Grave Peril (The Dresden Files 3)

So I lit the incense and paced around the outside of the summoning circle, leaving myself enough room to work with inside the circle of incense and outside the circle of copper. I put out a little willpower as I did, just enough to close the circle, and felt the energy levels rise as random magic coalesced.

"Harry," Michael called down from the room above. "Are you finished?"

I suppressed a flash of irritation. "Just getting started."

"Forty-five minutes until sundown," he said.

I couldn't keep the annoyance out of my voice. "Gee, thanks. No pressure, Michael."

"Can you do it or not, Harry? Father Forthill is staying at my house with the children. If you can't stop this thing now, I've got to go back to Charity."

"I sure as hell can't do it with you breathing down my neck. Hell's bells, Michael, get out of the way and let me work."

He growled something to himself about patience or turning the other cheek or something. I heard his feet on the floor above as he retreated from the door leading down to my lab.

Michael didn't come down into the lab with me because the whole concept of using magic without the Almighty behind it didn't sit well with him, regardless of what we'd been through together. He could tolerate it, but not approve of it.

I got back to work, closing my eyes and forcing myself to clear my thoughts, to focus on the task at hand. I started to draw my concentration toward the copper circle. The incense smoke tickled at my senses, and swirled about inside the perimeter of the outer circle, not leaving it. The energy grew slowly, as I concentrated, and then I picked up the knife in my right hand, and a handful of water from a bowl on my left.

Now for the three steps. "Enemy, mine enemy," I spoke, slipping power into the words, "I seek you." I passed the knife over the copper circle, straight down. I couldn't see it, without opening my Sight, but could feel the silent tension as I cut a slit between the mortal world and the Nevernever.

"Enemy, mine enemy," I spoke again. "I search for you. Show me your face." I cast the water up, over the circle, where the energy of the spell atomized it into a fine, drifting mist, filled with rainbows from the surrounding candles, shifting shapes and colors.

Now for the hard part. "Azorthragal!" I shouted, "Azorthragal, Azorthragal! Appare!" I used the knife to cut my finger, and smeared the blood onto the edge of the copper circle.

Power surged out of me, into the circle, through the rent in the fabric of reality, and as it did, the circle sprang up like a wall around the band of copper in the floor. I felt the cut as an acute, vicious pain, enough to make me blink tears out of my eyes as the power quested out, fueled by the energy of the circle, guided by the articles spread around it.

The spell quested about in the Nevernever, like the blind tentacle of the Kraken scouring the deck, looking for some hapless soul to grab. It shouldn't have happened like that. It should have zipped to the Nightmare like a lariat and brought it reeling in. I reached out and put more power into the spell, picturing the thing that I had been fighting, the results of its work, trying to give the spell more guidance. It wasn't until I hit upon the sense of the Nightmare, for lack of a better word, the terror it had inspired that the spell latched onto something. There was a moment of startled stillness, and then a wild, bucking energy, a resistance, that made my heart pound in my chest, the cut in my finger burn as though someone had poured salt over it.

"Appare!" I shouted, forcing will into my voice, reeling back in on the spell. "I command thee to appear!" I slip into the archaic at dramatically appropriate moments. So sue me.

The swirling mist of rainbows swayed and wavered, as though some kind of half-solid thing were stirring the air within the summoning circle. It struggled like a maddened bull, trying to tear away from my spell. "Appare!"

Upstairs, the telephone rang. I heard Michael walk across the floor while I struggled through several silent, furious seconds, the Nightmare trying to escape the web of my concentration.

"Hello," Michael said. He'd left the door open and I heard him clearly.

"Appare!" I grated again. I felt the thing slip, and I jerked it closer in vicious triumph. The mists and lights swirled, began to take on shape, vaguely humanoid.

"Oh. Yes, but he's ... a little busy," Michael said. "Uh-huh. No, not exactly. I think - Yes, but - " Michael sighed. "Just a minute." I heard his feet cross to the trap door again.

"Harry," Michael called. "Susan's on the phone. She says she needs to talk to you."

I all but screamed, struggling to hold onto the Nightmare. "I'll call her back," I managed to gasp.

"She says it's really important."

"Michael!" I half-screamed. "I'm a little busy here!"

"Harry," Michael said, his voice serious. "I don't know what you're doing down there, but she sounds very upset. Says she's been trying to get in touch with you for a while without any luck."

The Nightmare started slipping away from me. I gritted my teeth and hung on. "Not now!"

"All right," Michael said. He retreated from the door down to the lab, and I heard him speaking quietly on the phone again.

I blocked it out, blocked out everything but my spell, the circle, and the thing on the other end of it. I was tiring, but so was it. I had all the props, the power and focus of the circle - it was strong, but I had the leverage on it, and after another minute, minute and a half, I shouted, "Appare!" for the last time.

The mist in the circle swirled and trembled, taking on a vaguely humanoid shape. The shape screamed, a faint and bubbly sound, still trying to escape.

"You can't get away!" I shouted at it. "Who brought you over! Who sent you!"

"Wizard," the thing screamed. "Release me!"

"Yeah, right. Who sent you!" I forced more energy into my voice, compulsion.

It screamed, a distorted sound, like a radio getting interference. The shape refused to clarify or solidify anymore. "No one!"

"Who sent you!" I said, hammering on the spell and the Nightmare, with my will. "Who has compelled you to harm these people? Hell's bells, you will answer me!"

"No one," the Nightmare snarled. Its struggling redoubled, but I grabbed on tightly.

And then I felt it - a third party, intruding from the other side. I felt that cold, horrible power that had been behind the torment-spell on Micky Malone and on Agatha Hagglethorn's ghost. It poured into the Nightmare like nitrous into an engine, supercharging it. The Nightmare went from raging bull to frenzied elephant, and I felt it begin to tear free of my spell, to get loose.