You Slay Me (9 page)

"Chalk, purified water, salt, ash, a compass, and a copper wax stick. Copper? Are you sure?"

I nodded. Everyone knew those medieval guys were more than a little bit gold obsessed. As long as the stick looked goldish, the demon wouldn't know I hadn't used actual gold.

"This ash is not dead man's ash," Amelie said, turning the label to face me.

"Yeah, I know, but ash is ash."

She pursed her lips, and her glance flickered toward the bottle of water. "Holy water is more beneficial, I believe."

"It's also more expensive," I said, reading over the faxed sheet. "Oh, do you have a copy of
The Book of Sacred Magic
by Abramelin the Mage? My copy is back home."

Silently she plucked a small book off a bookshelf and handed it to me.

"Thanks. That's everything, then."

She eyed me for a moment before moving to an antique cash register. "I hope you know what you're doing."

"You and me both," I said under my breath, then gave her a toothy grin when she looked questioningly at me.

Two hours later I chalked a circle about three feet across on the carpet in my hotel room, being careful to leave a break in the circle so it wasn't closed. I finally understood what it was Drake had been asking me when he wanted to know if the circle at Mme. Deauxville's was closed or not.

"Too bad I didn't read the instructions on how to summon a demon until now," I mumbled to myself as I used the salt to retrace the circle widdershins. "Maybe I could have figured out whether or not that circle had been used. Ah well. Onward and upward. Let's see ..." I gnawed on my lower lip as I read the slightly blurry fax. I'd begged Beth to copy a chapter out of one of the books I seldom looked at because it consisted solely of recipe-like instructions on summoning various demons, something that until now was strictly an academic rather than practical interest.

"Add a pinch of dead man's ash to a tablespoon of holy water, mix thoroughly, bake until done, frost if desired." I snickered to myself and then looked back at the sheet, tapping it as I read. 'Trace the twelve symbols of one of the demon lords with a scribe of gold, followed by the four symbols of the demon you wish to summon-using the ash of a branch that has lain across a grave. Well, I'm going with a copper wax stick and plain old ash rather than a gold scribe and dead man's ash, but I'm sure it'll be good enough. Now, who shall I try for?"

I pulled out the book I'd purchased at Amelie's and browsed through the listings of demon lords and the demons who made up each of their legions. There were eight demon lords (also known as the princes of Hell), each of whom had their own strengths and weaknesses. Since this was my first time summoning up a demon, I felt that it was better to go with one of the lesser lords. The one who caught my eye was called Amaymon—he was supposedly known for his fiery, poisonous breath.

"Sounds right up Drake's alley," I said, flipping through the chapters to find one of Amaymon's demons. "Hmm. 'Effrijim: one who quivers in a horrible manner.' That doesn't sound too scary. Beats the pants off of the demon who's known for decaying in liquid putrefaction."

I drew the demon lord's symbols with the copper stick, hoping while I did so that the symbols would come out of the rug with a little soap and water, then used the ash to draw the demon Efrrijim's symbols. "All right, showtime," I said, preparing to close the circle. According to the instructions, it was very important that the circle be closed properly ... which meant blood. I took the pin from the complimentary hotel sewing kit and pricked the end of my finger, closing the circle with a smear of blood.

The second the blood touched the carpet, the air within the circle began to shimmer. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end in response, the hum of charged power within the circle so disconcerting, I came close to rubbing out the chalk lines in order to destroy whatever it was that I had started, but I thought of Drake and Inspector Proust and Beth and even my Uncle Damian, and knew I had to finish it.

Standing before the circle, I used the compass to align myself so I could call up the quarters. I turned first to the east. The book said to draw a protective ward, but I had no idea what that was, so I just sketched a peace symbol in the air. "Guardian of the towers of the east, I summon you to guard this circle."

Turning south, I drew a peace symbol for that direction as I spoke the appropriate words. "Guardian of the tower of the south, I summon you to guard this circle."

I repeated the process for the two remaining quarters, finishing with the words that would summon the demon to me. "I conjure thee, Effrijim, by the power of thy lord Amaymon, also called the bringer of fire, creator of all things poisonous, to appear before me now without noise and terror. I summon thee, Effrijim, to answer truly all questions that I shall ask thee. I command thee, Effrijim, to my will by the virtue of my power. By my hand thy shall be bound, by my blood thy shall be bound, by my voice thy shall be bound!"

There was a blue crackle of static in the air; then a noxious thick black smoke poured out of the circle. I crawled toward the window, coughing and hacking, throwing the windows open wide, leaning my upper body outside to drag deep, gasping breaths of air into my lungs. Wisps of black smoke wafted over my head, slowly dissipating into the afternoon breeze that came up from the Seine. I coughed out the last of the demon smoke, then turned back to the room, waving the smoke out of my way so I could see my demon.

A black dog sat in the circle. A large hairy black dog. One that slobbered.

"A dog?" I said, plopping in a surprised heap next to the window. "I summoned up a
dog?"

"I'm not just
any
dog," the animal snarled, its pink tongue flashing as it spoke. My eyes widened as I realized that the words came from its black lips. "What, are you, blind? I'm a Newfoundland! That's like royalty among dogs!"

The dog was talking to me? "Uh ... you're a
Newfie
?
You're a demon who's a
Newfie?"

The demon sniffed in an irritated manner and licked its shoulder. "We prefer the word
Newfoundland,
thank you."

I summoned up a polite demon Newfie? I shook my head. Something was very wrong here. "Demon, what is thy name?"

"Jim," it answered in a surly tone.

I closed my eyes for a moment. Oh, wasn't that just fine and dandy. I risked my eternal soul to summon up a demon, and I got Jim the Newfie. "Jim? That's it, just Jim?"

"Well, the whole thing is Effrijim, but I prefer Jim. Effrijim sounds a bit girly."

I nodded. I mean, what else could I do? Argue with it?

Jim. I had a demon dog named Jim. I looked at the sheets Beth had faxed me. Maybe she had left out a page and I'd missed a step?

"This place is pathetic," Jim said, looking around at the hotel room with a sneer on its doggy lips. "You're like, what, a pauper?"

"This is a three-star hotel, and my financial status is of . no concern to you," I said absently, flipping through the sheets. It looked like I had done everything correctly ... perhaps it was the few shortcuts I'd taken on supplies that left me with what appeared to be the bottom of the barrel, demonically speaking. "You're sure you're a demon? You're one of the demon lord Amaymon's servants?"

Jim rolled its eyes. "An extremely handsome and impressive specimen of the Newfoundland breed materializes in the middle of your shoddy hotel room, and you ask if I'm a demon? Oh, I can tell my time with you is going to be one long joyride."

I thinned my lips at it. "Look, I've got enough problems in my life without a crabby demon trying to lay a guilt trip on me. Just answer my questions."

The demon's face took on a martyred look. "Yes, I'm a demon."

"And you're one of Amaymon's servants?"

Surprisingly, it looked away and gave an embarrassed doggy cough. "I was."

"Was?" I pounced on the word. "Was? As in ...
was?"

"You're a regular Einstein, aren't you? Yes, was, as in Amaymon kicked me out of his legions because of an unfortunate incident when a leviathan tried to mate with him." I just stared at it. Jim made an annoyed face. "It was just a joke! But try telling that to one of the princes of Hell. They have absolutely
no
sense of humor."

"Oh, great." My shoulders slumped. "You're a delinquent demon. A Hell dropout. A demon without a cause."

"No one asked you to summon me," Jim said with dignity. "I'm just out of favor for a bit. I'll be back, just as soon as Amaymon can sit down again."

A little headache throbbed to life in the front of my forehead as I looked at Jim. A sticky line of drool dribbled out of one side of its mouth as it looked back at me. I could send it back to where it came from, but to be honest, I didn't think I had to strength to see what else I would summon up. Hard as it was to believe, I could end up with something worse than Jim.

"Let's get a few things straight here, demon. My name , is Aisling. I'm your master. You will do my bidding without resistance, complaint, or undue shedding."

Jim scratched at its ear with its back leg. "You wouldn't happen to have a flea collar around, would you? I just know I've picked up fleas from this dive you live in."

I ground my teeth. I'd been doing a lot of that since I arrived in Paris. "It's a nice hotel in a very expensive area of Paris, and there are no fleas. Now, my first command is for you to lead me to where Drake Vireo, the green wyvern, lives. It's somewhere in the city, so it shouldn't be too much of a challenge for you."

Jim looked around the room. "I'm hungry. You got anything to eat here, or do you plan on starving me back to Abaddon?"

I rubbed my forehead. The headache was getting worse. "Then, after you find where Drake lives, you can help me acquire an object of mine that he has."

Jim stood up and shook itself. Long strands of slobber went flying everywhere. "Hoo, feel like my back teeth are floating. Shake your stumps, sister. I need to go out."

"After you have served me, I will return... you
what?"
I stared at it. Weren't demons supposed to follow orders rather than give them?

It walked over to the door and looked pointedly over its shoulder at me. "Do I have to
spell
it for to you? Fires of Abaddon, the sorts of Guardians they produce these days, it's a disgrace to the memory of the old times. When I think of the sort of quality Guardians who used to summon me up... Walkies! I need to go walkies!
Comprendez?"

If there's one word I never expected to hear a demon utter, that word was
walkies.
"Wait a minute, wait a minute, this does
not
make sense! Walkies? You're a demon who says
walkies?
No demon says
walkies;
that's undemon-like! And how come you know who Einstein is?"

The dog had a jaded look on its face. "Just how many demons have you met?"

"Well..." I thinned my lips again, refusing to admit that I had been a demon virgin before it had been summoned. "That's neither here nor there. Why don't you sound like a proper demon? Why don't you talk like something from one of those medieval texts? You've got to be, what, five hundred years old? A thousand?"

"Closer to three thousand, although I don't think I look a day over two thou."

"Three thousand years? You're three thousand years old?" My jaw just about hit the floor in amazement.

"AH quality demons are that age or older," Jim said smugly. "And just because I've seen a couple of millennia doesn't mean I don't keep up with the times. There's not a lot to do in Abaddon once you get past the 'doing your demon lord master's bidding' business. We go for long stretches of time with nothing to do but torment the lesser demons, and even that pales after a few centuries. That changed once you mortals came up with TV. Brilliant idea, that."

I stared at the dog, my mind still having a hard time wrapping itself around the thought that Jim was as old as he was. "You watch TV? In Hell?
Television?"

I couldn't believe it was possible, but the demon looked offended by the note of disbelief in my voice. "What, you think that just because we're demons, we don't like to stay current with world events? You think we don't like to be entertained?
We're demons, not Nazis
!
"

I sat in the middle of the room, stunned and trying to absorb the fact that I'd summoned up a TV-watching demon while it wandered into the bathroom. The crash of a large ceramic object hitting the floor brought me out of my daze.

"Well, that experiment was a failure," Jim said, emerging from the bathroom with toilet paper stuck to one of its back paws. "You'll want to get the maid in before you go in there. Had a little trouble with my aim. There's more where that came from, too, so unless you want to explain to the hotel about
le lac du peepee,
I'd suggest you take me out and let me do this doggy-style."

My mind still reeling, I got to my feet.