Sell you a Bridge chapter 269

June 6th 2016 The Nightside 8:00 PM EDT

It  was time. When we got back I'd headed for my phone and spent that ten  million on the resurrection ritual. The version I'd found was some kind  of gothic seeming magical construction that needed lots of candles and  blood and ingredients and shit. The main component of the ritual itself  came in the form of an ancient looking scroll that would dissolve into  the magic once the ritual began, but unlike some of the others, this one  was designed to be sold separately from the spell, forcing the caster  to actually supply the materials.

Lucky for us, the  Nightside was a black magic hellscape where you could get literally  anything as long as it was mystical and morally questionable, so picking  up the mats wasn't difficult or even that time consuming. There were a  few small items that we needed to substitute based on some factors like  the time, positioning, and the identity of the target. The scroll was  absurdly detailed, and half the information was formuli for finding the  proper conditions rather than direct instructions on how to proceed.

Still,  despite how fiendishly complicated it was, between Zee, Jim, and I, we  had plenty of magical heavyweights, and deciphering and arranging the  ritual wasn't too hard. We had to rely on Taylor, John, Tommy, and  Julian to retrieve the supplies in time, because based on the formulas  we had deciphered the night of June sixth, two thousand and sixteen, was  important numerogically due to the repetition. That would at least help  lessen the power demands, which was going to be a big factor.

As  I set everything up in a small courtyard inside Julian's house (small  compared to the house itself, the courtyard was actually much larger  than it should be considering the area of the place from the outside) I  had to ask Taylor. "So, just out of curiosity, why are we doing this at  Julian's place? I'm sure you have better places. Not that I don't  appreciate his letting us use the house, but I bet we could do this much  easier in an older and more powerful location. What about  Strangefellows? It's the oldest bar in the world right? I bet there's  plenty of powerful magic to harness there if we put in the time." I was  still hoping we could streamline the process. Despite having all the  energy and materials, this was going to take hours because of the less  than optimal conditions.

Taylor stared at me in absolute  horror. "Are you out of your bleeding mind? Strangefellows isn't just a  mystically significant location or an ancient bar, it's the resting  place, a term I use loosely in this case, of Merlin Satanspawn himself.  If you think I'm anywhere close to stupid enough to let you attempt a  RESURRECTION ritual anywhere near Merlin's grave, you're either an  idiot, or I have a bridge I can sell you." The genuine fear and warning  in his voice was actually kind of off putting having seen what it took  to scare the big detective. Either way, I took his point.

I  held up both hands. "Check. Not Strangefellows. Probably for the best  anyway, we've got this place mostly set up and changing venues would be a  pain, even if it might save time in the long run. Thanks by the way,  for helping us get some of the materials. Between the fifty pounds of  malachite, the eighteen dragon statues carved from blood jade, the  obsidian skulls, and the djinn tablets, I'm not sure even my absurd  resources would have been enough to get our hands on all of it in time."

He  waved me off. "I'd have helped even if this wasn't to bring back  Sindella, since it IS, there was no way I wouldn't call in some favors."  He looked sadly at the ritual. "It is a shame this thing won't work a  second time. I'd never deprive Zatanna of getting her mother back, nor  would I miss a chance to see Sindella again, but I won't deny I wish we  had another shot. It might be nice to see my dad again after all these  years. I have a lot of questions for him, but more than that I just miss  him."

The far off tone of his voice kind of hit me where I  lived, because...I hadn't seen my dad in months. Hell, for him, it had  been years. He was never the most touchy feely father, but I knew he  loved me, and since I got back I hadn't bothered to track him down to  check in. I felt like kind of an asshole for that, thinking back, and I  realized that I missed him too. I'd gotten so used to pushing him out of  my mind that I lost track of that, but it was true. After this mess  ended I was going to visit him. I'd bring Kit with me, and we could all  have dinner together as a family like we should have from the start.

I  shook off the thought. It was a really nice image, but we had other  things to worry about. I didn't have any response to Taylor's sorrow, so  I didn't bother responding, just left him to his thoughts and got back  to working on the final touches of the ritual. Zee and Jim returned as  we were putting on the last touches. After helping set up, the two of  them had headed for the Doormouse's place to catch a door to Shadowcrest  to dig up the grave Zee had buried her mother in. Apparently they  didn't trust the normal Gotham graveyards, which was fair, so they  buried her at home.

Even with access though, Zee needed  Jim because of some defenses that were in the way of her ability to  actually retrieve what was now pretty much a skeleton that we could use  as a focus for the ritual. When they got back they were carrying what  looked like a duffel bag in one hand. Despite the informal carrying  method, I could see Zee treating it with as much care and respect as  possible, and I hurried forward to help her gently set it down and begin  taking out the bones, unzipping the bag and pulling them out one at a  time.

Being no longer connected to one another the bones  had gotten a bit mixed up, every distinct part of the skeleton not  connected by something like the rib cage lying in a pile of very random  looking individual shapes in the bag. We took out the easy to identify  stuff like the skull and rib cage and laid it on the platform in the  center of the courtyard (we'd used the malachite to craft a sort of  weird version of a jade bed). Once that was done, we started to pull out  individual pieces, laying them out in the full and perfect pattern of a  functional skeleton.

I mentally thanked my past self for  my perfect memory, because without it I'd never have been able to  properly identify what each piece was and where it went. Luckily Jim had  made me study all number of antiquities and important historical  artifacts for my education so long ago when I first became his  apprentice. Among that number was something called an ossuary, which was  a holy room that held the bones of saints. They were also sometimes  MADE of the bones of saints, and therefore I'd been tasked with learning  about the skeleton as a side project in case we ever needed to rob one.

Me  having a perfect memory had been somewhat unexpected for Jim, and I  suspect he forced me to learn way more supplemental information that he  might not have required of Artemis or Reggie out of a desire to create a  better apprentice and give me a deeper foundation. One of the things  that most people didn't know about my mentor was the sheer absurd depth  of his knowledge regarding his field of expertise. Jim was one of the  most brilliant and talented appraisers on the planet by sheer virtue of  years of hard work, and I knew and appreciated him wanting to pass that  on to me and prepare me for the work he knew I would have to do. The  magic was important, but his knowledge was an equal part of why he was  such an effective master thief.

Regardless of the reason  though, I was able to put together the skeleton, helping Zee along as  well, thanks to that information, though even I had to stop and look up a  few things. Bones, especially the smaller ones, looked incredibly  alike. The distal phalanges at the tips of the fingers and toes are  extremely similar in appearance, and telling them apart was an exercise  in annoyance that required us looking up multiple pictures. I tried to  do most of the work because handling these was clearly distressing my  girlfriend, but she never complained, clearly too focused on getting  this done and seeing her mother again.

Once  we had it all set up, she stood back and I began the execution of the  ritual itself. First off was the preparation of the malachite bed. The  multiple basins full of relatively fresh blood (we were insured the  people who shed it were fairly compensated and still healthy after the  donation) were dumped onto the malachite slowly as the candles were lit.  The malachite had been inscribed with spiderwebs of delicate and unique  runes and as the blood was poured onto the gemstone and the runes  themselves began to absorb the deep red substance.

As  the runes began to glow, the green of the malachite shifted in hue,  becoming darker and richer. Still green, but less the green of growing  things and more the green of the darkest plants in the depths of the  deepest forests. As the majority of the blood was absorbed a thin sheet  of it rolled over the edges of the chunk of stone, sliding down to the  floor and flowing out along the series of carved lines we'd chiseled  into the flagstones of the courtyard with Julian's permission. Within a  minute, the green of the malachite was unstained as the runes had  absorbed all the blood save that which had flowed to the floor and a  thin layer clinging to the formerly white bones.

The  eighteen dragon statues were placed in three expanding rings of six  along the pattern of the carved array, and as the blood pooled through  the channels and reached the base of each statue the eyes began to glow  the same red as the runes on the bed. Once all three rings were lit, the  candles flared up, the flames taking on the same red tinge as the blood  and runes and casting strange dancing shadows across the courtyard.

With  this point reached, I unrolled the scroll and began to chant. The words  were strange and alien, but after I started the text began to flow from  my lips without my conscious control, as if it was being pulled from  me, and bringing a pretty solid chunk of my vitality with it. I was just  lucky I had so much of the stuff. The runes on the page, twin to the  ones on the bed, began to glow the same color, eventually sparking up  into red flames like the candles. The leaping light cast strange shadows  through the malachite bed, and as each flicked moved the shadows along  the bones some of the darkness stained and clung to the blood.

It  looked, oddly enough, kind of like a 3D printer of blood and shadow,  and as the spell siphoned off my life energy to fuel itself I felt a  rising of ancient and primordial powers in the courtyard. The moon above  us, formerly bright and clear, began to tinge red as the skeleton  slowly filled out to show itself as first an indistinct figure, and then  a body. Hair began to grow from the scalp, and the darkness receded to  show smooth, healthy skin.

Finally,  I reached the end, invoking several gods I'd never even heard of with  words I knew I shouldn't understand but did, and there was a flare of  power. The candles sparked up, soaring flames leaping like a butane  torch before consuming the candles and seeping into the blood trails.  Suddenly the whole circle was full of bloody fire that was siphoned into  the bed causing all the powerful runes to blaze up with bright light  that was absorbed by the bloody shadowy form. The candles went out, the  moon faded to white, and the dragon statues crumbled to dust as the bed  turned clear as glass. Then, when silence had completely consumed the  courtyard, the form on the clear bed opened its eyes, and sat up.