American Demon

by Kim Harrison

Hodin wanted far more than the usual pricking of my finger, and I sighed as I set the crucible clicking upon the slate table. “Don’t worry about it,” I said. Breath held, I ran Hodin’s knife across my index finger. Immediately my shoulders eased. It was so sharp that I’d hardly felt it, and the bright red gush was startling. “Good?” I said as I massaged some out, and he nodded. “How much is that?” I asked, thumb pressed to the cut to get it to stop. “Five cc’s?”

  Hodin wordlessly extended his palm, and I gratefully set my cut hand in it. His fingers closed about me, and I lost the tension in my shoulders as a healing ward coursed through me. “Thanks,” I said as I pulled away, and he inclined his head graciously. “But how much is in it?” I said, looking at the crucible. “I’m not going to bust my ass to learn this if you’re going to leave out key parts so you can be smug and pretend I don’t know what I’m doing when it doesn’t work.”

  Hodin blinked, and Bis stifled a rocks-in-a-garbage-disposal giggle. “It doesn’t matter,” Hodin said. “The more you have, the more distinct the flames.”

  “Oh.” It was one of those curses, and I frowned, not liking how loosey-goosey it was.

  “Once you have your aura source, sketch the glyph to give structure to the energy.” Hodin picked up the stick of chalk he’d brought, hesitating before snapping it in two and handing me the larger piece. “Unlike most curses, this one begins with an unexploded pentacle.”

  “Uh, I don’t know that one,” I said, and Hodin’s goat-slitted eyes flicked up.

  “I didn’t expect you to. No one but Newt and I knew what they were good for.” Hodin’s dark features bunched. “The intent of most curses is to bring things together to create change. It requires an exploded pentagram, or pentacle rather, and since that’s all anyone uses, the exploded part is left off. We will be separating in this instance, so we begin with the older and rarely used closed pentagon from which the pentagram is formed.”

  I leaned forward as Hodin sketched a pentagon with five lines radiating inward to a center point. My lips parted when I realized he never lifted the chalk or went over the same line twice. “How did you do that?” I said, and Hodin smiled. It looked rare, seeing the pleasure on his face that he’d done something to surprise me, and still holding the warmth of it, he leaned across the table and drew a second one for me to use. I watched intently, losing the how of it even before he finished. Frustrated, I gripped my chalk, hoping that Al knew the skill.

  “Add a small inner circle to create the five caves where you will place the candles,” Hodin said as he drew a perfect circle at the center of the pentagon, delineating five new individual spaces at the center of the glyph. “If done correctly, the candles will move to the points of the exploded pentacle,” he added, explaining nothing. “Draw your circle,” he barked, and Bis and I jumped.

  I sent the chalk hissing around to make a circle inside the pentagon, my eyes flicking to the nearby basket. Unless the candles were in one of those little bags, there weren’t any.

  “Now burn your blood to ash. Do you know how to do that?” Hodin asked.

  “Yep.” I strengthened my hold on the line, and after I estimated how much I’d need to evaporate five cc’s of liquid, I bubbled the crucible in a tiny circle, exhaling as I whispered, “Celero fervefacio.” With a pleasing burst of flame, my blood turned to ash.

  “Nice control,” Hodin grudgingly admitted as he peered across the table.

  “I burn things a lot,” I said, and Bis snorted his agreement.

  “Blood carries the representation of the soul’s energy, which is why banshees and vampires ingest it,” Hodin said, and I nodded. I knew this already, but that he bothered to tell me meant that he wasn’t entirely stingy with knowledge. “We make the required candles so as to infuse them with the ash. The beeswax is an inert carrier, the dried moonwort is to open the flames, and the fat garnered from pumpkin seeds will extend the flame’s life.”

  “To prevent any auratic contamination as you would get from fat from even an unborn pig,” I said, and Hodin hesitated in his motion to untie his three bags as if surprised. “What should the bees be feeding on? Anything special? It smells like chicory.”

  “It is.” Hodin gave me a cautious look. “You will also need milkweed sap.”

  I inched closer, knees touching the table, when Hodin opened the last bundle to expose a length of green milkweed, totally out of season. “As a binder and dispersal all in one,” I said, familiar with sympathetic magic.

  “Yes.”

  Hodin’s last word had been wary, and I met his eyes. “My mother is one of the premier spell modifiers in the U.S. I picked up a few things.”

  “Perhaps you’re up to this after all,” he said, a faint respect in his voice. “Mix a pinkie-nail amount of the moonwort, pumpkin oil, and milkweed sap with the ash within in the crucible. With the addition of the beeswax, it will solidify into a matrix suitable to make several candles.”

  He pushed everything at me along with a little wooden spoon, and I cautiously picked it up. Wood? He uses wood? No one uses wood. “Everything is measured with the same spoon?” I said. “Right in the same crucible as the blood? Wow. What do you use to stir it?”

  Hodin looked at me as if I was stupid. “The spoon?” he said, and Bis stifled a giggle.

  I winced. Not ceramic? This guy is really old-school. “Okay, but if you’re using wood, what kind is it? I’d think hickory would be best, seeing as it helps unlock things.”

  Hodin shifted to make the bells on his sash tinkle, his thoughts unknown.

  “Or maybe it doesn’t matter,” I muttered as I used the spoon Hodin had given me, dumping everything in the crucible with my ashed blood and mashing it all up with the beeswax. I really wanted to weigh the chunk out first, but didn’t dare, and when I cut the milkweed and just squeezed several drops in at Hodin’s encouragement, I cringed. This was unconscionably inexact. If it didn’t work, it wouldn’t be my fault.

  “The wick is cotton,” Hodin said, clearly recognizing my unease and apparently taking offense. “Harvested under a full moon and spun by hand before sunrise. Once your substrate is evenly mixed, roll it into a length to apply the wick.”

  “Virgin cotton. Got it. Thank you,” I said. “Don’t you normally make candles by repeated dipping?” I asked, feeling weird as I rolled the wax into a long snake as if it was Play-Doh.

  “Yes,” he said, sounding embarrassed this time. “But for a single use such as this, applying the substrate to the wick is sufficient. Must you question everything?”

  “When I don’t understand what’s going on, I do,” I said, deciding not to ask if me manhandling the wax was going to contaminate it with my aura. It wouldn’t matter if it was my aura we were trying to see, but when I did this for Al, I was going to use a ceramic paddle.

  “You will need six candles,” Hodin said. “All cut from the same length, one for each of the five chakras we are interested in and one for the All.”

  I could almost hear him capitalize his last word, and I was willing to bet the All candle would be going in the center of the pentagon. But then I frowned. How was I supposed to get the wick in the candle?

  Seeing me hesitate, Hodin prompted, “It’s acceptable to simply flatten your substrate, apply the wick, and work it into a cylinder again before you cut the candles from the whole.”

  “Okay.” Rolling my eyes at Bis, I squished my snake flat, pressed the long wick Hodin gave me into it, and folded the soft wax back over it. I felt like a kid as I estimated how long to make each candle, but Hodin seemed to think I was doing okay. “Snips or knife?” I prompted, and Hodin pushed the snips to me.

  His shears were simple and unadorned, more like mine than Al’s overdone extravagance, and I brought them to my nose first, rubbing the metal at the unfamiliar smell. “Pewter?” I asked, and Hodin blinked his red goat-slitted eyes.

  “Ye-e-
e-es,” he said warily.

  “Cool.” I didn’t have pewter snips, but I bet Al did. Lower lip between my teeth, I cut my wax snake into six equal segments. I desperately wanted to ask another question, but didn’t like his increasingly obvious agitation. “I thought there were seven main chakras, not five,” I finally blurted, wincing at Hodin’s expected grimace.

  “There are thousands,” Hodin said. “But we’re interested in five. Forcing someone’s aura to change beyond a safe limit will cause insanity. It’s a weapon.” His eyes came back to mine, black in the dim light. “All our magic is. If Newt had changed your inner shells, you would be insane.” He hesitated. “Are you insane, Rachel?”

  “Depends who you ask,” I said as I pulled the wicks up and tidied the raw ends of the candles. “Okay?” I asked, wincing at my lumpy versions of birthday cake candles.

  “Okay would be the correct word,” Hodin grumped as he handed me his gold scarf.

  “I’ve never had to make my own candles,” I said, embarrassed, as I cleaned my fingers. “It’s easier to buy them,” I added, and Bis giggled like grinding rocks.

  “I’m sure it is.” Clearly miffed, Hodin tugged his sleeves, accidently untying one of the cords holding them back. “Place your unlit candles within the caves created by the inner circle with words of movement. In this case, wind, water, earth, fire, and thought. Be sure to begin at the space to your right, then move to the upper left, the upper right, the lower left, and finally the top cave. This gives a balanced motion. The last is placed in the center with the words simper reformanda for the ever-changing permanence of soul.”

  Now we’re getting somewhere, I thought as I took up my first candle. “Words of movement,” I said as I set the first candle in the open space and did as he asked. I perked up, interest growing as I felt each set candle connect to the ley line, becoming part of the circuit the magic would flow through, becoming part of me until the curse was twisted. Beaming, I looked up, my smile fading when Hodin lifted his eyebrows at my unabashed delight. It was magic, high magic. Why wouldn’t I think it was cool?

  “Light the center All candle with solus ipse,” he directed, and I leaned forward, holding my sleeve out of the way as I pinched the wick and marshaled my thoughts.

  I alone, I thought as I said the Latin and lit the candle with a thread of ley line energy. Nervous, I drew back, and Hodin nodded his approval. The flame wasn’t the usual yellow, but tinted gold from my aura and streaked with red.

  “The next process is important. Attend,” Hodin said, bringing my attention back to him. “Using the All candle, light the bottom right wick with the words hunc effectum.”

  For this purpose, I thought as I did so. He was being devilishly finicky on which one to light first, meaning if I screwed up here, it wouldn’t work. I winced at the spilled wax, but Hodin didn’t seem to care as the new candle sputtered to life.

  “Replace the All candle,” he directed, and I did before I made more of a mess.

  Hodin nodded his approval at the new flame tinted with that same shade of my aura, and I exhaled. “Now use the candle you just lit to light the next,” he said, a hint of what might be respect in his voice. “Upper left. Set it in place with ex animo.”

  From the soul, I thought as I did, hand trembling to spill more wax when the flow of energy seemed to trickle faster through me.

  “And the third with the newest flame with semper idem.”

  Always the same, I echoed in my thoughts, then repeated it in Latin as I lit the third with the flame of the second. The energy flow had become noticeably stronger, and I concentrated on my breathing so Hodin wouldn’t think I was a newbie at this, even if I was.

  “And lastly, with the candle you just lit, kindle the final with a maiore ad minus.”

  The ley line tracing through me glowed, and I felt as if I was breathing out stardust. From greater to smaller, I thought as the last candle lit with that same gold, red, and black tint.

  “Did she do it right?” Bis said, his craggy brow furrowed. But nothing had changed.

  Disappointed, I slumped. “Crap on toast,” I said softly. “They look the same to me.”

  “Of course they do.” Hodin leaned over the table with his chalk and wrote something, his finery looking odd among the construction debris. “You haven’t finished.” He pulled back to show that not only had he written a phrase of Latin, but he’d written it upside down so I could read it properly. “If you will,” he said, tapping it.

  Nervous, I steadied myself. I could feel the line energy passing through me, tingling through my chi and down into the earth through the soles of my boots. Please work, I thought, but it wasn’t a plea to the Goddess. No. Never that. “Obscurum per obscuris,” I said, jerking at the sudden burst of line energy falling to nothing in me.

  “You did it!” Bis all but crowed, and my attention flicked from him back to the table. My lips parted. The candles had moved. They’d just . . . moved. I had set them at the center of the pentagon, but now five of them were outside of it, all arranged in a perfect circle at the points of a pentagram etched in ash that I hadn’t drawn.

  Delighted, I turned to Hodin, seeing his flash of surprise before he hid it. He thought I’d fail? My center candle still stood, now burning with a mundane yellow, but the rest? They’d shifted color. The first was gold, the second a dull red, followed by a faint blue, a silver-tinted green, and, finally, a muddy brown. I had separated my aura into its constituent parts, showing shades that were usually hidden by the dominant colors, like green hides the yellows and oranges of leaves until fall and the chlorophyll dies.

  “Wow,” I said, and Hodin seemed to hold himself straighter.

  “That’s the song your soul now sings,” Bis said, pointing, and the demon nodded.

  “Hodin, that is amazing,” I said as I leaned closer, and he hid a flash of pleasure.

  “Thank you.” Hodin eased back into the couch. “Bis, what do I need to change so you may again pass through Rachel’s circle without breaking it?”

  I sat up straighter as Bis carefully hopped to the overstuffed arm of my chair. Ivy would have his hide for sitting there, digging his claws into the sawdust-laden suede, but we’d have to get a new set anyway. Everything smelled like sweaty Were and wolfsbane beer.

  Bis went quiet, his focus going from the entire spread to the red one. I thought it telling none of them seemed to be being consumed, as tall as they were when we started.

  “Her red is sharper. Not more, just sharper,” he amended when Hodin mouthed a word of Latin and the flame deepened.

  “Better?” Hodin questioned after he whispered something else, pairing it with a ley line gesture. “How is that?”

  Bis bobbed his head, his tail curling over his feet when the red flame reverted back to the original shade, but somehow . . . cleaner looking. “Good,” he said. “Rachel doesn’t have silver in any of her outer shells. Her course is gold, red, blue, purple, and green.”

  Nodding, Hodin whispered a few more words, and my eyes widened as the colors shifted.

  “How come I don’t have any silver in my outer shells?” I said, remembering that both Ivy’s and Trent’s auras had silver sparkles.

  “Because you don’t know the worth of freedom,” Hodin drawled.

  But Trent and Ivy do? I wondered.

  “Rachel’s purple is more greenish, less intense,” Bis directed, distracting me. Lee’s primary color was purple, but it was still embarrassing, seeing as it was symbolic of a hefty ego.

  “Pride is good in moderation. It keeps people from stepping on you before you have the strength to back your voice,” Hodin said, seeing my discomfiture.

  Perhaps, but I still winced as he turned his attention to that candle, muttering phrase after phrase as Bis shook his head, not satisfied until it met some shade I couldn’t see. Slowly I slumped, and Hodin became smug. I could do the
curse all right, but I didn’t have a clue how he was shifting the colors. Damn it, this wasn’t going to help Al at all, and I scowled across the table at Hodin. He’d known it all along.

  “Her green covers a much wider spectrum,” Bis said, and at Hodin’s gesture, the last candle’s color deepened so as to be almost black.

  “Too far.” Bis’s claws deepened their grip until I heard the suede tear, but they eased as did the candle’s tone, and Hodin quit muttering when Bis nodded, his wing knuckles rising high over his head. “Perfect.” The kid grinned at me, his black skin wrinkled in pleasure. “That’s your real soul song, Rachel.”

  “Thanks, Bis,” I said as I offered him my hand and he sidestepped up onto my shoulder to where he felt right.

  “Then let’s see if it takes,” Hodin said, writing a new line of Latin on the slate table again. “If you would?”

  He pointed to the Latin, and I pulled myself straighter, mindful of the ever-shrinking All candle. “Ut omnes unum sint,” I said, silently translating it as They all may be one.

  Both Bis and I jumped as the line energy flashed through us, and then I gasped, tears pricking as every last ley line above the horizon was suddenly ringing in my thoughts.

  “It worked!” I wanted to grab Bis and throw him in the air, or give him a hug, or dance him around the hole in the floor. But I just sat there, touching his feet as tears silently spilled down my face. I had missed it. I had missed it like an arm or leg, and I looked up at Bis when his tail curved around my wrist. An oily tear brimmed and fell from his eye, and I reached up and wiped it dry.

  “Yes, it did,” Hodin said softly, brow furrowed not in puzzlement but maybe in thought.

  Embarrassed, I quickly wiped my face. But he hadn’t noticed my tears, his attention fixed on the pentagram. The lines of ash still showed where the candles had been, but the candles themselves were gone. It was only the central one that remained, the one that had never moved, again burning with my aura’s cheerful gold and red.

  “Blow it out to seal the changes, Rachel,” Hodin prompted, and I touched Bis’s feet.