“You did a good job cleaning up your diagrams,” he said. “But like all good summoners, you use blood as a component when tracing them out.”
Shit. “Luminol. You sprayed the floor with luminol.” It would have glowed like the Christmas decorations on my house. And since the glow usually faded after about thirty seconds, all he’d needed was a few minutes alone in the basement to spray the floor down and take a long-exposure picture. Then he could go back and build his own storage diagram. No wonder he was able to summon two major demons back to back.
I shifted my attention back to Roman. “Okay, I get why Tracy—or Raymond—would want to get some revenge against me. But why the fuck are you helping him with all this? What the hell did I ever do to you?”
Roman shrugged. “Not a damn thing. You were convenient. You’re the only summoner I know, and it helped that you had plenty of people who could serve as victims to link the portals.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I said before I could censor myself. “I was convenient? What kind of sociopath are you? Dude, you need serious therapy.”
I barely had time to throw up a block before he closed the distance between us and clocked me hard in the side of the head. My arm took the brunt of it but he still hit me hard enough to drop me to my knees and make me see stars. I sent up a silent thanks to Eilahn for her attempts to teach me self-defense. I’d be out cold if not for her relentless drills.
“Cut it out, Roman,” Tracy snapped. “She needs to be alive and conscious.”
Roman grabbed my arm and jerked me to my feet, frog-marched me to the center of the diagram and then dumped me in the middle. “I financed this whole thing because with this gate I can be a summoner as well. Then I won’t need those fuckers at ESPN or anyone else.” He backed out of the diagram and folded his arms across his chest.
I gave a dry laugh and shifted my attention to Tracy. “Is that what you told him? That’s hysterical.”
Roman’s eyes narrowed but Tracy just shook his head. “Don’t listen to her, Roman. You’ll see for yourself in just a few minutes.” He holstered his gun and then lifted his hands, eyes unfocusing