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It was hard not to laugh. The poor guy was getting a crash course. “Anyway, some humans have those skills—”
“Do you?” he interjected, watching me intently.
I shrugged. “Er, well, yes. Most summoners do the basic stuff.” I glanced at my aunt and then back at Ryan. “I’m still learning, which is the main reason why I summon lately—for lessons. I have a long way to go.”
“She has a lot of innate talent,” Tessa said. “She’s going to be better than me soon.”
I could only stare at my aunt in surprise. I’d never heard her say anything like that before.
“So, the demons can do these wardings and protections too?” Ryan asked.
I dragged my attention back to him. “Yes. In fact, most summoners will just summon a demon to do it for them. Wardings can be pretty tedious and tiring and are usually a real pain in the ass.”
“All right, so a demon is a pretty damn good ally. And I’m assuming a Demonic Lord would be even more powerful?”
Tessa spoke up. “If he intends to summon a Demonic Lord, he knows that there is no offering great enough to compel the lord to submit to conventional bindings. He would have to bind the lord to his will. Enslave him. And someone with a Demonic Lord under his control would be able to rule the world.”
Ryan’s expression turned skeptical. “Oh, come on.”
Tessa lowered her head and regarded him. “Like having a demigod in your hand. An army couldn’t stop him, and he’d certainly be able to raise an army of his own. You know perfectly well that there are many thousands of people who would gladly fall in behind such a powerful entity, no matter the intent of it.”
Ryan shuddered. “God, yes.” He scrubbed a hand through his hair, then frowned, looking at me. “But the lord who came to you—after he broke free of your control, why didn’t he stay and become a ruler here?”
“I think,” I said, speaking slowly as I tried to organize my thoughts, “that for them to be able to stay in this sphere, they have to have some sort of an anchor here, like a permanent invitation, or a summoning and binding. The binding that a summoner does after bringing a demon through a portal is not like arcane manacles but more a means of keeping the demon in this sphere. The demon submits to it because of the offering that the summoner provides.” I glanced at my aunt for confirmation.
“That’s right,” Tessa said. “It’s one thing for them to come through briefly, but staying is more complicated. This is not their world, and without the right protocols, they’ll be drawn back to their own. And the more powerful they are, the more difficult it is for them to stay. But that’s also why a clever and ambitious lord would want to be in this sphere, unfettered. It would be another power base, an easy way to gain enormous amounts of power and status in their own sphere. Without the limitations of their honor code—which would not apply if one were here unrestrained—there would be no reason to not use this world up. Enslave the populace, ravage the resources, drain it of potency, and leave it a dead world if they so desired.”
I rubbed the back of my neck. “That’s a worst-case scenario—”
“But it is a scenario,” Tessa replied with heat. “Demons are utterly self-serving, and their honor is the only reason that their realm has not dissolved into anarchy.”>I abruptly realized I was scowling, but I didn’t make much effort to modify my expression. “I’ve been busy. Remember? Serial killer? I’ll summon again in about a week, on the full.” Then I straightened. “Wait, if he’s gearing up to something big, it’s going to have to be on this month’s full.”
Ryan’s forehead creased in a frown. “Why? What happens after this month? I thought you just needed a full moon to have enough potency for big summonings.”
Tessa shook her head. “The convergence of the two spheres is more important than the phase of the moon. We just came out of a period of a few years where the convergence was so small that it was darn near impossible to summon anything higher than eighth level. Right now the convergence is nearly as high as it can possibly be, but after this month it will start to taper off to more-normal levels.” She nodded her head toward me. “Kara would have been a full summoner some time ago if she hadn’t been forced to wait until the convergence was high enough to allow for a summoning of a twelfth-level demon.”
I could see him mentally filing that information away. “So anyone seeking to summon anything of any decent size or power would do so on this next full moon—which means we have less than a week to catch him.”
I moved to the kitchen and dropped into a chair at the table. “Right. That also means he’s going to be doing more murders between now and then, building up a strong reservoir of power.” I tapped the table thoughtfully. “But I’m hoping that it’s going to be harder for him to find victims. I spent the last few nights going around and showing the other photographs from Cerise’s house, trying to get the word to these people—and everyone else as well—to be careful.”
Tessa’s brows drew together. “Cerise? Greg Cerise?”
I nodded absently, then sat up straight. My aunt didn’t know about him yet. “Oh, shit, Aunt Tessa. I forgot that you knew him.”
Tessa sat down slowly, eyes on me. “Knew? You’re speaking in past tense, sweets.”
“Shit. I’m sorry, Aunt Tessa.” I hesitated, but there was no easy way to break this sort of news. “He’s dead. I’m so sorry.”
Tessa looked down at the table. “What happened?” she asked, voice calm and even.
“Symbol Man,” Ryan said quietly. “We think that Greg was somehow connected to him. We found pictures, photographs, and drawings of all the victims plus several others who we haven’t been able to identify yet.”
Tessa pursed her lips, silent. I looked at her with a tinge of worry. I knew that my aunt had been close to Greg when they were younger, but had they still been close?
“Greg wasn’t a summoner,” Tessa finally said.
I flicked a quick glance to Ryan before looking back to my aunt. “Yes, I know. I went to talk to him a while back, asking about that comic—trying to find out more about Rhyzkahl. I really hadn’t thought there was any connection between Greg and the Symbol Man at that time. But then one of the other agents on the task force made the connection between Symbol Man victims and characters in Greg’s comic. We got a search warrant, and …” I sighed. “When we made entry, we found Greg dead and then found pictures of all the victims.”
Her expression was bleak as she looked at me. “Do you think he helped kill those people?”
