Gooseberry Bluff Community College of Magic: The Thirteenth Rib (Kindle Serial) (26 page)

Ingrid wrote two words on the board, with a slash between
them:

Abstinence/Indulgence

“Two schools of thought on preparing for a summoning,
or indeed any sort of ritual magic,” she said. “What do they have in common?”

No one in the lecture hall answered. They were afraid
of her, Ingrid knew. It almost made her laugh. She was feeling liberated today,
freed by knowing that there was no turning back from her purpose.

“Focus,” she said. “Abstinence: sexual, of course, is
the most popular, but fasting and other purifying strategies are often used. Abstinence
is meant to provoke a manifestation of the practitioner’s will in a physical
form. The practitioner denies the body, the body’s cravings intensify, the
practitioner’s focus on the ritual intensifies as a distraction or denial of
those cravings. After a certain point the practitioner reaches an altered state:
ecstasy, a transcendent state of openness and receptiveness to the spiritual or
otherworldly.

“Indulgence has the exact same goal, but one might
argue that it’s a shortcut. Where an abstinent practitioner might fast—nine
days is the classic period of time, though we no longer recommend that—and then
meditate or chant in order to reach ecstasy, the indulgent practitioner goes to
an excess. Hallucinogen-fueled orgies, for example, while still considered
shocking, can bring an uninhibited practitioner to the right state of mind for
a ritual evocation.

“We won’t be doing any demonstrations of that in the
lab, I’m afraid.”

Someone near the back tittered, but the rest of the
room just avoided her eyes. At least they were taking notes.

“Once you’re experienced enough, you can combine the
two approaches. For example, you might fast for twenty-four hours before the
ritual and ingest some mild hallucinogens six to twelve hours before.” Like the
twelve grams of psilocybin mushrooms that were the only food Ingrid had eaten
today. “The sexual magic approach is a little different. If you want to learn
about the practice and politics of that, you should sign up for one of
Professor Olson’s seminars. The point is focus. When you conjure something,
you’re removing an entity from a place where it wants to be to someplace it
doesn’t, and you’re usually asking something of it that it doesn’t want to do.
If your focus isn’t impenetrable, you’ll be in danger.

“Focus trumps everything. We’ve read about
incantations, we’ve read about casting circles, we’ve read about—or we will
read about—different schools of thought on incense and other ceremonial
combustibles. But to some extent these things are all trappings, and none of
them are strictly necessary for most conjuring. With a sharp enough focus, you
can babble nonsense and it will work as well as the most practiced incantation.
I don’t recommend you try it, at this point. But when you reach that point of
ecstatic focus, it won’t seem like nonsense. You won’t be able to control the
utterances that pour out of you. They may be a language you never knew, or they
may be glossolalia, commonly referred to as speaking in tongues. What they are
isn’t really important. The point is that all ritual, all ceremony, is about
reaching a state of mind and a state of being in which your will is the only
instrument necessary.”

She found herself staring out at the class. There was
more to her lecture, but there was a color and quality to the echo of her voice
in the room, of the words she had already spoken, that she didn’t want to
disturb. The message in them washed through some of the students, passed over
others, but in some there was a brilliant collision of light as what she had
said sank in. She watched and waited, hoping for the ripples and waves to
penetrate all of them, but the echo began to fade, and sadness welled up in
her.

“That’s it,” she whispered. There were fifteen
minutes left in the hour, but she couldn’t, she just couldn’t continue. “That’s
it for today,” she said, and began to pack up.

Joy met Abel Bouchard outside the McMonigal Arms. He was
wearing jeans, a faded 1991 World Series T-shirt, and a cap with the Gooseberry
Bluff seal on it.

“Hey there,” he said, stepping out of an antique
powder-blue pickup.

“Nice truck,” said Joy.

“Thanks; 1950 Chevy.” He patted the hood. “That’s my
baby. I see I’m not the only one running late.”

“I just walked over from home.”

They walked together up the path. “I was out in the
garden and I lost track of time,” said Abel.

Joy wasn’t a gardener, but a day outside sounded
nice. She had spent hers poring over Carla Drake’s manuscript again, without
managing to make much more sense of it than before. “Do you know what this is
about?”

“No,” he said. “Just that we’re supposed to meet up
in the library.” He sorted through a large key chain as they approached the
front door. “Sounded serious, though.”

“You have keys? I thought you didn’t live here.”

“We all have access to the library.” He opened the
door and smiled. “You haven’t been yet, have you? It’s quite something.” He
waved her ahead and followed her inside. “All the way to the top.”

Joy walked up to the first floor landing and climbed
toward the second floor. “Can I ask you something? What did you used to teach?”

“Location magic,” said Abel. “You’ve heard of Hilda
Ruiz?”

“One of the founders of Gooseberry Bluff, and creator
of this secret society. Yes, I've heard of her.”

“She was sort of a mentor to me,” said Abel. “To all
of us, I suppose. When she recruited the first generation of this group, she had
a lot of antiestablishment types to choose from. Some of the people she ended
up with weren’t very good at working with others.”

“Do you all have different specialties?”

“Yeah.” Abel was beginning to sound a little out of
breath. “Mostly solid, working-class magic, except for Bebe and Simone.”

They had reached the third-floor landing. It had two
small windows overlooking the neighborhood, just like the second floor, but
where the left-hand apartment entry should have been there was just a bare
section of wall, almost but not quite matching the pumpkin orange of the rest
of the walls. Abel caught up with her and knocked on the right-hand door.

Bebe Stapleford answered. She started to say
something to Abel but stopped when she noticed Joy standing behind him. She
frowned and stood aside.

It wasn’t much of an invitation, but Joy followed
Abel inside anyway.

Joy hadn’t been sure how literally to take the word
“library” in this context. She’d known people who called sitting rooms or
offices libraries; her own father used to refer to the bathroom—or at least the
toilet—as a library, when he sat on it. This was different. Except for the
east-facing window in front, every wall surface in the apartment was lined with
floor-to-ceiling wooden bookshelves. Skylights had been installed in the
ceiling, and bright light fixtures had been placed between them. Large worktables,
leather couches, and reclining chairs sprawled over the floor. Stacks of books
floated in midair. Above one table a series of a dozen globes rotated,
independent of any stands. There were crude maps drawn on them, marked with
designations from
-5
to
+7
.

Bebe and Abel led her through the space to where the
wall between the apartments had been removed. That space was also lined with
bookshelves.

“There must be ten thousand books here,” she said.

“Closer to twenty,” said Abel. “Some of them you
won’t find anywhere else on this planet.”

“Really. You mean books from other dimensions?
Biographies, possibly?”

Bebe Stapleford glared at her, but before either of
them could speak, Yves Deschamp greeted them from near the far window, where
the rest of the group sat around a large oval table. “Come in,” he called. “Sit
down.”

Joy approached the table but didn’t sit. “What’s
happening?”

“I’m honestly not sure,” said Yves. “Ken asked me to
call the meeting. I know there was an attack last night—”

“You don’t know,” Ken Song interrupted. He was
leaning on the table; he didn’t look up as he spoke. “Months, now, I’ve had to
defend this town, this group, and its secrets. It’s…” He groaned and sat up,
his eyes bright. “I thought I could fight them, but I don’t think I can. Not
anymore. It’s…”

Simone Deschamp laid a hand on his arm. “We can talk
about that later,” she said softly. “First tell us what happened.”

“Fine,” he said, in a tone that implied otherwise.
“There were two attacks. One magical, one physical. I wasn’t really ready for
either one, but the only reason I’m not dead is that Philip was there.” He
laughed. “Except that this is not Philip. Philip never came back from his last
scouting trip. So.” He motioned grandly at Philip. “Why don’t you introduce
yourself?”

Philip Fitzgerald had been silent through the meeting
so far. He sat slumped, his lips pressed together as if he were pouting.

Yves cleared his throat. “Philip? Er…could you offer
some explanation?”

Philip shook his head. “Oh, my children,” he said.
“What explanation could I possibly offer? Kango is correct; I am not Philip and
Philip is not me. Philip is at the Barrow. A desperate little place, but safe,
at least for now. We cast lots to see who would leave it, go out into the
multiverse and try to turn the tide. But you can’t turn the tide without
knocking a moon out of the sky.

“Your Philip came looking for the source of the
attacks on his beloved Kango, but he was in the wrong place, and he found us
instead. Found our little hiding place. No Hermes, my dear Bebe, no. No Ananse,
no Loki. A raven we’ve got, and a coyote, and a rabbit, although he’s lost two
of his legs. A few others, some too shell shocked to remember their names. A
tiny, doomed confederacy of tricksters to stand against the inexorable tides of
order. With only a handful of old men and women to ally with.”

Philip stood; he was changing as he spoke. His body
became leaner and taller; his hair darkened and fell to below his shoulders. He
began to braid it as if he were unaware of what his hands were doing.

“You may call me Otter, or Lutrineas. Or Philip. I’ve
come to like it; it’s a watery sort of a name. Philip, Philip, Philip.”

Joy wanted to say something about the book—the
stories she had read, the Emissary—but she couldn’t speak. The only one who
seemed to have access to his voice was Ken Song.

“Tell them about the men who attacked us,” he said.

“Sons of order,” said Lutrineas. “Bodyguards. Assassins.
Not a match for a god, of course, even a half-starved and degraded one, but
more than enough of a match for most humans.”

“They were identical,” said Ken.

“Dark-skinned?” Joy asked. “About five eleven? Hair
shaved down to the scalp?”

“You’ve met them?” Lutrineas sounded surprised.

“I met someone else, too. You mentioned that they
work as bodyguards. One of these men was traveling with someone who called
herself the Emissary.”

“Where?” Lutrineas was across the table, his face
right up against Joy’s, before she realized he was moving. His breath smelled
like fish, and he was trembling.

“On the El. In Chicago. She sent me a book about you.
Not that I knew it was about you until just now.”

“Well.” He turned away as if she were no longer
important. “That bodes ill, if she is already here.”

“I’m curious,” said Simone. “Transformation is my
specialty, you know. How did you manage to fool Ms. Wilkins?”

“Their auras are similar,” said Joy. “I noticed the
difference, but I didn’t think anything of it. People’s auras do change over
time.”

“That’s why I was chosen to take Philip’s place,”
said Lutrineas. “Our auras matched.”

“I thought you said you cast lots,” said Joy.

Lutrineas shrugged. “Has a more mythic feel to it,
doesn’t it? I have my legacy to consider.”

“I’m sorry,” said Abel. “Did you say a confederacy of
tricksters?”

“Oh,
do
catch up,” said Bebe. “Tell me, Lew—Lute—”

“Lutrineas,” Joy and the Otter said together.

“Lutrineas, then. What was your purpose in coming
here?”

“When your Philip came to us, he made it sound like
there was an actual resistance here—not half a dozen retirees with a library. I
thought perhaps we might make a stand here. But”—he raised his arms and looked
down at his feet—“nothing to stand on, is there?”

“We have resources,” said Cyril Lanfair.

Lutrineas groaned. “My
sister has assassins, or did you forget that already? She has librarians.
Police officers. Meter maids. Army captains. Agents provocateurs.” Something
flashed outside the window, followed a moment later by a sound like something
igniting. “Like that one, probably.”

“What was that?” Bebe asked. They crowded around the
window.

“Oh my God,” said Joy.

Hector owned a loft on the third floor of a refurbished
warehouse building just a block away from the waterfront. It was modern in ways
that Hector sometimes felt didn’t match up with him, precisely; he wished that
the stainless steel were a little more rustic, for example. And the toilet was
a sleek, massive red vehicle that he half expected someone to ask him if he had
a license to operate. But he liked the view in the summer and the spaciousness
of it during the winter, when the ice and snow had a tendency to make him feel
claustrophobic. He got a break on the association fees because he maintained
the security wards, and there were portals in the basement to affiliated
buildings in Minneapolis and St. Paul. Portalling had a leveling effect on the
real estate market, so it wasn’t quite the steal it might have been twenty
years ago, but the consulting had been going well when he’d bought it, and he’d
be able to at least keep up the payments as long as he didn’t lose his job at
the college.