Page 75 of When I Accidentally Summoned a Demon

“I intend to.”

I turn and run back to the house. I don’t panic. I don’t cry anymore. I have spent the last two months since the shadow demon incident on my shop breaks, during the quiet hours when Valefar falls asleep with Bethie on the couch, reading the leather-bound book Harold left me. I haven’t just been studying history. I have been formulating a plan. A completely insane and dangerous plan in case they ever tried to take him back.

Even if I could find some way to Hell, I will not abandon my daughter for a suicide mission. But I’ll still go to the ends of the earth to bring my runaway demon back to me.

So, I am going to do something much worse. I am going to bring Hell to me.

I gather my supplies from the basement shelf: black candles, protective salt, the protective ward from the crypt, and the chalk. I go into the kitchen, turn the stove on, and brew a massive, comforting pot of chamomile tea. If I am going to wage war against the ruler of the underworld, I need to be hydrated and cozy.

I carry the hot kettle, a single porcelain teacup, a lawn chair, and a bright red household fire extinguisher out to the center of the backyard.

I set the lawn chair down, pull my blue tiger hood up over my head, and begin to draw, ready to raise some hell.

* * *

VALEFAR

The chains of the Pit are not made of iron. They are made of condensed gravity, old regrets, and ancient sins, binding my limbs to the obsidian pillars of the basalt chamber.

Lucifer stands before me.

He is as beautiful as he is terrible: a mesmerizing figure of dark elegance against the glowing rivers of magma below. He grins with a casual, cruel amusement, a predator having caught his prey—except the prey surrendered.

“I hope you enjoyed your little holiday, Valefar,” he says, purring low and resonant. “It ends tonight. Along with your miserable failure of an existence. Do you have any last words?”

I hang in the chains, my body battered, but my spirit is entirely at peace. I face the Morningstar, and for the first time in seventeen centuries, I feel no terror. I feel only a quiet, indestructible gratitude.

“Nothing you do could possibly hurt me now, Lucifer.” A faint laugh blows through my nostrils. “I will go into the fires of Hell knowing I have lived the past month in the blessed realm of paradise. It was enough.”

Lucifer’s smirk vanishes, replaced by a cold, dangerous sneer. “You have been a major thorn in my side these past few months, Valefar. I do not appreciate rebellion.”

I meet his gaze, steady, certain. “So says the greatest rebel of all time.”

With a low snarl, Lucifer raises his hand. A torrent of white-hot celestial fire erupts from his palm, surging across the obsidian floor to consume me. I brace myself for the end, ready to let my physical form dissolve into ash.

But the fire never reaches my skin.

Two inches from my chest, the white-hot flames splatter against a shimmering barrier of blue-violet light. The heat dissipates instantly, leaving me completely untouched.

“What the devil?” Lucifer hisses. He thrusts both hands forward, unleashing a massive wave of crushing energy.

The blue-violet barrier flares, synchronizing in perfect harmony with the quiet rhythm of the bond in my chest. Vesper. I do not know why Lucifer’s power cannot touch me—as though some part of her has reached across realms and refused to let go.

Lucifer tries to strike again, but before he can raise his hand, his spine suddenly locks. His head snaps backward, the veins in his pale neck throb violently as utter, furious disbelief crosses his face.

“Fuck,” he chokes out.

And then, with a sharp crack of displaced air, the ruler of Hell vanishes into thin air.

* * *

VESPER

At the very center of the circle, I have added a highly complex, highly restrictive paralysis sigil, reinforced with four ironward stones.

I take a slow, calm sip of my chamomile tea.

A sudden, deafening crack of thunder shakes the maple tree, and a towering column of black fire erupts in the center of the pentagram.