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“I figure it’s worth checking out.”
“I can rearrange my schedule to make that work.” Might as well let him think I was doing him a big favor. The truth was, after the near-disaster with my valve, I needed to get out to the plantation ASAP to make sure the valve node there remained secured and relatively stable.
“Meet me at the police station,” he said. “I’ll drive.”
“Works for me. See you then.” I started to disconnect, but hesitated when I didn’t hear the expected “bye” or “see ya” from Pellini. “Is there somethi
ng else?”
“Uh,” he said then cleared his throat awkwardly. Oh, crapsticks, I thought in sudden desperation. Please don’t let him ask me out for a beer again!
“Did you, uh, hear about the dog?” he said instead, as if we were making small talk over coffee at Grounds for Arrest. “The one animal control shot today?”
The kitten crawled off my lap to investigate a cozy spot beside my leg. “I heard a little on the radio,” I said, doing my best to keep my voice casual. “What about it?” And why on earth was Pellini bringing it up to me?
“The, uh, dog showed up outside the station and scared the shit out of a clerk, then ran when a couple of officers came out,” Pellini said. “I couldn’t get outside quick enough to do anything. Animal control tracked him all the way to Leelan Park and tried to tranq him, but it didn’t work.” His voice carried a definite edge of distress and none of the confrontational air of the beginning of the conversation. “They shot him.”
Him, I noted. Not it. Pellini sounded as if the incident affected him on a personal level. Was he a total softy when it came to animals?
“I know they wouldn’t have killed it if there’d been any other way to stop it,” I said as I filtered everything he’d told me. Given that the kzak first showed up at the police station, I had a sneaking suspicion it had arrived through the valve in the parking lot there. I stuck the PD at the top of my mental list of valves to check. It wasn’t a long list, but it was a start.
Perhaps the kzak had been trying to escape through another valve? If so, it might have disappeared because it succeeded rather than because it died.
“They didn’t find its body,” I said in an attempt to reassure him. “Maybe they missed, and he got away.”
“Yeah, I guess,” he said, still sounding oddly distraught.
What did he expect me to say? You see, Pellini, it was actually a demon, not a doggie. So don’t worry. There’s a good chance it’s safe at home in the demon realm now.
It turned out I didn’t have to formulate a response. Pellini gave me a curt “See you at one o’clock tomorrow” and disconnected. I scowled at the phone. Obviously, he saved all his warm fuzzy niceness for animals.
Fillion mewed up at me pitifully. “Yes, I’m quite sure he’d like you,” I told him. “How could he not?” The kitten clambered over my leg and let out another mew. “I hear you. I’m hungry too. Let’s go take care of that.”
The door swung open before I could move. With a menacing growl, Fuzzykins leaped onto the bed, hissed at me, snatched Fillion by the scruff of the neck, jumped down, and stalked out.
Didn’t matter. I got snuggle time in before she took him back. Grinning in triumph, I pushed back the covers only to find the surprise darling Fillion had left for me. I pursed my lips and regarded the damp spot on my comforter, then shrugged, yanked it off the bed, and trooped to the laundry room.
How could I be mad? I got to sleep with a kitten.
Chapter 5
Two hours later I chalked the final sigil of my diagram onto the concrete of the basement floor. Until I mastered all eleven levels of the shikvihr ritual, I was limited to using chalk on Earth rather than floating sigils. Not only did it take far longer with chalk to ready a diagram, but chalk tended to be less forgiving since it couldn’t be easily altered during a summoning. Harder to clean up, too.
I stood to better scrutinize each mark and examine the pattern as a whole. No room for errors, not when summoning a demonic lord. Even a willing one. It would suck to get ripped apart by the portal because I forgot a squiggle here or a swoop there.
Satisfied with the diagram, I moved to the heavy oak table and dropped the chalk into the large wooden cigar box that held my summoning implements. On impulse, I leaned close to the box and inhaled. The aroma of incense and candle wax triggered memories of the first time I summoned a demon, here in this basement, with my aunt guiding, encouraging, and supporting. I’d been completely terrified, hands shaking and voice little more than a squeak, yet the triumph when the demon appeared within my circle had been the greatest I’d ever felt in my life. In that moment I knew this was my calling. I was special, gifted, and destined to be more.
I chuckled softly at the naïve certainty of my younger self. Oh, I’d been destined for more, all right, though not the “more” I expected. Yet even though I’d been through unimaginable hell, I couldn’t regret becoming a summoner. My life before summoning had, frankly, sucked ass. Orphaned, acting out, and doing a variety of self-destructive stupid shit. Summoning had literally given me a new life.
The wooden box held a few other items as well. Two tiny bottles of oil—sandalwood and neroli—which I used with chalk and blood for the central sigils. A shallow blood collection bowl that hadn’t seen use in years. Though I now had far more skill in making a cut in the midst of ritual, I couldn’t bear the thought of tossing out the bowl. And, finally, my ritual knife. Nothing fancy—a simple buck knife with a wooden handle and a five inch single-edged blade in a plain leather sheath. But Aunt Tessa had given me that knife before my first summoning, and I’d never used any other for an Earthside ritual.
I picked up the knife, suddenly wistful. If I ever mastered the shikvihr I’d have no more need to shed blood for basic summonings, and the knife would become as obsolete as the bowl. I squared my shoulders. No, not “if.” When I mastered the shikvihr. So what if I had no idea when I’d be able to return to the demon realm for more training—or if Mzatal would be available to train me. I’d already achieved the seventh ring, and I damn well intended to get the rest.
The scent of cured tobacco mingled with the other aromas, and I smiled as older memories rose. My grandfather, Mike Pazhel, sitting on the front steps of this house with a cigar between two fingers, grinning and opening his arms to me as I ran to him after my first day of kindergarten. Walks through the woods with my hand in his as he pointed out wildlife and spun fantastic stories of the secret lives of the squirrels and birds and raccoons. He’d built this house with my grandmother, Gracie, who’d died a year before I was born. The cover story blamed a freak water heater explosion, but in fact Rhyzkahl had killed her along with four other summoners during a botched summoning of Szerain.
After her death the family fell apart. My grandfather tried to drown his sorrows in whiskey, my mom ran off and married my dad, who she’d been dating for two years, and Tessa left for Japan to study under Katashi. Mom got pregnant with me only a few months later and, due to financial circumstances, she and my dad ended up moving back into this house. My grandfather quit drinking, and for eight years I had the advantage of growing up with a loving family. Then my mother died of ovarian cancer, and less then two months later a heart attack claimed my beloved grandfather. Three years after that, a drunk driver killed my father, which indirectly started me on the path to becoming a summoner.
I unsheathed the knife and closed the box. Time to get down to business.
