Seven devils all around me! Seven devils in my house! Characters: Wanda, Daimon Setting: Wanda’s bedroom on the Sphere Content: Demon summoning. Summary: Wanda summons a demon lord for information, but it’s kind of the last person she expected.
"Aut viam inveniam aut faciam. Castigat ridendo mores. Parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus," the words echoed, reverberating off metal walls, having none of their intended consequences as their speaker stumbled over them with increasing exasperation. "Non omnis moriar. Crede quod habes, et habes. Absentem laedit cum ebrio qui litigat-" Nothing happened. Not even a wisp of hellfire smoke in the middle of runes drawn on the floor in dark marker. Wanda was at her wit's end. "Double double toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble," she finished sarcastically and pushed the tome of spells from her lap.
Apparently she'd lost the knack, or her nerve. Maybe she was simply distracted; there were so many terrible things happening lately and it terrified her- or should have- that she couldn't feel about it what she knew she ought to. That was why she conjured now, searching for a solution. With a shadow of frustration (the most she could manage these days), Wanda rose to her feet and paced her little bedroom in the apartment she shared with Jessica.
So far she'd been able to conjure exactly nothing, no matter what books she consulted or spells she recited, and the room where she worked certainly wasn't helping. She'd done what she could to make it homey, but it was still austere, alien. Silly as it seemed, the mood was just wrong. It wasn't like grinning skulls and dripping candles on a moonlit night were necessary to the magical process, but a lot could be said for a spooky atmosphere. She need to create a more sinister ambiance.
First she disabled the high-tech smoke alarm in her room, then rooted around for several minutes in her trunk of mystic materials before she found a silver knife. The tome she'd been using went back into the trunk and she found another book, small and ancient. Its pages were crumbling and splashed with nasty rust-colored stains. If an object could seem evil, this definitely fit the bill. What she planned was dangerous, sure, but at least the darker stuff had a tendency to work whether you wanted it to or not. This book held the kind of spells that brought trouble to the careless and, under other circumstances, she might not have attempted it. But without a healthy dose of fear and caution to keep her in line (which rarely stopped her even when she did have them), Wanda figured she didn't have much to lose.
With the foul little volume consulted and her knife in hand, Wanda scuffed out her chalk runes and ripped pages from a notebook to burn. When those were lit and ranged in a circle, she cut a line down her palm and traced new runes on the floor in her own blood. Seeking spells hadn't worked, and summoning a small demon had proven ineffective. Might as well aim a little higher. Focused on her summoning, Wanda closed her eyes and began to recite, bloodied palms held towards her circle, the flames of her makeshift candles flickering as an energy portal opened over the runes. Something was coming through.