3am.

They always did their summoning at 3am. Perpetua paced his room, the Papal robes dragging along the floor as he did. He was just a tad nervous. Oh, who was he kidding- he was extremely nervous. Sure, he had studied ghoul summoning, rehearsed the Latin incantations over and over, hell, he even drew a step by step guide to it in his book of shadows, but now that he was about to be in front of the entire ministry? Oh, he was anxious.

It didn't take long for a Sister of Sin to come and collect him from his room, bringing him to the ritual chamber. A red pentagram was already drawn out in the center of the chamber, a crowd of Cardinals and Sisters of Sin on either side of the room respectively. He let out a shaky exhale as he made his way to the alter, a statue of Lucifer staring down at him ominously. Copia was absent. Most likely because he didn't want anything to do with Perpetua. It wasn't a secret that he hated him. He might as well have a shirt with the words "I hate V!" plastered on it. Perpetua couldn't lie, his heart seemed to lose a bit of the nervousness he held in it with his brother's absence.

Finally, he picked up the white chime candles, placing them on each point of the pentagram. He lit the candles one by one, then began his Latin incantations he had rehearsed a million times by now.

Then, the first candle flickered out… and the next… and so forth. When the final one went out, he paused. What if he was doing it wrong? And in front of the whole ministry… No, no. He couldn’t start thinking like this now.

He continued his incantations, a bit louder this time, calling to the ghoul to rise to the surface. That’s when the ground began to crack. In the center of the pentagram, a shadowy hand rose. Then eventually, like a contortionist at a circus, the ghoul dragged itself out of the ground. He did it. He really did it. Oh, Copia, just wait until you see this! Perpetua thought to himself. He couldn’t help the faint smile that formed on his painted lips as he watched the ghoul transform from the abomination that came from hell into the more humanoid form that the ghouls often took on Earth.