What Do You Do When Voodoo? By Horatio Husky Part I: The Spellbook Kazard Skies was feeling skeptical. He thought he had ordered a book about the mythologies of West African superstition, but what he had just taken out of the package looked more like an actual spell book than a textbook. The grey fox ran a paw through his straw colored hair, his sky blue eyes inspecting the ragged book from top to bottom. Covered in what looked like a black, leathery material, the item in question had several strange runes written in silver on the front, with no other distinguishing details other than looking as if it were several hundreds of years old. Readjusting his pink stained glasses he fiddled with the bell attached to his collar as he gingerly set the book down on his kitchen table, not wanting to have it suffer any damage due to his carelessness, settling down to peruse through the book in peace. Kaz lived in a humble little house in the middle of suburbia, having recently found great success in his industrial electrical gig and received a generous increase in pay with his promotion, his new found income found him his ideal lifestyle. A cute home with plenty of space for a single pringle such as himself. Lots of privacy and room to be able to do his favorite activity after work, absolutely nothing. Recently his favorite nothing had been delving into reading books and watching documentaries about mythology and ancient cultures. Kaz loved nothing better than to recline on his overstuffed cushions and let his imagination wonder as he learned about ancient gods, brave heroes, despicable monsters, and beautiful relics and artifacts found all across the world. His curiosity had lead him even to make his first literary purchase, a step up from his usual love of laziness and blasé. However his minimal efforts seemed to have rewarded him with a frustration, for he was confused at what he saw, when after sitting down at the table he gingerly opened the front cover of the book and was met with more strange runes. He frowned, his tail swishing behind him. Reaching into the pocket of his pants he retrieved his smartphone, and tapped through it impatiently. Opening a translator app, he opened the camera on the program and held his phone over the first page of the strange tome. The app buffered for a minute, during which Kaz was beginning to consider whether he should ship the book back along with a rather nasty letter of complaint. At last the buffering ceased, and on the screen which displayed the first page of the book the letters shifted, turning from the strange cryptic alphabet into a more familiar one. Frowning, Kaz read outloud. "Althwin durok fes, nok diss benit est. Tendory nil, ethel still, met durok fes nok drill." He blinked, trying to attach the tongue to something, anything familiar that he had heard before. Is this just some sort of gibberish? It looks really old, so maybe it's worth something. Maybe they were doing a shipment from a museum and misshipped it to my house? If so, maybe I could get some cash out of this! His curiosity now peaked and his previous dissatisfaction forgotten, Kaz was so interested in carefully turning the pages of the rune covered book that he hadn't noticed that upon finishing his butchered pronunciation of the words in the book, the bright, cheery sunshine outside of his window had promptly vanished to be replaced with the darkness of night. His ears now perked up at maximum attention, his pawing through the book revealed several interesting images that accompanied the strange runic script. Pictures of various furs wearing flowing robes with glowing eyes and various glowing symbols above their head, their hands and finger contorted into various elegant gestures. Kaz was particularly awed by an image of a slender, lavender furred fox, who had her arms outstretched to the side, her palms turned upwards above which floated several blue colored symbols. Her eyes were glowing blue like in the other images in this book, except, he realized, he could actually make out her pupils and see a hint of emotion on her face. An emotion, of confident smugness, an expression that seemed to be telling Kaz, "I know you didn't just do what you know you're not supposed to do, you wouldn't want to do something that would disappoint me, would you?" Kaz blinked, his imagination must have been hard at work for it was almost as if he had heard the female's voice speaking in his own mind. Impossible, he thought, it's just an image in an old book of superstition, she couldn't have actually spoken to me. Still he felt uneasy, as he looked down at the runes written beneath the image of the alluring fox. Brandishing his phone, he once again held it above the textbook and waited for it to translate the strange tongue. He frowned, and spoke aloud the words displayed on his phone slowly but deliberately. "Dether fen, excalibren nust enren, met tether et fenmin liko shren." A lot of 'en's' in that one, he thought to himself, before with a poofing noise the kitchen suddenly was enveloped in purple fog. "HOLY HELL!" he exclaimed, stumbling back for the table and out of his seat, waving his arms around to try and clear the gas. He gasped, his head feeling light headed. Realizing he might suffocate, he tried holding his breath and exiting the room, but found only walls with his outspread arms. "Ballus?" Kaz whirled around as his vision blurred, his shock at the whole situation brought him to his knees, and above him to his absolute astonishment stood the lavender fox from the ancient text, the smoke billowing around her as if to further extenuate the grandness and mystique of her entrance. She wore a white robe which clung close to her body, allowing her greater flexibility than the rather stereotypical wizard's cloak and garb she had adorning her body in the book's portrait of her. Her expression, however, was identical to the one he had seen drawn, and her presence seemed even more commanding than when he had imagined her speaking to him in his head. Was I actually imagining that? Kaz swayed, his held breath causing his lungs to scream in pain, wishing to release their pent up air. His eyes fluttered, and the last thing he remembered before blacking out was the fox bending forward, his smug expression turning into an even more smug grin. His vision blacked, and his thoughts vanished as he fell into unconsciousness.