“Consestella Dobastro, yes, that’s me.” She finished, smiling at the sigh that she got as an answer.

“And what is… your familiar?”

“Oh, a spider.” The hand holding Madam Dorna’s cane tightened. “The big, crawling ones that you hate and squish at every opportunity.”

“...”

The next thing she knew was that Madam Dorna had kicked her, her hat and the old suitcase out of the room before closing the door.

“That was fast…” Velvet picked her hat from the floor, shaking off the dust. Two of Hyde’s legs were peeking from behind the ribbon’s shadow, and she poked them, making them go back to hiding.

…

A week ago.

It was night, the moon was new, and the stars would be the only light source in the woods were it not for the lamp Velvet had “rented” from Madam Dorna.

Going to the clearing she had found a few days ago, she started setting up an altar.

She put eight candles in a circular formation, not lighting them on, working only under the lights of the lamp and the stars. Then, she pushed them on the ground, burying the lower half of each candle. Once done, she opened one of the two boxes she was carrying with her, pulling out a few books and an ink bottle.

Riiip.

She ripped out the pages, filling the circle with them.

To call a demon of knowledge, one must offer knowledge.

Every magician got information about summoning a familiar when they gazed inside the Primeval Sea for the first time, but trying to summon it was their own choice. For sorcerers, most starting options were demons, unless they had some grimoires with alternate summonings. That, or having an hereditary familiar. Velvet had gotten kinda lucky, her possible familiar only needing some books, ink and bugs, but she had been told histories of some requiring human sacrifices.

If the initial familiar is supposed to combine with the magician, I just can’t imagine how you have to be to get one of those…

Having finished ripping the first book, she went to the second, and soon, the third and last, filling the circle with pages, making it impossible to see the earth below.

Once done, she went out of the circle, picked the ink bottle and started walking slowly around it, starting from the south, to the west, the opposite to how the sun rose. Then, she started chanting.

“Andras,” She flicked her hand, the first candle catching light. “Apolyon,” The second one did the same. “Andras,” She repeated, now igniting the third. “Apolyon.” The fourth. “Andras,” The fifth. The fire started catching a green hue. “Apolyon.”

Andras Apolyon.

That was the name of the Father of hell. Demons and devils alike bowed to Him. Calling His name before a summoning served as warning to the entity being called, so that it didn’t kill the magician the moment it was summoned.

Velvet did think it was similar to how children started behaving once they were threatened by calling their parents.

Four times, four times had His name to be fully uttered before starting the summoning. Velvet had just said the last one.

She let out a shaky breath, opening the ink bottle.

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“From the center,” She spilled ink in a line, on top of the pages. “To below.” Another.

Center and below referred to the realms. The center meant the human, material realm, below meant hell. Beyond was for ghosts, between was for nature spirits or fae, above was for deities.

“From the bound… to the unfathomable.”

“From the inconnexed…to the threads of knowledge.”

As she was chanting, she kept on spilling ink on straight lines on top of the papers, drawing something kinda resembling a black spider web.

“From Velvet Consestella Dobastro… to Ars Chryses.”

She picked up the other box, the inside filled to the brim with worms of different colors and sizes. She had handpicked the juiciest and chubbiest of them all. Then, she poured them upon the papers, and waited.

“I give my offerings.”

For a few seconds, nothing could be heard aside from the crawling of the worms and the cracking of the candles, until the green fire changed to gold, and the bugs started being buried with the papers in a spiral motion, as if they were on top of quicksand. After a while, only a hole remained.

Devils and demons couldn't walk on earth without a flesh passage. Summoning a devil consisted in bringing their realm to the magician’s location so that they could enter. Devils lived on separated realms one from another, with a variable number of demons under their wings, so there was no possibility of dragging half of hell towards oneself in a summon.

Velvet walked forward, and jumped inside.

Entering a different realm was like falling in cold water in the middle of a heatwave. And then falling against the floor.

The first thing Velvet noticed was how dark and cramped it was. Like being inside a small cave, her shoulders were touching roots, stones and soil on both sides.

The second thing was how humid the air was and how suffocating was the ambience.

She started caressing the walls, trying to find the direction she should go. After a bit of touching, she noticed a small crack, and started dragging herself towards it.

Step by step, she was making progress. Just out of curiosity, she tried to go back the way she came, but found that the hole she just passed didn’t exist. There was no exit.

Keeping on pushing herself forward, each step felt harder and tighter. The walls now pressed on her even more, making it difficult to even breathe.

Velvet extended one arm as far as she could, trying to grab a rock or a root to pull herself, but it was impossible. Her chest hurt from being constricted between the walls. She took the biggest breath she could, and then…

“Andras Apolyon, Andras Apolyon, An-” Something, small and with many legs walked over her extended arm, starting from her hand and going down towards her face.

Since everything was dark, she just felt it stop in front of her mouth. Velvet shut her mouth, not wanting the thing to crawl further.

“Seems you hit a dead end. Don’t you know any shrinking spells?” The thing spoke, not moving anymore. Velvet stood in silence, the pressure of the walls not decreasing.

“No, I can…” She said after a moment, making some paper figurines come out of her skin and start digging.

Unfortunately for her, rock did beat paper this time. The figurines tried to dig until they wrinkled, before giving up and going back to her.

Both of them stood in silence again.

“If you have given up already on getting a devil as familiar, I am interested.”

That made Velvet want to cry. She knew she wasn’t even half across this realm, and she had already gotten stuck. That meant the demon in front of her was a lesser one. Still, Velvet wasn’t going to be picky, she already felt the need of air, so, even if it meant ending this halfway, she already made her pick.

The good thing was that lesser demons were easier to take back to the normal realm than powerful ones.

Gotta be positive around here… Velvet sighed.

“Yes, okay.” She opened her mouth slowly, and the thing crawled inside, then, she felt a bite on her tongue, the poison spreading fast on her blood.

Her thoughts went dark, and she fainted.

…

When Velvet opened her eyes again, she was on top of the papers, the candles were extinguished and something was moving inside her mouth.

Sitting upright, she spit it in her lap.

Under the lights of the stars, she saw the dark blob fall on her dress, increasing to twice its size, transforming into a black spider with golden and blue symbols decorating its skin.

Then the spider saw her. And then made a spider bow.

“My name is Hyde, it is a pleasure to become your familiar.”