Green Smoke

"Oooooh!!!" Simon grinned.  "When and how?  Take your time.  We want to hear all the details!"

"Let me see," I scratched my head. 

Slowly and painstakingly, I detailed what I had found out about the Demon Book, starting with the symbol on the front of the book.

"Ahhh.  So that's what the Demon symbol means."  Simon laughed.  "It's not a stylized rendering of a scary face with fangs, it's just a geometric representation of the next dimension."

"Scary face with fangs?"  I shook my head.  "Where do you see that in the Demon Symbol?"

"Right there!"  He pointed at various spots on the pattern.* 

"There's the beady little eyes.  And there's the nose.  There's the fangs. And the horns!"

Connor gazed at it with a suspicious eye.  "You sure that's not just your rampant imagination?"

"What.  You don't see it?"  Simon gave Connor an exasperated look.

Corwin sat across from me, his eyebrows arched in thoughtful deliberation, his eyes narrowed with concentration at the symbol on the book. 

Then he looked up at Simon with serious intent. 

"I don't see fangs or horns or beady little eyes either."

He turned back to me.  "But you said you were able to figure out how to unlock the book using this design?"

"Not the design it self.  I used the green smoke to trace the pattern of the symbol."  I waved a finger in the air, tracing the multi-dimensional smoke movement.

"What green smoke?"  Corwin blinked in confusion.

Beside him, Connor sniffed, and then blinked, his eyes a blank stare. 

Simon sat there, speechless, for once. 

The only one making any noise was Tarzan, and he was simply sucking the juices out of a mango.

"There's green smoke?"

"Yes.  Don't you see it?"  I pointed to the swirling green smoke that was now flowing in a smooth pattern since I had fixed that tiny aberrant missing line.

Connor laughed.  "Darling, don't tell me you and Simon are in cahoots.  He says he sees stuff that we can't see.  And now you're seeing stuff we can't see either."

Corwin harrumphed.  "Looks like we need more wizard training to be able to see that which can't be seen."

I frowned.  "I don't know why I can see the green smoke and you can't, but there it is.  This is the reason why I was able to unlock the book."

I narrowed my eyes as I followed the quickly shifting shape. 

"It's a strange movement.  It changes shape as it moves through the symbol.  I can't explain it but I can try to duplicate this pattern with just regular smoke."

"Ummm…Nana."  Simon yanked at my sleeve.  "We're sitting in a No-Smoking zone"

I laughed.  "Fine.  I won't use smoke.  Let me see if I can use light beams instead."

I began weaving a tiny beam of light in the same pattern that I could see emanating from the book and the pattern began to emerge in between my two cupped hands. ** 

The color light I used was a very pale green because I did not want the restaurant staff to see what we were doing.

As I continued my spell, my magikal energies began to run out and the color waned until there was no color left. 

On each side of me, I could see the twins gently feeding two different streams of colored lights into my energy feed to shore me up. 

By the time I was done, there were three different green colors swirling around in the pattern that made up the Demon Symbol. 

"Wow!  Is that how it looks in real life?"  Simon gasped. 

"Yes.  See how it changes as it moves through the dimensions?  It's a changing structure.  It is not static or stuck in one shape."

I pushed my hands together and dissolved the colored pattern, then I reached out and opened the cover.

Instantly, Simon shrank back, shielding his eyes.

"What's wrong Simon.  Is the invisible light too bright for you?"  Connor chortled.

"No."  Simon grumbled.  "I just thought it would explode or something."

"It's just a book."  I chuckled. 

"Here is the first page.  This is the first time I'm seeing it, along with you guys.  I didn't get a chance to even open it this morning because I was running late."

I was chattering but they weren't even listening to me.  All three wizards were staring at the first page with morbid fascination.

"Can you read it?"  I breathed.

"Of course."  Corwin responded off-handedly.  But then he glanced at me.  "Don't tell me you can't read this."

I shook my head.  "It's written in some ancient script I've never seen before."

Connor nodded.  "This is pretty old.  On top of that, it's written in a language that is no longer even used. It's not surprising that you can't read it."

"But then how come Simon can?"  I indicated at the blonde boy.

"That's because he's Simon."  Connor laughed.

Beside me, Simon continued to read the first page with rapt attention.  "Don't worry Nana," he waved a nonchalant hand.  "I'll translate this for you."

"Take the book then."  I patted him on the shoulder.  "And when you're done with it, tell me what you find."

Simon grabbed the book and stuffed it into the inner pocket of his windbreaker.  He patted it with his hand. 

"Leave this to me.  I will figure this book out."

Corwin nodded at Simon, then turned to me. 

"Nana.  Have you heard anything more from your crows?"

I shook my head.  "I tried contacting my scouts early this morning, but they have not seen anything yet." 

"The primates are probably still being concealed by magik, in which case the crows and bats are not going to be able to find them until the magik has been lifted."

"Then we wait one more day for the Doctor to come back to us with some information about what he may be able to ferret out."  He leaned in closer to me. 

"And now, you and Connor and I need to have a talk."  His eyes darted over to Simon. 

"Hope you don't mind that we leave you and Tarzan to amuse yourselves.  There are plenty of shops to browse through."   

He wiggled his fingers into the air and procured a pack of money which he stuffed into Simon's hand. 

"I think I saw a comic book store next door, and there is the Boardwalk with lots of fun things that you and Tarzan can explore." 

Simon stood up.  "Welp, I'm outta here!  Got plenty of things to do, stuff to see, and people to buy." 

"Come on Tarzan."  Simon smirked.  "Let's get out of here before we become collateral damage in this wizard's war over a girl."