It wasn’t too late to walk away, but instead, she strengthened her hold on the ley line to set her containment circle. “Septiens,” she whispered, using the power of the lines to shift a molecule-thin span of reality into the ever-after. A wavering barrier of alternate reality sprang up, rising until it began to fall back in on itself to create a half bubble of containment.
Another half sphere mirrored it under the floor, and she’d already taken pains to ensure that no pipes or electrical lines crossed it, possibly giving the demon a way out. The word to set her circle wasn’t as important as the intent behind it. Any nonsense word would work. Latin was the language of choice because it wasn’t used in regular conversation and the chance of accidentally setting a circle when, say, asking someone to pass the salt was nil.
Tension tightened her jaw, and she retreated to the desk, resolving not to move from it until this was over. She had her ash to draw him in, the candle to direct him where to materialize, and the circle itself to contain him. She’d done all of this before for her final, but the teacher had only a nonsense word to use in place of a demon’s name, and there’d been no danger except of looking like an idiot if her circle hadn’t formed. If she did it wrong now, she’d die. Or worse.
“Facilis descensus Tartaros, Algaliarept,” she whispered, hoping she hadn’t made a mistake and that the word engraved on the stone buried in her grandmother’s ashes was actually a demon’s name and would pull him from the ever-after.
Breath held, she waited. Nothing. Trisk’s shoulders slumped. She shifted her weight to push from the desk, but with a wash of fear, she stopped, stifling a shudder at the blossoming scent of burnt amber, cloying and thick, slightly acidic and sweet in the half-light coming in from the underground field. “The Goddess help me, it worked,” she whispered as she pressed back against the desk, and then louder, “I know you’re here.”
The candle flame hadn’t flickered and the ash was untouched, but she could smell him. Damn it, what if I had dropped my circle?
“Who, little elf, are you?” a bored, masculine voice with a noble British accent said as if from nowhere. “And how, between here and the ever-after, did you get my name?”
Trisk stifled a shudder. He was here. It had worked! Excitement mixed with her fear, and she clasped her arms around herself. “Show yourself and I’ll tell you,” she said boldly, shaking inside. She had summoned a demon. She had summoned a demon!
“You offer me Felecia Ann Barren’s ashes,” her demon intoned, and she grimaced as a haze condensed over the ash. “Are you her daughter, by chance? I never did finish with Annie. I could finish with you.”
“Show yourself,” Trisk demanded, not liking the disembodied voice. Her hands were cold, and she unclenched her jaw. The Goddess help me, I’m talking to a demon!
“Gra-a-a-anddaughter,” the demon said confidently, and Trisk’s attention darted to the malevolent, goat-slitted red eyes that blinked owlishly at her from a haze of nothing. “Felecia Ann Barren would never allow her daughter to be so . . . attractively aggressive.”
The demon chuckled, the sound tripping down her spine to make her squirm. Mouth dry, she watched the haze condense into a man’s shape. Contrary to popular belief, a summoned demon wasn’t her slave. He could vanish at any time and couldn’t stay after sunrise even if he wanted to, but he’d probably indulge an inquiry or two on the chance she’d make a mistake and he would have her body and soul.
“I’ve waited long for someone like you,” Algaliarept said, and like a Cheshire cat, he blinked his red eyes at her from the darkness, hovering a few feet above the floor in the middle of her circle. A wide, blocky-toothed smile was next, and then a disembodied face, his cheekbones strong and his complexion ruddy. He grinned at her, his body a bare hint of a silhouette sitting cross-legged in her circle. “Now that I have found you, I curse the years you waited to call my name. Love.”
Trisk forced her shoulders to relax. If her circle hadn’t been strong enough to contain him, he’d be out by now, dragging her back to the ever-after. “I have a problem,” she said as his shape became more substantial and the shadow of a crushed green velvet frock coat appeared.
“Don’t we all. My God, are those . . . tomatoes? Why are you growing tomatoes underground?” Algaliarept tugged a misty lace from his coat sleeves as he looked past her to the field, lit softly by security lights. More lace appeared at his throat, and with an unheard wave of energy, he became entirely solid, the buckles on his boots shining as he sat beside the ash and candle. He appeared for all the world like a Victorian dandy. Perhaps her grandmother had liked the look, but she thought it silly.
“Tell me your name. You promised, yes?” he said with a disparaging sniff, and round, blue-tinted glasses materialized on his nose. “Don’t be cliché and start our association on lies.”
She forced her arms from around herself. “Felecia Eloytrisk Cambri.”
The demon started. “Annie let her daughter marry that Cambri bastard? No wonder she stopped calling on me.” He sniffed again. “I’d be embarrassed, too.”
Trisk’s lip curled as he found fault with her father. “She didn’t have much choice.”
The demon’s eyes flicked up, finding hers from over his blue-tinted glasses. She felt herself warm as he looked at her brown eyes and dark hair, his silence almost as hard to take as the racial slur he was probably thinking. “Indeed,” he finally said with a pout, brushing at his frock. “Tell me, Felecia Eloytrisk Cambri with the dark hair and eyes, what ails your heart to risk calling me? Ple-e-e-ease tell me you want more than a vanity curse to shift your locks to the color of ripe corn and your eyes to the shade of a verdant valley.”