The Undead Pool

“It’s worth a try.” With a renewed enthusiasm, he pulled the bag closer, eyes flicking to Ivy when she sat where she could see both of us. Bis, too, seemed to settle in, and the pixies flew out, probably to tell their dad. “And it isn’t difficult,” Landon said as he set a clear crystal and etching sand on the table. “We do it all the time. Usually we only get a hint of a response, because all anyone can attract is a bare fraction of her attention. It’s only lately, when the waves have concentrated her thoughts, that we’ve actually gotten a real and irrefutable connection.”

Like the one that made Bancroft insane? “You know what? I’m going to call Trent,” I said, reaching behind me for the phone in my back pocket.

“No!” Landon blurted out, then bowed his head submissively when Ivy’s eyes darkened. “I’m sorry. He’ll turn it into a committee decision, and I simply want this to go away.”

Jenks hummed in, his garden sword hanging from his belt. “I think you need to go away,” he said, landing on the table with his feet spread wide and hands on his hips.

Landon’s face scrunched up in compromise. “What if I do the summoning? Will you just watch? Tell me maybe what I’m doing wrong? If we could get her to stop sending her thoughts through your line, the waves would end and the masters would wake up.”

Ivy and I exchanged questioning looks, and Jenks’s dust pooled under him, fanning out when he rose. “I don’t like this guy,” he said, and I noted Landon’s brief second of hidden anger.

I didn’t like him either, but I’d risk a lot to bring an end to this, to end to Ivy’s heartache. “What does it entail?”

Exhaling, Landon put on his spelling cap and ribbon. “I’ll show you.”

Jenks walked, no, strutted, across the table, poking the tip of his sword at the bag of scribing sand. “It looks like the same stuff you used to use to summon Al.”

Nodding, I sat back in my chair. More proof that demon and wild magic had a common source, perhaps?

Moving quickly, Landon scribed a plate-size circle on the coffee table, the sand hissing down with a smooth motion that spoke of years of practice. A triangle went around it so that the edges touched in three places, and then a second circle around that, nesting the three glyphs together. The clear crystal went into one of the spaces between the outer circle and triangle, a knotted bit of hair in the centermost space. If it was like demon magic, he’d probably want to put something in the tiny space above it.

“Ah . . .” Landon looked up, hesitating. “I need something that just died. The fresher the better.”

“I take it back,” Jenks said. “This is nothing like summoning a demon.”

“You want a corpse?” Ivy said, aghast.

“No!” Pointy ears reddening, Landon grimaced. “A bug. A fly. Anything that was once living. She needs something to animate. Unless you want to volunteer to be a vessel?” he said. “That’s what Bancroft did.”

My chin lifted. No wonder Trent hadn’t wanted to talk about it. Using dead things was usually black magic.

Jenks took to the air, his dust an eerie green. “Jumoke killed a hummer at sunset. I’ll be right back.”

Okay, I really wasn’t liking this. “Your goddess converses with you through zombies?” I said, and Landon scowled, ignoring me as he used a magazine card to fix the sand that Jenks’s wing draft had displaced. “I said, your goddess converses with you through zombies?” I said louder, and Jenks came back in, saving him from answering.

“It’s been dead for about an hour,” the pixy said, dropping it with a tiny thud.

“Perfect. The neurons will still be active.”

I watched, distaste growing, as Landon casually moved the tiny thing to the top of the triangle, setting it inside the larger circle, but outside of the smaller one. “And you questioned my morals?” I muttered.

Bis resettled himself, and I wasn’t surprised when I felt Landon’s tap on my ley line out back. My nose wrinkled. It really wasn’t my line, but no one else ever used it. It was Newt’s, actually. My unease grew when Landon’s eyes found mine with a fevered intensity, the spilled sand lines seeming to ripple into themselves as he murmured, “Ta na shay. Ta na shay, enmobeana. Ta na shay, mourdeana. Ta na shay, eram. Ta na shay.” His breath whispered the words into nothing, but the awkward rhythm he was tapping continued, sort of a three-beat, two-beat, three-beat, three-beat.

Shoulders stiffening, I twisted my lips as something not altogether unpleasant slowly crept through me.

“Ah,” Jenks said as he hovered beside Ivy. “Should your auras be glowing like that?”

“My aura is glowing?” I said, panicking.

“Yes,” Landon said, the rhythm never hesitating. “That means it’s working. Quiet. Ta na shay, enmobeana.”

I jumped when Jenks alighted on my shoulder. “His is glowing too, Rache. I think it’s okay. Oh. Hey, it quit!”