Athens opened the door and led them inside.
“Shoes off please,” Athens said. “Trust me, someone will be very angry if you don’t.”
Just like mom would be, James thought.
After James took his shoes off, he looked around. The entrance hall was pretty simple, with picture frame-covered walls and a flower vase atop a small table. The door had been surrounded by glass so light flooded the hall. Athens took off his cloak and placed it on a nearby hanger and beckoned them deeper into the house and into the living room. When they entered, James smiled. He had never really lived in luxury so he couldn’t help but admire the room.
The walls were parmesan yellow and were covered with beautiful paintings and horizontal, hanging bookshelves that supported a good variety of books. The couches varied in size, all of them forming a ring around an oval table, and an empty, bricked-fireplace. Athens breathed a sigh of relief and put down the suitcase next to the table.
“Nice house,” Zachary complimented.
“You have Ella and Horatio to thank, always keeps the house in shape,” Athens replied with a small smile. He sighed and slumped into one of the armchairs. “Thank the heavens we made it…could have gone worse.”
“Yeah right, as if that Borake guy wasn’t the definition of ‘worst’…” Daniel said.
“There are a lot of people and creatures here in the magical world that are far more dangerous than Borake, Dan,” Athens explained, pulling a wand out from his pocket. “Like a pixie, for example.”
James held himself from laughing. He could tell the rest were doing so, too. Athens seemed to be more scared of tiny people with butterfly wings than killer ogres.
“Sit down,” Athens said.
They sat down on the couches and watched as Athens tapped the teapot on the table. It began floating in the air and started filling the cups near it. Athens leaned forward to the table and tapped it on a teapot. The group stared as the cups began floating into their hands.
“Don’t be shy,” Athens grinned, “drink up.”
James didn’t really like tea, but he drank otherwise. When he drank his tea, he instantly remembered he’d forgotten to put in the sugar. His face contorted in the bitterness. What an idiot, Daniel’s voice said in his mind.
At that very moment, a boy went in. He was a tall and thin boy with storm-gray eyes and ruffled black hair (similar to James’ hair except the color, James’ being dirty blonde) and looked very busy, a floating, cabled phone following him around.
“Come on Athens, answer!” he groaned impatiently.
“Hey Socrates,” Athens said, taking a sip from his cup, his line of sight still upon Socrates. “Ah, tea. Want some, mate?”
Socrates turned around and James knew this guy was on some other level of anger.
“ATHENS!” Socrates roared.
“Socrates,” he replied calmly.
“Why didn’t you answer my calls? You know you had that human device with you!” he complained through gritted teeth.
“Was busy,” Athens said, nodding towards the children.
“I know but you could ha-” he stopped when his gaze fell on the group.
“Oh…hello there. Athens, you brought them here safe and sound,” he remarked with a tone that suggested Athens had never brought anyone here safe.
“Of course I did, I always do,” he said, now taking a bite into a cookie that Zachary stared longingly at.
“Wonderful! Well I guess that concludes the retrieval part of the plan,” Socrates exclaimed, forgetting he was mad at Athens, “Ella, Horatio, please bring Mr Elliot over.”
The children stared at the door, which, of course, burst open. Two fairies came flying in chaotically and came to a halt in front of Socrates’ face. One of them was a boy, who had blue hair and had very villager-like clothing and the other was a girl who had a lighter shade of blue as her hair color and had clothes like those of a princess’ maiden.
“Hello Socrates, gu-guess what!” Ella squealed mischievously yet happily.
“What?” he asked, crossing his arms.
“Don’t you dare!” Horatio whispered, elbowing the girl, but his courage suddenly ran away, “please don't tell him Ella, I’ll do anything!”
“Horatio spilled some coffee,” the girl said excitedly, smirking at Horatio.
“And?” Socrates said, laughing a bit.
“Over Mr Elliot’s desk!”
“WHAT?!” Socrates shouted, his laughter subsided.
“NO-NO-NO-NO, SOCRATES, MY DEAR FRIEND, YOU CAN’T POSSIBLY BELIEVE THIS TREACHEROUS-LI-LIAR!” Horatio shouted helplessly as Ella laughed maniacally.
“Can you please just get Mr Elliot?” Socrates asked, exasperated. The thought of having to clean Mr Elliot’s desk was visible on his face.
“That will not be necessary,” a voice came out from behind the fairies.
Sarah leaned to the left to see who it was. A man was standing under the door. He was a relatively average-height man, just a few inches taller than Socrates. He had brown hair with occasional stripes of white. He was wearing a green vest, with a white uniform under it. He had brown pants and black shoes and had a big smile plastered onto his face.
“Hello children,” he greeted, then turned to Athens. “Thank you very much Athens,”
“Of course, Mr Elliot,” Athens replied, setting his cup down on the table.
“You’re Mr Elliot?” Daniel asked.
“The one and only,” Mr Elliot said warmly. “I suppose Athens and Socrates told you about me?”
“Way too much,” Zachary agreed, making Mr Elliot laugh.
The moment of greeting, however, was shortly interrupted by the sound of distant marching. James looked out the window and saw suits of armor moving in an organized fashion. Their presence put a sudden tension in the room. James turned back to Mr Elliot who had lost his smile and now had a grim look on his face.
“Found me yet again,” Mr Elliot said, shaking his head.
He turned to the group.
“Watch, children, let me show you something fascinating,” he said.
Mr Elliot went to the fireplace and bent over. He pulled out a wand and began giving it a swirl.
“Domus relocatio,” he said firmly.
Smoke slowly billowed out of the wand and went up the fireplace. It kept going for a few more seconds of awkward silence, the only sounds being the distant clanking of metal boots and the hissing of the smoke. James knew those knights were getting closer by the second. After the smoke stopped coming, Mr Elliot got up and put away his wand.
“Take a look at the windows,” Mr Elliot said.
James turned his head and saw that smoke was slowly coming down the windows. Soon enough, it completely covered the window, blocking the sunlight from entering the room. He turned to the other windows and realized that the smoke was covering the exterior of the house.
“Whoa…” Daniel said.
“The ‘whoa’ part actually comes next,” Athens said, “it’s also the part where you should hang on.”
James soon realized what he meant when he felt a sudden shake from the floor.
“Athens is right, children,” Mr Elliot called, “do hang on.”
James was grateful he had listened and hung onto the mantel of the fireplace because right after that, the shaking began to become more violent, the paintings on the walls were on the brink of falling and the antiques in the room were getting dangerously close to falling. Then, without warning, what probably was the whole house, was thrown to the right. James felt as if an elephant had been thrown at his left side. Fortunately, the feeling only lasted shortly because a second later, the house was thrown back to the left. How all the furniture survived, James didn’t know. How they survived was an even more confusing question.
Once everyone was up, Mr Elliot made them sit down on another couch again, acting as if they hadn’t just been thrown to the right at the speed of light.
“Forgive me children, I had to move the house away from the knights.”
“That was the house moving?” Daniel asked incredulously.
“Yes, we should now be around the coastal areas of England if I performed the spell correctly.”
Mr Elliot was right. The window had now cleared and instead of revealing a woodland, it revealed a beautiful shoreline, with glimmering white sand and a small town right beside it. It reminded James so much of home.
“Who were those guys?” Zachary asked.
“Red Knights,” Mr Elliot answered, “they’ve been constantly searching for me throughout these past few months…”
There was a pause. What did he mean by that?
“Ah, anyways…Shall we have a proper greeting then?” he asked enthusiastically, “I am Edward Dunhop Elliot, Athens and Socrates call me Mr Elliot. And you all are?-”
Sarah took the lead and said, “I’m Sarah. That’s James, that guy is Zachary and that’s Daniel.”
“Indeed you all are,” Mr Elliot smiled then he paused for a while.
“I am very sorry to summon you children all of a sudden but there’s a crisis going on and I believe you are the only ones that can help us.” Mr Elliot said grimly, his smile disappearing. He walked over to the shelves and grabbed one of the books.
“Take a look at this,” he said.
He opened the book and put it on the table. The book projected a beautiful scene in the air, hologram-style, causing the children to gasp. It was a beach, the waves were crashing onto the shore and cawing seagulls soared up high. There was a massive cave near it and Mr Elliot dragged the view there. The “camera” went deeper into the cave until it reached a behemoth of a creature. The monster was huge and was very human-like, with legs and arms and a very bushy beard. The only thing that separated this (man?) from a normal human was that he only had one eye on the middle of his forehead, leaving both his eye sockets empty. had slimy green skin and one eye. Despite his intimidating features, he was lying still on the ground, leaning against the cave’s walls. It was dead.
“Isn’t that the Cyclops?” Daniel asked.
“Very good Daniel, that is indeed The Cyclops,” Mr Elliot said, like a teacher in a classroom, “do you know who killed it?”
“Odysseus,” Daniel replied.
“Precisely! But did you know that wasn’t the end of this story?” he asked, moving the scene back to the mouth of the cave.
They caught a glimpse of Odysseus who was surrounded by his men, cheering as they exited the cave. After Odysseus left, another person went in. He was wearing a blue, hooded cloak shielding his face from visibility. He had a book in one hand and headed to the dead Cyclops like a hooded ghost. When he reached his head, he opened the book, faced the pages toward the beast and yelled:
“Oculus hominis non videbit!”
A bright line shone out of the book and encircled the beast. In a few seconds, the light calmed down, but the beast was gone.
“Whoa,” was all they said. James didn’t think he’d ever stop getting surprised at what magic could do.
“‘Whoa’ is right, children,” Mr Elliot said, “What you just saw was the only known footage of a Collector collecting a Valuable.”
“Huh? What are those?” Sarah asked.
“To understand them, you must first understand the nature of the Creatulum Book or in English, The Book of Monsters…You see, your world, my dear children, still contains remnants of magic. There are unexplained mysteries, theories and mythology. Mythology is so far the most solid evidence that magic exists and yet humans regard mythology as simple “fairy tales”…figments of one’s imagination,” Mr Elliot said, looking from one child to the other. He took a deep breath, he continued.
“Now a Collector’s job is to gather these uncontrolled magical phenomena. And those uncontrolled and loose creatures were called….”
“Valuables…” Sarah said.
“Exactly, these Collectors were a part of an ancient race or more of an organization called the Red Eye and as the name states, their job is to hide these monsters from the eyes of mankind. They have 2 jobs, one, to collect the remaining pieces of magic from your world and two, to collect the wild and dangerous creatures in ours. Each Collector gets 1 sub-book. That sub book can only contain 2 - 6 monsters. Once they are done with their daily duties, they bring whatever they captured into their lair and release the monsters into the main book: The Creatulum.” Mr Elliot explained.
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“Any questions about the origins of the Book of Monsters so far?” Mr Elliot said, keeping the atmosphere of teacher-student interaction.
Sarah raised her hand in the air.
“Sarah.”
“The footage you showed us, why did the Collector collect a dead monster?”
“Very good question,“ Mr Elliot said, “humans may not know this but monsters can never really die, sure Medusa got beheaded and the Hydra too, but they never really died. Because every time the full moon comes, the creatures get reborn. The Collectors realized this which is why they forged a book powerful enough to contain these monsters. The book protects them from the full moon so that they will never get reborn….now this is where I need each and everyone one of you children to help…”
Mr Elliot shifted in his seat.
“Children…the book and its security vault, they have some flaws and some foes…” Mr Elliot said, a tone of dread in his voice.
“What are you saying?” James asked, though he knew what was coming.
Mr Elliot heaved a big breath and sighed.
“I’m saying that the security system that guards the book was breached and the book was stolen,” he informed,”now, whoever stole the book is on the loose and who knows what he might do to civilization with the powers of the Creatulum.”
Mr Elliot turned a page of the book.
This time, it showed a vault of some sort. It was massive. It was on top of a snowy hill and the massive building was pure black with red decorative bricks to make it look horribly similar to a structure likely built in hell. There were pillars around it and there was fire on each and everyone of them. The top resembled a volcano and seemed to spew out molten lava.
“That was where the book was stored by WCSD. You see, the Hidden Eye got disbanded centuries ago and left the Creatulum Book unguarded, vulnerable. So someone broke in and stole it. I told Joseph to leave it to the government, to just keep the book somewhere else, yet because of his pride he didn’t listen,” Mr Elliot said, his voice higher and more agitated until he turned to the kids and dropped his annoyed manner.
“Sorry…Joseph McCornish is just, how should I say this, one of a kind…” Mr Elliot said, sitting back down.
“Wait, so why are you giving us all this confidential information?” James asked.
“Because like I said, I believe you will be able to deal with the situation,” Mr Elliot said.
The children looked at him as if he were mad. He was a middle aged man, whose workforce were 2 teenage boys and 2 fairies and lives in a teleporting house. Now, he was recruiting more children to handle a non-human and abnormal threat while also being hunted down by some sort of police force. Mr Elliot saw their expressions, shook his head and tried to explain:
“Children look, people have been sending adults to handle them, but to no avail, why? Because they lack two important things. The 2 things YOU have, the need to know, to learn otherwise known as curiosity and imagination in handling situations. Children are brilliant. Their imaginations can well exceed the intelligence of a grown man, which is why I hired Athens and Socrates out of all the experienced wizards out there. Listen, all soldiers do is follow protocol. Now call me an rogue man if you like but I really do not agree to their protocols, which is why I believe the newer generation could fix that,” he explained, “children, I know it’s crazy and I know you might not be up for the challenge and I respect each decision you make, but trust me when I say this, you are special, all of you, so please think about it.”
Mr Elliot dropped his gaze on James secretly, “Some of you have powers many wizards dream to have…”
The children exchanged glances, Them? What could they do compared to other magical folk? To other creatures? To trolls? To Borake? To whoever Mr Elliot wanted them to stop?James stared down and then to Mr Elliot.
“Children it aches me to send inexperienced kids on this mission, but I know it is our only choice. We have been monitoring you for the past few days and you are exactly what we need! How surprised were you when you found out something new? You were, in fact, a bit surprised but you easily adapted! And how long did it take for you to get to the Porte Library without that 1-week delay?” Mr Elliot said, “your abilities are vast and you are all especially great at teamwork! You became friends with each other so fast!”
They smiled.
“You have no idea how desperate we wizards are. We sent the military, they failed, we sent WCSD members, they failed, but what they haven’t tried is the imagination and the power of youth.”
“How do we know you’re not…well, evil?” Daniel asked, looking down at his feet.
“You can’t, no one can trust anyone these days, there are monsters that have very peculiar abilities. All we have is faith….” Mr Elliot paused and sighed, “faith is the only thing we can hope for nowadays….”
They all stared at him. Everyone seemed to be thinking about their choices. They barely know this man. Why would they help him? Besides, were they really going to risk their lives for this. Daniel, being the logical and resourceful boy he is, said:
“So why did the streets look so peaceful if this is such a big deal?” James asked.
“Because they haven’t reached us yet. But it has in other areas, come and see,” Mr Elliot said.
Mr Elliot stood up and headed for a door to their right and opened it. They didn’t even have time to stand up when dozens of papers flew out of the door. They floated around the room, performing dances and jiggles of some sort when they stopped, James could see what they were: newspapers. The newspapers had headlines such as:
“Creatulum STOLEN!”
“Hope is Lost!”
“Prepare for the Worst”
“Ky Lan Strikes!”
“Mass Murderer on the Loose!”
Each newspaper had one moving colored picture that either showed a beast, a book or a man in prison clothes staring into the souls of whoever was reading the paper. The thief had loose, long and black hair like that of a horse. His face was sullen and he didn’t look like he was able to smile. He had a dirty beard and dirty yet menacing eyes. But perhaps the weirdest part is that he had a cross-like scar across his right eye.
It was painful seeing the beasts ravage small and vulnerable towns. When they had finished looking at all the newspapers.
“Do you see what I mean, children? The world is slowly falling apart from both physical and mental damage, that’s why we need new heroes,” Mr Elliot said but when he saw the children’s faces he sighed, “Athens will lead you back into your world if you don’t want to join, which I fully respect…”
Mr Elliot turned around and Athens got up from his seat until-
“I’m not going back,” James said bravely, “I’m in.”
“ARE YOU CR-”
“I’m in, too,” Zachary said.
“Me as well,” Sarah said, getting up from her frozen state after what she saw in those pictures, “we can’t let the innocent people of Ear-whatever this wizarding realm is called to get slaughtered by those monsters.”
Mr Elliot had turned around, beaming. Daniel looked at them all in shock, but he accepted his fate:
“All my brothers are in, what am I supposed to do?”
“You children don’t know how grateful I am, you are truly the ones our people have been looking for.”
“OK, don’t get too dramatic,” James grinned.
“Brilliant, now that that’s settled I can tell you my plans…” Mr Elliot said, “we’re going on a trip around the world!”
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