Goetic Justice 8

Chapter 8: Best Laid Plans

Ryan awoke alone in the ruined bed, yawning as he stretched his arms above his head. The sweet ache and satisfaction from their romp the previous night still lingered as he brushed away stray feathers and rose to his feet. He made his way to the kitchen to make a pot of coffee, glancing at his wall clock to see that it was already midday.

He didn’t like waking up alone, but he understood that manifesting a physical body did not come without a cost. If his plan succeeded, then he might finally be able to wake up in Nahash’s arms for once. Speaking of which, he needed to upload that video footage from the trail cam. Hopefully, by now some hikers or joggers would have come across his little occult art installation and started spreading the word.

He retrieved the camera from his pack, which he had discarded by the door to his apartment, and rummaged inside for the camouflaged block. He brought it over to his computer, waiting a few moments for the device to boot up as he sipped at his steaming mug of coffee, then he connected a USB cable to the trail cam and began to transfer the video footage.

The night vision filter was suitably eerie, casting everything in a ghostly white glow, like an X-ray hanging on the wall of a doctor’s office. Some trail cams only took photographs when they sensed movement, but this model was configured to take video, and as he squinted at the grainy image a swirl of smoke activated its motion sensor. It began to record the scene, a view of the clearing, mist billowing across the ground as the darkness of the trees surrounded the summoning circle that was drawn in the soil. The salt stood out well against the dirt in the monochrome video, and as he watched the swirling plumes of dark smoke started to take form.

He had never had an opportunity to see the process of summoning in such a clinical manner before, it was quite a lot harder to remain objective and pay attention to what was happening when the stench of sulfur was assaulting you, and the temperature around you was plummeting.

It was as if shadows were coalescing to form a humanoid shape, though there was no light source that would have been able to cast them. It was as though the very darkness in the atmosphere was concentrating in the circle. Ryan’s heart skipped a beat as he considered the possibility that a camera might not be able to see Nahash at all. The demons seemed to appear as much in his mind as before his eyes, what if all it captured was formless smoke?

His fears were assuaged however as he watched Nahash materialize from the billowing vapors, although she looked less solid to the trail cam than she did to him. He could see her distinct, white fur and her twisted horns, though she almost looked transparent. Not quite a ghost, but clearly not completely real either. This must be how she truly appeared before she made up the difference through her psychic abilities. It had been the same when Orobas had been summoned in his apartment, when you looked at these demons you got the distinct impression that they were as much a mental image as a physical one, photons bombarding your eyes and ideas bombarding your brain to combine into a complete picture.

Her body interacted with the mist and her cloven hooves left footprints in the soil, she had mass, physical presence. Of course, people would assume that this was fake, computer-generated images created for the purpose of a hoax. But even the skeptics would be helping to spread the footage as they argued with each other and analyzed it frame by frame.

Nahash looked around for a moment, confused by her surroundings, and then she stepped out of view. Ryan transferred the video file to his computer then spent the next hour uploading it to popular video sharing websites, giving it an appropriately click-bait title. Ghost demon caught on camera, real or fake?! He made sure to include where the footage had been shot, as his plan hinged on starting a myth centered around the geographical location itself. Once the forest gained a reputation as being haunted then that belief would empower Azazel and his Seirim, it would become their new home. He posted links to the video on the summoning forum for good measure, wondering how many of the so-called occultists and self-professed demonologists would dismiss what might be the first concrete evidence of a real demon as fake.

He stood up from his desk, wondering what to do next. His new job didn’t start for another week and Nahash wasn’t around to hang out with him, might as well get some food cooking and see if he couldn’t make some progress in his videogame of choice.

xxxxx

The sun was getting low in the sky when Ryan was interrupted, a frigid cold falling over the room as he set his controller down, his heart swelling with excitement as he waited for Nahash to appear.

Something was different, however, it felt wrong. He couldn’t put his finger on exactly what it was, but the sensation made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. He stood up as the couch beneath him began tremble, the wooden floorboards beneath his socks vibrating violently, it felt as if the whole building was being shaken apart. Was it an earthquake? Would his neighbors notice?

As he watched, the furniture that was on top of the chalk summoning circle began to move, like an unbalanced washing machine shaking its way across the floor. As the couch, the wooden coffee table and a lamp cleared the circle, the stink of sulfur permeated the air. This did not feel like Nahash, and Ryan darted across the room towards a table just below a nearby window where he had stored all of his summoning equipment. He picked up his improvised Solomonic Sexangle, still stapled to the bath robe’s belt, tying the piece of card about his waist. He attached the sweatband that held the Ring of Solomon around his forehead and picked up the Pentagonal Figure, the ward that he had fashioned whose purpose was to protect him from errant demons.

He rushed over to the summoning circle and stepped into his protective triangle, trying to steady his shaking hands as he held up the Pentagon, waiting for whatever was coming through the breach to show itself to him.

The temperature continued to drop, but fortunately, the Ring of Solomon was warding off the foul smell. He watched with wide eyes as a formless mass appeared in the center of the summoning circle. It was blurry and constantly shifting, a heap of writhing flesh that was seen as if through frosted glass, dark shadows playing across the walls as if cast by some unseen fire. The air was thick with black smoke that further obscured his vision, and as he tried to bat away the fumes, he called out a command.

“Take form, demon,” he shouted as he brandished the Sexangle that hung from his belt. “And none intended to offend or repulse!”

The dark fumes sped towards the poorly defined blob like filthy water rushing down a drain, the mass warping and twisting as it took shape. As the smog cleared Ryan saw a little horse sitting in the circle, roughly the size of a small dog, staring at him with its large eyes.

“Orobas?” Ryan asked, recognizing the creature.

“Why arte thou surprised?” it asked, it’s voice croaky and faint. “Thou hast given me license to appear before thee.”

“You surprised me is all,” Ryan stammered, still shaken by the sudden house call. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“The contract is complete,” Orobas wheezed, staring at him with those wet eyes. The miniature horse looked sickly, as if it was on death’s door and couldn’t stand, and its expression conveyed some deep misery that made it unpleasant to look at for too long.

“Oh, the contract? That’s good news, but how did you determine that?”

“Vague as thy requests were,” Orobas answered with palpable annoyance, “I have fulfilled the requirements of our contract. Thy livelihood is secure and thou art happy, the familiar has informed me of this.”

“The familiar? You mean Nahash? She told you that I was happy?”

Was he happy? Introspection was not one of his strong suits, it could be so hard to determine one’s own emotional state. But the more that he thought about it, the more correct the evaluation seemed. He no longer pined for Becky, his drought of sex and intimacy had ended explosively, and for the first time since he had broken up with her, he no longer felt that sickening knot in his stomach. He must be over Becky. In fact, he hadn’t even thought about her in days, his breakup with her seemed so distant and trivial now. Nahash was his focus, those three mundane years with his human partner had lost their significance in a single night, and his burgeoning romance with the Seirim had indeed turned his life around.

“Thy contract has been fulfilled as it was defined,” Orobas repeated, “do not forget thy oath to me. Two score and ten more tin plates, my sigil engraved upon them, spread far and wide so that they will be seen by many.”

“Yes,” Ryan replied, “I remember the deal. But what about Nahash, the familiar? Will I see her again?”

“Not through my power,” the demon answered.

“What does that mean?” Ryan asked, a hint of fear entering his voice. “If you take Nahash away from me, then I won’t be happy anymore. Won’t that violate the terms of the contract?”

“Do not attempt to reinterpret the terms of a contract already agreed upon,” Orobas hissed, its voice menacing. “I have dealt with thee fairly, I have uttered no falsehoods, and I have made no attempts to deceive thee. Now make good thy promise.”

“Not until you tell me what will happen to Nahash,” Ryan said, holding up the Sexangle. The little creature recoiled before the ward as if it was radiating a powerful heat that only the demon could feel. “Obey me, Orobas, into the triangle with you.”

It didn’t move, and so he brandished the Sexangle again, pointing towards the containment triangle that was drawn on the floor in chalk. The demon finally gave in, rising unsteadily on spindly legs that looked wholly unfit to support its bulbous head, struggling over to the triangle like a dog that had just been chastised. It glanced at him resentfully, the Sexangle compelling it to obey his commands and the Triangle of Solomon serving to protect him from anything that it might try to pull. It was a kind of cosmic naughty-chair, and the creature seemed to loathe being confined to it.

“Now tell me,” Ryan continued, his voice commanding. “What will become of Nahash?”

“Thy meddling will bear fruit,” it spat, “thou shalt rouse Azazel and the Seirim will flock to him. Thou hast cost a great number of demons their valued minions, this course of action was ill-advised. Were I not bound to thee by contract, I would have intervened, but that which has not yet been decided cannot be foreseen.”

“I thought that the Seirim were a drain on your resources, aren’t you glad that I’m restoring them?”

“They art powerful spirits, primordial avatars of nature, valued for their unique abilities and not easy to replace.”

“So what, I’m on Hell’s shitlist?”

“Thou shalt carry favor with Azazel, he may protect thee from reprisals … or he may not. Thou didst not form a contract with him, and I cannot be sure how he will react.”

“Because it hasn’t been decided yet, right.”

The wretched little horse watched him for a moment with its glassy eyes, waiting for him to continue, but he was lost in thought. He might have accidentally pissed off the entire hierarchy of Hell, and though it seemed unlikely that they would waste valuable resources on reprisals, having a demon as powerful as some that were described in the Goetia even be aware of your existence was reason enough to be worried. But if that was the price of Nahash’s freedom, then so be it.

“Wilst thou honor thy bargain?” Orobas asked.

“Yes, of course. I’ll even do you one better. I’ve learned some stuff about sigils since the contract was made. You’ll get more than what was agreed upon, you did more for me than I could ever have imagined.”

“Then I shall take my leave of thee,” the creature said.

Ryan tried to remember some of the incantations that he had printed out upon the first summoning, at least wanting to make an attempt at following proper procedure.

“Go now peaceably, with blessings and thanks.”

Orobas closed its large eyes and bowed its head, vanishing from the triangle and from Ryan’s mind as if a hand had reached down and plucked it out of reality. The air cleared of the stinking fumes and Ryan felt safe enough to remove his headband, only a hint of sulfur lingering after the demon’s departure.

That was it then, the contract had been completed, and it hadn’t even cost him his soul. Now he just had to get those tin plates engraved with Orobas’ sigil and spread them around. Who knew, maybe it would tie into the myth that he was trying to start. He had something bigger planned for Orobas too, and though his activities were starting to border on vandalism, he owed it to the demon. It had been true to its word, it had saved him from the brink of destitution, and it had even found a way to cure his depression.

Had Orobas known that Ryan would fall in love with Nahash? Had it all been part of the plan? The demons were playing a chess game where Ryan couldn’t see all of the pieces on the board, he could only guess at their true intentions. Perhaps losing a valuable servant was worth the tradeoff in energy that it would gain from the contract. It might even have been intentional sabotage, who knew how these demons interacted with each other, what terms they were on and how their society functioned.

Orobas could see the future, to what extent remained vague and its powers definitely had their limitations, but Ryan was pretty sure that the demon could have prevented this scenario if it had really wanted to. Maybe this was all part of some larger game that was currently beyond his ability to grasp.

The big question now was when he would see Nahash again. Orobas was clearly unwilling to expend his own energy to manifest her now that the contract had been fulfilled, and so he would have to rely on Azazel, an entity that he knew very little about. It stood to reason that he would be grateful towards Ryan for his efforts, but demons were unpredictable creatures and Ryan would never have attempted to summon anything near as powerful as him under different circumstances.

Based on what little information he had been able to find, Azazel was a true devil. Not a pagan deity who had lost favor with its worshipers or a powerful spirit, but one of the Iyrin. Otherwise known as the Watchers or Nephilim, they were the antediluvian angels of Biblical lore, one of around two hundred such entities that had joined a rebellion against the Abrahamic God and had been cast out.

The stories were steeped in metaphor and warped by time and translation, harkening back to what Nahash had told him about the loss of knowledge from the flood. If that was a literal deluge or merely an allegory for something else he couldn’t say. It was almost impossible to separate true accounts from myth and hearsay, but the common thread seemed to be that these Watchers had rebelled against the chief deity of the time, perhaps even the original deity. They had lost the war, and these fallen angels were cast out of paradise to walk the Earth amongst mankind, spreading forbidden knowledge as they went. There were conflicting reports about what they had actually done to deserve this fate, from tales of a militaristic coup, to them simply taking human wives and angering their God in the process.

The more Ryan learned about this secret lore, the more it interested him. Perhaps he would beg the question of Azazel himself if he ever met the creature in person. He almost hoped that he didn’t however. The kid gloves were coming off, this wasn’t a demon numbering fifty-fifth in some vague hierarchy, but a fallen angel akin to Lucifer himself. Who knew what the dangers were and what sacred rules he might be breaking, but if this was what it took to see Nahash again then he would accept the consequences.

xxxxx

Ryan climbed the ladder, his shoes slipping on the damp metal rungs, wind and rain buffeting him as it blew the trees what seemed like a great distance below him. He adjusted his ski mask and pulled his hood tighter, trying to shield himself from the wind, looking up at the water tower and the grey clouds above it. The platform was just a few more feet above him. This had been a terrible idea, he should have waited for a calmer night before he had attempted this stunt.

He struggled higher, his gloved fingers gripping the guard rail as he heaved himself up onto the walkway that ringed the water tank, pressing himself flush against the structure in an effort to avoid the howling wind. A part of him wanted to abandon the whole affair, but he was up here now, he might as well finish the job.

He took a can of spray paint from the pocket of his hooded jacket, shaking it and hearing its signature rattle over the sound of the storm, gripping the metal rail with a firm hand as he walked around towards the side of the tank that faced the town. He raised his arm, doing his best to replicate the design from memory despite the terrible conditions and his limited reach. At least the stormy weather would hide him from any prying eyes, nobody in their right mind would be out for a jog in this.

When he was done, he craned his neck to admire his handiwork. It was a little crude, but it would get the job done. He stowed the can and made his way back to the ladder, hoping that he wasn’t about to take the express route down.

“Residents were shocked today to find what appears to be an occult symbol painted on a local water tower in full view of commuters on the interstate highway this morning, turning heads and causing a few minor accidents as it distracted motorists.”

The camera panned away from the female reporter and over the congested highway to point at the water tower, a tank suspended on stilts that stood above the trees that surrounded it, the sigil of Orobas painted in red across its face.

“This might be easily dismissed as an unremarkable act of petty vandalism, were it not for the strange occurrences that have been widely reported as of late, with some going as far as to blame Satanic cults operating within the city limits. This comes only days after a supposed video of a goat woman, alleged to have been filmed at the border of the national park, was released online to much fanfare from the paranormal community. Debate still rages over the authenticity of the video, even drawing the attention of the popular television show America’s Unsolved Mysteries, who are slated to film an episode on the subject later this season.”

The news station switched from a panning shot of the water tower to a short clip of the trail cam footage, freezing the frame where Nahash was most visible, still a blurry and somewhat transparent figure as the voice of a male news anchor spoke over it.

“So what do we think of this? Is it real, or is it some elaborate hoax? We took to social media to ask our viewers what they-”

Ryan switched off the television, grinning to himself as he sat on his couch. To think that one person could have caused so much havoc. His antics had even made their way to the local news, every person who saw the broadcast would be feeding Orobas energy. Nobody seemed to have turned up many of the engraved plates yet, and nobody had stumbled across the clearing in the forest, but they would.

He missed Nahash terribly, it was torture to see her so free and wild for such a brief time, only to be separated from her immediately afterwards. He had to hope that she pined for him in much the same way, and that his efforts were feeding her and her kin the power that they needed to make their return.

He should start checking the forest soon. If she was going to turn up somewhere, it would be there. But as word spread about the occult happenings in the area, then more kooks would be out searching for evidence. Getting caught snooping around might blow the whole thing. There was going to be a camera crew out there too, apparently, filming some reality TV show about ghost hunting or cryptids. If they came across the summoning circle and the marked trees, or perhaps even caught an appropriately brief glimpse of a Seirim on camera, millions of people around the country might tune in.

Hopefully, Orobas would be satisfied by Ryan’s graffiti work. He had scattered the tin plates around the city as he had promised, this was just a little bonus. A tip for exemplary service, if you will. He didn’t feel too bad about depriving the demon of his servant, Nahash had seemed more like a slave than an employee. Now she would be free to do as she pleased and Orobas would have a far greater influx of power than he had anticipated.

He couldn’t believe how well this venture had worked out, and he wondered why summoning wasn’t more widespread. It had not taken any special knowledge or skill to get to this point besides doing a little research. Then again, perhaps he had been extremely lucky, or his choice of demon had been especially wise. There weren’t many besides Orobas who would tolerate mistakes or breaches of protocol without taking advantage of the exorcist in some way.

The possibilities were limitless, the implications profound, and one day soon he would explore this new dimension of his reality that had been opened to him. But for now he had one goal in mind, a singular fixation, getting Nahash back into his arms.

xxxxx

Another week passed with no word from Nahash, and Ryan started work, finding his new position agreeable. His employers had cooled towards him a little since the meeting, but they were still friendly and seemed happy to have him working there. The demonic powers of persuasion must wear off eventually, but the first impressions would stick. His colleagues were friendly and he was back doing work that he enjoyed, there was nothing to complain about.

The metal plates had started turning up around the city and in the surrounding area, both the ones that he had made as part of his contract with Orobas and the ones with Azazel’s sigil engraved on them. Hikers had come across the summoning circle in the woods too, and the footage of the goat-lady had gone viral, rapidly nearing two million hits. His prediction of a Satanic panic was starting to come true, with a mild hysteria gripping the less skeptical residents, spilling over into the local news stations and social media websites. The debates over the authenticity of the evidence that had been uncovered so far raged, with some convinced that there was a cult of devil worshipers roaming the streets and others certain that it was an intricate hoax. In a way they were both correct, there was a hoax, and there was at least one devil worshiper. Any discussion, whether it was positive or negative, only served to spread the message further.

Surely enough energy had been accrued now? It had been days, and there had been neither sign nor show of Nahash, nor any demonic activity for that matter. He was starting to get worried, it might be worth taking a trip to the clearing tonight. With any luck, if somebody discovered him there, he could pretend to be one of the mystery hunters who were no doubt pouring into the area in an attempt to capture their own footage of the Seirim.

His heart skipped a beat as he suddenly felt the familiar cold of an apparition again, and this time his furniture did not spontaneously vibrate across the room. It could only mean that Nahash was on her way back. He had tried to at least stay groomed and to be dressed properly whenever he was outside the bathroom, his apartment was rapidly becoming a demonic thoroughfare, and he never knew when one might appear.

As he got off the couch to stand eagerly beside the chalk circle, awaiting the smell of sulfur, the room began to go dark. It was a sunny afternoon outside, and there were lamps and light fixtures on in his apartment, but it was all fading. The room began to shake, pictures on the walls jumping from their mounts to clatter noisily to the floor, the empty mug that had been sitting on the edge of his coffee table falling to break on the floor as the surface that it had been resting on shuddered violently.

This was not Nahash. Ryan dashed towards his collection of wards and magickal tools, laid out for easy access on the nearby table. He adorned himself with the protective sigils and brandished his wand as he was buffeted by swirling winds, as if there was a tiny storm contained within the room, papers from his computer desk blowing about the apartment as he struggled to keep his printed incantations from joining them.

The darkness only grew blacker, the air becoming thick and oppressive, Ryan’s eyes adjusting to the gloom as the stench of sulfur and the smell of smoke overwhelmed him. Fortunately, the Ring of Solomon warded off the choking fumes as he pulled the sweatband over his head, struggling back towards the summoning circle and into his protective triangle. He could scarcely see now, it was pitch black, what little light that his eyes picked up was barely enough for him to see the walls and the couch. He would have lit candles, but the rushing wind would have blown them out in short order. Just what the hell was happening?

He realized how frightened he was, his heart pounding in his chest, and he tried to steel himself as something formed in the far corner of the room. It looked like a shadow at first, visible even in the gloom, black on black as it filled the corner like a plume of smoke. As he stared at the shape, it began to glow, a molten light burning inside it like the mouth of a volcano as glimpsed through clouds of choking ash.

He heard faint laughter coming from every direction, as if hundreds of people were chuckling at his plight, jeering at him. It sounded far enough away that it couldn’t possibly have been coming from inside the room, and yet he spun his head reflexively, in a literal blind panic as he attempted to pick out its source. The quaking finally stopped, Ryan had been afraid that it was about to bring his whole apartment complex crashing down, and he tried to regain some of his composure. It was paramount when dealing with demons, they would exploit weakness, and they would take advantage of a summoner who didn’t show dominance.

The laughter seemed to converge in front of him, about where the black cloud was coalescing, his ears tracking what his eyes could not see. The dark shadow was growing, twisting and warping, taking on the shape of a person. It was large, too large, and getting bigger as he watched it with wide eyes. The ill-defined mass that seemed to be its head brushed the ceiling, then as it continued to expand its shoulders followed suit. It must have been nine or ten feet tall, crouching as it filled the room, its arms spread wide as if it were holding up the roof like Atlas beneath his globe.

Ryan recoiled, horrified but unable to flee as the demon towered over him. Even if his legs had obeyed the command, the triangle was the safest place for him to be right now, he had to stand and face this thing or risk exposing himself to greater danger.

The shadowy figure became more material as the fumes began to clear, Ryan better able to see it now, though the darkness still blanketed the room as if it had been cut off from the rest of the world. Two sharp points sprouted from its head like a pair of snakes, curling into two enormous and ornate spirals, the unmistakable horns of a ram or an ibex. Fur grew all over its body, a shaggy coat of long, black hair that obscured many of its features. It had the long beard of a goat and massive, cloven hooves that tipped its digitigrade legs, the same physiology that he had seen in Nahash and yet of far larger scale.

As it opened three eyes that burned like hot coals, two where one would expect them to be and one embedded in its forehead, their glow lit the room enough that Ryan could make the thing out in greater detail. Where Nahash was part woman and part goat, this demon was wholly the latter, with an elongated snout and no human features to speak of besides its vaguely humanoid shape. It could barely fit in the room, it was bent double, peering down at him in unnerving silence.

Resisting the powerful urge to flee the room in hysterics, Ryan called out in a wavering voice, doing his best to seem as if he wasn’t about to soil himself in terror.

“W-Who are you, demon? State your purpose here!”

It opened its mouth and brayed, half the laugh of a human and half the eerie cry of a goat, its massive body shaking with the effort. When it was done, it spoke in a booming and guttural voice that had a flanging effect, as if two different people were talking at once. It was simultaneously like hearing the baritone voice of a man, and one of a goat that was attempting to mimic human speech. The result made Ryan’s skin crawl.

“Little child of Adam,” it boomed, its voice low and powerful enough to make Ryan’s teeth chatter. “Do you not recognize that which you have roused?”

Its tone was humorous, somewhat mocking, and Ryan steadied his trembling hands as he gave his reply.

“Azazel?”

“You are toying with powers far beyond your comprehension, mortal, and even further beyond your ability to control.” It twisted that last word into a threat, baring its tombstone teeth, Ryan having to stop himself from accidentally leaving the triangle as he took a faltering step backwards. Azazel’s expression changed to a grin, and then it laughed again, shaking the wooden floorboards beneath Ryan’s feet as its hairy chest rose and fell.

“I admire that quality in man, for without that self-destructive curiosity they would not have sought the secrets that we Watchers guarded so jealously. Fear is a healthy sentiment when faced with the likes of me, child, but I would settle for respect. Calm yourself.”

Ryan did his best, wiping cold sweat from his brow with his sleeve, keeping his feet planted firmly in the triangle all the same. Azazel noticed, cocking its goat head at him, that smile that had all the warmth of a corpse ever present on its lips. This was out of control, the train had gone off the fucking rails and had barreled through a fireworks factory, what the hell was he going to do if this thing turned hostile?

“You need not cling to your triangle, novice. The rites of ancient kings hold no sway over me.”

“Why are you here?” Ryan asked, craning his neck to look up at the furred beast. Its body was so muscular, what he could see through the long hair at least. Something with that much mass should have gone straight through his floor and all of the apartments below it, but much like Nahash it seemed to weigh only as much as it needed to, and not an ounce more.

“It seems that for the first time since I fell to this bountiful earth, I have found myself indebted to another, a mortal no less. You are not a magician, nor do you seek my favor. It appears that you have woken me from my slumber and fed me with enough power to leave the immaterium merely as a means to an end. Tell me, Ryan Cutter, to what end?”

“I want Nahash,” he announced defiantly, Azazel’s grin widening as it reached a clawed hand down to stroke its scraggly beard. It watched him as it considered its reply, apparently amused.

“Is that so? By chance, you have encountered one of my daughters, bound to serve another demon, and all that you have done has been in an effort to free her? How could you be sure that she would not simply vanish into the forest once unbound?”

“I couldn’t be sure, but even if she doesn’t want to stay with me, she deserves to be free. She deserves to dance around bonfires, to live wild under the moon. I could see how much being bound to Orobas sapped the joy out of her.”

The monstrous demon cocked its massive head at him, as large as that of a damned moose, as if trying to understand what must be bizarre motivations from its perspective. This entity was pretty close to being a god, with power that Ryan couldn’t even begin to comprehend, and yet its probably long-awaited resurrection had been merely incidental.

“What manner of mortal are you that you would risk your life, nay, your immortal soul in this foolish venture? You attempted to summon a demon with no experience and no training, using only the barest instructions that you had obtained from grimoires and hearsay. Against all odds you succeeded, then you consorted with your demon’s familiar and conspired to resurrect a Watcher in order to free her. All of this with no guarantee that you would be given what you desired. You know my name and my sigil, you know my reputation. I am the originator of sin and the architect of the fall, so they claim. Some would call that reckless, insane.”

Ryan shrugged his shoulders dismissively, at this point he was beyond fear, a kind of impetuousness overtaking him as he stared the beast down.

“Guess I didn’t have anything left to lose, and now I only have one thing left to gain. If you’re able to manifest here, then my plan worked, and it means that Nahash and the other Seirim have a new source of energy.”

“You want to know where she is,” Azazel mused, “however I must remind you that the concept of where is meaningless in the immaterium.”

“She’s no longer in the immaterium though, is she?”

Azazel grinned, exposing those dull, pearly teeth again.

“You interest me, Ryan Cutter, and I owe you a debt of gratitude. Come to the clearing tonight when the moon is at its highest, and you shall have your reward…”

Azazel laughed heartily, its booming voice shaking the windows in their panes, and then its massive body faded as if it were stepping through the sheer wall behind it. The bulky mass of hair and muscle lost its solidity, fading and becoming transparent, those three burning eyes lingering as its body dissolved into a cloud of ash and smoke.

The light fixtures flickered for a moment as if uncertain, and then came back to life. Whatever haze had been obscuring the sunlight from outside lifted and the golden rays came streaming into the room, all that was left of Azazel were a few floating motes of ash.

What fear he still felt was quickly replaced with excitement, he would be seeing Nahash again soon! That, or Azazel was going to eat him or something, but that was a risk he was willing to take. When the moon is at its highest. The demon must have meant around midnight, it was a full moon, and the forest would be relatively well lit. He might encounter ghost hunters or amateur journalists scouring the woods in search of demons and cultists, but he doubted that a being as powerful as Azazel would allow anyone to stumble upon them.

Now all he had to do was wait for the moon to rise and he could be on his way.

THE END OF CHAPTER EIGHT