Through all of the pre-party arranging Isaac just kept out of the way and didn’t emerge from the library until the soiree was in full swing. While the crowd wasn’t diverse it was certainly eclectic. There were suits, evening gowns, black-clad goths, and plenty in the carefree style of look-at-me artists.

One trait that Isaac had always cherished was his almost total anonymity. Not handsome enough to draw gazes, nor ugly enough to turn them, he could usually attend any social gathering and not be remembered at all. This proved the case here and he was grateful for it. He wandered from one end of the party to the other and drew attention from no one. Peter stayed too busy being host/master of the dark arts to bother with him, and Julia had only given him a curt nod when he passed her.

Eventually, he discovered the jerk that set all this nonsense in motion, Mr. Doucherock Smellgood, or whatever his name was. Isaac couldn’t see auras but knew if he did, then the actor’s color would be the piss-yellow of ego and arrogance.

He certainly had the look of an A-lister and channeled a Jim Morrison vibe as he strutted around the party like royalty allowing commoners to bask in his presence. He shook hands with the suits, smiled slyly at the women, kissed the hands of the most attractive, and whispered things to made them giggle. Peter’s rounds of socializing finally brought the two face to face for a lifeless greeting with barely concealed mutual contempt. When they parted Isaac heard Doucherock say to his female sycophants, “Maybe he’ll do some card tricks tonight,” which elicited a round of laughter.

Isaac quickly decided he disliked every aspect of Doucherock. He scratched his nose, moving two fingers across the tip, left to right. A telekinetic tap flowed across the room and tilted the actor’s glass in the same direction, splashing the drink across his chest.

For a split second the actors’ suave persona crumbled, before one of his admirers stepped forward and with drunken dramatics, slowly unbuttoned his wet shirt and then threw it aside much to the delight of the crowd of onlookers. So, with much hooting and hollering, a grinning Doucherock moved his entourage outside to the pool, with many of them losing articles of clothing along the way and Isaac went to the bar for a refill to drown his defeat.

“I saw that.” Julia slid up next to him. When he played dumb, she said, “You somehow made him spill his drink. I don’t think it worked out like you wanted. Unless you were trying to make him sexier? Maybe you could cast a spell to make his leather pants bulge more?”

Not seeing a point in pretending anymore, Isaac fessed up with a chuckle. “If I knew such a spell, I’d be a successful B-movie actor instead.”

“It was a little too subtle. You should have just aimed for his face. Nothing sexy about a bloody nose.”

***

Just before the witching hour, Peter began ushering the partygoers to the basement. They dutifully lined up and exchanged cellphones for cheap robes. It would have made an effective B-movie visual, all of them cloaked in black descending to a demonic séance, if not for the occasional drunken giggling or stumbling.

Isaac managed to catch Peter before he went down. “I still think I should be down there with you.”

“No. We never allow first-timers down to the real party. I can’t change my own rules. It’ll just give the doubters a new conspiracy to hold against me.”

“Fine. Be careful. Do it exactly as we rehearsed.”

The mogul patted Isaac on the cheek several times, downed his drink, and handed Isaac the empty glass. “I got this. You worry too much. I handle Hollywood agents daily. This is small potatoes compared to them.”

***

Isaac spent the ritual time in Peter’s library flipping through Satan’s Secret Minions for the umpteenth time. Julia may have been right about the book. He could feel it now, a small tingle of some kind of knowledge, either expertly concealed or of such inconsequential power that it would be akin to finding one grain of sand. He’d even lit an old-fashioned oil lamp and studied the book by its flickering light. Flames sometimes revealed that which electricity wouldn’t, but still nothing.

Giving in to frustration he closed the book, put it in his Everbag, and pulled out Jughead. As usual, the jug came out spewing vulgarities at the rate a swimmer would gulp air after a deep dive. Isaac weathered the storm, was even slightly grateful as it proved a helpful diversion from the wait.

With his initial outburst completed the jug asked more civilly, “So what’s going on today?” Isaac laid out the entire scenario while sipping his fresh glass of bourbon. “So, there’s a bunch of drunk artists in the basement summoning a creature from the Pandemonium dimension? Wow. I have to say, I’m pretty proud of my track record of alcohol-induced calamities but even I’m impressed with this one. Those people are going to die, and probably not being as drunk as they should be. One time I convinced all these drunk swamp people to do their daily gator hunt by hand-to-hand combat with oven mitts on, but this could even top that one.”

“It’ll be fine. In fact, they should be wrapping up soon.” He glanced nervously at the clock.

Then he felt it. Something changed in the air as if a giant mouth had expelled a slow, fetid breath. A loud bang, like a heavy piece of furniture toppling, came next.

Something had gone wrong.

Then the screams started, echoing up through the vents. Not the screams of the amused, like rollercoaster riders, but true cries of terror. Isaac sighed and gulped his drink.

Something had gone really wrong.

Jughead sensed it as well and celebrated. “I knew it! You fucked it all up! I can’t wait to see this jilted Pandemonium citizen tear you a whole row of new assholes. Turn me toward the door so I can see it coming. And then, if you don’t mind, as it’s ripping you to pieces, try to use your telekinesis to move me around so I always have a good vantage point of the carnage being wrought upon you.”

“Sorry Jug, but it’s time to go.” The spirit’s fresh stream of vulgarities cut off when Isaac shoved it back into the Everbag.

Before the magician could exit the library, the phone rang with an intensity that made his ears pop. There weren’t any good times to talk to the Voice of Arrangement, but he couldn’t imagine one worse than right now. Tempted to ignore it he slowly inched away, but the phone, seemingly in response, rang more forcefully, causing the desk to shake and his head to pound. With a sigh, he answered.

“Peter Goss Movie Productions. How may I direct your call?” he said, in the vain hope he’d confuse the seemingly all-knowing Voice.

“Isaac.”

That was all it took. One ghastly utterance of his name to put an end to his shenanigans. He bit his lip.

“The girl. Do what must be done to save her.”

He knew immediately to whom it referred. “I’m not sure I can. I don’t know what happened down there or if I can save anyone at all.”

“All others are irrelevant. She is your charge now.”

The last sentence hit Isaac like a hammer and for the first time, he raised his tone with the Voice. “My charge? Bullshit. No way. I can’t do that. I can’t take on an apprentice. You don’t understand.”

The Voice didn’t acknowledge his resistance. It just said, “By any means necessary Isaac.” Then the line went dead, and he slammed the phone down.

The magician left the library but froze on the stairs when a new noise began. A deafening chattering noise, like a cicada call in stereo, rose from below and seemed to emanate from the very walls. It almost drowned out the screams. Almost. He paused when he stepped onto the first floor and saw the basement door.

Still closed.

No one had gotten out.

Isaac stood there, tapping his right hand on the Everbag and his left hand on the coat pocket that held his keys. He had no idea how to proceed. In the event the summoning went awry, his original contingency plan had been a few defensive spells to cover a hasty, albeit guilt-ridden, escape. He wasn’t prepared to stage a rescue mission via aggressive charge into a slaughter. He had no clue of the carnage being wrought down there or even if he could defeat whatever they had summoned, much less save anyone. Face an enraged Pandemonium demon or disobey Arrangement...Fate sped up his decision when the door burst open and one survivor rushed out.

Julia.

Blood streaked her face, and her robes were tattered as if pulled away from grasping claws. She slammed the door and leaned her weight against it. Isaac noted she was justifiably wired but oddly composed. Hurried, but not panicked. “It’s loose. What do we do?” she panted and, as an answer, Isaac jiggled the keys. “Run for it?” she asked, sounding vaguely disappointed.

Isaac responded with an exaggerated nod and was about to ask about Peter when he noticed the movement around the door. He waved Julia away from it.

Thin, pinkish strands, about the size of spaghetti, squirmed through the thin gap between the door and the jamb. They moved fast, spreading like ivy across the ceiling and walls, a red ooze dripping from them and leaving smear marks as they grew. Not worms. Not snakes.

“It’s human skin isn’t it?” Julia asked, more awed than afraid.

“Yeah. Damn it.”

There were no more screams now, the cicada call had subsided and from within the eerie silence came the sound of gnawing, as if an army of mice were working on the basement door. Whiffs of acrid smoke followed, billowing in small plumes with a huffing/puffing rhythm. Dozens of tiny things with tiny mouths were eating and burning their way through the door. Isaac jiggled the keys again to get Julia’s attention and together they ran for the front of the house.

The flesh vines had been too fast. Already a layer of them encased the door. Isaac threw a telekinetic blast but while the glass in the door shattered, the vines held the wood firmly in place. From underneath her skirt, Julia pulled a surprisingly large knife from a sheath on her thigh and began hacking at them. Each vine quickly grew back, the cut ends seeking each other out like a magician’s rope trick. Exasperated, she reached to tear them, but Isaac snatched her outstretched hand away. “No. Don’t touch them.”

There were no alternative exits. The vines had moved straight to the doors and windows and encased them like the web of a crafty spider. They backtracked through the house and passed the basement door just as the chewing things tore and burned their way through.

Fist-sized insects, spider-like with crustacean shells and wicked pincers, crawled through the splintered wood and scurried along the flesh-vines. They had distorted humanoid faces and mouths of needle-sized teeth. From their lips oozed a green fluid that sizzled where it dripped. They scuttled sideways like crabs along the flesh-vines, tiny eyes fixed on the pair.

“So that’s what was summoned up? A whole gaggle of evil shellfish?”

“No. There was one big bug thing that started spawning these little ones all over. They have acid in their mouths,” Julia pointed out, continuing to seem more marveled than afraid.

“Probably not a big deal as long we don’t get bit.” As the words left his mouth, so did the bile leave theirs. Ejected like jets from water guns, the acidic saliva would have sprayed across him if Julia hadn’t yanked him out of the way.

He nodded his thanks at her and then pulled Wilma from his Everbag, much to Julia’s wide-eyed delight. “That is so much cooler than a rabbit from a hat,” she said.

The buckshot proved satisfyingly effective against the crab-things. Adhered to the vines they were easy targets and each blast brought one or two down in a rain of shell and green ooze. What they did have were numbers and Isaac quickly found himself reloading as they retreated up the stairs.

The rapid growth of the flesh-vines petered out in the stairwell, probably due to lack of raw materials in the basement, and the crabs stopped at the end of the line, like trains out of track. They hissed and spit in frustration, but Isaac and Julia were out of their range when they made it to the library. She went first for the window. “Figures a guy who makes horror movies puts bars on the second floor. We should barricade the door.”

“No. Leave it open. We want whatever it is to come through without damaging the wood.”

“We do?”

“Trust me.” He threw aside the bearskin rug. Underneath it, onto the hardwood floor, he’d painted a smaller version of the circle in the basement. “When the demon comes in, step inside. Do not step out or touch any part of it.”

“I saw that lesson downstairs. So now we’re just going to wait for it?”

“Trust me. I know what I’m doing.”

“Really? A basement full of corpses says otherwise.”

Isaac started to retort, couldn’t, and let her have that one. From the hallway, the crabs watched them like angry guard dogs, chattering and clicking, holding them at bay for their master.

A crash then, which Isaac assumed was the remains of the basement door breaking down. Next were heavy footsteps, stumbling up the stairs like a noisy drunk. Finally, it came into view.

It was Doucherock.

Sort of.

Covered in blood, the actor moved stiffly, as if auditioning for a zombie role. His eyes were wide and unblinking, his mouth opening and closing as if working to issue a scream that wouldn’t come. Riding piggyback on him was the Pandemonium demon.

No. Not riding him, Isaac realized. The thing was covered in centipede legs, some thick as fingers and some thin as hair. Each of these had wrapped around Doucherock’s limbs and then wormed into his flesh. The poor sap was more of a puppet than a horse.

The thing reared up over Doucherock’s shoulder, locked its insectoid eyes on Isaac and Julia. It had a head reminiscent of a newborn baby, a mouthful of tiny mandibles, and segmented eyes that glittered. Large mantis claws extended up. As they watched a gore-slick larva fell off of it and one of the crab things proceeded to tear its way through the skin.

“Damn. That is a lot more horrifying than I thought it would be,” Isaac said.

“What did you think it would look like?”

“Like a big teddy bear.”

Before Julia could ask if he was kidding, the demon rushed down the hall, limbs flailing clumsily as it learned to operate its new host. Instinctively Julia backed up, but Isaac grabbed her and kept her inside the circle. “It’s scary but it’s stupid.”

When it hit the library doorway Isaac’s hidden spell, inspired by the Drowning Pillar and using inverted symbols from the basement circle, activated. Along the doorframe the magical runes, done in barely visible pencil, flared to life, flames tracing the markings and arcing across poor Doucherock and his new master. The actor’s skin bubbled and blistered as his blood instantaneously boiled. While he was unable to scream the demon did enough for both. Its cicada cries were deafening as steam hissed through its segmented carapace and its limbs sizzled and cracked. Its crab children somehow shared the pain, and along the hallway they dropped off the flesh-vines and lay twitching. The vines themselves glowed from the inside as if their cores were red-hot, before shriveling like dried weeds.

“There, see. Stupid.” Isaac said. But it proved much tougher than the magician had anticipated. Although the host appeared fatally damaged, the demon kept the body upright, stumbled into the room, and brought down one of its blade-like claws. The protective circle did its job and the attack stopped abruptly as if it had hit an invisible wall. The claw snapped in twain and Isaac started to stick out a taunting tongue, until he saw the broken end spiral across the room and shatter the oil lamp that he’d left lit on Peter’s desk.

“Ah, damn it.”