John Levitt - Unleashed

“I don’t know,” said Victor. “That seems rather far-fetched, don’t you think?”

Eli walked back over to the big desk where Victor sat.

“No, I don’t think it is,” he said. “Not that much of a stretch at all. The Wendigo came out of the energy pool. Sherwood made her first appearance, after more than a year, at that same pool. And what did she say? ‘He must call me’? As Mason found out, when this creature calls, you have to go. Quite the coincidence, no?”

“And that raises an interesting point,” Victor said.

“Which is?”

“Your name,” Eli said. “How did it know your name, Mason?”

“Well, I certainly didn’t tell it. But what does my name have to do with anything? Do you think that’s what gave it power over me? That whole nonsense of knowledge of names giving another power over you is ancient superstition.” I paused. “Isn’t it?”

“I used to think so, but if you’ll think back on the events of the last year or so, I think you’ll find a lot of our former beliefs have been tested. And as to how it knew your name, and whether that knowledge bestows power-I have no idea, but I think it significant. Maybe it knows all names, just by virtue of what it is.”

“That’s a comforting thought.”

“Okay,” said Victor. “Assuming, hypothetically, that you’re right, where does that leave us? If it could really call Sherwood, bring her back from wherever, how does that help us? We can hardly go up and say, ‘Excuse me, Mr. Wendigo. I have a favor to ask.’ ”

“I don’t know. Maybe we could strike a bargain,” I said. Victor snorted.

“You don’t strike bargains with elemental archetypes.”

“Quite the contrary,” Eli said. “That’s exactly what one does. Think of the literature.”

“But we have nothing to trade.”

“Coercion, then,” I said. “Compel him in some way.

Could we trap him?”

“Doubtful,” Eli said. “It would take far more power to control something like that than any of us possess, singly or in concert. Now, if we had a magical enhancer, something like those rune stones, the ones that gave us so much trouble, that might be a different matter.”

Those stones, the petrified bones of long-dead creatures, were of immense magical potency. They’d come from another time and place, or dimension, or something-I’m not very good with the cosmology of such things. A black practitioner had discovered them and brought them back, and they’d caused all kinds of trouble. The stones acted as enhancers-with them, even an ordinary practitioner could achieve extraordinary things, and they’d been used in unpleasant ways. When it was all over, I confiscated the lot of them. They were too dangerous to be left lying around.

I should have destroyed them, or given them to Eli for study, but I couldn’t bring myself to give them up. At least I knew better than to use them myself, but I did it anyway. I’d given a few to Rolf, who thought he could employ them to create his own Ifrit. That hadn’t worked out so well. But maybe the stones could be used to help fix the very problem they’d caused. Eli and Victor might be able to keep that magic under control.

“How many of those stones do you think we’d need?” I asked, trying to be casual about it.

“A lot. In effect, we’d have to use them to build a metaphorical cage to contain it.” As soon as I asked about how many would be needed, Victor’s head swiveled toward me. He stared, thoughtfully at first, then with growing suspicion.

“Why do you ask?” he said.

“Just curious.”

He was on it like a bird dog on a quail. Damn him for being so sharp.

“Curious? I’ll bet. You kept some of them when you found them, didn’t you?” He shook his head in exasperation. “There were more of them than you let on, weren’t there? I should have known.”

My first instinct was to deny it, but what was the point? Technically I hadn’t done anything wrong.

“Yes, I still have a few,” I said. I expected Eli would be angry at this, but all his face showed was disappointment.

“Why didn’t you tell me about this, Mason?” he said. I shrugged.

“I don’t know, really. I was going to toss them, but when it came right down to it I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of them. And I knew how you’d feel about that, so…”

“They do get a hold on people. That’s one of the reasons why they’re dangerous. You use things like that too much, and before you know it, they control you instead of the other way around.” His face hardened. “You haven’t… been using them for anything, have you?”

I shook my head.

“No. Honestly, I was afraid to, and Lou would have taken my hand off if I’d tried. He really doesn’t like them.”

“That’s because he, at least, has some sense.” Eli came all the way across the room and peered into my face from a foot away. “Are you sure you haven’t been using them?”

“I’m sure. I think I would have remembered something like that.”

After a long moment, he clapped me on the shoulder, almost knocking me off my feet.

“Well, that’s all right, then.”

Victor pushed his chair away from the desk and rocked back on its two legs, teetering precariously. He often did that, and I always hoped he would overbalance one day and flip backward ass over teakettle. But he never did. He pointed a finger at me. There was a lot of finger-pointing going on.

“Okay,” he said. “Again, let’s assume we can use the stones, and we can build a trap. How are we going to find this Wendigo thing. Lou?”

“I don’t think so. He couldn’t track the fake Ifrit, and I don’t think he’d have any better luck with this.”

“Too bad. But how did you find it in the first place, then?”

“Well, that’s an interesting thing,” I said. “Basically, a woman I met told me where to look.”

“Oh? Who? And how would she know that?”

“She’s a psychic, or something like that. I met her accidentally.”

“How do you meet someone accidentally?”

“It happens. But that’s irrelevant. She had no idea what she was telling me.”

“Could she tell you where to find it again?”

I considered that. It hadn’t entered my mind, but it was possible she could.

“I don’t know. But it’s worth a try, I guess.”

“First things first,” said Eli. “I want those green rune stones.”

“I’ll bring them by tomorrow, I promise.”

“Why not right now?”

“I’ve got things to do. I want to talk to my psychic friend, for one.” I also wanted some time to get used to the idea of giving the rune stones up, but I didn’t say that.

“All right,” Eli said. He looked at me hard. “Just make sure you bring them. All of them.” I wasn’t fooling him. I got up to leave, but Victor held up a hand.

“Hold on a minute,” he said. He reached into the desk drawer and pulled out a standard 12-gauge cleaning kit-cleaning rod, patches, and Hoppe’s No. 9 solvent. “By the way, you fired the shotgun, so make sure you clean it thoroughly. A dirty gun is a lazy man’s weapon, and a lazy man is a liability.”

I took the kit, but I didn’t need the advice. My grandfather had drilled that into me long ago. As I drove home, I actually felt a sense of relief. I hadn’t touched those stones since I’d picked up that fateful bag, but they had been weighing on my mind for a while. Nothing ominous, just a low-level combination of curiosity and unease. I hadn’t been entirely forthright with Eli, which he was well aware of, but he had decided to let it pass. I think he understood those things could take hold of the imagination.

At home, I took a quick shower to wipe off the grime and nervous sweat that had piled up. Then I spent a while figuring out what I was going to say to Morgan. I could ask her out for coffee, but she would likely say no. She’d asked me to call her, but it was because she was worried, not because she was looking to hook up. My call might be misinterpreted. Not that she would have been altogether wrong.