The Summoner's Sigil

by Renee Sebastian

  Colin finally agreed with a grumbling acceptance. Then I could hear her clucking and growling, before she finally said, “The poison will need to be drawn out.” I froze for a moment, before standing up so fast that I felt a twinge of vertigo for a split second.

  “Let me reexamine it,” I told him. I had to nudge Gertrude out of the way, in order to gain better access to Colin. I refused to be distracted by Colin’s bared chest, while I took a clinical view of the wound. I too found it odd. There was no longer any blood seeping from the wound, but there was a yellow gas that would puff out of it when he took in a breath.

  “She’s right, but we can’t risk it here.”

  “What is it?” he asked.

  After twitching my mouth, I said, “I don’t know exactly, but I’m hoping that Calidum will.” Ultimately, I was hoping that Calidum would also be willing to suck the poison out himself, because this wound reeked of the seventh dimension, which consisted of a scent that was a bizarre mix of sulfur, mold infested plaster, and rosewater.

  I turned away from him and sat down upon the floor once again, intent on adding the last of the marks that I needed to call Calidum to me.

  I wore a Summoner’s ring on my pointer finger, which was a mechanical ochre stick holder. I had picked up this particular one up while we were stuck in London. I pushed the small button located on the inside of the band, and it unfolded into a stick holder. I placed a stick into it for later, in case I would need it at the spur of the moment. I sensed that things were going to go downhill fast once I finished this sigil.

  As I finished the last marking, which had a flourish that forked on the eastern side of it, I felt satisfied with the work I had done. I then placed Grandfather’s compass back under my shirt.

  This spell was all about accuracy. The difficulty level was increased since he was already on our plane. It was like trying to trap a freed demon, which would have proven impossible if I didn’t already know his summoning name. I didn’t think this was his only name, but rather the one he gave for me to use. Only later would I ponder if it were like a phone call, one where he had all the choice in answering it or not.

  To add an extra punch to the marking, I pulled out one of my athames and nicked a finger. I then crouched over the four directional sigils, and I added a drop to each of them.

  Once I was done, I turned around and found Gertrude studying me carefully, while Colin was still poking around in his wound.

  “I’m going to try and summon my friend now. Try not to kill him when he appears,” I told her, although I doubted that she could.

  “I’m going to go look for some salt and iron,” Gertrude said.

  “If I’m going to be taking over someone else’s dead, I’ll need a good bit of each. I won’t be able to control it, but I might be able to do a wee bit of spying through it. Maybe there is some in a back room.”

  “Excellent idea. Why don’t you go have a look,” I told her.

  She left the room and then I started speaking my words to summon Calidum to us. After calling his name a few times, I decided to await his return. I walked over to Colin to preoccupy him in the meantime.

  “Can you help me look for a magchain now?” I asked him.

  “All right, let’s look beyond the jail cells to see if they have an armory,” he replied. Knowing this town, where every granny had their own weapon safe, there was bound to be a big one here.

  Colin and I walked past the cells and found Gertrude in a makeshift kitchen. She looked up at us and said, “Found some salt.” I looked down and there were several burlap sacks presumably filled with salt stacked up on the floor. They must have used it for the occasional ice storm.

  “Yes, you did. Why not come with us now, we’re looking for weapons, and you are without any guns. Maybe we’ll even find some iron bullets for you back there.” She perked up at that and back we went, passing the lavatory and a sundry supply closet, until we came to a locked door.

  “I think we have found the weapon closet,” Colin said.

  “How do we get in?” I asked.

  Colin tested it and said, “I won’t be able to force this one. What if they have some sort of booby trap set upon it as part of their security system?” He was right, but it didn’t make me happy.

  “I can open it,” came a distinctly male voice from behind us.

  I turned around and said, “Oh! It’s you Calidum.” He ran towards me and jumped into my arms, before wrapping himself around my shoulders and neck.

  “That’s a demon?” Gertrude asked in a shocked manner.

  “What did you expect?”

  “He is relatively harmless,” Colin interjected.

  “I am?” Calidum asked. He then smiled, which startled Gertrude.

  “Did you hear my call?”

  “What call?” Drats, it must not have worked.

  “What did you find out?” Colin asked him.

  “The place where many stay is not safe.” He must have meant the hotel, which only confirmed our suspicions.

  “What makes it unsafe?” I asked him.

  “Felt like a hell mouth.” That wasn’t good.

  “A hell mouth,” Colin repeated incredulously.

  “Yes,” he answered in a matter of fact tone.

  “Calidum, Colin has a…” How should I describe it so he can understand? I finally said, “He has a feuerloch,” which meant essentially he had his own demon hole in him.

  Calidum seemed confused, but ultimately jumped down and went to Colin. He asked him, “Where is it, Basil’s pet?” I snickered at the derogatory manner in which he addressed Colin.

  Colin frowned, but opened up his jacket so Calidum could see the hole. Then Calidum did something that obviously took Colin by surprise; he jumped up onto him and stuck his nose into the hole. Colin growled and Calidum froze. I had a sudden flashback to when the spider probed Wendy’s wound, and I softened.

  “Colin just let him examine it… please… for me.”

  “Very well.” He then tolerated Calidum’s exploration of the wound begrudgingly.

  “I was not able to find a safe place to harbor you tonight,” my little demon told me between probes.

  “I think I know of a place we can hide, and where we should be able to spy on the hotel too,” I volunteered. “Maybe we’ll even be able to capture one of their infected people should they leave the hotel Gertrude.”

  “Where?” Gertrude asked.

  “It is nearly across the street from the hotel, not too far at all,” I replied. As if on cue, thunder boomed again from almost directly overhead, and the nails rattled in the walls. It was going to be a cold rain, and I didn’t fancy walking around in it.

  “Calidum, what about Colin’s wound?” I didn’t want to leave before he was done.

  Calidum turned around to look at me and then he spat a brown glob onto the floor. The smell of rotten eggs filled the room. “It was filled with Brimstone, but due to his genetic anomaly, he was already creating a barrier around it.” He must have meant a cyst. “I simply helped the process along by sucking it out of him.”

  “Very good Calidum.”

  “Even though I was able to siphon it out of him mistress, there was also something odd about it,” he added.

  I looked over at the bubbling dollop of pus and sulfur. “What?”

  “It contained branching cerebrum growths,” he replied. How could he tell that?

  “As in nerve growths?” I asked.

  “Dendrites,” Colin corrected me.

  “Did it communicate with you?”

  Colin shook his head no, but Calidum was the one who answered my question. “It was rudimentary at best, but it did not appreciate being prematurely birthed when I drew it out of him.” That was disturbing. “His genealogy shielded him from it, and aided in its removal. But few carry his blood in this world.”

  “That must be how they are infecting people,” Gertrude said, stating what we were all thinking. Bullets were delivering demon seedlings i
nto people. Who was able to procreate via bullet? From violent beginnings, come violent endings, Grandfather used to say, but where was the nursery all these cells were originating from, and why now?

  “Thank you Calidum. We now need to get into this room. Could you please help us?” I asked him.

  “I’ll be right back,” he replied and then he went back down the hallway, presumably to the front door. Within a minute, he was standing in front of us with the door opened to the armory closet. “There was a small mailing slot in this room’s exterior wall that I was able to fit through. I simply unlocked the door.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “So there were no traps?”

  “None that outwitted me.”

  I stroked his head and then looked over the small arms room. While it left a lot to be desired, stocked with only one rifle and a hodgepodge of pistols, at least it did have some weapons left in it.

  Then I turned to Colin and Gertrude and told them, “Take only what you can easily carry and make sure you have plenty of rounds for it.” I was betting those were in the cabinets, which was where I was going to look first for a spare magchain.

  I opened the first drawer. Unfortunately, there were no magchains, but there was a flail and a crook, which were peculiar instruments to be found in a Louisianan parish constable office. They both appeared to be made of solid gold and they both had inlaid blue lapis enameling with sapphires and yellow diamonds. Colin came to stand behind me, since I had apparently been staring at them too long.

  “What an odd thing to find here,” he said.

  “Do you have any in the National Library?”

  “We have an extensive artifact collection that I am allowed to peruse, but nothing like these.”

  “Should we take them?” I asked as I looked over my shoulder at him.

  “I have room for them in my bag, so why not.”

  “Thanks, but I think that the crook will fit nicely in my boot,” I told him as I slid it in. “Will you hold the flail?” I asked as I handed it out to him.

  He took it and said, “Of course.” Then he wrapped it in an oiled cloth before finding a place for it in his bag. Then I placed the comb Pippa had given me in its place in the drawer. I suspected that there might have been a tracking device placed within the ceramic flower.

  I next opened up the rest of the drawers, and while we found several boxes of ammunition which Colin happily confiscated, there were no magchains or smoke bombs. I racked my brain trying to work out if there was any other place in town where I might still be able to find a magchain.

  I couldn’t think of any, so I told Colin, “I need a magchain.”

  He nodded his head and said, “Yes, I know. Is there a metal smith in town that might sell some?”

  “No, there is only the blacksmith, and I’ve only seen carriages, gate supplies, and horse shoes for sale there. Besides, Edwin the Hostler is the blacksmith we met back at Pastor Bob’s shop. I don’t think he would be so keen to sell me one, even if he had one.”

  “I will have the best magchain possible made for you. Money will be no object,” he told me. “Once we get out of here.”

  I smiled beatifically at the sincerity with which he said those words to me, and I replied, “Thanks, but it doesn’t help us now.” And with those few simple words, I saw how his demeanor deflated.

  My attention was next drawn to Gertrude, who had found a Colt 45 Peacemaker. I said to her, “It’s a good look for you.”

  “I’d like to take out the ones responsible for taking my teeth.”

  “So would I,” I told her. Then I turned to Colin and asked, “Do you see anything you want?”

  He stared a little too long at me, which made me blush. I was suddenly very happy for the dim lighting in this room. Then he finally answered my question by saying, “I believe that I have the most interesting weapon in the room.” He then patted his bag which he had slung over his shoulder. I found it amusing that we were the crooks stealing the crook and flail.

  Then I said, “I’m ready to capture one of the inflicted humans. There was a women’s clothing store located at the corner of the street across from the hotel, not very far from here.” I wondered what Colin would think of it. I seriously doubted anyone would be caught using it. “With any luck, I might be able to acquire a magchain there.”

  “Where?”

  “I’ll show you, but keep your wits about you along the way, since there may be clues as to how to stop this epidemic along the way.”

  ···•Ͽ Ѡ Ͼ•···

  We traversed down Primrose Avenue until we reached Station Drive. Further down this road laid the train station. By now, I was certain the tracks outside the town had been lifted to prevent escape via that route. If I were being fatalistic, then I would have had to admit that the train entrance had been bricked over too.

  I looked carefully at the blackwashed buildings we passed, looking for snipers in the windows, so at first I missed it entirely. But as we went deeper into town, something was becoming apparent. More and more of the buildings had been recently painted over. Why? There were no festivals scheduled for this season to warrant such an expense.

  We finally came to a building, close to our intended location that was tacky to the touch. I decided it was worth a few minutes of our time to wait for the impending rain to wash the paint away from the walls of the physician’s office.

  “Let’s wait a few minutes under that awning,” I said while pointing to the entrance of the tailor’s shop, which was directly across the street to the office.

  “The odor of paint is atrocious in this part of town,” Gertrude muttered.

  Colin looked carefully at the wall we passed by on the way to the awning, and then he added, “There is something under the paint.”

  “That is precisely why I wanted to wait out the rain, in case it might wash the fresh paint away,” I told him. “Can you tell anything more than that?”

  “It is more of a sense of something otherworldly. My instincts are telling me to get you as far away from this place as quickly as possible.”

  “At least we haven’t been shot at again,” I told him.

  “They think that the damage is done, ‘cause they shot Colin full of demon,” Gertrude muttered.

  “They must believe they are culling the herd in this town,” Colin whispered. “Picking and choosing who to infect, starting with the most vulnerable, the ones without powers.”

  Then the first fat drops fell from the sky, and I instantly felt calmer. Even from when I was a young child, the thunder and rain soothed me, especially when I was agitated with my family, magic, myself, or any combination of the three. I used to fret over my dresses getting wet or muddy, but now I was without that vain worry. I centered myself and allowed the increased humidity to curl my hair and the ozone to coil around my soul. Life was more than ribbons and trim.

  Colin moved to stand next to me and our arms touched. He sighed. Could he sense my tranquility? It didn’t last for long, because once the rain started, it came down in hard sheets. I peeked my head out of the alcove to look at the side of the building and what I saw thoroughly surprised me. A golden triangle had been painted in long slashing lines, and inside of it was an Eye of Horus.

  “There is an ancient Egyptian cult here,” Colin said.

  I was not so quick to agree and said, “What about all those other sigils that we saw back at the church? There were many different cultures represented.”

  “They were subservient to the Egyptian ones,” he replied softly.

  “They were slaver marks?” I asked. Those were marks that when placed in strategic places of a sigil, they could augment its power. It was an archaic practice that only the most experienced of Summoners could hope to pull off.

  “Without a doubt.”

  “Why would they put a mark like that on this building?” Gertrude asked. She was right. Why would they?

  I went out into the road, allowing the rain to wash down over me. I looked over the bu
ilding, and concluded that it looked ordinary enough to me. Then I glanced back at Colin and he was pointing behind me. I turned around and skimmed the building located diagonally across the street. Just above the storefront on the second story was another gold marking. It was one I didn’t recognize, a bent lotus, but I was betting that Colin would know all about it though.

  I returned back to him, drenched through, and asked, “What does that mean?”

  “It’s the sesen, a symbol for the sun, and rebirth. Now look down the road that way,” he said as he pointed to the right. “That one, three stores down, has the symbol of amenta. It looks like the top of a jellyfish with only two appendages. One of them is about half the length of the first.

  “Then the building next to it has a loop that appears to have been tied with a knot. It is called the sa, and it is a symbol of protection. In its day, it was styled after the papyrus life preserver, used by the sailors in ancient Egypt.”

  “What does it all mean?” I asked.

  “I’m not certain, but I have a few ideas.”

  “Which are?” I asked.

  “The one with the symbol of protection means that its inhabitants believe in the cause, but don’t want to participate in the plan. They are asking for leniency.

  “The one with the rebirth symbol means that some of the people within its walls have been reborn, presumably hosting a demon within themselves.

  “While the amenta most likely means that no one alive resides within it. It stands for the land of the dead.” Pleasant.

  “So how long do you think the inhabitants of this town have been in the know about this?” I asked him.

  “Long enough.”

  “How much further?” Gertrude asked, while Calidum scaled the walls and licked at the gold paint.

  “It does have a gold component to the paint,” Calidum informed us as he climbed back down to me.

  “Thank you Calidum.” It was another nugget supporting the ancient Egyptian theory. Then I turned to Gertrude and said, “Not much longer, it’s Renee’s Rencontres.”

  Gertrude skipped a step but never said a word. When I looked back at her once, she was smiling her toothless smile. It always seemed odd to put a woman’s unmentionables store in plain view of the hotel, but if I were being a realist, I suppose that there had to of been more than a few clandestine visits made there by the general populace.