Older Ash stared at the apparently empty salt circle and frowned. "What do you mean it isn't dead? There's nothing there." Young Ash ignored him, his eyes narrowing as a faint red glow appeared deep in his pupils. He fixed his gaze on an empty patch near the edge of the containment circle and said calmly, "Quit pretending. Come back out now, or the next shot makes sure you disappear for good."
For several seconds, nothing happened. Then the air inside the circle distorted like heat rising from pavement, and Eligos slowly reappeared with a bloody wound carved along the side of its head. The first shotgun blast had caught it, but only partially; at the instant Ash fired, the demon had turned invisible and shifted position quickly enough to keep the buckshot from destroying its skull. The blue fluid sprayed across older Ash had indeed been demonic blood, just nowhere near enough to count as a kill.
Young Ash immediately understood what Eligos had been trying to accomplish. The demon wanted everyone to believe the shotgun blast had destroyed it, wait until they relaxed, and then convince them to break the salt circle or abandon the ritual entirely. Unfortunately for Eligos, Ash could sense supernatural entities even when ordinary eyes could not see them, and Prey Tracking had already marked the demon from the moment it appeared.
Eligos turned its featureless face toward him. "What are you?"
Ash's recently acquired Presence Concealment suppressed the recognizable aura of his Demonic Power, so Eligos could not easily identify what kind of supernatural energy surrounded the young man. All it could clearly see were the faint red lights burning inside Ash's eyes and the complete absence of fear in his expression. Ash smiled pleasantly and answered, "Something capable of killing you. Now, do you want to keep being useful?"
Eligos remained motionless inside the circle. "There is no recall incantation known to me."
Ash tilted his head. "I don't believe you."
The demon's enormous mouth twitched. "The Dark Ones created the Books of the Dead. Only they know the full rites used to command those books. We signed contracts with them, nothing more."
Eligos continued before Ash could interrupt. "The Dark Ones have not called upon me for an age beyond your understanding. The image recorded in the book is my juvenile form, which should tell you how much time has passed since that contract was written." Lionel glanced toward the ancient volume with obvious fascination, while older Ash looked considerably less impressed.
Young Ash sighed. "That's unfortunate."
Eligos stiffened.
Ash raised the shotgun. "Because if you don't know anything useful, you've officially run out of reasons for me to keep you alive."
Eligos roared.
Its body vanished again.
This time Ash was ready.
Demonic Power poured from his palms and wrapped around the shotgun in streams of black mist. Dark-red markings slowly spread across the metal receiver and barrel, while tiny black particles drifted around the weapon as though the gun had been pulled from some infernal armory rather than a sporting-goods store.
Older Ash stared at it with obvious envy. "Now that is a shotgun."
Kelly gave him a look. "Of course you think the demon gun looks cool."
Young Ash ignored them and tracked the invisible presence moving through the containment circle. Eligos was not simply standing in one place; its aura kept jumping several feet at a time, revealing another ability the ancient illustration had never mentioned. Invisibility combined with short-range teleportation made the demon extremely difficult to follow with ordinary senses, but Prey Tracking turned its evasive movement into little more than a moving target indicator.
Ash aimed toward one empty section.
Then suddenly shifted the barrel in the opposite direction.
He fired.
The enchanted buckshot ripped through the air with a trailing stream of black energy and seemed to vanish halfway across the circle. Blue blood erupted from apparently empty space, followed an instant later by Eligos reappearing with most of its head destroyed.
The demon stood for only a fraction of a second.
Then its body collapsed.
Gray-black ash spread through its flesh from the destroyed skull downward, consuming the blue-gray body until nothing remained. Even the blood splattered across the floor dried and crumbled away as the spirit itself was finally erased.
Ash lowered the shotgun. "I told you I could see you."
The familiar strengthening sensation followed immediately. His body received another small improvement, but the much larger change struck his mental and spiritual reserves, sending a noticeable surge through the amount and quality of Demonic Power he could produce. Eligos had looked physically imposing after centuries of growth, but its true strength had never been brute force.
Its first major ability was Invisibility. Eligos could hide itself completely from normal sight, though the concealment did not erase its supernatural aura, which was why Ash's spiritual perception and Prey Tracking could still follow it. Combined with short-range teleportation, the demon could vanish, reposition instantly, and approach victims from angles they had no reasonable way to anticipate.
The ability Lionel had interpreted as mind-reading was also more dangerous than the book suggested. Eligos could interfere directly with human thought processes, slowing cognition and reactions until a victim was effectively frozen despite still being conscious and wanting to move. In a normal fight, that meant Eligos could appear beside a target, cripple their ability to react, and finish them before their body caught up with their thoughts.
Fortunately, the salt circle had neutralized most of that advantage. Eligos could not project the mental effect beyond the containment boundary strongly enough to control the people standing outside, leaving its best weapon almost useless during the interrogation. The final ability—short-range teleportation—appeared to be something Eligos developed after the Book of the Dead recorded its younger form, which explained why Lionel's information had been incomplete.
Taken together, the demon's combat style became obvious. Eligos was not built for prolonged frontal fighting despite standing nearly seven feet tall; it was an ambush predator that used invisibility and teleportation to close the distance, crippled the victim's mind, and then delivered a killing blow. In other words, it was a supernatural assassin.
Ash had wanted the thought-control ability.
Instead, he received Invisibility.
For a moment he was disappointed, then he considered what he already possessed. Presence Concealment could suppress his aura, Invisibility could remove him from ordinary sight, and Shadow Travel allowed him to move rapidly through darkness without crossing open ground. Combined with Prey Tracking, he now had almost every supernatural tool an assassin could possibly want despite still preferring to solve most problems with a greatsword, shotgun, or overwhelming force.
Ash smiled.
Maybe it was not such a bad reward after all.
Older Ash was still staring at the black-and-red shotgun. "So it's really dead this time?"
"Really dead."
Young Ash held the weapon out to him. "I also charged your shotgun with Demonic Power. For a while, the shells can damage spirits and demons that ordinary ammunition might pass through."
Older Ash accepted it with both admiration and possessiveness. "For a while?"
"The stored energy isn't permanent. Don't waste it, but don't get stingy when something supernatural is trying to kill you either."
Older Ash ran his hand lovingly across the dark markings. "This might be the most beautiful thing anyone has ever given me."
Amanda stared at the weapon radiating obvious demonic energy. Pablo looked uncertain whether to admire it or move farther away, while Kelly simply shook her head. The two Ash Williams apparently shared several questionable tastes despite having completely different personalities.
Young Ash turned toward Lionel. "Next one."
Older Ash snapped his head around. "Next one?"
"Yeah."
"Eligos just told us the demons don't know how to reverse the summoning."
Ash gave him a flat look. "And you're taking a demon at its word?"
Older Ash hesitated.
Young Ash continued, "Maybe it was telling the truth. Maybe it wasn't. Either way, we have a Book of the Dead, a containment circle, several armed people, and a controlled environment. We're not likely to get many chances where a demon appears already trapped and politely waits for us to decide what to do with it."
What Ash did not say aloud was that every successful kill strengthened him. A safe summoning ritual capable of delivering controlled supernatural targets directly into a containment circle was dangerously close to the perfect training ground. If the available materials lasted and Lionel continued choosing manageable targets, Ash could keep gaining abilities without chasing monsters across half the country.
Older Ash studied him suspiciously. "You're enjoying this way too much."
"I'm being thorough."
"You look like a guy at an all-you-can-eat buffet."
Ash ignored that.
Lionel glanced nervously toward the Book of the Dead. "I did warn you that individual demons may have changed since these records were written. Eligos was clearly much more developed than the illustration showed."
Kelly nodded. "That's the real problem. If every contracted demon has had centuries or thousands of years to grow, then the descriptions in the book might be almost useless."
Young Ash looked over the available pages.
"Then we choose carefully."
He had no intention of calling anything that already looked powerful in its recorded form. If the book contained demons on the level of something like Valak—or worse—then the thin salt circle on Lionel's floor would be about as useful as a chalk line in front of a freight train. One mistake with an entity that powerful could turn an experiment into a massacre before anyone had time to regret it.
Older Ash finally sighed. "Fine. One more."
Ash smiled.
Older Ash immediately pointed at him. "And this time we pick something that actually looks harmless."
Young Ash glanced down at the Book of the Dead.
"That's what we thought about Eligos."