Chapter 10: Catalyst

Nia’s head hurt. That’s all she could remember from her past. The dull aching pain, everything just slightly out of focus, and the rhythmic echo of water hitting the concrete floor. It was water right? It had to’ve been. But no… Wait--She remembered the smell. Heavy, metalic. It was blood. That’s right. How had she forgotten the heavy, sickening fog of iron and copper that hung on to anything it touched? She’d once thought that it would haunt her forever, but now she was sure of it.

She’d never be able to get that sharp, nauseating smell out of her mind. It was burned in there forever, until the point where she had forgotten it had existed. Until now that is. Funny the things you forget. The pain, the smell, the suffering. She could feel the residual cracks in her bones, the tears and scars on his skin, the stress that pulled on her powers every second she had held her physical form.

They had tried to beat her down. They had tried to tear her apart. The had tried to destroy every aspect of her. And she had defied them? That sound right. She had. She hadn’t let them take her morals, her power, or her life. Of course she didn’t seem to have any of those now anyway. It wasn’t worth it. None of it was worth it.

Nia opened her eyes, fearing what she might see. She hadn’t wanted to be alone, especially not in the dark, not in a place she didn’t know. But it’s not like you could tell that to the living. A ghost afraid of the dark? Afraid of being alone? Of being abandoned? She’d be the laughing stock of the community, living and dead.

At first the dark flooded her vision, but slowly, one by one, they appeared. The light of the spirits drifted into her vision, gliding closer once they realized she was awake. Thank the gods. She didn’t think she could handle the dark. No, she knew she couldn’t. Ever since then… She was just happy they were here. Their glow providing a warmth to the empty apartment.

She sat up on the plush cushion, accidentally knocking a pillow to the floor, and looked at the door to Alice’s room. She was asleep, that was about all Nia could tell through the expertly crafted wards that draped gracefully throughout the apartment. It was obvious that someone cared about her. That some exorcist cared about her. That she would be safe no matter what. But why?

The wards were made by someone with the skill of a Captain at least. They were strong, unbreakable as far as Nia could tell, yet somehow more delicate than flower petals. Somehow they gave off no residual energy, and they didn’t seem to need much energy to be maintained either. The only reason Nia could see them was because she could see everything. But why were they hear?

Nia had sensed out the entire apartment building earlier, all twenty-five rooms, and she’d even tried the strech her search to cover the surrounding neighbourhood, and she’d found nothing. Nothing, even remotely linking to this power. Even if it was highly likely that she hadn’t actually been able to sense out the wards, because, let’s face it, she couldn’t even sense the wards she was currently looking at. She should’ve at least been able to find the exorcist who was supplying them with power.

It should be impossible to maintain energy this delicate without being in at least a fifty meter radius, nevermind the hundred meter radius that Nia had searched, for at least an hour  throughout the day. And she had swept the area at least once every hour for the past day and had found nothing.

She glared at the wards covering the floor until he eyes burned from the strain of looking at the soft blue that radiated in the darkness. Her head started to hurt and the room started to wobble. Nia forced herself to lay back down on the cold upholstered couch before she passed out. She pulled a fuzzy blanket up to her head, locked out her thoughts and the feeling that pulled at the base of her skull, and snuggled down into whatever warmth she could find.

Within seconds she was sleeping.

***

Alice was awake long before the sun rose. Typical. First day of winter break, well, second actually but she didn’t feel inclined to count yesterday as a break, and she couldn’t sleep in. Come on universe, she had weeks of sleep deprivation to catch up on! Couldn’t she at least sleep past 7:32 in the morning? She looked at her clock again, becoming more and more convinced with each look that it hadn’t changed in the past ten minutes.

This was useless.

Alice threw back her covers and was instantly enveloped in the wintery draft of cold december mornings. This may have been a mistake. Now that she thought about it, it probably would’ve been better to lay under the pile of blankets and quilts until the sun had risen. Oh well, that’s what she got for not turning on her space heater before bed.

Either way, it was too late to fix it now. She stood and walked over to her closet to grab some warmer clothes. She rifled through the pile of dirty clothes on her closet floor until she managed to find a clean pair of neon green fuzzy winter socks and her mom’s maroon hoodie. She pulled them on, instantly finding herself just a little bit warmer, and headed into the living room to see if Nia was awake.

She wasn’t.

Alice found her curled up on the couch in a pile of fluffy blankets, handmade quilts, and pillows Alice wasn’t sure she’d ever seen before. She laughed to herself, wondering if the girl had gotten cold last night. Actually, scratch that, she wondered if spirits could get cold. She’d have to ask about it later, but for now she went back into her room to turn up the thermostat a little. Se didn’t think it would help much, nothing really did during these Washington winters, but it was worth a shot.

While she was at it she grabbed her small space heater out of the closet by the bathroom and plugged it in by the tv. Since she was going to be home a lot more in the next few weeks it would actually be worth it to heat up the apartment. She flipped on the heater and the room was instantly filled with a pleasant whirring sound and a stream of hot air.

What to do next? She couldn’t do anything loud because Nia was sleeping, even though moving around probably would’ve helped her warm up. She could work on some homework, get it done early and all that, but she had a feeling it was still too cold for her to be able to focus. A shower would’ve been great. Just thinking of the warm water on her skin already made her feel better, but she didn’t feel like taking a shower right now. Besides, if she took one now, she couldn’t take one later.

However, she could make breakfast. Having the oven on would certainly take away her chill, and she was planning on doing some baking later anyway, so it’d be good to heat up the oven now. Plus, she had a strawberry kringle sitting out on her counter that would take twenty-five-ish minutes to warm up. She could get Nia up at eight, they could talk some more while they ate, then they could decorate the apartment for Christmas. Strange that that was still a priority.

She slipped into the kitchen and set the oven to 350 degrees, placed the danish into the oven, and set the timer for thirty minutes. Then she moved back over to the closet and began digging for the decorations. It didn’t take her long to find them, somehow she’d managed to keep them all together throughout the year. That was a first.

She stacked all the boxes by the kitchen wall and pulled out a holiday cookbook from the one on top. Billie had gotten it for her ages ago. If she remembered correctly it had been one of her gifts the first Christmas they had spent together, back before her parents had left for Germany. Alice and her mother used to bake together during the holidays, and Billie had almost always come over to help. Well, actually, Alice and her mother would bake, Billie would just sit at the table and tell inappropriate stories.

She opened the book and flipped through the yellowed and crinkled pages until she found the recipe for gingerbread cookies. Alice looked over the ingredients: flour, baking powder, ginger, nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon, shortening, molasses, brown sugar, water, eggs, and vanilla extract. She had most of the ingredients, but honestly, who kept cloves, shortening, and molasses on hand? Either way, it’d be easy enough to swing by the store after breakfast and pick some up. And so it was decided, Alice was gonna make gingerbread cookies today.

“Interesting book?” the voice spoke up behind her.

She turned and saw Nia sitting up on the couch, surrounded regally by a fluffy purple blanket. “It’s a cookbook, so if you think it’s interesting then I guess it is.”

That seemed to pique her interest. Nia pulled herself off of the couch and out of the pile of blankets, except for her purple one that she was obviously trying to make look like a cape, and walked over to Alice. “What type of cookbook?”

“Oh you know, cheesy winter baked goods. Stuff like that,” she flipped the book closed and handed it to Nia, who immediately started to look through it.

“You know I used to bake. A lot actually, my specialty was vanilla cookies, but my sister and I would bake all kinds of things on the weekends,” she rambled on happily. Alice silently took note, being ninety-nine percent certain that Nia had no idea that she was talking about her past.

“Wanna help me make something later?” Alice interrupted before Nia could get to off topic.

“Sure, what’d you have in mind?”

“I was thinking about making some gingerbread cookies because, well, Christmas and all, but...” Alice didn’t really feel like making anything else.

“That sounds awesome, do you think we could make them reindeer shaped?”

“That sounds even more awesome. But we’ll need to get a cookie cutter while we’re out shopping.” They could probably pick one up at the Safeway near by, along with all the other things she needed. She just hoped that they wouldn’t need to take the bus to the baking store to get one, that place was overpriced.

“Wait? Go out?” Before Nia could protest the alarm on the oven went off, bringing an end to the conversation as Alice rushed to pull the frosting covered strawberry pastry out of the oven.

Alice placed the pastry on top of the oven and instinctively pulled out two plates for her and Nia. She pulled out a butter knife from the drawer closest to her and cut two large pieces, placed them on the plates and pass the larger piece to Nia. The girl accepted the plate, and the fork that Alice had dug out of a different drawer, but didn’t start eating.

“What’s up?” Alice asked, already halfway into her sweet, gooey, breakfast.

“You said we were going out, wanna start from there?” She looked, not angry, but definitely not happy either. She seemed fairly neutral on the whole thing, but Alice could tell something was up.

“Yeah, we’ll need to pick up a cookie cutter if we want them to be reindeer shaped. And I need a few other things, like cloves, shortening, and molasses. Oh, and we’ll need some sprinkles and frosting, and probably some red and green candies-”

“Hold on, I’m just gonna stop you because you obviously don’t see the issue. I’m a ghost.”

Oh. Right. Yes.

“People can’t see me. You really wanna go out, in public, and talk to a ghost, which other people can’t see. People are gonna think you’re crazy.”

“Well yeah, but only if you’re invisible. You can be physical right, I’m pretty sure that’s the whole point of being a Summoner,” she’d been visible to the exorcists yesterday. So surely she could could be visible for them to go out shopping, or else what was the point.

“Sure, but you’d have to summon me first. And right now I’m pretty sure you don’t know how to do that, you don’t even know your summoning sign,” Nia laughed.

Alice looked at the blanket that Nia was still holding around her shoulders, “Aren’t you physical right now?”

“No, why?” Alice looked at the blanket again, Nia followed her eyes, “Oh, you mean the this. Well, fabrics all kinda have their own spiritual presence, which is how I copied your clothes yesterday and it’s how I’m holding this blanket now. It’s complicated…”

That was interesting, even though it wasn’t really important right now. “Alright, so then how do I summon you?”

“Oh, that’s pretty simple. You just need to focus your energy and use your summoning sign to transfer some of your life force to me. There’s just a slight problem,”

“Yeah, that I don’t know how to do either of those things.”

“Eeeeeeexactly,” Nia smiled, “but I can teach you how to do both those things.”

“Then I’m not seeing the problem.”

“The problem is that you didn’t think about it,” Nia stated, taking the first bite of her breakfast. “You’re gonna need to start keeping tabs on more than just yourself now. Granted I’m here to help, but you’re the dominant person in this relationship, so it’s really your responsibility.”

“I see your point, but yeah I feel like I’m gonna be terrible about making sure people can see you when I’m talking to you because. Well, let’s face it, I can see you always, apparently.”

Nia laughed, “Fair point, if it makes you feel any better I can never tell the difference between what I can see and what others can see. Definitely a downside of working in a ghostly profession.”

“But seriously, how do I summon you?” She’d somehow done it yesterday, though she had a feeling that Nia had actually been the one to do it, but still, she had something going for her.

“Oh yes right, hold on.” Nia shoved the rest of her breakfast into her mouth then continued explaining after she had swallowed. “Alright so what you need to do to start is focus all of your power into your hands.”

“How do I do that?”

“No clue, it’s different for everyone. But many I suggest just really focusing on your hands, and or attempting to use the force.”

The second one sounded like a much better option, after all, who hadn’t tried to use the force when the tv remote was too far away. “What do I do after that?”

“Then you just use your summoning sign to transfer that energy to me, and viola, I’ll be visible to the world around you.”

“Right, and uh, what would my sign be?”

Nia rolled her eyes, “You really weren’t paying attention the night you first summoned me, where you?” She teased.

“No, I was kinda busy with being lit on fire,” she shot back. Though, now that she thought about it, shouldn’t her legs be burned? After all, she had been lit on fire with weird spirit magic. What had the poltergeist called it? Hell fire? “Hey, quick question-”

“If it’s about the fire, yes you should be burned but no, you’re not because I healed that up while you were napping at the exorcists place. But that’s not really important right now,” she clearly didn’t seem to have her priorities straight.

“Of course it’s not, carry on,” Alice said disbelievingly.

“Right, so, your summoning sign. Put your hands like this,” Nia demonstrated, holding her hands out to her side plans down. Alice copied her, feeling just a little bit silly. “Alright, then quickly move your hands around to your front, making sure that they barely touch as they pass over each other.

Alice copied the movement again, but this time she felt something familiar, like she had done this before, almost like riding a bike. “And this is my summoning sign?”

“Yeap, you just gotta do it while you have all of your energy built up in your hands.”

“Right, plain and simple.” Alice turned her focus to her hands, Nia had told her to imagine she was using the force, but using the force to do what? She couldn’t try to bring something to her, if anything that would probably push her energy away from her. So, should she try to use the force on her own hands? That seemed impossible.

“Here,” Nia said calmly, “Try this.” She placed her hands directly underneath Alice’s, not touching, but within inches of each other. “Try to move my hands into yours.”

“I could just move my hands down,” Alice pointed out.

Nia nodded, “You could, but that’s the point. The point is not for you to move the physical world. You need to move the spiritual world, which mean you need to move my hands up.”

Alice focused again, which was a lot easier now that she had an actual target. She needed to move Nia’s hands up. Move them up. She willed them up, she imagined their hands touching, she strained every muscle in her hand as if it would somehow help her bend the fabric of reality. It wasn’t working, but she wasn’t too surprised. This was the first time she was trying this, not one got it the first time, right? Well, actually, when it came to learning how to ride a broomstick Harry Potter hand managed to get his on the first try. This couldn’t be much different.

She glared at Nia’s hands, she needed to be firm and soft as the same time. Move up. Still nothing. Move up. Up. Up. Up.

Alice could feel something changing, something moving in the air, crackling with electricity. It was faint, but it was there. She was getting it. Holy crap she was actually getting it. Every time she thought ‘up’ the feeling became stronger, and it was empowering. She felt like she could do anything with this power. Even the smallest amount could change the world. It should be child’s play for her to move Nia’s hands up, but they refused to move.

“Now use your summoning sign,” Nia said cheerfully. That was when Alice refocused, the point wasn’t actually to move the girl’s slender hands, it was probably impossible to do that. She’d just used that as a way to get Alice to focus, to build up her powers. And it had worked.

Alice repeated the motions the girl had shown her. The familiarity enveloped her as power surged through her hands the moment they touched. There was a bright light, then nothing. Alice opened her eyes, not noticing she had closed them.

“Did it work?” she asked.

Nia was looking at her hands, holding them up to the overhead lights and window on the far kitchen wall. “ ‘Fraid not. It was a null summoning.”

Alice was confused, she’d done everything right. There was no way it could’ve gone wrong. Unless it really was impossible to get it right one your first try.

“Hey,” Nia interrupted her thoughts, “Which hand did you have on top?”

“Uh, right hand. Why?”

“Ah, there’s the problem. You should have your left hand on top, sorry, probably should’ve specified that when I first showed you. Let’s try it again,” Nia’s smile made Alice feel better.

She tried to focus on her hands this time without Nia’s help. She wasn’t sure if she could, but now that she had the feeling she just wanted to try. To her surprise the cracking energy formed almost the second she focused on her hands, and drew stronger with each second she concentrated. It really was much easier to pull off once you got the feel of it. Though she was also sure the residual energy hanging around was helping a bit.

Electricity sparked off her hands, that overpowering feeling flared in the back of her mind, she was ready to try this again. She moved her hands to her side, then repeated the familiar motions, making sure her left hand was on top when they passed each other. This time when her hands touched there was no bright light, just an amazing surge of power arching off of Alice. For a single second she had felt almost invincible, like there was no force on Earth that could bring her down.

Then the feeling was gone, leaving her drained, but not empty. Oddly enough, she could feel an otherworldly warmth pulsing from somewhere she could only describe as her soul. She’d never felt anything like this before, she’d have remember something this indescribable. This comforting heat that was formed from her bond with another being that touched every fiber of her mind and soul.

She wondered if Nia could feel the same thing, only to realize that the girl had once again somehow changed her clothes. Her boots were now tan and had a few decorative leather buckles on them, which had cream knitted sock coming up a little bit over her dark blue  jeans. Replacing the replica of her mom’s sweater was a mainly black hoodie that had maroon and cream coloured almost Christmas-sweater styled sleeves that came down to cover Nia’s palms. And, to top it all off, she had on a knitted cream beanie that matched her socks contrasting her long inky hair.

“How the hell do you do that?”

“Do what?” Nia asked, then realized what Alice's had meant. “Oh, you mean change clothes? Well, I told you that fabricas all have a spiritual presence, which means that if I have enough energy I can manipulate and change them into whatever I want.”

“Okay, but why?” There was no reason for her to change. It really just seemed like she was trying to show off.

“Well, it’d be weird if you and I went shopping in the same one of a kind sweater, especially if we ran into anyone you know, that’d be a pain and a half to explain. Plus, it’s cold out so I figured I needed better shoes and a hat to keep me warm.”

Alice shook her head. Some parts of Nia’s reasoning was spot on, others were just a bit lacking. Oh well, she’s only sixteen, there was no need for her to make sense all the time. “Let me finished getting ready, then we can head out.”

***

Alice was right in the middle of mixing the wet and dry ingredients for the second batch when the oven beeped that it was preheated.

“Could one of you guys put in the first batch?” Alice called to the two girls who were talking in the living room.

Just like Nia had predicted, they had run into someone she knew while they were out, and it had immediately made Alice thankful that she had summoned Nia before they had left, and that Nia had changed. For some reason, Teresa had been in the baking aisle to pick up twenty-three bottles of edible glitter, because what else would she be buying.

Alice, of course, knowing that decorating and baking for Christmas were two of Teresa’s favourite activities, invited her over to make up for ditching her the other night.  And Teresa had gleefully accepted, saying that the edible glitter could wait.

“I got it,” Teresa called back, and dashed into the kitchen, quickly followed by Nia. She gracefully grabbed the cookie sheet and slipped it into the oven. “And thus the reindeers were set ablaze,” Teresa cheered quietly as she turned on the oven light and set the time for twelve minutes.

“If those burn you’re making the next batch yourself,” Alice replied casually as she moved the dough into the refrigerator to cool.

“Oh yeah,” Teresa laughed, “That would go well.”

Alice nodded, Teresa was one of the worst bakers she knew. Whether is was creating or decorating, she couldn’t do it. It was actually pretty funny to watch her try to bake, but after five attempts Alice had decided that she was tired of Teresa messing the recipes up. What made it even funnier though, was that Teresa's mother owned a bakery. One of the best bakeries in the city actually.

“So Nia, how long do you think you’re going to be in town?” Teresa asked without turning away from the oven, she’d always loved watching things bake.

Alice was thankful that Nia was such a good liar. When they had first run into Teresa she had of course asked who Nia was, since she’d never seen her around before. But, before Alice could come up with some lame, obviously fake excuse, Nia had calmly told her that she was one of Alice’s cousins.

“Oh, you know, a while. I’ll definitely be here past Christmas. And I think my parents are trying to get me transferred into this school system for the spring semester before they move here in February.” Obviously Nia had put a lot more thought into this than Alice had because she seemed to have answers for everything.

“So you might be in class with us in the spring?”

“Not quite,” Alice said, as she wiped the cinnamony dough off of her dry hands with a damp rag. “She’s actually a grade behind us, so we wouldn’t have any of the same classes.”

“Awwwwwe, that’s a shame. I’d really like to get you know you better,” Teresa sighed.

“Well,” Nia smiled, “I’ll be crashing here for the foreseeable future, and probably just hanging around Alice in general.”

“That’s a good point,” Teresa looked back into the living room where a fake six foot Christmas tree was shoved into a corner by the tv. “Hey, wanna start helping me with ornaments?”

“That depends,” Nia was clearly up to no good, “Do those ornaments include candy canes?”

“Only if you go buy them,” Alice said to Teresa, who was out the door before she had even finished her sentence.

Alice couldn’t help but laugh. Teresa had always been, well, extroverted was the best word Alice could think of. But with Nia around it was definitely more noticeable, but that’s what happens when you get two people like that together. She’s just have to make sure to never leave the two of them alone, they would need someone around them to be the voice of reason. And Alice was always happy to tell someone that breaking into the aquarium wasn't a good idea, even if it would’ve been ‘cool as hell’ to swim with a shark.

The timer beeped a minute warning, bringing Alice out of her thoughts. Where had she put the oven mitts? They’d been on the counter a second ago, had someone moved them? That would’ve been a stupid thing to do. The timer blared in the kitchen, time was up, and no oven mitts to be found. In the blink of an eye Nia had silenced the timer and opened the oven.

“Do these look done?” Nia asked.

Alice took a second away from her search to look at the cookies. They were perfectly brown, no burnt spots, no light spots. This was the best her first first dozen had ever turned out, and they were even a weird shape too. Maybe the key to gingerbread cookies was making them shaped like reindeer. “Yeah, those look amazing. Just let me find the things and we can pull them-”

Nia was setting them on the oven before Alice could finish. Alice couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Nia, holding the cookie pan, that had just come out of the 375 degree oven, with her bare hands. Like it wasn’t hot or, you know, burning her skin off.

“What’s wrong?” She asked, she apparently didn’t see the problem with what she had done.

“That’s hot,” Alice suggested as calmly as she could, freaking out wouldn’t do her any good.

Nia looked at the pan, then at her hands, then the oven. “Yeah, I guess it was pretty hot,” she agreed.

“Hot things tend to burn, you know, everything; especially when you touch them.”

“Normally yeah,” she agreed again, “but fire is my specialty.”

“Your specialty?” Alice asked. She remembered that Nia had called energy control Mandie’s specialty, that she was a master with anything that involved energy manipulation. Did that mean that Nia held mastery over everything involving fire?

“Yeah, that means I can use fire magic, heal burns, turn energy into heat, and stuff like that. All pretty easily, that’s why I like baking.” She plucked a cookie off the pan and bit into it, “Mmmmm, perfect.”

***

Sebastian stood in the corridor, absentmindedly rubbing his head where it had hit the brick wall yesterday in his confrontation with Mandie. Considering her reputation it could’ve gone worse, though it also could have gone better. There was no need to him to antagonize her, if anything it would cause him more physical pain in the end, but he just couldn’t stop himself from doing it.

He looked at the door that loomed in front of him. It wasn’t big or anything, but it was far larger than people realized. Or, at least it held a secret far larger than anyone realized. The black wooden door opened soundlessly and flooded the hall with warm light. He composed himself before the light hit him, making sure his emotions were in check.

The two people he had watched enter the room ten minutes before walked back into the hall as if nothing had happened. As if they hadn’t just been in a secret meeting. As if they wouldn’t be incarcerated is anyone found out what they had discussed. Sebastian slid past them into the light and the door closed.

Silas’s pale eyes settled on him, making his skin crawl like usual.

“Why are you here?” His voice was smooth and perfect. Too perfect. Sebastian hated it, it aggravated him to no end. Not just because of the sound but because it also made him shiver whenever he heard it, which is why he normally avoided coming here even when he was summoned. But now he’d come here on his own.

“There’s a new Summoner,” he replied flatly. He couldn’t let his emotions show, he was on a mission. It would end soon, he just needed to get finish this.

Silas looked at him with cold, impassionate eyes. “Where?”

Sebastian held back his desire to leave. But he’d been working too hard for this, he couldn’t split from this man--if you could call him that--just yet. He needed to finish the mission.

A smile spread across Sebastian’s lips, this was what he had to do. “Washington. But you’ll want to send backup if you plan on acting now.”

“Oh, and why is that?”

“Because,” Sebastian turned to leave, “She’s in Mandie’s district.”

Author's Note

I'm finally getting around to uploading everything from Nanowrimo. Feel free to leave comments, questions, concerns, and critiques--they're all greatly appreciated.
Thoughts on Sebastian?