I felt myself being tugged, and naturally, I resisted. The enchantment seemed to wrap around my essence and pull hard. The swirls of the Other Place began to disappear and the weightlessness of freedom began to disappear. I was being summoned. I haven't been summoned for three years, and so as I began to materialize inside the pentacle, the pains of the human world jabbed at me harder than ever. I took the shape of a giant-fanged Cyclops and began to study my surroundings.
I was in a dark, small room, lit only by five or so candles. All the curtains were drawn and every door was blocked with a chair. It smelled of human filth and junk. (1. Mind you, human filth and junk? They always smell that way… but this smell was just jarring.) Finally, I glanced over at the magician who summoned me. She was sitting down, legs crossed within his pentacle. Her hands were at the sides of his legs, clenched into a fist. A dark cloth cloaked her slouchy figure and a long hood draped over her head hid her facial features. Then, I checked all seven planes. Nothing too suspicious.
Both magician and I didn't speak for a long time. I just stood there and stared at her while she kept looking down. Her finger was unconsciously stabbing at the floor and I watched intently, hoping that she would make a fateful jab at the chalky lines of the pentacle. Minutes later, I had enough.
"Charge, 'miss'," I said pointedly.
The girl did not reply. "Charge," I repeated myself and then added, "What did you summon me for? Stand around and do nothing? That would be a nice task."
I heard the shuffling of feet, then the girl stood up, still hiding her face within the deep folds of the hood.
She spoke. (2. It was amazing, really. I thought she was mute and was about to get into how she possibly could have summoned me.) Her voice was so soft, smooth, and musical that it hardly sounded human at all. "Bartimaeus."
"Eh, yeah?" I said, dumbfounded at the sound of her voice.
She sighed and said, "You… you're alive."
"Isn't that part very much obvious?" I replied, regarding to my very functional and alive essence.
"Oh," the girl said thoughtfully, "and you still make stupid jokes…"
I scowled. (3. A Cyclops scowling. Not a pretty site. Especially one with fangs.) I retorted, "At least my stupid jokes contain self confidence. Look at you. A big black bed sheet drooped over your bony human body, I see some real self-esteem issues going on there. So you summoned me for assistance? I'm great with the social skills, you know."
"Kitty's been pretty upset over Nathaniel," the girl said a little more loudly than necessary.
"I really don't see the connection here," I said. "Some anonymous cloaked girl who knows Kitty and Na— what!? How do you know his name of all people? Who. Are. You."
She laughed a silvery flute-like chuckle that had a strangely dangerous edge to it. She looked up, and I caught a glimpse of her eyes flashing. "Kiami (4. Pronounced Ky-oh-me in case you were wondering.) at your service, Bartimaeus of Uruk," she said in a mysterious voice. "Kiami, the one who can see past the seventh plane… and into the eight. Remember me, djinni, remember me." At my service?
And at that, before I could fire up a response, the girl, Kiami, began to speak the dismissal words. Confusion, something I didn't feel very often, bubbled up. She didn't answer my question well enough. Kiami. Who was she? Did she really see the eighth plane? And if she did, was this a threat? What bothered me most was she knew Kitty. Kitty Jones. She knew Nathaniel, but not as John Mandrake. As Nathaniel. This rather short summon perturbed me.
What did I feel? Concern. (5. It wasn't that I was an affectionate djinni caring for a human. Kitty was different. After she had come to the Other Place, I immediately knew then and there that, like Ptolemy, she would put her life at risk… for me. A bond.)