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House Guest: An Unexpected Summoning (Summoned From the Lower Realms, #1)

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Leo could sense that things weren’t going well when the fairly rowdy group suddenly became too quiet. He had been able to hear them just fine during his previous bathroom trips, but this time he only heard some running around and giggles when he initially sat down. Now he couldn’t hear anything from the other side of the door or on the floor above him. The ground floor of his rented house only had the half bathroom that he had locked himself in, a kitchen, and a modest living room. The floor above had a full bath, his bedroom, and a second bedroom that he had turned into a ritual space. The whole of this square footage couldn’t allow for almost a dozen people to be partying without him hearing it.

As he was washing his hands, he started mentally wishing that they had all just left at the same time, and hoped that they were oblivious that he wasn’t with them. Leo was pretty sure that he wasn’t going to get off that easy tonight. He loved his friends, and they seemed to be in a collective mood to turn this larger than normal get together into a full blown house party.

“Maybe they’re all feeling nostalgic for our college days. It’s the first time we’ve all been in town and had time to hang out since we got our undergrad degrees a few years ago.” Leo thought aloud to himself as he opened the door and inspected the two empty rooms that he was met with. No one had bothered to clean up much of anything, though they had managed to turn off the music when they left the room.

Leo climbed the stairs and started to hear voices and the shuffling of feet on bare floors. He was confused, wondering how so many adults could fit into the bathroom together and what they could possibly be doing in there. Then it hit him, he knew where they were. His bedroom was carpeted so that only left one logical place, his altar room. He began to run up the stairs, worried about what his friends had decided to do after some wine and youthful urges. The thought of them getting an idea in their heads and winding up setting the curtains on fire propelled him forward.

He didn’t keep his form of worship a secret from anyone, but he also didn’t invite people into this space often. A couple of his party guests were also practitioners of different kinds of witchcraft, so he had shown it off earlier in the evening to compare with them. This is probably why anyone even thought about this room. As he opened the door he expected to be hit with the smell of incense or candles. He even braced himself to find out that all of his friends were way more into each other than he knew. What he found was beyond anything he could have prepared himself for.

Nine of his ten party guests turned to look at him, they had been standing in a circle around the tenth. The tenth guest, oblivious to Leo’s presence, was still talking with a black candle in one hand. He was waving his other hand around like he was contact juggling an invisible, gravity defying ball. Leo instantly recognized him as the only plus one any of his friends had brought with them. When the man’s alcohol-blurred eyes focused on Leo he started to wave the candle around so haphazardly that Leo was worried the guy would set his short orange curls ablaze. So worried in fact, that he didn’t understand what the man was saying.

“Yeah, yeah, okay.” Leo said as he took the candle from the intoxicated play magician. “Okay John, I’m going to blow this out now.” He didn’t remember the man’s name or care what it actually was right now. John felt right enough. “Carrie, can you please take John somewhere to sleep this off?” Leo asked in a gentle voice. The implication was that the party was over and it was time for everyone to go home. Leo hoped Carrie wouldn’t bring this guy around again, but if she did Leo would make sure he wasn’t given very much to drink at all.

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