The Summoner's Sigil

by Renee Sebastian

  He said nothing in reply.

  “Are you?”

  “Of course not, but I am registered, so if they had access to the master registry, then they would know.” He was right and I was tired. I didn’t like political games, and here I was stuck in the middle of one.

  All I could muster in reply was, “You must have been on someone’s travel log, or how else would they know you came here?”

  “I was told I was travelling in secret, so someone must have been paid off,” he added.

  If I were the mayor and I knew a world renown Summoner was coming, then I would want to know what entourage would be accompanying her. Did he think Colin had been assigned to guard me? Or did he think we were coming back to Convent to investigate him?

  “You’re not dually talented are you?” I asked.

  “No. I think being what I am, is enough, don’t you?”

  “I’m just making sure that you’re not a Summoner too. You’re not, are you?” I asked, while I kept shifting my glances to the windows above. Colin kept his keen gaze on the darker recesses located between the buildings we passed.

  “No, I’m strictly what I have presented myself to be,” he absently said.

  “But you can augment my magic?”

  “Apparently,” he replied, but that seemed just a little too pat of an answer for me.

  “Is this something that wolves can do for the people they guard?”

  “I have been sworn not to reveal any secrets of the ancient Brotherhood,” he replied seriously.

  “You’re teasing me now, as you’ve already told me that you’re not a part of that lifestyle,” I said as we circumvented one of the fiery bodies. This one looked remarkably like a bear.

  “You’ve caught me, but honestly, I didn’t know if my sigil would do anything to your circle Basil. I suspected, but wasn’t certain.”

  “Why did you suspect it would work?”

  “It seemed logical.”

  I nodded my head in agreement, and then we turned the corner of the street where many of the shops were located. We passed by the butcher’s shop, which had rotting carcasses hanging in its display window. One thing this town didn’t lack were the flies, as a swarm flew out from it towards us. Colin grabbed my arm and we ran for the china shop across the street.

  He broke the door’s lock after ramming it, and then we were inside. He drew all the blinds, while I checked the rest of the store for any squatters. Once I was satisfied that there weren’t any, I next looked for its exits. After finding the one and only other exit out the back storeroom, I went back to Colin who had pushed a display case against the front door. He was sitting on it and had parted the blinds of a sidelight with his fingers.

  “Do you see anything?” I whispered.

  “A demon.”

  “The one we released?”

  “Hard to say. Whoever it may be is using the horde of flies to give itself a corporeal form. I think the city’s wards might be trapping it here,” he replied. With us hung in the air.

  After considering which side of the street the cobbler’s shop was located, I realized cheerfully that it is was this one. “Listen, we can take the back alley exit of this shop and huff it to the Pastor’s back door.”

  “We don’t even know if anyone will be there.”

  “No, but every User in town will have tried to make it there, and we already know that Users helped make this mess, so maybe Users are the only ones that can stop it, and besides, maybe our prime list of suspects will be there too. So be sure to be on point.”

  “I think I’ve been on point since I met you.”

  “And I thought I was going to have a holiday when I got home. Let’s go,” I said. “Afterwards, we’ll see what we can use at the constable office. I’d wager that even if we can’t see what is lurking on the streets, our foes will have enough substance to move smoke.”

  “From a smoke bomb?”

  “Exactly.”

  He mulled it over for a moment and then he said, “Lead on, but let’s be quick about this stop. I have a bad feeling about it.”

  We went out the back door and then we navigated the alley, avoiding rubbish bins and debris that had fallen from the buildings. One of the strangest things I had observed while travelling the streets of Convent was that I had not seen any stray animals. Most cities had their fair share of feral animals, like cats or dogs, but there wasn’t even the typical vermin of rats and roaches rummaging from bin to bin. In fact, the only animal life we had seen thus far had been the flies from the butcher’s shop.

  Finally, we arrived at the back door of the cobbler’s shop. The scents of shoe polish and recently tanned leather clung to the bricks of his shop making me sneeze no less than four times as I walked up to the door. Above the door hung the Tree of Life plaque indicating that he was an Estonian, and then I tried the doorknob. Even though the knob turned freely, the door didn’t budge. They must have set a security bar upon it.

  I next knocked on the door and said, “Robert Ensley, I know you are in there, open this door right now. This is Basil Beckenbauer, and if my father knew you were keeping his only child in danger out here, he would come over here and tar your…” The metal bar could be heard lifting from the other side and then the door opened.

  Even though Pastor Bob was getting on in years with a graying beard and temples, he hadn’t lost any of his six foot even height. He was also a bear of a man, being stout and barrel chested, along with large arm muscles that his neatly pressed dark blue shirt barely constrained.

  “Child, what are you doing in this infernal town?” he asked.

  “I am trying to stop whatever has happened here from happening anywhere else,” I quickly replied.

  “Well said. You are then welcome to come into my home Mortimer Beckenbauer’s child. We can give you sanctuary for as long we are able.”

  Colin took my elbow, but when he did so, he squeezed it extra hard, which gave me pause. I proceeded to walk into the backroom of the shop, but when it came to Colin entering, Pastor Bob barred his way. I could sense them testing each other’s wills, or maybe they were brushing their auras; either way, I didn’t care. Colin was coming in with me.

  It was expected of you to share knowledge of your ability at an Estonian church meeting, so we all knew each other’s abilities. During my first visit here, years ago, he told me that he was an Aurora, so I wouldn’t be able to lie to him, which suited me just fine.

  “Pastor, this is Mr. Townsend. He works for the President, and he’s here to help us.” Pastor Bob customarily knew what was going on in the town and telling him Colin’s name guaranteed our timeline would be moved up. I wanted everything thing settled before we left tomorrow.

  “I don’t like him,” Pastor Bob said with less than his usual Southern charm.

  “He’s protecting me,” I said, heavy with meaning. Colin’s birthright was only his to tell. I was not going to volunteer that scrap of information to just anyone. They stared at each other for a few more tense seconds, before I added, “I won’t come in without him.”

  Colin looked over the pastor’s shoulder at me and graced me with a look of appreciation that I was certain few people ever got to see. I couldn’t help but smile in the face of the frightful circumstances we found ourselves.

  “Fine, you both can come in,” he finally said.

  Colin joined me and we walked deeper into the workroom. I almost gagged on the strong scent of incense. He must have been attempting to cover up the simpler odors of shoe polish and tanned leather. When the door was finally secured behind us, several people came out of the woodwork. As it turned out, there were only four in all, five if you counted Bob. Three of them I knew, if not well, then at least by name.

  One was a Hostler, by trade and magic, whose name was Edwin. I didn’t know much about him, other than he was the town’s blacksmith. His skin was the color of mocha, and he was huge, with a thick black beard and balding head. He was also in his mid-thirties.

&
nbsp; Much to my surprise, Millie was here too. She had golden brown hair and big doe like brown eyes. Her skin was just as I remembered it, all milk and honey.

  “Millie! What are you doing here? Where is your mother?”

  She rushed up and kissed my cheek. Then she said, “Oh Basil. It certainly is good to see you!”

  “Where’s your mother?” I asked again.

  “I’m not sure. Once the plague started I came straight here.”

  “You’re a User?”

  Her mouth made a tight line and then she looked over to Father Bob for askance. He nodded his head and she answered, “I am.”

  “You never told me.”

  “Mother forbade me from telling anyone. She was afraid.” She didn’t say what she was afraid of, but it didn’t take much to fill in the blank. This town had always discriminated against Users for as long as I had been alive. But if anyone needed to talk to a deceased relative in order to settle a will dispute, Delia would be the first one they would contact. They were hypocrites of the finest degree.

  “What is your ability?” I asked her.

  “I’m a Luxor.”

  A Lux Illusionist would enable her to use water vapor in the air and the light of the sun to refract it in order to create illusions of her choice. If she ever partnered herself with someone who could manipulate the weather, then they could become a very formidable team.

  Most Illusionists I knew served in the Republic Reserves, where they would train one weekend every month to advance their skills and practice combining their magics in case we ever went to war again. I didn’t know if she did, but if we both got out of this alive, I was going to try and persuade her to leave this backwoods town and join me in London. Things were a little better for Users there, and perhaps she could even be tempted to join the Agora.

  The other woman in the room was a Hedgewitch, who also doubled as a midwife. She owned the local pottery shop too. Her main business was making urns for the deceased. It was a good business for her. In addition, she sold love and fertility potions to the female constituents in the town. Those potions resulted in the children that required her birthing services. Everyone called her Pippa, but I didn’t think anyone knew her full name, and she had to be in her late sixties.

  The last man in the room I did not know. He had an Old Dutch beard and sported a straw hat. He also wore old fashioned overalls and heavy workman boots. He appeared to be a farmer, if I was interpreting the mud on the cuffs of his pants correctly, but I knew that appearances could be deceiving.

  “Who’s the new blood?” I asked Pastor Bob.

  “Lucas, he’s a Tomb Talker,” he replied. That was interesting.

  “If you hadn’t heard, Delia is dead, and I sent out an advertisement in the penny presses of neighboring towns last week. He only just answered the ad when all this happened,” the pastor said.

  The others were looking at Colin oddly, so I said, “This is Mr. Townsend and he is an agent working for the President. Please answer any questions he might ask you.”

  “Would you care for some tea, while we exchange information?” Pippa asked.

  “I think we would like that every much mam, thank you,” Colin answered.

  ···•Ͽ Ѡ Ͼ•···

  After Pippa served us a hot cup of tea and plates filled with simple meat and cheese sandwiches, Millie said, “We all waited for you on the dirigible platform.”

  “I’m sorry I missed my flight. I took a mechcarriage here,” I told them, which was all true.

  Then Pippa reached into a bag and handed me a lovely mother of pearl comb with some small white quail feathers and a porcelain flower on the handle. I took it in my hands and asked, “Is this for me?”

  “The community wanted to give it to you upon your return, but I am happy to give it to you now, even under the present set of circumstances,” she said.

  “It’s lovely.”

  “I made the flower in my ceramics shop,” she added.

  “I’ll treasure it all the more.”

  “What do you know about what is happening within the town?” Pastor Bob asked, getting down to business.

  We told them of the sequestering that had been set upon the town. I noticed that Colin kept his eyes solely on Pastor Bob.

  Finally, it was the cobbler’s turn to talk and he told us, “It was all rather sudden really. One minute we were going about our business, and then there was screaming coming from the constable’s office down the road. That was when we saw the first transformation.”

  “What do you mean transformation?” I asked.

  “Oh Basil,” Millie said, “It was something awful. I saw my own mother transformed into a monster. Her skin grew boils that grew to a head and spiked outward. Her eyes… her eyes turned yellow and slitted like a goat. While she stared at me, black blood dripped from her eyes, nose, and ears. It was horrific.”

  I took her hand in my own and said, “I’m so sorry for your loss. But believe me when I say, this will end where it began. So help me.”

  “When did this all start happening?” Colin asked, scribbling notes down in his notebook.

  “Yesterday morning. I hadn’t had any of my appointments show up, so I grew suspicious,” Pastor Bob said. “I closed up the shop and went to the café down the street. You know the one, Liberty Lounge.” I did know it. It was owned by Libby Blankenship, a widow.

  “Gladys was there as always, behind the counter serving up whatever you ordered,” he said. She was a well-known User, who was Libby’s twin sister. The gene had skipped in Libby, but not in Gladys. She was a Hemomage. They could use blood to fuel their powers. I also knew that if you were looking for fruit moonshines, then Liberty Longue was your premier Convent destination. When you ordered a tea or coffee, Gladys would more often than not also add a splash of it to it as well.

  “But she was different this time,” he said.

  “How so?”

  “She was a deader.”

  “How could you tell?” Colin asked. Sometimes the recently turned deaders looked just as alive as not.

  “She smiled and I saw that her gums were black and she had lost a front tooth,” he told him. I found his statement odd, since he claimed to be an Aurora. Shouldn’t he have been able to determine she was dead simply by looking at her aura? I glanced over at Colin, but he was still staring intensely at Pastor Bob.

  I looked around us and wondered which of them were in his flock, and which only had the wool pulled over their eyes. I wasn’t certain how deep the disease went in this town, but Pastor Bob wasn’t what he presented himself to be.

  “Then she attacked me,” he continued. “I was able to fend her off and make a run for the constable’s office. When I arrived there, I discovered it had been abandoned. So I ran to the emergency bell pulley and set it to ring, in order to warn the rest of the town.” It was a common emergency notification system in smaller cities. To the best of my knowledge, it had only been used to notify the inhabitants of impending floods or cyclones.

  Pastor Bob continued by saying, “I then returned back to my shop, and found these four waiting for me. They knew that I had safeguards in place against a magical assault.”

  “So you each heard the bell ring and came straight here?” I asked, looking at each of them.

  “Well, Lucas was already here,” Millie said.

  “Yes, that’s right,” Pastor Bob agreed. “He’s been staying on as a lodger the past couple of days, since he is new to the town. He’s planning on taking over Delia’s shop, but there is some paperwork that still needs to be concluded before that can happen. He’s quite talented. Some say he is destined for greater things than our town.”

  “I’m sure he is,” Colin said suspiciously.

  “They are going to gas this place tomorrow, unless we can stop who is behind this subterfuge. Do you have any suspicions?” I added.

  “I suspect that Father Chaput may be behind all of this.”

  “How so,” Colin asked.

>   “He was discharged from his position some time ago, but I’ve heard he has suddenly returned,” the Pastor replied.

  “Was he a User, Pastor Ensley?” Colin asked.

  “How did you know?”

  “Lucky guess. What kind was he?”

  “A Summoner like our Basil, but few people knew it. You know how the Deists are. However, as an Aurora, it’s hard to pull one over on me.”

  “Of course,” I replied, but I certainly didn’t believe him for a second. He should have known that Colin had wolf ancestry in him, but he made no mention of it. I imagined that it should have at least looked odd to him, even if he had never seen one of his kind before now.

  “Lucas, how strong of a Tomb Talker are you?”

  “Class B,” he replied in a Dutch accent.

  “Millie, are you part of the Reserves?”

  “I…”

  “She just came back from her first trip last weekend,” Pippa said.

  I had heard enough. Either these people knew something and had no plans of telling us, or they knew next to nothing. Something smelled rotten in Convent.

  “When was the last time you donated?” Colin asked. It was customary for all Users to donate a small amount of blood monthly for the Hemomage coffers in Washington. Since the Republic had been in peace so long, rumor had it that President Newton was working to change that law. Even though she wasn’t a User, she was a User sympathizer.

  “It was to be this weekend,” Pastor Bob replied. Naturally it was. There was only one way to confirm that. The post office in this town had the donation center in it, which just happened to be next to the constable’s office.

  I put down my tea cup and said, “It has been most pleasurable making your acquaintance Lucas, but we really need to go to the mayor’s house. Maybe he will have an idea on how we can help.”

  “It’s not safe to travel just now. Those things are still on the loose,” Millie said.

  “She’s right, you should stay here,” Pippa added.