"How do you channel mana? What does it feel like on the inside when you do it?"

"It feels... calm. And focussed, at least for me. It feels instinctual. I don't really know how to describe it, I'm sorry for being not that useful."

What do you do though?

She lifts up her arm and wiggles it around. She spends a few moments trying to articulate what she did in a more nuanced way than 'she told it to do that' and fails to in that time frame.

"I'll try again."

She reaches out with a finger, draws a slightly lumpy circle in the air, and spends the next while trying to substantiate a Kiss.

"... That's six minutes," says Lily, looking at her phone timer.

"You have a real problem, you're not just weak. I'll call around in an hour or two. At least now we know."

She squeezes Marianne's hand again. 

She lifts her necklace from her cuirass, letting its weight hang from a single finger. It smells faintly of smoke.

"I have to make a call too. Perhaps you ought to play outside for a bit, maybe a few blocks out?"

"I'm staying with you." You idiot. "I won't stop you from summoning anything, but I'm not letting you be alone in a room with a demon."

She can see upsides and downsides to that and isn't sure what decision they balance to, but doesn't think enumerating her thoughts will help. "That is legitimate."

She closes her eyes and turns inwards.

Marianne Belor opens her eyes. Ugh.

"Do we own candles, chalk, incense?"

"I have a couple candles for if the power goes out, but no chalk or incense."

She feels so so antsy, she just wants to get this over with now, not drag it out another few hours.

"Is there a 24/7 store we can hit."

"I can't think of one that'd have incense. That's a specialty thing. Chalk you could maybe get at a seven eleven or something, they sometimes sell sidewalk chalk. You are... going to read some tutorials and not just do what the dubious demonic artifact wants you to do, right?"

She bounces her legs.

"I was planning on checking online too, yeah. And — it doesn't have to be incense. Anything that makes the room more hellish helps with the signal. I don't know what we can use instead of chalk, not pens not sharpies — oh, blood. Probably a non-starter if you're sticking around. And food isn't a good plan unless you want the hungry type. Ash will do as long as the circle can suffer from uncomplication. Would you mind incinerating something?"

"I have not spontaneously manifested fire powers, and we'd need a lot of ash. There must be places in witchdom dedicated to this kind of thing, public circles that have been checked by people who actually know what they're doing - let me do fifteen minutes' research, alright?"

"We have a stove for a reason and that reason is generating ash! But yeah okay, knock yourself out."

She does some quick googling. 

"... Yeah, Hawthorne has public brass ones in the market square, they use them to summon imps to do menial labor when they're short on undead. Let me check Transport Arcadia..."

She flicks through a couple screens. 

"There's a portal here in the city, it's just outside downtown. It links up to the portal network. We could go to Hawthorne and use a professional circle made by someone who knows what they're doing. It'd cost something to get to downtown - you're blue, I don't know if the busses are running this early, we'd have to think about doing it safely - but we were planning on leaving anyway so it makes sense to go scout a little in any case."

She looks over at Marianne. "What do you think?"

"I am blue. Do you own makeup?"

"I don't, but I know how to apply it and I can get some. That's probably available from a drugstore or somewhere - I could go get it right now."

"Legit! Wallet's in my coat, come back soon."

She puts on her sunglasses and goes, grabbing Marianne's wallet on the way. Sunglasses at night is definitely less weird than glowing red eyes.

About an hour later, Lily comes back with a bunch of foundation and some lipstick and mascara to complete the look.

"CVS was open, I got everything we need. Let's get you looking more human."

"Great!"

Marianne springs up, bounces over, and fishes through the flimsy plastic bag for a lipstick.

She uncaps it with a pop, gets down on her knees, and starts drawing on the floor.

"Marianne. We want to get back the damage deposit on this apartment, Marianne. And we had a plan."

"I've had grievances with lipstick, but 'doesn't come off easily' isn't one of them. Close up the blinds. Laptop has a speaker, dig up some," what meshes with demons and lipstick, "nightcore. I'll do the groundwork, circle and candles."