The Summoning (2 page)

The Wiccans re-gathered themselves. Their collective power, broken at the appearance of that thing, whirled and drew itself together again.

The celebrant stepped forward, bent with dignity, and recovered her sword. They stared at the young man on the ground uncertainly. I snarled again.

The celebrant turned to me. “You have claimed him, Sister. We recognize your claim. He is yours to dispose of.”

What? I shook off my other nature, something I almost never do so awkwardly, and asked again. “What? I didn’t claim him!”

She looked sideways to her sisters, a little smile on her lips. “Who are we to come between our lupine sister and her lawful prey? No, he is yours.”

“I don’t want him. You take him. Do what you want.” I backed off. I thought they could zap him to another somewhere, where we wouldn’t have to look at him again. The gods knew I wasn’t going to
taste
that thing. Not for anything.

The celebrant gathered her sisters’ assent with a glance. She stepped forward and put the point of her sword to his throat. He lay quite still, staring up at her.

“Do it,” said one of the women, shakily.

“It’ll break the raising,” another one cautioned.

“No,” someone answered. “It will seal it, make it stronger.”

There was a murmur of assent, and they closed in, supporting her action.

The celebrant looked at me again, as if to say, You can stop this if you want. I thought maybe she wanted me to stop it. After all, this isn’t the Middle Ages. She’d probably never taken a life in cold blood before. I folded my arms, waiting to see if she’d actually go through with it.

She spoke to the sword. “Gray Maiden, Daughter of Fire and Earth, taste this blood and release this creature into Hell, where it belongs.”

“So mote it be,” the others responded.

He still didn’t move, just lay there looking up at her.

All right, I can’t say I haven’t killed. I am what I am. Maybe the sword called me. Maybe the working would have been spoiled. Or maybe it’s just that I still had his blood on my lips, and that really did make him mine. I leaped. She drew back in a hurry. I stood on four feet between him and the sword and snarled, as much at myself and what I found myself doing as at them. It was all the same to them. They broke up and fell back.

The celebrant was obviously relieved. I didn’t think she could do it. She put up the sword, cradling the blade over one arm. She bowed to me regally. “Sister, he is yours, as I said before. Do with him what you think good. Gray Maiden will drink no blood tonight. Sisters, friends, the moon is down. Our work for tonight is finished.”

They thanked and dismissed the powers they had called. They put out the fire. They dismantled the altar. They kept a respectful distance from the young man on the ground, stepping cautiously when they got anywhere near him. He still lay there, his eyes closed, breathing long and hard. When they had undone the wards, they had a little conclave. They chanted briefly, and then they all turned in our direction with a shout and a gesture, setting up another ward, I realized, between whatever that thing had been, and themselves, wherever they were. They tied it up, and then they broke up and set off down the hill, dragging drums, robes draped over their shoulders, lugging props, as the moon turned red in the haze on the horizon and slipped into the sea. I followed them a few paces, listening to their footsteps, pricking my ears as the phones came out, and their voices sharpened to tell someone where they were, and that they were coming home. The conversations faded off down the hill.

He got up behind me. I turned, head down, and growled at him. He was a wiry, compact young man in black jeans, serviceable leather boots, a long-sleeved t-shirt under his leather jacket. None of the clothes he wore were new, and none of them had been his when they were new. A medley of previous owners wafted tiny traces in the air, only discernible if I paid attention.

He looked at me a long moment. I’m not yet full grown as a wolf. My shoulders came to his hips. But my wolf eyes are yellow, and not many dare to meet them. I was still in my winter coat—it must have looked all black to him now that the fire was gone, and there wasn’t enough light to pick out the highlights of amber, gray, and brown. My point is, he stood there ten feet from a wolf. Most people, this close to me, would have fear spiking off of them. But then, he wasn’t people, not entirely. I’d seen that.

He dropped his eyes, and then knelt down.

I stood up on two feet, sputtering, “What are you doing?” And then his tension rose. Now that was strange. He wasn’t big, but he was taller than me. And he was beautiful, despite his shabby clothes. His body was like a knife, as perfectly made. His jaw line was taut with tension. He would of course assume that he was stronger than me. It’s one of my favorite assumptions. But now, facing me in my human form, his fear was spiking. What was going on?

“I owe you my life,” he offered.

“Yeah, maybe.”

I tried to see, or sense in any way, the dark writhing form he’d been. It wasn’t there. But the memory made the hair on my neck stand up.

He glanced up at me from under his brows. He gestured down the hill, where shapes were still visible in the darkness. “She said…” He trailed off. He looked after the disappearing figures as though with regret, and then looked up at me. “What are you going to do with me?”

I could still smell his blood, though it wasn’t running anymore. He’d been human again by the time I’d knocked him flat. I’d taken his head in my jaws—all right, I’d wanted to kill that
thing
—just on instinct. But he was a man between my teeth, his scream had been a man’s, and I don’t kill men, unless I mean to. Was that thing in him? If I took him apart now, would I find it? Even more to the point, would I want to?

“What the hell on Earth are you?” I asked him.

He sat back on his heels. “Does it matter?”

“Yes, it matters!”

He turned his head away from my rage, and after a moment he shrugged.

“Are you human?”

He shrugged. “‘If you prick me, do I not bleed?’”

“I think you would bleed rather a lot, really.” I stepped forward, smiling my not-nice smile, just to make him lean back, which he did. I found my rage comforting and opened up to it. “And what the hell did you think you were doing, walking into their circle like that? You’re lucky they were reasonable people.”

“I know.”

“What were you doing up here in the first place?”

He shook his head, and I stepped forward again. Somehow he took that as a threat—well, so he should have. I like sensitive people. He answered, “I sensed the raising. I let the call guide me. I think I can be of help, if they let me.” He looked up at me, his eyes troubled. “If you let me.”

I shook my head. “This has nothing to do with me.”

“No?” He smiled, and something in me suddenly ached. “Then what brought you here tonight, Lady?”

I stepped forward into my wolf nature. I walked onto him, flattening him to the ground, put my two forepaws on his chest and sniffed him up and down, starting with his head, where I left smear trails across his face and in his ears, and where I could still smell his blood and my saliva. I snuffed him up one side and down the other, trying to scent his true nature. I smelled nothing but man. He lay still, though tense, not curling up or protecting himself. He lay flat on his back with his throat, his belly and his groin in my reach. And that pissed me off, that he thought he could trust me not to hurt him. He didn’t know me well enough to know that. I took hold of his leg at the thigh, hard, and I let one tooth pierce the skin on the inside of his leg where it would hurt, and how. He started to scramble up and pull away at that, but stopped himself. I could have bitten through to the artery in a second, and the taste of his blood in my mouth again all warm and sharp really made me want to do it. What the hell was he thinking? I changed back. “What the hell is the matter with you?”

His eyes widened. “What—?” he began.

“Why are you lying there? Why aren’t you running?”

He took a breath, the first full one in a long while. “You want me to run?”

I shook my head to clear the bloodlust from it, and stepped back. “I just don’t understand you. Why aren’t you trying to get away?”

He sat up, touched the notch I’d made in his leg gingerly, then pulled at his jeans and pressed the cloth to where the blood still leaked a little. “The sorceress said,” he explained slowly, “I was yours to dispose of. I thought… you were doing that.”

“And that’s all right with you?”

He shrugged. “That’s the way it works.”

“So, I could have you for breakfast, and that would be okay with you?”

He shifted again, onto his knees, and that pissed me off, too. I stepped up and knocked him flat again. He lay on his back and took two deep breaths, one after another. “I didn’t make the rules,” he said. “But I know them. All too well.”

Why is it that when someone cringes, it makes you want to kick them harder? There he was, lying flat… I shook my head again and let his words distract me. “What are you talking about? What rules? And what the hell happened when that woman touched you with the sword? What are you? Answer me!”

He lay still, looking up at the sky. It was not quite dark up here, though the moon was gone. It’s never quite dark in the city. I could see his pale, sharp face illuminated by the lights from below. He closed his eyes. “I’d rather not have my head bitten off, thank you very much.”

I thought about that. “You think if I know what you are, I’ll kill you?”

“Isn’t that what the sorceress wants?”

He was right; she had left it to me. She had shrugged off the fallout of her working onto me, and hoped I’d do the dirty work. Well, that pissed me off too. “It sure looks that way. All right. What if I promise you I won’t kill you? Tell me what you are.”

He closed his eyes for a moment as though he was awfully tired. “A lot of people don’t think they have to keep promises to… what I am. As though I don’t count.”

I was getting tired, too. Dawn was only a few hours away, and back in my apartment was an alarm clock already set to go off. “What if I promise that if you don’t start talking, I’ll go ahead and take your head off and find out what you are that way?”

He turned his head to me. “Damned if I do—”

“And if you don’t, that’s right. What did she call you? Dark One? What are you?”

He sat up on his elbows and looked up at me. “I’m a demon,” he said. “Summoned out of Hell. And now, by the rules, I belong to you.”

CHAPTER TWO

F
at chance. In the first place, I don’t keep pets. For obvious reasons. In the second place, I don’t take on obligations that I don’t choose. Not ever and, especially, not now. That’s a principle of mine, and I’m sticking to it. So obviously I wasn’t going to let this creature, whatever it was, follow me home. On the other hand, I was starving.

We went to the donut place on Hadley, because it was the only place handy that’s open all night. He looked even rattier under the lights than he had up on the hill, like he’d been on the streets for quite a while. His blond hair was clean, but his last hair cut had probably been done without a mirror. His skin was unusually pale for California, almost milky, like in fairy tales. His face reminded me of a Greek statue, but his cheeks were hollow and the set of his mouth was hard. He still radiated tension, but it wasn’t the same as when he’d first appeared on that hill. He must have been hungry. He ate more donuts than I did.

I downed a buttermilk bar and a glazed while I studied him. He was formed like a piece of art, where every detail, his wrist, his throat, the line of his jaw, drew and held the eye. He scarfed up two chocolates and an old-fashioned. I realized, annoyed, that he knew I was looking at him. I started on another glazed and said, “All right. Let’s have it. What were you doing up there? And what’s the whole story, where you come from, what you are, and why the hell do you think for a second that it has anything to do with me?”

He put down the donut he’d started on. He was wary of me, but not afraid now. That was strange. Maybe he was on a sugar high. He didn’t look at me directly, but said, “Where should I begin?”

“At the top. What were you doing up there?” I took a drink of coffee. It was loathsome.

“I sensed the working. I went up to see if I could talk to them.” He glanced at me briefly and amended, “To talk to the sorceress.” He licked sugar off his thumb as though he had to concentrate on it.

“You can sense a working in advance?”

“No, of course not. They’ve been up there Thursdays for five weeks now.”

“You’re kidding.” What had I been doing last Thursday? What did those bitches mean by doing a working in my territory, which I had plainly marked out when I got here? They should have known better. The celebrant hadn’t been surprised to see me, so she knew it was my territory, and if it weren’t so late I’d get up, follow her home, and prove it to her.

“They are a strong coven.” He was staring at the remaining donuts. I pushed the box toward him and he took one. “I couldn’t find my way to them through their wards until tonight. Something changed. They must have reworked the wards to make a gateway, to guide the ones who heard their call.”

“What are they calling for?” I asked. The coffee was really ghastly. It wasn’t even hot.

“For help,” he said.

“I know that. I heard them. Help, protection, deflection. What is their problem?”

He put down the donut, turned it on its napkin, picked it up again. “It’s not just them. All the Wiccans, all the pagans, all the power raisers are out. Even the Buddhists are chanting protection up on Mount Baldy, though they probably don’t know why.”

“But you know.” I gave him a moment, but he just pulled the chocolate donut in half and started on it. “So tell me,” I prompted. “Why?”

He swallowed hard. He looked up and his eyes, blue and troubled, met mine. He looked old then, old enough to have seen Hell, even. He said quietly, “The World Snake is coming. She’s turned.”

“The World Snake?” I’d never heard of it, but the hair along my nape rose at the name.