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“That was weird; it felt like a rubber band snapped inside my body,” I said to everyone.
“Yeah,” Jerome said. “I wasn’t sure if you would feel your connection to the book break or not.”
“Okay, let me talk to Magda and Penelope,” Miguel said, motioning toward the door.
“That would be of little use,” Jerome said. “I’m still going to know what you say to them and vice versa.” He had the grace to look embarrassed. “Even after millennia, Remiel has trouble controlling his mind reading abilities when he’s emotionally involved or invested in something; I’ve only been at it four years.”
“Fine.” Miguel opened the door. “Why don’t we move to a larger room, like a conference room.”
We moved into a larger room and Miguel had Penelope and Magda take magical oaths vouching for Jerome and I not being involved in nefarious activities, which was Magda’s wording. Miguel used the word illegal, which caused some meaningful looks to pass between Penelope and Magda, and both agreed to take the oath if the word nefarious was used in place of illegal. Miguel raised an eyebrow at this.
“Look, sometimes I operate in grey areas that might be construed as illegal,” I said to him after the oaths were finished.
“Soleil,” Penelope said.
“No, cards on the table,” I told her. “We are investigating for the insurance company the discrepancies in the homeowners’ statements about the missing statute imbued with a love spell. Demonic possession was not mentioned in the report they got; they don’t believe the statue was stolen. However, the homeowner refused us when we asked to search for it. The wife is a contest junkie, she’ll enter anything. My office arranged to have a contest that went door to door, and she of course entered it and won a dinner date night out with her husband. Since we knew the homeowners would be gone, we searched the house illegally,” I said.
“How did you avoid being seen by the neighbors?” Miguel asked as Penelope and Magda exchanged another look.
“I figured out a way to create a potion that would make them unnoticeable,” Jerome replied.
“You encouraged your son create a forbidden potion to help you?” Miguel asked. “Does that seem irresponsible to you?”
“No.” I said, a touch defensively. “Do you have any experience with teenagers?”
“Not much,” Miguel admitted.
“Okay, well, when you have a teenager who has some extreme magical prowess, you’ll find the phrase ‘forbidden magic’ is like catnip. He experiments with ways to create potions that are forbidden all the time, with supervision. He found seventeen ways to create invisibility-inducing potions in a single day once. No recipe or dark grimoires necessary. Sometimes he just knows how to do something even though he shouldn’t.”
“We have a theory that Jerome is tapped into the Akashic Record,” Magda said. “Because of this, he knows things he shouldn’t. He’s also dealt with some serious shit. We decided it was best to let him mess with the stuff and give him encouragement and love, not hand slaps and spankings, so that he doesn’t become evil. That is a serious oversimplification, but you get the point. I knew about the invisibility potions. But he didn’t use them to kill anyone, and he didn’t make them for people who were going to use them to commit rape. So, we ignore it.”
“Yes,” Penelope said. “My supervisor has even offered him a job when he comes of age. It is our belief that as long as Jerome is surrounded by good people doing good things, then even when he does something he shouldn’t, like make an invisibility potion, it’s not a big deal.”
“You encourage him to break the law in the name of upholding it?” Miguel frowned.
“Not exactly, we just don’t punish him for it.” Magda replied. “He’s been punished plenty up to this point, and sometimes, his rediscovery of magic that’s forbidden is a good thing. The kid managed to find a spell of protection against possession when he was seven years old. A search of our archives discovered the exact spell he uses to give magic to his charms has only existed in one place throughout time; a protected grimoire of an angel that died more than ten millennia ago. There’s no way he got it from the angel who wrote the grimoire. It’s impossible for him to know, and yet, he does and has used it for good.”
“It’s a possession spell,” Penelope said. “Somehow Jerome reverse engineered it to work as protection against possession. How do you punish a kid for that?”
“But it’s forbidden,” Miguel argued.
“Yes, it is, for the general public.” Penelope said. “Just like the AESPCA has a division that makes restricted potions. Those restricted potions are forbidden magic, too.”
“Okay whatever,” Miguel waved a hand. ”So sometimes you break the law to do good things; you’re both vigilantes.”
“Yes.” I nodded, and Jerome did too. “I summon demons to get answers to things like who is making demon boxes that summon hell princes and shit. So, yes, I will admit to some minor vigilantism. I also got paid a consultancy fee, as did Jerome.”
“Jesus,” Miguel whispered. “And I’m going to let you look at case files.”
“Just keep reminding yourself you are desperate,” I told him.
“I am desperate,” Miguel agreed. He slid a file over to me. It was a police report filed with St. Louis City Metropolitan Police Department. The stolen object was a shield imbued with magic to help protect the wielder. The homeowners had come running out of their house still possessed. The neighbors called police, and originally the police thought it was just a case of demonic possession until it ended, and the homeowners described the theft. Earlier that evening, they had ordered food delivery, and at some point after the food was delivered, they both started feeling strange. Next thing they knew, they no longer controlled their bodies, and the husband walked downstairs and let a stranger into the house. Most of their memories were vague and unhelpful. As soon as the sun came up, the possession ended and they rushed outside screaming. The police at first thought it was just a prank, but the homeowners were aware that whoever they opened the door for in the wee hours of the morning stole their magical shield, which had been in the wife’s family for the last six hundred years. One of her ancestors had it forged by trolls and imbued it with magic during the process.
The second file contained a similar story. The stolen item was a painting in which the painter had imbued all his paint with magic. Like the first, the painter was a member of the owners’ family way back in history. The majority of the paintings were not in private collections, because he had a warped sense of humor and the magic made whatever was painted smell like the real thing, some of which were dead bodies and rotting fruit. The stolen painting was of a dragon in a field of wildflowers. I was told it smelled quite nice most of the time, but occasionally when it was windy, the owners would get a whiff of sulfur. I commented on the fact that the painting reacted to the weather and was told if it rained or snowed in the real world, it would rain or snow in the painting as well. I honestly found that tidbit exceptional.
The third file was the full police report on the theft of the Aphrodite statue. Mentally comparing the report given to me by the insurance company and the report Miguel had given me, there were a significant number of differences, not just the whole possession thing, but the fact that the broken window was not the point of ingress or egress, but an accident caused by the thief fleeing with the statue. Also, the possession always wore off at dawn, which seemed significant. It is in fact easier to summon demons at night, and daytime helped with exorcisms, but not enough that a possession would end just because the sun came up. Furthermore, it was happening at dawn, not at like 7 a.m. when the sun was higher above the horizon. I found this significant, because demons struggle to track or read time on our plane. I suspected it had something to do with the fact that time was not always a constant in the Stygian, and when it was, days and nights were both shorter.
“Thoughts?“ Miguel asked.
“I can’t decide if it’s wearing off because the potion is too weak to last longer or...” I stopped myself and regrouped my thoughts. “The time limit thing is an issue. I can do it, sure. Jerome can’t. It seems strange to me that the potion would wear off at the same time every morning. That provides evidence that it isn’t a potion at all.”
“Dawn is consistent,” Miguel said.
“Yes and no. We are gaining daylight hours every day in the form of a few minutes in the morning and a few minutes in the evening. Dawn on the 13th of May is a few minutes later than dawn on May 18. Before you object, saying it’s just a few minutes and it could be the people that are vague, that doesn’t entirely make sense to me, because dawn begins a while before the sun physically rises above the horizon. Looking at the first statement, they called 911 at 6:20 a.m. That’s after the sun rose above the horizon and not dawn. The sky would have begun to lighten around 5 a.m. or so. Ditto the second one, again they got help after 6 am. I don’t know the exact time the sun rose above the horizon on any of those days, but after 6 a.m. seems late to me, and the sky was already getting significantly lighter by then. Meaning, it really isn’t happening at dawn, it’s happening after the sun rises. This is important because demons cannot track time. Looking at a clock is pointless to them, especially a 12-hour clock, which is the most common in the US.”
“Ah, yeah, I get it,” Jerome said. “Let me explain. If a potion lasts eight hours from the time it’s consumed, then it lasts eight hours. The most obvious point of consumption for the first couple was their dinner delivery. If they eat at the time most Americans eat, it would have been 6 or so at night. That means it should have worn off around 4 a.m., not after the sun rose. The source of a possession potion is questionable for couples two and three, which means the time they took it could have varied wildly from couple one, but the possession ended about the same time. You can design a spell to end at a specific time, but not a potion.”
“Yes. Also, you could negotiate for a time limit if it were part of a soul bargain.” I frowned.
“Why would these people bargain with their souls to allow their stuff to be stolen?” Miguel asked.
“Not the homeowners, the people causing the possession,” I clarified. “Using their soul as part of the trade, a person, or group of persons, could make a deal with a demon to gain access to a potion that causes possession, but also stipulate the possession must end at a specific time the day after the potion is administered and possession begins. In that instance, the possessing demon would not be required to understand the passage of time in our plane, the magic would end the possession automatically, as if setting an alarm every day.”
“Oh,” Miguel said. “Is that a likely bargain?”
“No,” I frowned. “It really isn’t, but it is plausible. I’m stuck on the time issue, which is an anomaly.” I admitted. “May I ask that we move venues to my house, so I can summon a demon and ask some questions?”
“We have a secure area; I’ll take you there and you can summon one.” Miguel said.
“No!” Penelope nearly shouted. “If she summons a demon inside this building, all sorts of alarms are going to go off. Even in the secure areas, we like to never have gotten those cambion inside last year, and my God, the stuff we’ve had to do to get the imps in here for delivering messages to Magda’s department. No. No. No. We will go somewhere else, not here.” Penelope was stern.
“Why wouldn’t it be safe? She has a relationship with Demonation, as does Magda. It should be fine,” Miguel said. I tried not to gape at him like a fish out of water.
“Yes, I have a working relationship with most of Demonation, but demons are never safe,” I said dryly. “Demons need power, and to get it they have to instill fear. Demons are sentient in the same way people are, imps are sentient in the way that gorillas or dolphins are. That’s why imps are safer to use as messengers than demons, and it’s why I set up the imp network for Magda. But do not make the mistake that because I am working with demons, demons are safe. If I summon a demon in this building, it’s going to set off all sorts of alarms. Alarms cause fear, which means in a roundabout way, the fear will be of the demon and even if I summon a very minor one, it will grow more powerful just being here around all of that fear. At my house, I can control the environment, including a spell that reduces the production of fear hormones, and I can contain the demon. I don’t have the ability to do that here, so there is no way I can summon it here.”
“Plus, Soleil probably has pizza to bribe it with,” Penelope said.
“Uh, not at the moment. I tried to make coffee using magic last night and the demon I accidentally summoned ate the leftover Cassanova’s Pizza that I had after it made all of us coffee,” I admitted.
“You accidentally summoned a demon while trying to make coffee?” Miguel raised an eyebrow.
“Remember what I said about her being exceptionally lazy? She’s been trying to learn to use her magic for everyday tasks, but she’s ignored it so long that once in a while when she tries to use it, she ends up summoning a demon or exorcising something. Summoning and exorcizing magic come naturally to her, the other stuff she has to work at, that is why I said she had a tutor even though she’s in her forties and even though she’s earned a designation as an archangel,” Magda said.
“You were serious?” Miguel said. “I thought you were being disparaging, but in a nice way.”
“No, she was serious,” Penelope and I said in unison.
“It can’t be an insult if it’s true and, in my case, it is.” I shrugged. “I really don’t know how to use magic very well. I’ve always stuck to using the magic that was easy for me and that magic is Stygian in nature.” I repeated the shrug. “However, having adopted such a truly powerful wizard as my son meant it became necessary for me to learn more about magic, even if it wasn’t easy for me. I’ve been learning, but let’s face it, exorcism magic was all I used for the first 40 years or so of my life. Then a few years ago, I discovered it was equally easy to summon demons. Last year, I learned they liked human food and would do nearly anything for it. Since then, I’ve been summoning demons for information or tasks and feeding them as payment.”
“I see,” Miguel said.
“However, just because you aren’t afraid of the demon I summon today, don’t make the mistake thinking you aren’t afraid of them all the time or that they aren’t dangerous. As I said, I have protections in my house that prevent fear. Also, while I believe relations between demons and the living should be improved, I do not support causes like Beings for Equal Demon Rights. I think those guys are crackpots because Stygian beings, whether they be demons or dragons or imps, are all dangerous in different ways and demons do not belong on our plane of existence. Furthermore, demonic possession is awful; to earn my exorcist certification, I had to be possessed. If I am never possessed by a demon again, it will be too soon.”
“Yet you summon demons and feed them,” Miguel said.
“Correct, the key there is I do it.”
“What most people don’t know is that demons fear Soleil, because even on their own turf, the Stygian, Soleil can control them. They have no free will against her in their own plane,” Magda said. “She has less control over them on our plane, but she’s not afraid of them, even without the protection spells, so to some degree, they still have to obey her.”
“That seems like a strange power,” Miguel said.
“We have a theory; we know that Lucifer and Leviathan are capable of reaching out to their relatives on this plane. Leviathan does it through dreams. We don’t know how Lucifer does it, but some of his genetic code is in Soleil’s DNA, more than would normally occur in an uncle/niece relation. For many millennia there have been rumblings by some hell princes that Lucifer should be replaced. By giving Soleil power over demons, similar to what Lucifer had when he first built the Stygian, she is able to assist him in quelling that rebellion. The disloyal hell princes know that it won’t just be Lucifer they face if they attempt to overthrow him. It will be Lucifer, the hell princes loyal to him, as well as Soleil, Jerome, and anyone else she decides to take with her to the Stygian. Raphael has proven to them he will bring death to the battle, true death, by killing Azazael,” Penelope said.
“That is very complicated,” Miguel said.
“Yes, but the reason for the rebellion is simple. Lucifer has strict rules about demons on this plane. Beelzebub broke one of those rules recently and was punished. The hell princes not loyal to Lucifer want more freedom to do what they please during negotiations for souls as well as during possession. They also want the right to move about in our world,” I said. “Any of those would be disastrous. Possession is bad, but it could be worse.”
“Oh,” Miguel frowned. “Okay, so what demon do you want to summon?”
“It may not be one demon, which is part of the problem. Glees knew about the attempted mass summoning, but that doesn’t mean he knows about other summonings. He’s low on the power list, so he probably won’t know about any bargains that have been recently struck. For that, I will probably need a duke or duchess, but I try to summon the least powerful demon I can,” I told him.
“Magda, would you do the honors of getting us to Soleil’s house quickly?” Miguel asked. A portal opened and all of us, including Penelope, stepped through and into my yard. It was going to be a gorgeous day, if a little warm.
Camilla, Bill, and their two surly teenagers were in my yard with Angel. Miguel sucked in a breath. I didn’t know if it was his wife’s aunt or the sight of Angel. Angel is roughly the size of small black bear. He was all black when he came to live with us. Since then, though, my niece Aurora had given him pink, purple, and blue polka dots to make him look less mean. And apparently, Angel loves the colorful dots. She had also given him a white belly and a ring of purple around one of his green colored eyes, because as a five-year-old, she said all dogs should have a ring of one color around one eye. And that is my niece’s super angel power, she can talk to animals and cause significant and permanent alterations to their physical form.
Camilla stopped and came over to comment that I wasn’t in magical chains, which she was taking as a good sign. She then took Miguel off to the side to talk to him in private. I pulled out my house keys and realized the door was standing open, no doubt left that way by one of the kids getting Angel. Bill had a large ball, like a full-size basketball, that he and the kids were taking turns throwing for Angel. Dog toys had to be customized for her, because while she was bear size, she was all dog at heart. Bill threw the ball as Angel spotted Penelope. The hellhound loved the witch, because she carried extra-large milk bones in her pockets all the time. Apparently, Penelope was a dog lover at heart, even though she didn’t own one herself. She was constantly handing out treats to strays. Angel lost interest in the ball and bounded toward Penelope. I saw the witch plant her feet more firmly under her and wondered for a moment if she’d just locked her knees.
Thankfully, Angel didn’t jump on her, and managed to slow himself, just skidding into her with his body. She stumbled backwards two steps and was already pulling a treat out of an interior pocket of her lightweight jacket. Angel immediately sat, tail wagging so hard his entire body shook. Penelope held up a hand and Angel sat up. Penelope tossed the treat into the air about two feet above the dog’s head and Angel snapped it out of the air with a clicking noise as his teeth gnashed together around the extra-large Milk Bone. I wanted to ask why she didn’t have a dog but decided it would be rude. I didn’t know Penelope as well as I knew Janet and was uncomfortable asking personal questions like that. It was obvious to me that she loved dogs; any time she was at my house she spent time playing and cuddling with Angel.
Angel was a hellhound and not a regular dog though, so maybe Penelope didn’t love dogs, but hellhounds. Hellhounds came with all sorts of challenges though; for example, they could not reproduce sexually; as their creator, Leviathan, had not given them sex parts. This may seem inconsequential, but it did create issues. I usually referred to Angel as male because he was a hellhound, but my niece had named him Angel, so most people assumed Angel was female, and I found myself switching gender pronouns for him based on my mood as a result. Thankfully as a hellhound, Angel didn’t care if I referred to it as he, she, or it. Since they don’t reproduce sexually though, getting new hellhounds is an issue that requires going to the source, i.e., Leviathan, or as Leviathan has told me, if I ever manage to hack a limb off Angel, Angel will grow a replacement limb and I can get a new hellhound from it. He’s also the size of a bear and not a dog. However, his behavior is very doglike unless his pack is threatened, and then he’s meaner than any bear species, even polar bears.
Camilla huffed and walked away from Miguel. She stood next to me for a moment, glaring at her niece’s husband.
“Eres un gilipollas!” Camilla spat at him and then she turned and stamped away from all of us.
“I suck at Spanish,” I said, watching her.
“I think it was aimed at me,” Miguel said.
“Oh good, I don’t like it when she’s mad at me and that didn’t sound friendly,” I said. Magda was grinning. Penelope was also smiling. I was guessing both of them spoke Spanish. We all traipsed inside my house.