Father Nicholas was going at a very high speed. The road was bleak and unfrequented. By the left was a mountain standing silently. Trees lined the road in perfect rhythm.
The radio which had been playing moments before, suddenly started crackling and hissing. The music was distorted and warped like an interference with the signal. Slowly, it started making an eerie, high-pitched screech that makes your skin crawl.
He reached out, tuning the radio for a better signal. All stations were making the same high screeched disturbing sound. He turned off the radio for some quiet and peace.
He placed his hand back in the wheel. The radio turned on by itself screeching louder. He turned it off just immediately, again. Just as he took his hand off the tuner, the radio turned back on with a screech louder and deafening hiss.
He kept pressing it off, struggling to focus on the road as he turned it off. The radio refused to turn off. The screech was getting louder and louder. As the screeching reached its peak, a deep, raspy voice suddenly bled from the radio. Its presence like a cold hand on flesh.
"We are coming for him." The voice, low and venom-laced, whispered through the static.
He didn't flinch, but his jaw clenched. His breath hitched for a split-second, just enough to betray the pressure crawling up his spine. He retracted his hands off the tuner, eyes narrowed.
Whatever had just spoken wasn't human. And that was no bluff. He knew well enough to understand time wasn't something he had anymore. He steeled his nerve, tightened his grip on the wheel and stepped harder on the gas. As he disappeared through the mountainous terrain.
The night sky had thrown its blanket as he arrived at the Rest Stop Inn. He had no time waste. Rushed in and out of the receiving room.
Just as he was about to step into Room 314, be felt a presence. A very faint one, hard to tell, but due to his rigorous years of training, supernatural entities became easy to feel and identity no matter how hard they tried to mask their presence. And this entity was really good at masking theirs. He couldn't tell if it was vile or good, just neutral numbness. Like he was being watched. A cold breeze grazed his skin, he shook it off and stepped in.
In the middle of his preparation, he felt it again. That cold breeze as the temperature in the room dropped. His eyes went towards the window that faced the road. Someone was in the room with him. He quickly, struck his palm and sealed the demon to his blood. It was hard to tell what the presence wanted. He had to come up with a fail safe plan. Use the demon to protect himself.
Aria's mind spun with questions. What darkness was he reckless enough to summon? The air buzzed with static, the kind that pressed against your skull and whispered, watch closely.
The current beneath her feet screamed. The weaves bled under the strain He caused, barely holding the surge together. She'd felt this trail before, two junction back, it was weaker then, but familiar. The junction under room 314 bled, roaring for an intervention.
Her heart pounded. She had slipped in through the veil, with the grace of a ghost, holding strong her invisibility cast.
At the middle of the room, the circle blazed. The Infernal symbols danced, casting hellfire shadows. The temperature dropped sharply, lower than before. The fire shouldn't burn so cold.
Aria's eyes stung from bitter, acrid smoke that curled from the flame like cursed incense. But she didn't blink. She couldn't afford to.
That man stood right in front of the circle. A priest, ordained by the church, summoning such dark force. What could a priest need with such ancient entity? His hands cut through the charged air with surgical precision. He knew what he was doing. He wasn't new to this, drawing such forces no man should touch. With each motion, the flames obeyed him.
The fire extinguished immediately. The room inhaled. And somethings struggled to cross the door he had opened. A summoning door to the Infernal realm. Hell.
And his voice echoed through the room.
Zorvath.
Her eyes widened. Her blood ran cold. Fear ran through her spine. She held her breathe.
Zorvath, The Right Claw Of The Gate Flame. A demon. The devourer of witches.
She had only heard of him in legends.
It stepped through the portal. Emerging like a nightmare made flesh. Towering just above him. It let out a guttural scream exposing it's soul hungry, cruel serrated teeth. And just as it was about to strike the man who dared summon him.
She couldn't move. She didn't move. She was weak in her knees. Her heart pounded like it was about to burst through her ribcage. She wasn't even the one about to be struck.
But this man's voice dropped, but somehow grew louder, more resonant.
And he said, "Zorvath," the room shook at the sound of his voice. The current beneath her feet trembled. "by the blood that bridges realms, by the oath sealed in ash and flame, and by the rite of the Ordo Lux Veritatis Infernalis... I name thee. I bind thee. I call thee to heel."
And he struck his palm immediately. The blood droplets sizzled the second it hit the circled, steam rising up like a curse.
Zorvath reared back and roared, not just from pain as invisible chains slithered from the circled and thrashed its body on the floor, but from pain too. It fell, letting out guttural curses in language she couldn't understand, but she felt it. Every word that left its mouth.
But this priest didn't flinch, not even for a second. He stepped forward and continued, "By my name, Nicholas Valerian and by the covenant of the Verax, I root you to this realm. You are mine to command. Mine to contain. Until your purpose is fulfilled or your form returns to ash."
Zorvath let out a sharp screech and immediately fell silent. The room quaked. It locked eyes with the man that defeated him. Its eyes filled with hell's rage and cruel malice. It was ready to destroy this man the second he got the chance to. But now it was only a dog beneath its master, Father Nicholas.
Silence filled the room immediately. Aria exhaled a breath she didn't know she'd held. Zorvath, once towering and untouchable, lay frozen. Bound in place, not by its will, but by blood.
Slowly, the man straightened himself, blood still dripping off his palm. His eyes locked on the demon, held something between reverence and disdain. And Aria, hidden in the ether, could only whisper to her self under her breath in fear.
This man must be a demonologist and conjurer by rite, if not more. He had deliberately and forcefully conjured Zorvath, a demon, on the mortal plane, but why? He wasn't a warlock, he couldn't be—he wears the attire of a priest—witches and warlock who dared summon Zorvath, a witch eater, never survived the bargain, except one, who's name was forbidden to be spoken.
Centuries ago, a desperate witch had done just that. Her summoning of the Right Claw Of The Gate Flame almost cost her her life. And in place of her life she let the demon unleash a chaos so brutal, so unforgiving, that it nearly wiped out generations of witches. Towns were burned. Covens were decimated, and the demon ripped through magic and mortal alike. Mercilessly.
The aftermath was blood-soaked hysteria. Humans, fueled with fear and superstition, turned on the gifted with a vengeance. Witch trails weren't legends. They were genocide. But just before their hope was snuffed out, they arrived. Ancients Ones. No one knew their names. No one ever recorded their names. And their origin remain unknown. They weren't witches, nor warlocks.
They were something entirely different. Their power was elemental, pure and terrifying in its stillness. Thy didn't just end the war, they rewrite the rules. They pulled remnant of magic society from ashes and bound Zorvath in a way no summoner ever could. A pact forged in cosmic fire. One no gifted ever challenged. Except this man.
Summoned the unsummonable. Called Zorvath forth not as supplicant, but as commander. She knew this: if this man had summoned Zorvath, he was either playing a dangerous game or had already lost at it.
Her instinct screened to banish the demon. To cast Zorvath back into the pits where it belonged. Its presence was a threats to every soul tethered to the old magics. But could she succeed where others had failed. She wasn't just any witch. She was legacy.
She clenched her fists. It didn't appear as super flashy spells or cursed flames. It lived in intuition, in awareness. In a deep knowing that pulsed beneath with the rhythm of the energy beneath this room.
She steadied her breath. Her feets moved subtly in the in-between, drawing from beneath the room. And just as she was about to move again...
Zorvath shot his death gaze at her.