And then there is a tall, dark-haired woman standing inside the cicle the girl just completed.

She looks around, then down at the floor. Seeing the blood, she raises a skeptical brow.

"Unusual choice of medium. Most people use something more convenient to clean up."

"Excuse me?"

"The circle. Chalk or similar is more common. And I note you've neglected to include any bindings, those need to be written before the circle is completed. Where'd you learn this?"

"That book over there, but I was hoping for the Archer of Enchreer and I don't think you're him, so something's clearly gone wrong."

"Clearly. But not as wrong as it could've. If I were an angel or demon, you'd be in much more trouble. Who's this Archer fellow supposed to be?"

Ellie floats the book over to herself and examines it.

"A demon, actually, he's supposed to be into imbuing ranged weapons with cool powers, I was hoping for a crossbow upgrade."

This book does not resemble anything remotely like a summoning textbook as Ellie is familiar with.

"...I begin to suspect we are talking past each other somewhat. Demons as I understand them create things, you wouldn't describe that as 'empowerment'. That'd be closer to what an angel could do. What do you need a better crossbow for, and why not just use a gun?"

"......Uh, my primary use case for the crossbow is vampires and unless I got a gun heavy-duty enough to separate their heads from their bodies it wouldn't do much. Wood through the heart does. I agree about the talking past each other entirely."

"Vampires...? Okay. So. In the world I am familiar with and usually summoned into, there are three classes of supernatural entities collectively called daeva. Demons make things, angels change things, and fairies move things. I am a fairy. Daeva can be summoned by means of a summoning circle, and the summoner makes a deal with the daeva to trade them something in exchange for them using their power for a given task. I have been asked to perform tasks ranging from moving a couch across a room to transporting supplies to a lunar settlement. Demons and angels, being more generally powerful and slightly harder to pay, are usually asked to perform tasks at the higher end of that scale. If this book is a typical example of its kind, your system is entirely different."

"I've never actually gotten any magic to work before, and I suppose even this didn't... technically... work..."

"Where I am from humans can't natively perform magic besides summoning apart from a class of thing called 'parlor tricks', which have effects on the order of flicking a light switch from across the room. But it is often easier to simply stand up and walk over to the switch yourself."

"There are witches here, who do magic, I just can't get anything I try to behave and the people at the magic shop don't know why."

"Real magic and vampires, what have I stumbled into..."

"Are you stuck here?"

"Doubtful. The dismissal process is relatively simple, you should be able to perform it easily. I would like to explore some before we try that, though, as I may not be able to return. I want to compile a media list for the next Hell concordance, if nothing else."

"You're gonna have to put that in context for me."

"Demons create arbitrary matter. This includes things like books and music recordings, if you can specify them to a certain degree. Thus, one of the primary means of paying demons is with lists of original media they have not heard of before. Concordances are when two of Hell, Heaven, Fairyland, or Limbo overlap. Items can be transferred between the two overlapping planes during that period."

"Ah. What is the dismissal process?"

"If I tell you, are you going to send me home now?"

"No, but if you don't tell me, we have a problem."

"Mmm, fair enough. There are actually two methods, though I suspect you won't like the second. First, you can simply concentrate on wanting me gone for approximately one minute, or, if you die, that will also dismiss any active summons you have."

"You're right, I don't like the second."

"I've not much fondness for it myself. Do you know if this world has any sort of afterlife?"

"Unverified rumors of a variety."

"Well, you can add a few more, then. Where I am from, ex-summoners become one of the three varieties of daeva."

"What determines which?"

"Nobody knows. It's not a well-studied phenomenon."

"Oh, why not?"

"I have no answer for that either. I've never been summoned by a sociologist I could ask the question of."

"Fair enough. What kind of exploration do you have in mind?"

"I'd like to see that magic shop you mentioned, as well as a library. You do speak a reconizable English, so I also want to see if various landmarks match my world."

"Well, I suppose you'll look unremarkable enough walking down the street. Middle of the night at the moment though."

"And presumably the magic shop is closed at night? I could fly to the other side of the world and begin there, come back here local morning."

"Magic and stuff isn't common knowledge here. You'll attract attention if you fly around."

"That's inconvenient. I am not meaningfully limited by things like staying below the atmosphere while I travel, if that makes any difference?"

"I don't actually know how closely the sky is monitored for, like, missiles, but I'd definitely be concerned it might be and avoid it on the 'let's not provoke nuclear war' principle."

"Alas. What is there to see and/or do locally at night, then?"

"I usually hassle some vampires and sleep, today I was mixing it up."

"Sleep is among the things I do not miss about being human. Judging by the crossbow, I assume your hassling of vampires is typically violent?"

"Their hassling of the unarmed population's likewise, so."

"How... extensive a problem are they?"

"This town's got an unusually high concentration. Most places there aren't that many and I've made a serious dent in the population here."

"I see. How high is unusally high, and is there a reason for it?"

"I think it attracts supernatural stuff in general, and also people here are really good at ignoring mysterious happenings. And I used to be able to dust one every night or two, sometimes a nestful."

"Hm. Oh, yes, where exactly are we?"

"Sunnydale, California. Nearish L.A."

"California I recognize, Los Angeles, yes. Sunnydale I'm not familiar with."

"I mean, I wouldn't expect you to have heard of it if you weren't from the area, it's not very distinctive except for the death rate."

"Why would anyone live here, then?"

"I've asked that myself. My dad was born here and he's a very rooted sort of person, I'm not going to move at this point because of the vampire hunting thing, but I can't explain why my next door neighbors are still around. People are good at ignoring things, I guess."

"Or perhaps an additional effect to whatever draws the vampires, ensures they have a population upon which to feed."

"Can't actually rule it out, suspect that's not it though."

"Yes, that'd be too complex for a natural phenomenon, something you'd expect a designed one to have, if it wasn't hostile to vampires... Mmm. Need more data. How does one identify a vampire?"

"It's actually kind of hard unless they're chomping on somebody right then. I've applied unobtrusive cross markings all over town and watch for people who flinch when they go by them, or I stalk anybody who looks a little too happy to be wandering Sunnydale at night and see if their faces go all wrinkly and fangy and they try to bite somebody."

"Crosses? As in the religious symbol?"

"Yeah, holy water works too, I don't know why. It's not like the universe is otherwise bursting at the seams with evidence of omnibenevolence."

"Is it only Christianity or do other symbols have the same effect?"

"Crosses and holy water in particular only. Work in the hands of unbelievers, reciting the Lord's Prayer does nothing, even if you do it in Latin, etcetera."

"...That is inconsistent with every hypothesis I initially had."

"I know, right, it's so weird."

"That's one way of putting it. How much trouble am I likely to get in if I wander around town until morning?"

"Vampire may try to eat you, some kind of demon-in-local-parlance-meaning-catchall-supernatural-thingy may try to eat you. If you can fly you're probably good, honestly."

"Good. If I happen to make a mess, is there any particular manner in which you'd like me to dispose of it?"

"A mess of...?"

"Something that tries to attack me."

"Vampires just turn into dust, demons are often nearly as self-disposing, but if you do find one that leaves a corpse keep it off the sidewalk and people's lawns and out of the middle of the road?"

"Simple enough. It would probably be wise to set up a way for us to contact each other before we part ways."

"Inconveniently I don't have an extra phone on me."

"And even if I had one of my own, it would be unlikely to work here. Perhaps a dead drop? Is this, ah, crypt accessible enough?"

"Yeah, I stash things here and occasionally fail to get magic to work here too, I can check it now and then."

"Very well. Any further immediate questions?"

"How often should I expect notes left here?"

"That depends on how close a tab you wish to keep on me. I expect to be traveling frequently and extensively, but returning on a regular basis to keep you apprised should pose no difficulty."

"I will sort of feel responsible if my magical accident leads to anything unfortunate, so routine check-ins would be a load off my mind."

"Once a week?"

"...that'll probably do but I think I actually want to do more comparisons of respective Earths before you go zoom off, if you're from 1964 or something that's another set of things I might have to warn you about."

"...I was born in 2029."

"It's, uh, 2005 now. So, how much history do you know."

"I am... conversant with it? This is around the time Revelation occurred, I read a book about the social milieu of the era several years ago."

"Revelation?"

"When knowledge of summoning was publicized. Prior to that, it had been a very closely guarded secret. It was an exciting time, by all accounts."

"Huh. Summoning only, no other magic of any kind, no vampires or anything."

"No other supernatural entities chose that moment to reveal themselves, and I've come across no hints of any since."

"Interesting. And yet you were summoned... albeit with a diagram intended to do something else entirely."

"And to a parallel world, with vampires and witches and various other mythical creatures."

"Yeah. You think you might not be able to come back? Even if I tried this spell again or got a piece of chalk and did it that way?"

"It seems likely that this circle working was a fluke. Every summons I've ever taken, and every summons I've ever heard of being taken, has been to the same world, the one I was born in. Parallel realities were a thing of fiction. I expect that if this circle could consistently be used to summon fairies, the author of the book would have known, and described the capabilities of the summoned entity differently. I suppose I could teach you what a proper summoning circle looks like and you could try drawing it."

"Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Sounds like it could be a really big deal."

"Do you have paper and pencil?"

"Always." She produces it.

Ellie takes them, and sketches a small demonstration circle that will target an angel of her acquaintance. She points out the various standard bindings and explains their purpose and the importance of getting them right and that you always finish the circle as the last step.

"And this one only gets this specific angel?"

"Yes, I know him and he would be happy to help with testing this, even for nothing in return."

"What's standard for paying them?"

"For angels? Houseplants. Living things are hard for them to make out of whole cloth."

"...that's adorable."

"I suppose. Shall I move the blood out of the way, or were you going to try somewhere else?"

"Don't have chalk on me at the moment, and I didn't buy enough goat blood to do this twice, I'll have to try it tomorrow."

"I should probably be around to spot you, and explain if it does work."

"We could meet back here first thing in the morning? By which I mean like nine, I don't get up super early summertimes."

"That works for me."

"Great, see you then. This is exciting." Bella starts packing up her non-goat-blood belongings.

Ellie scrapes the goat blood off the floor and compresses it into a ball, which she floats along with her as she exits the crypt.

"Thanks for the cleanup!"

"It is no trouble," she calls back over her shoulder.

Once she's outside, she drops the ball at the roots of a convenient tree, then takes off into the sky, to try to get an aerial view of the town.

It is a sleepy town with negligible nightlife. One club lit up, some of the seedier neighborhoods populated by lowlifes, otherwise mostly deserted streets.

How exciting.

Apparently her summoner just wanders, in search of vampires? But if Ellie were a vampire, she'd want to go where the people are. Which means the club. She zooms over in that direction and checks for an alley to touch down in.

Sunnydale is well supplied with alleys. The club is full of teenagers and beverages and music.

As they tend to be, even in the future. Ellie takes a place at the bar and asks for a water.

She scans the crowd. Anyone looking predatory?

Well, some people are looking sexually predatory. Nobody's exactly screaming "I vant to suck your blahd".

How inconsiderate of them. Don't these vampires know she's trying to hunt them out here? Perhaps a closer inspection is in order. After she finishes her water.

Might be relevant that there's a cross scratched into the bar... and on the base of that table there... and under the banister on the stairs...

Tsk. Probably vampires have abandoned this place, then. She'll make one sweep looking for flinches near relevant areas, just in case.

Nope.

Back to the streets. Next likely candidate: the rundown areas with the lowlifes. Ellie will walk in that direction.

If she's actively looking for crosses, there's lots, but - whatever her name was, she didn't say - hasn't covered everywhere!

Here is a dude sitting on the street with a liquor bottle and a young lady peering at him from around the corner, going "hmmm".

Is the young lady hanging around near a cross?

Ellie ducks off to the side to discreetly observe.

Some of the crosses are tucked away and hard to see, but it doesn't look like this block's been covered at all, actually.

That's promising. Is the lady still contemplating the drunkard?

Yup. It's sort of possible she just finds scruffy dudes twice her age who smell like whisky desperately attractive?

There are all sorts of people in the world, but Ellie finds the vampire hypothesis just so much more compelling.

The drunk nods off.

The young lady emerges from around the corner and approaches him.

At last!

...Summoner seems the type to be displeased if she learns Ellie let a vampire kill someone when she could have prevented it. She readies to yank the vampire away from her victim once fanginess is established.

A distinctive facial transformation takes place!

And Ellie moves the vampire very quickly up and back and over to where she lurks. She holds it about a foot off the ground and just out of arm's reach.

"Hello there."

"Jeepers!" says the vampire.

"Quite. Just to confirm, you are in fact a vampire?"

"What are you, a flipping Jedi, put me down!"

"I asked you a question first," Ellie points out reasonably. "I'm owed an answer before you are."

"Put me down!"

Sigh.

"If I put you down, will you answer the question?"

"Sure, whatever."

And plink! Gently down goes the vampire-presumptive.

The vampire presumptive attempts to flee into the night.

Annnd it is dragged back to its starting position, less gently this time.

"Let me go crazy witch lady!"

"You're not really providing me with much incentive to do that."

Snarl.

"All I want is for you to answer a few questions for me, then you can go on your way."

"You some kind of cop? Am I bein' detained?"

"No, not law enforcement, just an interested visitor. You are not detained in the legal sense, but I'm not going to put you down again."

The vampire folds her arms and scowls.

"Would you prefer I take us somewhere quieter and begin ripping your extremities off one at a time?"

Hisssss.

"Answer with words, please."

"Go fall in a hole in Cleveland and die."

"Somewhere quiet it is, then."

Ellie lifts them both up into the air and flies out of town to a hillside she noticed early.

"Which hand is your dominant?" she asks as they touch down.

The vampire clears her throat and then starts screaming at the top of her lungs.

Ellie clamps her jaw shut.

"Let's start with the left, then. If at any point over the next period of time you wish to become cooperative, simply indicate this by nodding your head frantically."

She stretches out the vampire's left arm towards her, hand open and fingers spread. Then she begins applying precisely directed telekinetics to each of the bones in the hand, starting with the distal phalanges and working inwards towards the wrist, shattering them into pieces.

The vampire manages to produce a high pitched shrieking noise through her teeth. Ellie doesn't have to go through very many bones before she receives frantic nodding.

"If you are only going to scream again, I will not be pleased."

The vampire can move her jaw again.

She's going to whimper, apparently.

Much better than screams.

"Now. How did you become a vampire?"

"Don't remember."

"How long have you been a vampire?"

"Th-thirty-eight years."

"Why are you in Sunnydale?"

"On my way to San Diego, stopped here."

"Why should I fall into a hole in Cleveland particularly?"

"Cleveland's lousy."

"Do vampires have any supernatural powers besides the fangs?"

"We're like... better?"

"General physical enhancement? No other magic?"

Nod.

"Weakness besides crosses and holy water?"

"Sunshine."

"Do you know anything about how witch magic works?"

"Lot of chanting and candles and stuff."

"Have you encountered a demon before?"

"A few."

"Under what circumstances? What are their properties? Are they innately magical?"

"Depends on the demon - one was my bridge partner for a while - run into 'em at bars and stuff -"

"Is there more than one type? How many?"

"I don't know, thousands?"

"Where would a good bar to meet demons at be, around here?"

"I don't know, I'm only passing through!"

"Are there symbols to look for? Thief-signs?"

"What's a thief-sign?"

"A secret mark, innocuous to the general public but meaningful to those in the know. You might see one at a pawnbroker's, to indicate they are willing to accept stolen goods."

"I don't know about any of those, I just hear about places from people."

"Fair enough. I think that was all the questions I had for you."

"Are you going to let me go?"

"In a manner of speaking."

What did the summoner say? Stake through the heart or... ah, yes. Separate the head from the shoulders. So Ellie does that, neatly lifting everything above the C7 vertebra while keeping the rest of the body in place.

As soon as there's enough of a gap between head and body the vampire disintegrates into dust without time to scream.

Nifty.

How much time is left until sunrise?

Hard to tell. It was already full dark when she arrived.

And she's never made much of a study of astronomical horology.

Well. In that case, she may as well head back to the seedier area of town and look for a bar that may contain demons. Perhaps it will be open if she manages to find one.

There are a couple bars open, but they do not say 'attention, demons! demon bar!' and are named unassuming names like Sunnydale Brewery and Willy's.

If there were any places that were obviously signposted, Ellie expects her summoner would already have wallpapered the place in crosses.

She'll try Willy's first, on the theory that secret demons are more likely to congregate at a place less public than the local brewery.

It's not wallpapered in crosses. The lights are on but the door is locked.

Perhaps the hour is later than she thinks. Is there a response if she knocks?

"Maximum occupancy," calls a voice from beyond the door.

"I just need to use your restroom."

"Customers only!"

How rude. It is probably not a good idea to break the door off the frame just because she's annoyed.

"Ugh, fine." She walks away from the door and checks for an alleyway that goes behind the bar.

There's one. Trash bins, miscellaneous alley debris, cat.

...Back door to the bar?

Also locked.

Can she snap the bolt?

If she tries hard and believes in herself and hasn't stopped being a fairy recently, sure!

Excellent. So she breaks the bolt in half at the gap between the door and the frame, then tries opening the door again.

The knob won't turn; must be locked separately.

What! A thing is not moving, when she, a fairy, requires it to move! This is an unconscionable state of affairs. The knob will turn whether it wants to or not.

It makes a fairly awful noise but then it goes.

She is greeted by a guy holding a fire extinguisher threateningly at her. "Hey! Clear out!"

"Aaah! Sorry, I, uh, I think... I'm lost?"

"You broke my fuckin' lock, if you're lost go look at the map at the bus stop! Shoo!"

"Everyone in this town is so hostile, first that lady tries to rip out my neck with her teeth now I'm being threatened by a fire extinguisher..." she mutters.

"You don't want hostile you don't break people's locks! Out!"

"I'm going, I'm going. Whatever."

She takes off into the air and floats down the alleyway at a sedate pace.

He stares a little, but then grumbles to himself and shuts the door.

That was fruitless.

Well, on to the next.

The other bars will in fact let her in but only contain human-looking people.

And no one shows any hints of demonaicality, at least so far as she can discern in a brief observation. She doesn't spend much time in each bar, as she has no local currency which to spend.

After the last one closes, Ellie returns to the hillside where she dusted the vampire to await the morning.

Dawn dawns, as it does.

And once the sun is properly up, Ellie heads back to the crypt.

No summoner there yet.

She can wait.

Summoner shows up a few hours later. "G'morning, how are you?"

"Just fine, thank you. I ran into a vampire last night, but was able to handle it."

"And all they are is dust in the wind?"

"Something like that, yes. How was your night?"

"It involved sleep. I work nights but not enough to be outright nocturnal. I have obtained chalk! And I brought you donuts because I don't know if you eat and suspect you may have trouble finding your own breakfast in a licit manner!"

"Ah, thank you. I do not need to eat but still find the experience pleasant."

"Sounds convenient. Will your angel friend want donuts?" Box of donuts, offered in Ellie's direction.

Ellie accepts the box.

"It's not unlikely that he would. I will endeavor to save him one." She gestures to the crypt door. "Shall we?"

"Mmhm." She hauls it open and down they go. It's pleasantly cool compared to the rapidly warming outdoors.

And there is still presumably a nice open space in the middle.

"Do you still have the schematic from yesterday?"

"Yup." She pulls it out, plops on the floor, produces chalk. "Tips before I start drawing that you didn't cover yesterday?"

"The circle has to be big enough for a person to stand in, and remember to write the bindings out fully before closing the circle. If the summons works, let me do the talking to start with."

"Sure."

And she starts writing. She's got very neat handwriting and very steady hands.

Both important qualities in a summoner. Ellie watches carefully to make sure everything is written correctly.

It is, but the summoner pauses to have it checked before completing the circle.

"That is well-constructed. I see no errors, it should be safe to complete."

"Here goes nothing..."

Draw.

And two seconds later, there is a person in the circle! He has fluffy white wings.

"Greetings, summoner, how can I- oh hi, Ellie, how's it going?"

"Hello, Eli. Huh, I wasn't expecting that to work."

"Your name is Ellie and your angel friend is Eli."

"Yes, it is over that fortuitous happenstance that we originally formed our deep and abiding bond."

"So what's the occasion?"

"It turns out there are more worlds than the one we're usually summoned to. This is a new one, it has vampires and witches and many varieties of demons which are not daeva. It's also 2005 and summoning is not known to be a thing."

"Wow."

"Welcome to 2005, population: things that go bump in the night."

"So I'm just the test case?"

"You are just the test case. Want to change this donut into a lemon creme filled one in exchange for this chocolate one?"

"Sounds good."

"Now you have to agree to the deal," Ellie says to the summoner.

"And I don't have to repeat the terms of the deal?"

"You can, you can also say 'the deal as stated by Ellie', as long as we're both talking about the same agreement."

"What's the magical upshot of my agreeing to this deal?"

"I can leave the circle to do the thing, take the reward, and then I can go home. If we don't agree I just sort of have to stand here until you dismiss me."

"Next time I'll leave enough room for somebody to sit," says the summoner. "The terms of Ellie's deal are agreeable to me."

"Done and done! One lemon creme for you, one chocolate for me. Feel free to call me back any time!"

"Now you dismiss him."

"If I call you back what are you likely to want?" the summoner asks him, ready to write up a list.

"A book about vampires. An orchid. Maybe an authentic witch's hat."

"How are you going to verify the authenticity?"

"I'll put it on and see if it makes me feel like a witch."

"I'm not sure even the real ones do that."

"On the other hand, this world's magic apparently doesn't work for her. So you may yet be in luck."

"I haven't done the hat experiment, either, so maybe I'm wrong."

"As long as there's not no hope, there is some hope. And that's good enough for me."

"Okay. Thank you very much, I will see about your wishlist." Dismissalllllll.

"Bye!"

And then he's gone.

"This is so cool."

"It is. This has the potential change the situation here significantly. What do you plan to do?"

"Not sure. If it weren't for the fact that the nasty biteys might be able to summon help too I'd probably try to see to it that everyone knew. End scarcity. Since the nasty biteys may be able to summon help I will have to be more conservative."

"Summon demons in secret, trade for 23rd century technology? Or maybe just textbooks."

"This is a promising avenue. What do you pay demons?"

"Media recommendations. We should see if there are any significant differences due to the divergent magical history, those would be valuable."

"Yeah, otherwise I feel like being from the past will handicap me terribly."

"It could. But you seem like a problem-solver to me."

"We should compare history, find points of divergence... I might have to just repeatedly summon demons until I find one who's bored, bootstrap from there, if you don't have reliable history memory off the top of your head..."

"Broad strokes, yes. I will likely not be able to tell whether a given artist or author has a counterpart there. Repeated summonings could be a viable tactic, if we leave off the standard gag."

"Standard gag?"

"Demons have a reputation for talking people into trading their souls for whatever task, the gag is a binding developed to prevent that. With it, the daeva can only communicate in pre-specified phrases, typically 'yes, summoner' and 'no, summoner'."

"...are they really persuasive...?"

"I think it's more a case of desperate people willing to make any sort of deal and demons finding the prospect that they actually could claim a soul amusing."

"Oh, they can't do it? Some demons here can. And turning into a vampire evicts one's soul, that's why they're such sociopaths."

"I see. Souls have never satisfactorily been proven to exist in my world."

"They're not particularly obtrusive except by their absence."

"Are all sociopaths soulless? Can people who are born with the condition become vampires?"

"Enh, vampirism isn't exactly the same thing as sociopathy, it's just a shorthand? I think human sociopaths still have souls and can become vampires. My sources on this are handwritten old books by people who can't spell and actual vampires, so, grain of salt, but that's my impression."

"The vampire I met wasn't terribly inclined towards talking."

"They often aren't. Every now and then I get a chatty one."

"Have you ever asked what makes Sunnydale such an attractive place for them?"

"Answers range from 'it's the nightlife' to 'I dunno, I was following that guy you just staked' to 'heard it was a good place to start an apocalypse'."

"Why would anyone want to start an apocalypse?"

"Beats me, but surprisingly popular pastime."

"Is everyone who tries just incompetent or what, how is this world still around..."

"I don't really know. I mean, there's me, but there's only one of me and nothing actually stopping people from trying to start apocalypses in Tibet and nothing that would let me know about them in advance, and my power set is really stupid even when they're courteously local."

"You have a power set?"

"I don't just go around staking vampires on a baseline capacity. You know how much force it takes to get wood through a sternum?"

"Not viscerally. It is not really something that has come up in my life before."

"It's a lot of force. I can do that. But it turns out that super strength does not substitute for detective work, magic power, etcetera, so I'm trying to pick up a lot of slack here."

"Did you just wake up one day and realize you were really good at killing vampires?"

"No, I woke up one day and realized I could descend stairs without fearing for my life, and then later a god sort of thing appeared in my bedroom in the middle of the night and told me I had a mystic destiny, had I not been getting my prophetic dreams, I was supposed to get prophetic dreams? but no, I had not. Glitchy prophetic dreams. I also can't identify vampires with a spooky sixth sense. Everything else I'm supposed to have is in working order, though, it's not like the mystic destiny is under other circumstances well-crafted."

"I'm not sure what sort of explanation I was expecting but it was not that."

"It's kinda dumb!"

"Did the god-thing say anything specific about the mystic destiny, or are you just vaguely destined to be mystic?"

"I'm 'the Slayer', I am supposed to kill evil shit, there is one of me, my predecessor was presumably killed by a nasty bitey and I will have a successor when one gets me - it was the middle of the night, I was in bed, I did write things down afterwards but I didn't have a chance to get exact words."

"I have many objections to this system, most of which I'm sure you've already formulated."

"I don't even get dental."

"But now you can summon daeva, so that's no longer as relevant as it might have been."

"Yes. This is a much niftier skillset with which to attempt world-saving. I will want further lessons."

"Those I can provide. Do you want to that before or after we investigate possible ways to pay a demon?"

"Depends, what's the curriculum look like?"

"Go over the elements of a circle in more detail, explain what makes up a binding, explore more of the standard bindings and how they fit those criteria, and how to construct a binding yourself. Different ways to target the summons, how to summon a random daeva, how you can specify a specific one. What sort of agreements you should make once you do summon someone, common errors to avoid, more sophisticated errors to avoid."

"Do 'em in parallel? I show up with library books and then do my summoning lessons for the day while you skim the books for discrepancies?"

"That should work. Oh, I remembered: one limitation to demons' conjuration is that they cannot make magic items. If there are any useful magical trinkets we can obtain easily, that's another possible avenue."

"I will have to bootstrap as far as the possession of a meaningful budget to buy anything out of the Magic Box that is reputed to be, in itself, genuinely magic."

"We'll keep it in mind for later then. Likely more scalable at the high end than books, information tends to propagate through Hell after a while."

"Yeah, I can imagine that would happen. And I'm not myself equipped to work on artistic commission such that anybody would be entertained by my work."

"Nor I. It's possible we may find someone entertained by the work of such rank amateurs, tastes do vary, but I do not think it likely enough to consider as an option while we plan."

"Yeah. And I bet any demons with a reputation for helping people out 'cause they're just really nice demons are already booked all the time."

"It's hard to display that quality when all you can say is yes or no."

"So the population of thusly reputationed demons may be zero, which would prevent you from knowing about them, too."

"Precisely."

"What inconvenient superstitions these alternate Earthlings have."

"Demons can be genuinely dangerous, just not in that specific way."

"I believe you. All of the described powers are legitimately terrifying. But y'all seem to have human-range psychologies, which is more than I can say for most nonhumans I meet."

"It helps that I was human once. Eli was not, I have no excuses for Eli."

"He seems nice. How'd you meet him?"

"A student was measuring the relative efficiency of an angel versus a fairy at purifying water of various contaminants. Not one of the more exciting summons I've ever taken. Eli was the angel summoned, we got to talking, kept up through concordances afterwards."

"I don't suppose you have a demon friend by similar means."

"Alas, no. The gag is inconvenient in more ways than one."

"Drat. Well. I'll get history books for you."

"If you leave paper and pencil I can begin plotting your first lesson."

"Thanks!" Bella hands over a notebook and pencil.

Ellie accepts them.

"And if you can bring back a coffee or similar along with the books, I would appreciate it."

"No problem. Back in a jiffy."

"I'll be here."

Ellie takes a seat on the floor of the crypt and commences writing out a lesson plan, an exploded diagram of a summoning circle, how to fit the necessary binding in, some explanation of the theory behind them.

Bella's back in an hour and a half with some library books.

By which time Ellie has a pretty good idea of how to start teaching her summoning!

"Welcome back."

"Thanks! Where do I start?"

"With this diagram." Ellie flips to the appropriate page in the notebook and passes it over. "It's a simplified version of the one you used this morning, so you can familiarize yourself with the layout of each component."

And lo, much exposition on the topic of summoning circles was laid forth.

And absorbed with alacrity!

Ellie does appreciate a clever student.

After the circle is learned, she can start on bindings. Here are the standard phrases you should memorize, this is why they're worded thus.

Useful, boilerplates are.

Does Bella want to practice writing out a few circles with bindings so Ellie can take a look at the books?

Sure. She will leave the circle part open until Ellie looks them over but otherwise practice practice.

So, these history books. Any obviously wrong references she can spot by flipping through the tables of contents?

Nothing really obvious, alas!

Ellie will have to dig a little deeper, then.

The challenge is in remembering she should be skimming for discrepancies, not getting absorbed in the minutia of an era.

Political figures match. Musicians and artists all sound familiar or are obscure enough that it wouldn't be weird for her never to have heard of their counterparts. Geography is alike, science seems to be following a similar trajectory, all the wars are in the right places.

Not exactly promising.

How's her student doing with the circles?

"All done! Except filling in the last bit."

"A good habit to maintain. May I see?"

Bella gestures at the circles invitingly.

Ellie moves over and checks them for errors in construction, spelling, and wording.

Her search will be fruitless!

"I see no errors. Well done. My own efforts were sadly less successful. If there are differences in our histories, they are may be subtler than I can detect."

"Unfortunately I've never even heard a rumor to the effect that Shakespeare was a vampire or Da Vinci was a demon. I have heard that Bach was possessed?"

"I am only passingly familiar with his works, but it is worth exploring."

"I don't put a lot of stock in this because I think it's just someone who thinks it's insane that one dude could have had Bach's output, but yeah, could look into it."

"We may be out of luck finding something easily valuable, other than magic, which has its own hurdles. Fall back on the standard of long lists of obscure content producers."

"There are also books about magic, and local demons and stuff, which I imagine would not be duplicated. And the books about demons don't contain much practical information?"

"If they're amusing but useless, that should be safe. I am wary of spreading information about magic for approximately the same reasons you are about spreading summoning."

"Yeah. Although I suppose it's possible it won't work for daeva or something."

"Something else we should test."

"I can get you the book with the stuff I started trying first."

"That would work. We should clear off these circles first."

"You can probably do that more easily than I can."

"This is true."

Chalk dust: is swept into a neat little pile in the corner of the room.