Henderson took her to a busy part of the city in the middle of the day when there were hundreds of people around. In the middle of a very busy park he found an empty corner and drew two circles in it.

  The first circle was barely enough for her to stand in. The second circle was about three feet in diameter around the smaller circle.

  “Now stand in the inner circle and no matter what happens, don't move. I can explain the rules of magic as much as you want, but till you feel it, you won't understand it.”

  Standing in the second circle, he took out a sharp knife and cut his hand. Blood dripped on the floor. He drew a few symbols and wrote something in a strange language. Then, stepping out of both the circles, he spent a few minutes chanting something. Rose was starting to wonder what this was all about when there was a small bang and a flash of smoke in the outer circle.

  And there appeared a demon from mythology: red skin, horns on his head, sharp fang-like teeth, eyes as green as an emerald, and a pointy tail.

  What the stories didn't say was the horrible smell: he smelt of burnt human flesh.

  The demon immediately tried to run towards some children playing on the other side of the park, but when he hit the boundary of the second circle, he bounced back. Clearly, the outer circle was a magical boundary of some sort.

  The demon turned to her and smiled. Clearly he thought he had her.

  He moved slowly towards her. His teeth bared in an evil grin on his face. Rose froze and tried to look to Henderson for help, but to her surprise, he was dancing.

  He was dancing in a strange, exaggerated Egyptian style so comical that even some of the little children were pointing at him and laughing.

  “Look at me,” he said, “I'm a demon, rar rar rar, I will eat you.”

  The children enjoyed this for a few minutes and then grew bored and went back to their games.

  The demon inside the circle was now standing right in Rose's face. He was trying to pounce at her like a tiger trying to pounce on a deer. It was clear to Rose he couldn't cross the circle, but she saw what he was trying to do. If she panicked and moved even half an inch back, she would be out of the inner circle, and he would get her.

  She now understood why Henderson had warned her. If she failed, she would die.

  The scene was surreal.

  The park was really busy - more than two dozen families and children playing there. The nearby main road was really busy as well with dozens and dozens of people passing by every minute. She could hear the roar of traffic as buses and cars zoomed by, as well as the occasional honk.

  And here she was stuck in a circle with a demon while Henderson was doing his awkward and frankly clown-like dance outside the circle.

  The smell was overbearing. She could close her eyes to avoid seeing him and his attempts to scare her, but she couldn't get rid of the smell. And was it her imagination or was the smell getting worse? It was like there was a volcano of burning sulphur right next to her. No, she wasn't imagining it. The demon was burning up inside and releasing black noxious fumes.

  She started coughing violently, careful not to move even an inch. Her throat felt like it was filled with acid and her nose was burning like someone had poured boiling hot water into it. Her eyes were red like chilli powder had been thrown into them, and she could feel rashes break out all over her skin.

  Finally she could take it no more and tried to shout a warning to Henderson, but all that came out was a croak like a frog. “Uncle…help!”

  Henderson stopped dancing and turned to her. “You want help? There is only one way. I'm going to say the magic words and I want you to repeat with them. Are you ready?”

  She shook her head, being unable to say even a single word with all the pain from the poisonous fumes.

  “Then repeat after me: There is no such thing as demons. I refuse to believe in demons. I am a woman of science.”

  Her first thoughts were, “Are you fucking with me?”

  But her breathing was getting really hard, so she tried to blurt out the words.

  “There is no thing as demon. I refuse to believe in them. I am a woman of science.”

  “Good. And again!”

  She repeated the lines once more and again and again, but nothing was happening. The demon was just standing there smiling.

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  Finally, Henderson crossed into the circle, but the demon didn't attack him for some reason. The demon was wary of him, and he came close to her and held her hand. “Now, again, this time with me, we will say together. Okay?

  She nodded, “I'll try.”

  “Great! Then repeat once more: There is no such thing as demons. I don't believe in demons. There is no scientific proof that demons exist.”

  Rose barely got the words out of her throat when there was another small explosion, and the demon vanished in a black fog. Rose fell down coughing. She was coughing so badly she was sure her intestines would come out.

  ***

  She coughed all the way back to their home in the car and Henderson had to stop the car at least two times because she felt like vomiting. She couldn't eat anything that evening, and it was only 4 hours later, late in the evening, that she was feeling good enough to have some water but still no food.

  “Sorry about that,” said Henderson. “But I had to do two things. First, I had to open your eyes to the world of magic. Second, I had to teach you the first rule of magic, at least how I see it.”

  She knew she was supposed to ask what the first rule of magic is, but Rose was barely keeping alive. So she slowly drank some cool iced water and just nodded her head.

  “The first tool of magic is this:

  There is an invisible world all around us that people are not aware of.

  You saw how many people were there in the park right? And how many people were walking by the road, yet none of them saw the demon even though it was right in front of you? Sorry, I had to leave it there so long. I wanted to make sure you didn't think it was just an hallucination. Your strong physical reaction will assure you (at least I hope it does) that I did not just hypnotise you or try to pull a trick on you.”

  “I understand,” she croaked. “So demons are real. What about other things we hear about in stories?”

  “They are all real, but we'll come to them slowly. For now, I want you to rest. It will take you at least a few days, maybe even a whole week, to recover. It would be very dangerous for your body if I try to expose you to any more supernatural stuff, but we will not stop your training. You said you're good at martial arts, right?”

  “I am, but I don't have much experience in real fighting; mainly tournaments and competitions.”

  “That's good enough, I can give you practical tips. I need to vanish for a few days, but I'll give you some homework when I'm out. As you are recovering, I want you to learn a few things. I have a lock pick kit in the box over there. I will show you how to open the simplest lock. I want you to practise on all the locks, starting from the simplest to the hardest, until you can open everyone in less than 30 seconds. It will take you a few days, but it's doable.

  Second on that laptop over there, I've got a course on computer security and hacking. I want you to learn as much as you can about these two things.”

  “Will we doing a lot of lock picking and hacking?” she asked.

  “No. We rarely have to pick locks or hack into stuff. But when we do, I want you to know the basics. It's the same with fighting - we will not really be getting into fist fights. The things we deal with are usually strong enough to kill a whole army without even breaking their toenails. Or they will be very well-armed cultists or soldiers, and so our martial arts are useless. But we must still know enough fighting to defend ourselves if we are pushed in a corner.”

  “Understood. Do you often go against demons like that? The one you brought in today.”

  He gave a dry laugh. “The Christian thinks that these demons are the worst thing ever. But demons are usually the stupidest of all supernatural creatures, right there with zombies. They are slow and stupid and usually move like pregnant cows. No, my dear, we will be dealing with much bigger threats. There are three types of threats we deal with, and you must be prepared for. Well, four, but you will rarely deal with the fourth.”

  He cleared his throat and started talking.

  “First and the lowest level of threat are humans/human cultists. These are people who worship dark gods or demons or beings from other dimensions. Most of them don't have any military training and are not really tough, but they often do carry weapons. So we must be prepared to fight them when necessary.

  Related to them are heavily armed soldiers and trained agents of paramilitary organisations like Unit 7. Yes, there are quite a few of them globally although Britain only has one.”

  “The second type of danger is supernatural beings and creatures. These include not only zombies and the demon you saw today, but also some more advanced types of creatures from other dimensions. These creatures, while often very nasty, are more animal-like and rarely make plans or think ahead. They will charge at you like a wild animal and try to eat you. So while they might seem scary, the tactics for dealing with them are usually simple, and I'll go over them with you at some point.”

  “The third threat is more dangerous. There are supernatural beings and creatures that are not like animals. Some of them live in our world, some of them come from other worlds. In our world, we have creatures like werewolves and vampires and the Fae folk.”

  Rose didn't say anything, but she must have raised her eyebrows because her uncle chuckled. “Yes, they are real. They're not always dangerous, and the creatures of this world, like werewolves and vampires, usually self-police because they know that Unit 7 will wipe them out if they make a single mistake. So we rarely have to worry about them. But there are creatures like them from other dimensions who come into our world. The reason they are more dangerous is that they can think, plan and hunt.”

  “The final threat is related to the third one. In addition to intelligent beings that come into our world to hunt us, there are also some very powerful and dark forces - chaotic gods who want to rule us or wipe us out. I said they're quite rare because most of them don't care about us any more than you would care about the ant hill in your back garden. But they are dangerous enough that they could wipe out the whole of humanity in a few seconds if you piss them off. We have almost no way of fighting them, and so the best strategy I found is to just try to avoid their gaze.”

  “And does that work, uncle? Avoiding their gaze?”

  He shrugged. “It has worked so far!”

  “Anyway, I'll leave you to it. Remember next week, stay in the home no matter what happens. Do not leave and try to avoid people. There is enough food in the fridge for you to last the whole week. Practise the lock picking and computer hacking. I'll be back in a week to teach your next lesson. The Second Rule of Magic.”