AN: REVISED 10/13/14
Kitty
Hands trembling, mouth dry, Kitty Jones tried the summons again. And again. Finally, she stepped out of the pentacle. She had summoned Bartimaeus several times before without having any trouble. Why now?
From her studies, she knew there could only be one answer. He was already on Earth, so she couldn't call him. Another magician had summoned him.
Tamping down her growing panic, she tried to calm herself down. Who could it be? Who else would know of Bartimaeus's existence and dare to summon him?
Instantly her thoughts went to Nathaniel. No. He was dead. There was no way he could have survived an explosion of that magnitude. She was only giving herself false hope.
Kitty sighed and belly-flopped onto her bed. Hopefully the magician who had summoned Bartimaeus didn't need much, and she'd be able to resummon him shortly.
Come to think of it, no one ever summoned a djinni like Bartimaeus for just a simple task. Why use the energy, when a foliot or two would suffice?
Kitty turned over on the bed and stared up at the ceiling. She felt that rush of unease working its way into her veins again. In a weak attempt to placate herself, she tried to rationalize her thoughts. So suppose it was Nathaniel summoning the djinni after all, and he had really survived the explosion? Even before that, he had been badly wounded and weak. It may well have been eight months before he had the strength to summon his favorite servant.
But surely he wouldn't have needed that much time to at least send her a message. Something like "I'm not dead, let's have dinner" would have been enough to put her mind at ease.
Kitty frowned. Whether Nathaniel lived or not - and she allowed herself just the faintest glimmer of hope that he did - there was something off about the whole situation. And she had the feeling that she would become involved very soon.
Later that evening, she heard an uncertain rapping on the door and smiled to herself. "Come in, Bartimaeus."
AN: I tried to make this longer than it originally was, and I think it is...? Still relatively short, though. There's not much to say from Kitty's POV in this part of the story, unfortunately.
In any case, as C'sMelody pointed out, Kitty's thought process was a little choppy in the old version, which is what I aimed to clean up. When I first started War No More, for some reason I kept thinking that the trilogy (and consequently this story) took place in the past. Rather silly of me, so I've also fixed some things to make more sense in a modern era.
Chapter 3 is revised, but I should get some actual work done on my projects today (lol) so I won't post it until later.