I lit the fourth candle and stood back to assess my work.
The rug had been removed from the middle of the floor, and I had managed to draw the most perfect circle right in the centre of the apartment. Four candles had been placed facing the cardinal directions. The two pints of pig blood poured in a chalice of tinted glass glistened in the sunlight penetrating the windows and the partially open curtains. (That had been the most awkward purchase. The butcher had kept giving me nasty stares.)
I placed a raw processed chicken in the centre of the circle, and drew a pentagram around it.
Everything was now in place.
I took out the crumpled piece of paper from the back pocket of my faded blue jeans, and straightened it.
My mind wandered back to Elaine, and her conviction about demons making the perfect dates. To be fair, she had actually meant it romantically and not socially. The demon she usually summoned was an incubus, and if her blissful expression was anything to go by, he knew how to use his tongue, and his tail, just the way she liked.
My situation, however, was not as simple as one of bodily pleasure.
My sister, Paris (our parents were raging alcoholics and we often cracked jokes about how they must've thrown darts at the world map to pick out the names of their children- Paris, Sydney and London), was getting married next month. She had been the driving force behind convincing me to RSVP with a plus one and showing up with a date, now that she was getting married and London was bringing her new beau.
I couldn't stick to them, and not socialise with anyone else, like the fifth wheel I desperately wanted to be.
Elaine, Paris' best friend and maid of honour, had overheard that conversation last week, and had offered her own solution.
Go summon a demon.
I had originally scoffed at her idea, letting her know in painstaking details how demons couldn't possibly be real, but she had produced some hard proof in the form of photographs, videos, and a very real incubus coming to pick her up from the bakery we had been at tasting cake. She had handed me the piece of paper with the spell necessary for the summoning, letting me know that she had already memorised it and did not need it anymore.
Throwing a wink in my direction, she had gone off with her handsome boyfriend from hell.
For some reason that I couldn't quite fathom, I hadn't been able to throw the incantations away.
See, I know I don't look that bad. In fact, I would go so far as to call my face aesthetically pleasing to many. But looks had never been my point of insecurity.
I had simply always been more comfortable around computers and numbers than I had been with people. All my dates were disastrously awkward and embarrassing.
If there was an Olympics of saying or doing the worst possible thing in a given situation, I would win all the medals and then fall on the sponsors while making my way to the podium to accept my award. I was that bad.
And so, the more I thought about it, the smarter it seemed to simply summon a demon and sacrifice a couple of chickens in return for him to be my date to my sister's wedding. I did not want to risk bringing a real date and somehow managing to not only waste both of our time, but also ruin my sister's big day in the process. I had stopped underestimating the rippling effects of my actions.
If there was an opportunity to socially humiliate myself, I did. If there wasn't, I created one and then embarrassed myself, anyway.
My hands started getting clammy, crunching up the paper even further.
I had gone to such lengths and made all the efforts. There was no point in getting cold feet. I just had to see it through, specially since I did not want to risk being discovered with pig's blood in my apartment.
A shudder of dread went up my spine at the thoughts of how much worse I could turn the situation after throwing two pints of pig's blood in the mix.
Snap out of it, Sydney. You got this.
I definitely did not have anything, but I took my position outside the circle.
My voice shook as I started reading the incantations out loud.
"Lord Satan, by your grace, grant me, I pray this- no sorry, thee- I pray thee, the power to conceive in my mind and to execute that I- oh no, sorry- that which I desire to do, the end which I would attain by thy help, O Mighty Satan, the one True God, who livest and rainest- oh no- reignest forever and ever."
I took a deep breath. I had made three mistakes in the first paragraph itself.
The only demon I was summoning at this rate was going to be one of eternal humiliation and anxiety. Did a demon like that even exist?
"Oh, Satan, just do me a solid and send one of your minions to help me. Whoever likes pig's blood and raw chicken the most, you know?" I had clearly lost my mind, "Preferably a bit of an eye candy, too? Like Elaine's incubus. But I don't want a sex demon! Send like a regular demon, maybe in the maiming department, or one responsible of the plagiarism department? Do you have anyone free in the computer science department, because that would be great? Oh wait, do you have a computer science department?"
I sighed unhappily. This was not working the way I had hoped it would.
Opening the piece of paper in my hand, again, I got ready for my second attempt.
I wasn't bad at reading, but I never performed well in situations of pressure. And this felt like more pressure than you'd feel at the bottom of the Marianna Trench.
I took another deep breath, and went off again.
"Lord Satan, by your grace, grant me, I pray this-AAAAHHHH! THEE! I PRAY THEE! FUCKING THEE! Come on, Sydney, just how hard can this be!"
"I should think not much," a voice replied from behind my shoulders, making me jump and yelp, "But you have clearly proven me wrong." The man lounging on my couch wasn't done, "By all means, keep trying. I love watching people fail evocations. Usually nothing much happens, but sometimes, it leads to...interesting consequences."
I stared at him, my jaw hanging down to the floor.
Satan must have heard me, right?
There was no other explanation behind the sudden appearance of the most beautiful man I had ever laid my eyes upon on my sofa. He was dressed in black pants and shiny loafers with a blood red shirt that had been rolled up to his elbow by the sleeves. The few buttons at the top of his shirt had been left open, revealing the beginning of a darkly inked chest. His hair, just as dark as the ink on his chest, seemingly absorbed all the light that came anywhere near him.
He could have easily passed for a human-a very beautiful human, but human nonetheless, except for his eyes. Those burning red eyes were a dead giveaway. They seemed to see through me, and know all the moves I could possibly make.
Damn, Satan! You spared a real eye-candy for me, huh? I can probably make this work even if he's from the erectile dysfunction or digestive issues department.
"And to answer your previous questions," he added, settling well into the couch, "We have all the departments you mentioned before, not necessarily in the way you might think of them, though."
I cleared my throat, gulping down the drool that was slowly beginning to form at the ends of my mouth.
Maybe a handsome demon was not such a good idea, after all.
"The summoning worked then?" I asked timidly. "This was really fast. I didn't even get to the second paragraph, yet."
He rolled his eyes, "Please warn me in advance if you choose to continue. I would like to record it and put it up on hell's meme page. Bel would finally get off my ass for not contributing to the ever growing clutter on our network."
I bristled at his words, but chose to focus on the more important things, "Hell has a meme page?"
He raised an eyebrow and the condescending look on his face made my hands itch to punch something. Was he inciting my anger through some voodoo demon magic?
"Darling, it's hell. Of course, it has a meme page," he said, "Most meme pages here, on Earth, too, are sponsored by us."
Of course they are.
I kept looking at his eyes, his red eyes, and he stared back with a small smile on his lips. When it widened into a smirk, I realised I had started drooling again.
Seriously, what was wrong with me, today?
I snapped myself out of it, or at least I tried to, and turned, walking to pick the chalice with the pig's blood. Would he drink it right here, in front of me? My insides threatened to loosen up and throw everything out of my body at the image in my mind.
When I brought it over to his side, his nose scrunched up in disgust. His eyes darted to the raw chicken on the floor (I guess I should've kept it on a plate) and his eyes narrowed further.
"Do you run a poultry farm, sweetheart?" His voice dripped with fake sweetness, "I feel obliged to tell you that you need to keep your animals alive to run that business successfully."
I glared back, my patience slowing evaporating away. Why was he acting like it was my fault? These things had been in the list of requirements for a summoning. If anything, it was his kind who had demanded sacrifices and what not to come to a mutually beneficial arrangement for both the parties.
I grit out the same, "It was meant as an offering for you."
The horror on his face would have made me laugh, had I been in that mood. But picking up a chalice of blood in my living room had reminded me of my initial goal.
I needed him to agree to the deal and cross that thing from my list.
I still had a lot of work to do for my sister's wedding as one of her bridesmaids.
"Why would I ever eat raw chicken?" He asked, absolutely horrified, "And please tell me that's just a very thick cranberry juice and not blood! Whose blood is that?"
"Hey! Don't blame me!" I yelled back indignantly, "It's your kind who usually makes these demands, okay?"
He stilled at my words and got up from the couch, staring down at me.
I quietly gulped.
"My kind?" He said softly, "Pray tell, who do you think I am?"
I took a step back, hoping to get away from him. I had to remember he was an all powerful demon. I wasn't sure who exactly I had summoned, yet, but if I had to venture a guess, no demon with a burning fire in his eyes could be safe.
In all honesty, no demon was entirely safe to be around, but this one seemed extra dangerous. Like realising your harness wasn't properly tied at the top of a rollercoaster and screaming and crying that you were going to die. Only I later found out the harness was, in fact, in place, and all I had managed to do was make an utter fool of myself.
Hmm, maybe that wasn't a good example to use.
When I took another step back, my feet found a round structure instead of the flat floor that I had been anticipating.
I realised, too late, that I had collided with the rolled rug and before I could regain my balance, I crashed down, the chalice spilling its contents right over my head, drenching me in blood.
The devil cocked his head to a side, staring me down, but this time, I glared right back.
I was going to file for a replacement because this demon wasn't working.
...
Word count- 2000