Author's Note: Finally, after having the teaser for this fic up for so long, I've decided to post the real thing. Well, the prologue of it, anyway. ;D I'll be gone Jan 2-12 due to school, so I'm not sure how often I'll be able to update. In the meantime, here is the beginning and let me know what you think! If you like it/are intrigued/don't break bottles over my head, I'll keep going more quickly than I would otherwise. Heh.
As always, no copyright infringement intended, just admiration. ^_^ Aziraphale and Crowley do not belong to me--alas, they belong to Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman.
The Summoning
*****
Prologue:
A young man in khaki pants and a blue dress shirt looked as serious and determined as any young man that was holding a Crayola glow-in-the-dark stick of chalk while trying not to sneeze (there was a lot of incense in the room) can. He finished the last of the runes and made sure each seal was in place. The 'character' or sigil of the demon he wanted to conjure was on a piece of paper in his right pocket, written in his own blood.
As far as a 'blood sacrifice' went, the young man had again used his own blood, from a cut in his palm, and sprinkled the blood all around the seals, circles, and triangle. All that was left was to call the demon.
An industrious and careful young man, he made sure he had his glass of holy water nearby should the worst happen, and then he cleared his throat.
"I conjure thee, O Surgat, by all thy names, to come before me ready to obey me in all things. I conjure thee to be submitted in human form, to do and accomplish mine will and all that I command, without harm to me or anyone, as soon as I make known mine intent! Come Surgat, he who opens all locks! Come Surgat, demon of Hell! Come Surgat, for I command thee!"
There was a sizzling flicker of the air, flames, acrid smoke and sulphur and then a being materialized in the center of the innermost summoning circle.
"Merda (1)!" The demon exclaimed in a voice that sounded like the rusty hinges of a gate creaking open.
1. Surgat spoke in Latin, the language he had spoken the last time he was on Earth. The demon's entrance, which had extremely impressed the young man, might have seemed a little less grand to the human had he known 'merda' was the basic Latin word for excrement and its pronouncement was akin to an English speaking person announcing 'shit!'
*****
In a bookshop in Soho, a dusty-looking gentleman looked up from the book he'd been reading and frowned. He had felt something ripple.
The angel, Aziraphale, knew that it wasn't the work of the Antichrist Adam Young—the ripple wasn't that upscale. He merely had a feeling that something bad was happening or getting ready to happen. Something Wicked This Way Comes.
Speaking of Wicked, Aziraphale thought, perhaps he ought to call his counterpart Crowley. He looked down at the book he'd been reading. Right after he finished the next chapter.
*****
Two vague, blurry figures—indiscernible to the human eye even if one squinted—were standing next to a hospital bed. They vaguely resembled a middle-aged woman and a young man. Standing off to one side of the room discretely—well, as discretely as a tall skeleton in a black cowl holding a scythe was capable of being—was Death. Next to Death was a shifty looking figure that seemed to slink, even when he wasn't moving, and that had on what appeared to be a toga. The body lying in the hospital bed, what everyone in the room was focused on, looked almost as thin as the Reaper.
"You're sure, Mom?" The young man—if he could be called that, because he was currently outside of his body—sounded hesitant.
"Yes, honey." The woman-spirit sounded untroubled. "If I went back to my body, I would still be a quadriplegic. I couldn't hug you or touch you or your brother."
"But…but you'd be with us." The masculine spirit shimmered, in grief or anger. "I can bring you back, Mom!"
The shifty, slinky figure, Surgat, crept up behind the young man, looking decidedly uncomfortable. "I shall wait for thee, Summoner—" The demon cleared his throat. "You've got the power to do what you want here, so I'm going back to the circle. Come by when you're done and we'll…" Surgat paused to glance at the mother, who had cursed him up and down when she first knew what he was and why he was with her son. "Uh, settle up." The demon disappeared.
"Matt, look at me." Everyone in the room looked at the figure on the bed. "I just want to rest. I want…some peace. And life wouldn't be the same without yoga, anyway," she added. "Besides, I wouldn't want you to use a power you got from a demon."
"All right," Matt said hastily, not wanting to start that argument again. (1) "I love you."
"I love you too, sweetheart. Take care of Ryan," she said, moving (well, floating) over to the Reaper. "I've kept Death waiting long enough."
TAKE YOUR TIME, Death replied, in a voice that sounded like an ancient bird sharpening its beak on a granite mountain (2). YOU HAVE LITTLE LEFT.
"'Goodbye my love, my life," the woman said. "Goodbye, goodbye.'"
"Really, Mom? Spartacus?" (3)
She flickered with what might have been a grin. "I always loved Kirk Douglas in that movie." There was a pause. "Do it now, honey."
The young man slumped—if a spirit was capable of slumping—and all of the monitors in the hospital room flat lined.
"Matt," the woman said quickly.
He waited—if he'd had breath at the moment, it would have been held. Her Last Words were coming.
"Don't forget to feed the cat."
Matt heard Death, who then sounded like the roar of a waterfall at night, ask, YOU HAVE A CAT?
And then he was alone in the room with the corpse of his mother. Don't forget to feed the cat. Well. Could have been worse. She could have said, "Hasta la vista, bay-bee."
He would have sighed, and then cried, if he had been able to do so. He wasn't. Now he would have to go back and tell his brother about their mother. Still.
"Maybe there isn't any peace in this world, but we must remain true to ourselves," Matt murmured. (4) "Well, now it's time to face the consequences."
He took a last, loving look at what had been his mother and shook his head ruefully. "Spartacus," he said.
1. Although he was twenty-four, an adult, and not in a corporeal form, he had squirmed like a kid when his mother first found out exactly how he had come to be a spirit himself with the power to lead her back to her body. If the reader thinks that Matt seems awfully wimpy for a guy that's made a bargain with a devil, well, then reader should try to imagine telling their own mother that one has sold one's soul. (Or, if the reader's mother happens to be a Satanist or otherwise not bothered by such trifles, imagine telling your grandmother. Or an irate schoolteacher.) (Another comparable instance, so that the reader could imagine what it was like for Matt to tell his mother, would be to imagine telling a certain bibliophilic angel, 'Oh my, I seem to have dripped Blackcurrant fruit spread all over the cover of your Buggre Alle This Bible.')
2. After it had limped out of its UFO, of course. (Obligated real-GO reference.)
3. "Goodbye my love, my life. Goodbye, goodbye" being a quote said by Varinia from the 1960 Spartacus movie.
4. Another loosely paraphrased Spartacus quote.