"Okay Az," I said. "So, we're stuck. All we need to do is find somewhere nice and quiet to summon a gate manually, right?"
"It's not quite that simple," said Azrael. "It's been a while since I've had to do it, but I should be able to get back into it. The big problem is that my gates are produced by harnessing the physical properties of a certain kind of rock. We'll have to find some and puck it into just the right configuration. Either that, or we look for an inactive gate that someone else has made and try to make it work."
"And how are we going to find one of those?" I said.
"We'll have to ask in the library. Stone circles and that kind of thing. Humans don't use magic so they probably don't know much about dimensional gateways. An active gateway would have a reputation of being haunted.
Failing that, Warp-Aci are able to cross dimensional boundaries, although it takes a lot of coaxing from what I've heard." he looked at me expectantly with a raised eyebrow.
"Gah," I said. "Forget it! I know some people think they're for girls, and frankly I don't care about that, but have you ever met one of those irritating little beasts? You can sit there in the dark for four days and nights or more, concentrating on the spell of summoning, and what do you get out of it? A whiny little nuisance that's wholly dependent on you for the rest of your life.
They're always eating, and they don't necessarily care whose food they take, I might add. Started a lot of arguments at SAIA, I can tell you.
"And supposing it doesn't want to take us home, or can't? After all, we'll have a big problem explaining to it which plane we came from in the first place. We'll then be stuck with a glowing black thing, the likes of which the humans have never seen and never will see in the normal course of things. What could we do with it? Disguise it as a dog?"
"Okay, fair enough. We'll keep that as a last resort, but we might have to reconsider it if we have no luck with the gates."
"Sure," I said. "But we aren't going to be able to do the dimensional gate thing in a hurry either, so whatever we do we'll need to set up for an indefinite stay in the human realm. First and foremost, money.
"We've got some gold, and we can create more if need be. With a bit of effort I could probably fabricate some duplicate coins too, but for now we'll have to pawn off the gold. We'll also need to buy some provisions. Let's do that and then check the library."
"Where are we going to stay?" said Azrael. "I don't know about you, but sleeping under a pier doesn't sound like fun to me."
"Well," I said with a grin, "many human youths are going back to nature, so if two more 'drop out' as well, we'll hardly be noticed, right? That Wilson guy offered to take us to some kind of ceremony, and I think we should accept that offer if it still stands. It might lead us to a commune or some other group which would take us, give us a base to work from. Just as long as we don't touch the punch.
"But anyway, let's do the shopping run first."
We exchanged the remainder of our gold for money. I did this alone and disguised as another human, while Azrael went to the library. In the shops I bought some human shampoo for myself, since I could maintain my human form indefinitely. Azrael's charm was a combination of psychic and illusory magic, so that it would fool both people and optical devices alike, but it also meant that he still had his fur underneath the projection and that gave him slightly different needs.
I bought some anti-flea shampoo intended for cats, some milk and a selection of pet food. Hoping that it would be digestible, I got him tinned meat and dried cat biscuits, but I was unable to resist the aroma and also bought some dog biscuits and rawhide chews for myself.
Carrying a brown paper bag with the shopping, I headed to the library where Azrael was waiting for me outside. "Any joy?" I asked.
"Not really. We're in the wrong part of the country. There simply aren't any stone circles in the whole of the east coast!
Now, there is a large, famous circle in Wiltshire. I've seen pictures of it, both photographs and artist's impressions of how it might have been. I'm not honestly sure what it is, though. If it ever was a dimensional gate, it must have been quite some nexus point, but we won't really be able to tell unless we can get to it, and it's nearly two hundred miles away."
Page and I scratched our heads about the journey for a while. The train was a possibility except for the unfortunate fact that Stonehenge was in the middle of absolutely nowhere and we would need to obtain a lift from someone with a powered vehicle, or 'car' as they were known. Eventually we decided that we should try to attend Wilson's ceremony, and if we could find someone willing and able to take us to the Henge, so much the better.
We sat with the Flower People, a faint aroma of Mary filling the air once again. This time Azrael and myself had got wise so we politely declined any offer of food and drink - besides we had enough pet food to go on anyway.
As it happened this caution proved unnecessary, since the Flower People were going to head out to The Naze later on for their ceremony, and even they were not going to drive under the influence of LSD. So we just sat and talked again about their philosophies of experimentation, peace and free love.
And it was this talk of free love which triggered a memory, long hidden now. My thoughts freed up by the Mary, I suddenly recalled the first time I'd practiced the 'cubi charm in the world outside.
It was a few months before I'd met Azrael, and I was sitting in a tavern where a shapely vixen of my apparent age was sat. After probing her mind briefly, I strode into the restroom and made a few subtle changes to bring myself more in line with her expectations before sitting down next to her with a charming smile.
Let's just say it worked.
Later that night, the pair of us lay in a contented sleep. Chelsea was, at least, but I was in a slightly different state, invisibly strolling through her dreams as my body remained motionless in the bed next to hers.
Suddenly a female hare grabbed hold of her from behind, which puzzled me for a moment, until I suddenly realised that the newcomer was a succubus, intruding upon the vixen's dreams and most likely after her soul. Chelsea yelped and tried to twist herself free, but the succubus held her fast. Her dreams were now lucid, meaning that she would be able to interact with them, and us too.
"Let her go," I said forcefully, suddenly becoming visible to both of them. "I was here first - this one's mine!" As I said this, my back and headwings reappeared, along with four snarling, wolf-headed tentacles. The succubus dropped Chelsea and responded in kind.
At SAIA we had been taught ways of manipulating a Being's dreamspace, for recreational purposes, to aid in generating emotions and as part of the stereotypical 'cubi attack of stealing someone's soul in their sleep.
There were a number of friendly Beings on campus for us to practice dreamspace manipulation in, and I had become quite good at it. Although there were rarely disputes over prey, it was a possibility, particularly with a rogue 'cubi and so we were taught how to fight in dreamspace as well.
This had given rise to 'Dreamwars', where competing 'cubi would battle for dominance inside a sleeper's mind.
Although the act of self-defence in dreamspace was grudgingly accepted as a necessary part of the course, the Dreamwar championships were frowned upon since the loser was usually left in a mild coma unless they surrendered first. This meant that they were more-or-less an underground activity, so finding a volunteer dreamer to play in was not easy.
Usually a play area was obtained by bribing one of the Beings or finding a young 'cubi who still had the ability to dream on demand. At a pinch, some of the more uncouth 'cubi had been known to cast Stun on an unsuspecting fellow student, but this was highly undesirable since people do not dream while unconscious which left a black, empty and boring dreamspace to play in. More to the point, casting Stun within SAIA was a severe breach of the rules and Fa'lina would get extremely angry when she found out.
"I must warn you, I'm a former champion at Dreamwar," I pointed out.
"So am I", she smirked. This was not so good.
Run, I thought at Chelsea. This was easier in dreamspace, since I was already inside her mind. To send telepathic messages to Beings in the real world took a certain amount of effort. The succubus and I chased each other through the vixen's dreamspace, apparently the village she used to live in as a cub. We both had clubs which we'd found lying around in the village and we faced each other off with these. Suddenly I threw mine at her, morphing it into a spear as it flew.
We were both a little rusty and this caught her off-guard. She pulled the spear from her heart, blazing with rage and came at me with her tentacles.
I dived into the house behind me and hid around the corner, striking her head with a cooking implement as she entered. Stupid, I would have looked first with my tentacles. The hare lay there, and I went to examine her, but it was a feint and her tentacles suddenly tore through my chest. This was it - only while you were physically penetrating your opponent were you able to get through their mental shield and forcibly banish them from the dreamspace. This was doubly bad because when she had finished with me, she was going to eat Chelsea's soul.
Just as I was about to black out, I suddenly noticed the hare's eyes go wide with astonishment - Chelsea had put a cooking knife in the back of her neck. This distracted the succubus long enough for me to pierce her, and I also managed to steal a chunk of her energy to revive myself. Chelsea kept attacking the succubus with whatever she had to hand and thanks to this combined attack I was quickly able to smash her out of the vixen's dream. She fell to the ground and faded away.
Panting, I looked up to see how Chelsea was doing, and was surprised to see that she was now waving the knife at me, her eyes narrowed with hate.
"Get back!" she yelled. "Keep away from me, you monster! You demon filth!"
"Put it down," I said softly, and turned my appearance back into the Being I had pretended to be. She became less tense, but kept the knife. With a sigh, I clicked my fingers and the weapon was suddenly at her feet.
"You're an incubus," she snarled defiantly, retrieving the knife once more. "You came to seduce me.. to.. to devour my soul, while I was sleeping! And I fell for it!"
"No," I said, and sat down on the bed behind me with a sad, tired expression. "I came for your companionship. If I wanted to eat your soul, I could do so right now, and there is nothing you would be able to do that could possibly stop me. But I don't want it.
"Power games do not interest me, lady. I have at least twenty-five centuries left to me, just by feeding from emotions. Perhaps in two thousand years time, if I live that long, I will begin to feel that my own life is worth murdering others to prolong.. but not now, not yet.
"Yes, I came to seduce you. I had hoped that perhaps we could even marry. I could have been a Being for you, kept myself in disguise until death did us part. I wouldn't have been the first 'cubi to do that, either. I could have guarded your life with mine - no other Creature would have dared to attack you. But I don't see that happening anymore. Perhaps I should never have tried."
I sighed again and rose. Chelsea's face had changed from hatred and terror to something more like pity, but there was no going back now.
"I am going to leave you in peace. I see now that I could never have revealed my true self to you. And with that in mind, I can't ask you to love me. But I do bid you remember that I saved your soul's life this night. Sweet dreams." And with that, I faded from her dreams.
Back in reality, I awoke. The Succubus was lying unconscious under the bed so I dragged her out and stole one of her gold bracelets. Having first made sure that it was free of any charms or curses, I left it on the bed beside the still-sleeping Chelsea as something for her to remember me by - or sell - as she saw fit.
This done, I carried the succubus' unconscious form down to the empty tavern, and walked off into the night. Our clans were bitter enemies, but despite that and the crimes she had committed against Beings, I did not want her death on my conscience. Deep in the woods I left her by a spring, before carrying on in the direction of the path which would ultimately lead me to Ha'Khun.
"You alright, man?" said a voice beside me.
"I must have drifted off," I replied, looking up to see Azrael lying in the grass with a reefer and Wilson shaking my arm. "thanks for waking me."
"We're about ready to leave for the Happening, man." he said.