The Phantom Man 2 - The Book of the Dead

I - The Future

"Phillip, that's the name registered at you record, right? What the hell were you doing in the museum at night? Are you a burglar, by any chance?"

Noticing that that man was a kind of local authority, the young man answered: "Sir, actually I don't belong here. I come from a faraway land, and I don't have any idea how I ended up here."

"Inspector, he was in the possession of a weapon that looked like a Viking sword. We apprehended the item to present it as evidence of robbery, but inexplicably it disappeared from our hands. For this reason, we suspect that this individual may be a magician."

"Don't bullshit me, Enrico! Do you really want me to believe that a handcuffed boy can make an object disappear right before your own eyes?" The inspector looked again at Phillip and then continued: "In order to refresh your memory and help you remind the place where you come from, you will spend the night behind the bars. We shall talk again later. Before you are dismissed, I have one more question: are you some kind of circus magician capable of making things disappear?"

"I'm sorry, sir, I don't understand your question."

"Can we take him now?" the detective on duty asked.

"Yes, you can. Don't forget to notify the public defender office asap. Otherwise, the inspector general will be on our backs."

"Yes, sir. I'm on it."

Phillip was put in jail with the right to have a public lawyer. He was lucky to be permitted to have one, since he didn't know a soul at that place. He decided not to use his magic until he understood better how the legal system worked in that country.

Once in the prison cell, the other prisoners began to observe Phillip. One of them approached him.

"Hey, beautiful boy, what's your story? Robbery, killing or what?"

"I've done nothing. There must be a huge mistake."

Another guy said right away: "Yeah, yeah, that's the same old lame excuse. Nobody here has ever done a thing. But there's always a reason for an arrest."

"I'd rather be quiet. Time heals everything," said Phillip.

He shut his mouth and decided to get some rest. It didn't last long. A bulky guy approached Phillip, squeezed his cheek, and then began to intimidate him.

"You know what, man? I don't like your face. If you want to get along with us, you'll have to follow my rules. I'm the one who call the shots here! Capisce?"

The man had head shaved and arms totally inked with the symbols of the criminal gang he belonged to. His cellmates laughed loudly and got ready to watch another beating. The inked skinhead never lost a chance to impose his rules to the new incomers.

He pushed Phillip against the bars, causing him to bruise his nape. Phillip looked at him with anger. That situation had gotten on his nerves. All he wanted was to stay quietly on his own...

Suddenly, the man began to rise to the point that his head was pressed against the ceiling. His eyes were absolutely scared while his neck was twisted and his body rotated to horizontal position in a way that he levitated above the heads of the other prisoners. Everyone in jail was horrified by the way the newbie confronted the skinhead. Phillip noticed their fear, and, out of the blue, decided to let the man fall onto the floor. His name was Geovani.

"Hey, bald head, leave the kid alone. Can't you see that this one has part with the devil? Or maybe he is possessed by a demon... You're better off leaving him alone."

Geovani stood off from Phillip without a word as soon as he heard the cellmate's advice. The others preferred not to talk or to bother Phillip at all from that moment on.

The young wizard was exhausted. He laid down in a corner and shut his eyes in order to regain his forces. Gradually, the Phantom Man realized that he bore huge powers, and that was just the beginning of his learning. He finally got some sleep.

Very early in the morning, the jailer called Phillip's name.

"You have visit. Your lawyer is here."

"What is that? Who can it be? Nobody knows I'm here," he asked, full of curiosity.

"The State appointed a public defender to take care of your case. That's the rule. Follow me."

Phillip was taken to a room where he found a woman dressed in black blazer, white blouse, and skirt. He noticed she was a gorgeous woman. Not only that, but also that she had something remarkable on her face a scar that was very much like the one Verena got when Klaus' Doppelgänger slashed her in the face.

The gorgeous well-dressed lawyer stared at Phillip. She had the feeling she met him before. "Would it be possible?", she thought. "Where do I possibly know him from?" She put those thoughts in the back of her mind for a while, and resumed to her professional behavior.

"It's a pleasure do meet you, Phillip. I've been appointed to work at your case as your public defender. My name is Alexia, and I'd like you to tell me everything that happened so that I can help you get past this situation."

At once, the defendant remembered where he had seen that face before. How could he forget something that had rooted so deeply in his life? Could anyone on Earth resemble so much his dear Verena? It couldn't be real... Was fate trying to make him go crazy?

For a long time, something mysterious had haunted Alexia's life. Since a young girl, she used to have a recurring dream in which she was walking towards an old castle. When she would be about to reach it, she felt a pain on her chest. Then she would look down, and see claws slashing her body. She would wake up screaming desperately. As she was looking at the man before her, telling his story, his lips clearly elucidated where she had seen him before.

She was surprised to realize that the man at the precinct was the same man in her dreams. The memory was getting clearer in her mind. It was way more than a mere coincidence to be true.

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