Kitty toyed with the little gold ring on her finger. This wasn't right. This wasn't healthy either. Had she just been broken up with...in a dream...with a dead, magician of all things? And why had he asked her to summon Baritmaeus? And why was she drawing out the summoning pentacle as she mused? Dead people could be surprisingly persuasive...
As she finished the last rune, a thought occured to her. She took her hand and smudged away the first connecting line in the pentacle. Anything less thatn his complete trust might offend him. She began in incantation.
It was a surprisingly simple entrance, some mild smoke came from the center of the circle, wafting about ankle level around the circle, and encircling it like a cats tail. From the center of the circle, black smoke whirled and became shapes. Shoulders...legs...head...the black smoke took a human shape, of perhaps a lanky man, or incredibly shapeless woman, standing in the center, arms folded. With a shimmer of white, characteristics were filled in: shoes, a white shirt under the black which appeared to be a suit now, and a mess of brown hair. A very familiar face indeed.
"Who is it that calls upon I Bartimaeus? Scourge to the Demon Nouda, the Silver Plume Ser-"
"Baritmaeus?!"
"It is I-Oh hey...Kitty?" The psuedo-Nathaniel said, clearly shock. He looked at his appearance. Then back at her. With a bang of light, the egyptian boy appeared. "I was wondering how long it would take some harebrained apprentice to look me up in some old book...aren't I recorded dead now? Oh so you didn't dye it...oh how thoughtful." He said, seeing the open circle and stepping out. "Wow...that felt...surprisingly mediocre..."
"How did you survive?!" She cried. "Wait, if you're here, than could that mean that at the last moment Nat-?" The djinni held up a hand for her to stop.
"Don't kid yourself, Kitty." He said. "The brat dismissed me at the last moment before the thing blew, don't quite know exactly what his big-game plan was, but apparently that might of thrown a hitch in his climb to Prime Mins-." He said, cut off by a sharp slap to the face.
"He saved your slimy essence," She snarled. "More than you did for him,"
"I've saved his life plenty times," Bartimaeus said, a tad ruffled. "Why are you even standing up for him, you didn't like him," His face contorted into a sneaky grin. "Ohhhh, but you did didn't you?"
"Like your any different!" She said. "Exactly who's form did you pop up in?" The boy shifted.
"Thats not important now," He said, sidestepping with all the grace of a hippo. "What is it you want? You didn't bind me, so you obviously aren't going to command me, very admirable, sticking to the whole djinni/human alliance?"
"Well the regulations on summonings are going to be more strictly inforced...but that isn't why I asked you to come!" She said. "I need to know..."
"Well?" He asked, tapping his sandaled foot.
"Is there anyway, maybe some part of him, survived?" She asked timidly.
"Who?" Bartimaeus asked. "Oh! So I was right then?" He smirked. "Someone has it in for Natty-Boy~" He sung. Kitty threw her shoe at his head. "Ow!"
"I'm just asking..." She said sadly, wrapping her arms around herself, and the djinni stopped.
"Kitty," He said sadly. "I don't think there's any-" He stopped. "Oh hey..."
"What?" She asked. "What is it!?"
"Well," He said, folding his skinny legs under him and sitting down. "I've heard that sometimes with large magical entities or releases of magic, rifts are opened."
"Rifts?"
"To The Other Place." He said, rocking back and forth. "You could try...summoning him?"
"A summon?" She said. "You can't be serious, and even if I did, he doesn't have essence! He couldn't pass through..."
"Its possible her could of snatched some from Nouda, or absorbed it..." He said. "I don't know, it was just a thought!"
"If I tried it...?"
"Wow you really like this guy? Really?" Bartimaeus asked, receiving a total death glare from the mottled haired girl. "Well," He mused. "I suppose you could give it a go, sure, why not? The worst that could happen is your body being blown apart."
"Wait, what?"
"Its just the body," He shrugged. Kitty sighed.
"How would we go about doing this then?"
-*-
A couple of minutes (hours) later, a painstakingly complex pentagram was drawn on the floor. "Are you sure this is right?" Kitty asked for the hundredth time.
"If ancient Armenian serves, then yes, should be." The egyptian boy reclined on the bed in Kittys room. "Might I ask why exactly you're so intent on bringing Natty-boy back? You're engaged." He said, pointing to her shining ring.
"Not for long." She said. "I just need to finish some things..."
"You love him?" Bartimaeus asked nonchalantly. "You humans, always doing silly things for love; take Cleopatra..."
"You don't understand anything." She said coldly as she stood. "Hand me the incantation, I'm ready."
"Suit yourself." Bartimaeus said, handing her a hand written scroll he had scratched out a few minutes earlier. "This should be it."
"Okay." She said, and began to murmur the words. Smoke rose from the circle and little crackles of lightning. She kept going. The smoke and light became greater and greater as she spoke, a light forming in the center of the circle. Brighter and brighter it came until the whole room seemed as though it was whirling. As Kitty finished, the light and smoke began to fade, until the room was empty, as was the circle. Kitty waited. Nothing happened. "No..." She said, falling to the floor. "No!" She slammed her fists on the ground.
"Kitty?" Bartimaeus said, not daring to approach her.
"I know he's still there," She said, tears forming. "He's not...he can't be d-d-..." She began to cry harder. Suddenly from the circle floated an array of small, dim glowing lights. Three little ones followed a larger one, as they listed up and dazed around the circle. "Baritmaeus...?"
"Look Kitty," The djinni said, leaning forward intently. "You did it...thats a soul."
"A soul?"
"The purest form a human can give, closest to our essence...I've never seen one this side before..." He said, studying the floating orb with great awe. Kitty watched as like dazed fireflies, the light swirled around the pentacle.
"Is it...Nathaniel?" She asked. He nodded. "So how do we, get him...you know, normal?"
"No clue." The djinni shrugged.
"What?!"
"I don't know," He said defensively. "I didn't think we'd make it this far..."
"Your essence." She said simply.
"What?"
"Give him a little of your essence." She said again. "That way he can take a form and once he has that, shouldn't actual flesh or something start to form?" She was just throwing darts in the dark, but the djinni considered it.
"We can try." He said, raising a finger. From the finger a small glob of silvery goo dripped off. It floated lazily to the pentacle, as if drawn by a magnet. The glows and the essence reacted instantly, grabbing a hold of each other and melding. Slowly, it took shape. It grew and and grew: feet? legs? shoulders? Until it resembled a human figure, silver in color, lying on the pentacle. Then the silver faded, and color came into the person: brown hair, fair skin, cheeks flushed and even a white shirt and black pants; just like in her dream.
"Well?" Baritmaeus said. "Go see if you can wake him up."