Chapter 2 Chapter 2
Valerie walked to her desk in the corner of the living room. She fetched a piece of paper and a pen for Hope and handed them to her. The black-haired woman drew a summoning circle. At this point, Valerie wasn’t surprised that her friend knew by heart how it worked. She drew a ring and a pentagram inside, adding various strange symbols to the outside of the ring. When she was done, she held it up proudly.
“Next, we need your blood,” she said as if it were the most normal thing to ask for. Valerie grumbled, cutting her thumb with a knife and smearing her blood over the circle on the paper. Thankfully, the cut wasn’t deep, but she put a Band-Aid on it regardless.
“Okay, now the fire, problem is, I have no idea what the ghost meant earlier. I’m assuming we need to put a candle in the middle. If you hadn’t sent it away, we could have asked.” Hope said annoyedly, putting the paper and the candle on the ground.
The three friends observed it with somewhat different expressions. Hope was fascinated, Naomi excited, and Valerie downright nervous. For a whole minute, none of them moved, and nothing happened. “Well? Looks like it didn’t work after all,” Valerie said, but Hope wasn’t done yet.
“I have another idea. I think we should add something to the summoning circle. If we want to summon a demon, we must specify which one,” Hope said.
“It’s not working, just give up,” Valerie said, getting annoyed at her friend. Naomi, on the other hand, was still curious, much to Valerie’s chagrin.
“What are the options?”
“In one of my grandma’s books, I’ve seen some depictions of crests that belong to specific demons. I don’t remember many of them, but… let me try this one,” she said, picking the candle up to draw something in the middle of the paper. Valerie squinted her eyes; it was a simple star.
“Why a star?”
“This demon’s element is supposed to be light,” Hope said, shrugging. “Let’s try again.”
She put the candle on the paper, and everybody was watching nervously, but nothing happened. They were shrouded in heavy silence, watching the summoning circle.
“Do you have to say something? A spell?” Valerie asked mockingly, raising her eyebrows and crossing her arms. This was ridiculous.
“I don’t know, I should have asked my grandma about this,” Hope mumbled, putting her hand on her chin in thought. “Ah, fuck it. I’m just saying something random. Come here, demon. Get your ass out of hell, now.”
Naomi and Valerie exchanged a disbelieving glance, holding in their laughter. Their friendship was impossible. “Damn it, this must be a lazy one,” she sighed, shaking her head.
They kept fooling around until midnight. Then, Naomi and Hope decided it was time to leave. Valerie accompanied them to the door, cracking jokes about Hope’s superstitious behavior. In the end, even she admitted that her idea had been silly, promising her friends to treat them to some ice cream to make up for the ridiculousness she had put them through.
“See you next week,” Valerie said, waving after them and closing the door. Finally, she turned the light back on, her apartment looking much homier and less creepy like this. She walked back to the living room, stretching her arms and yawning. Valerie liked spending time with her friends, even though they could be chaotic and crazy. Hope’s obsession with witchcraft disturbed Valerie, not that she believed in it.
Lost in her thoughts, the black-haired woman forgot about the candle that was still burning on the floor. Most of the wax had melted by now, the flame coming dangerously close to the paper beneath, singing it and turning it to ash. It only took a few seconds for the piece of paper to catch fire. Valerie scrunched her nose, turning around in alarm to see a small fire burning on her tiled floor. Cursing, she wanted to rush to the kitchen to get some water, but she stopped abruptly when something peculiar happened. The lamp above her head flickered, turning on and off. She moved back, her eyes widening more and more.
Sudden pain in her left wrist had her gasping in agony, her knees giving in. Squeezing her eyes shut tightly, she grabbed her wrist, clutching it firmly, but the pain was relentless, feeling like a burning iron was pressed to her skin. She screamed as the fiery sensation moved up her arm, reaching her heart and consuming it. Within seconds, it overwhelmed her entire body, making it impossible to grasp what was happening.
Agony was all she felt, her senses failing her. It took a long time until the pain subsided, and when it did, she was drained and exhausted, like something had taken her energy away by force. She opened her eyes and stared at her wrist in disbelief.
A black mark had appeared, forming a star with jagged edges. The strange symbol looked disturbingly similar to the crest she had seen on the summoning circle, and it scared her to the core. Whatever the heck just happened, it couldn’t be good.
Valerie didn’t understand what was happening; she could only sit and watch as the lamps flickered repeatedly. The fire had disappeared by now, leaving nothing but ash behind.
“What in the world is happening to me?” she panted, her heart racing in panic. This wasn’t normal. This shouldn’t be possible.
The lamps in the living room brightened, their blinding light forcing Valerie to close her eyes. When the light faded soon after, she opened her eyes and was met with a terrible surprise. A man she had never seen before stood in the middle of her living room, glaring at her with a vengeance.
He seemed to have appeared out of thin air like a ghost. She shrank back, mouth falling open in shock, but words failed her. His piercing blue eyes were glowing, pinning her down, hypnotizing her. White hair framed his face, a small braid hanging over his shoulder.
A silver chain rested over his nose and cheekbones, glinting and reflecting the light. He had a sharp jawline and sinful lips that formed a sneer as he watched her. His aura radiated raw power, an overwhelming strength she had never felt before, almost like he wasn’t human.
“How dare you?” he snarled, taking a threatening step toward her. His voice was husky and trembling with rage. The closer he came, the more Valerie’s panic rose. “How dare you summon me, human?”
“Summon?” she squeaked, her eyes widening. No, it couldn’t be. This had to be a sick joke. The stupid trick from earlier couldn’t have worked; it wasn’t possible.
“Do not mock me. Do you have any idea who you are talking to?” he hissed, particles of light forming around his fists.
She got up abruptly, walking back and away from him. Valerie wanted to get as much distance between this psycho and herself as possible. “No,” she stuttered, causing him to smirk at her apparent fear of him. His eyes were icy as they scrutinized her, and she felt like her time had run out.
“Ridiculous,” he spat. “My name is Maxwell. I’m a demon, and you made a mistake when you called me here.”