by John Levitt
I unhooked the padlock, pulled the chain free, and swung the gate open. If Rolf was surprised to see Campbell with me, he didn’t show it. He beckoned to us and led the way to a familiar area. We were right under an access ramp to the Bay Bridge at the base of the massive concrete pylons that supported it. The sound of traffic far above us was surprisingly loud.
I had no idea what he wanted to show me, and I wasn’t sure what he expected me to do about it in any case. My strength is improvisational magic—I use my talent to pull together various threads gathered from the environment around me and weave them into useful spells. Much like the way I compose jazz tunes and play solos.
But as far as understanding things or investigating odd occurrences goes, I’m not the best choice. Victor is far better at that sort of thing, and so is Eli for that matter, despite his relative lack of intrinsic talent. But at least I could report back to them if there was anything worth reporting.
And there was. A faint glow was coming from the site of the area of the original ritual that had called up the beast we had been hunting. As we got closer, I saw what was causing it: an area about five feet across. A whirlpool of smooth swirling colors, one-dimensional, flat against the ground, but hinting at depths like a pool of water. The colors were separated into discrete bands of different widths, but they blended into each other at the edges and each band slowly changed color as I watched.
The colors moved with a slow, pulsating, hypnotic motion. The whole thing reminded me of the pattern I had seen while looking into certain jewels I once had the misfortune to find.
Lou walked up and stared into the center of the pattern with an intense yet curiously detached interest. That wasn’t like him; he was usually all for something or all against it. There are few shades of gray in his world. Campbell came up and stood beside me.
“What is Lou so interested in?” she said. That surprised me. Campbell isn’t technically a practitioner, but she does have talent. She wouldn’t be the healer she is if she didn’t.
“You don’t see it?” I asked.
“See what?”
Rolf chuckled, although his voice was starting to slur as it sometimes did so it sounded more like a gargle.
“She can’t see it,” he said. “Just about no one can, except me and those like me. Even practitioners.” He pointed down at Lou. “And him, of course. He’s an Ifrit, after all.”
“I can see it,” I said. “Why is that? What is it, anyway?”
“I figured you might be able to see it, ’cause you were here when it was made. You helped, remember.” Indeed I did. “There might even be a little bit of you in there.”
Half the time I had no idea what Rolf was talking about. I bent down closer to the swirl. Raw power was coming off it, wild talent. The only other time I’d felt something like this was in the tunnels by the Sutro caves.
“You might want to take care,” Rolf said. “I don’t think touching it would be a good idea.”
I appreciated the warning, but it wasn’t needed. He might as well have been a shop foreman telling me, “I wouldn’t stick my hand in that circular saw if I was you.”
Lou was still staring intently, motionless. His eyes had gone vacant and were starting to take on a glazed expression. The edges of his fur were beginning to glow, ever so slightly,
“Lou,” I said. “Back off.”
He ignored me. I don’t think he even heard me. I reached over and grabbed him by the collar, which I make him wear for just such situations. He gave a start, as if I’d rudely woken him from a nap, shook himself, and rapidly backed away from the lip of the swirling pattern.
“What the hell is this thing?” I asked Rolf.
“It’s the energy pool,” he said. “You remember; what that creature came out of? It was small at first. I never even noticed it; I thought it had gone, but it never went away. I think that has something to do with those stones you gave me. They had a lot of magic in them, and I think the power they contained may have caused the pool to become self-sustaining. After you left that night, after the fake Ifrit we called up ran off, it started growing. And then something else came out of it.”
“Like the first creature?”
He shook his head.
“No, something else. I didn’t get a good look at it, but it made me nervous.”
“I didn’t think there was anything that made you nervous,” I said.
“There’s not too much. Not anymore. But this was . . . well, different.”
Campbell had been listening intently, at the same time scanning the ground, hoping at least to catch a glimpse of what we were talking about.
“How long ago was this?” she asked. Rolf looked momentarily baffled. I don’t think he had much of a sense of time.
“A few months ago,” I put in, helping him out. “About the same time as all that other stuff.” She stared at him, quizzically.
“And you’re just now getting around to telling someone about it?”
She spoke in a gently reproving manner, something I wouldn’t have wanted to try myself. Rolf wasn’t entirely human, not anymore, and I was always leery of pissing him off, which isn’t difficult to do. But Campbell, for some reason, seemed to have a different effect on him. He shrugged, but at the same time shuffled his feet in embarrassment.
“I didn’t think much about it,” he said. “It wasn’t doing anything to me. Live and let live is my motto. But a few days ago I was over in Marin with Richard. Richard Cory.” He turned to me. “You remember him, right?
I did. Richard was one of Rolf’s circle, a man who had gone so far along that same strange path that he was now a walking embodiment of what used to be called the fey. He made me extremely nervous, and Lou even more so.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Well, we were out at the Marin Headlands—”
“What were you doing out there?” I asked.
Rolf stared at me without answering, and what little I could see of his face in the dark started to subtly shift. Apparently I wasn’t being given the same latitude as was Campbell. I put both hands up and ducked my head in the universal “sorry, my bad” gesture.
“We were out at the Headlands,” he said again, pausing for just long enough to give me a chance to interrupt again. I looked at him with polite and attentive interest. “Richard was up a little ahead of me when he stopped and put up a hand as if he had heard something. All I heard was a meadowlark singing in the tall grass. Then he got this look on his face, kind of blissed out, you know? He took off running, crested the hill, and by the time I got to the top he was out of sight. I haven’t seen him since.”
“I don’t get the connection,” I said.
“Well, I never heard anything and I never saw anything, but I did feel something.” He waved his hand toward the swirling pattern. “Feel that energy? I felt the same thing coming from the other side of the hill. I don’t know what came out of that thing, but whatever it was, it took Richard.”
“Maybe he just decided to leave,” I said, hearing how lame that sounded the moment I said it.
“I can’t do anything about it,” Rolf said. “I can’t mingle like you can, so I can’t really look for him. I can’t get around like you can. You were pretty good at figuring things out the last time you was here, though it took you a while.” He straightened up and became oddly formal. “If you can find Richard Cory, or even tell me what happened to him, I’d be beholden to you.”
That could be useful. It wouldn’t hurt at all having Rolf owe me. Maybe he could even hunt down the Ifrit creature for us—if anyone was suited for the job, it was him. Besides, I was partly responsible for what had happened. I’d like to know what else we’d unleashed on an unsuspecting world.
“I’ll see what I can do,” I said. “Is there anything else you can tell me? Any idea at all what it is I’d be looking for?”
Rolf shook his head.
“If I knew what it was, I wouldn’t have to ask you for help,” he said.
; We started back toward the gate. I was happy to get some distance between me and the color swirl. It made me nervous to stand next to it. As we approached the gate, I turned for one last look to see if I could find it from a distance now that I knew it was there. There was the faintest glow, more at the corner of my mind than my eyes, but it was there. And something, barely visible in the shadows, right behind it.
Lou had noticed it as well, of course. He was standing stock-still, focused, but without his usual warning growl to alert me to danger. He finally took a few steps toward it, but then stopped again, one paw off the ground, motionless. I can read him pretty well. He’s as expressive as any dog in body language, and a lot more in facial expression. He was . . . “baffled” is the word that came to mind.
“What is it?” asked Campbell, looking at the two of us.
“I don’t know,” I said. “You might want to stay back, though.”
I walked back toward the swirling pattern, Lou paralleling my steps. As I got closer, it became apparent there was a figure standing in the shadows, right behind the energy source. The closer I got, the more familiar it seemed. Then it stepped forward and the glow from the energy bands lit up its face for a fraction of a second.
My mouth turned dry and I had trouble catching my breath. Lou made a sound unlike anything I had ever heard from him—not a bark, not a cry, almost like a human gasp. The figure was no ghostly apparition; it was as solid and real as your next-door neighbor. It took another step forward, stepped into the swirling mass of colors, and disappeared, sinking through and leaving not so much as a ripple of disturbance in its wake.
It was Sherwood. But Sherwood had been dead for more than a year.
THREE
I DIDN’T TELL CAMPBELL WHAT I HAD SEEN—mostly I tell her everything, but this was something I needed to think about for a while. She didn’t stay the night, even though it was late and a long drive back to her cabin up at Soda Springs. I dropped her off at Victor’s, where she could check on him and pick up her car.
I had no idea what it was I’d seen, but one thing was for sure—it couldn’t have been Sherwood. She and I had been together for almost a year, and although it had ended, it hadn’t ended badly. We remained friends, and once we stopped trying to be a couple, we became good friends. But then she’d been murdered, killed right before my eyes by another practitioner, and there was nothing I could have done to stop it.
That practitioner was now dead himself. I had killed him, but that hadn’t helped Sherwood any. And although I’ve come across my share of odd things and supernatural creatures in my time, I’ve never seen a ghost and I never expect to. A lot of my beliefs have been tested in the last couple of years, but one thing I still do know: human, animal, or other, dead is dead and spirits of the departed do not return and walk this earth again.
But not surprisingly, that apparition by the energy pool had got to me. I didn’t get much sleep that night, and the only thing that kept me from a complete meltdown was the knowledge that Eli would be back from his conference in the morning.
I’d been to a few of his lectures over the years. So I’ve seen him in his element and he’s impressive. As an African American, he automatically stands out among the pale scholarly types that typically frequent history conferences. Plus, he’s six feet four and two hundred fifty pounds or so, as befits a former football lineman. When he steps up to the lectern he dwarfs it. When he hunches over the microphone to speak, you half expect the lectern to collapse under the strain. Couple that with a professorial beard, wire-rimmed glasses, and a deep, mellifluous speaking voice, and he dominates any room without trying.
Eli’s been my best friend and mentor for years, and not much throws him. He’d know what was going on here, or at least have an idea; that much I was sure of. At least I hoped he would.
I woke up early and had my usual breakfast of multiple cups of coffee, adding a toaster waffle to soothe my nerves. Lou, as usual, turned up his nose at breakfast kibble, so I relented and made him a toaster waffle of his own. I know that’s not good for a dog, but he isn’t really a dog, is he, now? Besides, if I held firm, he’d just duck out the dog door and disappear until he found a breakfast more to his liking. God knows what he’d find—for such a picky eater he’s not picky at all once he’s out on the street.
Eli was just on his way to Victor’s house when I called him. By time I got there he was already upstairs, taking a close look at Victor’s leg. Timothy was trying to get a look as well, hovering and trying not to get in the way. He was worried, but Eli didn’t seem to be.
It had been several days since I’d last seen Eli, and he looked different. When you see someone almost every single day, you don’t notice changes. They happen in such small increments that they’re invisible to the everyday eye. But even a week’s absence will give you a fresh perspective. He must have lost close to twenty pounds in the last few months, and although no one would ever call him svelte, he was looking good. He probably hadn’t been this fit since his college football playing days, although I hadn’t known him then.
He’d trimmed his usually scraggly beard as well, and had replaced his old wire-rimmed glasses with a more modern set of frames. He’d told me that he’d finally reached the stage of life where he realized he had to take care of himself. I took him at his word. I’m sure it was mere coincidence that for the first time in years he now had a woman in his life. Eleanor was her name, and although she wasn’t a practitioner, she was a powerful woman. She’d have to be to get Eli to change his ways.
Eli finally straightened up from where Victor lay on the couch with a grunt of approval. Victor’s leg already looked normal, except for some swelling and redness.
“I can’t leave you two alone for even a few days,” Eli complained. His relief at finding Victor in such good condition allowed his grumpiness to come out.
“That creature was faster than I expected,” said Victor. “Next time I’ll be ready.”
“That creature isn’t the only thing we have to worry about,” I said. Victor gave a theatrical sigh.
“What now?”
“I’m not sure, but I think it’s connected and I don’t like the sound of it, not at all.”
They were both familiar with Rolf, though neither had ever met him. I told them his story, the swirling circle of color and energy I’d seen, the fact that something else had come out of that circle, and the disappearance of the being he called Richard Cory.
“Interesting,” said Eli, understating things as usual. Victor nodded his agreement.
“Yes, but that’s the least interesting part,” I said. “I saw something there, and when I went back for a better look, I saw something that couldn’t be. And it was no trick of the mind, either. Lou saw it, too.”
“And?” Victor prompted, after I’d waited long enough for the maximum dramatic effect.
“It was Sherwood. I saw her as clearly as I see you now.”
I’m not sure what reaction I was expecting from the two of them. Victor would try his best to remain impassive and politely interested, as always, but Eli surely would be astounded. But the reaction I got was totally unexpected. The two of them instantly looked over at each other, then immediately looked away as if they shared a guilty secret they didn’t want me to know.
“What?” I said. They looked at each other again.
“Are you sure about what you saw?” asked Eli, pretending nothing was going on. I wasn’t buying it.
“What was that look?” I said.
He paused for a moment, thinking if there was a way to finesse it, then decided there wasn’t.
“Victor and I have been doing some research,” he said. He paused, started to say something, stopped, and finally came out with it. “We’re not sure that Sherwood’s actually dead.”
I could say I was stunned, but that wouldn’t be quite right. It was more like being totally blank. I heard the words, I understood what they meant, but at the same time they made no sense at all, as if Eli w
ere talking gibberish.
“What?” I said, unable to muster anything else.
“We’re not sure that Sherwood is dead,” he repeated.
This time it sunk in, but it was the most preposterous thing I’d ever heard.
“What do you mean? You were there. You saw it. Christoph incinerated her before our eyes.”
Eli took off his glasses and cleaned them with the corner of his shirt. At any other time seeing Eli at a loss for words would have been a rare treat, but not now. Victor hauled himself off the couch and stood awkwardly, favoring his bad leg.
“Not exactly,” he said. “Christoph had those gems, remember, and that gave him an unholy amount of power. He threw a blast of energy at her, and it looked like she just melted away. But there wasn’t any body. There wasn’t even the slightest trace of any remains. Just a scorched spot on the grass from the energy burst.”
I thought back to the charred circle on the grass, and her hand reaching out to me in a last desperate attempt.
“What else could have happened?” I asked. “She was there, she caught fire, and she was vaporized. With that much energy, there wouldn’t be much left.”
“Ahh,” said Eli, recovering his voice, “but that’s just it. There should have been something. But there wasn’t. Nothing at all. Not a trace. I looked. So it’s possible her body wasn’t destroyed. She could have been transported to somewhere else, instead.”
“You mean like another dimension?”
“Well, no, I don’t think so, not precisely. But something like that, perhaps. I came across a couple of very similar accounts in some of my more arcane manuscripts, and it could be. In some accounts, the people involved eventually returned, but unfortunately the accounts are silent on where those people went or how they got back. So yes, it could be. But the problem is, I currently have no idea of how to find her or where she might be or how to get her back—if that’s indeed what happened.”
“And just when were you planning to tell me this?” I was seriously pissed, not just at Eli for keeping something so important from me, but for also sharing it with Victor and not me. It felt like a betrayal. Eli was supposed to be my best friend, as well as a mentor.
