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Daily wordcount: 1,391
Total wordcount: 36,606
On/off target: -6,736
Life threw me for a huge loop today, and to be honest, NaNo no longer seems in the least important and I just can't concentrate on writing. I mean, the story is already crap, so it doesn't really matter, but I can't even manage to muster up the energy to write much of anything. We'll see if I can overcome it in the next few days, but I rather doubt it? But then, maybe it's what I need to take my mind off of it all. We'll see!
“Not that I’ve done, as far as I know,” I said. “Life was its usual, hectic self before I read from the book, and the result was immediate, he was just there. What, out of curiosity, are the red stains in the book, then? When I thought it was demonic I assumed it was blood, but then, that turns more brown with age and drying now that I think about it.”
“Berry juice, it’s in a lot of the spells,” she said. “Like I said, this is all earth magic and as such has a lot of berries, roots, and herbs.”
“So I wasn’t so far off thinking it could have been someone’s Great-Aunt’s super-secret recipe book,” I said.
“That’s pretty much exactly what is was,” she agreed.
“So if I didn’t summon him, why does he keep appearing at my house? And will I be able to get rid of him?”
“As to the first, I have no idea, unless he’s your true love and the spell happened to work on a demon that had already been summoned and was living on earth, as it were. That wouldn’t make a great deal of sense, and I’ve never heard of it happening, but you two do seem to have a lot in common and get on pretty well.” She cleared her throat and looked uncomfortable. I didn’t blame her, I was uncomfortable with the thought, as well. “But yes, you can be the one to send him back even if you weren’t the one who summoned him.”
“Well, isn’t that… a lovely thought,” I said rather sarcastically, though I had to admit there was a ring of truth to what she said. We had a lot in common, up to the tidiness issue, and we had been weirdly compatible. I wasn’t happy to think the being on the planet I was most compatible with was a demon, couldn’t it have been a homeless puppy or even a cat? I’d accept a pet as my soul mate, though I wouldn’t get dinner cooked, the snuggles would be better.
“I don’t actually think that’s true, mind,” she said quickly. “I rather doubt you did the ritual correctly and there’s really a lot of skepticism, even in the occult community, whether spells like this even work. It’s too close to chain bookstore book magic, really, and when it does work it’s probably more that the person who performed the spell is more open and looking for love, so they find it. You could argue that even if it works in unexpected ways, it still works, because, well, magic isn’t bound by logic and laws, but if it’s not then is it really real?”
“I… don’t know,” I said, surprised by the sudden turn of the conversation. Why was everything in my life turning into a deep philosophical discussion of late? With everything else that was spiraling out of control and doing its best to confuse me, I didn’t need to ponder life’s great mysteries at the same time. “I have to admit I’ve never given it much, if any thought. I don’t… well, didn’t… believe in magic or the occult at all. It’s a little hard to be skeptical with a demon popping into your house every night, but I’m still not discounting the possibility that I might just be going insane.”
“To be fair, that’s always a possibility with everyone,” she said gently. “And not just when things are going badly or seem crazy.”
“Do not start on questioning reality,” I said, exasperated. “I’m pretty sure that is something I can’t handle right now. I’ve accepted that things are very, very weird, and I just need to find a way to fix it.”
I told her about my research and my plan to banish Steve, and to my surprise she was nodding and making encouraging noises. She had one or two small suggestions, tweaks to the plan, but overall she seemed to think it would work. She made sure I understood how to pronounce everything and exactly how to position everything, and said I should be good to go, but also warned I should do it as quickly as I could.
“I keep an eye on the news and there have been two pretty suspicious murders lately. A lot of what people want to blame on crazy people is actually the work of true evil, whether through a person or on their own. That’s really the only way to get away with murder these days, use the underworld to do your bidding. Most of the time it backfires on the person doing the summoning, which is just rewards, if you ask me, but every now and then there’s a person skilled and cautious enough that they get away with it. But they’d be taking a huge risk if it was your demon, letting him loose like that, which seemingly no control. Demons don’t like to be forced to do things against their will, even things they don’t normally mind doing, like killing. They tend to turn on the person ordering them around, if they can.”
“Can that person just hide from them? Run away?” I asked, thinking of Evan’s disappearing act.
“Possibly, but for how long? The chances of them staying ahead of a demon, especially one with free range, is unlikely.”
“Is it possible to bind a demon to an area? I mean, something bigger than a circle. Like, a city, or a neighborhood? Then if you stayed outside of it, you’d be safe?” I asked.
“It’s technically possible, but a lot could go wrong. Then you could re-summon the demon to a new confinement circle and banish him, I suppose. Though I think you’d have to be inside the original boundary. To be fair, not a lot of data exists for this type of situation since not a lot of people survive it, and thankfully few are crazy enough to try it.” She shook her head. “I’d think just hiring a garden variety hit man would be easier and safer.”
“But more expensive,” I said. “What would you have to do to set a large boundary?”
“Same as for a small one, the biggest problem would be the circle itself. Then you’d have to set and keep some sort of flames burning. After all that, the symbols would be easy.”
“Does the circle have to be perfectly circular?” I asked.
“No, not at all, it just has to be some sort of unbroken line, it could be a square, a triangle, an amoeba, it doesn’t matter. Circles are pretty and have symbolism, so people fixate on them. It’s also easier, when you’re making a ring of salt or something else, to make sure it’s unbroken. Sharp corners can have issues.”
“What about a highway?” I asked, then suddenly remembered a bit I’d heard on the news and hoped beyond hope that the answer was that no, of course that wouldn’t work. I think she saw the dawning horror in my eyes, and she grimaced.
“Yeah, that would do it, but if he used the outer belt…” she trailed off, not wanting to say what we both knew. If that was his unbroken circle, the highway department had just broken it last night with the demo of the fourteenth street bridge.
“He couldn’t have used the inner belt, Jess lived outside of it, so…” I shrugged. “I guess we’ll have to see what happens tonight?”
“At least I don’t think you’re in any more danger than you were before, so if there’s an upside, I would say that would be it. And, at least tonight, I think he'd take advantage of his freedom to go after the one who originally summoned him."
"Even if he'd anywhere in the world?" I asked. Because, really, if Steve could have found Evan anywhere in the world it was really crappy of him not to tell me. Especially when he couldn't get to him. What would it have cost him to tell me at that point?
"Yes, anywhere. It's not as if they are bound by the same rules of time and space as we are," she said. "He can travel anywhere instantly, and finding someone who summoned him is... it's a little like a homing beacon. He can latch on to that and follow it."
Total wordcount: 36,606
On/off target: -6,736
Life threw me for a huge loop today, and to be honest, NaNo no longer seems in the least important and I just can't concentrate on writing. I mean, the story is already crap, so it doesn't really matter, but I can't even manage to muster up the energy to write much of anything. We'll see if I can overcome it in the next few days, but I rather doubt it? But then, maybe it's what I need to take my mind off of it all. We'll see!
“Not that I’ve done, as far as I know,” I said. “Life was its usual, hectic self before I read from the book, and the result was immediate, he was just there. What, out of curiosity, are the red stains in the book, then? When I thought it was demonic I assumed it was blood, but then, that turns more brown with age and drying now that I think about it.”
“Berry juice, it’s in a lot of the spells,” she said. “Like I said, this is all earth magic and as such has a lot of berries, roots, and herbs.”
“So I wasn’t so far off thinking it could have been someone’s Great-Aunt’s super-secret recipe book,” I said.
“That’s pretty much exactly what is was,” she agreed.
“So if I didn’t summon him, why does he keep appearing at my house? And will I be able to get rid of him?”
“As to the first, I have no idea, unless he’s your true love and the spell happened to work on a demon that had already been summoned and was living on earth, as it were. That wouldn’t make a great deal of sense, and I’ve never heard of it happening, but you two do seem to have a lot in common and get on pretty well.” She cleared her throat and looked uncomfortable. I didn’t blame her, I was uncomfortable with the thought, as well. “But yes, you can be the one to send him back even if you weren’t the one who summoned him.”
“Well, isn’t that… a lovely thought,” I said rather sarcastically, though I had to admit there was a ring of truth to what she said. We had a lot in common, up to the tidiness issue, and we had been weirdly compatible. I wasn’t happy to think the being on the planet I was most compatible with was a demon, couldn’t it have been a homeless puppy or even a cat? I’d accept a pet as my soul mate, though I wouldn’t get dinner cooked, the snuggles would be better.
“I don’t actually think that’s true, mind,” she said quickly. “I rather doubt you did the ritual correctly and there’s really a lot of skepticism, even in the occult community, whether spells like this even work. It’s too close to chain bookstore book magic, really, and when it does work it’s probably more that the person who performed the spell is more open and looking for love, so they find it. You could argue that even if it works in unexpected ways, it still works, because, well, magic isn’t bound by logic and laws, but if it’s not then is it really real?”
“I… don’t know,” I said, surprised by the sudden turn of the conversation. Why was everything in my life turning into a deep philosophical discussion of late? With everything else that was spiraling out of control and doing its best to confuse me, I didn’t need to ponder life’s great mysteries at the same time. “I have to admit I’ve never given it much, if any thought. I don’t… well, didn’t… believe in magic or the occult at all. It’s a little hard to be skeptical with a demon popping into your house every night, but I’m still not discounting the possibility that I might just be going insane.”
“To be fair, that’s always a possibility with everyone,” she said gently. “And not just when things are going badly or seem crazy.”
“Do not start on questioning reality,” I said, exasperated. “I’m pretty sure that is something I can’t handle right now. I’ve accepted that things are very, very weird, and I just need to find a way to fix it.”
I told her about my research and my plan to banish Steve, and to my surprise she was nodding and making encouraging noises. She had one or two small suggestions, tweaks to the plan, but overall she seemed to think it would work. She made sure I understood how to pronounce everything and exactly how to position everything, and said I should be good to go, but also warned I should do it as quickly as I could.
“I keep an eye on the news and there have been two pretty suspicious murders lately. A lot of what people want to blame on crazy people is actually the work of true evil, whether through a person or on their own. That’s really the only way to get away with murder these days, use the underworld to do your bidding. Most of the time it backfires on the person doing the summoning, which is just rewards, if you ask me, but every now and then there’s a person skilled and cautious enough that they get away with it. But they’d be taking a huge risk if it was your demon, letting him loose like that, which seemingly no control. Demons don’t like to be forced to do things against their will, even things they don’t normally mind doing, like killing. They tend to turn on the person ordering them around, if they can.”
“Can that person just hide from them? Run away?” I asked, thinking of Evan’s disappearing act.
“Possibly, but for how long? The chances of them staying ahead of a demon, especially one with free range, is unlikely.”
“Is it possible to bind a demon to an area? I mean, something bigger than a circle. Like, a city, or a neighborhood? Then if you stayed outside of it, you’d be safe?” I asked.
“It’s technically possible, but a lot could go wrong. Then you could re-summon the demon to a new confinement circle and banish him, I suppose. Though I think you’d have to be inside the original boundary. To be fair, not a lot of data exists for this type of situation since not a lot of people survive it, and thankfully few are crazy enough to try it.” She shook her head. “I’d think just hiring a garden variety hit man would be easier and safer.”
“But more expensive,” I said. “What would you have to do to set a large boundary?”
“Same as for a small one, the biggest problem would be the circle itself. Then you’d have to set and keep some sort of flames burning. After all that, the symbols would be easy.”
“Does the circle have to be perfectly circular?” I asked.
“No, not at all, it just has to be some sort of unbroken line, it could be a square, a triangle, an amoeba, it doesn’t matter. Circles are pretty and have symbolism, so people fixate on them. It’s also easier, when you’re making a ring of salt or something else, to make sure it’s unbroken. Sharp corners can have issues.”
“What about a highway?” I asked, then suddenly remembered a bit I’d heard on the news and hoped beyond hope that the answer was that no, of course that wouldn’t work. I think she saw the dawning horror in my eyes, and she grimaced.
“Yeah, that would do it, but if he used the outer belt…” she trailed off, not wanting to say what we both knew. If that was his unbroken circle, the highway department had just broken it last night with the demo of the fourteenth street bridge.
“He couldn’t have used the inner belt, Jess lived outside of it, so…” I shrugged. “I guess we’ll have to see what happens tonight?”
“At least I don’t think you’re in any more danger than you were before, so if there’s an upside, I would say that would be it. And, at least tonight, I think he'd take advantage of his freedom to go after the one who originally summoned him."
"Even if he'd anywhere in the world?" I asked. Because, really, if Steve could have found Evan anywhere in the world it was really crappy of him not to tell me. Especially when he couldn't get to him. What would it have cost him to tell me at that point?
"Yes, anywhere. It's not as if they are bound by the same rules of time and space as we are," she said. "He can travel anywhere instantly, and finding someone who summoned him is... it's a little like a homing beacon. He can latch on to that and follow it."
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