listening to the band doing their Ah! Ah! Ah! Staying aliiiiiive!

"Same fee as usual?"

The sunglasses nodded. I had spent over a year developing the visibility potion for Andy. It's not something that is very common. As far as I know there is only one of him. But it was well worth it in the end. His need to be visible and interact with people socially is never ending and I get all the help I need.