Summoner: The Book of Dimension

22 Burning Mansion And Stoned Josh’s Disappearance

The storage room was filled with the smell of burnt blood, as the worms sizzled in the fire.

The fire easily spread as the room was filled with a lot of dried and prone-to-fire materials. The wallpapers, floor, and the ceiling were slowly getting covered with fire.

Peter glanced at Zack and saw the latter was surprised. As Peter expected, Zack never intended to burn the mansion down. “I’m sorry?” Zack asked as if he didn’t know what to be sorry for.

“It’s fascinating to watch them be burned to death, isn’t it?” Ray asked.

Peter could agree. After all the struggle with Ben Duke, the worms he was composed of was finally now dying.

He couldn’t keep but feel dismayed, though. He thought he could use Medusa’s head in the future. Ben Duke already consumed half of Medusa’s head, and it couldn’t be put to any use.

“Too bad, Medusa’s head was eaten,” Ray sighed in dismay like he had read Peter’s current thought.

“We should do something with the fire, or else we’d be toasted in here,” Peter said, staring at the fire.

Zack, who started the fire, ran downstairs to get the fire extinguisher, while Peter and Ray tried to get a pail of water.

When Zack arrived by the cellar to get the fire extinguisher, he checked the label and it had expired for over five years now. “Why does he even store this?” Zack asked and ran to the kitchen room where he met Peter and Ray.

Peter saw Zack empty-handed. “Where’s the fire extinguisher?” he asked, confused.

Zack just shook his head. “The extinguisher was expired five years ago,” he said and took a pail of water. “We should put out the fire as soon as possible,”

Peter ran with the pail of water. While the water left a few drops of water on his trail, he arrived shortly on the storage room, only to see that the fire had grown bigger. There was no way they could get in there.

Still, he tried. He poured the water in the room but he only extinguished the entrance. “s**t, it doesn’t work,” he said.

Ray and Zack came with the pail of water and splashed the water it but it didn’t kill the fire. The fire crackled and just a few moments then, the ceiling fell, and the fire was now on the third floor.

“Should we call the fire department?” Ray asked, coughing.

Since the smoke had started to get out of the storage room, out to the hallway, the mansion was slowly getting filled with smoke. It was far less now that the fire climbed up to the third floor.

The smoke always found its way up, like how Peter remembered when he first learned about fires when he was young.

Meanwhile, at the time, the leech-like worms were all burned by the fire. Ben Duke was now dead, which was a success although the fire was now warning another struggle.

“Are you serious? We’ll be done for if people found out what was happening and what we have been doing in here.” Zack said.

Ray thought for a second and agreed. “Well, you’re right. I don’t want to be in a mystery documentary. If my father finds out, he’ll kill me.”

Peter covered his nose with the crook of his elbow and coughed. “The mansion will slowly be ashed anytime later, we should do something,” Peter said.

“What exactly should we do, then?” Ray asked.

“We got the invigorating blood, I think we should evacuate the place first,” Peter said. He touched the pocket of his pants and the invigorating blood was still safely there.

Peter had yet to come up with the plan on what to do next. Now that he got the invigorating blood, he didn’t know what to do with it. The sphinx didn’t give him any instruction on what do do about it either.

They rushed to the basement and packed up their things.

Peter took care of the Book Of Dimension and the supposed to be the offering on the sphinx. He might need to summon the sphinx later to ask what to do with the invigorating blood. He also took the phones that they planned to use for searching in case sphinx gave a hard question.

Zack then rushed to go to one of the rooms of the basement, to take as many weapons as possible. Shotgun for himself, gauges, a sword, and some spears near his feet.

He hauled the strap of a shotgun on his shoulder and with his two hands, he held the rest. He walked out of the room and saw the other room which was filled with iron cases. He contemplated if he would take something from there as well.

After thinking for a second or two, he went into the room and looked for something he could sell later. He took a ruby stone from there, and two gold rings.

Ray who just came in, helped Zack with the weapons.

Peter who was putting other stuff on a bag, looked around while thinking about what should they do about Josh. He stood up. “Wait, where’s Josh?” he asked.

Ray and Zack looked at him with confusion and looked around.

Peter suddenly felt a wave of panic on his body. “Where’s Josh?” he asked again.

Ray looked around the basement, even behind the two rooms in there that was opened. “Shouldn’t he be inside the basement?”

“Did we move him earlier?” Zack asked, looking around as well.

Peter paused and recalled his memory. He couldn’t remember anything. He was sure he saw Josh’s stoned body in the basement when they were summoning.

He walked behind the voodoo altar and didn’t find anything there.

Even behind the tore-down door of the basement, Josh wasn’t there.

Suddenly, they heard a series of thuds from upstairs. “We should hurry and find him,” Peter grew more worried that he might not be able to get Josh out of the mansion before it was completely burned down to ash.

Peter glanced at Ray who looked like he remembered something. “I think he was in the living room,” he said.

Suddenly, a flash of memory hit Peter’s mind. Now that Ray mentioned it, he remembered they didn’t intend to move stoned Josh out of the basement until he was turned back to normal. For some reason, Ben Duke had made them move Josh out of the basement before dinner.

Ben Duke had affected a few of his memories.

Ray arrived in the living room, which was fortunately yet to be burned by Zack’s unplanned fire. But before he could even step into the doorway of the living room, he heard a thump.

He slowly and cautiously entered the living room to see what was there, but when he saw it, he gasped in horror. “Peter, Zack! Hurry!” he screamed.

Peter and Zack, carrying their stuff ran to the living room.

“What happened?” Peter rushed and crouched beside Ray. “What happened to him?” he asked Ray.

“I don’t know, I just heard a thump when before I could even arrive here,” Ray defended.

Zack walked behind them. “Is he dead?”

Peter looked at Zack, “Stop it, Zack,” he warned him.

“What? I’m just asking. Because look at his appearance, he looked worse,” Zack said. “What happened to him, though?”

There, lied Josh’s body. He had no head and one of his arms was gone as well. It looked like it was broken by falling, but Peter couldn’t seem to find Josh’s head and a broken arm.

“He’s broken,” Peter said the obvious.

“What do we do now?” Ray asked, biting his nails as he thought of something he could do about it.

Peter stood up and adjusted the strap of his bag on his shoulder. He looked around to find where Josh’s head and arm had rolled to but found nothing.

He looked behind and saw Ray and Zack staring at Josh’s head-less and arm-less body. “What are you guys doing?” Peter asked.

“What?” Zack asked.

“Help me look for his head and arm, duh?” Peter said with sass, although he was now losing his temper again.

Zack and Ray helped Peter look for his head. “There’s no way his head and arm would roll somewhere far, right?” Ray asked.

Zack sneered. “If we just didn’t let Josh summon a freaking mermaid, this wouldn’t happen,” Zack complained. “Now, we have to look for his head and arm? We nearly even died killing that Medusa.”

He continued to add more complain as he looked under the table. “Why did we even let him summon a mermaid. Who would even want to have a mermaid as a girlfriend?”

Peter glared at him. “Josh didn’t complain when you summoned the green goblin. He was scared like me during the whole time but he chose to stay because of us. Because of you.”

Zack just grimaced but he froze when he remembered something with Peter’s words.

Peter watched Zack with confusion when he saw him hurry back to Josh.

He saw Zack lift something like a small cork and a shattered glass.

Zack looked at Peter. “I think I know what happened to Josh.”