Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
JOSH
By the time Friday night finally arrives and I can slink off to my room—and hope none of the guests need me—I feel like a wet rag. No, not just a wet rag—a dirty wet rag.
Getting drunk last night was a huuuuuge mistake. Because of how I feel today, obviously, and if one of the guests had called during the night, I would have been screwed. I get nights off, but that wasn’t one of them. So… yeah. Mistake.
There was a good part, though, and that was Ewan. I’m not even talking about the part where we both came, great as that was. It was so good to just talk to him. Even when we were off our faces and saying stupid stuff, it was nice. Comfortable. Secure. And the same this morning.
I feel like Ewan sees who I am without all the ghost stuff. That’s scary enough, but worse? He likes it. He likes who I am.
I don’t know if I’m okay with that. Nobody’s ever really liked me that way before. While part of me really wants this, wants him, I’m terrified I’ll get used to it and then it will go away.
This probably isn’t the time to worry about that, though. I have a nagging headache still, I’m tired, and I’m hungry. Plus I have a bunch more research to do tonight, because we’re not finding the information we need.
An hour later, hunger satisfied and headache thankfully fading, I squint at my laptop screen. Ewan sent me an email ten minutes ago with a link to a website about demons.
Not sure if this will be of any use, but the forum has a few threads on summoning and stuff. Let me know if you want me to dig through them. And get some rest. Dinner tomorrow night? I’ll cook.
I click the link and try not to think about what him cooking me dinner means. Is that like a date? Or is it beyond a date? Are we… boyfriends? We can’t be. I’d know that, right? There has to be a category between dating and boyfriends.
Wait… how do you know when you’re boyfriends with someone? Is there a list of criteria?
Fuck it. I’ll ask Skye tomorrow.
Pushing the thought aside, I scan the website.
Most of it looks pretty hokey, wannabe demon-worshippers, which surprises me.
I hadn’t thought of approaching it from this angle, but I guess people who want to summon demons would need to have a fair bit of information about them.
Hopefully including how to make them go away.
If the spirit in the basement is, in fact, a demon. Urgh. How am I going to get rid of it if I don’t know what the fuck it even is?
I click over to the forum page on the site, which looks like a question/answer knowledgebase type thing. Anyone can ask a question, but it looks like only registered site members can answer. That’s okay. I’m just looking for answers, not giving them.
Skimming down the threads, I get more and more frustrated.
Are people really this fucking stupid? Half these questions are about summoning demons—how to, where, will they appear with clothes, and if not, what kind of clothes would they like, what to feed them (um, the souls of your enemies, you nitwit), where they’re most comfortable sleeping…
it’s like these idiots think demons are well-behaved houseguests.
I don’t know much about summoning demons, but I’m pretty sure you don’t just invite them into your home without setting some serious boundaries. Does salt work on them?
Curiously, I click into one of the “How do I summon a demon” threads. Maybe the answers will include instructions for sending them back.
Half an hour later, my headache has intensified and I’m wondering if this whole site is just satire.
If not, the future of humanity is bleak.
On the plus side, none of the answers about summoning demons look anywhere near realistic.
If standing in a dark room and calling out “Demon Lord, I summon thee” works, then high school slumber parties probably would have wiped us out decades ago.
There are a few vague answers involving pentagrams drawn with chicken blood and chants in Latin, but none of them are detailed enough to make me worry that people are actually summoning demons.
Some people who’ve commented must agree with me, because there’s a few instances of “This isn’t helpful” and “Does anybody have a drawing of the exact symbols needed” and, my personal favorite from someone called NotEvenDemonsDeserveThis, “oh my god why do you all even exist, I can’t handle how stupid you are.
” There’s a barrage of responses to that for daring to call upon a god.
Sadly, there’s nothing about sending demons back.
I’m just about to close out of the site when another thread catches my eye. How do I know what kind of demon I’ve summoned?
Ooh. Maybe someone’s said something that would help us to work out what the spirit in the basement actually is.
Because while Joe and the other ghosts have insistently been calling it a dark spirit, the humans in the know are leaning pretty heavily toward demon.
Personally, I don’t care what we call it as long as we work out a way to get rid of it for good.
I click into the thread and am immediately disappointed.
Most of the answers are unhelpful, telling the original poster that they can’t have summoned a demon without first knowing all the details about it.
One suggests torturing it with holy water until it identifies itself, but that has a flurry of responses decrying it because that would upset the demon, and an upset demon won’t help to overthrow enemies or whatever.
My skimming gaze lands on an answer from NotEvenDemonsDeserveThis.
I can’t believe I’m doing this but you’re all so dumb I feel compelled to try to save you.
Listen up. YES, it’s not easy to summon a demon without knowing exactly what you’re doing, but there are some morons out there who manage it anyway.
Usually because they’re too stupid to exist and the universe is trying to balance that out.
If you have somehow summoned a demon within a circle and don’t know how to identify it, here’s a tip: ask for its true name.
Within the circle, summoned by you, it will be compelled to respond.
Don’t bargain with it until you have its true name, and for fuck’s sake, don’t release it from the circle.
If you somehow summoned it without a circle, you won’t need this advice, because you’ll be dead.
But thanks so much for unleashing a demon on the world before it killed you.
I read it three times, trying not to get excited. It might sound like they know what they’re talking about, but whoever this person is might just be making up bullshit.
Putting down my laptop, I go in search of a ghost. For the first time ever in my life, I wish there was one in the room with me. They’ve been so respectful of my personal space since I set boundaries, but right now, I need to talk to them.
I find them just down the hall in the room for staff to crash in overnight. They’re watching reruns of The Bachelor from two seasons ago for reasons I don’t want to ask about. I knock lightly on the doorframe. “Do you have a moment?”
They all blink at me. “Josh? Is everything okay?” Hattie zooms forward, shedding the pretense of being corporeal in her worry that something might be wrong.
“Everything’s fine. Sorry, I didn’t mean to worry you.”
There’s a general round of sighs and grumbles as they settle back onto the beds.
“What can we do for you?” Hattie beams at me, thrilled that I’ve sought them out after hours.
“How well do you remember the night the dark spirit arrived?”
“Vividly,” Freddie says dryly.
“Burned into my brain,” Maisie adds.
“Do you remember seeing any kind of circle or drawing on the floor of the room?”
Blank stares are the only response.
“It might have been in chalk or salt… or blood. And it would have been near the vortex. Or maybe around it?”
Hattie shakes her head slowly, glancing over at Joe. “I didn’t see anything like that. But we might not have noticed that night.”
“The dark spirit and the vortex itself had all our attention,” Joe adds.
“I guess they would. That’s fine. Thanks anyway.”
“I think,” Maisie begins slowly, her brow furrowed, “I think the housekeepers might have said something?”
I freeze. “Really?”
She purses her lips and shrugs, making the bodice of her perilously low-cut Regency-style dress slip a little more.
“Maybe? I went back to check on my room after the police said the owners could use it again—that’s the room I died in, you know—and there were two of them in there cleaning up after the dark spirit’s rampage.
One was complaining that whatever the guest had been doing to end up dead, she’d left a mess everywhere, even in the closet.
” Maisie waves a hand casually, rings catching the light. “Maybe that was salt or something?”
“Maybe,” I agree. “Thanks, Maisie.” Although I’m not really sure what this proves?
That the dark spirit is a demon and the guest—whose name I still don’t know, despite Kieran trying to find out—let it out of the circle without being able to control it?
Or maybe her circle was accidentally broken? But where does the vortex come into it?
“There might be more information in her diary.”
This time, I’m not the only one who freezes. The whole room goes still, and then we all look at Maisie, who blinks innocently.
“Di—” I clear my throat. “Diary?”
“What diary?” Joe demands.
“There’s a diary?” Johnny claps hands covered in tattoos of smiley faces. “This is just like Murder, She Wrote!”
“Why didn’t you ever mention this diary before?” Joe barks, and Maisie jumps, her lower lip trembling.
“Don’t snap at me,” she whines.
Hattie holds up her hands. “Now, now. Let’s all just stay calm. Maisie, dear, how do you know about the diary?”