The Problem With Black Magic (20 page)

Cassie couldn’t help but smile; he genuinely cared whether or not she was comfortable. It was almost sad. “Thanks but reading is fine; a cup of coffee would be awesome though.”

Cordley smiled a dazzling smile, like he was so pleased he could do something to accommodate her. “I’ll go tell Rosa; you’ll have it in three minutes.”

With that, he left. She was slightly disappointed, but not surprised, to hear him lock the door behind him.

***

After pacing the room for two hours, failing to come up with any plan of escape, Cassie was starting to wonder if maybe giving up and staying in London wouldn’t be so bad; at least she would be treated well, and hell, whoever Rosa was, she made good coffee.

Whatever
limited appeal that plan had disintegrated when she remembered that she wasn’t staying with Cordley permanently; whoever the court picked to train her, she could be pretty sure he wouldn’t be as accommodating. In fact, they’d probably stick her with a European version of Nathaniel-- or worse, Graellen. The very thought of it turned her stomach.

Don’t waste time thinking about it
, she scolded herself, knocking herself on the head gently with her fist
, I have to get away. No system is perfect, that’s what Mike says, and he’s right.

She sat on the bed and pulled Sam’s jacket tighter around herself; it was swimming on her, but somehow, she found the reminder of his size comforting.

What did she have? She couldn’t count on her mental link with Sam, the amulet blocked that and after spending half an hour trying to take the thing off, she was done playing with it. Her brain just wouldn’t comply when she tried to lift it over her head. Trying to physically escape from the building would be pointless; she would have no idea where she was going, and Cordley probably had people watching his house just in case. He was too meticulous to leave her unguarded. Until she had a plan, preferably a good one, she was better off staying in the house.

She had magic, but she didn’t know how to use it. If she was a trained witch, escaping from this situation would probably be child’s play, but she didn’t know that for sure. She didn’t even know what she could theoretically do with magic, besides heal people. She was slightly furious with Sam for being so tight-lipped all the time; a little bit of knowledge could have gone a long way here.

Still, everybody kept telling her she had so much latent power it was ridiculous, and that had to count for something. If there was any way out of this situation, it would have to take advantage of that.

Okay
, so I have a lot of latent magic that I don’t know how to use. What can I do with it…aside from get a lot of demons really excited?

She put her head between her knees, feeling exhausted despite getting twelve hours of sleep; it seemed like the only thing her power was good for was attracting demons….

Wait, attracting demons? What do I know about attracting demons?

Suddenly, she remembered the night she’d brought Sam to her house-
- the night he’d cast the spell that had killed and dismembered two of her would-be captors.

“I thought you had to say incantations and draw symbols in the dirt and stuff,” she asked.

Sam fixed her with a sad smile. “That’s what people who summon demons need to do-
- and I’m already here, aren’t I?”

Summoned. Sam could be summoned, he’d as much as said so himself.

Her heart started to race as a plan came together; sure, she might not be able to use her magic for much, but it was still a part of her-
- in her body, and in her blood. They had said the amulet had cut her psychic link with Sam, but they had never said it did anything else to their bond. If she tried to summon a demon she was already bonded to-- through the power of her blood-- it might just be enough.

Or it might do
nothing but make a mess on the carpet, but any chance of success was better than none.

Frantic, she looked around the room fo
r something to cut herself with. Unsurprisingly, Cordley’s daughter’s room was a little light on steak knives and other cutting implements. Finally, she picked up a paperback book and began running the edges of the paper over her fingers. It was surprisingly hard to give yourself a papercut the one time you wanted to.

Finally, after what felt like hours, she let out an embarrassing squeak of pain as she drew blood. With a smile that she was sure looked deranged, she squeezed the blood out of her finger and onto the carpet, drawing a loose circle; when her middle finger wouldn’t give up any more blood, she started working on cutting her index finger. Slowly but surely, she would get enough blood to draw a complete circle.

Growing tired of forcing the paper cuts, she rifled through the girl’s room again and made a small sound of triumph when she found a jewelry box full of earrings. Taking out a sterling silver post earring, she pricked her fingertips, producing blood at a much faster rate than the papercut method. When her hands started to feel like pincushions, she moved on to her forearms.

She wasn’t sure how long it took, though she knew the sun went down at some point during her efforts, and she
lost track of how many pinpricks and cuts she gave herself, but eventually, she had a complete circle. She wasn’t sure what to do for the arcane symbols, but there wasn’t much she could do about it; she scrawled some figures in the blood that looked vaguely Hebraic, and hoped for the best. She was hoping the intent counted for more than the details here.

Feeling a little woozy, she stood and looked at her circle; it was messy, but it looked vaguely like the kinds of magic circles she’d seen in movies and anime, so that was something. Furthermore, it was right next to the bookshelf, so if she made a mistake and summoned some frightening
hellspawn instead of Sam, maybe the thing would be too distracted by Cordley’s daughter’s collection of
Gossip Girl
paperbacks to attack her.

Okay
, clearly the blood loss is making me delirious; time to do this thing.

She cleared her throat, not sure if she should use her own voice or try to sound more formidable. She could put on a deeper,
more sultry voice, but would that really be more likely to attract Sam? Probably not.

She knelt before the circle; it seemed like the best pose. “I, Cass
ie Tremblay, familiar of Sam, um, Sammael, bonded to him VERY STRONGLY, I might add-- do invoke the er, power of this circle, to summon him here. To me; to my side.”

Nothing happened. Maybe she had to make it rhyme?

“Oh Sammael…you’re pale? Come to me, over the sea? This is…beyond stupid….”

Dammit, all she wanted to do was use the latent power of her blood to cause a supernatural being to materialize from the ether at her side-
- what was the hold up?

Nearly crying with frustration, she decided to yell; what did she have to lose?

“Sammael, get over here! I summon you- thee! Sammael, I SUMMON THEE!!!!”

Before she was finished screaming, she felt the floor shaking below her; either London was becoming a seismic
hotspot, or she had succeeded, for better or for worse. As smoke filled the room, obscuring her vision of even the circle before her, she closed her eyes and prayed to whoever might listen that she hadn’t screwed this up.

Sam stood, looking not altogether surprised to be standing in a girl’s bedroom. He dropped his eyes from Cassie to the circle that contained him, and she felt a lurch in her stomach when an expression she didn't quite recognize settled over hi
s features. It was…wry? Amused? She didn't have a word for it, but somehow it looked wrong on his face.

"My stars, is this a sloppy business," he said, scratching his chin. "I've seen some shabby summoning circles in my time, and let me tell you,
hon, this is probably the worst I've seen. It's actually kind of impressively horrific."

Cassie felt her stomach drop, the last naive hope that she'd successfully summoned Sam dying inside her. In addition to all her senses screaming at her that this was most emphatically Not Sam, the man she knew would never call her "hon." She’d succeeded in summoning something, but not who she wanted; to make matters worse, the thing had somehow taken Sam’s form just to mock her.

"I mean, I don't know if you could make a worse circle if you were trying. An impressive amount of blood, though."

Cassie cleared her throat. She might have screwed up royally, but maybe explaining herself would count for something. It wasn't like she had any other options, reall
y. "I gave myself a lot of cuts. I didn't want to screw up the summoning because I didn't use enough blood."

Not-Sam's face curled into a smile, not really like one of Sam's rare smiles, but familiar enough it made something twinge inside her.
"Really now? Heh, you remind me of someone, just a little bit. But you didn't need to use it all. Blood like yours, a bloke like me sits up and pays attention. A few drops, call my name, and I'm here, babydoll."

Cassie wasn't sure what to say to that.
"Uh, sorry?" He chuckled, and went to examine the volumes on the bookcase that he could reach without leaving the circle. Well, score one for her planning.

Even in her addled state, Cassie realized something was wrong, besides the obvious. Should it really be this easy to summon a demon? Sure, she had her potent super-magic blood, but didn't demon summoning typically involve studying, animal sacrifices, and lots of complicated little drawings of pentagrams and whatnot?

She frowned as Not-Sam happily ignored her and examined the spines on the books. This had been a half-baked, desperate idea and she knew it; it shouldn't have worked at all, let alone summoned a full-blooded, shape-shifting demon. The demon didn't seem to mind talking to her, so maybe the direct approach was best.

"So, it's this easy to summon you? I didn't really expect it to work, honestly."

The demon didn't seem to be paying attention, thumbing through copies of
Harry Potter
and
Gossip Girl
, but it surprised her by answering. "Summoning us is easy, especially for one such as you. Now, the complicated part-- and the part that makes mages spend all that time drawing pretty symbols-- is to protect the summoner from us." He put the book he was thumbing back on the shelf and turned around, hands in his pockets. "Apparently, you don't go in for that sort of wimpy nonsense."

And with that, he crossed the line of the circle to stand before her.

Cassie gasped and jumped back, pressing her shoulders against the door. Now she was stuck in here, with this thing that probably ate people, and she couldn't blame Cordley for this one; she had brought this on herself. She felt her heart hammering in her chest painfully.

Not-Sam laughed. "Oh please, now that I'm not bound b
y the circle I can do anything. Even you should know that. Don't pretend you can run away." Yawning, he moved over to the bed and fell back, stretching, then sat up Indian-style and fixed his eyes on her.

"The thing is
, I'm curious. I'm summoned, by a wide-eyed virgin whose veins apparently run with liquid magic-- and wearing quite a fetching outfit, I might add-- into a blood circle with no protection whatsoever, after dark. How convenient can you get?" he said, his voice slow and even.

"Who put you up to this,
hon? Don't get me wrong, my normal MO would be to snatch you home to keep me company for the rest of your pathetic lifespan, and I still might, but I want to know who put the honey in this trap."

Cassie found her voice, hating the fact that it shook. "No one put me up to it. I was trying to summon my...master," she said, barely pausing on the hated word "...and I got you instead, somehow.
Um. Sorry to bother you."

His eyes narrowed as though he didn't believe her. "Who were you trying for? I distinctly remember hearing you call my name."

Despite her fear, Cassie managed to narrow her eyes at him. He'd shown up looking like Sam just to mess with her, and now he was being cute? "Don't you know? You made yourself look like him."

There was a long pause, so long Cassie actually started to feel a little awkward, and then his red eyes widened in realization. "No I didn't, actually. Tell me, exactly, who you were trying to summon."

"Sam, half-demon. Barista at The Daily Grind. General pain in the ass, and my master....the dumbass," she trailed off.

The demon lowered his eyes a
nd licked his lips, considering. He looked at her and shook his head, a ghost of a smile teasing. "I don't believe it; my idiot son has finally pulled his head out of his mopey, insufferable ass and taken a familiar. Will wonders never cease?"

Cassie's jaw dropped. She had summoned Sam's father? How in hell, quite literally, had that happened?

Sam's father stood up, and walked towards her, putting his palms out flat in an "I come in peace" gesture. "It makes sense; you tried to call my son, but it's not that easy to summon a half-demon-- you'd need a lock of his hair, or at least a sock or something. Something physical for him to latch onto. Me, the blood calls: you spilled your blood, called his name, and it happens to be the same name." He chuckled. "Some summoners have tried and failed to summon me after training for years, and you do it by accident? I'll bet you're some familiar, Cassie."

Cassie looked over to the bed, wh
ere Sam’s suit jacket still was. She’d taken it off when she started to feel warm during her aggressive papercut session. Dammit, she’d had the tools she needed to summon him properly all along, and she hadn’t known. She could have kicked herself for not throwing the jacket on top of the blood circle; it seemed so obvious in retrospect.

Cassie released some of the tension in her body, realizing from the ache in her back that she'd been pressing her shoulder blades against the door for as long as he'd been outside the circle. He was Sam's father, not just an inhuman monster; maybe this wouldn't be her last bad decision.

"So if you're Sam's father, does that mean you won't drag me off to, um...you know?" she said, averting her eyes.

He closed the distance between them and put his hands on her shoulders, making her jump. A calm smile on his face, he began to rub her shoulders soothingly.
"For that git? No, I should take you and chain you up in my basement for the next 50 years just to punish him for being, well…you know, the way he is. Stealing his familiar from right out under his nose would serve the bastard right."

Cassie was starting to get used to the feeling of her stomach dropping to her ankles; it wasn't so bad, once you accepted the fact that you were screwed and would probably never see the sun again.

He tucked a finger under her chin and looked at her appraisingly, gently moving her head from side to side; even though she knew it wasn't him, the idea of Sam doing that to her made the blood rush to her face.
Dammit,
she thought
, I'm about to get dragged to Hell and I'm still crushing on him? What is wrong with me?

Satisfied somehow, he took his hands from her and sighed. "Unfortunately, as much as I'd like a new friend
just your shape to keep me company, Helen would definitely hold it against me, and I won't have that. So I guess you aren't leaving this plane of existence just yet."

Cassie let out a breath she didn't realize she'd been holdi
ng. Who was Helen?

"Now that you've had a moment to thank your lucky stars, tell me: why did you want to see that
git of a half-demon so badly? I honestly can't imagine."

***

It took a while, but Cassie briefed the demon on everything that had happened since the morning of the time skip. From
Sammael’s lack of response, she guessed that the demons already knew about the time skip. She wondered how much else they knew about what went on in the human world.

When she had finished,
Sammael rubbed his eyes; Cassie still couldn’t get past how strange it was to see the creature using so much of Sam’s body language. Whether it was intentional or not, it was creepy. “Quite a mess you two have here; not that I should have expected anything less.”

“What should I do? Since I have his jacket, I can summon him, right?”

“You can,” he said slowly, “but you have to deal with me first. Word to the wise: summon one demon at a time.”

Cassie raised an eyebrow at him; now that he’d revealed he wasn’t going to drag her off to Hell forever, she found it
difficult to be properly scared of him, even though she really should be. “I thought you said you weren’t going to do anything to me?”

He jumped off the bed and took a step towards her, causing her to take an involuntary step back. Okay, maybe she was still a little sca
red of him.

“I said I
wouldn’t take you home with me. I never said I wasn’t going to do anything to you.”

She frowned. “Aren’t you worried about Helen?”

He laughed. “Oh, from the mouths of babes! I won’t hurt you, but you have to understand, I have a reputation to consider; one does not get summoned by an innocent virgin—“

“Whose blood runs with l
iquid magic, you said this part already--“

“-
-whose blood runs with liquid magic, wearing a very sexy little thing, in the dark of a moonless night, and then just go home with nothing. It’s the principle of the thing, you understand.”

“Not really,” she sighed. Demons and their protocol; it was all the same.

He closed the distance between them, and tucked his finger under her chin again; he seemed to like doing that. “Kiss me.”

She sputtered. “Excuse me?”

“Oh come on, you may be a virgin but you’re not five years old. Kiss me, and then you’ll have a bond with me too. Not as strong as the one with my son, because God-forbid I show up the little bugger and give Helen a conniption, but I get something to save my pride and you get rid of me for the night. How does that sound?”

“Uh…” Cassie mumbled, at a loss. She didn’t want a bond with him, but it sounded like he was giving her a pretty good deal by demon
standards, and it’s not like she was exactly swimming in options. A more analytical part of her brain noted that demons seemed to have no trouble saying the word “God.”

“Take the deal,” he said, and suddenly his voice sounded nothing like Sam’s. For a fraction of a second, she sensed the demon behind the human mask, and that was enough to convince her that she’d best do whatever would get him out of the room the fastest. She stood on tiptoe and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

“Deal?” she said. He just looked at her for a moment, face unreadable.

“I see why you and my son get along so famously; you probably go to the same club for pathetically inhibited people.”

With that, he pulled her against his body and crushed his lips against hers. Cassie almost screamed, and probably would have if he wasn’t covering her mouth; he felt incredibly hot, and not in the erotic sense; in the molten lava sense. She thought she might burst into flame any second.

“Deal,” he said, and before she had could catch her breath, he was gone.

***

Summoning Sam was more difficult than summoning his father had been. She felt like she was mentally tugging him into the room, whereas Sammael had pretty much appeared before her once she had called him. It probably didn’t help that Sam didn’t realize he was being summoned for most of it.

Still, eventually she succeeded, and she sensed his presence in the room. Opening her eyes, she saw that he was sitting in a heap on top of his jacket, which she had put on top of the circle this time. He was still wearing his tuxedo, sans jacket, but looked slightly disheveled and worn out; she guessed it hadn’t been a fun day for him either.

He stared up at her for several seconds, as though not trusting his eyes. “I’ve never been summoned once in my entire life, and you….how….”

“Yes I’m fine, it’s great to see you too,” she said breathlessly. “Listen, we’re outside of London right now and the Eastern Court is currently disc
ussing who gets to take me home. I’d like to get out of here sooner rather than later.”

A little shakily, he got to his feet.
“The Eastern Court? Give me the short version.”

As concisely as she could, she explaine
d her current situation to him, including how Cordley had gotten around the protection spell, which made him groan. She made a split-second decision to skip over the part about summoning his father first; she had no idea how he would take it, and they both had enough on their plates for the moment.