"Ho boy, Samantha, you gotta make it tougher on yourself every time! Jeepers, Furcas! Why you wanna try to talk of Furcas? Furcas, let me tell you, he don't talk to nobody. Nobody never. He don't like nobody. He's an asshole."

  Samantha had chosen the demon she would learn to contact. She decided she didn't like all the hierarchy business. The only one that didn't seem to want to play the game was Furcas the Knight. Emil had told her he was called Furcas the Warmaker or, by some sorcerers, Furcas the Crueler.

  Furcas was a Knight of Hell, according to the Lesser Key of Solomon. Emil explained to her that there was only one knight, and he did not follow the hierarchy of the other demons. He was neither beholden to the Marquis's or Prince's, nor were any of them subject to him.

  "Yeah, but it says he grants strength and he'll teach fighting. That's exactly what I'm looking for. But you're saying he doesn't talk to nobody? What do you mean? You use a seal, you pay the price, he responds. Are you saying he doesn't respond?"

  "Yes, okay, you take the wax out of your ears and you hear me when I say, no! He don't talk to nobody. You pay the price, you do the bindings on the ground or in a little book, and you know what he said? Nothing! He doesn't say nothing to you. You offer him blood or sweat or whatever he says in the silly book, and then you know what happens? Nothing! Absolutely nothing! He's the only one that doesn't say nothing when he gets a little present.

  "People have been trying for centuries. In fact, now, you know something? He never responds, never one time ever. Anybody ever. He don't like nobody. He's a asshole."

  "Okay, what about the other ones?" replied Sam.

  "Okay, you going to always have to make it tough on yourself. Okay, okay, why do you think I'm going to be knowing some kind of Paimon binding that you ain't got any of? Maybe that's not even the King binding I know, you know? And I say, maybe you're going to have a tough time also with the stupid price you have to pay to talk to Paimon. It's going to be a lot. It's going to be a big price. To answer a question by Paimon? You know what you gotta do? You gotta give a soul or enough blood to kill somebody. You’re a little murder princess, but how much blood you got in you house? Not enough for Paimon, I bet."

  "Do you know the binding?" Sam asked, ignoring Emil's tirade.

  He shook his head and opened his hands in surrender. "Yes."

  "What bindings would you suggest I learn?"

  "Well, it's a good question. You maybe crazy for wanting to talk to Furcas. I don't know whose house you want to burn down that you want to know about Haborym. What about Vapar? Vapar can help you with healing things. That's gonna be a good one. And also, maybe you're going to get Phenex. You know a little Phenex already, right? Okay, so maybe you learn a couple more bindings. Phenex is very nice. They don't want to eat you face if you do the invocation wrong, you know?"

  "I appreciate your concern, Emil. But I've got some stuff going on I can't really tell you about. On account of a price I paid that says I can't tell you about it. You understand what I'm saying?"

  "Ho boy, okay. Why you not tell me sooner? I would have been maybe recommending other things, but I think it makes sense now why you be so crazy about some things. Okay."

  Haborym's price for answering Sam's questions, after he initially possessed Lisa, was that he not be revealed to anybody. So Sam couldn't explicitly tell Emil that Haborym was possessing Lisa. According to the letter of the agreement, she could say Lisa was possessed, and then Emil could figure it out on his own. But Haborym was a Duke of Hell. She didn't want to piss him off too much.

  If Sam violated the agreement, Haborym's answers would, at best, be forgotten. At worst, he would have appeared before her in Lisa's body and, with his own hands, removed the parts of her brain that held those memories. Sam wondered if the Elixir of Life would let her recover from damage like that.

  "Okay Samantha, I'm gonna do what you're asking me to do because you're asking me to do it, but I feel like you're gonna be wasting all your money and you're gonna be wasting the binding of Paimon that you wanna give me.

  "What's gonna happen is I'm gonna teach you about Furcas. You're not gonna get nothing from him.

  "Okay, and then you know what's going to happen? You want to go ask Paimon a question? You know what he's going to say? He's going to say you gotta go kill somebody to get a question answered from him.

  "You know what Haborym price is to get him to come and talk to you? You know what he's going to say if you ask him a question? He gonna to say you gotta burn up a little critter. You gotta burn up like a bird or a rat or something."

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  "I wouldn't kill a rat. You think I got a death wish?" Sam had seen what rats could do when provoked.

  "You crazy lady, Samantha. What you got going on? You didn't used to be crazy like this. I think they gonna come and put you in the nuthouse with the chipmunks. I'm not gonna visit you in the nuthouse. But if I do I don't think they gonna let me bring wine."

  "Emil, you know I went and saw the Rosicrucians? Their whole thing is they're trying to find a human magic that doesn't involve the demons. I had another experience where somebody mentioned that humans could do magic without the demons or paying the price. Do you know anything about that?"

  "Okay Samantha, I gotta tell you if you can get a better deal, and you can do magic with no price, you take that deal. But until then, we gonna do magic the way I know."

  Emil began by teaching her the Seal of Furcas.

  Bindings worked through some unknown mechanism, commanding the attention of the named entity. The binding could be written anywhere: on paper in a book, on the floor of a cottage, inscribed into stone on a temple wall. Some bindings required specific materials for their use. In the case of Furcas, any marking would do. The spirit didn't seem picky in that regard. And the offering he requested? The blood or sweat of great effort? This was ambiguous at best. It was no wonder no human sorcerer managed to contact him. Sam appreciated the challenge and wanted to be firmly outside the hierarchy of demons. She would do sorcery on her own terms or not at all. And the fact that Furcas had not responded to anyone in the past didn't mean he wouldn't take a liking to Sam.

  Bindings came in different forms depending on what was requested of the bound entity. There were bindings for questions and answers, bindings for items or blessings, and bindings for acts to be performed. In other words, magic.

  If you wanted to find a missing person, you would use the binding for asking a question. If you needed a magic pouch to mask the power of possessed earrings, you would use a binding requesting items. If you wanted to become stronger or learn how to fight, you would use a binding for magic.

  Emil was generous with the bindings for Furcas. He knew and taught her all of them. His teaching method was merciless. The bindings were intricate works of script and geometry. Inscribing them required absolute precision. Emil, at first, had her trace over his versions. Then he had her copy his versions and compare them. Then she had to produce them by memory until they were perfect. If she made a mistake, the entity would either not respond or would respond negatively.

  Haborym was an easier prospect. Samantha only wanted to be able to ask him further questions. The price she would need to pay was both gruesome and demeaning, which she suspected was the goal. Emil taught her the binding for asking questions. She hoped she wouldn’t need to use it. She didn’t want to light an animal on fire.

  Finally, Emil taught her the binding for asking questions to Paimon, the King. It was similar to the binding she already knew for him.

  Kings had many powers that corresponded to many intricate seals. These seals were complex, far more so than even the geometry for asking questions of Haborym. She suspected this was because the Kings had tremendous power. Binding Paimon required enough blood to kill, or the soul offered as sacrifice. This was a higher price than Sam was ever willing to pay. However, her life had shown her many times that there were often opportunities to deal with problems and request boons of Paimon by simply sacrificing somebody she was going to kill anyway.

  The binding Sam already knew for the King was to request that he break contracts - spells - that had been cast by lesser demons. This she inscribed onto parchment as payment for the knowledge Emil had given her.

  "Okay, now you're gonna try what I taught you. Okay, you're doing pretty good drawing the Furcas bindings. You're doing pretty good. Remember how to do invocations? There is no contract with Furcas because nobody talked to him. Okay, so now you're going to try. You go in a ritual room, you're going to be alone. I'm going to let you do it, and then you're going to try and contact him and then you're going to get nothing, okay?"

  "Right now? What am I supposed to offer him?"

  "Gonna give yourself a little boo-boo on the hand. Then you gonna go take a nap and you gonna not have a boo-boo no more. You told me. Elixir of life, right? Fucking cultists with their stupid fucking names."

  Sam returned to Emil Vargas' ritual room. The last time she'd been here she used a binding he had inscribed to trade one of her fingers for the pouch she still carried. It had trapped the Van Thorne demon earrings and prevented them from tempting her. This time the floor of the room was empty. Gas lanterns on the walls lit the small chamber. There was only one door and no window. Nothing would disturb her or interrupt the work she was about to do.

  She inscribed the sigil of Furcas on the ground using simple chalk. At the center of the sigil she placed a bowl.

  Different bindings required the offerings to be placed in different positions. This one had a space in the center. Sam could find no logic or system in the bindings. There was no indication of why one demon preferred a bowl full of plain water placed at its northernmost tip, or why another demon preferred bat's blood in a silver chalice placed in the center. But such were the ways of demons and whoever created these sigils.

  Sam took out one of her newly acquired snake daggers. She held her hand over the bowl and gave herself a deep cut on the palm. The blood dripped into the bowl. She wrapped her hand with a bandage Emil had given her. She stepped outside of the circle, as per instructions for the invocation.

  She faced the center of the sigil and spoke:

  She waited a moment, expecting nothing.

  She was surprised when the blood in the bowl turned into wisps of black smoke and disappeared.

  A man's voice, rough and angry, spoke.

  "Thou hast used weapons won by conquest to draw thine own blood. Yet thou art weak and puny. Return when thou art stronger."