Frostbite (Modern Knights Book 1) Read online

  4

  The toxic fumes had largely dissipated from my hotel room, but I was still reluctant to go back in. If I went inside I would have to go through with the ritual…or admit I was chicken. Outside the room, I could pretend like I was going to attempt the summoning whenever I got around to it. I’d do it after dinner or after the movie or, whoops, I stayed out too late, guess I’ll whip up a summons after breakfast. If I stepped back inside the room, I’d have to get around to it. The whole process was starting to scare the hell out of me.

  After Gaea’s Treasures, I stopped by one of those hardware mega-stores to pick up the rest of the ritual supplies I needed. Like the other props, a literal circle was not strictly required, but having one would free my mind up to concentrate on other details, like staying alive. For a summoning, I wanted something solid, permanent. Unfortunately, even temporary methods of marking a circle could be rough on rented hotel room carpet. I didn’t want to have to apologize to the cleaning staff as they vacuumed up a ring of salt or sand, so I picked up a seven- by-seven roll of vinyl flooring and a can of silver paint. While my circle dried, I went out to an early dinner. I really could get spoiled by this whole regular eating out thing. On the road, my idea of supper was four slices of bread and a couple lumps of peanut butter.

  The vinyl mat didn’t want to lie flat, so I drafted the room’s furniture into service. The bed wouldn’t budge, so I put the table upside down on the mattress, while my ritual area occupied its section of floor space, held in place by two chairs, a lamp, and the nightstand. I needed to be careful how I moved, but I thought I had left enough room to work with.

  Taking a deep breath, I tried to let my anxiety roll out of me with the exhale, then began. If this worked, the portable circle would be reusable, but the rest of the summoning markings would need to go. I used a set of black, red, blue, and green dry erase markers to trace my designs on to the mat. The outer circle would contain the entire spell, but a square, second circle, and a pair of intersecting triangles would help me trap the spirit, if anything actually showed up.

  I’ve used fairies to help with magic before, invoking certain names and rhymes to help fuel my spells. This approach seemed to work reasonably well. I’d seen them before too, as colored aura spheres of light just outside the focus of my vision. I believed in fairies, as much as anyone could…but I’d never met one. My assumption was that they operated on a different frequency of reality, a parallel dimension. Maybe they were here a long time ago, but they’d retreated from the world with the rise of man. It was a nice, safe theory that allowed me to believe without wondering why I’d never really interacted with one.

  Duchess inadvertently challenged that. If fae and humans could have kids, that meant they could have sex, right? That implied touch, sight, hearing, smell, taste: this dimension. I mean, intercourse is not a parallel dimension sort of activity, though I’ve heard women accuse men of treating it that way. So if a fairy and a human had a child together, even if it was generations ago, that meant that the fae could materialize in this world, if they wanted to. If I was going to be a personal wizard for one of the world’s most powerful men, with fae court emissary in the job description, I wanted to be able to say I had actually met a fairy face to face. If I was really lucky, I could find one that knew a little about wendigoes, too.

  The lines in place, I set a candle at the point of each triangle. I picked up the page I had torn loose from the encyclopedia, and set it down dead in the center. It had taken me a bit to select what kind of fairy I wanted to meet. I needed a spirit guide with insider knowledge of wendigoes, but a fae with that level of power was best saved for after I had a little practice. The pookas had been helpful in past luck and illusion workings, but I was not sure I wanted a conversation with one. Much of their mystical power was based on a mythic reputation for trickery, hyperactivity, and creativity. Trolls and elemental sprites seemed like a bad idea in a confined space that didn’t belong to me. The sidhe were amazingly beautiful, but equally fearsome in their power. Calling out the heavyweight champs of the fey realm for my first bout would not be smart, even by amateur wizard standards of stupid.

  The picture I settled on was a group portrait of thirteen furry creatures with bigger hands than heads, using wrenches, hammers, and a crowbar on the rear axle of a wooden carriage. Gremlins were notorious mischief spirits, but were pretty low in the fairy pecking order. Their penchant for mechanical malfunctions gave me an excuse for trying the summons beyond mere curiosity. If it worked, I’d ask the gremlin why telephones and Internet connections hated me so much.

  “When it works. You’ve got to believe, Colin.”

  “When did you become a cheerleader?”

  “Strictly self-preservation. If Lucien decides you suck as a wizard, I don’t think it will go well for me, either…so pass the pixie dust and the green Kool-Aid.”

  Good point, great confidence booster, glad we had this talk. Now I was worried about both the spell and my new boss killing me.

  On top of the picture, I added a sprinkle of sugar and a dash of licorice leaf as attractor. In mythology, faeries don’t mind trading with mortals, but they tend to get annoyed if people presume to order them around. Accordingly, I placed a seven-inch-long plastic toy car inside the square, but outside the inner circle and the triangles it contained. It struck me as the sort of thing a gremlin would like: no metal, but plenty of small, moving parts.

  With the trade-bait in place, I checked over everything, making sure I didn’t smear any of the lines while setting the trap. Satisfied that it was as ready as it would ever be, I stepped back away from it before dropping to one knee. Most books on meditation recommend using a familiar, comfortable position, such as the student pose or the lotus position. I’ve used both, but as a lifelong Catholic, I preferred genuflection. My brain equated it with spiritual activity. While kneeling, I said a short prayer and began the process of focusing my mind for magic.

  Getting my breathing under control came first. I focused on each inhale and exhale until they were slow and regular, feeling as if I was breathing through my belly button instead of my mouth. When that became automatic, I turned my attention to my aura. Gradually, I pulled my essence into a tight, glowing ball in the pit of my stomach. I willed it up toward my throat and pictured it as the same brown color as the gremlin’s fur in the book. I picked the throat chakra as the release point on instinct.

  Ready, I rose and moved back in to my ritual area. I lit the six candles in a clockwise fashion. Slowly, purposefully, I spoke:

  “Makers of mischief,

  Genius of engineering,

  Sneaker, breaker,

  Tinker, fixer.

  I call thee forth

  Honoring the most ancient traditions.

  Tinker, breaker,

  Sneaker, fixer,

  I call thee forth

  To trade, to chat.

  Breaker, fixer,

  Sneaker, tinker,

  I call thee forth

  And name thee gremlin.”

  On the last syllable, I imagined the ball of energy turning into a cloud and riding out of me on the wind of my breath. As I let it loose, it danced down to the closest candle, then twisted its way clockwise around the six flames in a loose mud-colored smoke ring. The next moment could only be compared to an orgasm, though even that comes woefully short of complete description. Everything in me peaked at the same moment, then suddenly emptied as the magic burst forth from me and into the circle.

  In the midst of my breath, a new shadow began to form, composed of spindly over-sized arms and tiny nubs for legs. Before I could get a good look, there was a sudden

  BRRRINNKRRAK!

  I turned to see where the noise came from, just in time to identify the handset of the hotel phone hurtling at me. The mouthpiece struck dead center on my forehead. My last conscious thought was of Sarai.

  5

  I see Sarai and yet I know it’s not her, can’t be her. Her long brown hair is pulle
d up in a bun, a few stray strands hanging down to dance across the ivory skin of her shoulders. She’s wearing a toga of pale seafoam silk, held together by a pearl clasp. Her long, lithe fingers stroke across my temples, my head reclining on her lap. Her hazel eyes are loving, eager, as they gaze down into mine.

  My body is speaking, but I barely recognize the emerging voice. It is deeper, purer, a baritone trumpet next to my normal tenor sax. “We could deal with the Faceless Ones in one strike. What few orphans survived would scatter to the ends of the worlds.”

  Not-Sarai’s voice is patient, an alto feminine mate to my dream voice. “The elders were cast out for a reason. They cannot be trusted, my love.”

  “Bah,” I counter. “The elder ones love destruction and chaos. I will give them the chance to rain it down one last time: a battle to end all war.”

  “You are too confident, my knight, my heart. Do you think the elders will willingly return to the outer oblivion when they are done serving as your mercenaries?”

  “No, my moon and stars, they will not.” I rise from her lap to pluck a kiss from her lips. The vibrations of it rumble through my essence. “But I can force them to just the same. I will not open a gateway, but a transfer. I will go to the outer darkness so that I might hold their leash.”

  Not-Sarai shakes her head. “I know the plan. But is it not possible that they might try to outwit you, to snap their tethers?”

  “Then I am lost and the worlds will be theirs again. But what other choice do we have? I will not let the Faceless win.”

  She frowns and my heart breaks at the sight. “We could...”

  Knock, knock.

  “What was that, my love?”

  Knock, knock, knock.

  6

  When I woke up, I was acutely aware of three things. First, Sarai, the woman I still loved with all of my heart, was not in the room with me. Second, the sun was peeking in through the hotel windows, meaning I had lost a lot of time since the ritual’s conclusion. Third, my head felt like I had been pounding cheap Russian vodka all night long. That thought faded as I remembered the exploding telephone shrapnel. I revised the statement to my head felt like I was getting pounded by a giant telephone monster all night long.

  Knock, knock.

  This time I placed the sound and forced myself to stumble up off the carpet and towards the door. It was only after I pulled it open that I wish I had checked to see who it was first. I might have brushed my hair or put some fresh deodorant on for Duchess Deluce. She looked stunning, a vision in freshly fallen snow-white. I felt like a vision in what that same snow would look like after a week in the gutter next to a dog-walking business.

  She cocked a pure white eyebrow. “Mr. Fisher? Is this a bad time?”

  I tried to pretend I didn’t hear undertones that implied I might have a drinking problem or worse. “No, no.” I shook my head. “I just got done with a little ritual, that’s all.”

  I gestured her in. We both got to view the aftermath of last night’s magic together. I could only imagine what she thought. The table had been knocked off the bed, blocking access to the bathroom. The pillow I set the telephone on when I moved the nightstand was now a blackened crater of foam, one stray piece of telephone wire poking free of the wreckage. The vanity mirror had splintered from two separate impacts. In short, it looked like a bomb had gone off.

  “A little ritual?” She chuckled. “Remind me I don’t want to be on the receiving end of one of your big…what on Earth is that?”

  Her voice shifted up half an octave. I had to maneuver around her too see what had caught her attention. Most of the designs on my ritual floor were buried under a sea of dried candle wax, though not a drop had crossed the outer silver circle. Sitting where I had left the toy car, partially embedded in wax, was the ugliest, most misshapen red and cream colored brick I had ever seen. As I knelt down to inspect it, I realized it was a conglomeration of telephone pieces merged with plastic car parts and held together by strips of pillowcase and shreds of glossy paper from the gremlin picture. I silently checked the circle for any still-active magical energies before breaking the plane. When I picked up the chimera phone, I half-expected it to fall to pieces on contact, but was surprised by its solid construction.

  I turned it over, looking at it from six different angles before I was certain what it was. “It’s my new cell phone.”

  Duchess’ laugh was amplified by my already throbbing headache. When she finally stopped, she said, “Too much, Mr. Fisher, too much. You’ve convinced Lucien you may have a little talent, but a magical cell phone? There’s no need to con me now.”

  I fixed my best irritated wizard glare on her. It stopped her laughter. Sometimes resembling Charles Manson comes in handy. “I bet you it works.”

  A lone giggle escaped, but her deeper laughter remained dammed. “If that thing can make a phone call, I’ll...”

  “You’ll what? Give me whatever I ask for?”

  That stopped her humor altogether. “And if it doesn’t, what do I get?”

  I pulled my debit card and set it on the bed. “The rest of my paycheck.”

  “Hang on a second, champ. Phones and you aren’t...”

  “No”, she said firmly. “I have plenty of money. When it doesn’t work, you have to lower your defenses. I get fifteen minutes inside your head, no resistance.”

  “No thanks. I’ll pass.”

  “Deal.” I started looking over the mishmash of buttons. The two and the eight were set like a pair of eyes on the head of the device, while the other buttons spiraled out in the belly. “What’s your cell number?”

  She grinned. “No. If your toy is magical, it should be able to figure it out on its own. I want you to call…” She thought for a moment. “Veruca. Veruca Wakefield.”

  “Who is she?”

  “A member of Lucien’s inner circle. You get her on the phone, I’ll know it’s magic. I don’t even have her cell number…just Valente.”

  I scratched my head. “You expect me to believe you don’t know it? You’re Lucien’s secretary.”

  “That’s why I picked her. Just in case you have some telepathic ability yourself. You’ll find our employer is rather fond of his secrets.” She moved closer, her hand going to my chest. “Of course, if you’re scared, I’ll let you back out of the bet for only five minutes in your mind.”

  Coming from her lips, five minutes of mental rape almost sounded seductive. “I’ll pass. I think you need to learn a little respect for the resident wizard.”

  I don’t know why cynicism about magic from her bothered me. Most people I met were more than a little skeptical about my abilities. Heck, I was skeptical of my abilities most of the time. But I wasn’t going to let someone with actual fae blood in her veins stand there and mock my magical prowess.

  I stared down at my gremlin-assembled phone, contemplating the problem. I didn’t know why I knew it would work. I had traded for it, paid for it with a toy car and a blow to the head. By the laws of the fae, it would work. If it didn’t…well, maybe I was a charlatan after all.

  With a sudden burst of insight, I punched the zero button and spoke into the mouthpiece. “Operator, connect me to Veruca Wakefield. Inner Circle of Valente International. Yes, that’s W-A-K-E-F-I-E-L-D. Wakefield. I’ll hold.”

  No one responded as I spoke, but I tried to hold up my end of an operator-assisted conversation as best as I could. The device burped and a speaker emerged from the tangled mess, slowly crawling its way up the side of my head toward my ear. There was no ringing sound, no dial tone, but there was something. A humming, perhaps, or a melody of bird songs heard miles and miles away. Duchess started to pace around me like a hungry tiger. But, true to my beliefs, a minute later I heard, “Wakefield.”

  I used my best professional sales voice. “Veruca Wakefield? Of Lucien Valente’s Inner Circle?”

  There was a brief pause. “Who the hell is this?”

  “That depends. What do you think of Duchess Deluce
?”

  “That bitch,” the voice growled.

  “Oh, well, in that case, I’m the man you just helped win a bet against her. Name’s Colin Fisher. I’m the new wizard.”

  The line went silent again. “What happened to Enrique what’s-his-name?”

  “Wendigo ate him.”

  “Too bad, he was kind of cute. Dumb, but cute. So…Colin. Since we haven’t met yet, I’ll pretend that you didn’t know any better. Just tell me who gave you this number and I’ll kill them instead.” Veruca sounded feminine, almost valley girlish, yet she managed not to let her voice detract from the believability of the death threat.

  “Sorry, a magician never reveals his secrets. Look, if I tell Duchess the words you used to describe her, will she believe that I really am talking to you right now?”

  “You want her to know it’s me, huh?” Miss Wakefield went on a profanity laden tirade that encompassed five different languages and expressed such heartfelt dislike that I expected my phone to melt. “Tell her that and she’ll believe you.”

  I clucked. “Hmm. I’m not sure I’ll survive the telling. If I tell her that, I should get something out of it.”

  “You get to live, how’s that?”

  “I was thinking more like a meal. Burger King, maybe? This whole eating out every day thing is still new to me.”

  A longer silence. “I threaten to kill you and your counter-offer is a date?”

  “Well, it’s not every day I meet a girl who can cuss better and make better death threats than me. Not to mention there’s something about the Portuguese language off a woman’s lips that drives me wild.”

  The longest silence yet. “Very well, Colin. If you tell Duchess that, word for word, I will buy you a meal at Burger King.”

  I pushed the mouthpiece out of the way. “Miss Deluce, I apologize, but I am to deliver this from Miss Wakefield verbatim.” I proceeded to do so, then raised the mouthpiece again, “Satisfied?”