“It is,” Grevin agreed.
The code worked both ways.If Quentin were in trouble, he had no doubt Grevin would come running.
Quentin lightly squeezed Grevin’s arm to regain his wandering attention.“I need you to try to remember any details.A voice?A significant sound or smell?”
“N-no.I only remember the pain.”Grevin’s hands shook until he clasped them together.
Quentin carefully wrapped his hands around Grevin’s trembling ones, lending a comforting touch and a bit of body heat to Grevin’s chilly fingers.The necromancer always ran cold, but not his cold.“Hey, we’ll figure this out.The circle looked good.I’m not an expert, but I didn’t see any obvious errors except for where someone broke your circle.If we can prove that someone intentionally damaged it, you’ll be in the clear.”
Grevin snorted.“That only proves you’ve never faced the authorities as I have.Once they hear the word necromancer, all they think about is someone scavenging graveyards for bones,” he scoffed.
“What were you summoning?”Better head Grevin off from his favorite rant about abuse of authority.He wasn’t wrong, but Quentin wanted to figure out what happened without the usual lecture about poor misunderstood necromancers.The main problem with necromancers was their small numbers.No one bothered to understand them because the cops rarely interacted with them, and when they did, it was usually about unlicensed necromancers digging up bones, unfairly lumping them together.
Grevin swallowed and took a deep breath before speaking.“I was trying to summon Ariton.He knows the past, present, and future.I thought he could give me more information about the vampire in the woods.We both know it wasn’t an ordinary vampire that changed Glenn.”
“And is that who you summoned?”Quentin resisted the urge to yell at his friend for summoning any demon, but it would be foolish to scold a necromancer for using his talents.
“I don’t know.I summoned something, but I was knocked out before it fully formed.My vision was still fuzzy when the intruder broke the circle.”His eyes were watery when they met Quentin’s.“As I was waking up, I heard it screaming with rage before it tore free and attacked me.”Grevin swallowed, his face drained of color.“I’m sorry, but I didn’t get a good enough look to identify the demon or the intruder.I can’t tell you who it was or why they wanted a demon.”He paused, his eyes going blank.Quentin almost nudged him before Grevin blinked as if he was rebooting his brain.
“That’s all I remember.”His voice shook along with his hands.“What do we do now?”
Quentin thought over the limited information he had on demons.“Can it stay on this plane without the runes supporting it?”High-level demons needed more grounding to stay on earth.
“It shouldn’t be able to.That’s part of the necromantic pact.The connection fades after two hours.You always put a time limit on demons, or they’ll take advantage.”
“Will the time still expire if the circle wasn’t properly closed or if a pact wasn’t explicitly made?”Quentin didn’t know where to start to investigate this shitshow.From Grevin’s description, he’d never talked to the demon, so there was no summoning pact.
“Maybe.I-I don’t know.”
That wasn’t the solid confirmation he had been hoping for.
“Is there anything else you can remember?”
Grevin shook his head.“No, sorry.”
“It’s all right.You are doing the best you can.Has anyone been alerted to the demon’s escape?”The authorities would have to be informed.If an angry demon got free of its kidnapper, the damage could be apocalyptic.
“Dr.Wesson called the cops.”Grevin swallowed.“He’s a mandatory reporter.They’ll be coming soon to interview me.”
Quentin sighed.“Unfortunately, I didn’t find any new clues when I went to your house.There wasn’t any detectable magical signature.”He hated to share bad news, and from the slump of Grevin’s shoulders, he didn’t like hearing it either.He pulled out his phone and scrolled to find the photo that best showed the rune circle.“I took pictures,” he offered.
“Good.Even after knocking me out, they shouldn’t have been able to break my circle so easily.”
Quentin nodded.It took magic and power to break through activated runes.Once sealed, circles were more than their collective chalk, salt, or ash.They were magical boundaries to remain unbroken until their creator ended the task.
Grevin took the phone and rotated it to look at it from every angle.“There!”he pointed to something on the phone.Spreading his fingers, he enlarged the section for Quentin.He pointed at an oddly shaped symbol.“See the foot of this rune?It isn’t right.”
It took him longer than Grevin to identify the error with his limited knowledge of necromantic runes.“What’s the difference from the rune you wanted?”
“This introduces a weakness into the rune scheme.It would allow anyone to break the circle if they were on the outside.”
“You think something influenced you, and what, did a pact with a demon they knew you would call?That seems overly complicated.”Quentin paused to consider the facts.“It must have been a coordinated attack, or the person who hit you from behind wouldn’t have known when you were summoning.Did you tell anyone you were planning to summon a demon tonight?”
Grevin tilted his head back.“I might have told Hafrey?I don’t remember.We were discussing his new marijuana blend, and he said it was good for rituals because it put you in a calm headspace.I told him I didn’t have time to pick some up before my next summoning, but I wanted to try it out later.”
A cold chill shivered through his stomach.Hafrey, the laid-back wizard who spent most of his time in a drugged haze, was the last person he’d expect to attack anyone, and maybe that was the point.
“I don’t want to say it is impossible, but…”
