The Path of Summoning had a bad reputation. That might well have been the understatement of the century, even among the classic dark magics, demon summoning had a bad rep and deservedly so. The only reason an institution for regulated demon summoning had ever been considered a good idea was that unregulated demon summoning was the sort of threat that had seen entire cities burned down in the past.

That was perhaps a bit unfair, the average demon was a threat, but so was the average mage or paladin and if demons were the only threat the hells had to offer then by, the diplomatic standards of Reath, demons would have been regarded as little worse than unruly neighbours.

Sure ragos were bad tempered, and went on the occasional berserk murder spree, but they also made fine mercenaries. Sleeping with a succubus was little more than a form of suicide but they also made as fine a spy as could be found outside of a shapeshifter and charged far more reasonable rates.

But for all that most demons were just people, the demon lords were another matter entirely. The best comparison Reath had were the Necropolis’ liches. Ancient beings of fel power who could plan in centuries and who had survived all that time in an environment that started at deadly and escalated from there, and, while Reath could happily accommodate a large demon population with little worse than a two drink limit for rage demons, a nigh infinite supply of machiavellian manipulators with archmage grade powers was not something Reath was ready for when they were already having so much trouble dealing with their own immortal schemers

There were demon lords on Reath. Most predated the Path of Summoning, usually after pacting with and killing some young talent with more ego than sense. Which was why the Path now existed. Demon summoners did not get along with each other but even they had been able to agree that not having to endure a city wiped off the map every few decades was worth a little cooperation.

They were still a somewhat provisional part of the Council of Mages. Not out of any distaste for dark magic, the Necropolis and Umbral Temple were founding members and held in high regard besides, but out of youth. The tendency for any magical speciality to provide some form of rejuvenation, and the tendency for those in any given hierarchy to be those who had been there the longest, had led to a somewhat calcified ruling body.

Youth was something to be suspicious of at best, and weighing in at a mere three centuries the Path of Summoning was regarded as youthful. Not an absolute child like the Aegis Borealis or the Institute of Nexomancy, but still not mature enough to be entrusted with their own decisions.

Certainly the Path’s senior leadership were regretting their decisions now. While helping a devil to Reath was not something they had been foolish enough to do up to now, debts were being called in and deals that they had regarded as almost unfairly favouring themselves were suddenly chokingly tight around their necks.

Technically a deal with a demon was only binding upon the demon, though woe betide anyone fool enough to betray a devil of vengeance or similar, but all that changed, and deals became a lot more favourable to the summoner, if collateral were put up. And the collateral that demons preferred above all else were souls.

For ages it had been standard practice for a demon summoner, in exchange for some quite spectacular borrowed powers, to leverage their soul against, as a totally non-random example, aiding an armed invasion of Reath when the demon lord was ready.

It had been seen as a safe bet. With the Council of Mages and Holy Paladin Order finally burying the hatchet it seemed, no demon lord in their right mind would actually invade, and up to now the contracts had been used as little more than a show of factional denomination. Generations of summoners living and dying with nothing worse to show for it than mastery of hellfire, an extra few inches of height, or whatever else they’d selected as payment.

The trap hadn’t even been a subtle one. That was the beauty of it. One day the bill would come due, and every single summoner was banking on the idea that, just like the summoners before them, it wouldn’t be them paying.

Still the debts had finally been called in, and The Path of Summoning found itself having to burn vital resources to fulfill their overlords’ often conflicting demands.

One of the more valuable resources they were having to burn were the cults they’d built up throughout Reath. The small cells they’d spread throughout much of Reath’s population centres to further the Path’s interests, a few operating on the open but most in secret. Ritual sacrifice was afterall frowned upon at best.

Naturally most of the cults were kept secret, even most of the veteran summoners only knew of a few, and it wasn’t unknown for a cult to contact the Path to declare an important objective completed, request additional resources or the death of their last qualified summoner only to discover that there wasn’t even a record they existed.

A rare few though had been deliberately lost. Committed acts too profane. Pacted with demons too deranged. Or, in just one case, been deemed too valuable for anyone to know it existed.

Grandaunt Agatha’s Knitting Circle was the greatest feat the Path of Summoning didn’t know it had pulled off. Buried in the very heart of the Paladin Order, Agatha had led the cult for a hundred and fifty years of success. Crafted feats of demonology that would have made her the envy of her peers, even such beings could exist.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Unlike her other summoners Agatha had not handed her soul over to the first offer that piqued her interest. She’d shopped around, compared prices, and above all else she’d read the terms and conditions; and not liked what she’d found. Because Agatha had always assumed the worst, and she fully intended to still be around when it was time to pay up.

Her first contract to a power greater than her own, imps and lesser demons barely counted as summoning, had been for the knowledge of how to jump bodies at the low, low cost of her firstborn child upon their birth and her fertility afterwards. The avidus she’d pacted with had damn near laughed itself to death when it had revealed that the art required a direct descendant, forcing her to give up her daughter for absolutely nothing.

It hadn’t been laughing when she’d given birth to triplets, handing the firstborn over as soon as the umbilical had been cut. And it certainly hadn’t been laughing when the demon lord of slaughter she’d hired had parted its skull from its neck and more or less mulched the corpse for good measure to ensure that the knowledge of what she’d done could not spread.

She’d done well for herself after that. Waiting a good sixteen years before pacting to a devil, and again tricking the hellspawn into a one-sided deal, this time simply defining until death as the death of her body in one of the subclauses and one suicide/ritual later walking free with a gratuitous amount of hellfire at her disposal.

Rinse and repeat until news had spread and she’d instead bargained to keep silent about how she’d scammed beings thousands of years her senior in exchange for not being hunted down and butchered in the streets. Another bargain.

It was then she’d had the idea for Grandaunt Agatha’s Knitting Circle. A cancer in the heart of their most ancient foe.

There had, of course, been problems. For starters she’d been in the body of a teenager at the time and given the masterstroke of her masterplan relied heavily on the sheer banality of her cult, being led by a youth would be incongruous enough to rouse suspicions. Not much, but it didn’t take much to bring everything crashing down.

On the other hand having close to fifty years to ensure a lot of descendants to bodyjack and to gather a coterie of mostly trusted allies was a hell of a boon. Having to give up magic for that entire time as she established a life and identity in New Pax was far less so. She’d have called it torture if she hadn’t been tortured and found it preferable.

As interminable as those years had been, Agatha had endured and finally started up a knitting club of elderly demon summoners. There had been actual knitting involved. With all the effort they’d gone to to set up the perfect front, they were going to commit to it no matter how boring they found it. At least until one joker had had the bright idea of trying to crochet a summoning circle complete with binding and to the shock and horror of everyone it had actually succeeded.

Admittedly the circle had also instantly caught fire and they’d had to contain a rogue imp before it could escape the building and expose decades of scheming, but still it had worked. And laid the foundation for even greater heights of success than even Agatha had planned for.

A century, and several bodyjacked descendants later, and Agatha probably had the strongest demonic cult on Reath. And she had gotten greedy.

It wasn’t even a lot of greed, but after so long her network of demonic contacts was extensive and she’d been careful to ensure that demons she pacted with were either happy with the outcome or at least unable to complain about it.

She’d gotten good at the habit of knowing which demons were soon to die, and they were usually desperate to pact for resources at favourable rates that Agatha was certain they’d be too busy being dead for her to ever need to repay. So her shock when a lowly, down on her luck succubus had, instead of dying at the hands of the devil of flensing (a particularly vicious and sadistic breed of elevated wrath demon) that had ensnared her instead found herself under the employ of an imperator, Agatha had scarcely been able to believe her poor fortune.

For the first time since she’d begun this plot there was a metaphysical collar around her neck, and she liked it not at all. Especially when that same imperator had hit Reath like a meteorite.

Making deals with demons was one thing. The idea of them actually winning was another entirely, to the point that if she ever met Erebus in person she’d likely buy him a beer. Admittedly she’d poison the beer given she was exactly the sort of threat the necromancer liked to combat, but it was the thought that counted.

So when the succubus had offered a way to escape the deal, and cheaply at that, Agatha leapt at the opportunity. Sure summoning a demon as powerful as a succubus in New Pax was a risk that threatened to expose them, but that just meant she’d have to be careful in sourcing the materials needed.

In theory only the oldest members of her family, and the other founding families of the knitting club, were aware of the real family business. Young people tended to struggle keeping secrets, either too eager to show off their power or repulsed at what they uncovered, and a lot of effort had gone into keeping the secret from them.

Which was why, when on the very night Agatha had determined the need for a virgin sacrifice, it had come as something of a blow when four of her current body’s great-grandchildren eloped (two of them with each other), three joined the navy, a further two took up prostitution and one was arrested for bestiality.

Normally she’d have commended their initiative, while mercilessly searching for the source of the leak. As it was the only thing that stopped her hunting her family down out of spite was that not everyone had gotten the memo.

Alexander’s eyes were wide with fear as she approached the altar he’d been tied to. Agatha had never rejoiced in cruelty and thus regretted how long it took her to cross the room, knife in hand. After this it really was time she moved down another generation, put a little bit of spring back into her step.

The poor lad was trying to scream something through the gag as she fondly caressed his hair. It was a shame really, the rather bookish young man had been one of the rare few amongst her descendants that she actually liked and had been hoping to induct him into the knitting club in a few decades – once life had ground him down just enough to make him bitter.

A pity.

Slowly she began the summoning chant. It was a complex one for a succubus but that was expected given the history of the demon in question, some of the syllables impossible for a human throat to form but magic bridged the gap.

Finally, her somewhat ragged and raspy voice building to a crescendo, Agatha plunged the dagger down towards her (many times) great grandson’s chest.

The blow never landed. An adamantine grip fastened around the cult leader’s wrist as Lana, former succubus and first and likely last devil of guardianship, arrived on Reath.