This choice: Continue reading "School for Demons" • Go Back...Chapter #26School for Demons, Chapter 2 by: Seuzz   Sota scrambled back and rubbed his eyes. The wall behind the figure sprang into sharp focus, but the figure itself remained foggy. It was shaped something like a person cloaked and hooded in voluminous robes. These streamed away behind, as though it were standing in a strong wind. Indeed, with its muffled head bowed forward it looked like a beggar man bracing against a gale.
"Who are you?" Sota croaked.
"Be quiet," the figure said. Its voice was indistinct, as though it were shouting over a hurricane. "Listen carefully! I will curse you if you do not do exactly as I say!" When Sota made no reply, for his tongue was numb, the figure said, "Do you want to be cursed?"
Sota shook his head.
"Good! Now listen! There is a fragment of chalk by your right hand! Pick it up, but do not smudge the circle!"
Sota could hardly tear his eyes off the ghostly figure in its billowing robes, but looked away long enough to find a bit of chalk, hardly bigger than his fingernail, just outside the chalk circle. He gingerly picked it up.
"Very good! No draw a line from the circle to— To where my feet are," the figure stammered.
Sota saw now that the figure was floating just outside the circle. It had no feet, and it wasn't touching the ground, but he obeyed and drew a thin, wavering line of chalk to just under the thing. He gritted his teeth as he did so, and was very careful not to touch it or the line he was drawing.
"Very good! Now draw another line, parallel to the first!" Sota complied. "Now draw a small circle that connects them at the end!"
"What will happen?" Sota asked.
"Never mind! Do you want to be cursed?" the figure demanded in a voice that was like thunder rolling from far below the horizon. Sota quickly drew a small circle.
The figure rushed at him, and for a moment he was wrapped in a suffocating fog. The air boiled about him, and a hard sweat broke out on his brow.
Then the mist vanished, and once again he was alone in the basement. He hugged himself and looked about fretfully.
"Ah, that's much better," said a soft, squishy voice directly in his ear, and he jumped. "Careful!" the voice said. "Blow those candles out before you knock one over and set this place on fire!"
"Where are you?" Sota bleated.
"I'm inside you," said the soft, squishy voice. "That's what the spell was supposed to do, but those—" It made a long, horrible noise full of g's and z's mixed with sounds like bones breaking and eyeballs popping. "I don't understand," Sota stammered.
"Oh, I forgot, you don't speak the language of Hell," said the voice. "I suppose you'd translate it as 'assholes', but with words meaning 'lava' and 'geyser' mixed in. I said that those assholes, erm, fucked up the spell."
"So now I'm cursed?" Sota wailed.
"Yes, I suppose you are," said the squishy voice, "but only if I want to curse you. Which I don't. I mean, I do, that's what we demons do, we curse people. But I'm cursed too, now, and I need your help to uncurse me.
"So I'll make you a bargain," the voice continued, and it now became very squishy, like a sucking ooze. "That's something else we demons do, we make bargains with mortals. Being inside you is better than being stuck out there in the cold, which is where those, erm, assholes stuck me with their incompetent necromancy. But I've got better places to be, and only you can help get me back. So if you help me uncurse myself, I will go without cursing you."
Sota gulped. "You will?"
"Yes. If you help me, I will help you. Or, rather, if you help me I won't molest you."
"How—? How do I know you'll keep your word?"
Sota's stomach lurched as he flew up into the air and banged his head on the ceiling. He hung there, spread-eagled against the dirty roof, and to his horror felt his head twisting all the way around on his neck until he was staring down at the floor even as his toes pointed straight up.
"Because I will curse you if you don't do as I say," said the voice. "But I'll tell you this. I'd much rather curse those, erm, assholes than curse you. And the way it works, I won't be able to curse you and them both. So who do you want to see cursed?" the voice continued. "Them? Or you?"
Sota's head twisted further around, until he was grimacing at the ceiling again. "Them," he gurgled.
"Very good!" Sota's head spun back into place, and he dropped with a bone-crunching thud to the floor. "Don't worry," the voice said while he whimpered in pain. "I'll need your help, but you'll enjoy it. I'm inside you, I see your mind, and I know what you know and I know how you think. I see what they've done to you." It said another word, one that sounded like mountains grinding inside the bowels of a volcano, followed by "—amateurs. But you'll enjoy cursing them, both for the cursing and for the way we'll do it. Will you do it?"
"Yes," Sota squeaked.
"Hrm. Not that I don't believe you, but— Well, I don't believe you. We'll have to sign a contract, but I'll make it easy. The kind of contract you have to sign will also prepare you for cursing them."
Sota half-expected a piece of parchment to appear in a puff of smoke. Instead, the voice said, "Find a pin or a needle. Something sharp to prick your finger and draw blood."
"Do I have to?" Sota asked, then squawked and scrambled about to find something that would serve. He had to make do with a piece of glass, and he had to scrape it across his fingertip three times (and he whimpered each time) until he cut deep enough that a drop of blood welled up.
"Very good," said the demon. "Now put it in your mouth and suck it down."
Sota started to comply, but he stopped to stare at the bead of blood. It was dark. Very dark, far darker than blood should be. It wasn't red, not even purple. It was black, like tar.
"What are you waiting for?" the demon asked. "Oh, I see. Yes, it's supposed to be that color. That's me, you see. I am giving you part of myself, part of my powers, so that you can carry out the curses. Suck it down, quickly! Before it falls and spatters on the ground!"
Sota jammed his finger into his mouth. The bead of blood was sour on his tongue. It tasted like a dead thing smells, and he choked as he swallowed, and fought back a wave of vomit. Tears welled up in his eyes.
"Well, go get you some water," the voice said, and Sota thought there was a bit of a sigh inside it. "Don't worry, I'm not offended that you don't like the taste of me. I don't much like what you smell like in here, if it comes to that."
"What comes next?" Sota asked as he tottered up the steps up to the basement door.
"We go look for that Momoka, erm, bitch," said the demon. "From what I see inside your mind, she should be the easiest to get to. You'll have to talk her into meeting you alone someplace. But where?" The voice turned sticky, and it snapped and popped like hot tar bubbling over a fire. "I know! The equipment room after school."
"I can't go there!" Sota gasped. His knees wobbled, and he caught himself against the wall before he could fall. "It'll be full of— of—!"
"I'm beginning to understand why Gouru made you his bitch," the demon snapped. "But don't worry, if you meet her after the teams have gone home, you'll be okay. Eh, what's that?" it added. "You almost had a thought."
Sota tried not to think what he had almost said aloud, but the harder he tried not to think it, the clearer it grew in his own head.
"Oh ho!" The demon chortled. "No, you're quite wrong. Gouru wouldn't make a good demon. If he was a demon he'd be one of the weak ones who get gobbled up but quick! You'll see, once you're inside him and get a look around."
"Inside him?" Sota echoed.
"Never mind. Here's Momoka's locker. Do you have a pencil and some paper? Write her a note and put it in her locker. The equipment room, after the soccer team leaves, that's when you want to meet her to talk about, erm, what happened in the basement." The demon chuckled, sounding like bubbling lava.
* * * * *
Sota found himself staring deeply into Momoka's eyes. She was looking up at him with a worried expression. She's afraid, he thought. Then he thought, No, she's actually sad for me.
"Don't be so naive," the demon said in his ear. "She found that book they used to summon me. She didn't stop them. She helped them. She always helps them."
"Then why is she looking at me like that?" Sota said aloud.
"Because she feels guilty. She's weak, so she feels guilty, but because she's weak she does whatever— But don't think so loud next time," the demon said. "See? Now she's confused."
"Are you talking to me, Sota?" Momoka said in a small voice. Sota's mouth went very dry.
They were in the abandoned equipment room. Sota could hardly believe that she had come in answer to his note. "What do I do now?" he whispered.
"Jab her in the throat," the demon hissed back. "With your forefinger. Jab it into her hard."
"What? But—!"
"Hard!"
Sota grimaced, for the demon seemed to be squeezing his insides, like a hand squeezing a tube of toothpaste. He raised his hand. "Sota?" Momoka said.
Sota stabbed her in the throat with his finger. It sank into her all the way up to the knuckle.
The side of her face caved in.
* * * * *
To continue investigating the room: "Disposing of Lucy"   indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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