A Halloween party…that was perfect.
“Wouldn’t miss it!” I gave her a thumbs-up, just in case my words were too muffled by the cake in my mouth. Leon had mentioned Kent having artifacts, and some kind of protective charm — if I could use the cover of the party to do a little snooping, maybe I could find something to protect me. It was risky, but if anything Leon had told me about the Hadleighs was true, then asking them for help was out of the question.
We ate and chatted, and for a couple hours, I almost forgot about the monsters in the woods and the demon on my couch. But when we got up to leave, Victoria said suddenly, “Oh, by the way, if you could give me or Jeremiah a call if you see Everly, that would great.”
“If we see her?” I said. “Why? Is something wrong?”
Victoria rolled her eyes. “She…left. It’s been a while now and daddy is…concerned.” She smiled tightly. “She’s not right in the head, you know? Who knows what kind of trouble she could get into? Keep an eye out for her. We’re just worried sick.”
We parted ways, and as I walked back to my car, my food churned in my stomach. Something told me Victoria wasn’t worried about Everly.
Something told me that if Everly had left home, she had a damn good reason.
There was no sign that Leon had stirred at all while I’d been gone. I dared to nudge down his shirt for a peek at his injury, and was shocked to find that nothing remained of it but a splotchy scar gashed through his tattoos. Not even my touch woke him; he gave a little sigh at the brush of my fingers, but nothing more.
I wouldn’t have expected demons to be such deep sleepers, but I wasn’t complaining. If he was there, I was safe. My touch may not have woken him, but I had a feeling a monster would.
But once he woke up, I didn’t think he’d be sticking around. I hadn’t taken his deal, and he was still fixated on finding the grimoire. I planned to hunt for something to protect myself with at the Hadleighs’， but the party was weeks away. I needed just a little more time with him here.
A few minutes of intensely browsing the internet offered a solution.
The website I’d stumbled across looked sketchy, haphazardly thrown together by someone whose knowledge of coding had stopped in the late 90s, but the information was good. How to Bind and Command a Demon to your Will looked like something straight off the cover of The National Enquirer, but at this point I wasn’t going to turn up my nose at anything.
Speak clearly and boldly.
Make your commands as straight-forward and detailed as possible.
Keep the demon confined to a binding circle, whereby it can only leave at your explicit command.
A binding circle. I could remember reading about that in the grimoire. That was what I needed.
I’d somehow managed to conjure up enough magic with some old markings and strange words to make a demon appear at my command. So why couldn’t I make him do other things at my command? Like stay and protect me, for a start.
The sketchy website, luckily, provided instructions for drawing a binding circle. With my laptop in one hand and some white chalk in the other, I crept downstairs to confine my demon.
I wasn’t about to let myself consider how furious he’d be. This was a matter of life and death, and I had to survive. I nudged the rug out of the way, and painstakingly drew a circle on the floorboards around the couch. I marked down the runes, checking and rechecking every part until I was confident I’d replicated it perfectly.
All that was left to do now was wait. If he woke up and couldn’t leave, then the ball was back in my court. I could command him to protect me until I could either get away from Abelaum or until the monsters lost interest.
If the binding circle didn’t work, well, it would be fairly obvious what I’d tried to do. Leon’s prior threats to spank me would likely seem meek in comparison to whatever vengeance he’d think up for daring to try to trap him.
I had other problems to deal with until my captive demon awakened, namely, disguising the garish severed heads I had staked around my yard.
It was a fifteen-minute drive to the nearest Target. I headed straight for their Halloween section, snatching up strands of black lights, faux headstones, a couple plastic skeletons, and some boxes of fake cobwebs. I figured the best course of action would be to hide the monster heads in plain sight. No one would think twice that they weren’t just part of the decor.
It was this, or avoid having anyone come near my house for the indefinite future. I was still trying to live a normal life despite being hunted by deranged monsters, damn it.