I knew we couldn’t let this one go, but I grumbled considerably about heading out at ten o’clock in the evening in the freezing temperatures. I still remembered Grandfather’s words, “Basil, if you ignore the people in their moment in need, they will forget you and your services indeed.”
“Is that rule number seven?” I asked sarcastically.
“No, have you forgotten the rules already? That is rule number twelve. Only safety rules make the top ten. We will review them on the way there again.” Great, I thought unenthusiastically.
“The horses aren’t going to want to go.”
“We’ll treat them before and after. Why don’t you make yourself useful and grab some apples, while I get the bags.”
I complied, because that was what you did when Grandfather told you to do something, and before long, we had arrived at the church. Between the gravestones and belfry, the wind whistled and moaned alternatively, fat snowflakes twirled to their ultimate demise, and the church’s Father was waiting outside for us, his woolen frock whipping about his legs.
Grandfather reached out a hand to greet the priest, but the man kept his hand to himself. I didn’t recognize the Father, but that was no surprise since they only recently had trouble keeping anyone longer than six months. This one I think had only been here mere days and he already had to contend with a demon. No wonder they couldn’t keep them for very long.
He said abruptly, “Come quickly, it has one of the Greenbrier children.” He turned around and opened the door for us. I saw that his hands were bloodied. I looked at Grandfather, but he merely nodded his head. He had seen them too.
We went in and it was bad. It was a worst-case scenario of a demon that had run amok of its circle.
“The Church had wardstones installed a few years ago,” the priest told us. “So hopefully it won’t be able to escape the building.” Then his focus shifted and he ran to the other side of the church. We followed him, and when we reached him, he was down on the floor holding a girl who appeared to be about seven years old in his arms. Her blonde pigtails bobbed as he shook her. It was Aggie Greenbrier.
“Has she passed?” Grandfather asked.
He closed her eyes and said, “Yes. I didn’t know she was here too. Her mother will be distraught.” I knew of her mother, and I had heard how long it took for her to conceive her only child. She would have to be placed on suicide watch.
“Have the sigils on the footers been annually renewed?” Grandfather asked, as I set our supplies out on the wooden floor.
“Donations have been meager.”
“So the answer is no?” Grandfather asked. “No one has recharged the sigils in years then?”
The priest twisted his mouth into a frown and admitted, “No, we haven’t had them renewed.”
Even though I busied myself with arranging our supplies, it was difficult to ignore the six dead bodies that were scattered across the floor. My eyes also skipped over the blood smeared sigils and hex signs that had been painted across the walls too.
Grandfather asked, “Is there anyone unaccounted for left in the building?”
“Not now.”
At least that was something. Grandfather next asked, “Are those the children who summoned it over there.” He waved his hand outward, indicating the dead children.
“Yes. Only three of them were from families who are parishioners. The others are unknown to us.” This was only one of the many reasons why we advocated for legalizing Summoning again. Children had the talent, but there were no schools for training them. They experimented on their own, and usually, many suffered the costs of it. In reality, this was probably why the government didn’t, because they wanted to eradicate the skillset. What better way was there to do it than by genocide via suicide.
“Go ahead and leave now, and we’ll take care of it, but in case we can’t, take this card. It has the contact information for another Summoner that I know.” It was customary for Grandfather to do this at the beginning of any job. After he handed him the card, he took out the black body radiation scanner, also called a Strutt meter. “But he is five hours away by dirigible,” he told him, “So it will take some time for him to get here.”
While the scanner wouldn’t show us exactly where the demon would be, it would bring us to the original circle. It measured the residual electromagnetic radiation used in the summoning. A lot could be learned from studying the original circle. More than likely the teenagers would have chosen a reclusive spot to do it, which might have been difficult to find without the meter otherwise.
“It’s up there in the choir area Basil. Go ahead and make the banishment circle down here, and make it big. This one was powerful for an untrained youth.”
I began moving the wooden pews. I would make the circle cover the entire nave if I had to. There was a demon here and it was hiding. The wardstones might keep it in for a while, but they were weakened. It was only a matter of time until it figured out how to breach them, and then it would not be just our problem, but the world’s too.
The Priest observed my actions closely as Grandfather found the stairs leading up to the choir. I also noticed how he was not leaving as instructed.
“How do you keep your skirts from not wiping away your work?” he asked.
“I keep to the outside of the line, and it doesn’t hurt that the skirt length is five inches above the ground when I stand either.”
“Your Grandfather didn’t ask me any questions about what it looked like.”
“Some demons can change their appearance. He’ll be able to tell more from the summoning circle,” I informed him.
“Where do you think it is hiding?”
“Anywhere and everywhere. It could come out at any moment, but most likely, it is evaluating the potential threat we pose.”
“How does a lovely girl like you get mixed up in this racket? You should be married and throwing dinner parties, rather than fighting demons on miserable nights such as this.”
“I need to focus on my work now,” I told him. I was tired of being judged. Didn’t he know that Users didn’t have a choice in what powers they were born with? Either you had the ability or you didn’t. He must have thought that I could just ignore it. Give the token blood donation every month and wither away under apron strings and runny noses. For me, it would be like cutting off my right arm. I didn’t know how others could make the choice to not practice what you were given, and maybe one day there would be cakes to bake and bloody knees to tend to, but I would always remain a Summoner in my heart and soul.
I finished my circle and went up to see how Grandfather was faring. When I found him, he was just finishing the reconstruction of the summoning circle. He would try to recall it back to that circle, and then we would try to trap him in the banishment one that I had just drawn on the nave below us. We couldn’t do one as we usually did, which was to construct the summoning circle inside the banishment sigil. There simply wasn’t enough room up here to do that.
“I should do the calling. I’m younger than you are,” I remembered telling him.
“No, I will do it,” he told me, but his pallor belied his ailing health in the dim gaslights.
“Have you at least taken one of your pills?” I asked him. He was currently on nitroglycerin pills to keep his heart working properly.
“Yes, yes, now leave me to it. Stand back.” Then he began the ritual of calling it back, and I kept to the perimeter of the choir. The Father rejoined me again as he vigilantly watched Grandfather’s progress.
“This is all rather fascinating, isn’t it?” he told me.
“What is your name Father?”
“It is Periwinkle, Father Periwinkle,” he replied.
“What parish were you at before you came here?”
“I wasn’t in a territory at all. My last assignment was in Charleston.”
“That certainly was a prestigious appointment,” I commented, especially compared to our little backwoods town.
“It
was,” was all he replied in return. He must have done something quite dreadful to be sent here. Grandfather finally finished, so I didn’t have the opportunity to ask about the circumstances that got him reassigned, but I certainly wished I had now.
Just as Grandfather completed his chanting, an enormous blue demon popped into existence in the circle. It was easily nine feet tall and three feet wide. He had light blue skin with saucer sized darker blue moles across his body. It also had tentacles for arms, and three hoofed legs that spread out like a tripod underneath it. This was undoubtedly at least a realm eight demon.
Before I could observe anything else about it, I was pushed into the circle. I lost my balance and tripped, allowing my skirt to scrape off the hand drawn ochre sigils, which effectively broke the circle. The demon lunged for me, but Grandfather intercepted and took the brunt of the demon’s strike. I heard a sickening crack followed by nothing.
I watched in abject horror as he crumbled to the ground. Terror rolled my stomach and tears blurred my vision.
I picked myself off the floor and found the demon had turned its attention next to the Priest.
It was with little satisfaction that I watched the demon bite him. It appeared to inject something into him with a long proboscis, which I estimated to be the equivalent of a spider injecting its victim with acid in order to kick start the digestion process. I looked down behind me. How high up was this choir from the floor?
It looked at me and I decided it was not so far down. I jumped the low wall and fell down into the banishment circle. For better or for worse, it followed me down.
It landed in front of me and I slashed two of its leg’s tendons with an athame in each hand. It fell to its three knees and I scrambled to the border. I managed to jump the circle, although I was certain that I had broken an ankle. I then closed circle by wiping one extra mark away that I had made on purpose with my hand. After saying the sealing word for it, the demon bellowed. I quickly chanted the banishing curse, while it repeatedly bashed its body against the circle. I spoke faster and prayed harder than I think I ever had, until it finally worked. It disappeared. I had sent it back to where it belonged.
I dragged myself back up the stairs and spotted Grandfather first. He was indeed dead. There would be no more celebratory ice cream after completing jobs or sage advice given on my future. No more rules with numbers. No more lessons. No more long talks on cold winter nights.
Despite my family back in Rose Glen, I was for all purposes alone now. No one would really miss him that much back home either. He never married or had children. His lake house would fall to me, along with a monthly allowance, but those were a pittance compared to the loss of him in my life. After I stroked his hair from his damp forehead, I brushed a fallen tear from my eye.
I reached under the first buttons of his shirt and pulled out the necklace he always wore. It had a small brass compass on the end of it. I pulled the chain over his head, and then I placed it over my own, tucking it under the collar of my blouse. He wouldn’t need it where he was going.
I quickly came to the conclusion that this had been a set up. I crawled over to the priest who was currently convulsing, but not dead. I stared at something that was writhing under his skin, trying to break free. I drew a circle around his body, and with the last of my remaining energy, I banished him to the sixth realm. They’ll take care of whatever was incubating within him. As long as it wasn’t here, I honestly didn’t really care where he went.
···•Ͽ Ѡ Ͼ•···
“Why do you think we were attacked by both land and sea?” Colin asked me, breaking my reverie. He had clean wet hair that he had combed back, and even more importantly, clean clothes. For once in my life, here was a man who had packed more clothes than I had.
“The deader was Delia, the Convent Tomb Talker.”
“You’ve had dealings with her?” he asked.
“Everyone used her when someone precious to them had died.”
“And you used her to try and reach your Grandfather.”
“Yes.”
“So why do you think they are attacking you now?”
“They aren’t,” I told him. “They are trying to kill you.”
He frowned. “What makes you think that?”
“The deader told me so. She warned me off of you actually.”
“Why would she do that?”
“You mean rather, why would the Necromancer controlling her tell me that?” I corrected him.
“Yes, that is what I meant. I’m not as comfortable as I know I should be out in this world yet,” he said as he sat down on the edge of the bed.
“Colin, you have to admit to yourself that while the Republic may not have many Summoners, the world has even fewer Terrologists. You are special. I can’t even imagine what President Newton was thinking when she sent you here.”
“Remember, Dorian called her and requested me.”
“How does he even know of you?”
“I consulted at the New Amsterdam branch of the Agora from time to time.”
“Rather like being on loan from the Library of Congress?” I asked.
“Something like that.”
“I’m sure you would have been an improvement over Grand Marshall Whitehill,” I commented.
“She was peculiar, never leaving the D.C. branch.”
“And you met Lord Grey there?” I asked.
“On occasion.”
“You helped him on an assignment?”
“Not exactly. I met him in the library. He was gathering information on the Society of Arcane Revelations.” That was Wendy’s old affiliation, before she joined the Royal Agora.
“You were impressive out there,” I told him. “We had come across that particularly large draug once before, back when I was travelling with Wendy and Dorian through the bayous. Even with all of us working together, we couldn’t kill him.”
“I’ve never had to fight anyone before now. I wasn’t sure I could take him, but one of the remaining Loups urged me on.”
“You can talk to them?”
“I think talking is a bit of a stretch actually. Communicate would be a better word. While I’ll admit that it is difficult to understand them at first, their intent was clear to me. Speaking of them, the remaining pack will guard the house from now on,” he told me.
“You mean for tonight?”
“No, they consider your house part of their territory now, and they will guard it from now on until the pack dies out or relocates. They were very appreciative that we helped in removing their little draug infestation.”
“They’ll remain, even after you leave me?” I asked.
He said intensely, “If I leave you.”
I gulped, followed by Calidum snorting loudly, who had been feigning sleep this whole time.
“I would like to bathe and change too,” I said abruptly. “When I return, I’ll sleep on the floor tonight.” Lord only knew that I’ve slept in worse places than this.
“Then I will sleep on the floor too.”
“We’ll discuss this when I get back,” I said as I took the bag with my spare clothes in it back to the bathroom. I probably still had sleep clothes in my old wardrobe, but if I was sleeping in the same room as him, I was leaving them right where they were.
I knew that one of us sleeping in each of the bedrooms was no longer an option because of the destruction in the other room and the imminent danger that seemed to be following us. I could have slept in the library, but honestly it was drafty up there and who wanted to climb over the bloody splat that was once Delia.
I entered the bathroom, and I was immediately enveloped in warm, humid air, that was laced with a clean pine scent. I instantly relaxed. Maybe being with him would be good for me. Maybe Dorian knew what he was doing when he requested the partnership. Just maybe, and this was a big one, I might be able to fall in love with him.
I ran the water and took down my hair. I found the hair weevil set under the sink and checked it.
The hair styling apparatus appeared to be in working manner. With the generator running, I plugged it in and turned it on. I finally stepped into the hot tub and thought of nothing for a good fifteen minutes while I bathed away the grime and stress from the day.
Once I was in a fresh pair of pants and an Amaranth red shirt, I set the weevils to my dry my hair, and when that was done, I pulled it back into a low-slung ponytail. I returned the gun to my grandfather’s desk, astutely avoiding the bloody circle, and then I went back into the bedroom.
The room was very warm from the fire, and Colin was already asleep on the floor. He had taken several of the spare blankets from the wardrobe and made a makeshift pallet from them. I smiled, as my nerves over the sleeping situation melted away. I took a crocheted blanket from my bed and laid it over him, but I needn’t have bothered, since he was hot to the touch. I climbed up into the bed and crawled under the covers, anxious for a good night’s worth of sleep.
Chapter 9
Lost Souls
Rule number fifteen: Answer all questions with the least amount of information possible.
I awoke to the clicking of the ticker in the kitchen downstairs. I wondered who it could have been. Whoever it was, they would have to wait. There was a demon problem that the President needed me to handle first.
I opened my eyes, sat up, and looked down. Colin was sprawled out on the floor and Calidum was sitting on the windowsill.
“He snores,” Calidum said.
“It didn’t wake me up,” I commented.
“He twitches too.”
“As long as he doesn’t sleepwalk and kill me while I’m asleep, then I can live with that.”
“He said your name several times,” he added.
I didn’t have a response to that, so I changed the topic and said, “I have to check the ticker.”
“The paper spitter?”
“Yes.”
“We don’t have one in the Library. We use an internal phone system,” Colin said looking up at me, obviously awake now.
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