Azhrael's form surges. For one terrifying instant, he's everywhere. Shadows fill the basement from floor to ceiling, dense as smoke, cold as a walk-in freezer. Then he contracts, pulling back into a vaguely humanoid shape that flickers and stutters.
One down. Six to go.
I move to the sixth point.Hollow.I position the chisel and raise the hammer.
"Fill," James says, and I strike.
This time the shockwave is worse. A fissure opens in the packed earth, running from the broken point toward the wall. The temperature plummets so fast that frost forms on my eyelashes. Then, without transition, it swings the other direction. Suffocating heat, like opening an oven, blasts through the basement, the air so hot and dry it sears my lungs.
James staggers. His shadow-bandages flare, darkening, tightening around his wounds as if Azhrael is reinforcing them against the backlash.
He catches himself on the wall and nods. “Keep going.”
Fifth point.Bind.
"Free," James says.
Strike. Shockwave. The single light bulb overhead explodes, plunging us into darkness, broken only by Azhrael’s and James's burning eyes and the faint glow of my laptop screen. I fumble for my phone in my jacket, switch on the flashlight, and prop it against the wall, illuminating the Seal in a narrow white beam.
Fourth point.Forget.
"Remember," James says.
Strike. The house screams, a sound like every board and beam and nail crying out simultaneously. Somewhere upstairs, glass shatters. The stairs behind me shift and sway, the wooden treads pulling free from their supports with metallic shrieks.
Azhrael's form is almost solid now. With each broken point, he gains substance, density, presence. His shadow-body ripples with barely contained energy, and his ember eyes blaze like fire.
The symbols at the remaining three points of the Seal glow faintly with a sickly, yellowish luminescence.
Third point.Starve.
"Nourish," James rasps.
His voice is rougher now, strained, the words costing him something I can’t see or feel or touch. It’s likely the pact between him and Azhrael. Maybe it’s growing stronger too. His body shudders with each strike, and his shadow-bandages pulse and writhe.
Strike. The earth beneath the Seal moves, rippling like water, the packed surface losing solidity before re-hardening. The chisel sinks deeper than I intended, and I have to wrench it free.
Second point.Constrain.
"Release."
Strike. The remaining point, the first one carved—diminish—now bears the entire weight of the binding alone. It flares so bright I have to shield my eyes. The heat is volcanic. The cold that follows is arctic. My hands are numb and burning simultaneously, the chisel slick with sweat and condensation.
Azhrael is nearly corporeal. I can see the shape of him clearly now—tall, broad, features emerging from shadow like a sculpture freed from stone. Not human. Not quite. But close enough that the sight of him makes something primal in my brain want to run.
I move to the first point. The last of the seven.
James positions himself beside me. "Amplify."
I bring the hammer down.
The final point shatters.
The shockwave lifts me off my feet. I hit the far wall hard enough to see stars, the chisel and hammer clattering away into darkness. James is thrown sideways and crashes into the staircase supports. The house convulses.
Then silence.
I push myself upright, tasting blood from a split lip. I find my phone and sweep the flashlight beam across the basement.
