A Touch of Magic
8 The Summoning
14 September 1974, morning, Minneapolis
THE DEMON AWOKE. Anger, lust, and hunger pulsed through his veins. Not his veins, but the body of the one he had occupied.
Last night he had felt the power once again. Felt it building near the lake he haunted, like a spirit dragging a useless body behind him. He sought the power as if it had summoned him to feed. But then the piercing tones of the flute had penetrated his awareness. Like a deadly cobra before a charmer, he was held captive in their tones. Lulled to sleep, he found the morning light a torment to his hunger.
The body, too, is weak. A requirement in this physical world, the demon is encumbered with it. But he does not care for it. Yet, if it weakens sufficiently, he will be unable to use it. Faced with this possibility, the demon wakens the man within.
Ryan McGuire, The Blade, looks out from his own eyes at last. Food. Clothing. Shelter. He sets about acquiring the fundamental necessities of life.
Once the body is fed, he will consider what it takes to feed the demon.
14 September 1974, afternoon, Minneapolis
Paris arrived at the two-story duplex promptly at one o’clock. He had directed the cab to a florist just out on Hennepin Avenue and then walked the remaining blocks to Serepte’s house. He rang the upper bell and Serepte met him at the door carrying a basket.
“We’re going on a picnic,” she announced. “The lake is just a few blocks that way and it is a beautiful bright fall day.” The daylight caught her hair and showed it redder than it had appeared in the club and restaurant the evening they met. She wore a pale green sundress that highlighted the deep green of her eyes. The spaghetti straps held the bodice firmly to her bust and the skirt stopped delightfully above her knees. The strappy sandals indicated that it was not likely to be a very long walk. Paul presented her with the flower and she pushed it easily into the thick hair above her right ear. He felt a little overdressed in his polished loafers, pressed slacks, and short-sleeved button-down shirt.
“I hope you like it,” she continued as they walked away from the house. He took the basket from her and she slipped her hand into his. He caught his breath when she touched him. “I like the freedom of eating where there are no walls and no ceiling. I’d picnic more often, but it’s not nearly as much fun when you are alone. Usually. There are times that I would give anything to be alone, but not on a picnic. I want to be with you.”
“I love picnics.” Paul answered the shimmer in her voice more than the talk of picnics. Anyplace he would be with her and hold her hand was a place he’d love. “I would have dressed more casually, except I don’t have many choices that aren’t my bathrobe or my tux. My jeans are pretty ragged. I only wear them when I am in setup or teardown for a show.”
“There are more blue jeans here in the city than down on the farm. I should have asked if you’d like to picnic.”
“I wasn’t thinking about what we would do,” Paris said. “I was just glad that we agreed to see each other. I like talking to you.” And holding your hand.
“I like it, too.” Perhaps she was responding to his unspoken thoughts. She squeezed his hand. They walked quietly for a few steps, just getting in tune with each other before continuing the conversation. Birds broke the stillness of the afternoon with a variety of songs and calls, but gradually the hum of activity around the lake increased. The trees nearly touched over the avenue.
“There are some really nice houses here,” he said with more reverence than the words implied. It struck Serepte as funny.
“Wouldn’t you just love to have lived in one of these in the thirties when there were parties and dancing till dawn every night?” She spun away from him and he raised their joined hands so she could twirl beneath them and then back against his side. They leaned closer together as they walked and Paris felt her arm brushing against his with a kind of pleasure that he seldom felt in his life.
Near the lake, there were crowds of people. Along one shore, a couple dozen people were focused on an instructor as they did Yoga. A few had swimsuits on and sunbathed on hastily spread towels. The bicycle paths and pedestrian walks occasionally crossed and the roller skaters dominated both. Leisurely walkers like the young couple stayed on the grass beside the paved walkways.
“People are frantically enjoying what could be the last nice day until May,” Serepte laughed.
“This skating craze has hit everywhere, hasn’t it?” Paris nodded. “I thought it was limited to the shore and the boardwalks. Next thing you know they’ll have rollerblades in Maine.”
“They have them in Indiana,” Serepte answered. “We’re very up-to-date there. This, though, has a different… cosmopolitan feel. Lots of theater. That’s one of the reasons I chose to come here: so my housemates would have something to do. And, of course, there are clubs like where you’re performing, concerts, public radio, parks, and the skyways. If you haven’t explored downtown yet, we must do that before you… um… before you have to leave town.” She hesitated, her hand clinging slightly tighter to his. Shaking off the sudden cloud, she continued, “All the things you could ever ask for, if you want to get lost in a crowd.”
He considered her statement. So far, he had found everything he could ask for here, but he chose to focus on the last part of the sentence. “Is that what you like most? Being lost in a crowd?”
“Oh, crowds can be treacherous, but anonymous. I’m very particular about who I’m alone with. She did not seem inclined to continue along those lines, so Paris took the opportunity to change subjects.
“How long have you lived here in Minneapolis?”
“Just a few months. We moved up here right after I graduated from high school in June so we could all get settled into our routines before school started this month. I like it here. There is a kind of comfort that I missed in Indiana all my life. The quietude of this city lulls me away into my own little world. It is nice to be out from under the scrutiny of mother and the college. She’s a professor and says her life is almost as much a fishbowl as that of preachers. I wouldn’t know. I’ve always felt I was under a magnifying glass.”
“Do you miss home?” Paris could not get over the feeling of having met her someplace before. His notebooks had given no clue, however, and certainly he would have remembered a name as unusual as hers.
“Haven’t really been here long enough to miss it. I’m sure I will. But right now, Mom is on sabbatical and someone else is living in our house for a while. So, it wasn’t that difficult for us to all pick up and move to Minnesota.”
“You… um… Did your roommates live with you in Indiana?” Paul asked.
“Uh… Oh, Paul. I’ve… I don’t know how to describe my family,” she sighed. He laughed.
“I’m hardly better. I don’t even know who my real family is. You don’t have to tell me about them if you don’t want to.”
“Oh, but I do. I’ve just never done this before. Do you know that this is my first date? Second, I guess, since we went out after the show a couple of nights ago.”
“I had no idea. Why, Serepte? I thought you would have been very popular in school.”
“I was… am… a little on the strange side. My classmates didn’t know what to do with that. You see, Paul, I’m a witch.” To his credit, Paul did not react, but waited for her to continue. He’d met some new age wiccans in college and it didn’t bother him. He didn’t really see the difference between them and any other religion. “You aren’t shocked,” she said, breathing a sigh of relief. “At least that means we can spread out our blanket and have our picnic while I tell you my sad story.”
“I’m not concerned. Is this a good place?” They stopped in an area that was grassy and far enough from the congregation of geese they’d passed to feel that they would not be attacked by the marauding fowls. They worked together to put down their picnic blanket and Serepte began laying out food from the basket and a thermos of tea. Paris laughed because the cups were tiny. The sandwiches were open-faced triangles with bits of cheese, ham, olives, and various spreads. There were tiny cakes and cookies as well. As she pulled each item from the basket, Serepte, too, began to giggle. When the had everything arranged in front of them, both looked at the perfect little tea party spread on the blanket and laughed.
“I… slept in and was only up an hour before you arrived,” Serepte said. “I didn’t have time to pack a picnic, but Elizabeth already had it prepared and simply handed it to me.”
“I take it that Elizabeth is one of the members of your circle?” Paul asked through his laughter. “She has quite a sense of humor.” Serepte noticed he changed from referring to her roommates to referring to her circle. How astute.
“She’s like a second mother. But all the women are from England. I think she fixed us tea.”
“It’s truly delightful. I don’t dare eat too much before a show and this looks delicious.”
“Well, please, try this one,” Serepte said, picking up one of the wedges and feeding it to Paul.
“Oh, cucumber and cream cheese. Delicious. This looks colorful. Try it,” Paul said, getting into the idea that they would choose sandwiches and feed them to each other. “What do you think?”
“Salmon. Quite nice. Oh, I’ve had these before. I think you’ll like it.” Serepte offered Paul egg salad.
“So, your circle cooks for you?” he asked.
“We share the responsibilities of the household,” Serepte said, not realizing that Paul had returned the conversation to her housemates while they ate. “Elizabeth is the oldest and is always taking care of someone. If I’m in a rebellious state and acting all independent, she takes care of one or more of the others. Their real responsibility has been to educate and train me. You don’t seem to have a problem with this.”
“I… uh… guess I’ve always liked stories of magic,” Paul said. “I loved reading The Lord of the Rings, for example. There are all forms of magical beings in that series.”
“Is that how you chose the name Paris on stage?”
“No. I got that from Homer.”
“A friend?”
“Eventually. One of my English teachers in high school discovered that I was into Tolkien and told me that I should read The Iliad and The Odyssey. They held the same basic archetypes on which Tolkien based his work. Of course, I was also interested in magic and sleight of hand. The origins of the Trojan War had to do with Paris stealing the wife of Menelaus.”
“Tell me you aren’t into that!” she exclaimed, shoving another triangle into his mouth.”
“Oh, no! You see, the gods had a big party of some sort and everyone got invited but this one goddess, Discord was not invited because Zeus thought she would spoil the party. Which she did. She got a golden apple from some mythic garden and tossed it into the midst of the party with the inscription that it was for the fairest of the goddesses,” Paris said as Serepte poured him two swallows of tea in one of the child-size teacups.
“I think I know her. We call her Lissa,” Serepte laughed.
“Eris was the Greek name, if I remember correctly. I have it written down in my notes. My… uh… memory isn’t always dependable. And, of course, the apple at the feast had exactly the effect Discord intended. Hera, Aphrodite, and Athena all laid claim to the apple and demanded that Zeus settle the argument. Well, Hera was his wife, Athena his daughter, and Aphrodite was just… um… sexy. He wasn’t going to make this judgment, so he quickly reached down and grabbed a mortal from Troy named Paris and made him the judge. There’s no question that Paris would have chosen Aphrodite because… um… sexy… but she was also vain and couldn’t stand the thought of either of the other two goddesses getting the apple, so she bribed Paris. She promised him the most beautiful woman in the world if he chose her. Of course, he did. Unfortunately, the most beautiful woman in the world, Helen, was married, so Paris had to steal her away from her husband and the offense was so great that all the nations of Greece went to war against Troy.”
“So, you chose… um… sexy… as your goddess?”
“No. If I were to choose a goddess, it would be the one I’m sitting with.” Paris snagged a slice of apple from the fruit plate and placed it at Serepte’s lips. She looked at him as she delicately took it between her lips. “I decided to incorporate the story into my show and I have a levitation act in which I float an apple and then plop it down in front of a woman in the audience and say it’s the judgment of Paris.”
“You didn’t do that at the show I attended,” she said.
“Haven’t done the trick in ages, but I kept the name. Now, what about you? What did you read as a child that influenced your life?”
“Oh, it’s so silly,” Serepte giggled.
“Besides Dr. Seuss.”
“Yes. Definitely besides that,” she said. “I was also interested in fairy tales, though I never got to the Tolkien books. Just never had time. In fact, from age thirteen up, most of my reading was more esoteric. But when I was a little girl, my godparents, Doc and Margaret, gave me a little fairytale book called The Last Gift.”
“Princess in a tower rescued by a knight in shining armor?” Paul asked.
“Not quite. This is a little romance about a magician who falls in love with a gypsy princess. It’s in a romantic fairytale era. A forbidden love. Different castes. But the magician frees the leader of the gypsies from an enemy camp where he has been taken prisoner. He is adopted into the clan and marries the princess. They live happily ever after. I always imagined I was the princess and someone magical would come along and free my father,” Serepte sighed. They were silent for a few minutes while each ate a little cookie that Serepte informed him the English called a biscuit.
“Serepte, you don’t have to tell me if it’s painful, but what happened to your father?” Paul asked softly.
“I guess I take after him,” she sighed. “He was a musician, but he stumbled on a means of using music to communicate.”
“Music speaks to different people in different ways.”
“True, but his idea was that if you put precisely the right tones together with vocal patterns, timbre, pitch, and so on, that he could make music speak to different people in the same way. That he could use music to translate from one language to another, essentially.”
“That’s an interesting concept. What happened?”
“Well, he was approached to go on an archeological dig with Doc and Margaret. Somehow there was an accident of some sort and he was trapped there.”
“Trapped? You mean like buried alive? How awful!”
“That would be terrible, but at least it would be final. Mom would never talk to me about it because she thinks she’s somehow responsible for it, but Doc said that he thought my father was caught in kind of a time/space warp and would eventually get out of it. Mom’s been beating herself up over it more and more. That’s why she’s over there now, looking for an opening to get to the husband who’s been missing nineteen years.”
Paul reached for Serepte’s hand and drew it to his lips. He had no idea what to say about her story. It seemed incredible and impossible and at the same time very real. The kiss on Serepte’s fingertips was neither romantic nor sexual, but was a simple sign of his sympathy.
“My mother is the high priestess of a pagan circle in England. An ancient one,” Serepte sighed. “When she became the high priestess, they—the circle—took upon themselves the task of opening the gate that would free my father. A new circle was created to form a cauldron of rebirth, and I… I am their tool.”
“Serepte, do you need help? Do you need to get away?” Paul asked sincerely. He wasn’t sure what he could do for her, but if at that moment she had asked to be hidden away, he would have carried her to the farthest reaches of the earth.
“Oh. Paul, they chose me and I have since begun to see why, but I’m not an unwilling tool. We’re talking about the rescue of my father.”
“But the story of the time/space warp is pretty outrageous, don’t you think?”
“Maybe yes and maybe no. Recently, I’ve had more reason to hope that it is true. He speaks to me, Paul. My father. Of course, I might just be as weird as my fellow students in high school thought I was, but I believe in the supernatural. There are somethings that just can’t be explained.”
“That which we can explain, we call science. That which we can’t explain we call magic,” Paul said. He’d used the quote in an interview for the college newspaper a few years ago and it had stuck with him. “What is magic to one person is simple science to another.”
“And science is constantly uncovering evidence of multidimensional space that sounds like science fiction a few years ago. I personally don’t care if it is science or magic that brings my father home.”
She sat on the blanket across from him, the remnants of their picnic packed back in the basket. The sun in her hair and her eyes dancing with mirth captivated him. He was filled with a warmth that he couldn’t describe. She had an independence and freedom about her that he envied. Being near her freed his mind, as well. He didn’t feel pressured to entertain her constantly as he had been with most women he dated. He leaned as heavily on his magic socially as he did professionally. Doing tricks was what people enjoyed about him. She was a rare gem and Paul felt a growing certainty that his past was wrapped up in her future. The paradox was something his mind could not deal with and he pushed it away.
For a moment, his mind flirted with the idea of what their first kiss would be like. He reminded himself that he was only booked into Minneapolis for two weekends. That was always the problem. He was not into one-night stands, though they were offered to him often enough. And to begin a relationship when he had to leave in two weeks was insane and an invitation to heartbreak for both parties. He knew that if he began something with Serepte, he would not want to leave.
They gathered up the picnic things and he picked up the basket. Their arms slipped neatly around each other’s waists as they started off for a walk around the lake in the late afternoon sun. The night would be cool as Minneapolis raced through fall and prepared for the long dark winter ahead. Just now, everything was perfect. A great willow shaded the walk and stretched out one leafy arm over the lake where it dropped yellow leaves into the water. A duck waddled across the path ahead. The rest of the world seemed to disappear in the warmth of their arms pulling toward each other.
Serepte leaned against Paul in the easy sway of their strides that matched perfectly. She raised her face to look at him, allowing him to guide the walk across the grass toward the pedestrian way. Her smile still played on her lips and he could no longer push fantasy aside, bending his head just enough to brush his lips against hers. His heart jumped a beat and he could feel a mist in his eyes. Her lips were warm and soft. They pulled at him invitingly and he lost himself to their touch. Awareness flooded all his senses at different levels. He could smell her fragrance, pure and human, undoctored by perfumes. He heard his own pulsing heartbeat and sensed that it melded with hers. The touch of her lips was multiplied by the hand she laid on his around her waist, by the breath on his cheek, by the lips that held them together. Behind his closed eyes, rainbows of color played against his retina, bursting into sparkles. Beyond themselves, the world disappeared into a fog that not only concealed it from his senses, but gave him a sense of invulnerability to harm and embarrassment. He could sense through her lips and through the heartbeat that she was equally in that same world. Nothing could destroy that one moment of pure harmony.
The demon gained a new respect for the human he inhabited. While his summoning had bound him, the entrapment in a different dimension had released the demon to control the man. He understood the intricacies of traveling among the dimensions and dragged the body with him for convenience alone. But the man understood this world he had entered better than the demon. In mere hours, he had acquired the necessities for existing on this world. Food, clothing, shelter, money. As the demon loosened control, he entered into a more symbiotic relationship rather than parasitic. Strengthened by the demon, the man could move more quickly and silently. Guided by the human’s intelligence, the demon could plan his next move rather than simply driving toward the end goal.
The Goddess.
To possess the Goddess in all her glory and power. To feed on her magic. It was the only thing that ultimately mattered, but the man—he called himself The Blade—had patience and cunning the demon did not possess.
Pain shot through Paul’s side. He stumbled and fell, dragging Serepte with him. His eyes flashed open to see a skater powering past them and a bicycle crushing down on top. Screams echoed through the park as two more bicycles and a skater piled on and another pedestrian was caught beneath the pedals of a bike, tearing through the skin of her leg. It was all so fast that Paul registered only the crunching of the bicycle basket beneath him and the pain of his head beating the rest of his body to the pavement. He lay in a tangle of bicycles and people. It was all too sudden. He slipped from a dream world to a nightmare. All that was left of the beautiful place he had been was the touch of a hand firmly holding his. That served to tell him that Serepte was in this tangle as well.
The pain of the accident would have been enough to cripple him, but multiplied itself among the channels in his head that had always been open to it. He could feel the throbbing of a headache moving from his neck into the back of his skull. Then the pain crested and ebbed away. He let go of it willingly, hoping that he was slipping into unconsciousness, but his eyes still blinked through the blood at the roller skate in front of him and he did not black out.
Sounds separated themselves from the general cacophony. An accident. He must have stumbled blindly into the bicycle path as he kissed Serepte. People ran from all directions and attempted to sort out the tangle. He raised himself as much as he could, but the roller skate was attached to the person lying on top of him. He started to pull his hand away from Serepte to move the skate, but she grasped it harder. He squeezed back to confirm that he was conscious and okay. It was then that he realized she was speaking, or singing, or humming, or all three. He caught a spoken word after a short gasp and then the humming returned and her hand became palpably warmer. He hummed with her, seeking a harmony. It was familiar and he could almost give voice to the strange sensation.
The skater on top regained her feet and helped him to sit up. He twisted himself a bit and looked for Serepte. She knelt on the pavement using her free hand to help people up from the mess. She bore no obvious signs that she had been hurt other than the pain he saw etched on her face. It was he who had borne the brunt of the accident, landing on the bottom, but she was weeping. An older woman knelt on Serepte’s other side, supporting her and whispering to her. Serepte jerked as if in sudden pain as the last cyclist stood up. “No more. I can’t,” Serepte said. Then she went back to the wordless and tuneless singing. Still she refused to release his hand.
Paul brought his arm around Serepte’s waist and encountered that of the other woman. “Help us,” the woman said. They helped a shaking Serepte stand and the woman guided them away from the accident.
“Take me home, Mamm,” Serepte whispered. “I need my flute.” The older woman already had the picnic basket in her other hand and led them away from people who were examining themselves and trying to decide where the blood had come from as none seemed to have injuries.
“I wasn’t paying attention,” Paul said accusing himself of the accident. “I should have been watching.”
“Hush!” the woman helping support Serepte commanded. “We saw it. The man went flashing past us on his roller blades and pushed two bicyclists into you. The Swordmaster went after him, but of course, she’ll not catch him. She was on foot and he was moving very fast on rollerblades.” Serepte leaned heavily on the two of them as Paul tried to parse the woman’s statements. It was obvious that she knew Serepte and that Serepte trusted her. For her part, Serepte continued to hum her strangely tuneless music. Snatches of it were things Paul could almost recognize, but it was vaguely out of harmony with what he tried to harmonize. He could scarcely play music critic at a time like this, though. He could feel the blood from a cut over his left eye drying on his face. But there was no pain so he brushed away the thought that it might be serious. Still, he would no doubt need extra makeup tonight.
They reached Serepte’s door and the other woman produced a key and opened the door. She turned to Paul.
“We will take care of her from here.”
“I can help,” he said quickly.
“You have a performance to prepare for and it will take Serepte the weekend to fully recover. We’ll be here to support her. Come for dinner on Monday at six. We all want to meet you.”
“You must be part of the circle,” he said. “I’m Paul. I’ll see you then.” He brushed a kiss along Serepte’s brow and she smiled faintly at him.
“I’m Elizabeth. Goodnight.” She closed the door behind them and Paul shook his head. He felt a little shaky, but contributed it to the adrenalin rush of the experience he had just been through. Otherwise, he felt fine. Even better than fine. He felt as though he had unlimited energy.
He was just lucky they hadn’t been seriously injured.
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