FayeBliss

CW: Some violence, egg cracking

The men were very rough in how they treated their prisoner.  Hands tied behind his back with rope, a dirty bandanna holding his mouth open and a hood draped over his head as if to keep him from knowing where they were taking him.   Not like it mattered, they knew that he wasn’t going to survive the night.  Jacob, for that was his name, was still recovering from the beating that the men had given him, still without any clue who they were or what they wanted from him.  His legs were free to walk, possibly he could have kicked one of the two men frog-marching him to an unknown fate, but he knew that would be futile.  He had heard the car idle while the thrum of a large garage-style door opened and the car entered.  So, some kind of warehouse maybe?  He found himself thrown onto the floor and reflexively shut his eyes when the hood was removed.

 There wasn’t a lot of light in the room, but he could tell that he was lying on bare concrete.  He thought for a moment that was going to leave a bruise, but gave a despondent chuckle when he realized that whatever was going on, he probably wasn’t going to live long enough to bruise. 

“Alright, then.   Let’s get the bitch what she wants so we can get the fuck out of here.”

Jacob turned his head to see the man who had spoken.  He had on a fitted suit and an arrogant expression that told you he was generally used to being obeyed.

“Nothing personal you understand, “ he said with a grin, “you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, my friend.   Don’t worry, she usually doesn’t play with her food for too long.”

Her? Food?   With the gag, Jacob was hardly in a position to question his captor, but his mind filled with questions anyway.   At that point, the man started talking again, but Jacob didn’t understand the words.   It wasn’t so much that they were foreign words — they certainly weren’t English — but more that they had an essential slipperiness that bypassed whatever part of the brain deals with language.  These W̵̦̾̎ͅO̴̟̔̊̏͝R̴̦̗̝̾̂ͅD̵͙̒̾̇S̵͍̔͒̀̂, if you can call them that, were something more primal, more… Jacob realized this was magic.   How, he didn’t know.  Up until a minute ago, he would have said there was no such thing.

The not-W̴̭̖͋̑͗O̶̠̙̒͛R̴̢͍̱̲͎͎̀̄D̶̺̯̟̣̖͛͗̌̚S̵̤̳̞͔̩̯̊͗ continued, as Jacob’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, he realized that there were drawings on the floor around him.   A circle about 10 feet across containing him and made of many intricate lines and shapes that, like the Ẅ̴̤̺͚̙͠O̵̫͓͕͈̦͌̓͌R̶̡͗͠D̴̘̲͗̌͋Ş̵͈̔, could not fit into his brain.   That wasn’t the worst part, though.  The space around him started to fold, to move in ways that space never should.  There was a rent, a smell of fear — no wait that was him — but another smell.  One of… lavender?

He realized that at some point, someone else had shown up in the circle.   In the low light of the room and with his mind still trying unsuccessfully to make sense of any of it, it took a while for him to realize that it was a woman in the circle.   A tall naked woman, in the light her skin looked almost red.   No wait, that wasn’t the light, she was in fact red.    Two large bat-like wings came from her back, her feet were goat hooves and her eyes glowed golden light out of what seemed to be a human face.  She was, he realized, actually rather pretty for a demon.   Then his brain started working again and he realized that he was being sacrificed.

The summoner said, “With this final offering, demon, our pact has been satisfied.”

The demon smiled, Jacob wasn’t sure if that made her more terrifying or more, well, hot.   Her voice was low pitched and contained a slight burr.   “The pact was that instead of taking your soul, you give me 100 men to feed from, correct?”

“You know that was the deal, demon.”

“Just making sure.”  She looked down at Jacob with lust in her eyes.   Not just sexual, but an all consuming desire to take everything.   He could feel something of herself reaching out to him, he felt lost inside her already when she reared back and made a screeching growl of disappointment.   She looked angry and Jacob feared the worst but she turned towards the summoner.   “You have failed your end, the pact is…”, her smile showed her pointed teeth, “… void”.

Faster than Jacob thought that anyone could ever move, she was out of the circle and held her would-be master one handedly lifting him from the ground, “But I didn’t!   He’s right there, you stupid bitch!”  She looked at Jacob.  “You mortals can really be dense.”  Jacob looked back at her, confused about her apparent rejection of him, happy that he might survive the day, and, yes, more than a bit horny.   She turned back to the man in her grasp and Jacob saw her devour him, not with her mouth, but with an all-consuming fire that left no trace he had ever lived.   Of the two men who brought Jacob here, one turned and ran while the other raised a gun to the demon woman.

“Look out!” Jacob would have said if it wasn’t for the gag, but he tried his best.    The bullet hit her in the back, causing her to jerk forward before she turned around and gave the gunman a stare.   What happened to him next was graphic, painful and fatal.     Soon, Jacob and the demon woman were all that remained alive.   She walked over to Jacob’s shivering form and gently removed the gag and started to untie him.

Figuring that if she was going to kill him, she would have done so already, he risked talking, “Um, thank you for rescuing me but I don’t understand.  Not...not that I’m not grateful that you didn’t…didn’t…what is going on?  Why did you save me?”

She looked at him apprehensively before making a decision.  “I hated being at that man’s beck and call, but once a demon and mage make a pact, neither of us can break it.   When I realized that you weren’t a man, I took my chance.  That is all.”

“What do you mean?   I’m clearly a man, just look at me!   I couldn’t be anything else, I had to be him… I have to be.”   Jacob started crying, probably out of relief at not getting killed today.   Certainly couldn’t be anything else.

The demoness knelt down beside Jacob, looking far more kind than before, “I think I understand what is going on here.    Can I ask you a question?”   Jacob nodded.   “If you were given a magic button that could change you into a woman….”