Chapter 20

After about a month of recuperation everyone was at least physically healthy. Graham still needed answers about what had happened and why. There was only one place he thought he could to get them. One day when he was working in the pub with Darren he said,

"I am going to find the material that Mil left behind. I need to see if it will answer any of the questions, I still have. Do you want to come with me?" Darren looked at him as if he was insane.

"I would not go near that stuff if you paid me another million dollars." He then took a small piece of paper out of his wallet and threw it at Graham. "I don't know why I kept it, but you should think about it before you go. I don't know what is there but it can only bring you more trouble." Graham just shrugged and went back to work. He thought, 'Darren is overreacting, how dangerous could it be, besides it could be the find of the century.' Graham let it go for the time being and went back to tending the bar. He thought about it for the rest of the shift. When he was done, he went out for dinner with Christine and told her what he was going to do. She said,

"I don't know if you should go get that stuff. I mean we do not even know what is there."

"Yes but that is the whole thing the exploration of the unknown. I mean was that not half of the reason we got into the situation in the first place. For the adventure of it, I know I did not realise it at first but I think I could be an adrenaline junkie." She looked at him and started to laugh.

"Graham do you realise that you are becoming middle aged and should not be running around doing things like that."

"What ever do you mean?" said Graham in a very sarcastic tone. "You are only as old as you feel."

"OK, So what do you expect to find there any ways?"

"Mil mentioned to you that he had studied our magic. Just think of how that could change things if Magic really existed." Christine just shrugged her shoulders and said,

"Stop, I am still trying to deal with the fact that aliens are on our world."

"OK, Well do you want to come with me. If not I am out of here right after dinner."

"No I do not want to go, but I do want to know where it is just in case you disappear. Is that alright with you?"

Graham looked at the sheet of paper for the first time and was a little disappointed. The address was for a building on Queen St. in downtown Toronto. Graham thought about it for a couple of minutes and a smile crossed his face.

"Well if that isn't just the most perfect area for a demon to live." Christine looked at him and said,

"Why would you call him a demon?"

"Well why not he said he was from a different dimension. He even asked us to take his amulet back to that dimension if we got a chance. Isn't that what a demon is a creature from a different dimension."

"Yes I guess so but I always thought of them as being thing that went around killing for no reason. Mil was not like that, I don't think he ever killed anyone."

"Are you sure? I mean what do you know about him? Is he even a he?"

"You can not get me that way, so forget it. You can not bait me into coming," said Christine.

"Oh come on now. Your curiosity is screaming for you to come with me?"

"No now get out of here before I change my mind." She paused and looked at him then said, "Call me when you get there and also when you leave." Graham nodded as he walked out.

As Graham was driving across Queen St. he found it was a Mecca for the strange and bizarre. The people he saw were the social rebels in Toronto's society. From the look of them, there were both the good rebels as well as the bad ones. Graham was not sure whether he wanted to sit and talk to these people or lock the doors on his jeep and run for his life. As always with Graham he gave people the benefit of the doubt, so he pulled the jeep up to the side of the road. Getting out he did make sure he locked it. Graham then looked at the address on the paper and thought it should be just up the road a little way. He saw two girls walking towards him that looked to be out of the latest Vampire movie and a person who had tattoos on every part of their body. Looking up an alley, he saw an elderly man with a young girl. The girl was telling him he was bad and slapped him across the face. Graham was about to intervene when the man handed her some money and said,

"Thanks I needed that." At this pointed Graham just about started to run.

Walking very fast and looking into the different shop windows he was enchanted. The stuff in the windows was just as weird, as the people on the street. His basic suburban up bringing could not adjust to what he saw. This curiosity wanted him to investigate and understand it all. 'No,' he thought, 'I have to get to what ever is at this address I do not have time to delve into the Queen St. subculture.' Moving along he finally found the address. It was a large three, story Brown Stone. He walked up to the door and found there was a keypunch lock on the door. He smiled thinking, 'that is what those numbers on the bottom of the page were for. Graham had thought they had been on the paper before the address had been written. He punched them into the keypunch lock and heard the door unlock. 'Quite a system you have here Mil,' thought Graham. Looking around he saw the coast was clear, he entered.

Closing the door behind him, he could not see anything. Then finding a light switch on the wall he turned on the lights. From where he was, Graham thought, 'this house has been closed up. I wonder if Mil was telling the truth about trying to get back to his home plane.' The hall, he was standing in was full of dust and spider webs not the big sinister webs just little normal ones. It felt as if no one had been there in a couple of months or so. Graham was standing in an entrance hall with stairs leading up to the next floor in front of him on the left. While on the right there was a hall leading off into the back of the house. Turning to his right Graham found a large double sliding door. He opened the doors and found he was looking at a sitting room. Graham looked at it and thought this is a beautiful room. The furnishings were all of natural oak and a very unusual looking leather, while the walls were panelled in oak and had book shelves all over them. The most attention-grabbing thing though was a desk. The desk had obviously been made for Mil when he was in his natural state because it was made for someone who was at least ten feet tall.

Graham moved into the room and made to look through the desk but there were no draws. He then started to look over the bookshelves on the walls. They were all copies of the great works of literature from over the last 500 years. Then Graham started to look closer at them. He could not believe what he saw they were all first editions of some of the most famous books in history. Graham put back a copy of Mob Dick he had been looking at and thought, 'there must be a fortune in here.' Looking around he decided there was nothing else there and went back out into the entrance hall. There was a door right in front of him as he came out of the library as he thought of it. He moved to open the door. This one was not a sliding door and opened into the hall. The room was a small sitting room with a couple of chairs and two couches. Graham moved to look around the room but did not find anything of interest. The room was obviously a waiting room and had nothing in it. Leaving there, Graham went up the stairs to look around.

At the second floor landing he saw three doors. They were all made of wood and nothing made one stand out more then another. Graham moved to the farthest away from the stairs and grabbed the doorknob. Slowly turning the knob, it opened. Looking inside all he could see was what looked like a normal bedroom. Upon further investigation, Graham found it was a normal bedroom, so he left. Going to the next door he opened it and saw it was also a bedroom. He investigated this one as well as the other one that was left. Finding they were all perfectly normal. He moved up to the top floor, and found another three doors. Moving to the furthest door he turned the doorknob but it was locked. 'Dam,' He thought, 'now I have to bust open a door.' Then bending down and looking through the keyhole, Graham saw the room was empty. 'Thank god I looked. I don't want to start knocking down doors especially when there is nothing behind them, besides I probably would have broken my shoulder on it.' Moving on to the next door Graham looked through the keyhole again. This time he saw what looked like a very ornate bedroom.

Graham opened the door and walked in, ornate had not been the word for the bedroom it was extravagant beyond measure. The bed was a huge twenty-foot by twenty-foot monstrosity that had a fifteen foot high canopy. The walls were done in red felt, with large gold family crests all over them. It was very tacky but Graham moved in closer to look at the crests on the walls. A quick examination of the crest showed that they were of excellent workmanship but Graham could not figure out what they were all about. He did not know what kind of creatures were on the crests or what the writing said if it was indeed writing. After looking at it for about half an hour, he decided that it was probably Mil's family crest from the other dimension. Graham thought, 'well this is not getting me anywhere.' He moved back out on to the landing and to the third and final door. Bending down to look through the keyhole he found there wasn't one there. Graham became very suspicious. He checked the door out with every bit of knowledge he had in regards to traps, but there did not seem to be anything out of the ordinary.

Graham thought, 'I have to get into this room I am sure this is where all the information on Mil and his dimension are. At that point he just grabbed the door and pulled it open. The momentum of the door swinging so freely almost caused Graham to lose his balance and fall down the stairs. That slip had been a blessing in disguise, because if he had of been standing in the middle of the doorway he would have been hit right in the chest by a great huge fireball. 'Oh Shit,' was all that went through Graham's mind as he rolled for cover of the door. Once he had caught his breath he moved to look into the room. This has to be the room. That kind of security is definitely made to keep people out or kill them. Looking he saw it was a very plain little games room. Graham moved in thinking either there is something here or he had a really expensive chess set. Graham moved to look at the chess. 'Wow, it was, very expensive,' it was made of Jade and Ivory with gold accenting on it and sat on an ornately carved table. Looking around the room Graham saw that all the gaming paraphernalia was all of the highest quality and also made of rare and exotic materials. To Graham's thinking this still did not warrant that any thief should be killed for trying to steal it. There must be more hear then meets the eye. He then started to look around for a safe or a hidden compartment.

Having searched for a couple of hours and still he had not found anything. He was beginning to think that whatever he was looking for was not in this room. Then he looked down at the sing mark on his shirt. Something has to be here and it must be very important. Graham started over and thought where would Mil have put something that he could get at easily enough but a human would not even think of looking there. Then it hit him and he looked up. 'Oh yah, that had to be it.' There on the roof was what looked like a door of some kind. Looking around Graham could not find anything to get him up to the door. He quickly ran to the bedroom and found a chest that he could stand on. That he thought should give him enough height. He pulled it into the games room and put it under the door. Standing on the chest Graham could just reach the door. He opened it and found he was looking up into what might be some sort of a lab or workroom. Just buy the door there was a ladder that he could pull down, so he did.

Graham climbed up into the workroom and started to look around. There on the desk were all sorts of what you might call magical components. Not touching anything he moved around to the other side of the worktable to where there was a bookshelf. Looking at the books he was amazed at what he saw. They were mostly diaries with a date of an individual year on them. Graham sat down and grabbed the first one and start to read. There were about five hundred of them there, he guessed one for each year that Mil had been on earth. Looking at the first one it described how Mil had got here. The wizard who had brought him to this plane did not have a clue what he had dune. He had confessed later that he had planed to put on a light show to impress his patron not summon a demon. The two of them had spent years trying to figure out how it had happened but they never came up with a satisfactory answer.

Graham had gone through about a hundred years of Mil's life and was taking a rest when he saw his phone was off, so he quickly turned it back on. It rang almost at once and he answered it,

"Hello."

"Graham where have you been?"

"What do you mean? I have been at the house where Mil lived. Why what is wrong?"

"Well to start with you have been gone for at least 24 hours and no one had heard from you."

"That could not be I am sure I just started reading." Then he looked at the pile of books in front of him. "Oh my, you are right I have been here for a while. Sorry I should have called, but now I need you to check up on the history of this building and see to whom it belongs. I am going to stay here and find out all I can about Mil and his situation." Graham quickly hung up the phone before she could say anything else. Going back to the books he saw how Mil was desperately trying to get back to his home plan. Each year there was a new plan and a new failure. The whole thing seemed to revolve around the type and amount of power they had to put into the potential portal. Graham saw that Mil never quite had the right power except once back in the early 1800's. That was the year Mil found a strange meteor. It gave off some sort of energy that he had never seen before and when he started to experiment with it he found that it was compatible with the spell for the portal. He figured he could now open a portal and go home, but after trying for two years he got no where and came to the conclusion that there was not enough energy. Spending the next ten years he found that the meteor had come from a planet about twenty light years away. This planet he eventually figured out was inhabited by intelligent begins, so he contacted them. After all he had technology from his own plane that was light years ahead of ours, just nothing that would get him home.

Mil eventually made contact with them and they said they would help him, but in return they wanted the world he was on. Mil agreed but figured that the humans would probably have something to say about that. That did not matter, he just wanted to go home. At first the aliens brought Mil some of the stone, but they never brought him enough to get open a portal. Mil at once figured out what the Greys as they were up to. At this point Mil decided to use a Grey power plant explosion to get the energy he needed to get home. That is when he set his plan into motion. It took him ten years to get everything just right and then the group from the restaurant got involved and almost ruined everything. Graham thought, 'pretty funny, we almost ruined his little plan. I can't count the number of time one of them was almost been killed in Mil's little plan not to mention he almost destroyed the earth. Well it all blew up in his face eventually.' Graham put the book into his lap and thought about it for a moment. It was not really Mil's fault and from his diaries he did try everything he could think of to get home. He was just trapped in his situation. Graham read on and finally got to the part about controlling the explosion at the Greys base.

It seemed Mil was to open a portal to his own plane and then call through some of his servants. Then all of them were going to go to the other base and blow up that power supply. Using that power and the abilities of his servants he could have opened a portal and go home. At this point Graham wondered how many of Mil's servants had come through the portal before they had closed it up. That is probably something he would never know, and really did not what to know.

There were still a couple of other things that needed to be cleared up. The first was what were those silver ships that Mil had said were scout ships from his planet. Reading through the diaries, Graham found that they were like radio control planes from his dimension. Mil used them in his plan but he could not use them to get home. This sort of explained what Graham had heard from some of their military friends. The last silver ship had just disappeared from the base in Israel. That accounted for all the silver ships that Mil had asked them to reset and send back to him. Not that, that was important because it had all been a big scam and they were not going to do anything about freeing them now anyway. It did put Graham's mind at easy about the whole thing and that was something.

Graham looked at his watch he had been there for three days. He thought about that for a second, 'that is why I am hungry.' Picking up his phone he turned it on and found Christine had left a half a dozen messages on his service. He called her up and asked if she could meet him for dinner. She was pissed with him but said all right. They met at a nice little restaurant in Unionville called the Blacksmith Bistro. Graham got there, Christine had not waited, and she all ready had a table. He ordered a cappuccino and said,

"You should have been with me for the last couple of days. I have gone through 500 hundred years of history and research. You would not believe some of the things I have found. I would still be there if I had not noticed the time by mistake." Graham knew this would get her talking even if it was to yell at him.

"You inconsiderate ass. I have been trying to get a hold of you for the last couple of days."

"Sorry, But I have the answer to all the questions we were asking about Mil and the Greys. The only problem is that getting the answers has lead to more questions."

"OK, give me the short version," said Christine.

Graham went through all he thought was important from the diaries. It answered all the questions that had haunted them since they had left the Congo. Christine was mesmerised and sat quietly listening, when Graham was done she only asked one question,

"Did any of Mil's pets get into this dimension?" Graham shrugged his shoulders and said,

"We do not know one way or the other. Personally I think they did. That was the man in the aerial photo that we did not know."

The two of them were quiet and Graham got some food. He was about halfway through his meal. When Christine said,

" I do not want anything else to do extraterrestrial or demons, so whom are you going to tell about this."

"No one I am just going to see what happens."

"You are kidding aren't you?"

"No, who am I going to tell that we were partly responsible for bringing some demons into this world?" She thought about that for a minute then said,

"All right I will help you out I will keep an eye on the papers and other sources of information for anything out of the ordinary."

"Great, because I have something very important to find. Oh by the way who owns that house."

"That is what I started calling you about. It is very interesting, we own it. The same company that owns the pub owns it, but the funny thing is that we do not have to pay anything on it. No Taxes, No Hydro, No nothing. Someone else is taking care of that. I can't find out who."

"Just as I figured. Well at least that will not be a problem." She looked at him with a confused expression on her face. Graham just finished his Cappuccino and was on his way again. Christine just sat there as he walked out This whole thing had really changed Graham but she was not sure if it was for the better or worst. Christine headed back to school she was going for her Doctorates in Medicine. She was about half way through her second year already, not bad for only having been there a couple of weeks.

Graham headed back to the Brown Stone and went right up to the lab. On the shelves had also been some other books. These were the ones that he had originally been interested in. Mil had said he had studied Magic on this planet in the hope of getting home some day. Graham had always been interested in Fantasy adventure and especially magic's. Now he had the chance to learn magic for real. Graham picked up the first book and started to read it. It was interesting because he looked at the symbols and knew they were not English but he understood them as if they were. The first book took him a week to learn from cover to cover. In all that time Graham had not left the Brown Stone, or had he eaten or slept. He had learned the basics of magic. Then passing out from exhaustion, he slept for about twenty-four hours. Then he got cleaned up and went out for some food.

Graham walked to a little restaurant down the street. It was a bit of a dive but as he walked in the smell of fresh cooked pies assaulted his nose. Sitting down a plump smiling waitress came over. Graham got a coffee and ordered a special. Sitting there he mulled over in his mind all the aspects of the spell that would cause invisibility. The waitress came back but did not put his food down. She turned to a guy at the next table and said,

"Did you see where the guy went who was sitting here?" The man looked at her and said,

"He was there a second ago." Graham could not believe it he had cast an invisibility spell. Now how does he un-cast it. He also thought it would be quite difficult to explain just appearing at the table again. He made his way to the washroom and thought of dispelling the spell. He then walked out into the restaurant. The waitress said,

"OH, There you are your lunch is out." Graham thanked her and sat down and ate.

Denise and Chris had also been wondering what they were going to do with there new found abilities. Denise was more concerned because she wanted to give her abilities to Jessie. Denise, Jessie and Chris went on a world wide tour in search of ways to expand ones mind in order for Jessie to use 100% of her brain, not just the typical 10% most humans usually use. They started off going to Europe but did not find anyone, who even understood what they wanted. That lasted six months then they moved onto Japan where they had heard some amazing things were being done in the field of mind expansion. When they got there they found the Japanese were also way behind. Thought on their tour of a Sholin Temple they heard a story of a master who had amazing mental powers. His writings were in a temple in the Tibetan Mountains. The three of them went there right away.

The trip to the monastery was very gruelling and Jessie had the worst time of all. They got there and were told that they would have to be tested in order to get access to the writings of the Master. The testing lasted two days. They were tested both mentally and physically. One of the tests was also spiritual; they were made to discuss their philosophical out look on life with a panel of monks. At first the two tried to figure out what the monks wanted to hear but their questions were to general so in the end they just answered with their hearts. One of their physical tests was hand to hand combat. They had to fight one of the Masters of the order. Their military hand to hand combat training came in handy there, but they were still getting beat. Denise at one point was going to give up, but when she looked up she saw Jessie looking at her and Denise's resolve came back to her. When the Master saw this he ended the combat and said,

"You fight for a purpose beyond your self so you have passed."

They had found out afterwards that the test had been made easier because they figured that neither Denise nor Chris would be able to read the scrolls. When Denise and Chris finally got to see the scrolls they noticed that they were in some obscure language but found they could understand it as if it were written in English. It took them about a week but they understood what the Master had been talking about. His teachings allowed Denise to figure out how to slowly activate Jessie's entire mind. That was all she wanted to know, but it was to late for that. Through her and Chris's readings they had developed their minds so that they now had psychic abilities. Once they had displayed their abilities. The amazed monks at the temple showed them how to control their abilities. This only took a couple of weeks to learn. Though with others it usually took a lifetime of studying and practice. They left the temple and headed off on an around the world cruise for Jessie's education and development.

Dave, Darren and Suzanne had not been bored over the last couple of months either. Dave had helped a couple of people with a problem they thought concerned aliens. They had been wrong but Dave had a lot of fun solving it. The second one he had both Darren and Suzanne help him with it, and they all had a great time and they found they had a knack at solving other peoples problems. After that they started to get a lot of mail asking for their help. Dave figured they needed some sort of office to work out of. He went to Graham who had come out of his hibernation or what ever it had been and said,

"I what to start a Private Investigation Company that deals only in Aliens or Dimensional creatures and I what to use the Brown Stone for our office."

"Sounds cool as along as my workroom is not disturbed. I can take the games room as my office. That way I can always get to the work room in the attic," said Graham.

"No problem I am going to get someone in there in the next couple of days. Suzanne is moving the DCD down so we can use it when we need it. Her and Darren are going to set up their own workspace in the Brown Stone also. Christine also mentioned she would like an office to work out of." It took them a couple of months to get the place just the way they wanted it, each having their own particular tastes.

Dave had what looked like a detective's office right out of a 1950's detective's novel. He loved it and it had lead to his almost 1950's attitude towards some of his investigations. He had even taken to wearing a trench coat, but was not so far gone that he had a hat yet. Dave was sitting in his chair with his feet up on his desk. The sound of a woman walking towards his office brought him back from his day dreaming. The sound of her thin spiked high heels created an image in his mind. A smile crossed Dave's face, here comes another one.
 

The End