by Nina Harper
Finally they took the pillowcase off and showed Vincent’s face, slack and blank-eyed, as if he had been drugged. Sybil ran forward as fast as anyone could manage in four-inch heels on spongy earth and tried to talk to him. He didn’t appear to be tracking. She took his hands, which had been tied together, and tried to lead him forward. He seemed uncertain about how to make his legs work, and there was still a hand on his shoulder. I’m sure it wasn’t entirely friendly.
Meph shoved Raven/me forward, and the man who could have been Branford (but might not have been) appeared to study her. Then one of his confederates threw the pillowcase over her head, the same Mets pillowcase that had covered Vincent.
My friends began to retreat slowly. Vincent stumbled but Sybil caught him. Despite the heels, Sybil was strong enough to support him as he tried to make his way through the dark and the bare dirt path.
I turned back to look at where the kidnappers took Raven. They tied her hands first and started to lead her deeper into the Carousel area. It was hard for her to walk with her hands tied and the pillowcase over her head.
I was suddenly afraid for her.
And I tried to remind myself that the fate of some ambitious little she-demon was none of my concern. She had volunteered and she stood to gain a good bit by the bargain, and she knew it. The girl had her eye on the main event, her own advancement, and had been perfectly willing to go through with this. And she was immortal, I reminded myself.
Didn’t help. I was overcome with worry about what they would do with her.
Where could they be going, with her head covered like that? Someone would notice, certainly, and there were police around at night. In fact, I was surprised that none had come by while they had been talking.
They headed farther into the park, not toward the comfort of the avenue running above us. I followed into the dark foliage, trying not to think about the fact that I was alone at night and the park was full of muggers and murderers and rapists. So I could deliver a few, I reminded myself. I didn’t dare pay attention to that, I couldn’t afford to lose Raven and the bad guys.
Then they turned and the path meandered, but after a few twists we came out of the park onto Seventy-second Street, one of the major crosstown arteries. That had been quite a trek, and I was grateful to my disguise. At least the running shoes had made the long walk possible.
They waited for less than a minute until a cab came by and picked them up. Cabs are never that convenient. They must have set that up beforehand, or it was one of their confederates using a taxi as a getaway car. Which wasn’t a bad idea if you don’t want to get followed.
So I was alone in the park at night, deep in the middle of the danger, and not a cab in sight. Rage and frustration threatened to overcome me.
And I had better get home.
A man came out of the trees toward me. Oh no, not that too. I could not, just could not believe it. I could not endure being mugged on top of this horrible night.
“Didn’t I tell you to go home?” The familiar voice was weary and annoyed.
“I don’t have to do anything you tell me to do,” I reminded him.
He sighed and stuffed his hands into his pockets. “You’re right, you don’t,” he agreed, which shocked me straight off. “You never did, although I had hoped that you would take my advice since you’re paying for it.”
“You let them go, too,” I accused him. “I couldn’t follow them and you didn’t manage to follow them and now we’re both in the middle of this park and I want to get home. And I want to find Raven. I don’t know why I’m so worried about what happens to that girl.”
“I’ve got a company car here,” he said softly. “I’ll drive you home. And then we can figure out what to do.”
“What do you mean, what to do?” I asked.
“Come on, let’s get to the car. You’ve got to get some sleep if you’re going to get to work in the morning.”
The company car was only about two blocks away. It was a brand-new Mercedes in a dignified dark green. I slipped onto the leather upholstery and leaned back, relishing my rescue.
Oh, no, I told myself. I am not a damsel in distress and I do not need a man to rescue me. I could easily have waited for a cab. I could perfectly well have walked out myself and I didn’t need Nathan Rhys Coleman at all, ever again.
So I could accept the ride in the assurance that I didn’t need it. I could take care of myself, and if he wanted to help me because he was my employee, then that was reasonable.
It was a good thing I decided he was permitted to give me a lift because we had reached my building.
“Now tell me what you meant back in the park,” I said as we sat in the car, idling and double-parked.
“What are you talking about?” he asked, all innocence.
“About what we’re going to do. Because you lost them, right? You have no idea where they are.”
He shook his head and his long black hair caressed his shoulders. “Yeah. Okay. I lost them. At least I didn’t lose you.”
Then I smiled, not nicely. “You lost them. But I can find them, I think.”
It was his turn to be startled. “How can you find them? You were in the park, neither of us could follow that cab . . .”
“Why didn’t you follow them?” I asked softly.
Nathan looked down, abashed. “I was too far from the company car. By the time I ran over there, the cab was gone. And once they left the park . . .” He shrugged, and his expression changed to discomfort, probably guilt.
I smiled, not to reassure him, but from my own feeling of power. “Don’t worry about it. I can find her without you.”
chapter
NINETEEN
“It’s late,” I said. “And it’s been a really long night and I still have a few things to do if I’m going to find Raven.” I started to get out of the car when he hit the master lock.
“First you’re going to tell me how you’re going to find her and then I’m going to tell you that you’re crazy and let me handle this. I’m the professional.”
A cab honked loudly behind us.
“I guess we’d better not discuss this in the car,” I finally sighed, giving in to the inevitable. “Why don’t we park and you can come up for a few minutes while I explain.”
“Thank you,” he said solemnly.
We drove around for ten minutes before he found the entrance to the nearest lot and parked, and then it took us that long to get back to my living room. My own safe, familiar living room. I could still smell the Chinese food that we had eaten hours ago, and it made me realize that I was famished. I went to the kitchen and dished out the leftovers. Maybe Chinese wasn’t Nathan’s preference, but that’s what I had, and I needed sustenance for what I was about to attempt.
I wanted him here and I didn’t want him here. I wanted to take a bath and crawl into my nice clean Frette sheets and forget that any of this had happened. To pretend that I was a normal girl and that my biggest worries were my ex-boyfriend sitting in the living room and my maybe boyfriend in Aruba and Lawrence in the office. That would be a very nice illusion indeed.
Unfortunately, it would be very far from the truth.
And there was Nathan sitting on my sofa waiting for me to explain. I made him wait until I’d finished my entire plate.
“You’re not going to like this,” I muttered, trying to prepare both of us. “Okay, it works like this. It’s magic. We dressed Raven up in my clothes. Nobody thought of it at the time, but I have a personal connection with my clothes, especially that lace top. I can’t believe she didn’t like it; it was my favorite for two years! Anyway, and especially because it was my favorite top, there is a definite connection. Call it a vibratory sympathy, if you will. The blouse Raven is wearing will be the strongest resonance because it touched me most recently and because giving it to her was imprinted with emotion. So there is a ritual, a way for me to enter the world of Yetzirah, of Formation, and find it. When I find the blouse I’ll find Raven.”
Nathan just looked confused. “What do you mean by Yetzi-whatever?”
“Short version, because we don’t have time for the long one.” I started out quickly with some of the basics that come up in Level Five of demonic training. “There are four levels, or types, of manifestation. There’s Assayiah, the Absolute. That is the first emanation, the spiritual level of existence. Then there’s Briah, which is the Creative World. Those two are the abstract levels of being and are the functional levels of On High. We live in Atziluth, the World of Manifestation. And Yetzirah is the World of Formation, where ideas are real objects and we can find them. This is where all the psychic stuff happens, where you get all the illusions and hallucinations and visions and dreams, too. It’s all this malleable energy that becomes the pattern or form on which physical reality is based.”
Nathan shook his head. “I’m lost,” he admitted.
“It’s okay. It’s easier once you actually use the system.” I tried to salve his ego. “You’ll see what I mean. The thing is, in that world there is nothing like physical distance. Things are near or distant according to how closely they resonate for an individual. So something that is very sympathetic is easy to find and nearby. For example, my blouse. I wore that blouse for years so there is a strong sympathy built up, and if I concentrate on it in Yetzirah it will be close by and easy for me to find. This is where all the famous magical attacks and defenses and such happen, not that that’s relevant to you.”
He thought for a moment and set his plate down on my coffee table.
“You said ‘should be able to’ when you talked about this,” he mused. “I take it that you mean you haven’t actually done this before.”
I winced. Truth was, I had very little idea of what I was doing. I had a lot of theory and some bits of ritual, but it had been over a century since I’d tried anything akin to ritual magic and I remembered vaguely that the results had been less than impressive.
Marten looked really good again. Strange to think that I would prefer to have Marten around when I had Nathan sitting right here, but Marten would explain to me what tools we needed and would have at least two variations on appropriate invocations. Invocations are my weakest point in ritual—they all seem so over-the-top absurd.
Like this one, from the Book of Sacred Magicks. Which is a pretty decent text as these things go. I invoke the Sacred Flame of the Universe and the Heart of our Order to be Guardians of this Sacred Space and watch over the portals of this Temple. Guide and teach me so that the Shekinah may shine through my magical mirror of the cosmos so that I may be initiated into the Secrets of the Heart of Creation.
How lame is that? And that’s not even one of the really awful ones, just one of the ones I could remember off the top of my head.
“I haven’t done ritual in a while,” I admitted. “But I’ve got a lot of theory and have done it in the past. So it’s just a matter of looking up the appropriate bits. Most of it should be relatively straightforward.”
“Hmmm.” He leaned forward, thinking. Then he started to scribble on the back of the Jade Moon menu. I tried to read it—it was Akkadian, my very first language, but it was still hard to read upside down and over the combo lunch plates. “If you have some paper and a pen I could maybe give you something,” he said tentatively.
I searched for a pen that wrote and a piece of paper that wasn’t the back of an envelope or torn off a grocery list. Finally I remembered that I had some stationery stuffed into my jeans drawer and handed it over to him.
He thought again and wrote, and this time I could make out the cuneiform. Then he went on and translated, writing out a second version in English. It was a little stilted and not exactly the words I would have chosen, but really it was a pretty good job.
“I’m not sure if this is what you’re looking for, but it’s a Babylonian prayer I always liked. Seems like it would be appropriate.”
“This is great! This is so much better than the stuff they gave us in class!” I jumped up and kissed him without a thought, and only realized and reconciled myself when he shrank from my touch.
Oh Nathan, poor dear Nathan, how I wish you would grow up and get a clue or six. But just then I was really pleased with the piece he’d come up with, not the least because it was one of my favorite prayers from childhood, one my mother taught me to recite before the household altar in the women’s quarters long before I became a Priestess myself. It was charming.
I returned to my seat opposite Nathan, who stood as if to go. “I think I should let you do your magic on your own,” he said stiffly.
But he didn’t head immediately for the door. He waited and studied me.
“This works better with help,” I said, trying not to sound too needy. In fact, I could manage well enough alone but I wanted him to stay.
“I’m not sure . . .” he equivocated.
“Would you mind helping me move the big chair before you go?” I asked, nonchalant. Never seem too eager; Eros was always trying to impress that upon me. I wondered if she’d be proud of me now.
He took off his jacket and then we rearranged the furniture. Then I grabbed a picture of me wearing the blouse before I spread a white cloth over the coffee table.
Nathan watched as I set out large pillar candles near the walls at the cardinal points: East, South, West and North. “I’m going to start real soon,” I warned him. “So if you want to leave, now would be a good time. And if you’re going to stay here and help me, take off your shoes and kick them by the door.”
He took off his shoes, also his jacket and hung that in the closet. “What do you want me to do?” he offered.
I assigned him to light the candles and get my lovely little silver hand mirror from my dresser. I lit the charcoal and held it with my sugar tongs while it sputtered and spit. Finally it settled into actually burning properly and I added the incense to the brazier. Finding the Lost incense is lovely, mostly lavender with a hint of vanilla and some sweet balm. I felt calm as I lifted the brazier and walked the circle, sealing the space.
“This is to create a workspace where we can open a door into the Formative World,” I explained. “Essentially, we are making a little Formative World right here.”
“Like an embassy,” Nathan said.
“Exactly,” I agreed. “We’re setting up this embassy in the Formative Overworld to look for my blouse. Which I should find because it’s mine, it’s imprinted with me all over it. Nobody else should be able to do this.”
He nodded gravely, and then began to speak in sonorous but weirdly accented Akkadian. The fragrance grew heavy, the incense clouding the small space and obscuring my very ordinary living room with a scented haze.
“Now look into the mirror, and keep looking as we repeat the prayer,” I instructed him. We both bent our heads and gazed into the depths of the mirror as we chanted in English.
The mirror was large enough that we could see both of us at the same time, framed in whorls of smoke and obscured points of light from the candles. The points of light glittered and the color changed from orange to yellow and red, and then into all the colors of the rainbow.
“Now,” I murmured and took both his hands in mine. “Pay attention to the mirror, transfer your consciousness to the image you see in the mirror. And don’t let go of my hands.”
Slowly, the mist solidified around us and the image in the mirror showed more of my piled-up furniture. “Look around,” I whispered.
We were in a different kind of existence. All around us was gray haze and distant sparkles, like pastel glitter under a veil. Bells sounded muted in the far distance.
As we looked, the glitter and the haze formed themselves into different images. People, animals, buildings, clothing, all at random and all pallid and colorless, formed and dissolved.
“Think of New York,” I instructed, and between the two of us we saw the image of the New York skyline gain more depth and hold firm. It was still all made of smoke, but I whispered to him to pay attention
to the details. I picked out the stately Art Deco lines of the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building. I thought of Rockefeller Center, of the Plaza, of the Met and the Carousel and Barneys, and our New York coalesced and became almost solid.
“What would happen if we put in the Twin Towers?” Nathan asked.
“Then we would go back in time, and this would be New York before 9/11. Which we do not want to do.”
“Just asking,” he defended himself.
“Now,” I told him, “now that we’ve got the city and the location clear, we have to think about my blouse. Form a clear image of it on Raven, with those clunky awful boots of hers. Look in the mirror and you’ll see the picture of me wearing the blouse if you forget what it looks like.”
“Oh,” he said as he stared into the mirror, and I could understand his surprise. Because the photo, which had been lying near the mirror on the table, not reflected in it, floated as an image in the background.
An image of the blouse floated gauzily over the charcoal solid representation of New York. I concentrated on it, on the precise pattern of the lace, on the delicate pink of the ribbons, on the organza roses.
The etheric blouse rippled and filled out with a full bust and a tiny waist. Slowly an image of me in the blouse emerged like a tiny Barbie doll in a new outfit, auburn curls cascading down its/my back and a pair of good jeans showing off long legs and a round bottom. And Michael Kors boots.
No, wrong. The boots had to be changed to Raven’s clompy old Docs with their creases and stains. I remembered her boots clearly, ugly and worn-down.
The boots changed, and in some subtle way the image of me/Raven shifted so that the body was just a touch less luscious, as if to reflect the fact that her real chest was fairly flat and whatever shape she had was borrowed from me via Meph’s magic.
