Lillene

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In the end, Serenity managed to get Misty’s story out of her without too much trouble; a little help with her basic mana sensing and use was all it took to get her to open up. Serenity walked her through it while she talked; she had the basic idea but hadn’t managed to actually feel anything.

Being Tier Eight helped a lot with teaching Misty to feel mana; his mana was a lot more obvious than the mana of a Tier One or Two, because he could put enough out there to really be noticeable. It probably also helped that he probably had far better control than whoever tried to teach her before.

It was news to Serenity that the demon was a “Resolve Demon.” He’d never heard of one with that name. Admittedly, he’d never seen one that looked like the demon, either. He was disappointed she didn’t know the proper name for the assassination demon, but when she told him the papers with the names and pictures were in the circle under the broken vases, Serenity had to go look.

Before he disturbed anything, he made certain to capture images of the field from all angles. The car’s headlights weren’t perfectly pointed at what he wanted, but his bright flashlight was enough. He had to move the assassination demon’s body off the vase first anyway.

The paper was stained but legible. It called the demon an Anxiety Demon. That seemed like an odd name for a plantlike tentacle beast that could hide itself and sneak in almost anywhere to kill someone, but demons could be odd like that. Why was the pain demon a giant thorn?

Actually, when he thought about it, that wasn’t such a bad description of anxiety after all. It was weirdly literal, but anxiety was certainly stealthy and able to sneak in for no good reason. They must be used for assassinations because of their stealth.

Eventually, Russ sent the two kids home with nothing more than a warning to not play with magic they didn’t understand and an FBI escort. Neither Russ nor Serenity went with them.

It wasn’t until the girls were gone that Serenity asked Russ, “So what did Nat want a demon for anyway? From what Misty said, she was the one who came up with the idea.”

“Nat? You mean Raven?” Russ was openly puzzled for a moment, but when Serenity nodded he shook his head with a slight smile. “Kids. Rissa never went through a phase of using a different name, but a couple of her friends did. It was just a reference for them, though, they didn’t insist on people outside their friend group using the names.”

Russ stopped and the smile fell off his face before he continued. “Her reason was something you or I wouldn’t consider that important but that’s huge to her; she didn’t make her high school’s cheer squad. She says it’s because her family isn’t from the area and that she’s better than some of the girls who did make it. She said she was summoning the demon to scare them into letting her be on the team.”

Serenity closed his eyes for a short moment. “It was an assassination demon.”

“Assassination?” Russ sounded surprised at that. “She said it was an anxiety demon.”

Serenity chuckled and handed Russ the paper he’d retrieved from under the demon’s corpse. “That’s what the paper says. The thing is, they’re used for assassinations and the description even says that.”

Russ sighed. “I’m glad I’m not the one who’s going to have to decide if she needs to be watched or not. I’ll pass it along. What do you want to do with the rest of this? I saw you documenting it.”

“You have the rest of the demon descriptions and the spell setup?” Serenity waited for Russ’s nod before he continued. “Then we need to clean up the vases; that’s the only magically active part of the ritual spell at this point.”

“And the demon? Are you going to take it to Aki’s dungeon?” Russ turned to look at the Resolve Demon. “It seems awfully passive.”

“That’s all I can think of to do with it. I’m pretty sure it’s waiting for me to tell it what to do.” Serenity glanced down at the piece of paper he still held before offering it to Russ. The line “may be impressed by actions that show resolve and strength of purpose regardless of the goal” jumped out at him again. “These vases are just like the ones from the trapped boxes; they just have a different activation. I think it created the demons, so the first thing the Resolve Demon saw was me killing the assassination demon. It must have thought that was an action with a lot of resolution.”

It couldn’t possibly be because he was part demon, maybe even part demon lord. Serenity knew he was lying to himself, but that didn’t mean he really wanted to admit the rest to Russ even though he could probably guess; Russ had all the pieces. Whether or not Russ could guess, though, Serenity certainly didn’t want to say anything out in the open.

Serenity frowned; he was overlooking something. It was something he’d thought of earlier, but forgot to ask. “Oh, right. Where did she get the information, anyway? I assume the other demons listed were accurate?”

“I only checked a couple of them, but the Wrath and Sorrow demons seemed accurate. The pictures were a little blurry, but they all are.” Russ glanced down at the papers in his hand then back up at Serenity. Serenity wasn’t certain what Russ was looking for; the headlights weren’t there anymore, so the only real light was their flashlights. “Raven said she got the information and vases from her uncle. We’re going to go visit him in the morning after this site is cleaned up.”

It was quickly obvious that the Lesser Resolve Demon didn’t actually understand English, but it was very cooperative as long as Serenity was the one giving it commands. It was completely happy to follow Serenity as he trotted back to the nearest portal, then to Aki’s dungeon. 

“What did you do this time, Serenity?” Aki’s voice rang somewhat accusingly in Serenity’s ear shortly after he and the demon stepped through the portal. They weren’t even halfway to the entrance to the “official” dungeon under the Adventurers’ Guild building.

“I brought another demon for you?” Serenity wasn’t certain why Aki sounded annoyed. Didn’t she want more monsters?

Aki sighed loudly. That had to be manufactured to communicate; Aki didn’t breathe! “Yes, I know. The moment it came here, I knew. It was mine. What did you do?”

Serenity explained the situation to Aki in detail. When he finished, she told the Lesser Resolve Demon to head into the dungeon on its own. It didn’t immediately comply until Serenity told it to follow Aki’s direction; after that, it seemed content to do what Aki said.

Serenity almost wanted to worry about why that happened, but he was simply too tired. The only effect seemed to be to speed up what would happen in time anyway. Maybe it was simply because the demon was a “resolve” demon and had resolved to … something?

Serenity walked back to his house, got ready for bed, and snuggled back next to Rissa. She didn’t seem to wake up this time, either.

In the morning, Serenity was in the middle of making Jenna laugh at the funny faces he made when he realized that he’d forgotten to send off the pictures he’d taken the night before to Red and Russ. He took care of that before he forgot again, then went back to making funny faces.

Jenna was two; surely she’d tire of him making funny faces at her at some point. She hadn’t yet, though, so he was happy to do it. He liked making his daughter laugh. The rest of his day probably wouldn’t be as much fun.

It felt just like leaving for work in the morning when he kissed Rissa goodbye and headed through the portal to meet Russ at the hotel. It was an odd feeling; he hadn’t had a regular job in years, but for some reason this felt like one. The feeling faded a bit when he stepped through the portal and faded even more after he met up with Russ, but it still gave the entire morning a glaze of unreality. He knew it was nothing more than weird associations in his brain, but it still made him feel a little off balance as they headed to find Nat / Raven’s uncle, Jeremy White.

Jeremy White worked for the local public library as a cataloguer. Serenity hadn’t even realized that was a full position; he’d always sort of assumed it just happened. He clearly hadn’t thought about it too much; not all books were electronic, after all, even if he usually used ebooks. 

Quincy and Brown talked to the administrator in charge of the branch library for a few minutes, then the entire group was led into a small room to wait while she went to get Mr. White. When he arrived, Jeremy White was a huge surprise; since Nat was pale-skinned, Serenity had expected her uncle to also be pale. He wasn’t.

Both Mr. White and the administrator whose name Serenity hadn’t caught seemed to stop short when they entered the room and stared at Serenity. 

The administrator was the first to recover. She tried to play it cool but still seemed a bit flustered. “I’m going to assume that that isn’t just a really good costume. I, ah…”

Serenity was still uncomfortable with the attention, but in this case he had a pretty good idea of how to deflect it and get her to leave so that they could talk to Nat’s uncle. He’d even remembered the cards with his picture or symbol that Janice had made for him for this exact circumstance. They were small enough to fit in a pocket; he just had to remember to carry them. He put on his best public smile. “Would you like an autograph?”

It turned out that not only did she want one, so did Quincy, Brown, and Mr. White. When they saw the two choices of card, everyone wanted one of each; Quincy asked for several extras, as well, to give as gifts. Serenity thought that was a little silly, but personalized and signed the cards anyway. It really did seem to smooth things over; by the time he was done, both librarians were more comfortable. 

Once Quincy gently eased the administrator out of the room and closed the door, Russ turned to Nat’s uncle. “Mt. White, I need to ask you some questions. At the moment, you’re not in any trouble; you’re a witness, not a suspect. I’d like to keep it that way. First, what do you know about your niece’s troubles at school?”

“Trouble at school?” Mr. White’s forehead wrinkled as he thought. “I thought Miriam was doing better. She’s always hated doing homework, but ever since her parents moved her to a hybrid schedule she’s been getting better grades.”

Russ shook his head. “Not Miriam. I’m talking about Natalie.”

“Natalie?” Mr. White looked surprised. “She’s not having any trouble at school. She gets decent grades. Mostly Bs, some As. I know she’s had some boy troubles, but she’s fifteen. Of course she’s having boy trouble. My wife’s sister hasn’t said anything about anything worse than that.”

Lillene

What teenager shares all their problems with their parents? I'm pretty sure I didn't.