Play Dead (28 page)
“You okay?” I said.
He coughed a couple more times and got to his feet. I don’t know what that thing tasted like, but I’ll bet it was disgusting. It must be a problem when your only weapon is your teeth and things you run into are made of stuff you don’t even want to touch, much less eat.
Right where we’d been struggling, an oily black residue coated a small area of the path. I kicked some dirt over it, kneaded it into a messy paste, scooped it up, and dumped it into my jacket pocket. It might not be of any use, but it couldn’t hurt. Victor or Eli might be able to use it to extract some information about the thing.
We walked back down the path to the parking lot. Lou acted unconcerned, which was a good indication the Shadow Man was really gone, but that didn’t keep me from peering suspiciously at every dark and shadowed area. Two minutes later we were headed home. Another fruitful and productive evening.
FIFTEEN
IT TOOK ALMOST AS LONG TO RELATE THE EXPERIENCES of the last few days to Eli and Victor as it had to experience them. It didn’t help that Eli interrupted me after every sentence with a question, which led to another question and so on until I finally didn’t know the answer.
“Part of my arm is still numb,” I said. “I can use it fine, but it feels weird.”
“Have you called Campbell?” Eli asked.
“Not yet. I thought it might just go away.”
“Or maybe get worse and spread,” Victor said.
“Point taken. In the meantime, what are we going to do about Jackie? I’d just as soon forget about her, though she did try to kill me. But with the second book, she’s liable to start really messing with the edges of our reality.”
Eli nodded. “She doesn’t appear to be amenable to reason, does she? She’ll be trying experiments, and experiments can have unintended consequences. Like the Shadow Man. And have you forgotten Rolf’s attempt to create an Ifrit? That had quite an effect on us all, did it not?”
“True.”
“And that experiment was on a much smaller scale than what she’s contemplating. Think about the implications of that for a moment. Things could easily get worse, far worse.”
“I get that. But if this is dangerous, why hasn’t Jessie been straight with me? She’s still holding back, I can tell.”
“Maybe she’s trying to protect her daughter. Maybe she wants that second book for herself.”
“And what am I going to do about this Shadow Man? If it’s zeroed in on me, I don’t want to be looking over my shoulder every time I go out at night.”
I pulled out a paper bag. In it was the dirt and residue I’d collected from the Shadow Man. A paper bag is better than a plastic one if what you’re dealing with is damp or sticky. A plastic bag traps organic compounds as they break down, and whatever is in it eventually becomes a useless, foul-smelling sludge.
“What’s in the bag?” Victor asked.
“I collected some of the Shadow Man’s leavings. Maybe we can use them to make a protective shield.”
“Good thinking,” Victor said. “You’re learning.” Victor could make even a compliment sound condescending. “But I think I’ve got something simpler that will work just as well.”
He walked over to the huge safe that sits in the corner of the study, placed the bag inside, and rummaged around in it for a moment. The safe is where he keeps magical props, rare crystals, elixirs, arcane volumes of magical lore, and pictures of his family for all I knew. As well as firearms of various types—Victor likes to be prepared for any and every eventuality.
“I don’t think a gun would be of much use,” I said. “It would be like trying to shoot silly putty.”
“Agreed,” he said. “Take this.” He handed me a slim black object the size of a cigarette pack. Two silver prongs jutted out of one end. “You slide the safety switch forward and push the button.”
“A stun gun?”
“Exactly. It doesn’t like electricity, you said.”
I held it at arm’s length, pushed the button, and was rewarded by a bright arc between the terminals and a satisfying electrical buzz. This was just the ticket.
“All right,” said Victor. “Now that’s out of the way, we can concentrate on finding Jackie. Eli?”
“If she’s gone to earth, I doubt we can locate her. She’s a strong practitioner, and if she’s shielding, we’re not going to find her. But we can make a device that will alert us if and when she tries to implement a major spell.” Eli joined Victor by the safe and peered inside.
“Did you get the idea from Richter’s book?” Victor asked.
“Exactly. We’ll need to modify it some, of course—Richter used blood for everything, sometimes quite a bit of it. Blood was more available back then.” He stuck his head in a little farther. “We’ll need some mercury, copper filings, a battery, of course, for an energy analogue ...”
His voice grew muffled as his head poked in deeper still, and when he backed out he had several items in his hands. I watched with interest as Victor and Eli proceeded to assemble a makeshift magical energy detector. The crux of it was a thin shim of metal, pointed at one end, floating on the surface of a bowl of mercury. The bowl itself had crude runes drawn around the rim on the outside, just below the lip.
“That’s done it,” Eli said. “All that’s needed now is to sensitize the metal. It needs to be balanced in a state of tension, between opposing forces.”
“That will take Mason’s assistance, then,” Victor said.
“Glad to help,” I said.
I always felt a bit intimidated when Victor and Eli were busy whipping up a complex spell or operation that was beyond me, like I was a slow child who could only watch in wonder. And I was sometimes envious of Eli’s knowledge and intellect.
But I also wondered if Eli ever felt angst of his own, though he never shows it. He hasn’t got the intrinsic power to implement the spells he crafts—he has to rely on others to carry out that part. Like a basketball coach who plots out the strategy, sets the defense, and knows just where everyone should be and exactly what they need to do in order to win, he’s invaluable. He can even teach proper stance and footwork, helping players reach their potential. But he has to rely on those players, because he can’t do any of those things himself. It would be hard to avoid some measure of envy and even jealousy as he watches those amazing athletes fly through the air and knock down the shot.
Victor, now, was a player coach. He could do it all, but I wasn’t jealous of him in the slightest. Maybe that’s because he’s not a very happy man and I wouldn’t want to be him.
“The easiest way to do it will be for Victor to try to move the metal shim, while you try to keep it in place. Or vice versa.”
“I’ll move it,” said Victor.
That was fine with me. Victor’s natural inclination is toward action, while I’m more comfortable playing defense, thwarting things. I reached out to the safe, something with the absolute essence of holding things in place, and bound up the metal of the shim with the metal of the safe.
“Anytime,” I said.
Victor nodded and concentrated on the bowl, subvocalizing. He put his hands together and unexpectedly sent out a bolt of force, visible as green light. That was just for show; it had nothing to do with the efficacy of the spell. It hit the metal, which trembled but stayed resolutely fixed in its spot.
The whole point was to balance the opposing forces; if he had managed to flip the shim out of the bowl, we’d just have to start over again. But he hated to “lose” at anything. He muttered something and a slight smile appeared on his face as he raised his hand again.
“Victor,” Eli said warningly. “That’s perfect. Fix the balance in place.”
Victor nodded again and spread his hands apart, speaking words aloud this time, as if that was what he’d had in mind all along. A different sort of energy rolled off his fingers and splashed over the shim.
“Okay, ease up,” he told me, and I released the binding energy. Eli bent over to examine it.
“Perfect,” he said. “Any release of magical energy within a radius of fifty miles will cause it to react. The faster it moves, the more energy has been detected. An ordinary spell will only move it at about the speed of the second hand on a watch; the energy involved in accomplishing a major shift such as what Jackie plans will cause it to spin like a top.”
“When’s the last time you saw a second hand?” I said. “You need to join the digital age. And what about direction?”
“A simple energy pulse will stop its motion, and the shim will point to the source.”
I smiled. “Very neat. So you’ve established a device that shows the direction and scale of a powerful release of energy, based on a design by Richter. In other words ...”
“Please, Mason,” said Victor. “Don’t always go for the obvious.”
“Sorry. But you say this can’t locate Jackie, not precisely. So I’m not sure how useful it will be.”
“That’s true,” Eli said. “But it will give us some warning and an idea of the scale involved. At least we won’t be caught unawares. It’s better than nothing.”
“I guess.”
“Also, I imagine Jackie won’t try anything too complicated at first. She’ll do a few practice runs—I know I would, and from what you say she’s not dumb. So it might give us some additional opportunities to locate her.”
“And in the meantime?”
“In the meantime, we wait.”
I WOULDN’T HAVE BEEN THAT SURPRISED IF WE never heard from Jackie again. It would be easy to screw up on a spell from the book, especially now that she didn’t have Malcolm to help her. Powerful spells that get out of hand can kill a practitioner, which would solve our problems. But no such luck.
Meanwhile, I still had a life, or a semblance of one. I finally got off my butt and scored a corporate gig with Novasca, one of the big Bay Area biotech companies. When I was young and foolish I looked down on corporate gigs. I was an artist. Well, I’m still an artist, but corporate gigs pay five times what you’d make in a club. During the dot-com boom when money was pouring out of spigots, it was more like twenty times, but those days are gone forever, and getting a corporate gig these days is a coup.
But my arm wasn’t getting any better, worse if anything, and it could end up affecting my playing. I finally went up to see Campbell, which I should have done right away. She examined the arm and listened with interest as I told her about the Shadow Man.
“I’ve heard of this before,” she said. “Not exactly the same, but close, part of the old legends my grandmother used to talk about. They steal your life, and even if you get away, they leave their mark.”
“Old legends are often based on real things,” I said. “I never used to believe that, but I do now.”
“Better late than never,” Campbell said. “We’ll make you into an expert in ancient wisdom yet.”
“Doubtful.”
She held up my arm where the sunlight lit it up. “Look.”
At first I didn’t see anything, but when I viewed my arm at a certain angle I saw what she meant. There were five faint marks on my forearm, like shadows of fingers, almost unnoticeable.
“Hmm,” I said. “The mark of the beast.”
“Not so far off. But the cure is simple, once you notice them. You just have to clean them off.”
“I have showered in the last few days, you know.”
“Yes, you’re delightful. But soap and water won’t do it.”
“Steel wool?”
“Don’t tempt me. No, it’s rather simple, as I remember. You need ... Well, I can’t quite remember, but I know someone who will.” She pulled out her cell, made a quick call, and talked briefly to the person on the other end.
“Yes, now I remember ... No, it’s not just academic interest ... Yes, I’ll tell you all about it later.” She put the cell away. “Just as I thought. Very simple, and very logical, actually. Ginger, cayenne pepper, horseradish root, thistle, sea salt, and lavender.”
“Lavender?”
“I know, that doesn’t make much sense. The lavender might be unnecessary, a holdover for an old recipe, but there’s not much point in experimenting. I’m already doing one substitute—I don’t have any horseradish root, but I do have some powdered wasabi, which should work just fine.”
As she gathered together the ingredients I asked her what else her grandmother had told her about the Shadow Men.
“Not much. She called them the darklings—creatures of the night, bogeymen of a sort. But there was one thing—whenever they appeared it was supposed to be a sign of a change coming.”
“Like what?”
“She wasn’t clear about that. I don’t think she knew, just repeated what she’d heard. ‘A big change,’ she’d say. ‘An ending and a beginning.’ ”
That made sense. Jackie was screwing around with dimensions, and if the Shadow Men were interdimensional beings, the very presence of one could be a predictor of a coming upheaval.
Campbell scrubbed my arm with the paste she’d made, the marks faded, and sure enough the feeling started to come back almost immediately.
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