Sleep? Check. Fresh hot shower? Check. Breakfast of a cold double cheeseburger from Rosefinch’s car last night? Check.
Pacing —more like limping— while holding priceless arcane texts in one hand and flipping through the pages with the other? Also check.
I hobbled from one end of the RV to the other, flipped a page, then repeated the cycle. Right before I started studying in earnest, I’d cleared out the recliner and coffee table towards the windows. The sunlight filtered through the dusty glass panes, providing enough natural light for me to do without wasting electricity. I wasn’t sure how bills worked in the RV. For all I knew, it was even more expensive.
I wondered if people knew that electric and gas ‘delivery fees’ were part of their regular monthly energy bill. Then again, it wasn’t like there was much we could do about it. I mean, I heard a company auctioned off electricity in Texas or something during a storm. You’d think that a corporation that provides modern-day necessities such as electricity would provide their loyal customers —generational customers by the way— by putting on the humanitarian hat for once.
Oh, the woes of living in America.
“Practitioner? Are you focused?”
I snapped out of it. “Yes,” I lied.
Wol was curled up in a ball on the desk of my window, right where a perfect spot of sun caved out the sofa-throw I’d fashioned into a makeshift bed for him. He occasionally lifted his head to grace me with his attention, like he was doing now. “I can tell when your focus wanes, Practitioner.”
“Ok, fine,” I admitted. “It might have waned a small bit. This is the third book, though. Of course, my mind’s going to wander.”
Hwari curled around my legs, drew a figure-eight, then danced out of my reach and hid under the coffee table. She peeked out, giving the entire RV the illusion of being a pseudo-aquarium. ‘So you admit to lying, Caller?’
I scowled at both of them, waving Prerequisites: Staffs and Trinkets at them. “I’m just not sure how reading about the different species of trees and their symbolism will help me right now.”
“Before we leave, we will need to arm ourselves. The staff is a must to have in your arsenal,” he said. “Besides, this will be your first staff.”
“Case in point, we already have the Mother Tree’s branch, which we’re going to use,” I said, pointing in the corner where the blackened bough had been placed. “No need to study up on branches that I won’t need.”
“This is your first staff, yes. But it certainly won’t be the last,” Wol said, stretching. He curled up again, tail curving around himself. “Read, my Practitioner.”
I sighed and returned to my reading.
I’d spent most of the morning doing so. I didn’t mind. I was a bookbug by nature, and I was one of those guys who took being a student seriously—in case you haven’t found out already. I was used to studying for long stretches of time. On one of those rare occasions that my dad decided to talk, he told me something my mom used to say: that academics was a battle of who could keep their butts on the chair the longest. Of course, it was just a figure of speech. But I took that to heart, and I was no stranger to reigning in my focus and blocking everything out.
But never like this.
Everything I learned, I had to relearn it with the Third Eye, and go through exercises of Will. Mana, chakra, ki, whatever it was called.
It was extremely tiring. Mentally, physically, and spiritually. But nothing worth gaining comes for free. Unless you win the lottery, which is an exception. In my experience, anything worth having requires hard work and a little bit of luck. When opportunity comes knocking, you’d better have prepared your butt off to be in a position to grab hold of it.
This was Wol’s bread and butter. He knew what he was talking about. And I’d had enough of diving headfirst into danger without listening to him and preparing myself. My luck was bound to run out, and when it did, I wanted to be prepared enough to grab hold of any chance for survival, however small it might be. And in this case, being prepared meant listening to Wol. So it didn’t matter what my personal opinion was on the pros of carving a staff out of Rowanwood versus Yew, which, if you are curious, is that Rowanwood wards off evil and Yew makes it easier to attune to necromantic workings. I just had to force myself into it.
I closed my eyes and began to block off the distractions. The grumbling in my stomach told me it was well past lunch. The pain in my arm that the painkillers couldn’t completely block. The fact that my left ankle ached every time I put weight on it. I even shut off my nervousness about the trial and that Victor was actively doing things while I locked myself in the RV to prepare.
Once I was done, I dove into it.
I’m not quite sure how long I read for. But when I heard Wol call for me, the night’s purple was already bleeding into the sky. I hate that about winter. Daylight savings means less daylight and more darkness, making it seem later than it actually is. Then again, I guess people elsewhere don’t have to worry about that. The snow had picked up again. My ankle hurt more than ever. I walked over and set the book down in front of Wol.
“Practitioner?” Wol asked, his voice a little worried.
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I grunted and shuffled into the kitchenette, where I swallowed some more painkillers. My stomach gurgled in protest, as taking pills on an empty stomach was no way for a growing teenage boy to live. Much less, doing so while skipping meals. I opened the fridge and took out a pack of cold cuts, then sniffed them. I couldn’t tell if they went bad or not. Cold cuts are supposed to last a while, but I wasn’t sure. Hopefully, they were still good. I began to fix myself a sandwich made of turkey and bologna, with a side of cherry tomatoes and leftover fries.
“The Mother Tree was an oak,” I said. “Luckily for us, it’s one of the most commonly used materials for a practitioner’s staff.”
“Do you know what it represents?” He said, his eyes on the pages of the book. He idly flipped a page.
“Uh, in Wiccan traditions, it represents the King of the Forest. Fitting, that an oak grew to be the Mother Tree,” I said. Then I asked with a raised eyebrow, “Coincidence?”
“No,” Wol said. “Symbols, beliefs, will, intent. All those things fuel your practice. They also affect the way our world is shaped. You know this by now.”
I nodded. “I know. Unfortunately for us, this king rules from the winter solstice to the summer solstice. We’re past winter solstice now. Mind explaining how that might affect us?”
“In the short term? Not much,” Wol said. “But the staff would have been much more powerful when carved on the winter solstice, preferably finished right at midnight. That way, it would wax in power until the summer solstice, repeating the cycle every year. With the symbolism behind it, it would have been a powerful staff you could use for years.”
“Yeah, but that also means that from the summer solstice on, it would start to get weaker, right?”
“Yes,” Wol admitted. “But the benefits would have far outweighed its shortcomings.”
“Lining up its symbolism with the calendar,” I mused. “Funny how that works.”
“It comes back to the planes I told you about in the first lesson, Practitioner,” Wol said. “Laws from higher planes of existence filter down to your world in the form of seasons, day and night, and weather. There is great power to be bargained should you learn to take advantage of those timings.”
“So there’s always the best time to do things, with the best materials? Is that it? They synergize with each other?”
“Exactly.”
I nodded, feeling a bit wistful about missing out on winter’s solstice. “Oaks also represent sturdiness, strength, longevity, and wisdom. It’s a good all-around staff for beginner practitioners, because those qualities complement what they lack.”
Wol flipped a page using his claws. “Anything else, Practitioner?”
“In celtic lore, the name for oak meant duir, which roughly translates to door. I’m guessing that any staff made from Oak will do well when used in conjunction with workings that have to do with opening doors,” I said. “It sounds perfect for conjuring.”
“And enchantments. Opening doors can mean many different things to different beings,” Wol said, his eyes on the pages. “Opening doors to different realms, opening doors to the hearts of others. Abjurers can use it to open Closed Places.”
I caught the slight emphasis on the last two words. “Closed Places?”
“Or lost places. Something we’ll go over eventually, but not now,” Wol answered. “But to your previous point, you are right, Practitioner. To conjure beings means to open doors to their dwellings and into ours. It suits our purposes.”
I squeezed out some mayo and mustard onto the side to dip my sandwich into. “Ok. So what do you think? Am I ready?”
“We lack materials,” Wol said.
I looked outside. It was getting dark, but as I said, winter nights were deceptive. “I could run out right now and get some.”
“We could,” Wol said, and his gaze pointed to the two books next to him. I’d skimmed through them earlier this morning. “Or we could go through it again.”
I swallowed the first bite of the sandwich and felt my tongue go numb. Too much mustard. I set the sandwich down on the plate and limped over next to him, looking at the titles.
Infernal Names and Infernal Contracts.
It had been a point of contention between us.
I shuddered and looked away, right into Wol’s black stare. Hwari crept out too, listening in. “Are you sure?”
“It would be foolish not to play to your strengths,” Wol said. “Any other diabolist with even half your talent in conjuration would have a dozen daemon and daevil contracts to call upon, all for different occasions. They could help with carving the staff fit for a diabolist, in ways that I cannot help in.”
I grimaced. “I’m already walking on thin ice with the preternatural community, just for being the son of a diabolist. If I actually start frothing at the mouth and acting all crazy, that’s not going to get people to open up to me.”
“You are a pariah because you are new, and because your mother and father had a reputation,” Wol said dryly. “You are hardly the first diabolist. There are others in the world.”
His statement piqued my attention. “There are?”
“Few, yes. One of my previous contractors, a man who would be your great-great-great-grandfather, encountered one in a village. If memory serves, he seemed well-accepted by the village,” he said. Then, sounding less sure, said, “Though I do wonder if they knew his practice beyond the fact that he was a practitioner.”
I rubbed my free hand over my face, and immediately regretted it as I smelled cold cuts and mustard. I was going to have to wash my face again. “I know I said we should summon one, but it just seems so soon. What if I mess up?”
“You won’t,” Wol said, “And it’s a needed step. My knowledge is general, but one of the names from the books could offer specialized knowledge. Perhaps even help with the being trapped in your knife.”
I groaned inwardly. “Ok. So the plan is to summon up an infernal being, hope that it goes well enough for us to forge an amicable relationship, and have it help me carve the staff and take care of the knife situation. Why do I feel like something could go wrong?”
“Such as?”
“What if it gets loose and hurts people?”
“Small consequence,” Wol said without inflection.
I didn’t address it. I knew what Wol was, who Wol was. We had different values. Wol, to my knowledge, only cared about me, and probably only because I was a Shin in blood. I had to keep reminding myself that Wol was, for all intents and purposes, my familiar and did not really care about what happened to other people.
“Yeah, but it would eat away at me. The guilt would make me doubt my own abilities, and it’d lead to a deterioration of my practice. We wouldn’t want that.”
He gave me an annoyed look. “Yes, we would not. But my Practitioner, you are a Hallow. It would be foolish not to play to your advantage in this trial for the Shin inheritance. Victor Valentine will be doing everything he can to leverage his advantages. You must do the same or you will lose.”
Shit. He got me there.
“Ok,” I said. My resistance had been half-hearted at best, more cold feet than actual morals. I mean, I did care about what happened to other people, but if the summoned being got loose, the first person it would go after was me. “We go through the books then?”
“Yes,” Wol said.
Before I could pick up Infernal Names and start going through them, Hwari rose to my eye-level. ‘Caller, we have a guest.’
I looked out the window.
A familiar familiar walked into view, his stubby legs leading the way. He barked once, nose sniffing the air, then looked up at his contractor. The Haetae said something to the equally familiar figure behind him that I couldn’t quite make out.
“Hey Jain!” Mina waved her hand excitedly, her staff glowing and giving off enough light to shine her way in the other direction. “I know you’re there! Let’s talk!”
I cursed. “Oh shit.”