Red and Redhead Ch. 01

A ring of candles burned steadily, footlong waxen staves speared atop brass bases. Each had been lit in order and placed carefully on precisely measured points on the bare, pale floor. Below them, marked in black paint, a very neatly created, permanent pentagram, marked all about with runes of entrapment and protection, ornamented with extra design and flair without interfering with the summoning circle's functionality. Three lines burst from one side of the pentagram and spiraled around each other, fusing into a smaller halo a few feet away, even more heavily marked and guarded by runes.

Ok I'll admit, I was impressed.

I've been around for a very long time. I'd tell you in years, but honestly I've lost count. In the Mist, time isn't really a thing, so that makes it a little hard for me to pin down a certain age. I just act like every day is my birthday, and that works well enough for me.

See here's the thing: we get called up every so often, some of us more because we're the better ones (this is me) and some of us less because we're shit (not me, I'm the best). I get called up very regularly; my name is in a LOT of books and guides around, so I guess people are cool with pulling my name from a text and throwing it on their floor. But I've been called up so many times I thought I had seen it all: magicians in flowing robes and gilded finery calling me up to impress women who clearly were neither interested nor entertained; shaman entrapping me in stones and branches to harness my power for their actually pretty decent social work; kids just new to the whole summoning deal who drew out runes and pentagrams in chalk on sidewalks past midnight when their moms thought they were just having an innocent little sleepover. I like those last ones. They taste good.

So my surprise here was particularly in that there was no show, no grandeur, no shock and awe. I felt my name being called and sighed, letting the summons drag me out of my nice Misty napping, and slowly materialized in a stark white, almost soulless room.

Particularly surprising was the woman–if one could call her that–sitting cheekily cross-legged in her witch's circle. She didn't look the part of a witch; long fiery hair pulled back in a braid flopped over her shoulder, slouching a bit, in fuzzy socks, leggings, and a sports bra. Frankly, I was shocked.

So what to show myself as? Maybe she wasn't the witch but the assistant? Just stumbled on her trainer's books and stumbled across a page that looked interesting and accidentally called me up?

No, actually. Her hands, stained black from the heavy paint that now ensnared me.

I decided to arrive as a spider. Not a little one, nor even a tarantula, but the kind of spider you have nightmares about. Hard, beige shell and massive eyes, fangs dripping in poison, barely contained in my pentagram, bulging and pulsing disgustingly, abdomen swollen. I even threw in a fake body ender me for good measure. Add a touch of rotting flesh scent and a few crunching bones and squishing flesh and you're good. I cheated a little and took that dolphin clicking noise and fucked with it to make my spider seem even more menacing, clicking away as I feasted on my fake meal.

Boom! I arrived, costume and all. If I was lucky, the little witch would be so shocked she'd tumble back out of her circle and I'd be free to return to the Mist or stay as long as I'd wish.

But she just sat there, plopping her head in a hand and flipping through her book. I focused my many eyes and saw headphones plugged tight into her ears. I frowned as much as a spider can and shook about a bit, hoping for some reaction. I slammed the body against the floor and tore it apart, letting intestines and all manner of slimy internal organs fall to the floor and pop.

If she could see or hear or smell any of this, she made no indication.

Another surprising thing about this young witch, then. Most summonings, the sorcerer in question would immediately be very moody and demanding. Go here, fetch this gold amulet, kill my rival, jump out of this plane and destroy this town. I swear, as if we're nothing but servants. It's tiresome.

But this one sat still and quiet, so I halfheartedly melted the body into fog and sat there dejectedly, my hard shell sinking to the white floor. I quickly fashioned thick eyebrows onto my spider's face so I could frown at her in case she looked up.

Finally, she spoke, her voice not timid or overly pompous, but familiar, almost mocking, really, now that I think about it.

"If you're entirely done with that nonsense, I don't really care for it. I read the book you know, and I know all about your forms. The Hunting Desert Spider, whose body you so carefully shaped and used to protect Ancient Egypt. And here it says something about the Man, your casual form. And in another book there's this mention of the River Wraith, that one was pretty cool, I liked that. Hanging out in a river and sweeping those away who sought to do your Master harm. Very inventive, he must've been."

She looked up, smiling smugly, bouncing on the floor with ill concealed glee.

"But you look so silly like that! Frowning at me and so much smaller than the hundred-foot beast you once were, oh my god–" and interrupted herself in what could be described as nothing else but a giggle.

A giggle. This...girl, was giggling at me. Me!

My arachnid body vanished and reformed as a towering demon, replete with horns and hellfire, the screams of the damned erupting around me as I boomed out in a voice so deep it would rattle windows for a mile round.

"Excuse me, little girl, but while you describe me as a demon of wide regard, of great and mighty power, you mock me with your laughter. Perhaps you forget with whom you speak! I am Cael the Destroyer! I have seen far into the future and past, grappled with forces far beyond your tiny planet, watched and aided in the destruction of your Sun, clasped hands with the powerful and delighted equally in shredding their fragile forms! I have razed and built cities alone, killed thousands of men, women, and children! I am the Atomic and the Original Sin, one of the first demons to have set foor on this planet and one of the most storied among those from the Mist, and you dare to mock me who could enter your mind and leave it a ruin, touch your pale, fragile flesh and make for myself a thousand lovely ribbons? How lovely you would look in pieces on this floor, and yet you dare to mock me?"

I kept the screams of the damned thing going because it was a neat trick and I always had fun with it. It worked better in the old days, but there was still some shock value to it. My voice was still echoing around the room. A glass of water sitting in a far corner had simply shattered, spraying its contents and vessel everywhere. I turned to look down on the redheaded witch, now twenty feet below me.

In my defense, I could see she had at least turned red and her hands were shaking a bit. But even if her body was shaken her resolve was not. She stood.

And laughed, I swear to Azrael, this girl.

"You know what's funny?"

She stopped. Seriously, she actually wanted me to answer that.

"Nothing is jest, little girl, but the limits of your–"

And she fucking cut me off.

"No no no, that won't do listen, what's funny," she continued, still laughing, "is that when I drew these runes out and everything I wrote in a few little jokes, like this one here."

She pointed down at the circle around her, indicating a block of scrawling text that, honestly, I had never seen before.

"This one changes your voice to my grandmother's. It's so silly, I can't take you seriously like that. I can turn it on and off with a quick enchantment but until you settle down I'll have to leave it on. It's so much fun though, I might just keep it."

I was stunned into silence. Ok. So.

"So all of that whole speech you heard your grandmothers voice."

"Yep!" She chirped, grinning widely.

"I've been refining that speech longer than you've been alive."

"Oh I'm sure you have, I'm sorry it went to waste. Wanna come down here so we can talk a bit?"

There was really nothing I could say. I sighed and the screams of the damned cut off abruptly, like pulling the plug on a record player. I picked out a fairly generic form, that of one of my previous slavers, an aging potbellied man in his late forties. Nice enough guy, just wanted me to pick up some groceries from the store. No kidding, that's literally all he wanted, and then he sent me back to the Mist. Best Master, all years.

I stood upright as best I could and squinted through my large rimmed glasses at the girl, now standing as well. She giggled again at my appearance while I quickly got a good look at her.

She was indeed very young, certainly not nearly old enough to be out of her apprenticeship, which according to code should be around the age of 25. I ventured to guess that she was still under 20, physically strong and fit and particularly well-endowed. Reader bear with me; at this point you may be wondering what import this has to a demon, whose form can melt and alter at will. Even still, I am by nature a male demon. No matter our natural forms, of which mine is probably one of the least offensive, demons do fall along the whole gender scale thing. We're way ahead of humans on the gender and equality thing, just so you know. We've had millennia to mull that one over collectively and individually.

Anyway, she was a very attractive young woman. Her bust strained against her neon sports bra and her black leggings clung tightly to her firm and shapely ass. Her skin was almost impossibly pale, freckles dotting her cheeks and shoulders. Her lips were full even in a smile, soft, inviting. If I had been able tom I would've walked slowly around her, looking her up and down and figuring out where to start. As she stood, she bounced slightly, and I both feared and hoped that her ensemble would fall apart in some sense.

Ok, I was leering, sure, but fine women are like fine wine; leave them out too long without being tasted and they'll be spoiled. Plus, in my aged appearance, the leering would make her uneasy, which I could use to my advantage to escape.

Before I could even begin to think it, she started reciting a flowing, lilting spell and I felt my essence burn and twist under my human vessel. Fuck, she knows how to make me hurt. I convulsed and dropped the old man's guise, opting instead for a kitten, something I hoped she would be less interested in injuring. She stopped the incantation and looked at me.

"Awwww look at you! That's adorable, wow!"

I rolled over and mewed. Undignified, yeah, go fuck yourself. It's called manipulation.

Sadly, she didn't go for it.

"So I'm in University right now," she began, bending slightly at the waste to lock eyes with me in my glorious kitten state. As she did, her bra stretched slightly and sagged downward. Kittens can't bite their lips, but I couldn't help a tiny wink. She rolled her eyes and continued:

"I'm studying demons and their histories, and decided I was going use you as a resource, both about your own life and the relations you have with the demons around you. You seemed interesting, I'll admit. Once the Great Destroyer, in your earlier life tagging along with the bomb in Japan and taking the form of a serpent in the Garden of Eden, a spark that would grow to consume swaths of forest and the personal assistant to Vlad the Impaler. I know a good deal about you, but I want to get the personal angle. The part where you fit in, I suppose, because later on you'd develop a conscious of sorts and only let yourself be used for better causes, you'd start finding loopholes in orders and winding your Masters' words to serve your own purpose. That's cool, that's really cool, but I'm going to find out why. And it'll be a kick ass term paper."

Nope. Nope nope nope.

Fuck this.

I stood tall (or taller, I should say, kittens are adorably but uselessly small) and took my familiar form, stretching and growing into the six foot demon most comforting to me on Earth, dark red skin set deep with glowing white swirls and sweeping lines, white eyes against skin evenly slathered in strong smelling ancient oil. Coals glowed red underfoot, but gently. A long, black sword swung heavily from my worn leather breeches; below them thick legs and four-toed feet.

I'm fairly vain and have served far too long on Earth, so of course my familiar form draws from their standards of masculinity. Rippling, muscled arms are conjoined onto the slab of meat comprising my chest and the rounded curves of my shoulders, aided by glowing stripes of white, traced lines for the eye to follow across my protruding collarbone and down my toned chest and hard abs. Every inch of my body is hairless and smooth, and my skin is always tightly stretched over my admittedly impressive musculature.

Long short, I'm manly and intimidating in my familiar form.

The little witch blushed scarlet and pursed her lips, shuffling slightly in her circle, careful not to move. I laughed quietly before starting:

"Now listen here, little one. This sounds like a cushy job, but I honestly doubt this is the beginning and end of my duties. In addition, I hate to be enslaved for such a petty purpose. In the Mist, there is no time. Today you have called me here, and when you release me I will lounge in the Mist, only to be called back to Ancient Greece, and the day after to the Human Diaspora as you flee Earth. I have seen these things, and time spans a greater course than your tiny life. And yet here I stand, spending my days in servitude to one who is barely old enough to breed, much less summon me, and help you write a research paper? Is this a joke?"

She shrugged, an action I found admittedly distracting given her generous cleavage.

"Nope it's not, sorry that's just how it is. And you're right, I will make you do other things."

She snapped her fingers and I found myself in a completely different room. I looked down; no pentagram. I grinned, about to disappear or snatch her up to kill her, only to stumble slightly. The wallpaper in the room–I shit you not–was all in rune. I looked around and found myself in a bedroom of sorts, if you could call it that with all the crap piled up everywhere. I swear, this girl was a mess. From under the shut door I heard her mocking voice call out:

"And you can't leave your room until everything is up off the floor, young man!"

She giggled and padded down the hallway, leaving me standing, resplendent in my power, Cael the Destroyer, leveler of cities of murderer of thousands, knee deep in dirty laundry. I had become personal maid to a barely legal witch. I shut my eyes tight and gritted my teeth before bending over to grab hold of a discarded bra. I conjured a laundry hamper and threw it in. Oh how the might have fallen, I repeated to myself with each different chore. Oh how the mighty have fallen.

So here we were a month into this endeavor. She'd call me up when she came home from classes and I'd appear with a pack of cigarettes and an old leather chair I brought with me from the Mist, one of my favorites. She despised the smoke, but I pointed out to her that it couldn't compare to how greatly I despised my enslavement, and she rolled her eyes, muttering something about cancer. I'd sit back and answer questions at length, telling rousing tales of battles gone by and triumphs against rivals, victories and losses, betrayal and deceit. I've had a pretty interesting life, I have to say, too interesting for you to here right this minute. This is one story, you get to hear the other ones later.

After we'd retire from my tales, I would lay about and listen to her life and woes. In bits and pieces, I learned about her life. She revealed her name, Sarah, withholding her last name coyly in spite of my many attempts to trick it out of her. She ran often and was a theatre actress for fun, she had some strong problems with her family, which I won't talk about because that's about her not you, she talked of crushes at school and loves and lusts, ranting to me about whatever suited her. Which was fine for me, I didn't mind. If she sent me on an errand later outside her living space and made an error in the terms of her orders, it was all information I could use against her.

Don't get me wrong, Sarah was a lovely young woman. But keep in mind, I was also enslaved under her. You'd think after collected millennia of enslavement I'd be used to it, but no. Each new slaver was a coal in my throat just begging to be dislodged and extinguished underfoot.

The time passed in this way, monotonous and slow, as I would clean her home and she would grill me at night for more tales, then rant to me briefly about her mortal existence after. It was a comfortable cycle. And I never object to telling stories about myself.

"And there we were! The three of us! Trapped under the rubble of the great castle, pinned down by fallen stone while arrows clanged around us, bouncing off the rocks to clatter harmlessly to rest beside our struggling hands! I, the strongest, of course, gripped the great boulder behind my and lifted it with hardly a strain. Our Master had told us to stay inconspicuous, clearly human, but I decided now was as good a time as any to subvert his cowardly directive! I threw the boulder and it rolled, bouncing and shaking the earth as it rumbled towards the left flank, crushing both the vanguard of siege weapons and scattering their cavalry! I took the opportunity to free my comrades and we took to the skies as dragons and massive hawks, harbingers of death, scattering the bodies of the dead and soon-to-die into the air, cackling as their limp forms crashed into one another, like so many human bowling pins! And when we–"

Sarah held up a hand, ink stained from furious note taking. She recorded our sessions, but preferred to first copy by hand, then would later check against her tapes. She sat still for a moment, then yawned deeply.

"Cael I think I'm going to bed. I'm exhausted and it's been a long day, so we're cutting it short tonight. I'll see you tomorrow."

She snapped her fingers and my body was shredded and reassembled in a little rune-carved cage that she had hung in the ceiling. In this manner I could always be on call, without the exhausting and time-consuming summoning process. As of late she had gotten paranoid about someone taking her ideas as well, and didn't want her rivals to have access to the wondrous wealth of knowledge and lore that is wonderful wonderful me.

So I got slapped in a birdcage every night.

But that night, I watched a miracle. As she stepped from her pentagram, stretching and shuffling off to bed, a misplaced step smudged a rune. I traced it around, figuring out what it could be for. Sound, no, hardly, presence, certainly not, the wards around my cage alone made my essence crawl. So what then.

I sighed and suddenly–there. A gentle breeze meandered around the windowless room. I probed a little and found I could observe anything in the room, even while my physical form was limited. In my mind's eye, I approached the door, but my vision grew dim and slowly lost color. She had protected the walls and door, but now at least my mind could stretch some. I watched an ant crawl in under the door and let my mind focus in on its mind. A soft drone and rhythmic clicking, but little else was apparent. As it walked farther from the door, however, I could hear a complicated song of sorts bouncing around in the tiny creature.

I withdrew from the ant and let my mind rest in my body.

She had smudged the rune to limit my perception.

I grinned and relaxed in my cage, as much as one can against copper wire.

She would learn to regret this.

In the morning, I woke to my flesh sloughing off my skeleton. I often find it wearisome and difficult to retain my Earth forms while I rest, and so end up subjecting those around me to what I've heard to be a rather disconcerting sight: my body slowly melting away over night and breaking apart, not decomposing or tearing so much as liquifying. I, in fact, enjoyed the effect it had on my rivals so much that I refused to learn the necessary technique to retain my form. On bad days, I start letting it go when I'm awake. There are few things more entertaining than the cries of horror from the attendees of a bazaar as a misshapen, dissolving human form shambles between the stalls, bones protruding from buckling skin and teeth falling out with each step.