Random shorts

The Littlest Summoner

WRITING PROMPT #3: You are a demon and you recently met a young girl with abusive parents. You pity her and decide to teach her what symbol to draw to summon you. You pick up a stick, grab her hand, and show her how it's done. It's 3AM, and you have just been summoned to the girl's house.

Fear and desperation.

Nothing else would have evoked such a strong summoning. How anyone figured out how to summon him was beyond the Demon's understanding, but as it stood; he barely had enough strength and time to make his excuses about leaving the celebration, not that he had to try too hard, Samhain ended a few hours ago at midnight. Yet the castle's ballroom was still fit to burst full of people. A small part of him was happy for the distraction and the reason to leave the group of people he found himself in. Standing among the 'upper echelons' of the underworld wasn't all it's cracked up to be. While the other more sensible part of him was tense at the implications of the summoning and the intentions of the one doing the summoning. And why they waited until after Samhain to do it. The magic needed to summon a demon would have been stronger at the peak of Samhain. A barely audible hiss of pain managed to make its way past his clenched teeth. It took an impressive level of control to keep his face blank of emotion, and appear unaffected despite the wild magic coursing through his system. He was almost at the doors when the realization hit him.

They were human.

The thought alone shocked him, but besides the slight widening of his eyes at the revelation, he managed to finally slip through the door and into the empty corridor with none the wiser about his current predicament.

Humans whether they were magical or not always had a certain feel to their blood and summoning. And his summoner was young. There was something about the wild, untamed magic swirling about him that gave off that impression. He almost rolled his eyes at the thought of some young sorcerer or sorceress trying to prove themselves with this summoning. Someone probably fueled by their pride and ego that they would dare to summon a ruler of hell second only to Hades himself. It usually doesn't hurt when someone summons him. A tad uncomfortable sure, but never this painful. It only fueled his theory on how young and inexperienced his young summoner really was. What this summoner lacked in finesse and skills, they more than made up for with their raw magical strength and tenacity. It still didn't explain the fear he felt, the desperation he felt fueling the magic. Was his summoner being forced to do this? Was it an ambush?

There was something odd about this whole situation. His summoner was hurt. Why did it feel like he's being summoned using Life Blood? When the person's very essence, their spirit, their soul, their whole heart is going into the summoning, it carries with it the Life Magic of the individual. No, that can't be. There's no way the idiot doing this would be using Life Magic. It's what sustains life, it's a completely separate entity to the magic we use daily. If done incorrectly, it will deplete the summoner's magic before it starts drawing on their life force. If it somehow doesn't kill them it will reduce them into squib status; and that's the best outcome you can hope for. If not that, then the demon summoned could steal their magic, their soul or their life. What would make them desperate enough to use it? What in Hades' Name would make them desperate enough to be capable of summoning him this way? Only someone on the verge of death, or who had nothing left to lose would go to such length. There were better, easier, and not to mention safer ways to get his attention. What did they want?

The doors to the great hall had barely closed behind him when he felt the magic build up before slamming into him full force. Biting his lips he bit back the scream bubbling up his throat; he doubled over in pain as magic danced up and down his body. He could feel the magic buzzing under his glamour, trying to break free. He'd kept the glamour up for the duration of the Samhain Ball being held at the castle. He could feel it start to crack under the strain. Whoever was summoning him knew what they were doing for the most part because this was a summoning he could not ignore. It had been centuries – closer to a millennia – since anyone dared to even attempt it and he had assumed that he was successful when he destroyed all texts and knowledge pertaining to how he is summoned. And yet, he stood corrected as another pulse of magic tore through him, he could taste blood now, forcing him to acknowledge that he must have bitten his tongue to muffle his scream. Who in the name of Circe is summoning him?! He groaned as his body trembled at the force of the magic the summoning was evoking.