Fire (34 page)

‘Thirty seconds,’ Vanessa says.

‘Good luck,’ Minoo whispers with a quick look at Ida.

She doesn’t reply. The bowl feels warm against the palms of her hands.

‘Twenty …’

Anna-Karin strangles a sneeze and Ida crawls with irritation.

‘… ten … nine … eight …’

Ida tries to concentrate. She doesn’t want to think about the darkness. And that they will be trying to make a ghost appear. In the dark. At midnight. The sodding witching hour.

‘… four … three …’

She thinks about the book’s promise.

‘… two …’

She thinks about G.

‘Go.’

Ida dips the three middle fingers of her left hand into the bowl. The sludge is as cold as ice, so cold it almost hurts, though the outside of the bowl is warm.

‘The circle that binds,’ Vanessa says.

Ida kneels on the floor and starts drawing the circle. At her side, Minoo does the same. Each draws her part of the circle around the others in the opposite direction. All the time, they both take care to stay inside the circle themselves.

Ida can feel magic flow through her body, through her arm, out through her fingertips. They are tingling. As she slides her fingers over Linnéa’s floor, the icy ectoplasm seems to be sucking magic out of her. She is sweating now. Her top sticks soggily to her back.

She dips her hand in the bowl again and carries on.

The room is completely silent. The air seems to absorb every sound, to grow denser the closer she and Minoo come to each other. Soon, the outer circle will be closed.

Please, let this pass, Ida thinks and dips her fingers in the bowl yet again. Just let it pass.

Minoo feels as if someone or something is steering her hand, making the ectoplasm arrange itself into a perfect line that will form a perfect circle.

The magic is in the air, she feels it radiating from herself. As if she is about to dissolve, become part of something greater.

Dissolve.

Fear is crawling into her.

It is a feeling she recognises from the evening in the dining area when she defeated Max.

Minoo knows what is about to happen. The black smoke will be coming soon. She can almost sense it now, whirling at the very edge of her field of vision, spreading away from her towards the others.

She forces herself to go on. Once begun, the ritual must be completed, Mona Moonbeam has instructed them. If not, there is no telling what will be let out into our world.

She dips her left hand in the ice-cold goo again. Only a metre or so until she and Ida meet.

If she could, she would hurry up, but this is a process she cannot control. The circle is growing at its own pace.

A thin, black wisp of smoke snakes past in front of her eyes and she watches in terror as it tentatively throws out filaments towards Ida.

But no one else seems to notice what is about to happen. No one realises that Minoo is about to become a monster. Panic hammers inside her, splashes through her blood vessels.

Ida is coming closer. Closer. Closer.

Their hands touch and the lines of goo melt and merge across the last centimetre. The circle is closed.

The black smoke disperses and vanishes.

Minoo stands up on shaky legs. She and Ida sit down with
the others. Together, they all grip the mirror and lift it, and then Ida stretches out her hand and draws the sign of metal with ectoplasm on the floor.

Ida nods and they carefully lower the mirror again.

‘The circle that gives power,’ Vanessa says.

Minoo takes a firm grip on Ida and Linnéa’s hands.

‘Okay. Good,’ Vanessa whispers. ‘Shall I …?’

‘Yes, yes, just go ahead,’ Ida hisses.

‘All concentrate on the glass,’ Vanessa says.

It is standing upside down inside an empty circle in the middle of the mirror. They have smeared the rim of the glass with pure ectoplasm. Minoo notes the IKEA logo stamped on the bottom of it.

‘Eh … hi there,’ Vanessa says. ‘We are trying to make contact with Matilda, daughter of Nicolaus Elingius and his wife Hedvig. Are you here?’

The glass jerks. And starts sliding across the mirror in a straight line towards YES.

‘Holy shit,’ Linnéa whispers.

Minoo swallows hard.

‘We greet you and wish you welcome at this hour of midnight when the dead and the living can meet,’ Vanessa says formally. ‘Within this circle, we meet with mutual respect and deference.’

Apparently, it is important to say all this, word for word. In her instruction sheet, Mona Moonbeam has underlined this several times. But once it has been properly said, Vanessa seems to be at a loss. Minoo has to fight her know-it-all urge to take over.

‘The introduction,’ she whispers instead and Vanessa’s face clears.

‘My name is Vanessa Dahl and I speak for us all. To my left, you see Ida Holmström. To her left, Minoo Falk Karimi,
then Linnéa Wallin and then Anna-Karin Nieminen, who sits to my right. Do you accept all the participants in this circle?’

The glass jerks again, but stays where it is. Once more, a yes.

‘The danger you warned us of – is that the Council?’

The glass jerks, stays in place. Yes. And then it slides along to NO.

‘What do you want to tell us?’ Vanessa asks. ‘Do you mean that there are other dangers? Like Positive Engelsfors?’

The glass slides quickly over to the letters, trailing ectoplasm as it moves.

‘M,’ Vanessa reads. ‘O-R-E. More. More dangers? In addition to Positive Engelsfors?’

The glass whizzes back to YES and stops with a grinding, glass-against-glass sound that sets Minoo’s teeth on edge. Then it goes back to the letters, much more slowly now; it almost looks laborious. It stops at the letter M.

‘M …’ Vanessa says. ‘M?’

A piercing grinding sound that makes Minoo want to cover her ears with her hands, but instead she grips Ida and Linnéa’s hands harder. They must not break the circle.

A snapping sound from the glass. Cracks spread all over it.

‘Shut your eyes!’ Minoo screams and shuts her own eyes tightly.

She bows her head just as she hears the glass explode. Shards land in her hair.

And then,
everything
explodes.

A white, dazzling light fills Minoo’s head.

She sees the
Book of Patterns
, surrounded by flames.

She sees the grinning, toothless man who was Matilda’s prison guard.

She sees a dagger, its edge of dull silver.

She sees Nicolaus’s face. He is younger than she has
known him. His hair is dark and he is wearing a long black coat with a white collar. His ice-blue eyes are full of grief.

She sees a face as if reflected in a watery surface, a girl in her teens, with long, reddish-blonde hair falling in curls around her freckled face. Instantly, Minoo knows who she is. The spirit they have sought. Matilda.

‘I am here now.’

The voice uses Ida’s vocal cords, but it is not Ida who is speaking.

A wave of electricity shoots through Minoo. She opens her eyes.

Ida’s hand slips out of hers.

Ida, still cross-legged, is floating a few centimetres above the floor. A thin string of ectoplasm trickles from one of the corners of her mouth. Her pupils are so widely dilated that her blue eyes look almost black.

‘My daughters,’ she says.

‘Matilda?’ Anna-Karin says tentatively.

Ida sighs deeply, as if in relief. The breath from her mouth is like white vapour.

‘It is so long since I heard someone utter my name.’

‘Nicolaus has spoken to us about everything,’ Minoo says. ‘He told us about you. About what happened.’

The candle flames gleam in Ida’s pupils.

‘I know.’

‘We can’t even begin to imagine all that you have been through—’ Minoo begins.

‘You must not pity me,’ Matilda interrupts her. ‘Centuries have passed since then. And I made my own choice.’

Minoo wants to ask her what her choice was, how it affected her powers. But Matilda continues.

‘Time is out of joint. Events are moving too swiftly and you are not properly prepared. In many ways, I take a great
risk to come here. I am not at all certain that you are mature enough for what I intend to tell you. It is taking a leap of faith. I hope you will show yourselves to be worthy.’

Matilda lets her gaze wander from one face to the next. It stays on Minoo.

‘And especially you, Minoo,’ she adds. ‘You will learn the truth about your powers.’

The circle is silent. Goose pimples cover Minoo’s arms.

‘You are not alone in your battle against the demons,’ Matilda says. ‘Humanity has guardians who have existed at our side since the beginning of time. They have watched over us. Sustained us. Tried to protect us against evil.’

‘What kind of guardians?’ Vanessa asks. ‘Like, guardian angels, or something?’

‘They have been called angels,’ Matilda says. ‘But they have been given many names. They prefer to be known as guardians. They taught us human beings to master magic in this world, gave us the
Book of Patterns
and the Pattern Finders.’

Minoo thinks that it should be a relief to know that they are not alone when they confront the demons. But right now, all she can do is wonder where these so-called guardians have been hiding.

Linnéa has obviously been thinking along the same lines.

‘Our guardians have done such a fucking fantastic job so far,’ she says. ‘Like, first we were seven. And then six. Now, we’re down to five and the demons know who we are. I feel so
totally
safe.’

‘They have helped you as best they could,’ Matilda replies. ‘Once upon a time, they were stronger and lived closer to us. But their power has diminished and so has their ability to communicate with people. The guardians have their own
language, their own way of thinking. They hoped that the
Book of Patterns
would bridge that gap, but today, fewer and fewer human beings can read it.’

‘So the guardians are the ones who communicate with us through the book, then?’ Minoo asks.

‘Yes,’ Matilda answers. ‘And also through me. I speak for them. We do all we can to help you, but we are not all-knowing, or all-powerful. Or all-seeing.’

‘But the
Book of Patterns
contains prophesies, too,’ Minoo says. ‘Like the one about us.’

‘The guardians can prophesy different
possible
future developments. But the future is in constant flux. It is influenced by the incalculable number of choices people make every day. Prophesies are unstable, they change. It is only the Council that has tied itself to particular interpretations.’

‘Why have we not heard about the guardians before?’ Anna-Karin asks. ‘Adriana ought to have mentioned them.’

Matilda smiles sadly.

‘The Council has forgotten. They had forgotten even when I was alive. Once, tasks were shared between the guardians and the Council. Together, they were to help the Chosen One. As the guardians’ powers declined, the Council’s grew steadily stronger. But with increasing strength went an increasing obsession with hierarchies and control. The Council slowly changed into a self-perpetuating organisation with a single item on its agenda: to control all magic practice and all witches.’

‘But how much does the Council really know?’ Minoo says. ‘About anything?’

‘It is very difficult to say. The Council maintains a united front to the outside world, but internally there are ceaseless intrigues and power struggles. Knowledge is distorted to suit the goals of the powerful. A large majority of the
Council members know no more than they are told. If any real knowledge is still held within the Council it is in the possession of the elite. They have access to enormous libraries, where witches’ accounts of their readings in the
Book of Patterns
are kept. The collections have been built up over many centuries.’

Minoo imagines the labyrinthine passages between shelves so tall you can’t see where they end, filled with ancient books and rolls of parchment. How much simpler would everything become if only you could have access to such a library?

‘I understand that you have many questions, but our time together is limited to this hour. And I must tell you about the demons,’ Matilda says. ‘From time to time, creatures from other dimensions make attempts to get into our world. The demons’ attack has been the worst. They are entities capable of moving between different worlds. They exist to achieve just one goal and that is to eliminate chaos and establish order. When they discover life forms in other worlds, they see it as their foremost task to tame them, then mould them in their own image. The demons detest irrationality, emotions, discrepancies, change. They perceive themselves as flawless and eternal. No living beings can match the ideals of the demons. That is why their experiments always fail. And when they do, they move to the next stage.’

‘What is their next stage?’ Anna-Karin asks.

‘Complete extinction of all living things on the planet,’ Matilda replies evenly. ‘In a dead world, nothing is left to offend the demons’ sense of order.’

They feel a chill, as if the air in the room has grown colder. A chill that is finding its way even into Minoo’s very soul.

She sees her own terror reflected in the eyes of the others.

For the first time, the apocalypse feels real. All life on
earth would be wiped out. No one doubts that humanity and its chaotic world would fail the tests set by the demons.

‘When the demons discovered our world, they first tried to gain entrance and tame it,’ Matilda continues. ‘The guardians put up strong resistance and joined forces with powerful witches. They drove the demons into retreat, but during these battles, our reality was ripped in some places. The gaps serve as doors of a kind, openings into our world. There were seven of these gaps, or doors, in seven different places. The guardians and the witches managed to close but not to lock them, despite being aware that, for as long as the doors were left unlocked, the demons would keep trying to enter. They never give up.’

‘What fun,’ Linnéa says.

‘The guardians realised that there was only one individual who could save us,’ Matilda explains. ‘A witch. They called her the Chosen One. She had to be a unique witch, in control of all the elements, and born near one of the doors during a magic age. The first Chosen One succeeded in locking the first door. But that magic age was fading and several centuries passed before the next Chosen One was born and could lock the second door.’