“Well it certainly looks impressive,” Daniel said once I stepped away from the circle after my final review. “But will it work?”
Daniel and I hadn’t spoken about our blowup from days before. Since then, Daniel acted as though nothing untoward had happened. I was still angry about what he had said to me, though. The anger simmered right under the surface of my consciousness, like a pot threatening to boil over. It wasn’t often that someone called me a whiny baby and I let them get away with it. Even if they were right.
In fact, I was so pissed at Daniel that I was starting to wonder if I had developed feelings for him. Otherwise, his comments would have slid off me like water off a duck’s back by now. Daniel was an immortal angel who couldn’t stay long in one spot. In other words, he was an unavailable older man with power and authority. A man like my father. Could I be more of a Freudian cliché?
I pushed the thought and my irritation with Daniel to the side. I had to focus.
“It should work,” I answered him.
“Should” being the operative word, Puck said. The Titanic was marketed as an unsinkable ship. It should not have sunk. Yet it did.
“Well, aren’t you a ray of sunshine?” I was already nervous enough without Puck pissing in my Cheerios. “You missed your calling as a motivational coach.”
Sorry. I thought you were looking for objectivity, not a cheerleader. How about this? Puck’s voice became sing-song. Sage, Sage, she’s our gal. If she can’t do it, nobody shall. Better?
“Very inspirational.”
“From my perspective,” Daniel said, with amusement in his eyes at my exchange with Puck, “you look like a crazy person who’s talking to herself.”
“You’ve got the crazy part right,” I responded. I was still amazed I was about to attempt something only one other person in the world could do safely. I was the chick who had done little more than elemental magic for the past decade. It was like going overnight from only having your learner’s permit to racing in the Indy 500.
I gave one last look around the small room. My tiny amount of furniture had been moved into the corner of the room, out of the way. It reminded me of how I had moved things out of the way to draw a pentagram on the wood floor of Dad’s and my house ten years ago. I prayed this excursion into higher levels of magic did not also result in disaster.
I let out a breath and tried to push out my doubts along with it. I pointed at the intricate pattern I had painstakingly drawn on the linoleum. “This will keep out any spiritual threats to my body while my soul is out of it during the astral projection,” I said to Daniel with more confidence than I felt. Fake it until you make it. If faking it worked here, maybe I’d start padding my bra too. “Your job is to keep out any physical threats by watching over my body while my consciousness is out of it.”
“If any vampires or door-to-door salesmen come a-knocking, I’ll send them packing,” Daniel said. He patted the Ark fragment. “You’re safe in my hands. I’m not going anywhere. At least not right away.” He started playing with the coins in his pocket again. He’d gotten antsier and antsier with each passing day. He would have to leave the D.C. area soon.
I drank the cup of blue lotus tea I had left cooling. Daniel had bought the lotus flowers I had brewed into a tea, just as he had bought all the other preparatory material that dotted the room. My research indicated the tea would help calm me—and sister, did I ever need that!—heighten my awareness, and help me separate my soul from my mortal body.
I went around the room, lighting frankincense and myrrh incense. I breathed in the smell deeply. Between the tea and the incense, I was starting to feel unusual. Not bad, but definitely strange. Calm. I was a lot of things, but calm was usually not one of them.
I stepped into the charcoal pattern on the floor, careful to not smudge or break any of its lines. I sat crisscross applesauce in the middle of the square at the pattern’s center. I carefully arranged Puck around me. I was going to do this with him because two heads were better than one, especially when one of those heads was centuries old.
“Are you ready?” I asked Puck.
Road trip! he exclaimed. I call shotgun.
I took that as a yes.
I executed the Wave and said the Word of the spell designed to protect my body from spiritual threats while my spirit was out of it, and I Willed the symbol I sat in to form a protective barrier. The charcoal symbol flashed brightly, glowing like a white-hot ember, but with no heat. The glowing stopped just as quickly as it had begun, leaving the black symbol as I had originally drawn it. It felt different though, as if I was now surrounded by an invisible barrier. It was like being inside a perfectly transparent glass tube—I couldn’t see the barrier, yet I still sensed it was there.
You’ve completed the first step. Well done, Puck murmured encouragingly.
“Shhh!” I was trying to focus my mind on the next spell, the most complex one I had ever attempted. I didn’t need any distractions.
Puck grumbled something about how it must be my time of the month, then thankfully shut up. I had a quick but gratifying daydream about setting him ablaze with spellfire before I shunted the thought to the side. I’d deal with him later.
I closed my eyes. I did my best to shut out the world. Focusing on my breathing, I tried to stop thinking about anything but my body and the spirit that inhabited it.
Eventually, everything fell away. The weight of the Cloak of Wisdom on my shoulders, my awareness of Daniel’s presence, the creaks and groans of the Leverettes’ old house which always served as subtle background music . . . everything disappeared. There was only me and Puck. He was attached to my consciousness like a suckerfish to a shark.
I was ready. With my eyes still closed, my arms began to move. I flicked my fingers as my arms performed the intricate pattern of the Wave for this spell. I began to speak the Word. The memorized spell was so complicated, it would take several minutes to complete. As I spoke the Word and performed the Wave, I Willed myself to separate from my body. I envisioned it like I was magically removing the core of an apple, leaving the apple’s flesh and skin completely intact.
The Wave complete, my arms slowly dropped to rest on my knees. They felt like leaves falling off a tree. My lips fell silent once the last syllable of the Word was out.
I opened my eyes. I blinked hard, disoriented for a moment. Everything was suddenly deathly quiet, like I was wearing noise-canceling headphones which were one hundred percent effective.
I stood up. “It didn’t work,” I said. My voice was especially loud in the eerie quiet which had fallen over my apartment. Even the kitchen sink, which dripped every few seconds like a metronome, was quiet. The quiet didn’t much register on me, though; I was too busy being bitterly disappointed after all the work and studying I had done. What if I had to start over from scratch? I didn’t even know what it was I had done wrong.
Daniel didn’t respond to my statement. As if I hadn’t said anything, he just stared at the spot I had risen from.
It didn’t work? Puck sounded amused. Look down.
I did. I was startled to see I still sat with my legs crossed and eyes closed, wearing the same blue jeans and loose cotton t-shirt. Yet the seated me wasn’t this me, the standing me who now realized the astral projection spell had worked after all and who felt like she had entered the Twilight Zone. That me stood in the middle of my seated body, with my legs rising through her shoulders.
I lifted a foot and eased it forward. My foot poked through the chest of my seated body, as if some kid had put Mrs. Potato Head together incorrectly. It was as though the standing, thinking me was a hologram, capable of moving, but possessing no physical substance. If I touched my spirit self, I seemed solid; I passed through everything else like a phantom. And, I obviously was invisible since Daniel did not react to me at all. The astral me, that is.
It was disconcerting to say the least to see myself in two places at once. Especially because this version of me was now sinking into th
e floor like it was quicksand.
I couldn’t step out or push out because my hands and legs passed through everything. In seconds, I had sunk into the floor up to my waist. What would stop me from sinking to the center of the earth, if not farther, I wondered. Fear nibbled at me, threatening to grow into full-scale panic. “Uh, Puck? A little help?”
First you shush me, now you want my help? You’re giving me whiplash. Make up your mind, will ya?
“Help first, berate later.” My arms windmilled like a gymnast about to fall off a balance beam. Not that it did me any good. I was still sinking into the floor. At this rate, I’d wind up on the other side of the earth before I knew it.
Fine, Puck huffed. The first thing you need to do is stop freaking out. You were doing so well until now. Your spirit—your soul, if you will—has separated from your body. You’re on the astral plane. The laws of physics don’t apply here. At least the laws of physics you are used to don’t. When you want to move in a certain direction, don’t move your body. Just think yourself there.
Dubious, but anxious to do something before I wound up in China, I did what Puck suggested. I thought about not sinking.
I stopped on a dime. Encouraged, I willed myself to rise.
I rose out of the floor like a zombie from the grave. My feet dangled several feet off the floor before I willed myself to stop.
I grinned. “This is kind of cool,” I said to Puck.
Yeah, you’re a real unsinkable Molly Brown.
“I don’t know who that is.”
Imagine my surprise.
Daniel scratched himself with one hand and played with the coins in his pocket with the other. I could not hear them or him. I couldn’t hear anything. It was as if I had hit the mute button on the world.
I glanced around the room from a perspective I did not normally have. From up here near the ceiling, the dusty cobwebs in the upper corners of the room were even more obvious than usual. When this craziness with the Spear of Destiny was over, I desperately needed to clean.
The fact I was floating in the air like a balloon suddenly filled me with childlike glee. I grinned, and I spun around in the air like a top. The room became a blur around me. There was no sound or sensation of rushing air, no dust kicked up, no indication that anything I did affected the physical world in the slightest.
I slowed to a stop. I wasn’t dizzy. I was a spirit—I didn’t have an inner ear to make me dizzy. I also wasn’t winded. In fact, I wasn’t breathing at all. I wondered how Puck could hear me when I spoke. It probably had to do with the fact we’d been magically bonded together when I cast the spell that activated him.
Your Linda Carter spinning and turning into Wonder Woman rendition is cool and all, Puck said, interrupting my conjecture, but doing superhero impressions is not why we’re here.
Puck was right. It was time to get down to business.
I opened my Third Eye. The room abruptly became as bright as the sun. The Ark fragment was the source of the harsh light. The light stabbed me like it was thousands of razor-sharp daggers. I winced in pain, and nearly fell through the floor again before I caught myself.
I hastily closed my Third Eye. The room returned to normal. Looking at the Ark fragment with my Third Eye when my spirit had been in my body had been overwhelming, like staring into the sun. In my astral form, looking at the fragment with my Third Eye wasn’t merely like staring into the sun. More like traveling too close to the sun.
Ow! Puck moaned in pain. I hope you got the license plate of the 18-wheeler that just hit us. I’d predicted your astral form would be more sensitive to the magic that radiates from holy and unholy Relics, but I wasn’t expecting it to feel like that. Maybe you should slip back into your body, take me off, and go searching for the Spear on your own. Think of it Tonto! Your very own adventure. You’re welcome. The Lone Ranger will sit this one out.
I tried to shake off the lingering pain of looking at the Ark fragment with my Third Eye. “First of all, if anybody here is the Lone Ranger, it’s me. You’re the sidekick, not the hero. Second of all, casting the spell that got us to this point took a lot out of me. I’m not going through it again just because you’re scared.”
Tonto, every individual is the hero of his own life story, Puck said pretentiously. And I ain’t scared. Just cautious. I haven’t survived this long by leaping before looking. You could learn a lot from my example.
“Yeah, I could learn how to be a fraidy-cat. Come on, let’s start our search. Bickering isn’t helping us find the Spear.”
As I had learned to do in my studies, I locked onto my physical body so I could return to it later. Magicians’ souls becoming unmoored from their bodies was the main reason why few attempted to astrally project.
Then, I willed my astral form to float upward, through the ceiling of my apartment into the Leverettes’ house above. I passed through everything like I was a ghost. I went through the Leverettes’ kitchen. Its tidiness was in stark contrast to mine. Mrs. Leverette was there, appearing to be whistling merrily as she washed dinner dishes. It was yet another reason to be wary of her. A person who was happy about doing dishes was not a person to be trusted.
I went through the roof of the Leverettes’ house, into the night air. Something other than me floated above the house.
No, not something. Someone.
“Speaking of ghosts,” I murmured, though there was no need to keep my voice down since the figure hovering over the house couldn’t hear me.
Who’s this guy? Puck asked. Friend of yours? He’s mighty big to be dressed up for Halloween. Wrong time of year too.
“No, he’s definitely not a friend. This is that Hero named Ghost I told you about.” The so-called Hero hovered over the Leverettes’ house like a superpowered stalker. He wore the same full-body, off-white costume I had last seen him in. His lips were moving under the fabric of his mask. Though I couldn’t hear him, he clearly was talking to someone. Since no one was nearby, I surmised he had some sort of communications gear built into his cowl. “He’s probably here to check up on me like he threatened to when I refused to help him find Millennium.”
The married couple who lived farther up the block walked by, arm-in-arm. A neighborhood kid pedaled his bike down the sidewalk on the other side of the street. None of them looked up at Ghost.
“Why do you suppose nobody’s staring at Ghost?” I asked. “He’s a big man wearing a white costume floating over a two-story house. You’d think that would catch somebody’s eye.”
Maybe he’s invisible, Puck suggested. Maybe that’s one of his superpowers. You said he had followed you when you were on K Street without you spotting him. Maybe you can only see him now because you’re in your astral form.
“That would certainly explain it,” I agreed. “I wonder how often he’s spied on me without me realizing it.”
I floated over to Ghost. I lifted my hand until it was inches from his face. I flipped him the bird. He could not see it, of course, but it made me feel better. Me dipping my toes back into the waters of advanced magic had obviously not advanced my maturity level.
My inner child satisfied, I ignored Ghost and rose higher into the air, until the Leverette house was just one of many geometric shapes below me. Once I was sufficiently far from my apartment, I cautiously opened my Third Eye.
The whirling colors of the magical world exposed itself again. The Leverettes’ house, thanks to the Ark fragment it contained, was lit up like a Christmas tree, standing out like a beacon amongst the mundane households.
Sweet! Puck said. Now all we have to do is perform a sweep of the city, find another spot like this one that looks like it’s sending out a mystical Bat-Signal, and bingo bango, that’ll likely be the Spear of Destiny. We’ll be back in time to catch Dancing with the Stars.
“Bingo bango? Really?”
It’s a very advanced and sophisticated magical term of art, Puck said loftily. Beyond your years, no doubt. I wouldn’t expect a young pup like you to underst
and it.
Since I was already in Northwest, I started my search here, the largest of the District’s four quadrants. I flew so high up in the sky that the city looked like a giant Lite-Brite. I searched for anything like the kind of mystical energy the Ark fragment emitted.
The whole time, part of me kept a lock on my physical body in my apartment. As per my crash course in astral projection, I visualized my link to my body as a massive ball of unwinding string which connected the spiritual me to the physical me. If I allowed the mystical filament to break, I would never be able to reenter my body. My body would wither away, and my spirit would be a ghost forever. I already had a name picked out if, God forbid, that happened: Sage the Pissed-Off and Very Unfriendly Ghost.
I doubted they would make a kid’s cartoon about me.
CHAPTER 19
Early in my astral search for the Spear of Destiny, I flew over McMillan Reservoir, a body of water within walking distance of my place which supplied most of the city’s drinking water. On the other side of it was Howard University, one of the country’s most prestigious historically black colleges and one of the top colleges in the country, period. I did not see anything on the sprawling, 250-plus acre campus that made me think the Spear of Destiny was hidden there, but I did see something that made me pause.
I closed my Third Eye and dropped down to get a closer look.
One of the university’s dorm buildings was on fire. The fire had already engulfed the bottom four stories of the tall rectangular building, and the blaze was rapidly spreading. Students were at some of the windows, screaming for help. People were clustered around the base of the building, staying a safe distance away. The thin crowd was composed mostly of black people with a sprinkling of other races, which was not surprising considering Howard was a HBU. A few in the crowd had their phones out, filming the inferno. Helpful. The people trapped in the building would burn to death, but at least they could take comfort in knowing their mass cremation would be immortalized forever on the Internet.
A few of the people around the building were in sooty nightclothes. I guessed they had managed to escape the mounting inferno. The way the fire was spreading, the people who remained in the building would not be so lucky.
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