It is an astonishing fact that there are laws of nature, rules that summarize conveniently—not just qualitatively but quantitatively—how the world works. We might imagine a universe in which there are no such laws, in which the 1080 elementary particles that make up a universe like our own behave with utter and uncompromising abandon.
—Carl Sagan, Broca's Brain
"I'm not sure it had a cause," said Malachi. "I think it may have just . . . happened."
We sat—with the exception of Ariel, who stood—in Malachi Lee's living room. The furniture was shabby: springs broken, linings showing, chair legs wobbly, threads hanging from the upholstery that had pulled loose from the bottom of the couch. The walls were undecorated, except for one that was covered by crammed bookshelves. All kinds of books, from cheap paperbacks to leather-bound, gold-stamped hardcovers. Many had been stolen from the Atlanta Public Library; no wonder I hadn't been able to find some of the ones I'd been looking for.
"How could the Change have 'just happened'?" I countered. "Change implies cause, and cause implies source. Things don't just happen."
"Then I have to ask my question again: what caused the old universe—call it the Newtonian universe. Until you can answer that I'm forced to conclude that things either do happen without cause, or that they have causes we'll never be able to understand or prove. I don't think there's anything supernatural' at all about the world as it is now. It just works under different laws of physics."
"'Different laws of physics,'" said Ariel, "and 'supernatural' seem synonymous to me."
He frowned. "All right, I'll grant you that. But the end result is the same. 'A difference that makes no difference is no difference.' I cast a spell and it works whether you call it supernatural or different operant physics. I conjure a demon and it appears. No matter what the cause, the result is the same. To say it can't be is to say Ariel can't exist—yet there she is."
"Thanks. I was starting to think you guys were about to tell me I couldn't be here. I'm told that's rude."
Chaffney pursed his lips. "But what about when you conjured that demon, Pete? I mean, what were you trying then? Were you trying to do magic, or—"
"I was curious," I interrupted, not wanting to be reminded of the affair. "I just wanted to see what would happen. I don't need proof that magic exists—why should I?" I hooked a thumb at Ariel.
Malachi stood. "You tried a conjuration?"
I nodded.
"Yeah, tell him about it, Pete," Chaffney said. He looked at Malachi. "He told me about it in the library last night. It's a great story. Go on, Pete. This is Malachi's thing."
Malachi rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "I would like to hear it."
I sat back in the threadbare chair. "You tell him," I told Ariel sullenly. "I'm tired of telling people about it."
She snorted, but told him the whole mess pretty much as I had related it the previous night. The story gave me the creeps; I didn't want to repeat it. Not that listening to it was much better. The more I relived it the more I realized I must have got off lucky.
There was silence when she finished. Malachi Lee searched my face for some reaction. "That's what happened?" he asked.
"Yeah."
He shook his head. "You're very fortunate, you know that?"
"I'm beginning to appreciate it, yes."
He went back to looking thoughtful and then walked to his bookcase, searching titles with sweeps of his index finger. It stopped in front of a black, leather-bound book. He pulled it out, opened it, and turned pages until his eyes rested on something that seemed to satisfy him. He read for a minute, nodding to himself, then handed the book to me. "Is this the conjuration you used?"
The book was a dead weight. To touch it was to hold something grimy, like the oily dust that collects in garages. The archaic print, the yellowed pages—everything was the same as that other book. Even the leather was as worn and cracking. And the conjuration—no way I would forget that spell. It didn't matter that I hadn't known the meaning of the words; they looked foul and sounded worse. "Yes, this is it."
"You're sure?" He looked as if he hoped I would deny it.
"Positive."
He took the book from me and held it open before Ariel. "Ariel?"
She barely glanced at it. "I think it is. I don't remember very well."
"Sure you do," I said. "You're the one who picked it out. You said you were curious about that one. You remember."
"I don't read Latin," she said.
"But last night you told Russ you knew what it meant." She avoided my gaze. "What's wrong?"
"You knew what this was, didn't you?" Malachi asked her.
The barest dip of her horn.
"You knew what this meant and you let him go ahead? Why?"
She turned away. "I thought I understood the risks."
"Why?"
Her head swiveled back and she looked darkly into his eyes. "I thought I could handle it!"
"You thought you . . . . You mean you didn't even tell him?"
"Tell me what?" I asked.
"He wouldn't have done it! And I couldn't have. I can't make the motions, or—"
"Do you need to test your power that much?" She was silent, but there was something in the way her eyes flashed at him that I'd never seen before: it was almost . . . resentment. A woman scorned, perhaps. But she said nothing and the question hung thickly in the air.
Malachi turned to me with the book. "Do you know what this means?"
Ariel interrupted. "You don't have to—"
"He deserves to know. Do you, Pete?"
"Judging by the results I got from using it," I said carefully, "I would assume that it's a spell for conjuring a minor demon."
"Oh, it's that, all right." His lips pressed together tightly. "This is the translation of the conjuration you used." He cleared his throat. I glanced questioningly at Ariel but she wouldn't meet my eyes.
"I summon thee,
O Dweller in the Darkness,
O Spirit of the Pit.
I command thee
To make thy
Most evil appearance.
"In the name of
Our mutual benefactor,
In the name of
Lucifer the Fallen
I conjure thee
By his blood-lettered sacraments,
By Hell and by Earth,
To come to me now,
In your own guise
To do your will.
"I adjure thee
in the name of
The foulest of masters
By his loins,
By his blood,
By his damned soul,
To come forth.
"I order thee
By all the unholy names:
Lucifer, Satan, Beelzebub,
Belial, Shai-tan, Mephistopheles,
Thy hair, thy heart,
Thy lungs, thy blood,
To be here
To work your will
Upon me."
He closed the book.
Ariel still wouldn't meet my eyes. "'To work your will upon me'?" I whispered. "Ariel, how could you?"
A ripple flowed down her flank. "I had to know. I'm sorry, but I had to know if I could beat it."
"You're sorry! That conjuration practically offers my life if a demon comes!"
She lowered her head until her horn almost touched the floor. When she raised it again there was a crystal-bright streak beneath each ebony eye. Tears stung in my own eyes at the sight. "Oh, Pete," she said softly. In her voice I heard that lost-little-girl voice from when I first met her, saying "bwoke" with such hurt pleading. "I was much younger then, and foolish. It was done from my ignorance and insecurity. I never meant to play games—stupid games—with your life, Pete. You know that."
"I thought I knew that." I was numb inside.
"Pete! You don't mean that." She looked in desperation at Malachi. "Why did you have to tell him?"
Calmly: "He deserved to know. You should have been the one to tell him."
"It was stupid; it was a stupid thing for me to do!" She stepped toward me but I held up a hand.
"No. I . . . think I'll take a walk or something. I want to be alone." I wanted so much to say that yes, it was okay, it was no big deal, of course I loved her. But I couldn't, not the way I felt then. It wasn't so much that she'd used me, but that she'd never told me.
She was still talking, but she sounded far away. The walls closed in on me; I wanted out.
"Pete, please! It was long ago; I was still growing up. I didn't understand what any of it meant."
I paused at the door. "You still could have told me." I turned to go out the door.
Everything happened with horrifying suddenness, but with the slow motion of a dream. It felt choreographed, executed with precision timing. I grabbed the knob and turned it. Behind me Malachi yelled "No!" and I thought, fuck you, you can't make me stay, and I opened the door. I looked back as I did, just in time to see a white blur as Ariel cleared the space from the living room to the front door in one leap. With a movement almost too fast to follow she twitched her head, batting at something with her horn. I started to wonder what she was trying to do. The thought never had time to complete itself because a muscular giant buried a sharpened pickaxe in the middle of my back.
I looked down at myself as I fell. Something protruded from my stomach. I wondered what it was, but was interrupted by the distant thump of my body hitting the front porch.
Gee, I thought, it doesn't even hurt.
A giant black heel came down from the sky and blotted out the sun.