I’d always imagined the summoning ritual to be something solemn, intricate, and complex. Probably when performed by the Spirit Society, it was. But the demons knew exactly how much ritual was needed to make the summoning work, and it wasn’t much. There had to be a circle of people around the summoner, and those people had to be holding candles. Other than that, the only necessary ritual was the speaking of the incantation.
Jonathan, who was so strung out he could hardly hold still for more than about five seconds at a time, lay down on his back, with his hands crossed over his chest. Rather like a dead-body pose, come to think of it. The rest of us sat in a circle around him, each of us holding a lit candle.
The rest of the ritual was entirely up to Jonathan, and that was not a good thing. There was a Latin sentence he was supposed to repeat three times. Lugh informed me the sentence translated roughly into
“I, of my own free will, invite thee to enter my world, to reside within my flesh, and to make of my body thine instrument.” The sentence was to be followed by William’s True Name, which Lugh had told Raphael so that Raphael could continue to play king.
The problem was it was all such a mouthful—especially the True Name, which sounded like a bunch of nonsense syllables strung together at random—that it was nearly impossible for the twitchy, still semidelusional, and easily distracted Jonathan to get it right three times in a row. I don’t know how many times he tried, but it was at least twenty, maybe more, before he finally managed it.
And then William was back, and the twitching stopped. I think we all breathed a sigh of relief. I know I, for one, had begun to worry Jonathan wouldn’t be able to manage the summoning at all.
William let out a deep, shuddering breath, then reached his hands up to cover his face. He wasn’t twitching, but there was a tremor in his hands, and you couldn’t miss the tension in his body. It looked like he hadn’t had a fun time back in the Demon Realm.
Raphael broke the circle and went to kneel at William’s side. The rest of us stayed put.
“Tell me what happened,” Raphael said, and his voice sounded way gentler than usual. He laid a hand on William’s shoulder in a comforting gesture. Being such a talented liar made him into a talented actor as well, and he was doing a pretty good Lugh impersonation.
Yes, he is, Lugh agreed in my head. Rather … unnerving.
William pulled himself together by bits and pieces. Eventually, he let his hands fall away from his face and allowed Raphael to help him sit up. He was still pale, but at least he was no longer on the verge of hysterics.
“What happened?” Raphael asked again, with no hint of anger or impatience in his voice.
William shuddered and looked at the floor. “I did as you ordered,” he said. “I started telling people that I had spoken to you, and that Dougal was trying to take the throne.” He swallowed hard. “Most people didn’t believe me. But some did, and I know the rumor started to spread, because Dougal called me.”
His eyes closed and his fists clenched at his sides.
Raphael patted his back like he was comforting a small child. “And what did Dougal have to say? Did he mean to put you on trial, or was this a private meeting?”
Again, a shudder rippled through William’s body. “Private meeting,” he said, his voice whispery. “He didn’t believe I had talked to you. He thought I was spreading trouble in an attempt to blackmail him. I told him you would summon me back to the Mortal Plain and that would be proof that I was acting on your behalf. He still didn’t believe me, but he did give me a message for you, on the off chance I was telling the truth.”
Raphael arched his eyebrows. “And what message would that be?”
Once again, the whites of William’s eyes showed. “You are not like Dougal, right? You won’t kill the messenger?”
Raphael shook his head. “No, I’m not like Dougal. Tell me the message, and don’t worry that I’ll take it out on you if I don’t like it.”
William braced himself. “He called you an arrogant fool for coming out of hiding. He said it would be your undoing, and that he wished he could be here on the Mortal Plain to watch you burn.”
Raphael blinked a couple of times. I think he had a little more trouble acting as the calm, impersonal monarch when his temper was roused, but he managed to answer with only the faintest hint of tightness in his voice.
“That doesn’t sound like Dougal,” he said, and gave William a narrow-eyed look. “His quarrel with me has never been personal. At least, not that I knew.”
William had relaxed a bit when Raphael didn’t immediately blow up at him, but he tensed again under the scrutiny. “It’s personal now that things are starting to go so wrong.”
Raphael cocked his head to one side. “And just how wrong are things going right now? How desperate is Dougal feeling?”
“Now that you’ve actually summoned me back and given my ‘ravings’ some credibility? Pretty desperate.”
The rest of us had all been quiet, an audience to the conversation rather than participants, so I don’t think I was the only one who jumped a bit when Saul spoke.
“Those who don’t want to believe it will just say you gave your True Name to someone else so you could be summoned back. They don’t have to believe it was Lugh who summoned you.”
William shook his head. “No one who knows me would believe I’d do that. Give up my True Name in a quest for power of some sort?” He actually laughed, though there was a bitter edge to the laughter. “I don’t have the … constitution for it.”
“And even if some people believe it was someone other than Lugh who summoned him,” Adam said,
“there will be a hint of doubt in their minds. If Dougal’s position was already tenuous …”
Time to take this conversation somewhere private, Lugh said, and I relayed his message to the council. Without saying the message came from Lugh, of course, since William thought Lugh was sitting right next to him. But either everyone got the hint, or it was just obvious that it was time to stop talking around William, because Dominic broke what was left of the circle to go turn on the basement lights, and the rest of us blew out our candles.
We made the same arrangements we’d made last time we’d had to have a council meeting while keeping William contained, Andy and Barbie taking up their posts while the rest of us gathered in the living room.
Once we were seated, all eyes turned to me. I guess the guys had figured out it was Lugh who wanted the private time. I waited for Lugh to tell me what was on his mind, but he was eerily silent.
“Well?” Raphael asked, obviously low on patience. “What does Lugh think we should do?”
“I’ll let you know as soon as he tells me,” I answered, my voice a bit sharp because I was finding Lugh’s silence ominous.
The silence continued, but that didn’t stop the rest of Lugh’s council from staring holes in me, waiting breathlessly. If I were a better actress—or had a good idea—I’d have started making shit up just to cut through the discomfort.
As soon as that thought struck me, an idea came into my mind. I honestly don’t know if it was purely my idea, or if somehow Lugh’s thoughts had leaked into my brain, but I felt a shock of recognition that told me he and I were on the same wavelength. And I understood now why he was reluctant to speak.
I sat up straighter in my chair, hoping what I was about to suggest wasn’t going to trigger a mutiny.
“So our plan was to make Dougal’s situation more desperate, in the hopes that he’d decide to come to the Mortal Plain to try to flush Lugh out of hiding himself, right?” I asked.
Everyone looked back and forth at each other, but it was Raphael who answered for the group. “That was the idea.”