Flashfire

Ch27

"Gnil zgea hrl vgmwl fmsc he hrl bnwnjv!"

Nothing happened except blinding pain that temporarily caused everything in the room to blur white. Once the flash of white light was gone, it was replaced by a loud thudding in Caleb's ears. It sounded like thunder, someone in the sky beating a humongous war drum, but all contained in his head. He clutched his ears and screwed his eyes shut tight, crying out in pain, fighting off the urge to actually cry.

The thudding eventually lessened after several minutes, replaced by the high pitched whine of tinnitus. Caleb hadn't even been aware that he had doubled over on the ground, forehead to the floor. As the tinnitus swelled and then was ebbing, he could hear a faint pat pat pat pat pat sound.

Caleb didn't move from his kneeling, doubled-over position on the floor for quite some time. His nose was running—had he been crying? He didn't even know, so blindsided by how horrible that attempt had gone. Well, it was now his sixth attempt. He was frustrated, exhausted; it had never taken him this many tries and, while doing the spell incorrectly had always caused him pain, it was nothing like that.

Caleb sniffed and gagged. Getting on his hands and knees, he slowly opened his eyes. It wasn't snot dripping down his nose—it was blood. The amount alarmed him immediately, a sizeable pool beneath him. He wiped at his face, smearing blood everywhere.

"Of fuck," he said, stumbling to his feet. "Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck me!"

He went behind the bar, grabbed a towel, and smashed it to his nose. He felt light headed and sick; he tried to reason through his panic if it was from the failed summon or from the blood loss, but truthfully he didn't know. The amount of blood was insane; could someone bleed to death from bleeding out their nose? He had never broken his nose, nor had seen anyone with a broken nose; Caleb knew that it produced a lot of blood when that happened. Was this comparable?

He sat at the bar, shaking in fear. Getting a slightly bloody nose had been an inconvenience. This? This was petrifying. This was a whole new level. And the worst of it was the fact he had no one to talk to.

Caleb chuckled at himself. Seriously, what could he do? Hello, 911? I was wondering how much bloodloss is acceptable while trying to summon your dead boyfriend, and at what amount should you be concerned?

"This is so fucking stupid," Caleb growled to himself.

The book mentioned nothing about what he was experiencing. It said nothing regarding Liam's discomfort while resurrected, nothing of nosebleeds, headaches, and the feeling of zip-ties being ripped out of chests. Perhaps he had been foolish to expect it to. Maybe he was expecting too much from it, like expecting a dictionary to have pictures next to the definitions.

Caleb did not want to give up. As his nose slowed its red flow, and then stopped, he had a determination burning inside of him. If he failed now, he would stop and call it a night.

Assuming I'm not dead from effort.

"The number seven is supposed to be spiritually significant," Caleb mumbled, re-lighting the candles that had gone out. "Maybe that'll help."

Help.

Caleb paused, standing over the puddle of blood shimmering in the flickering light. There were different parts of the demonic book. He had used it for the sole purpose of summoning, but there were plenty of other spells in there. A lot of them required blood.

Bending down, Caleb dipped his first two fingertips into the puddle. Several times he did this, making a secondary circle around himself. He had no idea if this blood circle should be inside the chalk or out, but he put it within, closer to him. There was some additional stress, because Caleb couldn't help but fear if by doing this it would actually make things worse.