Dealing With Demons

Chapter 10: Something Unnecessarily Personal

Cliff Mason no longer lived at his last known address, surprising none but disappointing all. The team went to investigate anyway, looking for anything that might suggest where he was or what he was trying to do. Well, the team minus Riley.

Riley was stuck in the library looking up everything the Bureau had on symbolism based rituals involving demons. As far as Riley could tell, the Bureau had absolutely nothing. At least nothing in the database or the few relevant books they could find.

Unlike the lack of information on demons, the reason the shelves were so bereft of information on symbolism based rituals was because not a lot of information existed.

Normal rituals followed a known set of rules, but the rules for symbolism based rituals depended on, well, symbolism and the associations and intent the caster brought to the table. So that meant that each ritual was different, and Riley had to go through the collection of old spellbooks at the back of the shelves hoping that someone somewhere had tried to do the exact same thing in the exact same way and then had their notes confiscated by the Bureau. Which was unlikely, since not a lot of people attempted symbolism based rituals. The outcomes tended to be unpredictable in unexpected ways.

Riley slammed shut another useless book and put their head down on their desk. It was the end of the workday and all the other researchers had gone home, so no one heard them as they let out a frustrated groan. They should be out with the others. Well, probably not seeing as this was all they could do to help and someone had to do it, but they wanted to be out with the others. They wanted to be good for something other than research. If only they could cast spells! Then they could train to be more useful out in the field. Mike and Sil were always facing horrible dangers and Riley just had to sit there in the library and hope their best friends didn't die.

"Oh, so you get to nap while the rest of us investigate? I always knew you researchers were slackers."

Mike's teasing brought Riley out of their rapidly spiralling mindset. They lifted their head and smiled in relief. "Hey, what did you find?"

"A whole lot of nothing. Mason knows how to clean out a place, there was no sign of his plans, and nothing Sil could use for a tracking spell."

"You're kidding."

"No toothbrush, no hairbrush, not even a coffee mug. I've moved into places that had more of their last owner left in them than this apartment."

"Are you sure the landlord didn't clean it out?"

"Mason had the rent for the place paid in advance up through the end of the year, but no one's seen him around there since April."

"Damn. I'm sorry, Mike."

"Yeah, well, at least we're not completely out of leads. Avi's with Sil trying to remember everything they can about the room they were summoned to since it wasn't that place's basement."

"How did it go? Working with Avi without..."

"Without you as a buffer? Well, Sil kept things professional, which helped a lot. If not for her, me and your demon might have had a fistfight to determine who got to be the funny one."

Riley laughed then stopped abruptly as Mike's words caught up to them. "Th-They're not my demon!"

"Relax, I'm just giving you a hard time. They did complain that you weren't there, though."

"Yeah?" Riley was curious despite themself.

"Yeah, kept going on and on about how you're the only one on our team that knows anything true about demons."