The First Chapter of S.T. Gibson’s Evocation Introduces an Overachieving Occultist

S.T. Gibson’s polyamorous Dracula retelling A Dowry of Blood was one of 2022’s most decadent horror novels, and the author is now poised to step into the fantasy space with Evocation, the first installment in her new four-book The Summoner’s Circle series. 

A contemporary story set in a version of Boston that’s riddled with magic, the story follows an alcoholic psychic who must team with his sorcerer ex-boyfriend—and said ex-boyfriend’s astrologer wife—to save himself from a family curse. As their relationship becomes something increasingly more complicated, they’ll have to figure out both how to unravel centuries-old magic and how all they feel about each other.

Here’s how the publisher describes the story. 

The day David Aristarkhov’s occultist father died, he bought himself an Audi, drank every drop of liquor in the house, and abandoned his life as a teen psychic prodigy. Now pushing thirty, David is a Boston attorney, moonlighting as a medium for a secret society.

But when the Devil comes to collect on a deal David’s ancestor made, he reluctantly reaches out to his ex-boyfriend Rhys for help. However, to get to Rhys, David will have to befriend Moira, Rhys’s wife. The trio gets a little too close for comfort as they combine their powers to unravel the century-old curse, and if they don’t break the curse by David’s thirtieth birthday, he won’t live long enough for everyone to figure out their feelings for each other.

Evocation won’t hit shelves until May 28, 2024, but we’re thrilled to be able to share its (beautiful) cover and give you an early look at the book’s first chapter right now. 

(Cover artist: Eleonor Piteir; designer: Alice Coleman)

CHAPTER ONE

David

David pulled up to the haunted house ten minutes before he was expected, because arriving late was for amateurs and getting there too early was for interns. He used three of those minutes to sit in the Audi and review case notes for an upcoming deposition on his phone. Technically, it wasn’t six yet, which meant he was technically still on the clock for his day job. Not that he ever really checked out of working as a prosecutor for the city of Boston. He just spent his nights expanding his vocational horizons. 

He had been juggling full time work and a thriving private occult practice ever since graduating law school, not to mention weekly secret Society meetings, and he would rather donate his entire fortune to charity than walk away from any of it. David was like a diamond, forged under pressure and made entirely of hard, cutting edges.

At two till, David straightened his collar in the rearview mirror, ran a hand through his wavy bronze hair, and locked up his car. Tonight’s client was an eccentric heiress with a penchant for the occult and a recently-dead husband, which was right up David’s alley. He could be in and out before eight, with time for a workout and an hour or so answering work emails before bed. It was his ideal type of day; packed to the brim with meaningful, lucrative work and centered entirely around himself. The only thing that could possibly make it better was a round of athletic sex, which was off the table for reasons relating to David’s lack of interest in almost all the men in Boston and his ironclad marriage to his work, or a stiff drink, which was off the table for reasons related to David’s sanity and general well-being. 

The widow lived in an ivy-covered Brookline brownstone with black-shuttered windows closed tightly to the world. David had to knock three times to get an answer, and when the door finally opened, it was only an inch.

“Who’s there?” a reedy voice from inside demanded.

David tried—to no avail—to peer inside the darkness of the house.

“David Aristarkhov. We spoke on the phone?”

“David who?” she pressed.

David flipped open his wallet and thumbed through the glossy cream business cards work had given him until he came to a few embossed black cards hidden in the back. He slipped one free and held it out between his fingertips through the crack in the door. The silver script gleamed like a knife under the bright spring sunlight.

Spirit Medium and Psychic Intuitive. 

“I don’t know,” the woman said after a moment. “I’ve changed my mind. I don’t know if my Levi would want me to try and contact him after all this time. Come back tomorrow. We’ll see how I feel then.”

Cold feet, then. Typical. There was no way he was cutting his losses and driving back to Fenway now, though, not when he was wired after a long week on the job and ready to, quite literally, raise the dead.

“Miriam,” David said, every syllable deliberate. His voice had the timbre of smooth, polished brass, without a trace of anything less than all-American. It was a voice curated for conveying utmost surety and bulldozing anyone who got in his way. “Why don’t you just open the door a little bit and you and I can talk about it?”

There was a long pause, but then the widow obeyed him. People usually did, when he asked nicely. It was one of the innate, uncanny abilities that had been with him since childhood, like mediumship or perfect pitch. 

The door swung open to reveal a wizened but glamorous woman in her seventies, wearing a purple silk headscarf and large tortoiseshell glasses. She took David in appraisingly, flicking her eyes across his wood-inlay summer Rolex and monogrammed cufflinks. He was still dressed for his day job, in his bespoke shirt and slacks that cost more than what most men paid for their wedding suit. The Aristarkhovs had money so old you could have exhibited it in the Hermitage: vodka-exporting, fur-trapping, wartime-advising money. Champagne in the box seat money. Discreet exit from the public eye when wealth became unfashionable money. David had never been interested in denying himself any of the comforts his inheritance provided. 

“I just don’t know if I’m ready to talk to him again, is all,” she said, a little quieter.

David gallantly took her small hand between his own, pressing gently. He was better with the dead than he was with the living, but he could feel the apprehension wafting off her like a perfume gone sour. Best to lay on the charm a little bit to put her fears at rest.

“That’s what I’m here for. You wouldn’t have called me if we weren’t meant to do this together. It will be wonderful, I promise. Now why don’t you invite me inside?”

She nodded absently and stepped aside, muttering something about being willing to try anything once. Entry secured, David dropped his pleasantries at the door and strode past her into the house. She stared at him as though baffled at how quickly she had let down her defenses, and David simply gave her a wry smile over his shoulder.

It was whispered that a long time ago, before Martin Luther had even written his treatise and plunged Europe into holy war, an Aristarkhov made a deal with the Devil. One thousand years of servitude for an apprenticeship in the art of persuasion, with a crash course in the occult arts thrown in to sweeten the pot. It was difficult to say whether there was any truth to the claim. But it was true that David’s grandfather had been gifted entire stables of thoroughbred horses simply by asking for them, and that his father stole his prima ballerina mother away from her debut in Giselle by draping her in his coat and telling her that a car was waiting outside. 

David rolled up his sleeves, revealing the thickly-inked monas heiroglyphica tattooed on the inside of his right arm. It was a sigil meant to represent the principles of alchemy distilled into universal power. David had gotten it when he was young and drunk on his own invincibility, but of all the occult symbols he could have chosen to get marked on him forever, it wasn’t the worst option. 

He spread his fingers, testing the aura, air pressure, and electrical currents of the room. The familiar cold malaise of dead energy curled around his fingers, lighting up the psychic intuition in the base of his brain. His whole body relaxed into the sensation, comforted by the familiarity of restless ghosts. 

“I’m going to need a quiet room to work in and an object that belonged to your late husband,” David said, “and a sparkling water, if you have one.”

David Aristarkhov didn’t believe in the Devil. But he was certainly willing to work with everything his birthright had given him. 

Evocation will be released on May 28, 2024, but you can pre-order it right now. 

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Lacy Baugher Milas is the Books Editor at Paste Magazine, but loves nerding out about all sorts of pop culture. You can find her on Twitter @LacyM