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"Reader?"
"Oh, nothing," C?r?l?a said.
Deep in thought, she flicked through the pages until she found something she liked and her face lit up.
"A ctenophox," she said. "Yes, that would be perfect. Schemes and subtlety don't interest them at all."
She picked up the book and passed it to Phil.
"It's a standard summoning incantation, similar to the one you used to summon Verde."
Phil looked at the page as C?r?l?a took the chalk and made some alterations to the inner circle pattern. The symbols and words were familiar to him as the same ones he'd been forced to learn by rote back at Wargsnouts College.
"What's a ctenophox?" he asked.
"A primal spirit of lust from the Benth'Id depths," C?r?l?a replied. "They're quite simple, although they do have a reasonable amount of raw power."
"Are they dangerous?"
"Only if you make a mistake with the summoning."
But weren't they summoning the ctenophox to test if he had made a mistake with the summoning, Phil thought. Again he wondered why they couldn't just summon an imp or something equally puny.
"Now for a little something to attract a ctenophox to the circle," C?r?l?a said.
She went back to her childish, whale-shaped bag and took out a small glass beaker covered in cellophane. A thick, creamy-white liquid formed a small layer at the bottom of the glass. Phil didn't need to ask to know the liquid was semen, probably his. C?r?l?a took off the cellophane covering and left the beaker in the centre of the chalk circle.
"What about the other ingredients?" Phil asked.
"What other ingredients?" C?r?l?a asked.
"You know, mice, other things."
C?r?l?a looked at Phil. "What would a lust daemon want with a mouse?"
"Um, the blood..." Phil suggested without feeling entirely confident.
C?r?l?a shook her head. "You humans have some very odd notions about magic," she said. "Now recite the summoning incantation," she ordered.
Phil read the words out loud from the page. As always, his tongue struggled to wrap around the alien syllables at first, but then there was always a point when the trickle of words tipped over into a flood. A kind of eldritch gravity took over, as if the incantation had reached a critical mass and would not be stopped. Instead of him saying the words, it was like the words took over, controlling his tongue to shape them as they tumbled forth from his mouth in a stream that only ended when his finger brushed up against the last rune.
"Good. Good," C?r?l?a said as the echo of alien utterances faded away. "Most humans make the mistake of trying to force the words to match the sounds they're familiar with. It's better to let the words take their own form."
A pinkish, bluish cloud started to condense around the beaker in the centre of the circle. It expanded and puffed outwards, forming a dense fog constrained within the lines of chalk.
"Ah, here she comes," C?r?l?a said.
A female form rose up out of the swirling mist. She was blue-skinned, naked and moved with a sinuous grace that was both alien and entrancing. She stared at him with golden-yellow eyes and swayed like a belly dancer, or snake. Phil found it difficult to look away. He thought he could hear music playing far away—a strange ululation that reminded him of psychedelic science fiction TV shows from the sixties.
He couldn't see the lower part of her body. The thick billowing clouds of mist formed an impenetrable veil that obscured everything beneath the little dimple of her navel. Waves of mist rolled up against the outer chalk circle and Phil heard crackling sounds, like sparks of electricity earthing in a puddle.
"Mystic presence contained," C?r?l?a said. "Visual entrancements, eighty percent negated. Aural entrancements, ninety percent negated. Olfactory entrancements, ninety-five percent negated."
The smoke teased Phil like a veil. He leaned forward as he tried to peer into the clouds and see her lower half. Nothing. He couldn't see anything of her legs, ass or sex. He jumped back as an electric-blue tentacle emerged from the thick mist and slithered across the stone floor. It reached the outer chalk circle and stopped as if it had come up against an invisible barrier. Another whip-thin appendage emerged and tested the other side of the circle.
What was hidden within the clouds?
"Physical presence contained," C?r?l?a said. "Now quick, she's strong, recite the conditions and terms of your contract before she breaks out. Remember, visualise exactly what you desire as you recite the words."
