Every ritual needs an atmosphere. One normally thinks of demon summoning in a dark and dank cavern, with writings in blood and candle-lighting fending off the shadows. That atmosphere that exists in the popular mind does work precisely for that reason. Humans do have that kind of power over the spiritual, and demons are, in technical terms – our technical terms – spirits.

But, as I’ve said before, all you need to do is fit a similar atmosphere. Try to bring out the macabre. Just because the darkness is normally seen as terrifying, that doesn’t mean broad daylight cannot be terrifying or morbid. The evil hiding in plain sight – your murderer having a cup of coffee on the table next to you – can be as asphyxiating and horrifying as the darkness. Sometimes, it’s even worse.

To bring up a demon into broad daylight, all you need is to make the normal transform into the abnormal, the pure become impure, and to corrupt the innocent.

Do you understand what I mean by making things worse?

We used the trash, the decrepit and soiled form of normal things for the form of the ritual; the source of the impure. We used carcasses of animals and pieces of dried-up and rotting branches from trees as the source of the abnormal. And, finally, we used synthetic fibers and plastics to tie everything together; the source of the corrupt.

It was horrifying, what we had created. Pieces of animals, cracked wings and bones, tied together with finishing lines and plastic wrappings. Trash, like metal pieces and rods, all rusted, bent, and tarnished being smashed or twisted together. It felt like a post-apocalyptic dystopia had suddenly sprouted a demonic cult.

We splashed our structure – in the shape of an inverted cross over a circle, with carcasses hanging from every piece – with the slush of fetid water that had stagnated and putrefied. That same water we combined with dirt, sand, and powdered rust to thicken and draw a pentagram on the ground. The star isn’t part of the circle, only for the atmospheric aesthetic, but the circle is always part of every ritual – summonings are, obviously, rituals.

When we were finished, I looked up at the sun, just past noon, illuminating our structure from behind. Its looming shadow over our pentagram took the shape of a corrupt version of a known holy symbol of Christianity. It was monstrous.

I was horrified by our creation. And yet, exactly because I was disgusted by it, was the same reason I was proud of our effort. Somehow, we managed to create something this eerie in the middle of daylight, exactly because it was in the middle of daily, in a place anyone could find, only slightly away from the general populace.

“I don’t like this,” said Misa right beside me. “It’s awful.”

“That’s the point,” I explained. “I don’t like it either.”

Yand-Una approached us. In her hand, she had a pocketknife. She scratched her scalp and opened her mouth before trying to speak, but nothing came out. She huffed and turned a little to her left before turning back towards us.

“It’s done,” she said. “All that’s left is something related to the demon. We’re— I don’t like this part. We’re going to need some of your blood Misa. The demon is looking for you, which means you are related to it. Any part of your body could do for any other spirit, but for a demon…”

“I understand,” she answered. “I just don’t want it to hurt.”

“I could make your hand cold,” I offered. “I don’t know any ice spells, but a fire spell could be used in reverse to remove heat from your hand and direct it somewhere else.”

“Would that really work?”

“It’s gonna hurt once it heats up, but at least you won’t feel the cut.”

Misa looked hesitant. It may be a shallow cut but being cut is something anyone would want to avoid, especially when you know you’ll feel the pain. We could’ve tried puncturing it, but we had no needles. A small cut will have to do.

We approached the summoning circle. Tedet and Grikhat were positioned further away, ready to deal with the demon once it appears.

“When we drop her blood,” Yand-Una explained, “all you have to do is picture the demon in your mind and say its name. Wait for a little before summoning so we can gain some distance.”

I nodded and drew the heat from Misa’s finger.

Misa began complaining about a burning sensation. I must have gone for a little too long with the spell. The only good thing was she didn’t flinch or complained when Yand-Una slid her blade across her annular finger.

I sensed my phantom finger throb.

Taking a deep breath before we started, I tried to calm myself.

The drop of blood touched the circle and it immediately began vibrating with magical power. Only Yand-Una and I eye would be able to feel the power emanating from it. That was good. The magic felt revolting.

I was about to channel that horrible magic to summon a demon. When I gathered my power to mix with the circle, it felt like I was placing spoiled milk in my mouth, and all I had to do next was swallow it.

The anxiety was killing me. I didn’t want to be in this situation. It was surreal.

But so, when I heard their steps far away, I spoke its name.

“Ssadassar.”

But nothing happened.

“Ssadassar.”

Something pulsed in the circle.

“Ssadassar.”

And then the magic fired back into me, while the rest dissipated.

“Excuse me?” I exclaimed, aghast.

Was my ritual rejected? How does that even happen?

Damnit! And even after I had said such a cool phrase and my friends had humored me with a cool response.

“Avarez!” screamed Yand-Una. “What happened?!”

I shouted back what I thought.

She walked back to me, along with Misa. “That cannot be. The ritual was perfect. It was supposed to work. Was this all for nothing?”

I couldn’t believe it either. A demon cannot deny a summon. Rituals are supposed to be infallible if done correctly, and given what we knew and Yand-Una explained, the ritual was crafted well enough to work.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

There should’ve been no way for the demon to reject the summoning. That can only happen if they were already under a spell preventing it from being moved spatially. If the demon was, for example, summoned by another person they could also be blocked from—

“No way,” I exclaimed, speaking my mind. “No way, no way.”

I felt both their eyes fall on me when I spoke.

“Someone has already summoned it.”

Yand-Una’s eyes went wide and uttered the words I remembered a little late.

“Shkadaur, the Knight.”

“I just thought so too,” I said. “But could it really be them?”

“What else could it be?”

“Okay. But even if it wasn’t that, what are we supposed to do now? Do we just sit with our arms crossed?”

“No, we need to find the demon. Now.”

“How?”

Yand-Una looked behind me, towards the circle, and spoke: “We search for it.”

“A tracking spell?”

“Misa is related to it, and the circle was used to summon it.”

That made too much sense and felt too simple. I tried to think of a trick.

“They can’t be in the city, can they?”

“We could track them across the spiritual world.”

Too simple. Too easy. There’s got to be something wrong. I can feel it. Nothing is always this easy. Take the ritual by example.

“I don’t like how this is looking, Yand-Una. Nothing ever works how we want it to.”

Tedet and Grikhat approached us, questioning what was taking so long. Our answers didn’t seem to change their expressions, except for Grikhat, who softly asked Tedet: ‘is this what you always go through?’ Only for him to curse our luck like usual.

We broke the circle by dragging our feet across its circumference, breaking any kind of residual magic used for summoning. By simply drawing it back we had a new circle to use for our tracking spell. The leftover blood from Misa was used to link our spell with something and the demon. Normally, you’d use some sort of object as a compass.

Have you ever heard of letting sticks drop to tell you where to go? Does it sound ridiculous now? Or what about two pieces of bent metal that show you the way to water?

Tracking spells like that exist. The problem with using them is that if the demon is on the other side of the world, we wouldn’t know since they are simply pointing in a direction along the surface of the planet, to give us a better sense of three-dimensional direction we’d need something more sophisticated that is used for that purpose.

Our solution for this was something I’d rather not do because of the source of what I’m looking for.

We smeared Misa’s blood on the concrete, and I placed myself inside the circle, imbuing it with power. With Yand-Una’s guidance, she helped me through the process of making the tracking spell work. The circle now functioned as a barrier that separated the inside from the outside. I could concentrate the power and magic with the ideas and the objects. I opened my senses, heaving at the feeling of the ritualistic circle we created. It felt like I was dipping myself inside a rotting corpse.

I linked the spell with myself, with my senses, heightening my vision. Like how a polarized lens sees the shapes of plastic in color, my senses polarized the emissions of magic. Anything magically related to the demon Ssadassar, including itself and the ritual, would glow.

The tracking spell started and ended in silence for all those that saw it happen in the third person – for me, the spell ended with a loss of breath. Suddenly, I felt like I wasn’t breathing right. I started gasping for air, like a diver surfacing after holding their breath for so long. The pressure over my body felt immobilizing, making me flop to the ground.

I panicked and looked around trying to understand what was happening, but my vision seemed blurry, like I was trying to look underwater. I tried dragging myself across the circle, trying to reach somewhere, but there was no strength in my arms or legs.

“Ed?!” said Tedet in clear panic. “What’s going on?!”

I suddenly felt normal again.

Tedet had accidentally dragged his foot over the circle and broke the barrier of the circle. I felt like I could breathe normally again, and along with it, the rest of my senses came to.

“I’m okay now. I felt like I wasn’t breathing.”

Then, it hit me. I threw up. All the sensations that I must have felt, but that were suppressed by the magical pressure inside the circle, became clear and multiplied. Dead bodies, putrefied water. The morbid shape and feel of the ritual and magic that emanated from it. The sensation of evil.

When I looked up from the ground, I felt like something was pushing or compressing me from somewhere. Great magic coming from somewhere. Disgusting, like tasting rotten milk, again. Horrible, like looking at a murder victim. And wrong, like the sound of polyurethane foam scraping against each other. The taste was incomparable. I was only gasping and breathing air, but I tasted the air like it was a thin film of cotton candy that dissolved in my mouth; however, the foul taste made me salivate, as my body tried to expulse whatever rotten thing had found its way to my mouth.

After regaining my composure from vomiting, I looked behind me, at Misa who was trying to console me. She was shining. It was like an oasis in the desert. She was sweet and warm, but fresh like the ocean breeze. When I looked at her, I felt like being lovingly caressed by the sunrays, and every malady was washed away as if a nice summer rain had gently poured on me.

She was beautiful.

But behind her, I sensed everything wrong. I had to move her aside, even when I didn’t want to. Along the canal, it felt like tendrils of miasma were pouring out, like a boiling broth of mud pours its vapors into the atmosphere.

Every single one of my senses was assaulted once again. My skin was being scrapped and my nose hurt, like I was smelling the fumes of a dangerous chemical reaction. It made me want to clear my throat, turning into a fit of coughs.

That was it. The demon was strikingly close. Much closer than we had imagined.

“There,” I pointed. “Along the canal.”

Everyone turned around and saw the canal do a sharp turn, anything beyond it was out of our vision. Whatever could be there, somewhere up along the canal, was eerily close. Coincidence or not, it gave me chills. I felt a tinge of fear. The dark magic called to me. Seduced me.

To my side, I held on to Misa’s hand. Holding her made me feel at ease.

“Don’t let go, please,” I begged.

I did not turn my head to see her face, but I sensed her staring at me my senses like I felled her touch without looking.

“Okay,” she said, squeezing my hand and wrapping her fingers in-between mine. It was like a motherly embrace. If she had made me feel more at ease, I would’ve shed a tear.

As our walk turned into a jog, at the back of my head there was a small voice that kept chanting the same verse – over and over. Like it was chanting a spell for a ritual.

It’s never this easy. It said. Things never work that well. Too simple. Too easy.

But we pressed on. The tendrils were driven back, almost like Misa was pushing them away. She might be behind me as I pull everyone, but it felt like her determined face was that of a leader. I never understood how such a shy and indecisive girl could be so brave. That shining human beside me had saved my life before, and now was brimming with courage again to confront the thing that wants her dead.

How I wish to be like her. I felt nothing but fear.

As we made a turn, I saw the bubbling darkness become dense at the center. There it was. A small shack at the side of the canal. That’s where the demon must be.

We saw other figures around the shack. They were covered in garments. Whatever they were, at least we knew they were humanoid.

Then, from behind me, Tedet’s voice pierced the silence when we stood still.

“We’ve got company,” I heard him say those cliched lines.

I doubt Tedet even knows that they were.

“Yea,” I began. “I guess whoever summoned the demon, has friends.”

“No,” he said. “Behind us.”

Grikhat and Tedet were already pointing their guns toward the figures. They were dressed in cloaks, covering their entire bodies. I remembered this scene from before and realized what was going on.

“Vampires,” said Yand-Una. “Not again.”

That voice at the back of my head screamed in terror about how right I was.

From behind, the voices of the people suddenly became chaotic. They spoke in a language I could only describe as alien.

That’s right. When I turned to see, Knights of Artar’ey brandished their ceremonial swords that they used as artifacts for magic. The shack burst just after another figure ran out of it. My eyes burned when I saw it and I broke off the tracking spell immediately after.

I wavered. My phantom finger throbbed. I was suddenly unsure of everything.

“We can do this, right, Mr. Ed?” I heard Misa speak.

When I looked at her, she turned to see me. Her serious face only softened when she squeezed my hand stronger. There was trust and confidence behind that awkward grin of reassurance. She nodded, I could see fighting flames in those eyes – and it wasn’t metaphoric thanks to my senses. That was enough for me. All the troubles and doubts I’ve had were lifted. I felt strong once again.

I remembered when I first encountered her after that hellish week had gone by. With her shy figure asking me for help. I remembered thinking she wasn’t worth it. That my nephew was far more important.

At that moment, I took everything I said back. I was wholly wrong about her.

I no longer needed my senses to see the flames, they were burned into my memory.

Wizards are the defenders of mortals, I thought as I looked into her eyes, remembering the soul gaze and her earlier feats. This woman – Misa – she is worth fighting for.