You Slay Me
Page 22

"Sounds right up Drake's alley," I said, flipping through the chapters to find one of Amaymon's demons. "Hmm. 'Effrijim: one who quivers in a horrible manner.' That doesn't sound too scary. Beats the pants off of the demon who's known for decaying in liquid putrefaction."
I drew the demon lord's symbols with the copper stick, hoping while I did so that the symbols would come out of the rug with a little soap and water, then used the ash to draw the demon Efrrijim's symbols. "All right, show-time," I said, preparing to close the circle. According to the instructions, it was very important that the circle be closed properly … which meant blood. I took the pin from the complimentary hotel sewing kit and pricked the end of my finger, closing the circle with a smear of blood.
The second the blood touched the carpet, the air within the circle began to shimmer. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end in response, the hum of charged power within the circle so disconcerting, I came close to rubbing out the chalk lines in order to destroy whatever it was that I had started, but I thought of Drake and Inspector Proust and Beth and even my Uncle Damian, and knew I had to finish it.
Standing before the circle, I used the compass to align myself so I could call up the quarters. I turned first to the east. The book said to draw a protective ward, but I had no idea what that was, so I just sketched a peace symbol in the air. "Guardian of the towers of the east, I summon you to guard this circle."
Turning south, I drew a peace symbol for that direc-tion as I spoke the appropriate words. "Guardian of the tower of the south, I summon you to guard this circle."
I repeated the process for the two remaining quarters, finishing with the words that would summon the demon to me. "I conjure thee, Effrijim, by the power of thy lord Amaymon, also called the bringer of fire, creator of all things poisonous, to appear before me now without noise and terror. I summon thee, Effrijim, to answer truly all questions that I shall ask thee. I command thee, Effrijim, to my will by the virtue of my power. By my hand thy shall be bound, by my blood thy shall be bound, by my voice thy shall be bound!"
There was a blue crackle of static in the air; then a noxious thick black smoke poured out of the circle. I crawled toward the window, coughing and hacking, throwing the windows open wide, leaning my upper body outside to drag deep, gasping breaths of air into my lungs. Wisps of black smoke wafted over my head, slowly dis-sipating into the afternoon breeze that came up from the Seine. I coughed out the last of the demon smoke, then turned back to the room, waving the smoke out of my way so I could see my demon.
A black dog sat in the circle. A large hairy black dog. One that slobbered.
"A dog?" I said, plopping in a surprised heap next to the window. "I summoned up adog?"
"I'm not justany dog," the animal snarled, its pink tongue flashing as it spoke. My eyes widened as I real-ized that the words came from its black lips. "What, are you, blind? I'm a Newfoundland! That's like royalty among dogs!"
The dog was talking to me? "Uh … you're aNewfie? You're a demon who's aNewfie?"
The demon sniffed in an irritated manner and licked its shoulder. "We prefer the wordNewfoundland, thank you."
I summoned up a polite demon Newfie? I shook my head. Something was very wrong here. "Demon, what is thy name?"
"Jim," it answered in a surly tone.
I closed my eyes for a moment. Oh, wasn't that just fine and dandy. I risked my eternal soul to summon up a demon, and I got Jim the Newfie. "Jim? That's it, just Jim?"
"Well, the whole thing is Effrijim, but I prefer Jim. Effrijim sounds a bit girly."
I nodded. I mean, what else could I do? Argue with it?
Jim. I had a demon dog named Jim. I looked at the sheets Beth had faxed me. Maybe she had left out a page and I'd missed a step?
"This place is pathetic," Jim said, looking around at the hotel room with a sneer on its doggy lips. "You're like, what, a pauper?"
"This is a three-star hotel, and my financial status is of . no concern to you," I said absently, flipping through the sheets. It looked like I had done everything correctly … perhaps it was the few shortcuts I'd taken on supplies that left me with what appeared to be the bottom of the barrel, demonically speaking. "You're sure you're a demon? You're one of the demon lord Amaymon's servants?"
Jim rolled its eyes. "An extremely handsome and im-pressive specimen of the Newfoundland breed material-izes in the middle of your shoddy hotel room, and you ask if I'm a demon? Oh, I can tell my time with you is going to be one long joyride."
I thinned my lips at it. "Look, I've got enough prob-lems in my life without a crabby demon trying to lay a guilt trip on me. Just answer my questions."
The demon's face took on a martyred look. "Yes, I'm a demon."
"And you're one of Amaymon's servants?"
Surprisingly, it looked away and gave an embarrassed doggy cough. "I was."
"Was?" I pounced on the word. "Was? As in ..was?"
"You're a regular Einstein, aren't you? Yes, was, as in Amaymon kicked me out of his legions because of an un-fortunate incident when a leviathan tried to mate with him." I just stared at it. Jim made an annoyed face. "It was just a joke! But try telling that to one of the princes of Hell. They have absolutelyno sense of humor."
"Oh, great." My shoulders slumped. "You're a delin-quent demon. A Hell dropout. A demon without a cause."
"No one asked you to summon me," Jim said with dig-nity. "I'm just out of favor for a bit. I'll be back, just as soon as Amaymon can sit down again."
A little headache throbbed to life in the front of my forehead as I looked at Jim. A sticky line of drool drib-bled out of one side of its mouth as it looked back at me. I could send it back to where it came from, but to be hon-est, I didn't think I had to strength to see what else I would summon up. Hard as it was to believe, I could end up with something worse than Jim.
"Let's get a few things straight here, demon. My name , is Aisling. I'm your master. You will do my bidding with-out resistance, complaint, or undue shedding."
Jim scratched at its ear with its back leg. "You wouldn't happen to have a flea collar around, would you? I just know I've picked up fleas from this dive you live in."