Damien shifted to sit a bit straighter, his imposing demeanor likewise shifting with something like disquiet. “Oh, no, you really need not do that.”
“Please, Master, we must!”
The other cultists joined in the beseeching, and Damien slunk right back down into the chair. “Fine.” He rolled his head back, and his clear annoyance gave Amma the tiniest bit of amusement. “Get comfortable,” he droned. “I never know how bloody long these things are going to take.”
Amma did sit back then, watching as the other cultists filled in around Brother Eternal Crud in the center of the room. They took their places like this had been planned long ago, and in unison pulled up their hoods. At the same moment, nearly all the candles in the room were snuffed out, and Amma gasped. In the dark beside her, Damien laughed at what she could only assume was her expense.
The shadows of the cultists moved under the glow of a window on the ceiling letting in silvery moonlight, the billowing sleeves of their robes sweeping behind as they, well, what was it they were doing? Dancing, Amma supposed, and singing too, though there was no true melody or difference in pitch, just a monotone chant buzzing in a strange language. Brother Eternal Crud crouched in the center, his hand roving over the ground and leaving a line of something powdery and white.
Then he stood, hands raised above him so that his sleeves fell down, exposing arms as thin and pale as bones. His voice rose above the others, calling up enchanted words into the high ceiling of the temple. Amma pinched her knees together and worried the hem of her tunic, the room feeling colder, shadows growing on the walls. The other cultists were moving quicker now, their voices harsher. Amma glanced over to Damien who could not have looked more disinterested if he had been asleep.
Then a cultist tripped, sailing over the tail that jutted out from under the robe of one of their shorter brothers. This began an unending ripple of cultists piling up over the hems of their robes, eyesight obscured by their hoods as they rushed forward in their dance. Amma covered her mouth, sitting forward. Damien only groaned as the last of them finally fell flat on his face.
“Apologies, Master!” called Brother Eternal Crud as he rushed to get the others to their feet. “Once more, this time with feeling. To your places, and we will begin again from one—”
“No, no!” Damien brought his hands together with a sound that echoed loudly into the room and made the others halt, half on the ground, half mid-rush to their starting spots. “That was marvelous. Really brilliant. Well done.”
He hadn’t sounded particularly convincing, but Amma raised her hands and politely clapped for emphasis, giving them a smile.
Brother Eternal Crud took a deep breath and nodded. “You humble us, Master. Now, the summoning!”
Amma’s heart sped up, hands gripping the seat on either side of her. Damien had said a life was required for summoning.
The cultists scattered again and revealed that the brother had been drawing a symbol in chalk in the room’s center. Four other cultists came to kneel around the circle, and Brother Eternal Crud stood at the apex. He chanted a few dark words, and they were repeated back to him by the rest of the room, a sound that, unlike the hollow droning of the previous chant, was imbued with a new fervor.
As they filled the chamber with their invigorated calls, one of the four tossed a handful of something that looked like dirt into the center of the symbol. With a red flash, the dirt let off smoke when it scattered across the floor. The second cultist followed suit with a splash of something dark brown that congealed and oscillated around the dirt. The third lifted a candle, and when she tossed it in, it lit the other components so that a blaze crackled in the center of the floor.
Amma’s skin went cold as a ripple passed over her, a sourceless breeze thick with magic. She drew in a ragged breath, unable to blink as she watched the fourth cultist reveal what he held. He raised a live rat by its tail, the thing squeaking shrilly as he swung it in, and it cried out, immediately gobbled by the flames.
Amma let out a sad, little whimper and looked to Damien. He glared back, face firmly reading,And what would you like me to do about it?Well, at least it hadn’t been her flung into the fire.
The flames grew under Brother Eternal Crud’s words as he pulled his hands up through the air, and the others joined in until their voices crescendoed. Arcana swept around the room, the fire licking upward in a swirling pillar. There was a crack, and a fissure drew itself within the pillar’s center, partially obscured by the dancing flames but a deeply dark color, rivulets of undulating silver flowing within. A shadow poked itself out of the fissure’s edge, claws gripping the side of a hole that had been drawn right down through existence, and from it climbed a creature with impossibly long limbs and a set of pointed horns.
Amma swallowed, pressing back into the chair and pulling her knees up. She may have never seen a demon before, but she knew what was said about them, and this thing—this thing withhorns—had to be one, being summoned right out of the infernal plane.
Then all at once, the flames doused themselves, plunging the chamber into darkness again. The fissure was exposed for only an instant, strands of silver glowing as they ebbed over one another, and Amma had the totally out-of-place thought that it was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen in her life. And then it snapped itself shut, and Amma’s ears popped. She pressed her mouth up against her knees to muffle a terrified squeal. After a moment in total darkness, there was movement and then a clatter. A cultist whispered something, and another answered, and finally several candles sprung back to life, slowly filling the chamber with light.
The flickering flames fell over the new form in the room’s center, and Amma did not dare even blink for fear the demon would use the opportunity to possess her soul. She watched as it was illuminated, twisted horns jutting off of a bony skull, sharp claws dangling at the ends of arms too long for its body, and wings with leathery skin pulled taught between knobby joints.
“Kaz, is that you?” Damien had leaned forward, elbows on his knees, squinting.
“Master Bloodthorne,” the thing screeched out in a voice that was as much water as it was rot. “I have been called into your service!” It began forward on legs that bent the wrong way and ended in talons, a tail flicking behind it, just as Amma had known it would, and as it finally crossed the room to fall to a knee and bow before Damien, Amma actually sat forward as well. The thing, terrible as it was, was also only about a foot and a half tall.
Damien rubbed his smooth chin. “I thought you were dead.”
It gazed back up on him with bulbous, black eyes, a strange, strangled smile spreading over its crooked jaw, two jagged teeth on one side poking out. “I was. I have been reborn to serve you once again. It is my duty as an imp of the infernal plane to return to earth when summoned to serve The Tempestuous bloodline.”
“Ah, I see. And you’ve, uh…you’ve got wings this time.”
The imp blinked, twisting about to try and see its back. It spun in place until it grew dizzy and stumbled to a stop. It shook its head and squeezed its fists, and the wings flapped just a bit. “Apologies, Master, but they don’t work yet.”
“Noted.” Damien sat back. “Well, welcome back. Again.”
“My lord and master,” the imp cried out, dropping into another deep bow, “declare your will.”
Damien glanced out at the waiting, rapturous faces of The Brotherhood. “Right. Well, if that’s all, then I suppose we’re off.”
“Master Bloodthorne, night falls!” Brother Eternal Crud scurried up to the chair. “Surely you will want to set out in the morning?”
