by John Levitt
I didn’t leave the house, barely ate, and didn’t sleep much. Whenever I’d heard about an Ifrit who disappeared, I’d always assumed there must have been something off about the practitioner. Never in my darkest moments did I dream it could happen to me. Probably a form of denial and self-protection. But maybe I was partly to blame. Maybe there is something not quite right about me. After all, I don’t have a lot of friends and haven’t had much success at keeping a girlfriend, either.
Eli and Victor spent a day restoring the wards around my flat, making them stronger than ever. If Christoph could break through them now, there wasn’t much help for any of us. Even the thought of Victor pulling my chestnuts out of the fire again didn’t bother me. That’s how low I felt.
I made a few halfhearted attempts to locate Lou, but it was like he had vanished off the face of the earth. Considering that he was an Ifrit, he probably had.
The only person I talked to was Eli, who told me things were on hold. Christoph had gone to ground and hadn’t surfaced. Sherwood was a virtual prisoner at Victor’s, afraid to even go to the store until Christoph was located. At least Campbell was out of harm’s way back home in Soda Springs. Eli and Victor were doing everything they could to track Christoph down, spending every minute on it. They were getting close, Eli said, but so far, no luck. I should have felt guilty that I wasn’t doing anything to help, but I didn’t. As far as Christoph went, I could care less. I didn’t even care about revenge. As long as he left me alone I wasn’t interested in his power-and-money drama. Eli didn’t push me about it; he tried instead to keep my spirits up.
“Lou will come back,” he said. “True, other Ifrits haven’t, but they weren’t Louie. He’s different, even for an Ifrit. I don’t know what is going on with him, but he will return. Count on it.”
I don’t know if he really believed that or if he was just trying to keep me functional until I could deal with the truth. In any case, there wasn’t anything I could do about the situation. If Lou was gone, he was gone. I’d just have to live with it. It’s not like he owed me anything. And after all, he was just a dog. Sort of.
I couldn’t muster enough interest to hustle up the gigs that provide me with a living, although at some point I’d have to. Mostly I worked on guitar stuff, since it was about the only thing I could still manage. I told myself I was woodshedding, sharpening up my chops, but I knew better. When I found myself experimenting with exotic tunings, churning out what could only be described as New Age music, I knew I was in trouble.
When the knock sounded at my front door, I didn’t answer. There wasn’t anyone I wanted to see, and if it turned out to be yet another earnest young person collecting money to save the trees, I was afraid of what I might do. Unfortunately, whoever it was refused to accept silence as a legitimate response. More knocks, more insistent. More silence. Still more knocks, threatening to turn into pounding. I gave a theatrical sigh, wasted of course since I was alone, dragged myself over, and opened the door.
Campbell.
I gawked. If only I’d been hip enough to come up with a suave and clever greeting, some throwaway line that would show me as the smooth, cool, and self-possessed individual I know myself to be. At least I didn’t burst into tears.
“What are you doing here?” I finally managed. She reached out a hand and touched my cheek. The concern on her face embarrassed me.
“Victor called me,” she said.
She looked windburned, strong, fit, and disgustingly healthy. She’d cut her hair shorter, but it was still weather-streaked and tangled. All my life I’d been attracted to sensitive, waiflike women, and now that I’d found someone I really liked, she was a goddamned Valkyrie. I stepped aside and she walked past me into the front room, dumping the backpack she was carrying onto the floor. She regarded me critically, reached out, and smoothed away the dark hair hanging over my face.
“You don’t look so great,” she said.
That’s not really what you want to hear from a prospective girlfriend, especially one glowing with health and energy, but I was past caring.
“I know,” was all I said. She glanced around the apartment.
“So, what happened to Louie?” she asked, direct as usual.
“Gone.”
“Gone? What do you mean, gone?”
I had a moment of déjà vu; it was my exact conversation with Sandra, but now I was on the other end.
“You know, gone. As in not here anymore. He disappeared a week ago. Haven’t seen him since.”
She looked at me oddly. “Have you looked for him?”
Campbell didn’t understand that when an Ifrit decides to leave, there’s nothing to be done about it. It’s not like Lou was a dog, after all.
“There’s not much point,” I explained patiently. “Sometimes Ifrits leave, and when they do, they don’t come back. If you were a practitioner you’d understand. It’s harsh, but sometimes that’s the way life is.”
“Really.”
“Really.”
She walked slowly around, peering at the dirty dishes and unmade bed.
“So he just decided to take off, permanently?”
“Apparently.”
“How do you know that?”
“Well, he’s no longer here, is he?” I said, rather annoyed, not catching her drift. Campbell shook her head impatiently.
“No, I mean, how do you know that it was his decision? What if he couldn’t get back to you? What if he’s lost? What if he’s in trouble?”
I started to explain why that scenario was so unlikely when I realized it was something I’d never considered. Nor had Eli. Even with the whole Christoph situation, we were both so steeped in Ifrit lore, so used to tales where Ifrits inexplicably severed their bond with a practitioner, that it hadn’t occurred to either of us there might be another explanation. Campbell was enough of an outsider so that it was the first thing that crossed her mind.
“I never thought of that,” I admitted slowly. Campbell looked at me in complete disbelief.
“You never thought of that?”
This reunion wasn’t going as well as it might. In less than a minute, I’d shown myself to be either totally uncaring or incredibly stupid, two attributes unlikely to elicit admiration and love. She bored in remorselessly.
“If you failed to come home one day, what do you suppose Louie would have done? Sat around moping? Shrugged his shoulders and thought, ‘Oh well’? Or, just maybe, just possibly, gone out looking for you?”
A cold knot started to form in my stomach. What if she were right? Could I have been sitting here feeling sorry for myself while Lou was trapped somewhere, confidently awaiting my help?
“Okay,” I said, “I get your point. But it’s not that simple.” I clung desperately to my belief Lou had left voluntarily. Better to believe that he had abandoned me than that I had abandoned him.
“Ifrits sometimes leave,” I continued stubbornly. “It’s a fact, and it never occurred to me that this might be anything different. It still seems unlikely. And on top of that, I wouldn’t have a clue as to where to start. I’m not real good at tracing things; I relied on Lou for that. And even if I were, finding an Ifrit who doesn’t want to be found is close to impossible.”
Campbell threw off some of the clothes scattered on the bed and sat down wearily. She unlaced her boots and pulled them off, using the toe of one foot on the heel of the other. Then she tucked her feet beneath her and sat quietly, mulling over what I’d said.
“I don’t suppose you have any tea?” she asked suddenly, veering off subject.
“I think I’ve got some Earl Grey. Just tea bags, though.”
At the mention of tea bags, a shadow of disappointment flitted over her face, but she smiled and said, “That would be great.”
I busied myself putting a kettle on the stove and searching through the cupboard for the tea I was pretty sure was there. Campbell had dragged her backpack across the floor and started unloading things onto the bed, muttering as
she searched for something specific. I glanced over and saw various packets of differing sizes, some made of cloth and tied with twine, some apparently consisting of large leaves folded over and sealed with wax.
I finally found some ancient tea bags, rinsed out a couple of mugs, and poured in boiling water. By the time I’d carried them over to the bed, she had unwrapped a couple of the packages and pulled out some unfamiliar spiky plants and what looked to be a mutant thistle.
“Plants,” she explained unnecessarily, taking the proffered cup of tea. She took a small sip and carefully placed the cup on the crowded bedside table. “Have you got any modeling clay around, or Play-Doh, or anything like that?”
“I doubt it. What, are you going to make a voodoo effigy of me? I didn’t know you had turned to the dark side.” My tone was light, but I was only half-kidding. Campbell gave me an impatient look.
“Don’t joke about that. This is closer to dark magic than I’m comfortable with. And yes, I’m going to make an effigy, but not of you, idiot. Of Louie.” She glanced around at the clutter in the apartment. “And I’m going to need something of his. Maybe some hair?”
“For the effigy? Why?”
“Why do you think? To locate him, of course.” She gestured toward the packets laid out on the bed. “This stuff will do the trick, I think.”
“Sorry,” I said. “I’m not getting it.”
“You said that you’re not very good at locating things, remember? Well, I am. With this soil—and don’t ask me where it’s from—and a couple of these plants, I can whip up something that will show us exactly where he is.”
“Great,” I said, trying not to sound skeptical. I’d seen her do some impressive healing, of course, but this was a different type of thing, a whole other level. And finding an Ifrit isn’t much like finding a person. Ifrits are notoriously hard to get a handle on. They’re not exactly immune to magic, but it does seem to slip off of them. Or maybe my skepticism was nothing more than misplaced pride. Since I didn’t have the ability myself to find Lou, maybe I didn’t think it possible that Campbell could.
“I’ll need some kind of clay, or something that I can make a model out of,” she continued. “And some pipe cleaners or twigs to make an armature.”
“I can’t think of anything,” I said. A thought struck me. “I’ve got some cookie dough in the fridge. Would cookie dough work?”
“You eat cookie dough?”
Again, not the suave and manly image you want to project to a potential girlfriend. “Only when I’m depressed,” I said defensively.
Not exactly an improvement. Campbell smirked, something I’d never seen her do. Maybe I just hadn’t given her sufficient reason before.
“That might work,” she said, getting off the bed and opening the refrigerator. “Can you find me something to make a framework with, and some of his hair?”
I went through various bureau drawers until I found a pack of pipe cleaners left over from a long gone and unsuccessful attempt to switch from cigarettes to a pipe before I finally shook the tobacco habit for good. The hair thing was easy, since I hadn’t vacuumed the place in a month.
Campbell had found the cookie dough—chocolate chip—and was busy kneading some of it into a gluey ball. She broke off a small piece and popped it into her mouth. Contentment spread over her face.
“Nothing like lab chemicals and artificial flavoring for true gratification,” she said, rolling the rest of the dough between her palms. She added some of the dirt from one packet, a spiky leaf from another, and two small purplish leaves from a third. She chose a few wisps of dog hair from what I’d collected and, after mixing everything thoroughly, she set the dough aside and picked up the pipe cleaners, twisting them into a four-legged stick figure. Then she molded the dough around the framework until there was something that might have been a miniature dog, if done by a second-grader with minimal artistic ability. I was not dazzled. Campbell, however, looked well pleased. She cupped her hand over the figurine and intoned:
Lost in distance, lost in sleep
Lost in sorrow, sharp and deep
Seek the way through flesh and bone
Seek the path to hearth and home.
She breathed over her cupped hands and a burst of energy rolled off her and into the little figure. Magical operations are entirely about accessing and manipulating energy, and a reliance on clay, herbs, and second-rate poetry seems feeble. Still, Campbell had healed Lou when I could not, and she had used much the same type of ritual. There was no denying she got results.
I’m not sure what I expected, but the results were disappointing however you looked at it. Campbell uncupped her hands, revealing a lumpy and forlorn figurine of cookie dough that might or might not have represented a dog. She had put little chocolate chips in the head to indicate eyes, but about all that accomplished was to show which end was the head. The energy she’d thrown in was almost unnoticeable, barely glimmering around the edges. I tried to keep a neutral demeanor, but Campbell knew what I was thinking.
“Not very impressive, is it?” she said cheerfully.
I didn’t say anything, just made a back-and-forth head-and-shoulder bob that could have meant anything.
“Yeah, I know,” she said, “but now it’s your turn.”
“My turn to…?”
“You’re the one who has to animate it. You’re the one who’s connected to Louie, and besides, I don’t have that kind of ability. And you can’t just make it move; you have to imbue it with some sort of real life.”
“Right. Creation. No problem. And then what?”
She shrugged. “Frankly, I don’t know. I know it will work, but I don’t know exactly how.”
“Oh.”
“Or, we could just give up without trying.”
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Animating a small manikin—or in this case, a dogikin—is not an especially difficult task, but infusing it with a life force certainly is. That approaches actual creation, a very different matter than fabricating a simple toy that can move around on its own. In fact, true creation involves powers well beyond most practitioners, and certainly beyond my own.
Even a pale imitation of true life force might be beyond my abilities, but at least I could try. It did help that for once I had the luxury of time for some thought and planning. Most of the time when I have to use my talent I’m in crisis mode and I just wing it the best I can.
I flipped through my CDs looking for something appropriate, something with the energy of heavy metal but with a sweet and spiritual side as well. Not many choices there. I settled on Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme” and turned up the volume. As the first strains of the tenor sax floated over McCoy Tyner’s piano chords, I opened the back window to let in some air. A slight breeze flowed in, bringing with it a fresh scent from the urban garden that sits right outside the back door. A line of sugar ants streamed unhurriedly through a crack in the corner of a baseboard. I could feel electricity coursing through the ancient wiring of the house. Still not enough.
“I’m going to need to use some of your energy to pull this off,” I said apologetically to Campbell. “It might make you slightly tired.”
“Be my guest,” she invited.
Since Campbell and I had slept together, it was a lot easier for me to access her than it would normally be. I reached into her, finding a life force blazing with enough light to make me feel pale and wan in comparison. I took the small amount I needed, wrapped it up with Coltrane’s soaring melodies and the smell of good earth from the garden, added the crackling electricity, and finished it off with the blind survival urge of the mindless sugar ants. Not a bad job, if I do say so myself. I gathered my strength and cast it all into the pathetic cookie dough puppet. Campbell dropped onto the bed, knees suddenly weak.
For half a beat, nothing happened. Then the figure started to glow and, a second later, began to mold itself into a new shape. Slowly, the image of a real dog emerged. Black, w
ith a tan chest patch, tan spots over the eyes, tan paws, and a sharp muzzle. Like a miniature Doberman with uncropped ears and tail. In short, Lou. Of course, although Lou himself is hardly a foot high, this was truly a toy dog. More like two inches. The dog puppet looked around, gave a sharp yelp that sounded more like a mouse’s squeak than a dog’s bark, and sat up in that familiar begging position Lou uses for all sorts of situations. This tiny imitation Lou was simultaneously heartbreaking and creepy beyond telling. It then wagged its miniature tail and scampered over to the door, scratching to go out.
“Should we let it out?” asked Campbell.
“You tell me. It’s your creation.”
She nodded. “I think so. I think it wants us to follow it.”
I thought about what it would be like following an animated dog puppet the size of a mouse through the city streets. Even in San Francisco, that would make people look twice.
“Look,” I said, “even if this is going to work, I doubt that Lou’s lolling around somewhere down the block. What if he’s hundreds of miles away? Or in another dimension, for that matter? How are we going to follow this thing?”
“I don’t know,” Campbell said. “Do we have any choice?”
I looked out the front window. It was getting dark, and before long it would be getting cold. I grabbed my leather jacket, which was draped over the back of a wooden chair.
“Well, let’s go,” I said.
Thirteen
As soon as I opened the door, the dog ran down the driveway and stopped in front of the van. Unless Lou was hiding under the backseat, it looked like we were going to be taking a trip. I opened the driver’s side door and it launched itself heroically through the air, barely making it onto the floor of the van. It scrambled up the seat like a berserk rodent and then clambered up onto the dashboard. Once there, it sat expectantly and stared out the windshield.
“I take it we’re going for a drive,” Campbell said.
It wasn’t as hard following the silent directions as I thought it would be. The dog sat motionless like a bobble-head doll, nose swiveling in whatever direction it wanted us to go. It was almost like steering to a compass. We sped through city streets, cut through Golden Gate Park, and before I knew it we were crossing the Golden Gate Bridge. I guessed we’d be traveling north up Highway 1 but the dog’s head pointed us to the first exit after the bridge. We headed west along the coast, the road twisting and turning. By now it was dusk, and the lights of San Francisco blinked in and out of view like the magical city of Oz as the fog crept in from the ocean and obscured our view. My interest sharpened as I realized we were traveling the road that ended at the Point Bonita Lighthouse. I’d actually been out there once before on a day outing with a woman I’d been dating, but it wasn’t the lighthouse that excited me. The road dead-ended at Point Bonita, which meant we weren’t going to be traveling hundreds of miles after all. In a short while we would be at the end of the road, and there wasn’t anywhere else to go after that except to the lighthouse.
