The Summoner’s Bargain

 The Summoner’s Bargain

The rain fell in sheets over the abandoned cathedral. Its shattered windows rattled in the wind, and the only light came from the flickering candles that lined the stone floor in a meticulous circle. Sigils and runes, drawn in blood, glimmered faintly, pulsing as though alive.

Inside the circle stood a woman. Her hair clung to her damp face, her eyes sharp and unyielding, and her hands steady despite the faint tremor of a child hiding behind her legs. The child—no more than eight—peered out with wide, terrified eyes, clinging to her mother’s robes.

King Phantom appeared with the subtlety of a storm. One moment he was nothing but shadow; the next, he filled the space, his form vast, glowing eyes cutting through the dim candlelight. The air grew thick, heavy with static, and the faint hum of otherworldly power made the hair on Danny’s neck stand on end.

The woman didn’t flinch. She didn’t beg. She didn’t cry.

“You’re late,” she said, voice calm, almost bored.

King Phantom tilted his head, intrigued. No one had dared speak to him like that in centuries. His voice, deep and resonant, rolled across the empty hall.

“You knew what you were calling,” he said. “Did you think you could summon me without understanding the cost?”

“I did,” she replied, stepping closer to the sigils, meeting his eyes with unwavering determination. “I want him dead. And I don’t care what it costs.”

Danny, standing a few paces back, felt a cold dread seep into his bones. He looked at her—the sigils drawn in blood, the trembling child, the raw desperation in her eyes—and sighed, his shoulders sagging with the weight of inevitability.

“You mortals never learn,” he muttered, more to himself than to her.

The wind howled outside. The candles flickered and died. In the sudden darkness, the smell of ozone and iron filled the air. King Phantom stepped forward, his shadow stretching unnaturally, and the woman held her ground, unwavering.

The child whimpered, and Danny reached out instinctively, but she put a firm hand on the boy’s shoulder.

“Don’t,” she whispered. “He’s mine to call.”

Then came the scream. Not from the child. Not from the woman. It was something else entirely—a sound that tore at the edges of the soul, reverberating across the hall in impossible harmonics. But just as quickly as it began, it stopped. The scream never finished.

When the League arrived hours later, they found nothing. No sigils, no blood, no trace of the summoning. Only a sleeping child, curled up in a corner, and the lingering tang of ozone in the air.

Danny, alone now, stared at the empty hall. Somewhere, deep within the shadows, King Phantom’s laughter echoed—a sound both terrifying and infinite.

The woman was gone. The cost had been paid.

And somewhere, in the silence after the storm, the world shivered, knowing that some bargains were never truly over.