Bought Locally (a demon-summoning fic)

[RiversD]

In which a demon is summoned using holy incense and reacts... well, you can guess how. I'm not treading new ground, but it's a scenario I enjoy.

Contains shape-shifting and general monster-ness.

 

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“We conjure and command thee to appear before this circle…” Erica spoke the words carefully and clearly from her printout- she had decided that squinting her way through the handwritten text of her aunt’s grimoire wasn’t worth the added risk, no matter how much two sheets of 16-pt font A4 might detract from the look of the thing.

On the other side of the chalk circle, Alice was wafting incense over the runes. The book had been very specific about the need to include myrrh, so Erica had purchased some from an ecclesiastical supplier. The only other option was some extortionate shipping costs online. It was things like that which made her occasionally regret living quite so far in the middle of nowhere. City people could find secular incense at the drop of a hat, probably.

“… on pain of torment in these and other realms,” she concluded and took a step back, holding her tongue between her teeth as she waited for the spell’s result. It wasn’t long in coming.

A small point of light turned the incense smoke in the centre of the summoning circle red. Then there was a sound like rushing wind and, unwinding from that point, a serpentine body rose up between the two women. Its scales were black, and from its thick tail emerged a humanoid torso the colour of ripe cherries. Its head was bald and man-like, with a long, pointed nose and glowing golden eyes that fixed on Erica in a glare.

“Who are you that dare to summon Janus the Raven-heart in this way?” it-he? the demon was male-presenting at least- demanded, hissing on the sibilants.

“Write that down,” Erica instructed, and was pleased to see Alice taking up her notepad. She turned back to Janus and replied, “You may not have my true or given names, but you may know me as Shannara.”

She frowned to see the demon contort his face in an expression of unmistakable displeasure.

“Does this upset you in some way?”

“What is that?” the demon spat. He wrinkled his pointed nose, adding still more furrows to his scowling face.

“It is the name I choose to be known by. You can’t be so inex-”

“No” Th-” something seemed to prevent the demon from speaking. He twisted his head from side to side, made an angry, inarticulate sound and… sneezed.

“hHH’SSSCHHH!”

This outburst, like his speech, had a strange sibilance to it, but it was unmistakably a sneeze, and appeared to be entirely involuntary. Erica stared. Janus the Raven-heart shook his head like a dog and tried to explain himself once more.

“That scehn- hH’SSCHHH! May all the hells confound it!”

He flicked his head again, and his whole form dissolved into smoke, reforming in the shape of a winged human with impossibly smooth, silvery skin.

“What.” He demanded, in hollow, metallic tones, “Is that scent?”

“You are asking a lot of questions for someone on the wrong side of a summoning circle,” Erica told him. “In any case, the only scent in here comes from the summoning incense.”

“It is-” the demon paused. He raised a silvery hand to the smooth, straight nose of his current form.

In a softer voice, but with the same metallic echo, he said; “no…”

Then the perfect lines of his silver face crumpled into disarray and he sneezed again, these echoing as his voice had done in this form, like thunder heard underground.

“AH’SCHOOO! Ah-huh-hAH’SCHOO!”

His control was slipping, Erica thought. It was hard to tell, but there was a note of desperation in the half-formed gasps that tied the two sneezes together. This demon was off balance.

“It is different,” he insisted, glaring at her through slitted eyes before changing his form again. This time, he was coated in a gleaming black exoskeleton of overlapping plates, his face shielded behind them except for his scowling eyes.

Was he trying to find a shape that would be less afflicted? Erica wondered. If he was, he wasn’t having much luck. Those eyes were half-lidded already, and she could see plates shifting to accommodate the rapid rise and fall of what must pass for his chest in this shape.

Alice caught her attention, waving from behind the demon’s back. She pointed at the incense-burner in her hand, made a furtive sign of the cross, shrugged, and raised her eyebrows at Erica. It took her a minute to make sense of the charade, but then it was obvious.

“Ecclesiastical incense,” she said. Alice nodded. The demon’s head snapped up. He gave her what she assumed would have been a highly threatening look if he weren’t struggling to keep his eyes open.

“What did yhh’esschuh! ‘esschuh! You daehh’sschue!”

The watching women could no longer see Janus’ face, but the physical impact of the sneezes could not have been more obvious. They all but rippled through his body, exoskeletal plates spiking out at odd angles for a moment as they failed to keep up with the explosive motion.

“It must have some sort of blessing on it,” Erica mused. “Make a note, Alice. We’ll have to make do for now, but-”

“You stupid wench!” The demon interrupted her, seething like a foaming pot. “What manner of ill-educated dabbler are you, to even think of using conse- consec-” his voice faltered, but he pushed through the audible need, flicking his head from side to side in anger and frustration.

“consecrated inssensss-hh! h’sschhuh!hh’esschh! hh’esSCHHuh!”

He subsided into laboured panting, his scales scraping on the edge of hearing as they moved with his heavy breathing.

“Really?” Erica raised an eyebrow as she surveyed this mockery of demonic arrogance. “If this is the result, I’m surprised the books don’t recommend it.”

[jawzzbubblez]

I LOVE this story!! I really hope you continue!!!

[starpollen]

Me too!

[AngelEyes]

LOL, Love this.