by John Levitt
My eyes flew open and I was back in my flat, sprawled facedown on my mattress. Louie was standing next to me, one paw on my shoulder, licking my face with a wet tongue. My heart was racing and I had to take several deep breaths to calm myself. He gave me a sympathetic look.
“You again?” I asked him. “You wouldn’t have had anything to do with that dream, would you now?”
He gave me a doggy grin and jumped down off the bed. I glanced at the clock on the bedside table. 6:30 a.m. I’d slept almost five hours. Not nearly enough, but there was no chance of getting any more.
I dragged myself upright, started coffee, turned on the wall heater, and took a long, hot shower. When I got out I poured a cup and looked out the front window at the fog lazily drifting by. A good day to die.
I wondered about my dream. Why so much fear when I was about to enter the house? Maybe the dream world was bound up too closely with reality. It certainly was unlike any other dream I’d ever had. If it was indeed some mysterious blending of dream and reality, then maybe that meant my grandfather could have been a ghost of a sort, and no one, especially a ten-year-old, wants to see a ghost. Or maybe I was the ghost. Maybe I didn’t want him to see me. But the dream had given me what I needed, a powerful memory to work with.
At least I had time for a last meal. There was a half a box of Bisquick in the cupboard and real maple syrup in the fridge, so it was pancakes again. Lou approved of the choice. He dogged my steps as I mixed up the batter, almost tripping me a couple of times. He may have been the most useful of Ifrits, but he was definitely lacking in the self-control department.
The pancakes weren’t as good as Campbell’s, but Lou didn’t care. I sopped up the remains of the maple syrup, had a last cup of coffee, and washed up. If everything worked out it would be nice to come back to a clean house. If not, at least I wouldn’t be exposed to my friends as the slob I actually am. I took a last look around, locked the door behind me, climbed into my van, and pulled out into the rush hour traffic.
The drive over took longer than usual, with the traffic grinding along. It was a quarter past eight by the time I pulled up in front of Victor’s. Inside, he and Eli were still hard at work, poring through a mound of papers scattered over Victor’s desk. Most were filled with symbols and equations, like a math professor’s textbook. They both looked like they’d been at it all night. Eli gave me a tired smile.
As soon as I came in Eli opened the drawer on Victor’s ornate desk and pulled out something that looked like a coconut, only it was the size of a lemon. Victor took it from him and handed it to me.
“Here it is. You can see how tough it is—we had to make the casing extra strength, otherwise it wouldn’t be able to contain the spell.”
“Lovely,” I said, hefting it. It was considerably heavier than it appeared. “How do I make it work?”
Eli produced a jaw-cracking yawn. “As soon as you and Christoph arrive in your memory construct, break it open. That will release the dampening spell, which ought to last an hour at least. Then you’ll both be unable to use talent, or at least that’s the theory. But this is important: Make sure you break it physically. Smash it against a rock or something hard. Don’t use any magical energy to shatter the covering. If you do, the dampening spell will feed back and short-circuit your neural system. At best it won’t be pleasant, and it might even drain enough energy to permanently damage you. Or worse.”
“Got it,” I said, slipping it into my pocket.
Eli stood up from behind the desk and stretched his considerable frame. “And speaking of the memory construct, were you able to come up with anything?”
“Something. But I have no idea how to actualize it.”
“Don’t worry,” he said. “We’ll show you.”
For the next two hours the three of us worked on an implementation strategy. It was tricky since it was necessary to craft a technique that would enable me to call up the construct without going too far and prematurely kicking it in. The idea was to hold the memory as clearly as possible while we wrapped energy around it. Mostly the power came from myself and Victor, with Eli providing the expertise. At last it was set, like a coiled spring loaded with potential, ready to be released by a simple spell that was hardly more than a few code words.
Technically of course we were cheating; this was supposed to be a one-on-one contest, but this was no game. I would have gladly borrowed one of Victor’s guns as an additional edge except guns won’t operate in a construct. I wished I’d gotten more sleep. Already I felt drained, and the combat hadn’t even started yet. Victor snuck a quick look at his wristwatch. A Rolex, I believe.
“We should get going,” he said. “Christoph is bound to be there early, and we don’t need to give him time to set up any surprises.”
We all squeezed into Victor’s BMW. Nothing like traveling to your doom in style. Victor had fixed the bullet hole in the windshield, of course. He was very careful about his car. There was a small rug on the backseat for Lou to sit on, usually reserved for Maggie. Maggie watched us from the upstairs window. She didn’t see the need to come with us; if things went wrong it wasn’t Victor that was going to end up as the mindless husk. I hadn’t expected her to come along. I’m not sure how far out of his way Louie would go to save Victor’s ass if the situation were reversed. And besides, she was a cat. Sort of.
There are places in San Francisco where there is no good way to get from here to there. It took us a while to reach McClaren, out in the Excelsior. We parked up at the west end, five minutes from the water tower that stands on the top of a small hill. The tower is a six-sided structure painted a pale sickly blue. Maybe the idea was for it to blend into the color of the sky, but if that was it, it didn’t work.
Christoph was nowhere in sight, but atop a utility pole sat a large raven, watching us. Louie spotted it immediately but didn’t act worried. As soon as the raven saw us, it flapped down in an ungainly fashion and lit on the ground some distance off. Lou ran up to it, but instead of attacking he stopped next to it and sat quietly. The raven started vocalizing all sorts of squawks, chuckles, and whistles, running through an impressive repertoire. After a minute of this, Lou gave a short bark and ran back to where we were waiting. Ifrits. Maybe they thought they were acting as some sort of seconds to a duel. Just because Christoph and I were trying to kill each other was no reason for them to be uncivil.
At one minute to noon, there was still no sign of Christoph. Maybe he’d thought better of it after all. Maybe pigs were about to sprout wings. At noon we could hear the far-off bells of a church, and as I looked around I saw a shimmering distortion just south of the tower, like heat over asphalt on a hot day. A faint outline flickered in and out of focus and then Christoph popped into solidity. He walked toward us as if he had just stepped off a city bus, brushing nonexistent dust from the shoulders of his jacket. What’s more, he had Sherwood with him. She was lethargic and blank-eyed, so he still had a psychic hold on her. He obviously meant this stunt to be impressive and intimidating, since it involved an ability almost unheard of. It must have taken a horrendous amount of energy, which of course was the point. He had power to spare. The raven flapped over and perched on his shoulder, eyeing me with a disconcerting and intelligent stare. I surreptitiously felt in my pocket for the reassuring roundness of the dampening object.
“I want Sherwood,” I said. “Right now, or the whole thing’s off.”
“Not quite yet,” Christoph said. “I’ll release her as we enter the dueling ground, not before. I don’t want you changing your mind at the last second.”
There wasn’t much I could do. As long as he had Sherwood he had the upper hand and he knew it.
“Let’s get this started then,” Victor said.
Lou curled himself around my feet. I put myself into what amounted to a mild trance state, trying to recall last night’s dream. The feel of the sun on the water. The smell of the tide flats. The sound of gulls mewing in the distance. My battered and beloved ding
hy beached on the shore. The smell of baking from my grandparents’ house. I narrowed my attention until the memory was as real as the hill we were standing on, gathered some energy from Victor and Eli, and spoke the few simple words we had agreed on. I felt a rush as the potential was released and the hill around the water tower lost focus, becoming as insubstantial as smoke. The cold San Francisco sky turned a brilliant blue as the sun streamed down and the heat rolled over me like a blessing. The scent of salt air surrounded me. One short step and I would be back on that island, and this time it would be no dream.
Christoph pushed Sherwood away from him. “Here,” he said. “Take her.” He gestured in the air and spoke several words too low and rapid for me to catch. Sherwood’s eyes cleared, and she saw me standing there. She opened her mouth to speak, and then a puzzled expression passed over her face, replaced with one of fear, then horror. Her skin started to glow, first pink, then cherry red, until astonishingly, it burst into flame. Not ordinary flame, but with a magical burst of white and violet, leaping and curling around her. She screamed once and reached a hand out toward me. I saw her lips form the words “Mason, help me,” but the sound was lost in the rushing hiss of fire.
Her skin turned black, crisp, then started to melt with bewildering fast-forward speed. One second she was on fire, twisting in agony, the next, all that could be seen was the glowing outline of a skeleton, an X-ray of a human. The bones collapsed in on themselves and what was left of her crumpled to the ground. Three seconds later, all that was left was a scorched mark on the grass.
Before I could react, Christoph seized me by the arm and pulled me into my carefully crafted construct. The raven flapped by my head, and Lou dashed after us. A moment later we were standing on a beach by the edge of the water, under a summer sun.
My initial shock had become rage, and without a word I leapt at him, not thinking, just wanting to get my hands around his throat. Now I knew how Lou operated. Five feet from him I ran into what felt like a brick wall, knocking me off my feet. I lay there on the sand, stunned. Of course. Christoph wasn’t about to stand next to me without protection.
He ignored my abortive attack, slowly turning three hundred and sixty degrees, taking it all in. “This is lovely,” he said. “I never thought you capable of anything this complex.”
He was totally unaffected by what he’d done to Sherwood. Like Eli said, he was psychically damaged. Or evil and twisted. Take your choice. I lay on the sand, pretending to be more hurt than I was. I needed to get control of my emotions. This was going to be a fight to the death, and if I charged ahead in blind rage I was going to lose. I gathered up my despair and rage as if it were magical energy, wound it tight, shoved it deep inside, and covered it over. I would have to pay for that later. If there was a later.
Christoph smiled at me lying on the sand. He didn’t seem in any rush to get started on the bloodshed. With all the strength he possessed he had no worries. But he hadn’t yet learned that while confidence can carry you a long way, overconfidence has a way of rudely upending you.
I got slowly to my feet and reached in my pocket, feeling the comforting rough surface of my secret weapon. Then I gazed over the expanse of sand and the gentle water. Oops. Talk about overconfidence. A minor glitch reared its inevitable head. Surrounded by soft sand and water, I saw no possibility of breaking that hard shell open and releasing the spell.
Christoph regarded me with mock affection. “I’d love to make this painless,” he informed me, “but to get the most out of it I need for you to desperately struggle to the end. So…”
He walked to the edge of the water, made a beckoning gesture with his left hand, and barked a command. The water roiled up and at first I thought he meant to drown me, but he had something more unpleasant in mind. A couple of small crabs scurried out of the water and headed up the beach, followed by a couple of larger ones. Followed by more crabs. Followed by even more. Crabs with very large claws, purposeful and aggressive.
Now there’s nothing dangerous about a crab or two. They’re not even interested in people except as potential threats. Even a hundred or so wouldn’t be any problem; maybe freakish and scary, but unless you’re lying paralyzed on the sand, there’s not much they can do to you. But there were thousands of them making their way out of the water, magically imbued with a very uncrablike aggressiveness, angrily waving their claws as they advanced toward me. If they managed to latch on to me with their sharp pincers it would be like the Chinese death of a thousand cuts.
I automatically turned to head up the beach away from them. I hadn’t moved more than three steps when I was brought up short by a barrier, again courtesy of Christoph. Not an aversion spell or energy-draining sinkhole, but a true physical energy screen. It was like a sheet of steel covered with a thin layer of rubber. I expanded my awareness, trying to find a crack or flaw I could exploit, but it was strong and smooth. I didn’t have the skill or the capacity to do anything with it.
Lou, who had started backing up the minute the crabs appeared, wasn’t faring any better. The barrier stopped him as effectively as it had me. Ifrits are pretty much immune to such things as aversion spells, but this was different. He whined unhappily and looked up at me for reassurance. I didn’t have much to give him.
“Problems?” mocked Christoph. He was practically dancing in the sand, unable to contain his glee or remain still. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had started cackling, “I’ll get you, my pretty, and your little dog, too!”
I pulled the energy deadener out of my pocket. It looked like I was going to have to use energy to break the casing after all, despite Victor’s warning. If it killed me, at least Christoph wouldn’t benefit much. The alternative—having tiny pieces of flesh plucked off by thousands of crabs—was not an attractive one.
Then, for once in my life, I actually came up with a good idea. It would take some precious energy, but there wasn’t much point in trying to save it. I spread talent into the sand, sucked power from the sea, and raised a protective wall of my own between me and the onrushing crabs. The sand made it strong but brittle, like thick glass. A few of the crabs had already made it through but the rest were piled up against the boundary line, vainly trying to force their way through.
Christoph shook his head contemptuously. He flung out his hand in one quick motion, sending a pulse of force that ripped through the barrier I had erected, shattering it with ease. At the same moment Christoph gestured, I whipped the dampening object toward the wall like a baseball pitcher throwing a high hard one. Luckily, Christoph hadn’t been satisfied to just tear down my defensive effort. Being Christoph, he had to go for overkill. His force tore through the wall and hit the lemon-sized coconut with the dampening spell locked inside. It shattered as if it had been hit with a sledgehammer.
The sharp crack of an explosion almost deafened me, coupled with a sizzling flash like an exploding power transformer. Energy surged back into him and Christoph dropped to the sand like he’d been shot. I could only hope the power surge had fried every circuit in his brain. The myriad of crabs, so purposeful only moments ago, milled around confusedly and scuttled off toward the safety of the water. Either the dampening spell had been released, snuffing out the motivating magic, or Christoph was unconscious, which would have the same effect. Or both.
I tried a brief power exercise, trying to raise a dirt devil out of the sand. A whirlwind, not an actual devil. Nothing. I’d never been so happy in my life to find my power useless. I strode over to where Christoph lay and stared down at him, anger starting to seep back in. The anger grew. I didn’t need my talent. I could strangle him with my hands. I bent down and his Ifrit spread its wings protectively over his head and hissed at me like a cat. Christoph’s eyes popped open. They were slightly glazed. When he saw me standing over him he paddled his hands around with a circular motion and croaked, “Bind!”
The air thickened around me. I tried to step back out of range but it was like I was standing in quicksand. Something ha
d gone wrong. I had lost my powers but Christoph had not. Another revolting development. Then I mustered all my strength and broke free, something I shouldn’t have been able to do.
I couldn’t figure it. Maybe what happened was that although the dampening device had worked fine, Christoph possessed too much strength for him to be totally nullified. I had been drained, but he had such a reserve that it only diminished him. If so, he was now a very ordinary practitioner, but I wasn’t a practitioner at all.
I needed to put some distance between us, since a weak practitioner wants close proximity to operate effectively. I ran up the beach, urged on by fear, before he could cast anything else. If Victor and Eli had figured correctly, I only had an hour or so before he regained his full powers, and then it was good-bye, Mason. I pushed my fear into the same place I’d hidden my rage. Fear and rage are opposite sides of the same coin, and both would lead me to disaster. I followed Lou to the cover of low-lying scrub brush that paralleled the beach and tried to think of a plan of attack.
Glancing over my shoulder, I saw Christoph sitting up slowly, not yet fully recovered. His Ifrit launched itself into the sky, caught a current of air, and soared overhead. It circled above us, acting as a beacon to let Christoph know exactly where we were. Aerial surveillance. Another thing I hadn’t bargained for.
Christoph walked slowly in our direction, still unsteady on his feet. The blowback must have given him quite a jolt. He stood at the edge where the sand met the scrub and began a chant I couldn’t quite make out, interspersing the words with jerky little gestures. I couldn’t figure out what he thought he was doing since we were too far away to be affected by anything he could throw at us, especially in his weakened state. At least he was expending energy. If he wasn’t careful he’d run down his reserve enough so that I could take him out with a well-aimed stone between the eyes.