Vintage soul dc-2

by David Niall Wilson

  This was the kind of imprecision that had landed Alistair in such dire circumstances, working on the edge of the barrio by candle light. He knew he should have verified the number. He knew, in fact, that he should have an innate understanding of the ritual itself, which would have rendered him capable of figuring out on his own which number was more significant to the operation at hand, and why the patterns followed one upon the next as they did. It was too late for that. It had been too late for many years.

  He’d spent time as an apprentice, and for many years he’d progressed rapidly. It hadn’t been enough, of course. There were restrictions, things he wasn’t allowed to try, powers he wasn’t “ready” to wield, secrets that were barred from him and locked away behind walls and wards and charms he could never break. Shortcuts had presented themselves, and Alistair, invariably, took them. He couldn’t stand the thought of waiting, year after year, to be found worthy of things he knew he was ready for now. The title of “apprentice” didn’t sit well on his heart…he was destined to greater things. That’s how he saw it, anyway. Others disagreed, and he’d been banished.

  Now he worked in solitude, disgraced and avoided by others who understood the arts he practiced. He didn’t know if they were aware of his efforts or if, as far as that dark world was concerned, he’d dropped off the face of the earth. He also didn’t care. Alistair Cornwell had one purpose in his life, and he intended to fulfill that purpose with, or without the assistance or approval of his so-called peers.

  There was a raucous cry from the rafters overhead, and a bit of debris dropped to the floor, just to the right of his cleared circle. Alistair started from his seat as if he’d been bitten and scrambled forward. He leaned in close and peered at the circle, but it appeared to be clean. Whatever had dropped hadn’t invalidated his monotonous efforts at purification. He swallowed hard, took a deep breath, and then whirled to glare upward.

  “Damn you, Asmodeus,” he cried, shaking his fist.

  There was a flutter of wings. Another trickle of dirt and dust filtered down through the dense air, and Cornwell drew himself up quickly. He spread the ragged cloak he wore out like the wings of some sort of giant bat, using the material to block the fall of debris from the circle behind him. Moments later there was a louder rustle of wings, and a huge old crow landed on the corner of a nearby pew. The bird glared back at Alistair balefully. Cornwell snorted in disgust, which proved to be a mistake. He breathed in some of the falling dust, and moments later sneezed loudly. He wiped his nose on his cloak and returned to the book.

  “We’re ready,” he announced.

  The bird didn’t answer, but it eyed him dubiously and looked ready to take off at any moment. Cornwell paid no attention; he was focused. He had everything he would need, or the closest substitute he could find for each item, laid out on the very front pew. He had colored chalk. He had small, charred braziers. He had incense sticks, candles, several pouches of dust gathered from different sources, a vial of murky brown liquid, and a small test tube of blood. Asmodeus had obtained the tube for him from a local clinic, flying in an open window in a rush of wings and dark feathers. It was a close call, nearly ending the bird’s existence on the tip of a nurse’s umbrella, but Asmodeus cleared the window sill at the last moment, the vial clutched tightly, and managed somehow not to crush it, drop it, or step on it during his landing when he returned to the cathedral. It was not an approved method of obtaining ingredients, but then, if Alistair had approached this through normal channels he not only would not have gotten the blood, but very likely someone would have come through and stripped away the other things he’d worked so hard to gather.

  He could have purchased the blood, of course, but stealing it had been so much easier, and it had drawn less attention. Sure, it made a small splash in the news. It wasn’t every day that a crow made off with medical supplies, even if they were shiny, but not all the news in the outside, mundane world made it to those who might figure out the significance. He’d been very careful to gather his materials slowly and from a variety of sources. The summoning he planned hadn’t been attempted in many years, and was considered extremely dangerous. If he were part of the “inner circle” of the city he would have safeguards from a dozen others in place, and even if he failed, the damage would be contained.

  Here he was not only on his own, but so were those in the surrounding streets. If he managed to summon the demon he sought, he would gain everything he’d been denied by his failed apprenticeship, as well as enough riches and power to insure he could no longer be ignored. If he failed, it was impossible to tell what might happen. The worst that could happen, the most humiliating failure, would be if nothing happened at all. With the substitutions he’d been forced to make with his choice of ingredients, and the incomplete incantation, fleshed out through his own research and intuition to its full length, it was impossible to judge with any certainty what might happen.

  Cornwell was willing to take the risk. He was sensitive enough to the powers surrounding him to know that the ritual was only the face of the procedure. The concentration of ingredients, rhythm, proper intonation and form were a focus used to draw on powers one already possessed. He knew he could perform this summoning, and he knew that if he could make the ritual real to himself, it would become self-fulfilling, in a way.

  This did nothing to relieve the pressure. With a last careful glance at Asmodeus to make sure the bird had no further notions of creating whirlwinds or contaminating the circle, Alistair began.

  He placed the articles he needed to complete the ritual dead center in the cleared area. These included a small altar, a brass chalice, which according to the incomplete ritual should be gold, a ceremonial dagger with glass stones where the jewels should have been inset, a wand made of several oak branches twined together and tipped by a very clear, nearly perfect quartz crystal. In the weave of the branches, crystals of other colors glittered. Not all of them were what the book called for, but they were substituted by color, red glass for the ruby, and various types of quartz for other gems.

  Each and every shortcut had required its own lengthy justification. He had to convince himself that the color was all that mattered in the crystals, that the gold chalice was just an affectation of a well-to-do magician, and that it was the symbol of the cup that mattered. As long as he could convince himself, he knew it would be fine. The nagging doubt at the back of his mind threatened to topple this flawed fortress of illogic, but he kept it under wraps and silenced it any time it became too loud by imagining the things he would have once he succeeded.

  Asmodeus was less convinced than his master, and not too shy to squawk warnings in arcane bird-tongue. Cornwell’s failure to train the bird to mimic human speech was one of the creature’s most irritating defeats. It was such a simple trick that even normal, everyday humans had managed it. Of course, they surgically split the bird’s tongues, which allowed the animals to create sounds that were otherwise beyond them, but with his abilities and insights, not to mention the bond between himself and his familiar; Cornwell should have been able to pull off the task easily.

  He knew there were charms that would do the trick. He’d known a witch with a frog familiar, one of the odder combinations he’d encountered, and much too comical to be taken seriously, but even that woman had managed it. When her frog croaked, the small amulet it wore on a gilded collar transformed the words to passable English. Alistair had never been able to manage it. He had changed Asmodeus’ voice many times, once to that of a pig, and twice to different breeds of dog, but he’d never been able to make the words comprehensible, and over time the old crow had grown weary of his efforts and refused to take part in the ritual again. If Cornwell attempted to bewitch him, the bird took off with a squawk and a flurry of wings that left the air heavy with dark, ratty feathers.

  Alistair wasn’t thinking about Asmodeus as he prepared his circle. There would be plenty of time to right the mundane wrongs of his life once the ritual was complete. With hi
s instruments carefully placed in the very center of the open space, he took a large, thick chunk of white chalk and very slowly, very carefully, drew a circle around himself. He had left small marks just outside the range of the outer circle to guide his hand, and he knew that the first circle he drew was exactly ten feet in diameter, five feet to any given point on the outer rim from the center.

  Once this was complete, he drew a second circle two hand-spans shorter in radius, leaving about ten inches to a foot of space between the two concentric borders. He didn’t have to make it so large, but he knew the more space he gave himself to properly draw the angelic symbols and names, the better chance he’d do it without some bizarre spelling error sending him spiraling off into the pits of hell. It was a possibility, after all; that’s where the door he intended to open led to.

  He worked feverishly. Now that he’d begun, he knew he would have to remain with the ritual, safe within his circle, until everything was complete. He needed to get the formula written, the braziers lit, and the initial invocations completed as soon as possible to allow as many hours of darkness as possible for the main ritual. A sneeze at the wrong time, or some weakness of body or mind intruding, and disaster was certain.

  He placed the braziers and candles, lit each in turn, and spoke the angelic names, invoking the spirits of north, south, east and west, air, wind, fire and earth, all in their turn. His voice was steady, and he felt remarkably calm. He’d been very careful, and very thorough. Anything that he did not have, he’d replaced with something suitable, and something in the way the air in the old cathedral, normally stagnant and void of energy, crackled along the short hairs on his arms and at his scalp told him he’d been correct. It was the pattern that mattered, the colors and the layout, the focus on his goal.

  When all preliminaries were out of the way, he knelt before the small altar. He placed the cup in the center of this, and began, slowly, to add the other ingredients he’d gathered. Particular grave dust, herbs, a few spices that he’d actually gone out to the supermarket and bought, then purified. He mixed slowly, and as he did so, he glanced to his left and read from the text of the old book. He wouldn’t reach the point where he ran out of original pages and began speaking his own version of the ritual for some time.

  The final ingredient was the tube of blood. He’d removed the name and information on the donor and purified the test tube as well as he could under the circumstances. It was risky having blood from a relatively unknown source. There was no way to be certain of its purity, not to mention other qualities or chemical additives it might possess. Again, Alistair believed most of what he’d been told, and what he’d read, was there to confuse the issue and prevent more people from attempting the ritual. Blood was blood, after all, and it certainly came from a human donor. Probably it was better not to know whose blood it was — it removed any chance of getting caught up worrying over specific details. He could spend time on vague concerns, but he had no basis for any of it, and thus he found it simple to put the issue aside. Either it would work, or it would not, but whatever was going to happen was going to happen soon.

  And it was happening — something, that is. A thick, cloying mist rose from the moldy carpet surrounding his cleared circle. The foggy cloud was drawn to him, but at the same time it was repelled by the protections he’d set. Within a very short time the church was no longer visible. He knelt in a whirling white vortex, cut off from the world beyond, and even from the pew where Asmodeus had been sitting when the ritual started.

  Alistair would have kept the familiar with him in the circle, but the damn bird wasn’t to be trusted. There was no way to be certain of his control, and if the old crow picked the wrong moment to lift off and go flying into the rafters he’d break the circle — and the protection. Better to let the feathered rodent deal with things on its own and hope that it had sense to become scarce until the ritual was complete, and things had calmed. There hadn’t been a squawk since the ritual began, and that was a good sign.

  There were only a couple of pages to go before he would need to tilt his head to the other side of the altar and begin reading from his own book. He wondered fleetingly if he should release the ritual — his ritual — in a more permanent text, once he’d succeeded. Certainly there was room for a new voice in the magical texts, particularly if that voice could debunk so much of the old melodramatic nonsense and replace it with something more practical. For one thing — if you could perform the same magic with a bit of red glass that you could with a ruby; certain suppliers of magical items were not going to be as popular once Alistair ratted them out. It would serve them right for not selling him what he needed.

  The flames on the candles rose suddenly, first an inch, then a foot. They blazed, though the wax seemed not to diminish. Alistair grinned fiercely. It was the sign that the first portion of the ritual had been completed, and that it was working. His protections were complete. The next step was the easiest, and he had the entire original text for its completion. It was time to open the door between dimensions — not all the way, but far enough that he could send his summons through into that other realm. At the same time it was the easiest to accomplish, it was the most difficult to control. If he wavered, or if he misspoke a word, he was lost.

  Sweat trickled down the back of his collar, but he ignored it. Despite the danger, things were going so well that it was difficult for him to worry. He would get through this, and when he had done so, everything would be different. With the proper otherworldly allies, he could accomplish anything.

  He didn’t notice the wavering in the smoke surrounding him at first. His gaze was fixed on the book at his left; his lips moved slowly, and though he didn’t speak loudly, the words rang out strong and sure. When he lifted his gaze to shift it from one book to the other and take up the words he’d scribed so carefully into his own grimoire, he saw the figure standing outside his circle.

  Alistair tried not to look. He needed to shift his gaze back to the ritual, and to continue. It didn’t matter who it was; they couldn’t break through the protective circle. If it was someone sent to stop him, or to prevent him from completing his ritual, they were too late. The wards were set and the spirits had been invoked; only he could break the circle as long as he maintained his concentration.

  Something caught his eye, though, and he couldn’t look away. The cup sat, forgotten on the altar, the final ingredient still sealed in its tube and the intricately woven oak sapling wand remained untouched.

  A tall slender figure in a very dark hooded robe stood outside the circle. Alistair saw eyes in the shadowed depth of the hood, but could make out no features. There was no attempt to enter the circle, no movement, and no sound. The figure stood and stared in at him as if he were some sort of caged animal.

  None of this bothered Alistair in the slightest. He’d half expected to be discovered at some point in the ritual, but once he’d passed a certain stage, he knew that there was nothing anyone could do but to wait and to see what would happen. They could set wards and confining spells around the church. They could contain what happened, but they could not enter his circle without his willing it, and no way was he letting any of them in. Not until he had what he was after.

  But it wasn’t just the robed figure. There was something sitting on its shoulder, something big and black, sleek and feathered. Dark eyes gazed coldly in at him, and he froze.

  Without thinking, he dropped the small pouch he held in his hand and spoke a single word — a word that was no part of the ritual, not what had been written originally, or what he’d added himself.

  “Asmodeus?” he whispered.

  He saw his error too late. It wasn’t his familiar seated on that shoulder, but a much larger, much younger bird. It spread its wings as he spoke, taking flight. This dislodged the hood from the intruder’s features, but Alistair never saw them. The smoky mist stopped circling him and hung motionless in the air. He dropped his gaze to the second book and searched for the point that he needed
to recapture the rhythm, but as he spun, his hand caught the rim of the cup and toppled, it. The thick, murky contents splashed over the page and obscured the words. He reeled back, and as he moved, the stranger outside the circle reached out with the toe of one boot and scraped a small break in the circle.

  The smoke billowed and was sucked in through that breach so rapidly that all sound and most of the air were sucked from the cathedral. In that instant, the robed figure reached back and flipped his cowl forward. Without air to hold it aloft, the raven tumbled, but his master stepped toward the door, held out an arm, and the bird thudded to a landing, gripping tightly. Without a word the intruder spun and sprinted toward the back of the cathedral toward the rectory and the street beyond.

  The circle had become a white pillar stretching from floor to ceiling. It was impossible to see into the interior, and no sound escaped from within, but the air hummed with energy and then, with a shudder, the remnant of the circle blew asunder. Air and sound raced outward, pounding the windows from the old cathedral outward and sending a shower of broken wood frame and glass shards in a long arc, pummeling the street and homes beyond. The sound was deafening, half scream, and half roar. A cloud rolled out, low to the ground, billowed, and rose until the entire structure of the cathedral was cloaked in cloying fog.

  Inside, still standing, Alistair clutched his throat and tried to stagger forward. The breath had been ripped from his lungs in the explosion, and he was blind, but somehow he had the presence of mind to try and move away. Above him he heard Asmodeus cry out, loud and long. He heard the flutter of the old bird’s wings, but he saw nothing.