Page 14 of Hounded: Ashes to Ashes

I took out a piece of chalk and knelt inside the salt circle, drawing sharp, straight lines punctuated with arcane symbols. It looked a bit like. Binary code for demons. Every tick and dot meant something, but not to me.

Sully directed me to one side, then the other. It became an elaborate game of Twister not to smear the powdery white lines by dragging my knees or bare toes through them. My head throbbed dully as memories continued to filter in, making it increasingly hard to focus.

When I finished, I hauled myself to standing and tucked the stick of chalk behind my ear. My hair was greasy from sweat, and I desperately needed a shower, but hygiene could wait. I had a date with a demon.

Sully donned her glasses and was skimming the text as I crept up beside her. I watched while she mouthed the words, silently rehearsing for what looked to be a hell of a monologue.

I waited for a long moment while picking at the chipped paint on my nails. When it seemed that she’d reached a stopping point, I cleared my throat and asked, “How does this work, exactly?”

She dragged up a small table with a pillar candle on it. “This is a timer; that is a cage.” Her finger pointed first at the candle, then at the sigil circle I’d drawn on the floor. “When the demoness appears, she will be confined inside that space until the candle burns out. We have that much time to make our request and plead our case.”

Leaning around her, I scrutinized the candle. Squatty and thick, it had enough wax to burn for a couple of hours, I imagined, but had to ask, “How much time?”

Sully tipped her head from side to side in a noncommittal shake. “It varies.”

I quirked a brow.

“It’s her power versus mine,” Sully explained. “Like a battle of wills. I try to keep the candle lit, she tries to put it out, and we hope we’ve convinced her before she does.”

Probably not hours, then.

I stood, nibbling my lip until Sully patted my shoulder.

“You ready?” she asked.

“As I’ll ever be.”

After adjusting her spectacles, Sully consulted the spellbook again. Then, it began.

She spoke in a deep intonation, reading from the page while my attention alternated between her and the sigils on the floor. They matched up with the illustration as best I could tell, though we hadn’t discussed what would happen if they didn’t.

I was beginning to fear the worst, the nothing, when the ground began to rumble. It shuddered underfoot, toppling candles and spilling wax in streams and puddles. The flamesdied one by one, and Sully kept reading. Her expression grew stern, or maybe strained, like the words were hard to force out.

Smoke kicked up in a tornadic swirl. It was faint at first, then grew heavier as the incantation continued. More than the sight was the stink of rotten eggs that made my stomach lurch. I waved my hand to fan away the stench while squinting through the cloud that gradually coalesced into the form of a woman in a burgundy dress. Inky black hair spilled to her waist, and her dark brows and eyes looked almost ghoulish as she aimed them at me.

Sully muffled a gasp as the spellbook hit the floor with a thump. The fat pillar candle beside her flickered to life. Its flame wavered in the dead air.

The demoness smiled, flashing a pair of fanged teeth like a vampire. Her gaze flicked from me to Sully and back again, seemingly deciding who to address. After another moment’s debate, she targeted Sully, who had removed her glasses and hung them over the collar of her pajama top.

“You rang?” The demoness indicated the grimoire lying open on the ground.

She didn’t budge from inside the sigil circle, didn’t move at all besides smoothing her hands over her hips and causing the fabric to shimmer.

Rather than wait for Sully’s reply, I cleared my throat and stepped forward. “You’re Moira, right?”

Her crimson eyes glittered. “I am.”

Memories clawed at me, thoughts of phone calls that made Loren shrivel and shrink. Visions of him returning from Hell only to lock himself in our bathroom and shower until I thought he’d scrubbed his skin off. That’s what he’d been doing in the trailer park bathhouse the day I walked in on him. I knew it now. I recognized the look on his face. Shellshock and shame. It was her fault.

I set my jaw and glowered at the demoness.

“You know Loren?” I asked.

She blinked once, twice, and then her slim brows drew together. “Lorenzo?”

He didn’t like that name.

“Loren,” I repeated, and I hoped she felt the chill in my voice.

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