“Excellent,” Eli said, rubbing his hands together. “Admittedly, the connection is weak, but I think we can work with it.”
Most magical operations are simply about utilizing talent to redirect and transform energy-everything from simple illusions to complex spells involving time and space. But there are some constants that help to enable such spells. The principle of similarity, for example. Using nearby water to effect fluid changes, or rock to draw energy for a protective shield, or the emotions of hate and fear to fashion a killing spell.
Or the rule of contagion-things once part of a whole but which are then separated retain an affinity for each other-like the shotgun pellets leaving part of themselves as lead residue an the rest of them striking the Wendigo.
I brought the shotgun in from my van and broke out the cleaning kit. Twenty minutes later I had a collection of cotton patches, damp with solvent, the first one black with fouling and each subsequent one progressively lighter. While I pushed the patches through the bore, Victor was busy pulling out additional magical tools from the safe.
“What do you think?” he asked Eli.
“A paste, a salve would be best, I think. We can apply it to Mason, and that should attract the Wendigo to him.” I didn’t like the sound of that.
“So not only am I the sacrificial goat, staked out to tempt the tiger, but I’m basically going to have hamburger rubbed all over my body? Why not just pour a bottle of steak sauce over my head and be done with it?”
“If we have to,” Victor said.
“If you’re going to be making up a magical potion, maybe we should give Campbell a call. No offense, but she’s really better at that sort of thing.” And at least that way, I could be sure whatever it was Victor came up with wouldn’t cause me to break out in boils.
“That’s not a bad idea,” Eli said. “Why don’t you call her, Mason?”
So I did, and after being filled in on everything, she was eager to come down. I spent the next few hours doing a magical refresher course with Eli. I’d been lazy of late, not keeping up with even the basics. I wouldn’t dream of playing an important gig without some practice time, and the same principles apply in magic. And we would be playing a very important gig indeed if this worked.
We went over the basics-like how to utilize talent in the most efficient manner so you don’t exhaust yourself in the first minute. How to narrow focus, like a lens, and not spray energy all over the place. The less talent you use to produce an effect, the more energy you have in reserve for the inevitable unforeseen circumstances.
Then a run-through on which materials work best for implementing which spells. You can use anything for anything, but some things are easier to work with than others, and again there’s no point in wasting valuable energy. Metals are hard to use; living things easy, since they have their own energy. But even with metals, there are degrees. Silver and moonlight go together like bread and butter. Copper is very useful for specific types of work, and iron, of course, is almost impervious to magical talent. But that makes it ideal for defense.
And finally, concentration exercises. I used some talent to keep a tennis ball suspended precisely twelve inches off the floor while Eli asked me a series of increasingly difficult questions. The ability to concentrate on more than one thing at once is crucial to magical operations.
Lou had turned these sessions into a favorite game. As I tried to answer Eli’s questions and keep the ball steady, he would harass me. Sometimes it was mock attacks; sometimes he even nipped me unexpectedly. Or he’d do back-flips, each time almost landing on his head, distracting me with worry. I did pretty well this time until Maggie threw herself on the back of my neck. The tennis ball dropped as I lost concentration. Eli frowned, but I thought I’d done pretty well by simply not jumping up with a scream. Maggie bounced off and retreated across the room, tail waving. Cat humor.
When Campbell showed up a few hours later she shook her head at me.
“You’re determined to get yourself in trouble, aren’t you?”
“Not my idea. But worth a try, I think.”
She brought out her familiar copper pot and a can of Sterno and set them up on the floor. While the pot heated, she placed the plants she’d brought next to Victor’s various props while carrying on an animated discussion about how to blend her plant properties with his inorganic power objects. One of the plants she pulled out was unlike anything I’d seen.
“This is a sundew,” she said, noticing me looking at it with curiosity. “It’s hard to come by, but useful. It’s incredibly sticky for one thing. Great for attraction.”
“Isn’t that a carnivorous plant?” I asked. “Insects and stuff?” The idea creeped me out.
“It is. Usually it’s only used for potions that aren’t entirely beneficial, but I think it will do fine.” She set out what looked like beeswax, and a pale yellow bar that smelled faintly of chocolate. “Cocoa butter,” she explained, and next to it she placed a couple of more familiar plants, herbs familiar to anyone who cooks at all. “Thyme and rosemary. Traditionally used for attracting the fey.” She smiled. “Not that there’s any such thing, of course.”
“No,” I muttered. “Of course not.” I bent down for a closer look. “Do you really think you can summon a Wendigo with savory herbs and chocolate?”
“No, but from your description I’m not so sure it’s a Wendigo. In lore, they’re evil, evil creatures. It should have made your blood run cold.”
“It did.”
“But it didn’t do anything to you.”
“It didn’t get the chance.”
“That’s true, but it just doesn’t fit. What you described sounds more amoral than evil, if you get my drift-more like an elemental woodland spirit. That fear you felt might have been simply your own fear, projected out and returned in a feedback loop.”
“That could be,” said Eli. “And if that entity came out of the energy pool, it might have taken on several archetypal attributes. It wouldn’t necessarily be exactly one thing or another. But the parallels to the Wendigo-the calling by name, for example-are too strong to discount.”
Campbell put a small amount of water in the pot and crumbled in the thyme and rosemary. Victor handed her the dirty gun patches, which went in soon after. While the concoction simmered, she kneaded the beeswax and cocoa butter together. Victor, meanwhile, took out some braided copper wire and, as Campbell cooked up her concoction, arranged his tools. He laid the ring of copper wire around the pot and, at carefully measured intervals, some highly polished stones. I recognized an agate, rose quartz, and a black stone that might have been obsidian, but there were several others I hadn’t a clue about.
“Magnets?” I asked, thinking of the other circle. Victor shook his head briefly.
“Wrong type of attraction,” Eli said. “We want to attract it to you, not bind it.”
“What about using one of the rune stones? If the connection between the lead and the Wendigo is weak, it could give it quite a push, couldn’t it?”
“It could, but we don’t know much about those stones. I don’t know what the effect might be, and if it turned out badly, I’d rather not have anything made with its help going onto your skin.”
After that, I was quiet and just watched. Campbell fussed over the pot but was unhappy with what she saw.
“It’s not coming together properly,” she complained. “I’m not sure why.”
Victor peered into the pot.
“It’s the cleaning patches. They have gun solvent on them; that’s why it won’t bind properly.”
“Ah,” she said. “Of course.”
She added a little of this and a bit of that, and finally was satisfied. Leaning across the pot, she blew sharply across the top, and I could feel the energy come off her from across the room. That was how strong she’d become. She snuffed out the Sterno and sat back.