James Baldwin - Burn Artist

The circle was in a clearing between towering rows of baled metal, lit by the roaring glow of barrel fires. Kovacs stood in the middle of a precisely rendered circle of ground chalk, ash and salt, tall and imperious. Now that I could get a look at him, he was a leonine, proud-looking man, with a big nose and a full, dark mouth. He had his arm wrapped around a tall, thick staff engraved with Hebrew letters, but he'd skipped the dramatic robe for a dress shirt and jeans. It was a bit too hot for flowing black velvet tonight.

“It was you that I sensed. I knew you'd come,” Kovacs proclaimed. He had a notable Israeli accent.

“Wonderful. And I knew you'd be compensating for something with a giant stick,” I replied, holding my pistol down in both hands. The rough grip burned against the cut in my palm. “If I’d known this was going to be some kind of Sephardic versus Ashkenazi wizard grudge match, I’d have bought my teffillin .” [27] A small box on a strap that contains Torah scripts that is worn during prayer by Jewish men.

Kovacs laughed, and I felt the power he'd built in his circle ripple around the perimeter of the design in a smooth wave. It prickled the hairs on the nape of my neck. He had drawn a traditional design, a geometric, Yahweh-centric circle as old as the Seals of Solomon, and he commanded the energy like a skilled musician.

“What do you hope to accomplish by coming here, really?” His poise and control communicated nothing but arrogance. “You couldn't shoot me before, and you can't shoot me now.”

“You've got your job to do, and so have I.”

“Oh, I see.” His smugness only intensified. “Come to try and save your blood kin? Your family? Your gang of Russian potato farmers?”

“Ukrainian barley farmers, thank you.” I stared at the circle until I could visualize and observe the pattern formed by the other mage's willpower. The longer he talked, the better. Everyone commanded the Art differently, and it took time to unweave the strands and gain mastery over the rhythm. “You really have no idea how much I don't want to stop you.”

“What?” The smarmy smirk curled into something that might have been confusion.

“Your curse ended up hitting my father,” I said, tapping my finger on the trigger. “You can kill him, raise him, and kill him again if you really want to. It's the ones after that who are problematic. So go ahead, incinerate him. I'll watch. What's Scapetti paying you for this, anyway? I might be able to match it, if you agree to walk away from the job.”

“More than what you or your Soviet thugs could ever afford,” he sneered. “My right shoe is worth more than your entire wardrobe.”

“That's probably true. I don't like to spend much on clothes,” I replied. “So go on then.”

He blinked. “What? Go on what?”

I gestured to the core of the circle with the point of the pistol. “Go on and wave your broomstick around, and do whatever you need to do to make my father self-combust.”

“Are you joking?” He seemed affronted, maybe anxious, but I couldn't really tell. Parts of his face seemed to move independently from one another, never cohering into a single, readable expression. I often had that problem with new faces.

“No, so off you go. Yod hey vav hey! Phoomph! Pillar of fire!” I gestured with my other hand, miming a rising flame. “I have no discernable sense of humor and I am utterly and completely serious.”

“You're bluffing.” His eyes narrowed. “You're making fun of me.”

I sighed. “Please kill him.”

“You're not fooling anyone. There's nothing you can offer me that Mr. Maslak’s protectors can't provide,” he said brittlely, his mouth turning down at the corners. “And nothing I'd do to benefit your predatory, conniving scumbag of a Don.”

It had been worth a shot. I sighted down at him, jaws clenched, and then ran at the circle with my gun ready to fire.

The other mage flung his hand out, stamping the staff on the ground as he yelled his Enochian word of power. “ Dobrax !”

The swimming magic in the circle accelerated under the pressure of his will and snapped out like a lightning strike, a flash with a burning sulphuric stench. I charged into it like a bull, straining physically and psychically against the wave of heat and force. Eye to eye, Kovacs' cursework was markedly more powerful than it had been when we'd been separated by time and distance. I focused my will to a fine point, clamped it down and forward, and then activated the spell on the amulet. “IAL! ALDON!”

The amulet burned against my clothes, the bone barely holding solid form as the reflective ward reacted to the trigger, and the magic snapped back toward the caster. Kovacs' eyes widened as he swung his hand and staff around, his primary tool. His hair singed, but he caught the torrent of magic back into his circle of power and spun it around the perimeter of the design before flinging it back at me like a spear.

“RRAAAGH!” His face was a mask of concentration, pouring with sweat as we vied, will to will. The amulet hissed and spat as the energetic barrier between us seemed to buckle and war. He stepped back, and I felt his attention waver… and then my talisman exploded in a shower of blasted charcoal as Kovacs found the gap in the design and my concentration. There was a moment where my feet seemed to sweep forward along the ground before the cursed slammed into my chest with physical force: a blastwave that flooded my body and surrounded my heart before tearing the flesh of my pectoral with the kolovrat , the Sun wheel, which was to seal my fate.

I could see why my father had screamed. The pain was excruciating, nerve pain that ripped through my torso and shoulder as the anchoring sigil manifested on my body. I reeled: my muscles cramped like I'd been shot. The air was suddenly too hot to breathe.

“Hah!” Kovacs, sweating and pale, gestured at me with his staff. His eyes were bright with gloating avarice. “I'll give you one chance to live. You said you want to deal? Get on your knee, and swear your money for your life.”

“Go shove your staff up your ass.” A fresh wave of heat passed through my body. I struggled through it, palm throbbing against the grip of the Wardbreaker as I fought to bring it up and aim at the mage's chest.

“Suit yourself.” He drew himself up. “You think this is an Indiana Jones movie, do you? That you're just going to be able to shoot me?”

I sighted down the barrel and fired off a round in reply. It hit an invisible barrier at the edge of the circle. The powdered chalk danced on the ground with the mage's effort to hold it intact, but it still held.

“Have it your way.” Kovacs laughed. He raised his arms. “ Adre, addron, galvah …”

I braced a second time, closed my eyes, and focused on the link he was expanding between the two of us. He wielded his magic like a harpoon, a spear on a chain linked back to his own body. As he continued the incantation, I felt my heart race as my muscles heated, but the river flowed both ways. My teeth began to chatter as I searched for the rhythm and pattern and found it in a flash of tactile inspiration. As soon as I understood his magic, I could direct it to my own magical circle: a hidden transmutation sigil carved into my skin over my heart, where I’d known the sigil would manifest.

“Galvarah, YOD!” He finished his chant, and enacted the curse.

“IAL!” I roared my command word at the same time.

The column of magic looped through my body and then slung back into the circle carved into my flesh, following the path of least resistance as I rejected Kovacs intent and subverted his force into my own. The charge flashed through the channel of crusted blood winding from left pectoral to right hand, and slammed into the weapon I was holding. The Commander became painfully hot as the glyphs etched into the barrel flooded with brilliant red light, and I had, had to shoot. “ALLAR VOD!”