Chapter 85

"None of this sounds like Malphas," Amity said as she read over the printout.

"I don't know," Luz said as she finished drawing the sigil for the summoning ritual. "He did give me the echo mouse, that's kind of like granting a familiar." Luz briefly pondered if the little guy was okay. "Now, Doctor Strange says this summoning spell should work, and after a chain of deals, a couple of fetch quests, and a lot of chores we managed to get the iron shavings, kosher wine, holy water, and purification salt for the containment circle in case this was all a trick and the Geotic Malphas is a separate being after all."

After very carefully carving out a perfect circle around the sigil in the dirt, hardening the soil with a construction spell, and then pouring the solution of those substances into the resulting channel, Luz pricked her finger and let a single drop of her blood fall into the channel, infusing the liquid solution with magical power and, after a brief shimmer where Luz for just a second thought she saw the reflection of red-leaved trees, completed the containment circle.

Also, her blood was cerulean now. Which was weird, because she still blushed red. How in the Isles does that work?

"So what now?" Amity asked uncertainly.

"Well, now that we have a containment circle strong enough to contain someone who may or may not be the right-hand man of the actualSatan," Luz said, "if the summoning ritual works right we just have to channel power into the sigil and call him by name."

Luz held out a hand and drew a circle to manifest an improvised spell that did the power channel part and firmly declared "Malphas, come forth!"

Immediately the summoning sigil exploded into a massive cloud of wicked-looking black smoke and the clearing was filled with an acrid odor that... Reminded Luz of the forest outside Bonesborough right after a boiling rainstorm.

"Who dares summon me?" came a deep and intimidating voice. "I am very busy and—" As the smoke cleared, revealing the birdlike, psuedodraconic demon who managed the library, his tone changed, "Oh, hey Amity... Amity!"

"Malphas!" Amity explained and tried to run forward to greet him, only for Luz to stop her.

"Malphas," she said, "can you please step... Er, float," she corrected after noticing he was sitting on his flying book, "out of the circle?" If he was really the Malphas that Luz and Amity knew, then he was technically an elderspawn and wouldn't be held by a spell whose reagents were chosen for their ability to contain devils and true demons. If, on the other hand, this was some kind of elaborate trap Doom concocted after somehow learning about the Demon Realm then he'd be trapped and Luz could reverse the summoning.

Malphas looked down. "Oh, wow? You really went overboard on the precautions here." He then leaned down and poked the magically charged fluid. "Where did you find Titan Blood in the human realm?" He then floated on his book over the line, and Luz relaxed and let Amity go so that she could hug her friend and employer.

"It's so good to see you," the cotton-candy-haired goddess said to the librarian.

"Same, what happened to you?" Malphas replied. "Like, a lot of people are worried since you all vanished after the Day of Unity."

"We fought Belos," Amity said, "who is dead by the way. It took more than one try to make it take but he's gone for good, and then the portal door was working and we were able to get some help from heroes here in the human realm... Then the Collector happened and we got evacuated but the portal was broken by whatever the Collector was doing. We're working on ways to get back, taking stock of our mental health, and we have a lead on where there might be an older portal that we're gonna check out as soon as it's safe," IE, once there was a good time for everyone to be there with adult supervision. And the Boiling Isles natives were a little better at swimming, just in case someone fell into the flooded cemetery. It was gonna be warm enough for a lake day this weekend, so makeshift swimming lessons were on the docket.

"Not so sure that you want to come back, it's like, totally bad," Malphas explained. "It's just me, that janitor at Hexside who used to be in the Emperor's Coven, and the author of My Stowy left of the adults in town and we are swamped taking care of all the kids holed up in Hexside. This collector kid is—"

"We know about the Collector," Luz said, "and we have a plan."

"Are Edric and Emira, my brother and sister, alright?" Amity asked.

"Oh yeah, they're fine," Malphas continued. "Oh, and while I'm here," he beckoned for Amity to let him go and then turned to Luz. "Some of Hexside's beastkeeper kids went on a raid to search for pets that were left unattended after everything went down and a girl named Viney found this little guy hiding under a bed in the Owl House," he said and held out a hand where, from his sleeve, emerged what Luz immediately recognized as her echo mouse.

Luz immediately took the little guy and gave him a quick scratch on the head. This immediately triggered it to project a passage from Philip's diary... Though it was just talking about Fool's Blood at Eclipse Lake, nothing new. But it did confirm that it was her little guy who... She'd never named, she only just realized. "We're gonna get you hooked up with a place to stay and something to eat ASAP," she said to the little mouse.

"So um, how did you like, know about the spell to call me here?" Malphas asked. "I was under the impression that human magic was super rare."

"Doctor Doom told us" Luz replied.

"He tried to kidnap us to force Luz to be his apprentice," Amity added.

"Well he's blacklisted now," Malphas replied. "Or he would be if I had any way of controlling how this works. It's basically a curse. But don't you worry, if he calls me again I'll certainly give him a stern talking too?"

"Actually," Luz began, "um... You're actually mentioned in a couple of books here. Like The Lesser Key of Solomon—"

"Oh, yeah," Malphas replied. "That. Never even met this Solomon guy... Look, as far as I know, that book is a bunch of different summoning spells and rituals that all got pasted together and had a fancy name put on it to like, make it look all fancy and legitimate and as you can probably imagine a lot of the details were just flat out made up. Except for the stuff about Belial being bad news, do not mess with that guy."

"Not planning on it," Luz said.

"Anyway... Well, I was first bound to be called by some guy named Varnae to help translate some scrolls full of really funky dark magic," Malphas said, the last part hesitantly.

"Varnae... The first vampire?" Luz asked incredulously. "Who invented vampirism by experimenting with the Cthonic Scrolls, which he transcribed to create The Darkhold, the biggest and most dangerous book of dark and black magic in this entire dimension? That Varnae?"

"Yeah, that's the guy," Malphas confirmed. "I don't like to talk bad about people but he was like, a real jerk... He and that Thulsa Doom guy he worked for... I wonder if he and the doctor guy are related? But of course, neither of them was as big a jerk as that Gath guy. Called me up and tried to eat me for some reason."

"Malphas," Luz began, "that happened in Atlantis... Before it sank... Over eighteen thousand years ago."

"Yeah, that was a wild year," Malphas said as if he didn't see what Luz was getting at.

"How old are you?" Amity asked.

"I lost count," Maphas replied, "but... You know that theory about witches being the descendants of humans who were barely able to live on our food and managed to adapt and breed with biped demons?"

"Yeah, it turns out that's true," Amity replied.

"I know I was there," Malphas replied. "I um... Kinda had a youthful fling with one of the first witches, back when they looked more demonic... It's like heads or tails that I'm either the ancestor of all living witches or none of them."

"I feel like we could have resolved a lot of problems if we'd asked you," Luz. "Wait, did... Did you know that Belos was Phillip Wittebane?"

"He was?" Malphas asked. "Anyway, it's not like I've met everyone or know everything historically. Like, I don't tell people how old I am because they think in their heads that the Savage Ages were all Lord Deadward and Kiklickilic the Untamable playing cards at Grog the Barbarian's keep even though they all lived in different parts of the Isles decades apart from each other. Like, I've been in Bonesborough for a few centuries now but I'd never heard of Philip Wittebane until you guys asked about his diary."

"Okay," Luz acknowledged.

"Anyway after I was bound to service, the spell got out, and someone would call me every so often," Malphas continued. "got a lot more common after that book got written a couple of centuries ago. And sometimes it's for some surprisingly mundane stuff, too, like um, about two years ago I got summoned by a coven of human witches in a town called New Salem because they needed help resolving the plot of a murder mystery game at a party. It'd gone for two days and everyone refused to give up or break character so the 'warlock'" Malphas noted with some amusement, "who was assigned the role of the detective called me up to help him go over evidence and identify who the murderer was."

"...Did you figure it out?" Amity asked.

"Yeah, turned out it was some woman named Agatha all along," Malphas finished.

"Well," Luz said, "Now that we know about this we can use the spell to call you and pass information back and forth until we can follow up on our lead,"

"I'd actually prefer if you didn't," Malphas replied. "Unless it's like, an emergency or something. Getting called like this is very unpleasant and this isn't exactly a natural means of dimensional travel so it's like there's a constant tugging as if the demon realm itself is trying to pull me back. I'm used to it but it's not nice."

"Oh, yeah, um... Do you want me to end the summoning?" Luz asked.

"Yes please, it's very unpleasant," Malphas confirmed. "But while I'm here, if there's anything you want me to pass along I can take a message this once."

"Tell everyone that... We're okay," Amity said. "Luz, and I, and... Willow Park, and Gus Porter... And Hunter, but most of his friends probably know him as Caleb. That we're all okay, and we're working on coming back, and we have a plan to stop the Collector."

"Alright," Malphas agreed. "Wait, if they're here too then where are they now?"

"My sister and her partner are showing them some places of interest around town," Luz explained. "It's not like they could get into much trouble just hanging around Gravesfield."

It was then that a flash of rainbow light deposited the witches in question as well as Vee and Masha, all looking quite frazzled, outside of the old shack.

"...That timing had to have been on purpose," Luz deadpanned. "What happened?"

"Loki sprung a test on me and the others got tangled up in it," Masha said while adjusting their wizard hat. "The good news is I'm sufficiently skilled at Skald magic that I'm gonna be able to do something cool at the Halloween Festival. The bad news is we've made enemies of all of Svartalfheim."

"The other good news is that we got one of those golden apples as an apology gift for getting us all mixed up in this," Willow said cheerfully while holding one up. "It's not an immortality peach but it's a start, I'm gonna see if I can use this to cultivate a tree." Well, that's another anxiety off of Luz's mind.

Masha then got a good look at Malphas. "Who's this?"

"Oh, this is Malphas," Amity introduced.

"Luz," Masha began slowly, "Amity... why did you summon a President of Hell?"

"...Why does everyone call me that?" Malphas asked, sounding somewhat offended.