Ghost of a Summoning

by J E McDonald

  “Stop!” Roman shouted. “It’s me you want, isn’t it? You’re trying to break me. Leave him alone.”

  Aym stopped Moe’s hand an inch from Jude’s heart and looked at Roman over his shoulder. “And are you broken?”

  “Yes,” Roman admitted, knowing it was true. He couldn’t let Moe pay the price for his own tainted soul. He needed both him and Aubrey to be safe, and he’d do whatever it took to keep them that way. “Leave them alone and you can have me.”

  “Roman, no,” Aubrey cried out.

  Aym dropped Moe’s hand, leaving the demon’s wrist an angry red, and refocused on Aubrey.

  “You can’t touch her,” Roman ground out. “I won’t agree to anything if you lay one filthy claw on her.”

  “Touch her? No. I don’t need to touch her.” He circled behind Shawn. “But I do need her to fulfill her part of this event before I release her.”

  Shawn’s eyes narrowed.

  “You will come with me freely?” Aym asked, his eyes avid as they scanned Roman.

  He nodded once.

  Clutching her chest, Aubrey shook her head at him. He couldn’t look at her. He couldn’t be swayed from his choice to save her.

  “Come now, child,” Aym said, speaking to Aubrey. “Open the vessel for us. Don’t keep us in suspense any longer.”

  Shawn yanked her to the side, back to the table where Jude stood frozen.

  “I don’t know how,” she said, her voice small, the sound making things break inside Roman’s chest. “I’ve tried. I don’t know what to do.” She took hold of the top like it was a lid and tried to pry it off.

  “Come now,” Aym said, his voice becoming harder, less cajoling. “No need to tease. When you saw the vessel for the first time, it must have spoken to you. You’ve been meant for each other for centuries.”

  Frustrated tears escaped her eyes as she shook her head.

  Aym circled her, leaning close. “In fact, I had thought the second you saw it, you would be able to open it. Your brother waited close by, watching.” His voice turned gentle again. “Fate brought your brother to me. He’d been summoning one of my minions for years when I learned of your name, the woman who would facilitate the coming of my army to Earth.”

  Aubrey closed her eyes, like it would make the scene around her disappear.

  “I had my own prophecy to worry about,” Aym went on, hissing in her other ear. With each passing minute, the demon became increasingly agitated. “One that warned me how to stop my own demise. Now we’re here all together, and all I need you to do is open this vessel. So simple, really.”

  Swallowing, Aubrey opened her eyes and focused on Roman. He needed to go to her, to take her in his arms and protect her. He needed to comfort her, to promise that this would be over and she would be safe and unharmed. Even his smallest movements forward were met with a swell of demons against him.

  With a nod of determination, she pulled at the vessel with renewed force, her hands shaking.

  Roman thought of the words in the prophecy, of what they meant for her and for him. Nothing but debris will remain of Wickwood unless you make the ultimate sacrifice. Without your reckoning, those you hold dear will perish. Determination speared through him. There was only one way out of this. If sacrificing himself allowed her to live, then maybe his life was worth something after all.

  “Stop! Maybe it’s not her. Maybe it’s someone else.”

  Aym’s focus returned to him. “Then I don’t need her anymore.” He raised his claw to her throat.

  “No!” He couldn’t let her die. His life didn’t matter, it never did. “You let both of them go, and I’ll pledge my fealty.”

  “Roman, no!” Aubrey screamed.

  Walking around the table, Aym pulled the sword from the sheath at his back and pointed it at Roman’s heart.

  It was the same sword that killed his father, the one with Aym’s symbol on the hilt. Roman swallowed.

  “This better not be a trick.” Aym’s eyes were intent on him

  “No trick,” Roman said truthfully, keeping his gaze. “But if I pledge my fealty,” he ignored Aubrey shaking her head at him and continued, “she needs to be safe from those under your command, especially her brother. You end him.”

  “Done,” the demon said without blinking an eye.

  A wretched scream erupted from Shawn’s throat, and he let go of Aubrey as if his arms had been forcibly flung wide. Aubrey stumbled away, her back hitting one of the shelves. Shawn’s face contorted, and he clawed at his throat, dropping the knife. Flames erupted everywhere, engulfing him in blue-hot heat. Two heart beats later, his entire body burst into ash.

  Aubrey screamed and ran toward Roman, but Aym’s underlings stepped in front of her, blocking her way.

  Roman couldn’t go to her now. Not with Aym’s blade pointed at his heart.

  “I have fulfilled my end,” Aym said, his eyes on Roman, never blinking, never flinching. “You will now kneel before me and pledge your fealty.”

  “No!” Aubrey screamed, trying to get around the demons, but they wouldn’t let her by.

  “They can’t touch her,” Roman gritted between clenched teeth. “Don’t let any of your demons touch her.”

  “Of course.”

  “And Moe remains free of you.”

  The demon hesitated a moment, then nodded once. “Agreed. Now your pledge.”

  Aym had been coming for him since he was a child. He would never stop. This way Roman could protect Moe and Aubrey. The prophecy was right. He would sacrifice himself to protect those he loved.

  “No, no, no, no, no,” Aubrey chanted, her breathing ragged and her words broken, unable to move past the fire demons that blocked her path. Roman mourned not being able to have more time with her, but if this was what had to be done to protect her and Moe, then so be it.

  “Protect Aubrey,” he said to Moe, hoping he’d understand. The little demon remained shivering on the table, clutching his wrist.

  With one last deep breath, Roman bent on one knee.

  39

  Panic gripped her so hard, Aubrey couldn’t take a breath. Her brother’s ashes lay strewn on the ground around her. Horrified, she watched as Roman knelt. She had to stop this. There had to be another way.

  She wasn’t going to let Roman become some noble fucking martyr. Or turn into some demon minion. Or a slave. Or whatever it was that was happening here. Frantically, she searched the room for help.

  Jude stood frozen, his eyes darting from side to side, his expression trapped in a grimace along with his frozen limbs. She looked for Moe but the little demon had disappeared from the table. She’d last seen him cradling his wound and shrinking into as small a ball as possible. Where had he gone?

  Every time she tried to go to Roman, the smaller demons swarmed her, nipping at her clothes and hair, making her cringe, but not touching her fully. But none of that mattered compared to seeing Roman bend on one knee in front of the fire demon. How could she help him? How could she stop this? Her eyes were fixed on him. Defeat made his shoulders sag and his head bend. Aym circled him with a look of utter anticipation on his face.

  “I need to help him,” she whispered.

  A flash of movement on the broken stained glass on the floor made her blink. The surface fogged, and a symbol appeared, an arrow. It pointed to the table in the center of the room.

  One of the red demons brushed her leg with their body. Heart pounding, she squirmed away on shaky legs. The demons followed. They swarmed around her, and she scrambled up on to the table to get away. She darted a gaze over at Aym to see if he noticed.

  Ignoring her now, Aym stopped behind Roman, rapture on his face like he was about to partake in his favorite meal. He leaned forward. “You will give me your promise,” he hissed in Roman’s ear. Every time he spoke, Aubrey’s skin crawled. He might look human, but it was a grotesque facade. “It is time for you to say the words.”

  Roman shook his head, and Aubrey felt her heart lighten until he s
poke. “You and none under your command will touch Aubrey or Moe. They can go free. Their lives and souls will remain untainted. I will have your vow.”

  Aym circled around Roman, then stopped in front of him. “I vow none of mine will touch them.”

  She shook her head while Roman nodded once.

  “No,” she whispered.

  “I pledge my fealty.”

  “No!” she screamed, horror flooding her.

  As soon as he said the words, it was like a large hand gripped him, straightening his body to a standing position, his head rearing back.

  Arms spread wide, Aym inhaled deep. “Finally, the words I wanted to hear.” He cackled. “And now I will bring you back to Plight as my servant, just as I promised your father on the day I took his life, on the day I gained revenge on my son’s murderers.” His gaze went to Jude before returning to Roman.

  With a gleam in Aym’s eyes, he turned the demon hunter to face Aubrey. Roman’s face was stony as he looked at her. She shook her head in disbelief. How could he make that pledge? Nothing was worth it. Not even her.

  “Or maybe I will have your soul now,” the demon said. “Consume it in front of the ones who care for you.” He kept circling Roman, watching his reaction, tittering to himself in pure glee.

  His hand moved over Roman’s chest, one long claw extended. It sliced through his shirt to reveal the bare skin of his chest.

  The demon was going to do it. He would eat Roman’s soul right here, right now. Red filled Aubrey’s vision, her rage overflowing. She grabbed the vessel beside her and threw it with all her strength. It didn’t even make it halfway, crashing to the floor with a shattering thunk.

  “No!” Roman yelled.

  One deafening crack followed. Then a hollow groan emerged from beneath the broken pieces of the vessel. The fine hairs all over Aubrey’s body stood on end. The groan echoed around them, then became louder, reverberating against the walls.

  The stone floor rumbled, vibrating so much Aubrey’s teeth ached. The demons around her became agitated, the smaller ones on the wall frenzied to the point of screeching. A booming noise followed the rumble, and right before her eyes, the ground split where the shards of the vessel lay.

  What have I done?

  Aym cackled as the fissure in the floor widened, first an inch, then another and another until it reached from one end of the room to other, more than a yard wide in the middle. The table shifted beneath her until she and a frozen Jude were on one side, and Roman and the big demon were on the other.

  “Everything is working perfectly,” the demon bellowed in triumph. “All is as it should be.”

  It looked like Roman wanted to move, to jump across to her, but he remained frozen.

  A strange orange glow came from the crack in the floor as it continued to spread. A clicking noise, louder than the skittering from the agitated demons climbing the walls, emerged from the crevice.

  “They’re coming,” Aym roared with delight. “My army is coming.”

  Aubrey gasped when the first clawed hand emerged from the crack. Then a demon pulled himself out. More hulking forms emerged, one, two, three, four. She stopped counting at six, her body frozen in horror.

  These ones were different from the smaller beings circling the table. Their skin was red and scaled, but they also wore weapons and armor. The sounds of metal clanking against metal reverberated in the space. Aubrey covered her ears.

  They prowled around the table, keeping her in their sights. They snapped and snarled, the ravenous interest in their red eyes making her shrink to the center of the table. Her chest squeezed so tight, she couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t take her eyes away from the sickening sight.

  She’d opened a direct path to Hell.

  The demons kept coming, filling the room and spilling out into the hall. Each demon seemed bigger than the last. Next came flying creatures with horns and spears, shooting up into the ceiling, then swooping around her before soaring out the door. Howling screams and the clinking of armor joined the underlying groan of the now two-yard-wide crevice. She covered her head with her hands, trying to shrink away.

  Vibrations traveled through her limbs as the table and ground beneath her continued to shake.

  How can I stop this? Her heart thundered in her ears. Roman and Jude were frozen, and she had no idea where Moe had gone. Finn couldn’t help. Wickwood was about to be taken over by monsters. She’d done this. By breaking the vessel, she’d brought them here, and she had no idea how to stop it.

  Moe materialized beside Aym with Roman’s knives in his hands.

  “Ah, good, my newest foot soldier,” the armor-clad demon said as if discussing the weather. “You have waited long enough for your first taste of soul.” The demon’s eyes zeroed in on her. “She will be sweet.”

  “No!” Roman shouted. “Your vow!”

  “Silence,” he said, stopping Roman’s words in some unseen sway. “You are pledged to me now. I have promised you none of mine will harm her. This foot soldier has not yet pledged his fealty, so he is not mine. Go now,” he said to Moe. “End her. She has fulfilled her destiny. If you feed on her soul now, you will live in the lap of luxury for the rest of your days. This I vow.”

  Moe straightened, the knife tight in his grip. He stared at her, and she shook her head at him. This couldn’t be happening.

  Roman’s face contorted in horror, like he wanted to scream, but he was caught in Aym’s invisible snare.

  Aubrey couldn’t take her gaze off Moe. His body crouched, bracing to jump across the crevice to her. Gone was the carefree curiosity that used to fill his eyes. This little demon who liked peanut butter and picture books held those two knives with lethal purpose. She couldn’t move, her limbs frozen in fear.

  At the last second, his body weight shifted. Moe jumped in the opposite direction, straight toward Aym, and landed on the other demon’s back.

  Aym spun, howling as he tried to get the smaller demon off him.

  But Moe hung on tight with his claws. “No fealty,” he shouted to the ceiling.

  With one swift movement, the knives sliced through the fire demon, one on either side of his neck. The demon’s howl stopped, his head separating from his body as Moe leaped from him. The little demon shifted into his camouflage mode a second later.

  A collective screech emerged from the beings coming out of the gap in the earth. Roman roared in pain, collapsing to the ground. The demons around the table doubled over in pain. The ones on the ceiling screamed. Jude fell to the ground with a shout, then crawled under the table to hide.

  The crevice in the ground became hungry. An unseen forced pulled the demons into its gaping maw. Armor scraped along the cement floor. Screams echoed in the air. Aym was swallowed whole, his body disappearing into the strange orange light emanating from its depths, his detached head following a moment later. The soldiers in his army tried to stay upright, but the force of the suction, the crack’s greedy nature, dragged them inside no matter how much they tried to remain.

  Next came the smaller demons, yanked into the crack flailing and screaming. Their claws made gouges in the cement, their jaws unhinged in expressions of horror. Their scaly bodies contorted as they raced against unrelenting pressure, only to be hauled inside one claw at a time until they disappeared from sight.

  It didn’t stop there. Everything spiraled toward the crevice, down into the ground. The artifacts on the shelves, the broken glass, everything. The flying beasts spun toward it too, shrieking as their wings were caught in the eddy. They couldn’t escape it either, like large hands grabbed their bony forms and tossed them into the crevice. The pungent scent of sulfur and scorched flesh swirled around them, burning Aubrey’s nostrils.

  The crack narrowed as it hungrily ate at the world around them. It’s not taking me. The whirlpool effect didn’t pull on her as it did everyone else. But Roman was caught, his body dragged toward the edge of the crevice as he scraped his fingers against the ground to break free.
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br />   “No!” Aubrey screamed, leaping from the table to the other side of the crevice. Wind snatched at her hair and clothing, but her feet remained firmly planted on the ground. She covered Roman’s body with her own and wrapped her arms around him tight. “I won’t let you have him,” she yelled into the void.

  The demons were almost all gone now. Out of the corner of her eye, Jude’s flailing form tumbled into the closing gap. The world around them groaned in response.

  They kept inching their way toward the edge, the heat of the crevice burning her spine as she separated Roman from the world of fire and brimstone that wished to claim him.

  “I won’t let them have you,” she whispered, her face in between his shoulder blades. The straps of his knife harness pressed against her cheek.

  For a moment, the two worlds were overlaid with each other, the heat of Hell singeing the fine hairs on her arms.

  Then, all at once, it fell quiet.

  Everything just stopped.

  The noise, the pressure in the air, everything halted.

  Her ears rang in the silence, her scalp tingled.

  Aubrey lifted her head. All the demons had vanished. The crack remained, only inches wide. No orange glow emanated from it. The world settled around them, and their ragged breathing filled the silence.

  She sat up a little, her gaze scanning the ceiling. “Moe?”

  Roman rolled them to their sides until he faced her. His stunned expression shifted away from her face when the little demon became solid beside them. Moe looked repentant, like he wasn’t sure how much trouble he was about to get in, his back hunched and his knees beside his armpits.

  “Oh, Moe,” she whispered and brought her arm around him, tucking him beside them. “You saved us.” She pressed her face into the velvety skin of his bony neck. “I’m going to buy you every jar of peanut butter in the city.”

  Moe perked up. “Is this the time to say Moe likes Nutella better? Yes?”

  A laugh erupted from her chest. After what had just happened, she wasn’t sure how she could laugh, but there it was, coming out of her mouth. A rough hand on the side of her face made her turn to meet Roman’s gaze. Her laughter died as she saw the intense expression in his eyes.