Unleashed (13 page)
Authors: John Levitt
“Yours, I assume?”
“Remember your vision where I was with something like a dog, but not quite? Well, you were right. This is Lou. Lou, this is Morgan. Say hello.”
Lou sat down and offered a paw in the standard doggy-shake fashion. She reached down to take it, and at the last moment he whipped it away and gave a short bark.
“Psych!” I said.
“Well, that’s just rude,” she said, laughing. “I suppose you taught him that.”
“Not at all. He has his own sense of humor, and the canine variety can be rather juvenile.” Lou walked back to her and offered a paw again.
“This is like Charlie Brown and the football, isn’t it?” she said.
“No, he’s apologizing.”
She reached down again and this time he gravely accepted her hand. Then he jumped up in my lap, curled up, and pretended to go to sleep. All of this had a purpose, of course. Not only did it humanize me and ease the tension, but the byplay would get her mind off any suspicions she might be having. Small, friendly dogs are so reassuring.
We looked at each other over the table for just long enough for it to start feeling uncomfortable. She took a sip of her coffee and made a face.
“For what they charge for espresso at these places, you’d think they might do better.” She emptied a packet of sugar into the coffee and tried again. “Worse,” she said. “So what happened to you? And why did you go up there the very next day? Did you want to see if I perhaps was a fraud? That’s a long ways to go just to out me as a fake psychic.”
“Not at all. I didn’t doubt you for a moment. But I’ve been looking for something, something odd. I didn’t know where it was, but your warning at least pointed me in the right direction.”
“Well, that’s ironic.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
“Did you find what you were looking for?” She took another delicate sip of espresso and her hand trembled slightly. “What I saw made me nervous. I wouldn’t have gone up there myself. I did warn you, you know.”
“I’m afraid I had to. It was something that needed checking out.”
She leaned forward, putting her cup down with a clink. “And that’s the whole point, isn’t it? What exactly was it, and who are you, anyway? And what do you want from me?”
This was the tricky part. Usually I don’t tell nonpractitioners anything about the world of practitioners, or about my talents. I prefer they think of me as nothing more than a guitar player, which is what I am, really. There’s no rule about telling civilians, and sometimes it works out fine—look at Victor and Timothy.
But there’s a certain reluctance, as if the whole thing is just a bit unseemly. Mostly people don’t believe you anyway. Even a slight demonstration isn’t enough to convince hard-core skeptics—they’d rather deny the evidence of their own eyes than change their comfortable view of the universe.
Morgan might be different, though. She obviously had psychic ability—she’d not only known about Lou ahead of meeting him; she had guided me to the exact place where the Wendigo had taken up residence, and had felt its disturbing presence. Accepting that there might be others with unusual powers shouldn’t be that much of a leap for her.
“Well, first of all, you know I’m a jazz musician,” I said, treading carefully. “But there’s another side to me. You’re a psychic—and thanks for the warning, by the way. I’m a—well, let’s just say that I possess certain powers of my own.” She looked skeptical.
“Such as?”
“It might be easier to show you,” I said. “Lou?” His ears pricked up. “Up on the table.”
He uncurled himself from my lap and stepped delicately onto the tabletop, being careful not to spill any coffee. He sat there stoically. He doesn’t much care for being put on display.
I glanced around to make sure no one was paying attention. Doing magic in public is frowned upon, at least by Victor. It obviously could lead to complications. But if anyone noticed my little demonstration, they’d just think they were seeing things and needed to get their eyes checked.
I spotted a woman walking across the street with a cocker spaniel. Every time it stopped and tried to sniff at something she would impatiently pull on its leash. This would be easy—not spectacular, but simple. I reached out, took the spaniel essence, and let it flow into Lou.
This kind of spell is easy. A static spell, one where you change something’s appearance and it stays that way for an extended period, does take some energy. But a fluid spell, one where you basically act as a conduit so the spell lasts only as long as you pay attention and keep the flow going, takes very little effort.
Lou’s coat changed from his normal black and tan into a mottled brown and white, thick and furry. His ears grew long and floppy, his muzzle squared off, and he put on a few pounds as well. In five seconds he’d been transformed into a friendly, smiling cocker spaniel.
Morgan stared at him in disbelief and put out a tentative hand to see if he was real. Then she pulled it back. She wasn’t sure she wanted to touch him. If she had, she would have felt a short coat and a sharp muzzle; I hadn’t gone to the trouble of making a tactile illusion as well—those are tricky and there wasn’t any point.
“Holy crap,” she said. “How did you do that?”
“Just an illusion.” I stopped the energy flow and Lou reverted back to his original form. “That’s just a parlor trick. But there are other, more serious things I can do.”
“Like what?”
“That vision of me you had? I was hunting down something that shouldn’t be in this world at all. I found it, but that didn’t go well. This time we’re prepared and I need your help to find it again.”
“We?”
“I have friends.”
“Friends like you?”
“Sort of.”
She digested this awhile. So far, things were going well. She hadn’t broken out in a cold sweat and quickly departed. Lots of people would have. The next step was more difficult. Would she accept me or fixate on the apparent supernatural? Ordinary citizens can go one of three ways. Morgan wasn’t quite in that category, but she was close.
One, remain skeptical, and insist it’s all some kind of trick. Another is to believe, and get the hell out of there as fast as possible. A third is to become so enamored with the whole concept of magic being real that they can think of nothing else.
If you build up a relationship with a nonpractitioner before you spring it on them, it usually works out okay. They know you, so they’re not as freaked out or blinded by what they see. But if you have just met someone, who you are gets lost in what you can do.
“So, what is it exactly you want me to do?” she finally asked. Her voice was steady, but she wasn’t nearly as calm as she was pretending to be. Nobody could be, not after something so flat-out weird had been sprung on them.
“Do another reading for me,” I said. “Maybe you’ll see me again, somewhere different. I think the nature of what I’m looking for will make it easier for you to see when we intersect.”
“That might be difficult right now. I need to be centered in order to get anything, and right now my psyche feels like it’s been scattered into little pieces.”
“Have another espresso,” I said. “That always calms my nerves.”
She smiled, but it was strained. I gave Lou another slight nod and he walked over and put one paw on her knee. She automatically put a hand down to ruffle his head, and when she did he rubbed against her calf like a cat. She smiled again, and this time the smile was real. Lou and I make a great team at running cons, even if they’re for a good purpose.
“Want to at least give it a try?” I said, holding out my hands.
Morgan took both of them in hers, just like before. She closed her eyes and breathed in, then half out, just like before. This time, though, there was no dramatic conclusion. She simply sat there, breathing evenly for a couple of minutes, before opening her eyes and releasing my hands. She shook her head with a quick back-and-forth motion.
“Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t get anything this time.”
“Nothing?” I had been counting on at least something.
“Just some images. The only thing I could recognize was the Golden Gate Bridge, for what that might be worth.”
“Could you tell which side?”
“This side, I think. It was close to the tower, and I could see sunlight just hitting the top of the tower, so it must have been late afternoon.”
“And could you feel the presence of . . . well, whatever it is?” She shook her head again, slowly this time.
“No, just the bridge and you. There might have been other people with you.” That wasn’t much help.
“Well, it’s better than nothing,” I said. “I appreciate the effort.”
“Anytime.” She got up from the table and pushed the chair back in.
“I’ll give you a call if anything else comes up,” I said. “Or call me if there’s anything I can do for you.” I wrote my number on a napkin and handed it to her. “Or for any reason.”
Lou hopped into my lap and looked up appealingly at her. He makes a great wingman. Or wingdog.
“Sure,” she said, smiling more at him than at me. “Why not?”
SIX
NEXT MORNING I DUMPED ALL THE STONES into the original black-and-white messenger bag they’d come in. Lou looked on approvingly until I took a bunch of them back out, wrapped them in a piece of silk, and put them back in my trunk. When we left the flat, he stalked out ahead of me, stiff-legged and disapproving.
Half an hour later I walked into the study with the distinctive-patterned bag slung over one shoulder. Eli looked at the bag with frank curiosity, while Victor barely looked up from his seat behind his desk. Lou stayed a good distance away from me, and as soon as we entered the study he trotted over to the far wall, as far away from those things as he could get. He didn’t like anything about those rune stones, not one bit. If he could talk, he would have ratted me out for still holding some of them back, I’m sure.
I spilled them out dramatically on top of Victor’s desk, marring the pristine finish. Victor abandoned his casual demeanor as they cascaded past him. Usually he would have been pissed at my cavalier treatment of his precious desk, but in truth he was too awed by the aura of power emanating from them to do anything but gawk at that pile of ancient bones.
Maggie had been curled up under the desk, but when I dumped them out, she shot out of there like her tail was on fire. She ended up next to Lou, and they stared at me with both canine and feline disapproval. The feline variety was a lot more obvious, complete with lashing tail.
Eli bent over to examine the stones. He picked up one and gingerly held it between his fingers, where it glowed softly like a dying firefly.
“I had no idea,” he said, after a moment.
“Yeah,” I said. “They’re special all right.”
“You really shouldn’t have kept these.”
“I know,” I said. I tried to keep my voice neutral, but Eli was good at reading me. For a moment I thought he was going to pursue the matter, but finally he shrugged and placed the stone back into the pile.
“Well, you never know about these things. Maybe it was just as well you did keep them.”
“Do you think these are enough to do the trick?” I asked. Victor had quickly overcome his initial sense of awe and was examining one particular stone that was slightly larger than the rest.
“With this kind of firepower?” he said. “If they don’t, we’re in trouble. These stones are the magical equivalent of RPGs.”
“But we still have to figure out how to harness the power, and what kind of trap to set up,” Eli said, “so we might as well get started.”
Victor opened his safe and hauled out an impressive array of magical props—powders, a copper bar, shavings of various other metals, a few bottles of liquids, a twelve-volt battery, and as always, salt.
“What are you trying to do?” I asked. “Build something that can trap and hold it?”
“Building a cage will be comparatively easy,” said Victor. “Getting it into the cage might be another matter.”
“Then what? Why would it help us?”
“We can bargain. If that doesn’t work, there’s always Bertram.”
“No,” said Eli. “That’s not a good idea.”
“He’s effective. He can be very persuasive.”
“Doesn’t make it right.”
“Why not? This Wendigo is a monster, after all.”
“We don’t know that. And no, we’re not using Bertram. End of discussion.”
Eli doesn’t say things like that very often, but when he does there’s no arguing. Victor shrugged and turned away. I was just as glad we weren’t calling on Bertram for help—his methods were unpleasant in the extreme, and he enjoyed using them.
Eli returned his attention to the large tattered book he was thumbing through, the kind of book you usually see in the rare-book room at the library or in specialty book-stores.
“We’ll need to find a way to compel it to enter. Ironic, is it not, considering how it operates?”
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