She frowned a little, walked over, and gave him a pat on the arm. “Oh honey, you look tired. Those kids of yours giving you a hard time? You know I keep telling you that you need to get out more. Relieve some stress. You can’t make your job your whole life. You need to find some nice young woman—or man—to get your mind off things.”
She winked at him lasciviously, which was more than a little creepy. “You know I heard there’s a sex club that opened up in the city. A nice little orgy might be just what you need.”
“Grams,” he groaned out.
“I’m just saying. Sex is healthy. Just make sure you use protection.” She paused, thinking a moment. “And you kids might want to clear my browser history without looking at it when I’m gone. Just a heads up.”
“You’re never dying,” he scoffed. “You’re like a virus. You’ll live forever, infecting people with your cheer and insane ideas.”
“Oh, honey,” she beamed, “you say the sweetest things. But,” she continued, all business now, “I do need some help. This stock pot is simply too heavy, and it’s a dud, so I need the contents disposed of, and I just can’t lift it.” And then she smiled at him.
Gabe did not trust that smile. Not even a little bit.
“I just need you to go pour it out in the backyard. Go out past the vegetables and away from the trees please. And make sure you pour it in a good circle to deactivate it. You remember what happened the last time it was poured out in a line.”
Gabe shuddered. He had blocked out the locust incident until she brought it up. That had been Serphina’s fault, because she’d been in her teenage phase of doing a half-assed job at everything, and they’d found the bugs all over for days. He squirmed a little thinking of them crawling into his clothes.
“A closed circle, Grams. I got it,” he sighed out.
He went to grab the stock pot, but she put a hand up. “One more thing,” she said, walking over to the table, writing something on a piece of parchment, and then walking over to drop it into the pot. She brushed her hands together. “All set!” she smiled.
He still didn’t trust that smile.
She frowned at him. “I just had to deactivate it. Now go on. Don’t keep it waiting. Never know what will happen if you do,” she scolded.
So he grabbed the pot by the handles, which mysteriously always stayed cool to the touch. He studiously avoided looking at the contents. He didnotwant to know. It was heavy, but he kept in decent shape, and he managed to lug it out to the yard without spilling a drop. By the time he got to the back of the property, he was puffing a bit, but he stopped, rested the pot on the ground, and caught his breath.
Best not to rush these things.
He planned out the circle, picked up the pot, and started walking and pouring over the slight lip on the side of the pot, being careful not to splash it up onto himself. It was hard work with a full pot, but by halfway around the circle it was lighter and easier. He kept the same pace anyway, being sure not to say anything or even think too hard about anything other than forming a circle. The liquid was a red color, but he tried not to notice too much. Although it did smell really good. He couldn’t figure out exactly like what, either. Sometimes it was like fresh baked cookies, sometimes he got a whiff of cinnamon, or vanilla, and even fresh rain and the smell of an autumn morning was in there.
He timed it perfectly to finish the circle with the last bit of liquid. He stepped back, put the pot on the ground, and admired the rather perfect circle he had poured out.
The rather perfect circle that was still clearly visible since the liquid was not seeping into the ground.
The rather perfect circle that was now shimmering slightly inside, and where there was no longer any grass, just dirt.
The rather perfect circle that quite suddenly had a man standing inside of it. He was tall, probably over six feet, with black hair, a sculpted, somewhat androgynous face that was all sharp angles, and a lean body. He appeared to be wearing leather pants, but he was barefoot with no shirt. Gabe could appreciate that the guy was aesthetically pleasing and beautiful, like a work of art.
The guy cocked his hip a little and was lazily smirking at Gabe. It was the sinful smirk that gave him away, because there were certainly no horns, or a tail, or the odd skin color.
“Grams,” he yelled, “you’ve summoned a demon again.”
Chapter2
Asmodeus
Az had been enjoying Limbo, the party place to be in the afterlife, hoping for some possible voyeurism with his favorite human-demon couple (ok, the only human-demon couple he knew), when he’d felt the pull of a summoning.
Technically, Az shouldn't have been able to be summoned. He was an Infernal King of Hell, after all; one did not just summon an Infernal King of Hell. At least not against his will. Of course, people tried over the years, or screwed up summonings, and Az got to make the choice on whether he showed up or not.
He’d had quite a bit of fun in the past surprising people, and he didn’t mind the occasional visit topside. Plus, humans could be fun to play with; they were usually so repressed, and he enjoyed making them lose all their inhibitions.
And no summoning circle could technically hold him, so he was never concerned about that.
Of course, he couldn’t technically beforcedinto a summoning either.
But… he hadn’t had a choice. He had played it off to Minos and Arioch, the demons he was with in Limbo when he started to disapparate, but the pull had been something he couldn’t avoid. Whether he wanted to or not, he was going topside.
