I shrugged. “Why wouldn’t you?”
Obviously, we had reached some kind of impasse. I studied my nails, and listened while Franz tried—not too successfully—to control his breathing long enough to have the last word.
“If you change your mind again,” he said, finally, “I’m at my mother’s. You know the number.”
Then he hung up.
* * *
Inevitably, talking to Franz sent my mind skittering back to the aftermath of Valentine’s Day, 1987: A five a.m. Golden Griddle “breakfast” with the Black Magic Posse, Carra sipping her coffee and watching—with some slight amusement—while Franz blurted out: “But it was your soul, Jude.”
“Metaphorically, maybe. So?”
“So now you’re just half a person. And not the good half, either.”
At which I really just had to laugh out loud, right in his morose, lapsed-Mennonite face. Such Goddamn drama, all because I’d made the same basic sacrifice a thousand other magicians have made to gain control over their Art: nothing more serious than cutting off the top joint of your finger, or putting out an eye, except for not being nearly as aesthetically repugnant or physically impractical.
“And that’s why you’ll always be a mediocre magician, Franz,” I replied. “Because you can’t do what it takes to go the distance.”
“I have never been ‘mediocre’. I’m better than you ever were—”
“You used to be. Back when Carra first introduced us. But now I’m better, and I’m getting better, all the time. While you, my friend . . . are exactly as good . . . as you’re ever going to get.”
Simple, really. My fear held me back, so I got rid of it. My so-called “friends” wanted to hold me back—the ones still human enough to be jealous of my growing Power, at least. So . . .
. . . thanks for the advice, Franz, old pal. And fuck you very much.
* * *
Sleep no longer an option, I hauled my ass out of bed, ready to pull my pants up and hit the street (so I could find myself a nicely hard-bodied reason to pull them down again, no doubt.) That guy from the theatre, maybe; hot clutch of something at my sternum at the very thought, moving from throat to belly to zipper beneath. Itching. Twisting.
If only I knew his name, that was. Or could even remember more than the barest bright impression of his shadowed face . . .
But just as I grabbed for my coat, a thought suddenly struck me: How hard could it really be to find my nameless number-one crush of the moment, if I put some—effort—into it?
The idea itself becoming a kind of beginning, potent and portentious, lazy flick of a match over mental sandpaper. Synaptic sizzle.
Beneath my bathroom sink is a cupboard full of cleaning products and extra toilet paper; behind these objects, well-hidden from any prying eyes, is a KISS lunchbox Carra gave me for my twenty-fourth birthday. Made In Taiwan stamp, cheap clasp, augmented with a length of bicycle lock chain.
And behind that—
A glass key made by a friend of mine, who usually specializes in custom-blown bongs. A letter from the Seventh Circle, written with a dead girl’s hand. The ringing brass quill from a seraph’s pin-feather. A small, green bottle full of saffron. A box of red chalk.
If you want to raise a little Hell—or Heaven—then you’re going to need just the right tools. Luckily, I’ve spent years of my life learning exactly which ones are right for my particular purposes. And paying, subtly, for the privilege of ownership, once I finally found them.
I took my little tin box of tricks back into the living room, where I gathered up a few more select items, and arranged them around me one by one: TV remote on my l
eft, small hand-mirror on my right, box at Due North. Chalk and compass in one hand, bone-hilted knife in the other. I flipped on the TV—already cued up to my favorite spot on one of my favorite porno tapes—sat back, and drew yet another perfect circle around myself. Made a few extra notations, here and there, just inside the circle’s rim: The signs of Venus, Inanna, Ishtar, Astarte, Aphrodite. As many of the ancient significators of desire personified as I could remember, off the top of my increasingly aroused head. Words and images to help me focus—names of power to lend me their strength.
More magician’s rules: As long as you’re not looking to change anything irrevocably—cause real hate or true love, make somebody die, bring somebody back to life—you can do it all on your own. For minor glamours, for self-protection, willpower is enough.
For larger stuff, however, you need help.
Going by these standards, it’s always tricky doing a negative spell—unless you make sure it’s on someone else’s behalf, so you have no direct stake in its outcome. Making the rebound factor fall entirely back on them.
Obviously, it takes a special kind of detachment to pull this off. But ever since I cut my shadow away, I truly do seem to have a knack for not caring enough . . . about anything . . . to get hurt.
Besides, love—true or otherwise—was the last thing on my mind.