Chapter 18: Practitioner (9)

They’d cut me off from the one thing I needed.

“Shit.”  I swore at the chain of my thoughts, multiplying and giving birth to other ideas.

If the Ryus did that, who seemed so mild-mannered; just how far would the Valentines go?  That old woman seemed to hate me and name-dropped my dad more than once.  No doubt, at the very least, the Valentines would have taken the same measures that the Ryus did.

Which meant any Spirit connected to the Ryus and the Valentines would not help me.

That also meant that I was severely underestimating this whole thing.  Out of my depth.

I mean, I don’t know.  Getting an entire group of spirits to stay away from me sounded like overkill.  And a lot of work.  Could it be that the families had other allies?  Or this concept of ‘family’ might not be the typical american nuclear family with 2.5 kids.  Or they influence beyond the scope of my imaginations?  

Another thing to add to my neverending list: the peculiarities of the relationships between practitioner families and spirits.  But the gist was that families had some semblance of control or influence over Spirits related to them.  From what I could surmise, this relationship was regional.  Or geographical.  Maybe even cultural.  Geo-cultural.

Did it have to do with the particular power of the practitioners in a family, or was it a relational aspect?  Maybe both?  If it was a power thing, how much power did it require?

Power.  Knowledge was power.  But what was the point of knowledge, if I didn’t have time to digest all this?  

To proceed, I needed these answers and I needed these answers now.  If I could get an understanding of exactly what spooked these spirits, I could make a decision.  Either reach out to different ones, or try to do whatever my opponents were doing.  But to get those answers, I needed to dig around in books without a clue on where to start.  And the trial was a week away.

And to get ready for the trial in time…

I needed a pseudo-familiar, as I still hadn’t given up on the idea of getting a supernatural being to help me without being locked into a permanent relationship with them.  And to get a spirit to help me…

Back to the original question.  I needed to know so much more than what I knew now.

Catch 22.  Cul-de-sac.

Circle rhetoric.

Fuck.

I’d been backed into a corner with no way out.

The absence of sound, rather than the presence of it, brought me back to reality.

Blindfold stood up straight, the direction of his gaze in my direction.  Could he see?  Did he rely on other senses?  Or maybe these spirits couldn’t be defined by my own limited knowledge of animal anatomy; perhaps like my newly opened Sixth Sense, they had something of their own.  Regardless, Blindfold was staring at me in his own way.

“Not mad?”  He asked, noticing the weight of my own gaze upon his small body.

“No.  Why would I be mad?”

The bird fidgeted, giving a little hop.  The wings moved up and down, a gesture as familiar as a human shrug.  “Mages always mad at Blindfold.  Summoned, but no answers.”

“What?”  I shook my head, “No.  I… you answered enough questions.”  Although it hadn’t been for lack of trying.  He looked so worn, a drastic different version of his previous obnoxious self.  Feeling sorry for the poor thing, I added, “Thank you.”

Blindfold cocked his head to the side, an all too avian motion this time.

“Send me back.”  He crowed finally.  “Already in trouble.”

I hesitated, having to think.  Did I get everything I needed?

No.  But Blindfold gave me reasons why, and valid reasons too.  Unless he was lying.  My gut told me he was telling the truth, however.  Also, I felt bad for the spirits.

Is this how it worked?  Practitioners just summoning spirits, getting whatever they needed at a moment’s notice?  It seemed… rude.  But who was I to cast the first stone, I’d just done it.

“Ok,”  I said.  Then after clearing my throat, said, “I release you.”

Releasing the summoned being was just as easy as breaking the circle; a verbal command.  As the words left my lips, I felt something strange.  A feeling that’s hard to describe in words.  A part of myself connected with the circle, and the quiet buzz of power that had been ever-present during this conversation amplified.

Blindfold didn’t say anything as he started to transform.  Dissipating into thin air, the tips of his feathers turning to motes of bright light like embers floating on the wind.  I wondered if it hurt, but he didn’t say anything.  As the last bits of him disappeared, so did the part of me that was connected to the process.  It too, left.

Suddenly, I felt tired.

The fatigue of the whole day plus the excitement of the whole night was catching up to me.

I looked at the shutters that kept the windows closed.  No daylight peeking through yet.

Did I want to risk it?

Time.

Time was of the essence.

Time was something that was given equally to everyone.  A resource that I had in equal amounts with my competitors.  The only resource that they couldn’t take away from me.  

Ok, Jain.  One more.  No rest for the wicked.

Erasing and drawing the circle came easier this time.  I grabbed the symbols which were supposed to represent the Fox-sister, aligning the circle to her signature.

Bologna for Liver.  I heard it’s just a little of everything, so it should suffice.  Besides, the previous summoning had proven that it was the intent that mattered more.

Olive oil instead of sesame oil.

A drop of my own blood, in place of a male baby, which represented her brothers.

And lastly, the offering: A salami sandwich.

The book recommended a second circle.  So I drew that too.

Finally, I wrote down the verses that I had to recite; careful of the wording.  This one didn’t follow a syllable or stress/unstress pattern.  Instead, I had to use structure which would bind the creature, as much as it bound me.  All the preparation only emphasized over and over again just how much of a bad idea this was.

But I had to know the extent of the damages.

“By fire, I call upon the ancient spirits of my ancestors; to tame the untamed.”

The same sensation of my mind and spirit, connecting.  The symbols working to create an initial direction, then working with my own Will to pinpoint exactly what I wanted.  The third-eye opening up and allowing me to take in everything.

“By metal, I contain what is wild; forge walls of spirit which may house my summoned.”

The circles lit up, growing solid in feel rather than what I could see.  Invisible red strings shooting out everywhere, searching, calling, and wanting.  Doing it a second time, I could understand more, see more and just know more just by going through the motions.  Why I had to do the things I did, why some things could be left up to interpretation, but others had to be rigid and strict.

“By my name, I extend guestrights, binding the summoned to the ancient rules of hospitality.  I summon you, Fox-sister.”

I cringed a lot less than when I had summoned Blindfold.

Because every single candle in a five-foot radius went out simultaneously.

The candles on the window sills, in the kitchen and on the floor damned near went out too.  But they held, and that was the only thing that kept me from canceling the summoning right there and then.

With the lack of light, the middle of the RV became cloaked in hues of blue tinted with orange.  The shadows stretched a little longer and everything became a little more still –silence became heavier.

She sat in the middle of the circle, kneeling.

The girl had a shawl that covered the upper-half of her body, including her face and shoulders.  But she wore a pale white and blue dress.  The traditional Korean kind, called a hanbok.  She wore no shoes and no gloves.  Hunching forward, her hands lay flat on the ground.  The shadows seemed darker around her, hiding details that I should be able to see.

Her voice came.  Soft as a murmur.

And just wrong.

Like someone took all the creepy things that exist in horror movies.  A creaking floorboard in the night.  Eyes staring at windows.  All the shiver-causing details in ghost stories and put them together.  A voice behind your head just before you go to bed; the feeling that makes you close your curtains without checking what lays behind your window corner.

My sixth sense went haywire.  It wasn’t just a hum of power.  It was wrongness personified and it pinpricked me with needles from all sides.

“Hello, Hallow.  It is a pleasure to meet you.”