Summoning Trouble, page 20
“Bodarks were a type of sorcerer eons ago. They found a way to alter the bones in their face, so they don’t need potions or masks to alter their appearance, they just rearrange the bones. Some of the best bodarks could do it to the bones of their bodies too, allowing them to become taller or shorter. It’s considered dark magic, and everything associated with it is in the AESPCA archives,” Raphael said.
“Perhaps we should have better screening procedures for allowing access to the AESPCA archives,” I quipped.
“That’s been done,” Remiel said. “Unfortunately, when it is done people as a group begin forgetting things. Like we didn’t realize they stopped teaching that demons were the reincarnation of supernatural souls after death, until we realized you didn’t know. That level of forgetting even dark magic is bad.”
“Okay, then perhaps we need to screen prospective AESPCA agents better or put some of Raphael’s magic into the spells at the door, so people with bad intentions set off alarms,” I suggested. “Like you do with the possessed.”
“That is a good idea, actually,” Magda said. “Although I’m not sure how to do it.”
“That seems like a Penelope and Raphael conversation once we’ve gotten this mess cleaned up,” I said.
“So, are you done with me?” Zack asked.
“No. Do you know his name?” I asked.
“All I know is he’s part angel,” Zack said. “He wasn’t ever a member of BEDR. I’ve only met him once, when one of their members who used to belong to BEDR came to me to see about combining groups. But like you said, BEDR’s goals and their goals were incompatible, and I passed on the offer. Also, I don’t think you’re wrong, they are crackpots.” I smiled at him. In truth, I considered Zack and all members of BEDR to be crackpots, just not as threatening as this other group. “Some of our members did leave to join them, but they were actively recruiting members who had angel blood.”
“Yeah,” I sighed. “Between you and me, Zack, I think they want to unleash demons on Earth, so that angels can save the world from demons, and be worshipped as though we were demi-gods or something.”
“Since we’re doing the quid pro quo thing, I will tell you Francesca ranted a few times that her uncles had saved people from demons and didn’t get the credit they deserved for it. Instead, people feared them, instead of worshipping them as they should have. And the other archangels were treated just like ordinary people, but they weren’t, they were far superior, just look at all her dad and uncles could do. She didn’t leave BEDR voluntarily, she was forced out by the other members who got tired of listening to her talk about how great her family was,” he said, and then he blushed and looked around quickly.
“Well, I wouldn’t say our family isn’t great, but I can definitely agree it would get annoying to hear more than once,” Raphael said with a smile.
“So, why did she join BEDR?” I asked.
“I was never able to figure it out,” Zack said. “None of us knew, and then when she was asked to leave, she took most of the members with even a little angel in them with her and formed her own group.”
“Thank you,” I said, offering to shake hands. “I think we can return you to your apartment via portal if you want.”
“I know we have our differences, but I don’t want to see demons running around unconstrained,” Zack said, and I realized he was not currently possessed. He had been at each of our other meetings.
“Zack, where’s your normal demon companion?” I asked.
“There’s been a glitch with possessions lately. We are getting demons we didn’t summon coming through. Most of the members are stuck in the hospital unable to exorcize their demons, who all seem to belong to Belial,” Zack told me. “I was one of the lucky ones.”
“I know BEDR is very tight-lipped about how it performs its possessions, but I think I need to know,” I said. “Especially if something has gone wrong.”
“We use a mix of potions created by one of our members, it is a combination lust potion and summoning potion to ensure we get a specific type of demon,” Zack said.
“Huh, is your potion maker reliable?” I asked.
“Since summoning potions are regulated by the AESPCA, yes. We have to buy them from the AESPCA, and because of who we are, the AESPCA makes special batches for our use,” Zack said. “We’ve been trying to get a meeting with the head of their potion-making department but without any luck. We think they must have changed our usual potion-maker and this new one isn’t as good at lust potions.”
“I will personally look into it,” Magda Red told him, and he smiled weakly.
“Soleil don’t tell anyone I told you,” Zack said. “I can see myself losing my position over it.”
“Our lips are sealed,” I told him. Magda took another moment and then opened a portal into Zack’s apartment. He immediately stepped through; probably glad he hadn’t been seen with us.
“Do you believe him?” Samael asked.
“Yes. Isn’t Penelope head of the potion-making department as well as in charge of something to do with the magic security?” I asked Magda.
“Not exactly. Penelope is in charge of potions made for the AESPCA. She has some oversight for the potions for commercial sale, but it’s only oversight.”
“Meaning the person in charge of making potions for commercial resale answers to her,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Someone should definitely go speak with them,” I said. Damn. Zack had already left, and the portal closed. I should have asked if his fellow BEDRs were being held in the St. C. County Hospital possession ward. There was a flap of wings above me, and Haniel landed.
“I think I found them,” he said with a pant, and then collapsed on the ground near my feet. Jerome got to work immediately and found the bullet hole in Haniel’s wing. It had struck a wing spine, damaging it. I looked around for the jug of antivenom I’d been carrying for what felt like days and found it sitting in the grass, against the wall beside my garage. I didn’t remember putting it down there, exactly, but I also wasn’t surprised to find it there. I grabbed it and immediately pulled out the stopper. For the third time in four hours, I let a drop of the antivenom fall from it onto someone who was injured. Wings require a great deal of blood circulation, and because of this when one is damaged, they bleed profusely, and it takes a while for the blood to circulate out of them and into the rest of the body. I felt this might slow the antivenom process, and if he was collapsing the venom was obviously already circulating in his body, probably because he had been flying. I decided to drop a little on the skin of his face to ensure the antivenom was circulated throughout his entire system fast enough to prevent major damage.
After a few minutes, he sat up. He blinked and looked around a few times. Then he lay back down on the grass and stared up for several minutes.
“I wasn’t sure I was going to make it back,” Haniel said after a few more minutes. “I don’t know what they did to that bullet but man. I feel terrible.”
“They dipped them in basilisk venom,” I said. “Hence why I went and milked a basilisk today. So, you’re going home to rest after you tell us where you think they are.”
“Yes, and don’t protest. I’ll have Sophia bring you some of her healing chicken noodle soup to help you feel more like yourself faster. She was already making a batch to give some to Michael,” Raphael said.
“She’s a good woman.” I heard a touch of sadness in Haniel’s voice as he said this. I looked at him and then at my father, a bit askance. I added it to my ever-growing list of things to ask about when I had the time and guts. “There’s a cluster of small slab houses set up in a circle around a barn. It’s about three miles southeast of Red Bud,” Haniel told us. I admitted that was an odd configuration for houses. “That’s where I was when I was shot. A few of the people I saw had wings; I’m guessing seraphim by the look of it from my position above. None of them flew off after me, though, as I expected.”
The seraphim suffer a strange condition. They have wings, and they can be large, but sometimes they fail to be large enough to carry the person in flight. The reason my father and his brother’s wings were so incredibly huge were because the larger wings were needed to create lift, especially if they were carrying something. Seraphim wings averaged six feet from tip to attachment, but that wasn’t always wide enough to lift them off the ground. This was the difference between flight and gliding; once in the air, wings that were twelve feet wide tip to tip allowed them to stay aloft but getting off the ground was a problem. A lot of times they needed help by jumping off tall structures such as water towers. In comparison, just one of my father’s wings was fourteen feet from tip to attachment. Before Belial tried to eat me, mine had come in at a whopping ten feet long each. For someone who was just over five and a half feet tall and 145 pounds, I had been able to get lift. A seraph could have glided from one tall structure to another and then jumped off the water tower to make their escape, which would explain why the police didn’t find the lock on the stairs had been tampered with.
Using satellite maps on our phones, Magda and I identified the place Haniel had been shot. Now for the great debate, did we open a portal directly onto the property, which I was referring to as a farm, or did we open the portal a little way away and walk to it? Since they had shot Haniel, we’d probably lost the element of surprise. If the universe had been conspiring in our favor, there would have either been a new moon tonight or it would have been cloudy, sadly it was neither, so yeah, it was unlikely they would be surprised by our arrival regardless of what we chose. That made me think we should portal in behind one of the houses and just go to it. Raphael was in favor of a stealthier approach from a short distance.
“Well, while you were gone, we voted and it was pretty unanimous that Soleil was in charge,” Helia told Raphael. “If you’d been here, would you have voted for a different group leader? Probably not. So, we do what the person in charge wants to do.”
“We do. I can’t look after Jerome and you,” I said. “So, you get to stay here until we have everyone in handcuffs or magical shackles or something and then Magda will open a portal and you can join us.” I told my sister, taking her hand.
“Yeah. No.” Helia shook her head. “I’m fine with staying toward the back and doing what you tell me, but I’m the head of the council and it’s not legal if I’m not there,” my sister told me, squeezing my hand.
“No.” I said sternly.
“Yes.” She was just as determined. “This is non-negotiable. I have to be there to make it all legal and whatnot. If you bulldoze in there without me, even if you get the right person, we can’t prosecute unless I go with you.”
“Seriously?” I asked the other angels around me.
“She’s correct,” Raphael said frowning, and I knew it was true just looking at our father’s face. Two of his daughters would have to be in danger to pull this off.
“Okay, here’s the deal. I want Jerome stuck to one side of Angel and you stuck to the other side. Do you understand? You do not take a single step unless Angel does. The added benefit is that as a hellhound she absorbs most magic that comes toward her. If you’re standing next to her, it won’t affect you, either.” I really wanted to take a few more minutes to jump across the divide and grab a couple of demons and their armor and come back and put it on Helia and Jerome and maybe my dad and maybe my uncles. I wasn’t sure what demon armor did, but I was positive it was good stuff. However, I knew I couldn’t do that. For starters, I expected the demons to protest and then I’d need them to do the attaching and it would take a while and yeah... just not feasible. But the urge was still strong.
Chapter Eighteen
Magda opened a portal and we all stepped through. They were waiting for us. Magic spells began flying in all directions. The magic was a binding spell, but it was too weak, and none of us were affected even if hit full on. Angel growled and leapt forward at one of the women close to her. Helia and Jerome, to their credit, just stood there. Then someone started firing an automatic rifle at us. That was not okay. Even if I did have antivenom, I did not want to get shot again. The first time had been painful enough. I did what I was good at. I summoned all of Leviathan’s hellhounds. Hellhounds are not just immune to magic: they are impervious to physical harm. They could be shot hundreds of times and not one bullet would get past their skin or even leave a scrape. Angel is small for a hellhound, and yet still the size of a bear. Leviathan had created roughly two dozen larger hell hounds and I brought over all of them. They appeared between us and the people of the commune and suddenly the chaos became even worse as their group screamed and turned to flee. I gave the hellhounds orders to surround and herd them into a group but forbade them from eating either the people or their souls.
For their part, the people were doing everything they could think of to protect themselves from the hellhounds. They lobbed potions at them. A few tried magic spells and five of them opened fire with guns. I wasn’t sure if hellhounds were immune to basilisk venom, but I did have antivenom, as did Leviathan, so I wasn’t that concerned about it. I just stood there and waited, as did the rest of my group. Seriously, nine people, even if they were all supernatural, against twenty-plus hellhounds, the odds were not in their favor. A large female hellhound picked up one of the supernaturals holding a gun and shook him like a dog with a toy until he dropped the gun. It was unlikely to kill the supernatural, but it couldn’t be fun or comfortable to be shaken like that.
It took maybe five minutes and the shaking of three people for the group to decide to surrender. This was about two minutes and one shake earlier than I expected. Everyone dropped their weapons and knelt down on the ground. As Helia surveyed the group, she identified five angels, two of them seraphim.
“We can make this easy. I want to know who shot Haniel and where your leader is,” Helia told them.
“And who their leader is, since he can change his face,” I added.
“Fine. You give me that and I won’t have all of you arrested for treason against the throne,” Helia said to them. “Perhaps I need to remind you that treason against the throne is a long stay in the third plane. By the time you’re released, your descendants, if you have any, will be ancient. Also, once in the third plane, losing the will to live doesn’t work. There is absolutely no way to die there.” There was no time in the third plane, which somehow prevented death, even if someone tried to die. I found it more mysterious than the Stygian, so I mostly ignored its existence.
“I shot at the angel overhead; I didn’t know it was Haniel,” a man said.
“You forget, I’m a mind reader,” Remiel said.
“Your intentions are good, but protecting each other won’t help you,” Raphael added, and I finally had evidence of how the powers of the archangels worked together.
“Also, your cause is pointless,” Gabriel added. “Angels aren’t divine. We are not more special than anyone else.”
“We came first,” one of the women said.
“Yes, but only because something had to come first,” Gabriel replied. “Also, that is not a complete picture. Demons actually came first. Before the creation of the Stygian, the archangels were in talks with Asmodeus the Demon King to find out where we came from because only he was alive for it. After the angels came other supernaturals, but third on the evolutionary list was mortals. Mortals were walking around before fairies, before shifters, and even before vampires. So does that mean mortals have more social standing than shifters or fairies?”
“Mortals,” someone grumbled.
“Yes, mortals. Those fragile creatures with almost no magic to them came before the supernaturals with glamour,” Raphael said.
“If you lot think twenty some hellhounds are fearsome, imagine what this world will be like when there are thousands of demons running around without the need to possess anyone to have a body,” I said.
“But we have you to protect the throne,” the same woman said.
“No, you don’t. I have Stygian magic. If the demons are no longer in the Stygian and no longer need possession to have bodies, what the hell am I going to do to protect anyone?” I asked seriously. “I don’t know what your leader has been telling you, but it’s bullshit. Complete bullshit. On Earth, I’m just an exorcist. I can summon demons and some creatures, and I can send them back, but unless they want to obey me, they don’t have to. That is why I summoned hellhounds and not something else. Hellhounds are scary as fuck, but they are also dogs, loyal and obedient.” As I said this, Angel came over and nuzzled me. “They are just giant, terrifying, scary fucking dogs who won’t eat you, because they want to please their master.”
“But you commanded a demon army,” one of them said.
“Yes, in the Stygian,” I said. “I can call the demon army a hell of a lot easier than the hellhounds, but the only reason a demon army would listen to me on this plane is because they wanted to, not because they had to.” This was way oversimplifying things and possibly not completely true, but I didn’t want these people to think I might be some sort of savior if they brought about the combining of planes.
“But he says you can. He told us you milked a basilisk today!” the woman who had muttered about mortals said.
“I did, but he left some very important information out. I didn’t capture the basilisk, it was brought to me by the hell princes, because they can’t milk it themselves, and they needed the antivenom as badly as we did,” I said.
“Why would he lie to us?” the woman asked.
“I don’t know, but he has. They say actions speak louder than words,” I said, and then I took a breath. “You think I can save you, but I can’t.” I spread my arms, turning my palms toward my group of people and motioned for them to step back. Remiel and Jerome, both capable of reading minds, began to move them back physically. Angel stood next to me, his kin encircling the group. After another heartbeat, I sent word to the Stygian that I was about to summon the pizza brigade for a mass possession and to work with me and not hurt anyone. It would probably be okay. Another heartbeat and suddenly the pizza brigade demon spirits appeared before me and immediately began searching for hosts among those who faced me. To my surprise and delight, none of them turned around and ran past me, heading toward my friends and family. I shouted halt, but the demons didn’t listen to me, and they took up residence within those across from me. I shouted again for them to stop and come out, and again they ignored me. The horror of what was happening began to dawn on the faces of the people across from me as they realized I was powerless to stop the possessions. It was showy, and it was also a lie, but that was not my problem.
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