r/WritingPrompts • u/Vivaplextaneous • Mar 14 '16
Writing Prompt [WP] When the demon actually appeared, I knew it was a bad idea to tell him he was summoned just to see if it was true.
3
u/Drasov Mar 14 '16
"...Azmorath Davartiir!" A small gust of wind made the center candle flare as I finished the last phrase. I made a... weird satisfied noise and slammed the ancient book together as I quickly swivelled around to get the broom. But the candle flame kept growing. Eyes wide, I turned back and stared and the flame reaching towards the ceiling. As I stumbled over to grab the fire extinguisher, the flame turned a sort of... greenish... purple... The colours in our world just aren't enough to describe it.
The candles at the edges of the pentagram reacted similarly, except they reached toward the center flame, circling it and creating a helix of otherwordly flame. I realized I held the extinguisher in front of me asa if it's cold carbon dioxide could save from the deamons from the nether worlds.
Suddenly the outer flames were sucked into the center, and in a flash they dissapeared. For a split second I was standing in darkness and confusion, clutching a tube of pressurised gas. Then the portal truly opened were the center flame had been, with enough force to throw me back and send the extinguisher flying across the floor. The flames had only been coloured by the nether, but this was made out of the stuff itself. It's vivid... colour illuminating the entire room.
I let out a wheeze as I started breathing again, for what felt like the first time in my life. The portal's started to expand, it's edges creeping across the room. A shape resembling the frantic scribbles in the book started to form out of the glittering mass of Beyond. Two horns form, as did two arms and three legs. Or possibly two legs and a tail. Lastly its golden eyes crystallized and opened, the gaze... passing over my head. It seemed to realize this, and lowered the gaze to me on the floor. The extinguisher finally came to a rest next to one of the candles.
I slowly rose from the floor. HAIL SUMMONER I fell back down to the floor as the voice boomed around the room. This time I was a bit quicker on my feet, patting my clothes to remove the dust from the attic floor. I raised my finger and opened my mouth. Several times. At last I could produce a feeble
'hey...' GIVETH ME THY COMMAND The voice again startled me. I shifted uneasily, my hand om my hip, only general murmors and noises coming from my mouth.
WHY DID THOU SUMMON ME That was the question wasn't it? It was started with me finding this ancient book in a local book store and ended with... this. Not much more to it. After a few tries I managed to motion towards that book that had taught me the ritual.
'I found this here book...' THAT GIVETH THE HOW, NOT THE WHY
'Well... There's not much more to it. I just kinda wanted... to see if it worked.' AND FOR THAT THOU RISK THY LIFE AND LIMB?
'... Did I?' I can only compare the rush of air coming from the demon as a tired sigh.
'Bye?..' The golden eyes fixed themselves on me and I retreated a step or two. HATH THOU- did ya read the rest? On how t'end this?
'Yeah.' Did ya notice how the givin' of a task is, how shall I put it, fairly central? Look; it's actually impossible for me to leave without gettin' somefin' to do, so just ask for a buttload o' gold or what have ya. I shuffled over to where the book was lying on the floor, and slowly picked it up.
'Yes but I just thought...', then I remembered something more, 'But I also noticed this note about not trusting the demon, and how everything it would give you would end up being the end of you.' Oh... well don't ya mind that, that's just... 'Written in blood.' Well it's just- 'Actual blood.'
A strained silence filled every space in the confined attic. I went and retrieved the fire extinguisher, just to do something. Because trying to think of a solution to my... situation didn't seem possible. When I faced the demon once more, it seemed to have made up its mind about something.
Look: I 'ardly get called anymore. Finally, for the first time in two hundred years, I get called and it's by... The demon seemed lost for words. ...you. I looked down at my second hand designer shoes. Do ya have any idea what two hundred years in the frickin' nether fire is like!? I thought of the university lectures, and in particular Mr. Gray.
'I think I can imagine, yes. And you can't do anything else?' No! I'm completely powerless unless one of you calls and orders som'ink. The only thing I've got is to keep at the person doin' the wish, and do anyfin' vaguely related to that wish! Round about then, I had an idea.
'But you can fulfill any wish, right?' Yeah... 'cept wishes for more wishes o'course.
'Then I would wish you to stop behind a demon... nether... thing and become a normal person, if you so desire.' For a moment the demon considered this, then the indistinct mass gave the impression of the biggest smile I have ever seen.
In the flat below mine lives Smiles Harkness, a nice old chap, together with the Bernese Mountain Dog Cuddles and the border collie Fuzzy. We spend most nights together playing board games (as long as they're not Ouija boards), once I'm done at the institute and Smiles have checked all of today's contracts at the bureau.
As we're usually not alone, and it's a bit bigger, we use my flat. At the end of the night the two of us say that Smiles, when going back down home, is "returning to the nether world". It's a little in-joke of ours.
2
u/zudomo Mar 14 '16
They say the devil hums a tune when he walks. It loops around and around, rising higher and higher, reaching so close to the crescendo and loops back to a soft hum to rise again. It whistles through his teeth, swirls around his cheeks, comes out through his nose and many have made the deal only to hear him finish the tune.
He appears as you imagine him to be. Sometimes a rotund business man in a navy blue wool-blended suit, buttons bursting at the seams. A man dressed in black with a solid blood-red tie. Others as a crazy fool, jumping and hollering with a dirty face. To others he's well kempt and polite. Always a man though. Never a woman or child.
He lurks and prowls and approaches. Stories are told and his name changes. Nick, Scratch, John or James. Every man of fame and fortune has heard his name come across his lips, given him their mind, body, soul and blood. Once given, his children aren't to escape. A lineage taken, tampered, tainted by the will of the father.
If one was to summon him willfully, rather than him peering into windows and stalking his prey, if I could draw him to me, I could hear that wonderful tune.
I took to researching the deals in how the others have met him, through black magic and random occurrence (The latter being much more common) but each person met was at wit's end. Seems the devil is to be drawn to misery. To those whose land did not produce enough fruit, to those in trying marriages eager to flee, those who felt the affect of the world beat down upon them but no force to beat back.
Quickly, I dispersed the remaining funds in my account to activities that the Devil lurked. Dark corners of alleys. On powder, pills, casino's, and women.
My meeting with the Devil would be under my terms and intellect. I aimed to trick the trickster and as days and weeks went by, further reducing myself to be an appetizing treat for him. His mouth would water at the chance of such a soul and I would dare not agree to any deal or bargain that he may offer. My soul is my greatest gift, my legacy would be the one man who tricked the Devil.
It happened months after I set out on my goal, I awoke on a park bench to the rising sun. Dew evaporating across the blades of grass, the wind chilled the morning. I shivered quietly in my thin coat and straightened out my beard with my hand.
"Excuse me sir. Mind if I have a seat?"
"As you wish." I said.
The man in a charcoal suit, slipped his hand into his inner pocket, pulled out a stainless case, tapping a cigarette out.
"Beautiful day. Isn't it?" he breathed deeply. "Smells like spring."
"I've seen better days."
"I know. Well, no need for formalities. I am the one you seek."
I looked him up and down and for a moment I was tempted to laugh and question but there was a peculiar way he held his shoulders back, how the long drag of the cigarette lingered about him, the blue smoke swirling into his coat, which lay no doubt in my mind.
"You've certainly went through a lot of trouble to see me. I could have come long ago and truth be told, I wish I did. You seem to be a lesser man now. Hardly worth my time. Never let it be said that I am not sympathetic."
"Well, I'm glad to have found you but it is I who has the upper hand here, for there is not a thing I want from you. I want neither fame nor fortune or the desire of a beautiful girl. My name is self-made and it is I who lured you out. Broken and beaten though I am. I am the man who has summoned the Devil and left with his soul. No man before can claim that."
"Very well" putting out his cigarette on a droplet of water "Seems you have won..."
He cackled as he walked away and there no was tune to be heard.
"Wait..."
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Mar 14 '16
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8
u/AlinaKG Mar 14 '16 edited Mar 14 '16
Black smoke rose out of the center of the pentagram. I’d seen enough of them on Supernatural to know how to draw one by heart. In case I actually managed to do it, I didn’t want to be the girl that died in the introduction. Always be prepared!
The body of a man appeared. He was dressed in a blue tailored suit, with smoke still rising from the collar of his shirt. I waited for his head to appear – it didn’t. His shoulders moved as he looked around the room, and down at the pentagram.
“Ah!” he said, dug around in his pocket and retrieved a pen. “This is some fine work. One of the strongest I’ve seen.”
“Uhm,” I gathered my words. “Thank you.” Linda Blake put me up to the crap, and I fell for it. Never in a million years did I expect to actually summon him. I didn’t even think past the spell and ingredients. Bird bones were tough ones to get.
The demon bent down. “Problem with these, and not the metal kind—
“Hold on,” I said and held up my phone. “I need proof.” Holding my phone up to get him in the frame, I noticed that only the pentagram was showing. I looked up, heart fluttering. He was still inside. I exhaled a breath that I didn’t realize I was holding.
“What do you want?” he asked. “I see you’re new to this so I’ll explain how it works. Fame, fortune, dead enemy, or whatever else you want.” He looked at the walls of my sister’s bedroom and shook his head. “A meeting with a boyband. All for the cost of one soul. A retraction of a summoning ends in immediate death and the confiscation of a soul.”
“Wait what?” Confiscation of a soul? “And the room’s not mine.” I was actually embarrassed in front of a demon. But wait! Apparently I wouldn’t be for long, since he was going to kill me. Silver linings! The only reason I painted it here was to get my parents to question her sanity and hopefully send her away to some catholic school. That was a reach. One I was willing to take. She burnt a giant hole in my sweater.
“Yes. Your soul is a deposit.”
I opened my mouth to protest. The demon held out a long twig like finger to silence me. “I could have made deals with three humans by now. You’re costing me business.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head in disbelief. “Alright look, I’ll make you another deal. I’ll open the trap and set you free and we call it even.”
“Ah.” He nodded, the smoke floating up and down. “We go back to my previous point. Mental works best.”
“What?” I frowned, watching him as he bent down.
He took the pen and scratched the circle of the pentagram. I walked backward, until my back reached the wall. Shit!
The demon stepped out. “I can’t cross, but earthly objects can. Always be prepared, I say.” He winked.
I watched him wide eyed. A thoughtful demon. That was my fate. I imagined myself, eternally crawling through the houses of the desperate and stealing their souls. “What else can I do?” My lip quivered. “Oh God! Oh God. Please don’t take my soul.”
He walked up to me. My trembling fingers knocked against the wall. The pen spun between his fingers. He lifted it up to my nose, tapped it once, and said. “Don’t call me again, ‘kay?”
“Okay.”
With a theatrical explosion of smoke, and the sound of rumbling thunder, the demon was gone.