Solomon Ch. 6

Solomon: Chapter 6

Jacob unlocked the door to his home and stepped inside. "Master?" he called. "I'm home."
There was no answer from Adam.
"Adam?" Jacob was beginning to get worried. He closed and locked the door behind him and began to slowly make his way though the house. He moved with caution, calling for his mentor periodically. His arms were at the ready and his voice was prepared to incant at a moment's notice.
Jacob eventually came into his master's study and stopped cold in his tracks.
The scene before him was both horrible and gruesome. Splayed on the floor was Adam's body. A hole had been punched clean through the older man's stomach. The walls and floor were smeared with Adam's blood. In front of the body was a summoning circle drawn in chalk.
Something had gone wrong here. Jacob rushed to his master's body. He immediately began to search for some clues. Adam's body had been rent with claws, but the flesh around the wounds had been seared by tremendous heat. The summoning circle told him more: a small error had been made on one of the sigils on the right side. Mistakes were not something a demonologist could afford. Ever.
Jacob felt a presence behind him. He quickly retrieved the gun Adam had used earlier and slipped it into the inner pocket of his own jacket then spun around as he rose from his crouch, spells at the forefront of his mind, waiting only to be cast. There in the doorway stood his adversary.
The demon was about seven feet tall. It stood on two powerful and thick goat's legs, covered in dark, matted brown hair. Its iron hooves smoldered with barely contained Hellfire. The creature's torso and upper body most closely resembled a well-built man, but every inch was covered in scales of a red so dark they were nearly black. An immense, powerful tail adorned with an even mixture of scale and hair swished back and forth menacingly behind the beast menacingly. The demon's head was bestial, most closely resembling a wolf's head but with a single red, slit- pupil eye between the normal two and the spiral horns of a ram. Smoke rose from the fires burning in the creature's otherwise empty eye sockets. Long, curved, iron talons, each glowing red- hot, graced the end of each of the demon's twelve digits. The creature had neither wings nor need for them.
This was a demon that Jacob knew well. One that all demonologists feared and guarded against.
"Alastor, executioner of Hell. I should have known it was you."
The demon laughed. It was a terrible sound. It was deep and resonant, shaking the very walls of the house. Mingled with the bass sounds were the screams of the tortured damned. Alastor spoke with a voice that could frighten a legion of demons and did just that on a regular basis.
"The self-styled 'Solomon.' You are no successor to that King. You and your kind are all pretenders, unworthy to even know of Solomon's legacy."
Jacob held his ring- hand in front of him. He spoke to Alastor in one voice and chanted with the other three. "Speak, unholy Judge. It only gives me more time."
Alastor laughed again as the red lines began to materialize a summoning seal around him. With a snarl, he lunged towards Jacob, screaming. "I know your name, human! Your master was using it to scry when he got me instead of his intended target!"
Jacob invoked the Name at the last possible moment and Alastor's claw bounced back as if it had hit a brick wall. The demon screamed in agony as it withdrew its hand. Jacob used this time to duck down and run, rolling into his room and activating all of his wards at once. It wouldn't hold off Alastor forever, but it would buy him some precious time.
Alastor wailed and pounded against Jacob's door. Already the enchantments were beginning to fade. Jacob set to work with his chalk, drawing as fast as he could. In the meantime, Alastor screamed at him.
"Did you hear me, mortal? I know who you are! You cannot hold me back forever, Jacob Absolom. Who are you to invoke the very Name who issued the Edicts you defy? You, a mortal, daring to call upon the True Name of the creator? You shall not hide your blasphemy forever, Absolom. I shall take your life and the life of every other mortal who would meddle in the affairs of Hell!"
As he finished his last exclamation and punctuated it with a blow, the door shattered inward and Alastor stepped in, laughing his horrible, hell spawned laugh. Jacob sat calmly in his protective circle. The demon would not be able to touch him or tamper with the lines so long as Jacob remained inside its bounds.
"What's this little magician," taunted the demon. "You plan to stay there and wait for me to leave? You have to eat sometime, boy. And I'm not going to let you out of my sight until you're dead." The unholy beast twisted its features into the mockery of a grin, fire and smoke pouring from every orifice. "Come on out and die, Jacob. You'll only prolong the suffering if you keep this up. I will drink down your life and devour your soul, just as I did to your dear, dead mentor."
In one swift motion Jacob drew the gun and fired the remaining three shots, landing one into of the demons eyes. Alastor fell onto its back, clutching at its face, howling in pain and rage. Jacob chanted faster than he ever had before. Red light quickly traced circles and lines on the floor around Alastor. Before Alastor could recover, he found himself trapped in a summoning seal. Hell's executioner was trapped and very not happy about it.
Now it was Jacob's turn to taunt. But he decided to pass on that turn. Instead, Jacob regarded the demon silently and with a stern expression.
"Now," said Jacob to his captive audience. "I'm not going to just send you back. That's far too little retribution for you. First of all, release Adam's soul. I know you're carrying it within you for transport to Hell. Let him go."
Alastor snarled at his jailor. "You will pay, Absolom! You and your kind are always meddling in things not meant for mortal involvement."
"Do it, demon."
Alastor slammed a fist against the invisible walls of the seal. With much screaming and wailing, he regurgitated the soul of Jacob's master. Jacob briefly saw Adam's face in the air next to the demon. He heard his mentor's voice as it faded. "Well done. I may yet go to Hell, but it will be on my merit and not his. You've done well today. I'm sorry I let him learn your name."
And Adam was gone. But Jacob was just getting started.
"Next, Executioner, you will forget my real name. Once again shall you know me only as Solomon or Master. Understood?"
Alastor bowed his head slowly, visibly struggling against the compulsion to do so. He spoke through clenched teeth, "Yes. . .Master."
Jacob stepped outside of his own circle. Now that Alastor was safely contained, there was no need to stay in for the time being. He walked over to his styrofoam head and put his hat and tie on it. After that, he walked over to his shelf and pulled down a large book, thick with dust. He opened it to a page marked with an ornate cloth bookmark attached to the book's spine. "What I have here, Alastor, is a description of the pros, cons, and how to's of actually binding a demon."
Alastor's wounded eyes widened at this. Unable to articulate a true complaint against his master, Alastor instead roared his unintelligible rage and frustration forth, shaking the house to its foundations.
Jacob was now beginning to toy with the great demon. He adopted an expression of exaggerated incredulity. "You don't know how that works, Alastor? Well let me tell you!" Jacob adopted a wicked grin. "Now see what binding you will do is seal you inside me. I could kill you, Alastor, but that would just set you back those six hundred and sixty six days it would take you to reform in Hell. I don't have the means to kill you permanently right now, but I can sure as Hell make sure you don't kill anyone else unless I want you to. That's why I'm doing this. I know you don't care, Alastor. I know you'll hate me no matter what. Fine. But I have to explain. I need you to know what this is happening."
Alastor had fallen silent and was staring sullenly at Jacob as he spoke. Jacob noticed this and shrugged. "At least you've stopped that infernal racket." A beat later he laughed at his unintentional joke. "Get it, infernal? Come on, Alastor, it's funny."
The demon stared at him, smoldering eyes fully repaired, the center eye was still tightly shut and leaking blood. He was already recovering from the bullet wounds. That was to be expected. They apparently hadn't been blessed or magically augmented. Jacob doubted that Adam had ever intended to use that weapon against anything supernatural.
Enough screwing around. Time to get to work. Jacob read over the relevant passages in the book one more time. Then he set to work. He added another outer perimeter to the seal around Alastor, then to the circle he had been standing in earlier. When the preparations were made Jacob stepped back into his own circle. Alastor had a peculiar look about him, as if he were feigning his anger. Jacob thought he might know why.
"Demon, I order you to speak your mind."
This time, Alastor was happy to oblige. "You're a bigger fool than I thought. Your body won't be able to hold my soul. I'll destroy you from the inside out and have your soul to take with me to Hell. But if you'd like to go ahead with this plan anyway, be my guest. I'd love to reap the rewards and have you do all the work for me."
Jacob grinned a the demon.
"Why are you smiling, mortal? What could you possibly find amusing about that?"
"Alastor, next time you decide to kill someone, you should do some background- checking on their loved ones."
The demon was confused. Jacob decided to explain further.
"My grandfather was Nephilim. I'm one- eighth angel."
And with that, he began the incantations. Alastor roared in protest as the magics took hold, robbing him of his corporeal and binding his essence to Jacob's body. First Alastor became shadow and translucent. Then, his body began to be tugged at, as if by an invisible wind. He was pulled thin and took on the semblance of a small whirlwind. Once in this form, Alastor, still screaming, flowed into Jacob, streaming spectral hellfire in his wake. The entire process took about three and a half minutes. At the end of it, Jacob had fallen to the ground on his hands and knees. His shirt had been burned off by the Hellfire. He was glad he'd taken his hat off earlier. Fire and smoke poured forth from his eyes and mouth as he fought to contain Alastor's spirit. After a few minutes of struggle, Jacob was firmly in control. And more powerful than he'd ever dreamt of being.
He'd known of his angelic ancestry for some time and that it would give him physical edge he would need to bind a demon to himself. But he'd never intended to really go through with it. It was dangerous and unstable. But after seeing Adam's body, Jacob couldn't allow the Executioner of Hell to continue his work.
Deciding to test the powers this new development would give him, Jacob stood and held out his hands. In them materialized an oversized headsman's axe, the head of which was on fire. Though the weapon seemed far too large to be realistically used in combat, Jacob found that it felt light in his hands. When he swung it, it moved naturally and he moved through several forms with it. The subjugated spirit of Alastor knew this weapon and that meant wielding it was now second- nature to Jacob as well. Such was the power of the bind.
Dissolving the axe with a thought, Jacob put on a new shirt and went about the business of cleaning up Adam's remains. In accordance with Adam's wishes, Jacob burned the body to ensure it would never become possessed or used as a reagent in someone's spell. Jacob was happy to ensure his mentor's eternal rest, though sad to see him go.
Still, thought Jacob as he twirled the fiery axe once more. It wasn't as if no good had come of the day. Four pactmates and a new set of powers wasn't a fair trade for Adam's life, but it did lessen the sting somewhat.
Jacob triple-checked the deadbolts and magical wards on the house before going to sleep that night.

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