Chapter 4
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For a few seconds it was stunned silence. My brain had no idea which shock to deal with first, so I just stood there paralyzed in the gaze of the demon touching me. She cast an intimidating shadow in the blue light of the summoning circle, her figure only a few inches shorter than Marcus’. Beneath that long, wild hair and those nubby little horns, her eyes fixed dead on mine with a look that I could only describe as hungry. As a smirk crept across her face, I had one thought and one thought only: I had fucked up.

“Listen to me, we don’t have a lot of time before-” The panic in Constance’s voice was apparent, her every word trembling as she struggled to keep her pace calm and steady.

The demon behind me traced clawed fingers down my back and gently pushed me out of the way, turning her gaze to the other demon in the room. “I’m sorry, who invited the shortstack?” Her stride cocky and deliberate, the newly summoned fiend paced towards my struggling friend. “I’m afraid we only booked a reservation for two.”

“-We don’t have a lot of time before negotiations begin!” Constance barely acted like our new guest existed, opting instead to barrel through the words she was trying to get out. “She’s going to try to trick you, but don’t settle for-”

My shirt was suddenly balled up in my demon’s fist and my body was being pulled towards her. I let out a small “Eep!” as I felt her tongue run across my cheek.

“Sorry bitch, I licked this one. She’s mine.” The brazen demoness held me effortlessly in the air as she made a pretty rude gesture in Constance’s direction and cackled. Wait, she said she? How would she have…

“LISTEN TO ME, look at her horns and her tail! She’s a-” With a snap of my demon’s fingers, everything outside the circle went gray and froze in place. The gym was quiet now, save for the ambient hum of magic flowing through the circle beneath us. I struggled free of her grip and dropped with a thud on the worn and warped basketball court.

“What did you…” I absent-mindedly rose to my feet and started moving towards my statue of a friend. It was subtle, but the light painted a gossamer picture of terror on Constance’s face. She didn’t get to finish what she was trying to tell me.

“Oh don’t you worry about your Constance, darling. She’s just taking a time-out so you and I can have a little peace and quiet.” Her words dripped from her lips like a thick honey. “I think we have some business to take care of.” 

I reached for Connie as I neared the edge of the circle, but recoiled as I felt a sharp shock bite my hand. So much for that. I turned back to my demon and she just stood there with her hand on her hip, her tail flicking back and forth like a cat focused on its prey. “Did you… do that to her?”

Oh, don’t give me that look. This is standard procedural bullshit, love. Imagine how hard discussing terms would be with friends and loved ones barking out suggestions like you’re a game show contestant. These things require a certain degree of…” Her head cocked to one side as she stared daggers into me. “...Intimacy.” I was fucked. I was so fucked. I swallowed my anxiety and pushed past it.

“You know what I mean.” My brow furrowed and I stepped towards her.

Well what do you know, maybe you do have a little fight in you. What a pleasant surprise.” She grinned, stepped forward and dragged the tip of her tail underneath my chin. I did my best to fend off the blush I could feel pushing against my cheeks. I batted her tail away from my face and huffed.

“Did you turn her into a demon?

“Did I… what now?” Her demeanor shifted, and I saw a hint of surprise flash across her face. I spoke slowly now, enunciating my words.

“Did you. Turn her. Into a demon.” I gritted my teeth. I furrowed my brow. This was what intimidating people looked like, right?

She blinked and crossed her arms with a huff. “Look, summoner- it’s not my fault if your little friend didn’t tell you she was hellishly inclined. You can sort your feelings out in therapy once you’ve signed your name on our contract. Okay?” She condescendingly patted my face with her palm. “Okay.”

Was I… supposed to believe her? I’d never seen Constance’s familiar, and she always kept details of her life in magic under hard lock and key. Could it be possible she’d managed to hide it from me all this time? My head was swimming with a cocktail of distressing thoughts. Did she think I couldn’t handle it? Did I make her uncomfortable, or even worse, scared to tell me? I mean, with where I came from and how I was raised I really wouldn’t blame her, but it made me sad to think that one of the most important people in my life could think I might not accept her.

“Hey!” She snapped her fingers in front of my face. “Summoner! Eyes on me! Are we doing this or what?” Frustration crackled within her confident demeanor as she tried to pull me out of my ill-timed thought spiral. “You summoned me, remember? I’m the demon you’re bargaining with here, and from the looks of this circle, you need all the help you can get. I’m not going to complain about how loose some of these runes are - thank you very much for the extra freedom, by the way- but what kind of academy did you go to that made you think reusing some kid’s circle was a good idea?”

I clenched my teeth and took a step backwards. Deep breaths. I just needed to get through this. Whatever consequences I had to deal with, I could swallow them as long as she agreed to give me what I wanted. How did summoners normally go about this stuff? More than anything, I needed to stop acting so weak in front of the girl who was probably out to monkey’s paw me into the dirt. I was the summoner here, and I needed to start playing the part if I didn’t want to get my soul sucked out through my left leg or something. My mind frantically searched for some sort of leverage to flip the momentum in my direction. Her words broke my train of thought.

“Are you staying silent because you want me to define our terms? What a good little-”

“How did you know this was a kid’s old circle?” A pause. A blink. A snap of the fingers, and I was on my ass again on the cold wood paneling of the gymnasium floor.

“Enough of this. I’m growing tired of being toyed with. You’ll find I know a lot of things, so choose your game already before I choose it for you.” She fidgeted in frustration as she leered at me. I was supposed to choose a game?

“I’m supposed to choose a game?”

Her brow stayed furrowed, but her mouth barely opened as if she was trying to figure out what to say. It was open, then closed, then open again, fumbling in the dim glow of the gymnasium air for a response. I could see the gears turning slowly in her mind, invisible puzzle pieces trying and failing to slide into place.

“I-” That was all she got out before her eyes flicked off to the right and went back to chewing on her thoughts. Her hand was at her lips now, her fingers rubbing furiously against one another. Now that was something I recognized; I knew anxiety when I saw it. She let out a long groan and knelt down until she was eye level with me. “I swear on everything unholy, if this is a trick, I’ll have your soul.” I swallowed hard and nodded. “No, say it. It’s part of the deal now. If you’re playing stupid in order to trick me, I get your soul.”

Okay cool, yeah, there was the soul bit. What choice did I have? If there was one thing that was readily apparent at this point, it’s that I had no idea what I was getting myself into. My parents raised me to believe that demons were nothing more than sinister creatures with ill intent, but everything I experienced as an adult cast crippling doubt on the things I was taught. Then there was Constance, my… best friend, who had been there for me over and over again when I needed her. She followed me into this creepy abandoned building in the dead of night because she worried about my safety. I outright refused to believe she was evil.

If I was going to have leverage anywhere in this conversation, it certainly wasn’t going to be through legislating myself to victory. I was going to need a gentle touch, and I was going to need to know the rules. I wasn’t about to back down now.

“If I intentionally try to trick you, then you can have my soul.” She eyed me down for a few more seconds, and then reached her hand out to shake mine.

“Good enough. Now please, dear, can I get the name of my clueless summoner?” I took her hand and shook it with as much confidence as I could muster. Deep. Fucking. Breaths. I could do this. I was going to do this.

“My name is Hawley.” Slowly I picked myself up off the floor and brought myself to a slightly less embarrassing position. The demon stifled a laugh and shook her head.

“Jeeeesus Christ, Holly. Usually summoners take at least some precaution for giving away their names.” Shit, that was a thing? Was that a thing? She could obviously read the panic in me. “Don’t worry yourself, it’s just human superstition. It might have been the way it worked in the old days, but the pact books have been written and rewritten since then. The only thing you did was confirm for me nobody taught you a damn thing.” Not exactly the footing I wanted to start off on, but beggars really couldn’t be choosers.

“Am I that obvious?” I brushed the floor dust off the seat of my pants.

“Painfully so, I’m afraid. It makes my work easy, though, so I can’t say I’m torn up over it. You can call me Mara, little summoner.” There it was again, the feeling like she was making plans on the best way to cook and eat me. “Be a good girl and behave yourself. As long as you don’t deceive me and you give me what I want, nobody’s soul is getting taken tonight. Isn’t that lovely?” Nope, no, that was it; I was definitely blushing. My face was red hot and it felt like every pore was wide open. Her name was Mara, her smile was vicious and my body was a pane of transparent glass under the weight of her gaze.

“S-so you said I needed to choose a game, right? What… are the choices?” Mara’s tail wrapped around my back and pulled me towards her, close enough that she could cup my face in her hand. Her warm touch cut through the cool air of the dilapidated gymnasium.

“That’s the fun of it, Holly dearest- it can be whatever you like. But here’s the catch-” She booped my nose with her finger and smirked. “Whatever you pick, I get to add my own twist to it. We both set the terms of our agreement beforehand, but only the winner’s terms count in the end.”

So… we were supposed to play for it? Mara was toying with me, and it was turning my brain to putty. She had to know what she was doing, right? If this whole thing had been a distraction tactic, it was working perfectly. I did my best to choke down my nerves and come up with a plan, but the heat and the closeness and the eye contact- how was I supposed to form coherent thoughts under these conditions?

“Clock's ticking, little summoner. What’s it going to be?”

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