Chariots of Wrath

by R. L. King

  Inside the circle, a form begins to take shape. Just like in my dream, just like in the original ritual, bits of black and white smoke swirl around, darting up and down like two squirrels chasing each other around a tree trunk.

  My heart pounds harder, and my hand holding the paper shakes. This is the important part—the part where I speak the name, add the blood, and bring the spirit fully into this world from wherever it comes from.

  This is the part where everything went wrong before.

  I can almost feel Twyla’s gaze on me, encouraging, loving, confident. And then, for just a second, I feel another one, just as warm. In my mind’s eye, I picture Mara’s kindly face, her sparkling eyes, her turned-up nose.

  You’ve got this.

  When I speak the spirit’s name, even though my whole body is still shaking, my voice is steady. I boom out the name with a conviction that comes as much from Twyla and Mara as it does from me, and turn the vial upside-down to pour the blood and complete the magical “circuit.”

  Inside the circle, the racing black and white smoke tendrils whirl around each other one last time, and then coalesce into a gray, semi-humanoid figure around four feet tall.

  Slowly it turns until it’s facing me—which is hard to tell because it doesn’t have a face, but only a pair of glittering, bright blue lights that could be eyes. I hold my breath as it regards me for several seconds. Just as I begin to wonder what I’m supposed to do next, it speaks.

  “Yeah? Whaddya want?”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  I almost lose it, right there in the middle of the ritual. I almost burst out laughing. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it was certainly something more—well—momentous than “Whaddya want?”

  “Uh—” I swallow hard, nearly dropping the paper.

  The spirit taps a footlike portion of its lower anatomy. “Come on, sister, I don’t have all day. Ya got questions? Ya get three, standard contract.” It extends another portion, an “arm” this time, and prods idly at the edges of the circle as if testing them for solidity.

  Apparently, our family sources its coming-of-age spirits from the Mystic Dimension of New York Cabdrivers. Who knew?

  “Uh,” I say again. Suddenly my mind’s gone all pinballs and static again, but I shake my head to clear them away. I’ve got the spirit here—I can’t afford to mess up this opportunity.

  “Uh—do you remember the last time I summoned you?”

  “Yep. That’s one.”

  Damn it! Twyla warned me that these spirits were maddeningly literal-minded, and it’s only now that I realize I’d been worrying so much about the ritual itself, I hadn’t given any thought to the actual questions I’d ask.

  Good one, Bron. I hope Twyla can’t actually hear what’s going on. Hell, I hope Nick can’t hear it. He’ll never let me live this down.

  I swallow. “Can you—uh—describe what happened during that ritual, in detail?”

  “Yep, sure can. That’s two! You must be new at this. Better be careful with that last one.”

  The annoying little twerp sounds positively gleeful as I swear under my breath again. I guess it’s got to get its fun from somewhere, but I am not in the mood for its bullshit right now.

  I almost say, will you describe what happened in detail? But I stop myself. Of course its answer will be “Sure I will!” and that will be the end of my questions.

  I can’t say please describe it, either, because that’s not a question. My brain spins its gears as it tries to formulate something that’s both a question and will get me the answer I want. I can almost picture puffs of smoke wafting out of my ears.

  The spirit taps its foot again.

  I wonder how long I have. Can it just up and leave if I can’t come up with a third question in some allotted amount of time, or is it messing with me? Probably best not to take the chance.

  Finally, just as I’m starting to get desperate, the answer locks in. I blurt it out before I can overthink it: “What happened, in detail, during the last ritual I performed five years ago at my family’s circle in New York?”

  There, that should be specific enough he can’t weasel out of it.

  The little spirit almost looks disappointed, but gets over it quickly. It paces around the confines of the circle, rubbing where its chin should be, for about ten seconds. Then it faces me again.

  “Okay, here ya go. You started to summon me. You got the ritual right, and said my name right. Everything was goin’ fine till ya dumped the blood. It wasn’t the right blood. Don’t know what you were tryin’ to pull, but suddenly somethin’ else showed up inside the circle. Somethin’ scary as hell. There was no way that circle was tough enough to contain it. I was kinda hangin’ there, half-summoned, half-not, watchin’ the whole thing. I thought that thing was gonna rip me up like it ripped up that lady who was with ya. You keeled over, which made the circle wink out. Just before I winked out with it, another woman came in and yelled somethin’, and the big spirit stopped tearin’ the lady apart and bugged out.” It nodded, satisfied. “There ya go. That’s three. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I got things to do. Dismiss me and lemme get outta here.”

  “Wait!” I yell, holding up my hands.

  The spirit projected irritation. “Come on, sister. I know you’re new at this, but those are the rules. I answer your three questions, you dismiss me, and we’re done. So get on with the dismissin’.”

  I glare at it. “But you didn’t answer my three questions.”

  “Whaddya mean? Of course I did. I can’t help it if you’re stupid and wasted your first two.”

  I refuse to let it bait me. “I’m not talking about the first two. I’m talking about the third one. I said detail.”

  “I gave you detail!”

  “No, you didn’t. Who was the woman who came in? What did she yell to make the other spirit go away? Where did the other spirit come from? Those are the details I want.”

  I’m not sure how I can tell the spirit is nervous, but I can. “Come on—do it. You said it—that’s the contract. You give me the answer I’m looking for, and I dismiss you.”

  “Look,” it says. “I told you what you wanted to know. The lady who came in was named Selene, but you know that already.”

  “Yeah. I do. But I wanted it confirmed.”

  “I don’t know where the other spirit came from. That’s the truth.”

  This time, I sense it isn’t trying to deceive me. It’s really hard for summoned spirits to lie, as long as you have control over them. So far, I have control over this one. “Tell me what she said to make it go away.”

  Again, it hesitates. It looks around as if it’s expecting something else to show up.

  It’s scared. Realizing that makes me scared too. I look around. I’d started to get more comfortable with what I’m doing, but now my heart’s pounding again. Is that other thing, the one it described, going to show up if I don’t dismiss this spirit and deactivate the circle?

  But I also sense this bit of information is important—maybe the most important thing I’m going to get out of this whole session. “Tell me,” I order. “Then you can go. I promise.”

  The spirit looks over its “shoulder,” then turns back to me. “Okay,” it says under its breath, leaning forward as if sharing a confidence. “Okay. But listen good, ’cuz I’m not gonna repeat it. She said, ‘Begone, spirit, in the name of Razakal.’”

  I stare at it, stunned. “Razakal? Who the hell is that?”

  Now the spirit is even more agitated. Something in the circle is changing, growing darker. “No more questions. Lemme go,” it pleads in a strangled tone. “Lemme go now, or—”

  Inside the circle, another shape begins to take form—dark, multi-limbed, and at least twice the size of the small one, which now looks utterly terrified.

  “Please!” it shrieks.

  My heart is threatening to jump right out of my chest. I want to run, to hide, to get out of the sight of that dark thing before it finishes formi
ng.

  But I don’t do that. “You are dismissed, spirit!” I yell. “Begone!”

  The little spirit disappears, an instant before the larger one swipes an enormous arm through the space where it had been. Then the new one turns its burning, red-eyed gaze on me.

  I don’t think. I can’t. I don’t know how I know, but I do: that thing is what killed Mara, and if I don’t act instantly, it will become fully solid and kill me too, and probably Twyla.

  I don’t have time for elegance. I lunge forward and kick over one of the candles anchoring the circle.

  The last thing I hear before my head lights up with pain and I feel myself toppling sideways is an unearthly yowl of pure frustrated rage.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “Bron?”

  Something prods my cheek, harder than a pat but softer than a slap. I jerk my head to the side, trying to get away from it, but it keeps doing it. My skull feels like somebody buried a meat cleaver in it.

  “Bron?” Another voice. Male this time. “Come on, wake up.”

  I open my eyes, even though I really don’t want to, and make a sound that might be “What—?” but probably isn’t.

  Two faces swirl into focus above me: Twyla and Nick. They both look worried. “Uh…” I manage.

  Twyla sighs in relief. “Thank God. Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

  I put my hand to my head and test it for blood or, you know, meat cleavers. When I find neither, I tentatively sit up, ready to abort the mission if the pain gets worse.

  I’m sitting on the cold warehouse floor, about ten feet away from the circle. Even without magical sight, I can tell it’s dead and inactive. Memories come flooding back of what must have happened.

  Pretty much the first thing they teach you in Circles 101 is that you should never disrupt one. They’re built that way for a reason: to contain whatever magic you’re working with. If you disrupt an active circle, either by removing one of its components or smudging its edges, one of several things can happen, depending on how far along it is: the feedback can give you a splitting headache, knock you out, or even kill you. If you’ve summoned something and it’s fully manifested, it could get loose. Occasionally, things you didn’t summon might come through too. But the bottom line is, nothing good ever comes from disrupting a working circle.

  Except that sometimes, when the ritual is going wrong, it’s the only way to stop it. It’s the magical equivalent of hard-rebooting your computer: whatever happens won’t be good, but in some cases it’s better than what might happen if you don’t do it.

  “You okay?” Twyla asks again.

  “Uh…Yeah. I think so.” I sit up a little more. My head’s still spiking pain, but I think I’ll be okay.

  “Your nose is bleeding.” She pulls a tissue from her purse and presses it into my hand.

  “What happened?” Nick demands. “I couldn’t see much from where I was, but it looked like something went wrong.”

  I blink a couple of times, getting my memories in order. They flood back: my conversation with the spirit, the new thing that appeared, and what the first one told me before I dismissed it. “You didn’t see anything?”

  “Not much. Just some smoke swirling around inside the circle.”

  I look at Twyla. “What about you? What did you see?”

  “Something went wrong,” she says. She looks shell-shocked, and I wonder if I look any better. “Something else started to appear inside the circle, but you broke it before it finished manifesting, and it left. It was pissed, whatever it was. Do you know what it was?”

  I bow my head, staring down into my lap. “I think it was the same thing that showed up…that day.”

  She gasps. “No!”

  “I think so.”

  “Oh, God…if you hadn’t…”

  “Yeah, I know. My headache saved us from being eaten. But Twy—did you hear what we were talking about? Me and the spirit?”

  “No. Nobody else hears the conversation. There’s no real speech, just mental communication. Why? Did it say something? Did you find out anything?”

  I let her and Nick pull me to my feet. The headache’s already beginning to fade; a couple of ibuprofen will probably take care of the rest of it. “First thing: it confirmed our suspicions. Selene was behind what happened. It wasn’t my fault. It said I did everything right.”

  Next to me, Twyla sags a little. “So…she…” Her voice catches and she can’t finish.

  I grip her arm. “Yeah. I’m sorry, Twy. I mean, I’m not sorry to find out you were right and I didn’t screw up the ritual, but I am sorry about Selene.”

  She nods without looking at me. “What…else did it say?”

  “That after I passed out, after…what happened…Selene came into the room and dismissed it. That’s why it didn’t rip me to shreds, or get out and attack anybody else.”

  “She dismissed it?” Twyla’s expression hardens. “So she had control over it all the time.”

  “Yeah, looks that way.” More memories come back. “Twy—have you ever heard the name ‘Razakal’?”

  She frowns. “No. Who’s that?”

  “That’s what the spirit said. That’s how Selene got rid of the thing. ‘Begone, spirit, in the name of Razakal.’” I pull out my little notebook and write it down so I won’t forget it. I have no idea if I’m spelling it correctly, so I settle for writing it phonetically. Roz-uh-call.

  “Is that its name?” Nick asks. “The bad spirit?”

  Twyla’s staring at me like she’s not quite seeing me properly. “That’s what Selene said to dismiss it?”

  “Yeah. Do you know who that is?”

  “I’ve never heard the name before. I take it you haven’t either?”

  “Nope. Never.”

  “Wait,” Nick says. “So, if that’s its name, does that mean you can summon it yourself? Tell it to go away and leave you the hell alone?”

  Both Twyla and I shake our heads. “That’s not its name,” I say. “If Selene banished the spirit in that name, it means that’s the one who has true power over it.”

  “So she’s working with this Razakal guy?”

  “Yeah, looks that way. With him or for him. It sounds like we need to call Nana and ask her about this.”

  Before we can do anything else, Nick’s phone buzzes. He holds up a hand and pulls it out of his pocket. When he spots the name on the screen, he tenses. “Hey, Grandfather. What’s up?”

  Idly, I’m amused that despite his usual casualness, he never calls Happenstance “Grandpa.” It’s always “Grandfather,” like he’s on an old episode of Kung Fu or something.

  He listens a moment, then says, “Okay. Yeah. We’ll be there. See you soon.”

  “What is it?” I ask as he puts the phone away. “What did he want?”

  “He wants to see us. He says he got some information, and we need to talk.”

  “Now?”

  “It’s probably not a good idea to keep him waiting, yeah.”

  None of us say much on the way over to the same restaurant where we met with Happenstance last night. We’re all lost in our own thoughts, and I don’t want to call Nana while sitting in a car and nursing a throbbing headache. Fortunately it didn’t take long to clean up the ritual circle, since the pain made it hard to stay focused even without Nick pacing around like an impatient toddler who needs a bathroom.

  When we arrive at the restaurant Happenstance is already there, sitting at the same table as last night with a drink in front of him. Max is there too.

  “Please, sit down,” Happenstance says. “Would anyone like a drink?”

  Nick almost looks like he’s ready to take him up on it, but shakes his head.

  “I’ll take some painkillers, if you’ve got any,” I say. My head’s improved, but it’s still pounding.

  Max goes to the bar and returns with a bottle of Advil and a glass of water. I toss back three and nod thanks. “So, what did you find out?” It’s probably breaking some unwritten pro
tocol to be this abrupt, but right now my fuck reservoir is bone dry.

  He doesn’t seem to mind. In fact, he seems unusually preoccupied. “Unfortunately, my people weren’t able to track the Tarot card back to its source. I suspected that, so it didn’t surprise me. However, I also put out some discreet feelers to locate the other man who attacked you—the one with the tattoo.”

  “Did you find him?” Nick asks.

  “Yes. His name is Guillermo Torres, and he’s a member of the Third Street Diablos.”

  “I’m guessing that’s not a bowling team,” I say.

  “It’s a gang. And more to the point, it’s a gang affiliated with the Skellig organization.”

  “That’s…not good,” Nick says. “You think the Skelligs sent him after us?”

  Happenstance leans back and sips his drink, still looking pensive. “That’s where things get a bit more interesting. We picked up Mr. Torres and questioned him rather extensively last night.”

  “You tortured him?” I demand.

  He waves me off. “No, no. We don’t deal in torture. We don’t need to. Alchemy and illusion are much more effective.”

  “Wait, there are truth potions?” Nick asks, fascinated.

  “Not per se, but even the mundanes have concoctions that make the subject more inclined to speak the truth. Our alchemists have improved on the concept.”

  “Anyway,” I interrupt, “this lesson on magical capabilities is great and all, but can we maybe get to the point?”

  Once again, Happenstance doesn’t seem perturbed by my bluntness. “Yes, of course. The point is that after we completed thorough questioning, I’m convinced that Mr. Torres’s attack had nothing to do with the Skelligs.”

  “What? How can that be? You said he was—” I trail off when another idea derails my train of thought. “Hold on. So Torres, who’s in a gang associated with the Skelligs, attacks me and Nick along with my friend who was visiting DeVries—the same guy who was murdered with a Tarot card from your club stuffed in his mouth.”