Disclaimer: Kitty, Nathaniel, Bartimaeus, and other characters from this series are slaves. Johnathan Stroud owns them, and I'm just borrowing them. I DO NOT OWN THEM. All OC's are mine.

NO!

I groaned, yet again, as I forced my hand to draw the pentacle, to ignore the pain. I had forced Farrar to get me some chalk to use to summon Bartimaeus, and then (forcibly, again) sent everyone out of the room. I must be insane, (1) I thought. Maybe that was what happened to you after nearly dying. Maybe I should nominate a project to find out. (2)

I felt like I had been hit by one thousand bricks, after drawing a simple pentacle that I used to draw as easily as drinking some water. This made me all the more sure that I needed to talk to Bartimaeus, to find out how to heal faster. I began to speak, to call, and to summon him to me. I reached out my invisible hand and searched.

I found nothing. He did not appear. There was no boy or silver-plumed serpent standing opposite me. I stood there, bewildered. The only other time I had called and he hadn't answered was when Kitty summoned him. I had dismissed him before my close call with death and surely too little time had passed since then for another magician to summon him.

Moving as little as possible, I checked to make sure there was nothing wrong with my pentacle. No, I was certain it was perfect. (3) Perhaps… I tried to come up with possibilities, but it was like groping in the dark for a light switch. Perhaps I said the incantation wrong.

I repeated the words and I got the same result. I strained my ears for anything, the buzzing of a fly, a bumblebee's hum. Finally, I had small success. A very faint bell, ringing seemingly in the distance flew to my ear. I looked around, for anything that might be the clever djinni.

"Bartimaeus?" I called out questioningly. "Bartimaeus, are you here?" A faint wisp of smoke appeared and I thrust my arm out in celebration. Bad mistake. It took all my will to keep from screaming and scaring the people outside.

Slowly, the wisp of smoke took the form of what appeared to be a messenger imp, slow and dull-witted. Nevertheless, Bartimaeus had used this guise before. Who's to say it wasn't him? A cranky voice emerged from the ugly creature.

"You Nathaniel? Good. You got a message from Bartimaeus." Nathaniel was utterly confused. When summoned, you came. You didn't send a message, you just came. That was the rule. Or so it had seemed.

"Here's his message, word for word. 'Nathaniel, John, Mr. Mandrake or whatever your name is, I'm absolutely glad I didn't actually have to come when you summoned me. This probably the last you'll ever hear from me, unless we meet up again in Death. That's where I am now, you see. I'm dead. I was allowed to send one message and I'm sending it to you. Don't kill yourself. Not yours truly, Bartimaeus."

I just stood there for a minute, mute and uncomprehending. Bartimaeus couldn't be dead. He's been alive for five thousand years. He just couldn't be dead. How had he died, anyway? There was no way he could have died.

This shouldn't have been a big deal to me. He was, in a magician's point of view, just a dumb demon. But perhaps that I'd known him for seven years, that he was my link to my childhood, my first difficult summon, made it impossible to understand.

I would have screamed and cried, but I was practically dead, mentally and physically. So instead, I crawled into my hospital bed and slept. (4)

I was walking. I had no idea why, but I was walking through London. I think I might have been looking for something, but I didn't have a clue what it was. But whatever I was searching for, I went through every backstreet, every sidewalk, and every busy road.

Tired from my long walk, I walked into a comfortable looking restaurant. I ordered chicken fried chicken and rested. I was sitting there, eating my chicken, when a beautiful girl came over and sat next to me. "Hi there," she purred, "How are you, John?"

For some reason, I didn't care in the slightest that she knew my name. "Who are you?" I questioned lazily. Her eyes twinkled. "My name is Nyx. I want to take you somewhere. Bartimaeus will be there too, but if you don't want him there, I can keep him away from you."

Somewhere, something clicked in my brain. This girl's name was not Nyx. But I didn't remember her real name and who really cared anyway? My mind drifted away from the thought. "You just have to tell me your real name. I won't tell anyone, I promise."

And I nearly did what she said, but then Bartimaeus' death came back to me. She had said she would take me where Bartimaeus was. She would take me to Death if I told her my real name. I stared at her warily, "Go away. First oh so scary skeletons, and now beautiful girls, all trying to kill me."

Nyx looked hurt. "What do you mean? I would never try to kill you." She scooted a little closer. I pushed her away and got up. I wasn't done with the living yet. I wasn't going to let this Nyx girl take me to Death.

I woke up, sweating, crying, heart rate at a mile a minute. I looked around and saw Kitty, sighing with relief. "What's wrong?" I croaked. She smiled, once again with relief. "We thought you were going to die for a second there."

(1) If it had been Bartimaeus writing the footnotes here, I know what he would say. He'd write, "Nathaniel was probably thinking he was insane right now. He would be right." Dumb Bartimaeus.

(2) Of course, then I would have to make sure people were nearly dying. Maybe not such a great idea.

(3) Like everything I do.

(4) Looking back, I should have lie down on the ground rather than my bed. So much more comfortable.

Author's note: Nyx is the goddess of death in Greek mythology.