Thirteen
17 September, 1981, Freeport, New York
“Daddy, come on daddy, we’re going to be late.” Hanna Kilpatrick bounced up and down on her toes in urgency. “Daddy, the bus is coming” she implored.
“Coming, coming, sweetie,” Logan grabbed his coat and keys, slipping into his brown blazer as the big orange school bus rounded the corner onto their street. Hanna of course waited for Logan to open the door before she hurried out into their yard. She didn’t think there was anything odd about daddy’s rule that she never go outside without a grownup. Even though she was six– nearly seven. But daddy was adamant that the world was full of dangers and that she never go out alone.
The bus drove past the Kilpatrick’s house and continued on to the next stop. “Oh no” Logan said in an exaggerated voice. “Wait! Wait!” His deep, funny-voice made Hanna giggle, even more when he scooped her up, running with her under his arm, crossing the small lawns in several long strides.
They reached the stopped bus as several other children were filing on. Logan put his daughter down and turned her to face him. “Now; what are you going to do today?” He asked, making her rehearse.
She made an exaggerated little sigh. “Learn lots of things, make lots of friends and have lots and lots-”
“-and lots and lots-” Logan interjected, making his little girl smile.
“-and lots of fun,” she finished, wrapping her arms around his neck as he squatted before her. He released her and he stood, waiting for her to join the many small students of the waiting bus. She turned quickly, as if she nearly forgot. “Kiss?” She asked, her eyes wide.
Logan made a gentle smile. He kissed his two fingers and pressed them to her forehead as she closed her eyes. She turned and rushed up the steps of the school bus. There was a slight hiss as the bus closed its doors and started for the next stop on its route to the school.
Logan pulled his blazer into place and started back for the house, turning once to wave to Hanna who had taken a window seat in order to wave back. Logan was still smiling as he opened the front door again, closing it and locking it up tight. There were indeed dangers in the world.
3 April, 2000, 60 miles West of Chamdo, Tibet
Logan held up the clay tablet. On it was the dried blood from the demon’s forearm. “Take this blood,” he chanted, the droning of the monks in the background holding his mind on that spinning plateau. “Create from it life like no other,” he set the small tablet on the wooden table bowing his head and stepping back. “Cause its blood to pour forth.” And at his words the small clay tablet began to bleed.
Whistler stood at the back of the bright room. Unlike the dark, torch-lit chambers in the bowels of the monastery, this room had many window, letting the sunlight pour in. The demon slowly removed his fedora, holding it at his side as he watched.
The wooden table was now covered in dark red blood, covering the table’s surface, but not running off its edges.
Logan lifted his hands into the air, letting the sleeves of his robe fall to his elbows. “Bring this blood together, cause it to have path and purpose. Give it a heart.”
The blood on the table slowly rose from the wooden surface, leaving no stain, constricting into veins and arteries, the sum of which was distinctly humanoid. Near one end of the table, a heart grew, still, unmoving, plump and full of blood.
“Cause bones to form, and muscles and sinews to appear,” he chanted, raising his hands further into the air. His eyes were closed as the plane of his existence spun in his mind. He did not see the beige-white of the bones begin to emerge, the rib cage springing from the heart, the ribs meeting to form a spine. The spine ran up and down half the length of the table, a skull and shoulder blades sprouting at one end, hip bones, legs and feet from the other end. The shoulders soon grew arms, a radius and ulna forming inside the cluster of blood vessels that was the arm, the arms soon growing hands and fingers.
“Give it form,” Logan whispered, the light at the center of his spinning mind growing. “Give it form,” he commanded, louder, letting the essence search his mind for the form to give it. He opened his mind up, letting the image there be seen and duplicated. “Give it flesh,” Logan chanted, the drone of the monks increasing in pitch. Logan felt his heart beat faster as the life before him grew to completion. “Unite the flesh,” he ordered, his eyes still closed, his mind still reeling, his hands still uplifted to the power he wielded. “Bring it together and breath life into it. Cause its heart to beat in its breast and search its mind for the strength and will to live of its own accord.”
The single note issuing from the throats of the monks behind him rose to a crescendo. Logan’s hands trembled as the most crucial moments of the power he commanded slipped past. His throat was tight, as were his eyes as the monks’ voices filled his ears, the spinning in his head making him giddy. The light at his center, in his thoughts, was now intolerably bright. “Make it awake,” it was less than a whisper as all his hopes and fears of the last week culminated in this very room, before him now.
Logan held his breath. His arms ached and trembled. The room seemed to vibrate with the chant of the monks. Whistler stood passively behind them, watching with sincere interest. Logan couldn’t bring himself to inhale. The light in his mind was fading, the spinning slowing. The chant of the monks was lessening and for an instant the conjurer had a terrible feeling he had failed.
Then he heard a sound that was neither his own heart thumping nor the chanting of the chorus behind him. Somewhere in front of him, someone gasped for breath.
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