Chapter 6

Laurel’s demon-summoning work area was a clearing fifty yards away from the house - distant enough for safety but close enough to be watched. At Jennifer’s insistence, Laurel always wore a whistle around her neck, and kept a fire extinguisher near by. Jennifer had also shown her how to craft a hand-held icon to assist with her spell-work.

She began working with more complex summonings. She spent much of the day practicing on a strange creature - something like a furry frog. It was no challenge to summon them either, nor to command. But controlling how they manifested was something new to her: creating one with large eyes or large feet. She even made one with the beginnings of a tail.

Summer walked through her clearing, carrying a shovel and a thick lumpy plastic bag. Apart from her hair, Summer looked a lot like Lara Croft: an enviable chest in a tight tank-top, a lean tight ass in shorts with long tan legs. Instead of a pistol on her hip, she had a hunting knife with a gut hook at the tip.

Summer stopped to regard the four creatures hopping around in Laurel’s containment circle. Innocently, she asked, “So what will you do with them when you’re done?”

Laurel knew Summer was toying with her, but she couldn’t think of any reaction better than telling the truth. “I’ll banish them.”

Summer gasped and put her hand to her face, feigning shock. “How could you do that? They have as much right to live as any of God’s other creatures!”

Laurel looked down from Summer’s gaze. “Well, they’re not exactly God’s creatures,” she tried to explain. Did Summer really not know this already? “They don’t belong on this plane. Banishing isn’t the same as killing. It’s just deleting their physical manifestation in our world.”

Summer put her hand over her heart. “Well, I certainly wouldn’t want my physical manifestation in this world deleted.” With that she walked off with a bounce in her step.

“I don’t understand why you’re letting her carve up animals,” Laurel told Jennifer, alone in her office. “Can’t you stop her?”

Jennifer answered calmly. “I could. I could also put a stop to demon studies. A lot of people consider that to be a far greater transgression.”

“But there are so many other forms of divination,” Laurel argued. “My great grandmother was SO GOOD at tea leaves! And my teacher Richard taught me molybdomancy. Why can’t she do that instead?”

The mention of Richard caused Jennifer’s eyes to sparkle with some fond memory, briefly. Her mind returned to the discussion. “Laurel, have you ever seen haruspicy up close?”

Laurel nodded. “My grandmother made me do it once. When my mom got really sick she wanted me to spend some time with Grandma Hillary. You know, family legacy. She made me cut a pigeon open. It was awful!” She shivered at the memory. “I don’t think ... She used to put food out on her back porch for stray cats, but there were all of these empty cages next to the door. I hated it there!”

“So then you know how it works,” Jennifer lectured. “Divination always requires vitality and change. Tea leaves, molten metal, tarot - they all have change, but not a lot of vitality. No culture in the history of the world has ever found a better predictive mechanism than animal sacrifice.” She pushed her reading glasses up on her nose. “With the exception of human sacrifice, of course.”

The next day Laurel was working in her clearing, intent on shaping her otherworldly furry frogs to have horns and tails.

Summer and Michael walked by, hand in hand. They stopped just inside the tree line, unmistakably in Laurel’s view. At first it was ordinary kissing, but then Summer leaned back against a tree and Michael buried his face in her neck, laying a row of sloppy kisses up and down. She placed his hand on her boob and she rubbed her thigh against his hip. Laurel couldn’t hear them, but the shape of Summer’s lips suggested a deep sensual moan.