The Magi Prime Chapter 1 and 2

Chapter 1

“This can’t be right.”
F…G…H…I…K
Jonathan had walked up 14th St from the National Mall.
He walked passed F St, G St, and H St. At I St, he began walking on the edge of the small park that was Franklin Square, and the block long park ended with K St.
Jonathan looked around confused. “This can’t be right.” he said again. Retracing his steps through Franklin Square, he confirmed he had not made a mistake. One block over from I St was K St.
“Where the hell is J St.?”
The address on the note said he needed to go to J St, the intersection 14th and J.
There was no J St.
There was no intersection 14th and J.

Sitting on a bench in the middle of Franklin Park were a theoretical J St might be, Jonathan pulled out his phone and searched “J St” and “Washington DC.”

The article that appeared at the top of his search was from Snopes: “Why is there no J St in Washington DC?”

“If Snopes wrote about this, this should be good.” Jonathan muttered. Jonathan uncounicsley pulled down on his dress shirt as if to remove wrinkles that were not there.

The story, as told on the website, was that the architect of the city, Pierre L’Enfant had a profound dislike of founding father and first Supreme Court Chief Justice, John Jay. Out of a petty revenge, L’Enfant removed J St. From the city map.

It was a good story, but as Snopes was also very quick to point out it was completely false.
The actual reason was much more mundane, but possibly more interesting. In the 18th and 19th century, the period of the cities construction, a handwritten J was often indistinguishable from a handwritten I.

Ironically, there was no J St as a way to make things less confusing, yet now with greater variety and standardization of fonts, the opposite had become the case. Jonathan appreciated the irony and the history lesson, but it did not lessen his frustration at someone using his ignorance of the Nation’s Capital against him.

Jonathan had grown up in St. Augustine, Florida, and as a Floridian could appreciate a regional quirk that made little sense.

He did not appreciate being deceived, especially about this matter.

He pulled out the note that had brought him here from his pocket.
The note had been slipped under his hotel room door sometime in the night. Jonathan was in DC looking for his brother Jonas, who had disappeared under odd circumstances. Jonathan, as a trained journalist, was retracing the last known areas his brother had been active and was looking for answers.

The thing was, no one knew that. Jonathan had framed this trip as a vacation. The newspaper he had worked for since after college had had to close up shop. An unsurprising result of being just another local paper not being able to survive in this new age of digital media. He had told everyone he wanted to get away for a bit before getting back into the workforce.

Jonas had been doing research in DC for his job, which no one knew much about. By all accounts he had done all the work he had been hired to do, checked out of his hotel and disappeared. Even more odd, Jonas’s flight ticket to D.C. had been one way. His phone was also disconnected. Jonas was often out of contact with the family for weeks at a time, and it had taken over a month for anyone to realize something might have happened. Yet, for some reason Jonathan was the only one who was concerned. His parents kept repeating the he “would show up when he is done doing what he is doing.”

He had been in DC for two days and had not yet found any viable leads when the note had been slipped under his door.
The letter had been folded up neatly, and was written on yellowed parchment, of all things. It had been handwritten in a flowing script.
Jonathan reread the letter for what seemed like the hundredth time that morning.

Jonathan Priest VII,
Your quest and desire to find your brother is laudable. Jonas is alive and well, but does need your help. There has been an awakening, yet it is incomplete. We will meet soon, and more shall be explained.
You and your brother are scions of an ancient bloodline, harkening back to a time before the Priests emigrated to this New World. The world is more than it seems and things have come into play that have necessitated this contact.
There is an individual you need to meet. By helping this individual with their quest, you will be on the path to finding your brother.

Meet the contact. You will find the way at 14th and J. TRUST the contact.

The letter was unsigned.

Of course it was.

It was a cryptic clue akin to something written in those old video games Johnathan used to play. But as cliche a call to action as it was, it was the only clue he had.

Sitting on the bench while thinking about his next move his eye caught on a discarded flyer lying next to his shoes:

“Students of GW, come by and check out the new healthy dining options, at the new and improved J St. Marketplace! Located in the Marvin Hall.”

The George Washington University, famous for not really having a true campus, but sprawling around a number of city blocks, was not all that far from Franklin Park.

When the universe is that obvious, Jonathan paid attention. A line from the letter came to mind: You will find the way at 14th and J.
“Heh, clever.” …or it would be clever if it was true…
After a quick phone search to make sure of where he was going and noting the GW’s team name was the “Colonials,” Jonathan got up and began the walk to GW.

“Go Colonials, I guess…”

 

Chapter 2

Walking into the Marvin Hall common area of George Washington University, Jonathan looked around for…something, anything that would tell him this was not a wild goose chase, not just some elaborate ruse. Jonathan Priest did not like being made the fool.

With dark thoughts on his mind, he scanned the tables and that is when he saw the mane of brown hair.

The person was sitting with their back to Jonathan, most likely female, but in this day and age you could never be certain.

He walked around and confirmed that the owner of the wild hair was indeed a woman, but her features were obscured as her head was down. She was reading a letter; a letter on a yellowed piece of parchment.

Taking another look around the space, Jonathan saw that everyone else in the room were either paired off or in groups.

If Jonathan hadn’t already guessed, he knew this woman had to be the contact.

“Ms.” Jonathan began, “are you by chance waiting for someone?”

The woman raised her head, and that is when he saw her eyes, a stunning brown, even more stunning than her hair. She looked to be in her late twenties. She was of medium height and wore a pale red sweater, appropriate for the Fall day. To Jonathan’s eye, she was lovely, but would be even more so if she did not seem to automatically shrink into herself as she looked up at him.

Her eyes moved from his face to his hand, to the parchment letter in his hand. He did not remember taking it out of his pocket. At the site of the letter she seemed to open up, just a little. She took a shallow breath and nearly whispered, “Are you here to help?”

Her voice rang in his head. It rang with a deep hope and a need for someone to share her burden.

He felt an immediate attraction to her at the sound of her voice, but this attraction was overshadowed by something else.

But he also knew it had been a lie. She was lying to him!
Anger began to flair in Jonathan, how DARE she LIE to him!

Then a rational piece of his brain tugged at him.
Hey! Moron! She asked a question, not a statement. She could not lie by asking a simple declarative question.

The note came to mind:
“TRUST the contact.” Trust had been the only world in the letter that had been completely capitalized.

Jonathan nodded. “Yes.” A response to both her question and the note.

He sat down at the empty seat across from her. “Did you write the letter?”

Her face showed surprise.
“No, I thought you may have sent me the letter.”

Within his head an inner voice exploded. “LIES! SHE IS LYING. EVERY WORD IS A FALSEHOOD. DO NOT BE TAKEN IN BY HER. FEAR HER. HATE HER. SHE DESERVES NOTHING!”

Then a quiet, steady but much more powerful voice came to mind. “She needs your help. Trust her.” The words “Trust her” rang in his head. He understood. He knew this was not a compulsion, but a bone truth.

Jonathan held up his hand, giving the signal for “hold on a second.” A sad and resigned look took over the lovely woman’s face as she again began to shrink into herself.

He closed his eyes, and using a mental exercise he had done since childhood, he opened “the valve.” The voice, telling him to distrust and hate, he sent through the valve and away. He removed the negative, unhelpful emotions, and what was left was the voice telling him quietly to help this women, also left were his generally jumbled thoughts that he still needed to work through himself.

Jonathan opened his eyes and held the woman’s gaze, “Someone wanted to connect us for some reason. My instinct, for now, says this mutual third party wants to help, and perhaps we can help each other.”
He flashed a quick rueful smile. “I could be completely wrong.” He was not sure why he did that, but he felt like he needed to put her at ease somehow.

The immediate, even unnatural attraction he had felt for her had also gone, though he did acknowledge that she, at first sight, was incredibly beautiful. Her eyes were large, and that incredible shade of brown. Her figure was curvy, and Jonathan would bet that when she stood, she would have a nearly perfect hourglass figure. Her lips…they were…
He stopped himself. What was wrong with him? Again he took a breath.

A look of surprise flashed across her face “Yes, you could.”

The voice that he for some reason implicitly accepted said to trust her. That had nothing to do with active belief. It had to do with passive acceptance.

Jonathan looked down at the letter in her hand. Taking a breath, Jonathan properly introduced himself.

Extending his hand he said to the woman, “Hello, my name is Jonathan, Jonathan Priest. It is very nice to make your acquaintance…” trailing off to let her introduce herself he looked back at her and froze.

In her face he saw shock, surprise, fear, amazement, and possibly a glint of hope.

She did not move for what seemed like an eternity. Slowly her shoulders lost a bit of their stoop, and she began to straighten up, holding herself up a bit higher. She looked back at him, his arm still stretched out.

She seems to mutter something to herself, as if she was verbalizing a thought. All the he caught was “…really be. . . true self?”

Her mask was suddenly back on her face, or perhaps a different mask. But she was still holding herself with her shoulders up and her back straight. She gave a small smile. And in an unexpectedly bubbly voice said, “Hi Jonathan! I’m Selene, it is so very nice to meet you!”

She took Jonathan’s outstretched hand in a gloved one. He had not noticed the black gloves. Possibly something about those brown eyes and hair…
“Please sit down!” indicating the chair across from her.

When excited, Selene, it seemed, spoke in short exclamations. While some might find that annoying, and Jonathan would usually count himself among that group somehow, it seemed to just fit this women.

While Selene was stunning, Jonathan got the feeling that looks were not something she actively focused on, or perhaps she did not care. Selene was clearly a bit awkward. But he rationalized, that we all have some sort of ticks. They both sat down at the table and he looked into those eyes.

“I need help.” she said again

Jonathan held her gaze, “Ok. I need answers, and for some reason it seems helping you will get me those answers.”

Jonathan sighed, “How can I help?” He might just be a sucker he thought to himself.

Selene looked at him, and at first seemed to be at a loss for words.
“Sorry, it’s not usually like this.” she went quiet again.

That made no sense…

Just as she was about to speak again, her eyes focused upon the gold pendant on a small chain hanging around his neck.

Her eyes went up in shock. Jonathan’s first thought was that Selene would be a terrible poker player.

“That is what I have been looking for!”

He looked down at the pendant. It was an interesting pedant to be sure. Few recognized what it was outright.

“A gold pendant of an ancient Mongolian passport?”

“Yes! Well, no… I mean the actual passport!”

His pendant was a small representation of a “paiza.” A paiza was a circular metal tablet which gave the bearer permission to travel around the territory by the authority of the Kahn, and the bearer was under the protection of the Kahn.

Given that only an idiot in the 13th century would want to bring down the wrath of the Kahn, it generally guaranteed safe travel around much of the known world.

Essentially the paiza was one of the oldest known and respected passports in world history.

The pendant had been a gift from his parents when he graduated from college. They told him to alway travel with no limit, and get out of his comfort zone.

The pendant represented that he should feel free to take chances, and that he would always have support if he needed it. Jonathan loved the pendant, the meaning it held, and the meaning his parents had imbued in it when they gave it to him. There was also something about the pendant that just felt right, like it and Jonathan belonged in such a way that he could not explain.

“I am an Object Researcher” Selene continued. What she said next tumbled out of her like water bursting through a damn. “I specialize in object verification, and background information. When a museum or archive wants to get more information on an object in their collection, I am hired to study it and find any more information I can. You see, I have certain contacts and connections that are not available to most researchers, and when I do find new information, I have a reputation for being able to backup my findings with sources that the clients may not be aware of, and that often leads to new information.” She seemed to finally need to stop and take a breath and gave that small smile again. “I quite enjoy what I do, and I am good at it!”

“That is fascinating.” Jonathan not only thought what she did was interesting, but also found her bubbling excitement endearing.

He could not remember the last time he thought of someone as “endearing.”

She continued, “I am currently doing research on the paiza. It’s personal research. In fact that’s why I am in DC, the Natural History Museum has received one on loan and it shortly will be temporarily on display.”

Jonathan had not known that. That would be something he would make it a point to see if it opened while he was in the city.

He was thoughtful for a moment before speaking, “This seems more than just an idle coincidence that you are studying Paiza and I wear one, essentially, as a good luck charm around my neck. Whoever put us together knows a lot about the both of us.”

Selene looked at Jonathan in eye and asked out of the blue, “Do you believe in magic?”

“I believe in Hamlet.” was his automatic reply to the old hypothetical question.

“What?”

“Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 5: ‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’ While I have never seen any evidence of magic, the world is a big, complicated and crazy place. I would not be surprised if it existed, but I have yet to see evidence.”

She smiled that bright smile. “That’s not a bad way to look at it! You know that there is a lot you don’t know and don’t dismiss it”

She seemed to turn inward for a moment, lowered her head and said softly to herself.
“This might work… if only…”

“Excuse me?”

Selene jumped a little, being startled from her inner thoughts. Her head sprang up to reconnect with Jonathan. In that moment her wild hair bounced seemingly of its own accord, almost like it had a life of its own.

“I am sorry John. Got lost in my head.” Jonathan bristled at being called John.
“It’s Jonathan. A John is a toilet. I am no one’s toilet. Please don’t call me John.”

On many levels his reaction to a shorthand version of his name made no sense. John was a common and respected name. Many great men had that name, but Jonathan wanted nothing to do with it as part of his own label. The bathroom thing was a convenient way to get other people to quickly drop the subject. He actually liked the name John, but for other people, not himself. Never himself.

Selene’s eyes went wide. “I am so sorry!”

Again Jonathan idly again thought she would be terrible at poker, his annoyance evaporating.

“Jonathan then.”
She gave him her small smile and he could not help but return it.

“So, let’s first figure out how we got here and then we can figure out where we need to go.”

Jonathan explained to her about Jonas, and the circumstances of his vanishing. He told her how it seemed he was the only one worried, and when he came to DC to look for him, the letter had been slipped under his hotel room door the previous night. He showed he the letter.

She read his letter. She gave him a sidelong glance “Jonathan Priest VII?”
“Long and silly family joke.” Jonathan sighed.

“You and your brother are scions of an ancient bloodline,” She read allowed. That seemed to mean more to her than it did to him, but she did not elaborate.

She continued to read “You will find the way at 14th and J.” and she gave a little laugh, “That’s silly, there is no J Street.”

“I know that now.” Jonathan growled. His anger was not aimed at Selene, but at the writer’s intentional circuitousness. “When I got to where a theoretical J Street would be, I found a flyer for the J Street Marketplace here at GW. That’s how I found you.”

“Interesting.”

She read the last line in the letter, in nearly a whisper “TRUST the contact.” Her eyes began to water. There was more being said here than just trusting that “the contact” would be helpful.

What she said next came out in a near whisper “I just can’t believe…after all this time…someone would help me?”

“I will help you if I can!” Jonathan said, more forcefully than he had intended. He wanted to help this women. Part of him felt he needed to. She was clearly someone who did not often get helped by others. Yet, his gut told him she deserved help.

At the best of times Jonathan liked to think of himself as a good person, but also a private person. He understood this was out of character for him, but the impulse to help and render any aid to her he could was nearly overwhelming. He also intrinsically understood that this instinct was coming from within him, not externally. He did not understand what that meant, but he also knew it to be true.

A huge smile bloomed over her face. “Thank you so much, you have no idea…” she stopped mid-sentence when she saw a uniformed police officer enter the hall. She sighed in relief when he passed them and went to the marketplace.

“I will also do what I can to help you find your brother. This letter writer seems to imply there is a connection between the two.”

“I am looking for an ancient artifact. Greek in origin. My best information says it is housed somewhere in DC, possibly in one of the Smithsonian Museums or in one of the other big museums, even possibly in a private collection. I don’t know much beyond that. This artifact holds the key to a personal family issue I am dealing with.” The journalist in Jonathan knew she was dancing around a number of things. But he also knew that this was not quite the time to push harder. “There might be a connection between my Greek box and your brother.”

Jonathan did not miss that she at first had not elaborated on the object, then she had called it a box. What sort of ancient Greek boxes were there? He could think of one mythical Greek box…

Another police officer entered the hall, and also headed into the marketplace.

“Can I see your letter?

Selene immediately tightened up.
“Umm… before I let you look at it…umm, there are a few things you should know.”
This game had been fun, but fair was fair. “I showed you mine, lets see yours.” He could not keep the annoyance out of his voice.
“Yes, of course. But I need to tell you a few things first.”
He signed, “Fine. What do I need to know?”

“Ok…where to begin…umm…” She looked up just as five more officers entered the hall.

Selene’s eyes widened as she began to register all the the officers that were entering the food court. Panic flooded over her face. When she spoke, it was in a quiet small voice.

“So, full disclosure. I may have done something bad, but for a very good reason.” She looked at Jonathan nervously.

“What?”

“I also may be on the local police BOLO report”

“What?”

Why would she be on a police “Be on the Lookout” report?

Selene took a deep breath. “I need you to trust me for the next five minutes. Things are going to get a bit weird.”

“What? Um…ok..”

With that, between one eye blink and another, Selene’s wild brown hair was gone and replaced with stunning long straight black hair in a simple ponytail.”

“What?”

Selene suddenly grabbed the sides of Jonathan’s dress shirt pulled him in and began to passionately kiss him.

Perhaps unsurprisingly the first thought inside Jonathan’s head was:

What?

After a moment he began to be able to string his thoughts together a bit more coherently.
Logic. There had to be a logical reason for what just occurred. They were on a college campus. Both of them were in their late twenties. To casual observers they could pass as college students and they could definitely be seen as Grad Students.

If police were looking for Selene, her wild curly hair would be a defining feature.

Her hair was now black, straight and in a ponytail.
He had no idea how that was achieved but that was currently unimportant.

Ok, this was part of a disguise, he concluded.

“Help her. Trust her.” that voice said in his head again.

But then he began to focus on other things. Her lips, they were so soft. Yet, the kisses were filled with more enthusiasm than any art or subtly.

It was clear that Selene did not kiss much. Something in him, perhaps much lower than his brain told him, well he should teach her…

Without having made the conscious decision, he opened his mouth and touched her lips with his tongue. She instinctively opened her mouth and when their tongues met…

Then it was all gone. All thought. All rational anything.
At that moment he would have done anything for her.

At that, Selene’s eyes flashed open. They were no longer brown, but a slate gray. He saw both horror and hardness in those eyes.

She whispered to him between kisses “Look me in the eyes. Give yourself to me. I promise it will only be for a few minutes. I promise. No harm will come to you. I promise.” He gray eyes looked into his, both beckining and pleading with him.
As he did just that, the last thing he heard in his mind was the voice that said “Trust her.”
Then all went to black.