Fallen Angels

by Stephen Kenson

  "Nearly finished?"

  "Almost," she said, as Lothan moved around the edges of what she had drawn on the floor.

  It was a circle three meters across, consisting of an inner and outer ring with a space between them as wide as the length of Kellan’s hand. Into that space Kellan was chalking magical symbols oriented toward the four cardinal directions. Inside the inner circle was a five-pointed star, the points just touching the inner line. In each of the star’s points was another magical symbol. Outside the circle, in the east, was a smaller triangle, about half a meter on a side. Symbols were drawn at each point and along each side of the triangle as well. Kellan had been working on the diagram for most of the afternoon, knowing it would soon be washed away, and all of her work with it.

  She’d asked Lothan once why mages went through all the trouble of drawing ritual circles by hand. Why didn’t they just have them embroidered onto rugs, or digitized and printed out on paper for use when they were needed? Lothan’s answer had been typical.

  "Because it’s not the symbols that really matter," he said. "It’s the intent that goes into creating them. It’s the act of creating the circle that makes it a circle of power, not chalk marks on stone, or ink on paper. It’s the difference between drawing or painting a landscape and printing out a picture you downloaded off the Net: the digital file you print out is just a file, but the artwork contains a part of you. It’s connected to you, unique, alive in a magical sense. The same is true of the circle. Some soulless printout is of no more use magically than simply throwing paint on the floor and calling it a pattern. Less even, since at least the thrown paint has some amount of intention behind it."

  "It’s just a lot of work," was Kellan’s only response. "Naturally," Lothan said with a tusky smile, "which is one of the reasons why mages have apprentices." So Kellan learned to draw and paint the ritual diagrams by hand, consulting books for the right symbols, putting her intention behind placing each one precisely and in the right order. She filled in the last symbol in the west and drew a solid line, connecting the inner and outer lines of the circle, tapping the chalk against the floor like a punctuation mark ending a sentence.

  "There," she said, standing up and stretching her cramped legs.

  Lothan paced slowly around the perimeter of the circle, careful not to scuff any of the chalk marks, his hands clasped behind his back, bending down occasionally to examine Kellan’s work.

  "Hmmm," he murmured, glancing first one way and then the other. "Hmmm."

  Kellan waited patiently. Lothan’s inspections used to unnerve her, until she figured out that that was what they were supposed to do. Lothan paid close enough attention to know already if she’d made any major mistakes. He just liked to take his time and make her sweat. So Kellan waited, standing quietly until he was done.

  "It will do," he pronounced finally. "Yes, I think it will do well enough. You have prepared the ritual?" he asked.

  "Wouldn’t have done all of this work if I hadn’t," Kellan replied, retrieving the datapad leaning next to her bag.

  "Oh, but you would have," Lothan muttered, loud enough for Kellan to hear. He would have made her draw out the circle whether she was ready to use it or not, and she knew it.

  "Very well, then," Lothan said. "Begin." The troll wizard settled back down on the broad stool in the corner of the room, perched like a massive gargoyle in the shadows, to watch Kellan work.

  She dimmed the lights in the room and placed a candle in each quarter of the circle. With the barest effort of will, she ignited the wicks, shedding a golden glow over the chalk marks. The flickering shadows seemed to make the symbols come alive and stand out in stark relief against the gray floor, faintly shimmering with power. It could have been dismissed as a trick of the light, but Kellan took it as a positive sign that everything was in place.

  She made sure the small basement window was open just a crack to admit the evening air, and took quick inventory of her supplies: charcoal burner, parchment paper and a jar of granular incense she’d ground and mixed herself. Once she stepped into the circle, she couldn’t step back out again to get something she forgot without interrupting the ritual. If that happened, she’d have to start all over again.

  Kellan stepped over the outer and inner lines of the circle, careful not to disturb them. She crouched down in the center of the circle, putting everything into place, then stood, took a deep breath and centered herself. She let the breath out with a slow sigh and drew in another, then another, before she turned to face the eastern quarter of the circle.

  "Hail, O powers of the east," she intoned. "I call upon the element of air to be present here within my circle, for air is the power I summon tonight. Be present here, and truly do my will." The candles flickered for a moment as a breeze coming from the open window stirred their flames, but none of them went out. Kellan turned toward the south, raising her arms, hands open, palms up.

  "Hail, O powers of the south," she said. "I call upon the element of fire to be present here within my circle. Air is the power I summon tonight; give your passion to my effort. Be present here, and truly do my will." The candle flames grew brighter and taller for a moment, filling the circle with their glow, then shrank back to their former size. Kellan turned toward the west, arms spread wide, palms facing out.

  "Hail, O powers of the west. I call upon the element of water to be present here within my circle. Air is the power I summon tonight; give your depth to my effort. Be present here, and truly do my will." The shadows swam and flickered, like reflections off a shimmering pool at night, before passing and returning the circle to its steady glow.

  Finally, Kellan turned to the north, intoning, "Hail, O powers of the north. I call upon the element of earth to be present here within my circle. Air is the power I summon tonight; give your strength to my effort. Be present here, and truly do my will."

  The circle cast, Kellan felt rather than saw a looming presence all around her, the protective power of the wards she invoked to focus the energies she would raise, contain them, and protect her from any outside influence.

  Kellan lit the charcoal at the bottom of the burner with a pass of her hand, quickly setting it to glowing. Then she shook a small amount of incense onto it from her hand, sending a steady stream of sweet, pungent smoke rising into the air like a curling serpent.

  When Lothan first introduced Kellan to conjuring, she told him she wasn’t entirely comfortable with the idea of calling up spirits and commanding them to do her bidding. Although she considered herself a practical person, Kellan couldn’t help but wonder: if spirits acted like intelligent beings, able to understand and carry out orders, then how did they feel about being whistled up to do a mage’s dirty work? Wasn’t forcing them into service wrong?

  After making some crack about how that didn’t differ very much from the job description of a shadowrunner. Lothan had patiently explained that servitor spirits such as elementals, while intelligent, were not necessarily any more self-aware than sophisticated computer programs (though Kellan wondered about those sometimes, too). Spirits were made to serve, in Lothan’s expert opinion. It was only those times when the summoner was careless or overeager, when spirits escaped from their bindings and became something more, that they acquired that spark of sentience, of will, perhaps from the very ritual intended to place them into service.

  In the end, Lothan said it didn’t matter to him whether Kellan wanted to learn conjuring or not. He was perfectly content to teach her nothing but spells, or limit his lessons to banishing and defending against hostile spirits rather than summoning them. It was a decision Kellan needed to make for herself, not one she could be forced into, if she was ever going to be able to do the rituals properly.

  In the end, it was Lothan’s willingness not to teach her that convinced Kellan that she ought to learn. The old troll was just a little too happy to keep the secrets of conjuring to himself, to not pass on some of his carefully hoarded knowledge and experience. Kellan knew Lothan l
iked to play his cards close to the vest. She also knew you didn’t pass up something that could give you an edge in the shadows, because you could be sure the other guy wouldn’t, and then you’d be yesterday’s news.

  So she decided to take Lothan at his word and at least try learning the basics of spirit summoning. She couldn’t judge it until she’d at least tried it for herself, and she didn’t want Lothan quietly lording his superior knowledge over her for all time. So she learned to summon watchers, simple-minded spirits used to spy and carry messages and such. Then she learned to summon the spirits of the elements, and put that knowledge to work.

  Kellan quickly lost track of time in the warm haze of the incense smoke as she chanted, her voice rising and falling like waves, like wind rippling across water. The air was still and close, the candles giving off a surprising amount of warmth inside the confines of the circle. Whenever the smoke rising from the burner began to thin out, Kellan added another pinch of incense from her jar, until the room was almost filled with the smoke, and she could barely make out Lothan looming in the haze.

  A cool breeze from the open window stirred the warm, still air, making the smoke from the incense swirl and dance. Kellan focused on the chant, and on the tingling energy she felt building up, flowing up her legs, all along her body, down her arms to her fingertips, up to set her head buzzing. She felt a subtle pressure at the base of her skull, a feeling in the back of her mind like a thought just out of reach, waiting to be remembered. She held on to that feeling and continued the chant, letting it build before she held her hands out toward the incense burner and focused all her attention beyond it to the triangle drawn outside of her circle.

  She spoke the final invoking words of the spell, and felt the gathered power rush out of her, like a spring suddenly released. A wind moaned and whistled through the window, and the smoke gathered, pulled toward the space above the triangle like a magnet to metal, spinning slowly around a central point about a meter off the floor. The small cloud began spinning faster, reeling in more and more of the smoke.

  "Be here now!" Kellan commanded, and there was a crack like thunder, loud in the enclosed room. The swirling cloud of smoke hovering in the air at arm’s length from the incense burner opened glowing eyes of electric blue, the color of the edge of a lightning bolt, bright against the dark gray mist. It hovered there, looking at Kellan, and for a moment she felt like the energy she had released was trying to push its way back into her brain. She resisted, not looking away from the hovering spirit, and the pressure suddenly stopped. The glowing eyes seemed to blink, and the swirling cloud resolved itself into a rippling collection of mist, hovering, waiting. Waiting for her to command it.

  Kellan realized she was holding her breath and let it out in a sigh, brushing the back of one hand across her forehead to wipe away the sweat that had gathered there. She looked over at Lothan and a wide grin spread across her face. Her teacher only raised an eyebrow and got up from his stool with a slightly bored, jaded look. He stepped closer to the hovering spirit and looked it over. He held his left hand open and moved it around the outermost edges of the spirit’s misty form, and wrinkled his prominent nose as he sniffed the air. If the spirit noticed any of this testing, it didn’t react, and kept its eyes on Kellan.

  Finally, Lothan straightened up. "Congratulations," he said. "You have successfully summoned a complete, albeit minor, air elemental. The spirit clearly bears the stamp of your aura, so I would say it is properly bound in your service."

  Kellan glanced from Lothan to the hovering spirit. It remained impassive, waiting for her to command it.

  "What do I do now?" she asked.

  "You can dismiss it," Lothan said. "I think we’ve done enough for tonight. You can call it again as you need it with far less effort than it took to summon and bind it. Go ahead." He returned to his stool while Kellan took a deep breath, recalling the techniques she’d studied and practiced under Lothan’s supervision.

  It was almost like relaxing a muscle. She didn’t need to speak, but simply turn her attention to the spirit and will it away, sending it back to where it came from, to await her call again. She felt a flicker of acknowledgement across the ether, almost like a spiritual nod; then the glowing eyes vanished and the cloud of mist seemed to collapse in on itself. It swirled, like it was being sucked into a hole in the air and suddenly, with an almost audible pop, it was gone. Kellan looked down. The incense burner had gone cold. The air in the basement was as crisp and clean as she’d ever known it to be, with a faint tang of ozone—like the clean smell after a rainstorm—the only scent remaining.

  Lothan nodded approvingly. "Good," he said rising from his seat. "Now you can clean up and put things away before you go." He turned to leave, but Kellan stopped him.

  "What about the circle?" she asked.

  "What about it?"

  "Well, it can be reused . . ." she began, and Lothan shook his head.

  "I prefer a clean working space, so for your next lesson you’ll just have to start over again." He paused by the stairs to toss Kellan a cleaning rag hanging from one side of the workbench. "It’s good practice."

  Kellan was left to scrub the chalk marks from the floor and to put away all the equipment in its proper place in the workshop. She looked forward to the time when she could afford a work space of her own, rather than having to use Lothan’s. She would certainly leave her ritual circles in place until she needed to draw a new one. Hours of preparation and ritual, just to wipe it all away!

  She relived the feeling when the air elemental regarded her and she knew—she knew she had it, that it was obedient to her will, there to do as she commanded. She couldn’t stop herself from feeling a surge of pride, and she grinned as she scrubbed the floor. She could see why Lothan considered conjuring important and why he seemed to enjoy it. Still, she thought wistfully, next time I’m going to summon a spirit that can clean up for me.

  Chapter 3

  As soon as she was finished cleaning up, Kellan stuck her head into Lothan’s study to say good night before shouldering her bag of gear and heading out the door. She was about to kick her motorcycle to life when her phone rang.

  "Yeah?" she asked. There was no ID on the display, which was standard operating procedure for the kind of calls Kellan got.

  "I’ve got us a job," Midnight said without preamble. "You feeling up for it?"

  Kellan smiled fiercely. "Where and when do you want me to meet you?" Midnight gave her the place and time, and Kellan agreed to be there. Snapping the phone closed, she kicked her bike to life and roared off into the night. Her blood was pumping even more than it had during the summoning. This was a kind of magic, too—shadowrunner magic. There was a job to do, and Kellan had never felt more ready.

  The place was a nightclub called the Alabaster Maiden, on 12th and East Mercer downtown, a modest drive from Lothan’s place. Kellan had heard of it, but had never been there. Since it was fairly early in the evening (in shadowrunner time) when she arrived, the club was still pretty quiet.

  She found a place to park her bike and headed up the club’s broad stone steps. A young elf woman, her blond hair streaked with fluorescent pink, checked the ID on Kellan’s credstick and deducted the cover charge. Kellan’s ID didn’t give her real name, and also said she was over twenty-one—to facilitate business in Seattle’s nightspots. The elf waved her in without a second glance.

  The broad foyer was floored in black marble, with tall greenery in granite planters flanking the entrances and exits. They were checking coats to one side, but Kellan kept hers on and climbed the second set of steps leading up to the club itself.

  In the entryway stood the nightclub’s namesake, a life-sized statue of a woman made of almost translucent white stone. She stood as if poised to come to life and move, glancing over one shoulder, a wry, almost smug look on her face. She wore close-fitting leathers and a revealing top under a short jacket, and her wavy hair cascaded past her shoulders.

  Kellan looked up at
the statue, standing on a waist-high pedestal of black marble, and wondered. Urban legend said the Alabaster Maiden was actually one of Seattle’s first street magicians, back in the years just after the Awakening. According to the story, she overreached her powers one day and was accidentally turned to stone. The club owner bought the statue at auction and arranged to have it displayed; as memorial, warning or revenge, no one knew.

  Thinking for a moment what it must be like to be petrified, trapped, for decades, Kellan started to peer closer at the statue. She summoned her inner vision to look, not with her physical eyes, but with her mystic senses.

  "Kellan." The sound of her name and a gentle touch on her arm jolted Kellan back to the present. She spun to see Midnight standing there.

  "I didn’t think you saw me," she smiled, and Kellan blushed in spite of herself.

  "I didn’t," she replied. "I was just . . . thinking."

  "Quite a piece of work, isn’t it?"

  Kellan glanced back at the statue. "Yeah."

  "You think the rumors are true?" Midnight asked, leading Kellan toward a cluster of tables off to the side of the lounge area.

  "I really don’t know. Do you?"

  "I try not to listen to rumors," the elf replied.

  A nearly full glass of white wine stood on the table. Midnight slid into the upholstered bench seat behind the table, leaving the wrought-iron chair opposite it for Kellan, who shook her head when Midnight asked if she wanted anything. A tiny shake of Midnight’s head in the direction of the bar received a slight nod in return from the bartender.

  "So," Kellan asked, setting her bag next to her chair, "what’s cooking?"

  Midnight took a sip of her wine and leaned forward across the table. "A client of a certain cyberclinic is interested in having all records of an extended visit there eliminated. And not just any cyberclinic," Midnight continued. "A top-of-the-line clinic specializing in . . . discreet operations."