John Levitt - Unleashed

“I need some help,” I said. He looked at me sourly. “Bacon for breakfast tomorrow?” His ears perked up. When all else fails, bribery is usually a viable option with him. He stood up alertly, awaiting instructions.

“The circle. The stones. Grab one, pull it away.”

Victor turned to intercept him. But it was too late. Lou ducked around him, grabbed the nearest stone, and tossed it aside with a quick flick of his head, as if he were killing a rat. The circle was broken, and an opening appeared in the space the stone had occupied, just wide enough for me to squeeze through. I stepped out of the circle and tapped Victor on the shoulder.

“You’re it,” I said. “Or maybe, you’re dead.”

He started to say something, probably along the lines of accusing me of cheating, then realized how lame that would sound. Instead, he gave a reluctant nod.

“Good catch,” he said, grudgingly.” We’ll have to be alert for outside interference-we don’t know what else may be out there. Now all we have to do is figure out where our Wendigo might be.” He paused, remembering. “Did you have any luck with your psychic?”

“I’m afraid not. Something about the Golden Gate Bridge, and dusk; that’s about it. What are we going to do, set up the trap out by Baker Beach until it makes an appearance? And not to be difficult, but how are you going to tempt it to come to where you’ve set up the trap, anyway? What if it shows up a couple of miles away from the circle?”

“We’re not going to set it up beforehand,” Eli said. “We don’t have to. All the hard work has already been done. When-if we locate the Wendigo, we’ll set up the circle-it shouldn’t take more than a minute or so. But we can’t depend on finding it. What we need is some way to attract it to us.” Victor suddenly sat up straight.

“The shotgun,” he said. “Have you cleaned it yet?” My God, the man could be anal.

“Haven’t got around to it yet,” I said. “I was going to do it this morning, but I thought building this trap might be a tad more important.”

“No, no,” said Victor impatiently. “The residue in the barrel. We can use the residue if you haven’t cleaned it yet.”

“I don’t see it,” Eli said. “The powder has no connection to the creature.”

“Yes, but the barrel isn’t just fouled with powder residue. It also contains traces of the lead pellets which passed through it-a tiny bit of the lead sloughs off each time it’s fired.”

“Ah,” said Eli. “And those same pellets struck the Wendigo. Creating a connection between the lead pellets that hit the Wendigo and the lead residue they left in the barrel. Very good, Victor.”

“Unless you missed it,” Victor said to me. “Are you sure you hit it?”

“I’m sure,” I said. “It’s hard to miss something at that distance with a shotgun. And I fired four shots. I damn sure didn’t miss with all of them.”

“Excellent,” Eli said, rubbing his hands together. “Admittedly, the connection is weak, but I think we can work with it.”

Most magical operations are simply about utilizing talent to redirect and transform energy-everything from simple illusions to complex spells involving time and space. But there are some constants that help to enable such spells. The principle of similarity, for example. Using nearby water to effect fluid changes, or rock to draw energy for a protective shield, or the emotions of hate and fear to fashion a killing spell.

Or the rule of contagion-things once part of a whole but which are then separated retain an affinity for each other-like the shotgun pellets leaving part of themselves as lead residue an the rest of them striking the Wendigo.

I brought the shotgun in from my van and broke out the cleaning kit. Twenty minutes later I had a collection of cotton patches, damp with solvent, the first one black with fouling and each subsequent one progressively lighter. While I pushed the patches through the bore, Victor was busy pulling out additional magical tools from the safe.

“What do you think?” he asked Eli.

“A paste, a salve would be best, I think. We can apply it to Mason, and that should attract the Wendigo to him.” I didn’t like the sound of that.

“So not only am I the sacrificial goat, staked out to tempt the tiger, but I’m basically going to have hamburger rubbed all over my body? Why not just pour a bottle of steak sauce over my head and be done with it?”

“If we have to,” Victor said.

“If you’re going to be making up a magical potion, maybe we should give Campbell a call. No offense, but she’s really better at that sort of thing.” And at least that way, I could be sure whatever it was Victor came up with wouldn’t cause me to break out in boils.

“That’s not a bad idea,” Eli said. “Why don’t you call her, Mason?”

So I did, and after being filled in on everything, she was eager to come down. I spent the next few hours doing a magical refresher course with Eli. I’d been lazy of late, not keeping up with even the basics. I wouldn’t dream of playing an important gig without some practice time, and the same principles apply in magic. And we would be playing a very important gig indeed if this worked.

We went over the basics-like how to utilize talent in the most efficient manner so you don’t exhaust yourself in the first minute. How to narrow focus, like a lens, and not spray energy all over the place. The less talent you use to produce an effect, the more energy you have in reserve for the inevitable unforeseen circumstances.

Then a run-through on which materials work best for implementing which spells. You can use anything for anything, but some things are easier to work with than others, and again there’s no point in wasting valuable energy. Metals are hard to use; living things easy, since they have their own energy. But even with metals, there are degrees. Silver and moonlight go together like bread and butter. Copper is very useful for specific types of work, and iron, of course, is almost impervious to magical talent. But that makes it ideal for defense.

And finally, concentration exercises. I used some talent to keep a tennis ball suspended precisely twelve inches off the floor while Eli asked me a series of increasingly difficult questions. The ability to concentrate on more than one thing at once is crucial to magical operations.

Lou had turned these sessions into a favorite game. As I tried to answer Eli’s questions and keep the ball steady, he would harass me. Sometimes it was mock attacks; sometimes he even nipped me unexpectedly. Or he’d do back-flips, each time almost landing on his head, distracting me with worry. I did pretty well this time until Maggie threw herself on the back of my neck. The tennis ball dropped as I lost concentration. Eli frowned, but I thought I’d done pretty well by simply not jumping up with a scream. Maggie bounced off and retreated across the room, tail waving. Cat humor.

When Campbell showed up a few hours later she shook her head at me.

“You’re determined to get yourself in trouble, aren’t you?”

“Not my idea. But worth a try, I think.”

She brought out her familiar copper pot and a can of Sterno and set them up on the floor. While the pot heated, she placed the plants she’d brought next to Victor’s various props while carrying on an animated discussion about how to blend her plant properties with his inorganic power objects. One of the plants she pulled out was unlike anything I’d seen.

“This is a sundew,” she said, noticing me looking at it with curiosity. “It’s hard to come by, but useful. It’s incredibly sticky for one thing. Great for attraction.”

“Isn’t that a carnivorous plant?” I asked. “Insects and stuff?” The idea creeped me out.