The kitten crawled off my lap to investigate a cozy spot beside my leg. “I heard a little on the radio,” I said, doing my best to keep my voice casual. “What about it?” And why on earth was Pellini bringing it up to me?
“The, uh, dog showed up outside the station and scared the shit out of a clerk, then ran when a couple of officers came out,” Pellini said. “I couldn’t get outside quick enough to do anything. Animal control tracked him all the way to Leelan Park and tried to tranq him, but it didn’t work.” His voice carried a definite edge of distress and none of the confrontational air of the beginning of the conversation. “They shot him.”
Him, I noted. Not it. Pellini sounded as if the incident affected him on a personal level. Was he a total softy when it came to animals?
“I know they wouldn’t have killed it if there’d been any other way to stop it,” I said as I filtered everything he’d told me. Given that the kzak first showed up at the police station, I had a sneaking suspicion it had arrived through the valve in the parking lot there. I stuck the PD at the top of my mental list of valves to check. It wasn’t a long list, but it was a start.
Perhaps the kzak had been trying to escape through another valve? If so, it might have disappeared because it succeeded rather than because it died.
“They didn’t find its body,” I said in an attempt to reassure him. “Maybe they missed, and he got away.”
“Yeah, I guess,” he said, still sounding oddly distraught.
What did he expect me to say? You see, Pellini, it was actually a demon, not a doggie. So don’t worry. There’s a good chance it’s safe at home in the demon realm now.
It turned out I didn’t have to formulate a response. Pellini gave me a curt “See you at one o’clock tomorrow” and disconnected. I scowled at the phone. Obviously, he saved all his warm fuzzy niceness for animals.
Fillion mewed up at me pitifully. “Yes, I’m quite sure he’d like you,” I told him. “How could he not?” The kitten clambered over my leg and let out another mew. “I hear you. I’m hungry too. Let’s go take care of that.”
The door swung open before I could move. With a menacing growl, Fuzzykins leaped onto the bed, hissed at me, snatched Fillion by the scruff of the neck, jumped down, and stalked out.
Didn’t matter. I got snuggle time in before she took him back. Grinning in triumph, I pushed back the covers only to find the surprise darling Fillion had left for me. I pursed my lips and regarded the damp spot on my comforter, then shrugged, yanked it off the bed, and trooped to the laundry room.
How could I be mad? I got to sleep with a kitten.
Chapter 5
Two hours later I chalked the final sigil of my diagram onto the concrete of the basement floor. Until I mastered all eleven levels of the shikvihr ritual, I was limited to using chalk on Earth rather than floating sigils. Not only did it take far longer with chalk to ready a diagram, but chalk tended to be less forgiving since it couldn’t be easily altered during a summoning. Harder to clean up, too.
I stood to better scrutinize each mark and examine the pattern as a whole. No room for errors, not when summoning a demonic lord. Even a willing one. It would suck to get ripped apart by the portal because I forgot a squiggle here or a swoop there.
Satisfied with the diagram, I moved to the heavy oak table and dropped the chalk into the large wooden cigar box that held my summoning implements. On impulse, I leaned close to the box and inhaled. The aroma of incense and candle wax triggered memories of the first time I summoned a demon, here in this basement, with my aunt guiding, encouraging, and supporting. I’d been completely terrified, hands shaking and voice little more than a squeak, yet the triumph when the demon appeared within my circle had been the greatest I’d ever felt in my life. In that moment I knew this was my calling. I was special, gifted, and destined to be more.
I chuckled softly at the na?ve certainty of my younger self. Oh, I’d been destined for more, all right, though not the “more” I expected. Yet even though I’d been through unimaginable hell, I couldn’t regret becoming a summoner. My life before summoning had, frankly, sucked ass. Orphaned, acting out, and doing a variety of self-destructive stupid shit. Summoning had literally given me a new life.