The Flesh of life,
the Strength of life,
the Earth of life,
it moves from thee to us,
be with us now.
Then she faced the altar again.
I call upon Hecate,
goddess of the crossroads.
Bless my work, and my endeavors.
Protect and keep me safe from harm.
From every place that harm is wrought.
From every evil that walks.
Protect me, wise one, guard me now.
O great Hecate, I beseech thee:
Watch over me this night
that I might do this work
both faithfully and well.
In thanks for your protection
I make this offering now.
There was a small wooden box on the altar. Rachel raised the lid and quickly reached in. Her hand came out holding something that moved in her grasp.
I looked closer. She was holding a brown-andwhite mouse, its tail twitching like a hooked worm. I wondered whether she'd trapped it herself or bought it at a local pet store. Either way, things weren't looking too good for Mr Mouse right about now.
Black magic requires a sacrifice – a blood sacrifice. It has its roots in the ancient religions, and their gods always required blood. In the case of some, like the Aztecs, the blood had to be human.
I guessed the mouse was the smallest offering that Rachel thought would allow the ritual to work. Or maybe it was the biggest thing she could bring herself to kill.
She closed the box again, and held the mouse down on its lid with her lift hand. With her right, she picked up a knife with an ornately carved handle.
"Spiritus!" she said loudly, held the knife up to shoulder height, then lowered it. She did this twice more. Then, with the mouse still pinned against the top of the wooden box, she cut off its head with one quick, economical movement. I expect the little guy was dead before he even knew he was dying.
I noticed that a breeze had sprung up, but the candle flames didn't flicker. The smoke from the incense rose straight up, as if the air was perfectly still. Maybe over there, it was.
Rachel seemed to hesitate before beginning the next part of the ritual, but when she spoke, her voice was clear and strong.
Colpriziana,
offina alta nestra
fuaro menut,
I name George Harmon
the dead which I seek.
Spirit of George Harmon
you may now approach this gate
and answer truly to my calling.
Berald, Beroald, Balbin,
Gab, Gabor, Agaba!
Arise, I charge and call thee!
She repeated this twice more, a little louder each time. The smoke from the incense sticks had thickened and come together into one mass that grew as I watched. According to the laws of physics, what I was seeing was impossible. But I had a feeling that the laws of physics didn't count for much right now.
Using a sharp stick of polished wood that I knew was her wand, Rachel made a big X in the air above the altar. A few moments later, she repeated the movement. Then a third time.
I don't know how long it was – a minute, maybe two – before I noticed that an outline was appearing in the gathered smoke. An outline in the form of a man.
Rachel must have seen it about the same time I did, because she started chanting, over and over: "Allay fortission fortissio allynsen roa!"
I don't know how many times she repeated that phrase before she decided it was enough. But when she stopped, the quiet was almost oppressive. It wasn't just the absence of sound. The silence was like a force, pressing against my eardrums. The outline of the man in the smoke was clear and distinct, like a silhouette you'd see through the blinds of a lighted room at night.
Then Rachel spoke, her voice only a little louder than normal. "I bid you welcome, spirit of George Kulick. I charge and bind thee now, to answer what I ask of thee, to harm none present, and to depart when thou hast been dismissed. I do this in the terrible names of Baal, of Beelzebub, and of Asmodeus."
I once asked a warlock why spells contain all those "thee"s and "thou"s, ad other stuff that nobody says anymore.
"When it comes to theory, no one is more conservative or fundamentalist as a magician," he'd told me. "It would make Southern Baptists look wild, by comparison. Lots of the spells in use today were first translated into English in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, when people did talk like that. The belief is, if a spell works, you don't mess with it, even to update the language. You'd never know what effect even the smallest change would have – until it was too late."
Rachel took some powder from a jar and sprinkled a generous amount into one of the bowls. It immediately burst into flame, even though the bowl was nowhere near the candles, or any other heat source. "Speak to me now, George Kulick. Give to me the sight of thy death, and of he who did bring it upon thee. Let me see as thou hast seen, know as thou hast known, and learn as thou didst learn. Grant unto me the Insight into thy departure from this life, George Kulick, that I might take vengeance against thy tormentor."
Things began happening very fast, then. The candles on the altar went out, all in the same instant. The incense stopped burning as if it had been doused with water. The small cloud of smoke that had borne the outline of a man dissipated into nothing.
Then Rachel Proctor collapsed to the ground. A few seconds later, she started writhing and screaming – screaming like one of the damned.
I stood outside Room 8 of Mercy Hospital's Intensive Care Unit and looked through the window at the still form on the bed. Rachel lay there, mercifully quiet, surrounded by machines that hummed and beeped as they kept track of every biological process of her body.