I couldn’t help but smile. “Yeah, I can understand that.”
The corners of his eyes crinkled. “You probably do. You get to see the worst that humanity has to offer. That’s one of the things I like about a small town. Fewer people to avoid.” He grinned. “I went to New York for a few years, trying to do the whole artist-in-New-York thing, but I couldn’t take the whole big-city attitude and could barely afford to live. Then, this past December, I found an investor for the comic, so I moved back down here in January. And sales have been picking up every month.”
“That’s terrific,” I said, since I knew that was expected. But that wasn’t what I was interested in. “Can you tell me how you saw Rhyzkahl?”
He pulled another cigarette out of the pack but didn’t light it. “It was almost thirty years ago. Tessa and I had both just turned seventeen.” He grimaced. “My father was a summoner.” He slowly tapped the cigarette against the pack. “Tess and I used to spend a lot of time together. Even when we were little, you know, back in the days when kids actually went outside and played instead of the crap now where they sit inside and play video games—”
“Or read comic books?” I couldn’t keep myself from interjecting.
Greg gave a small bark of laughter. “Oh, no, they had comics back then, and we read plenty of ’em. But then we’d go outside and pretend that we were those superheroes and bad guys.” He smiled, a reminiscing look on his face. “We had long complex stories …” He shook his head. “Then when we got older we moved on to other interests. Anyway. My father was a summoner, as was Tessa’s mother.”
I couldn’t completely keep my face still as that bit of information sent a shock through me. Fortunately, Greg wasn’t looking at me and didn’t seem to notice my reaction. My grandmother?
Greg let out a heavy breath. “My father was pretty well skilled. He had no problems calling the minor demons and even called high-level demons fairly regularly.” Greg’s expression grew brooding. “Then my mother became ill. Cancer. I took her to the doctor, but …” He shook his head as if to dislodge an unpleasant memory. “My father decided that he needed the level of … assistance that could be gained only from a Demonic Lord.” He crumpled the cigarette in his hand, watching the flakes of tobacco drift to the floor. “My mother and Tess’s mother, Gracie, were the best of friends, and so Gracie assisted my father in his plan to summon a lord. There were a total of six summoners there—my father, Gracie, a husband and wife from here in town, and then two solo summoners from New Orleans. And, of course, my mother, though not in the circle itself. They all wanted this chance to perform such a major summoning.”
I tried to breathe silently, not wanting to do or say anything that could distract from the tale.
“I knew that my father was planning this summoning. He’d decided he would try to summon Szerain, a minor lord who supposedly was more open to this sort of assistance with the proper callings and terms. I … didn’t agree with my father’s decision. I told him so, several times.” Old pain flickered in his eyes. “I knew when they were going to attempt the summoning and I didn’t want to be alone, so I asked Tess over. Tess and I … well, we used to go down to the basement to fuck.” His mouth quirked in a boyish smile, while I tried not to show my surprise at the frank admission. Then shame flickered briefly across his face. “I didn’t tell her why I wanted her to come over. Just let her assume … Anyway, that night we were going at it hot and heavy when we heard people coming down the stairs, so we hid and watched.”
He took a dragging breath. “I have no idea what went wrong—whether it was the way the call went out or the way it was received out in the other sphere. Tessa told me later that she believes that when one summons a lord, there are different forms and protections and terms that have to be used.” He shrugged. “I’m not a summoner, so I didn’t really know what she was talking about.”
I swallowed and said nothing.
“Anyway, the circle made the call to Szerain,” he continued after a moment, “and something came through. Only it wasn’t Szerain.”
“Rhyzkahl,” I murmured, forgetting my desire to stay silent.
Greg nodded. “They invoked the bindings, but …” He shuddered. “They didn’t realize what they’d done. Didn’t realize at first that it wasn’t Szerain—that they’d summoned a lord who was not amenable to such things.” He rubbed his arms. “They didn’t realize how dangerous and powerful he is. He’s so …”
“Beautiful.”
He looked up at me. “You have seen him.”
I just nodded.
“Damn,” he breathed. “Someday I want to hear how that happened.”