I listened carefully to the homeless guy's breathing as he slept under the stained, stinky tent. Yes, ragged and slow...in this cold winter weather he wouldn't last the night. I was sure of it.
I pulled out the chalk and drew the protective circle around the tent. It was difficult to get a proper circle due to how close the tent was to the wall of the alley but I did my best, making sure the line had no breaks. When I was done I pulled out the lighter fluid and doused the tent with it.
I spoke the words. I had memorized them from the book. It was time. I pulled out the matchbook and struck the match. I held the flickering flame before my eyes. It danced, seeming to yearn for the meal before it. Could I do it? Take a man's life? Well, I assumed it was a man under the tent. What if I was wrong, and he was going to survive the night if I didn't...? I looked to the stars, easily seen on this cold and clear night. What should I do?
The choice was taken away from me as the match burned down to my finger. Reflex caused me to whip my hand back to remove the source of my pain. The match flew forward and down. The tent easily caught fire in an almost cartoony "fwoomp" sound. It was too late to go back.
The homeless guy never made a sound. He might've been blitzed on something, or the surprise of being burned alive might have just given him a heart attack and he died quietly. I waited...nothing.
I felt sick. The light from the fire danced off the alleyway walls and, fearing that I might be seen, I quickly fled.
Blocks away from the murder I had just committed - was it murder if I accidentally dropped the match? - I stopped in another alleyway and barfed. After a few minutes my brain finally calmed down and I thought about the spell. No demon had appeared. I spoke the words correctly...I had dedicated that death and that bum's soul to the summoning...what had gone wrong? It made no sense.
I went back to the street and realized that I had wandered near Monday's place. His name wasn't actually Monday, it was Garfield, but Garfield the cat hates Mondays so the nickname stuck. He should feel lucky he wasn't nicknamed Lasagna.
Anyway, Monday was my supplier. After a night like this I needed to calm the fuck down, so I rang his bell, spent 5 minutes in his stinky apartment, bought $20 of pot from him and hoofed it home. Oh, look what I wrote there...hoofed...ha. Don't worry; you'll get it in a moment.
It was 4 AM by the time I got back to my apartment. Nobody was around to notice, thankfully, or they might have wondered what a nice guy like me was doing coming home so late. Yeah, I'm one of those guys that neighbors get interviewed later and say, "He was such a nice boy...nobody expected this from him."
I closed my apartment door behind me, and then froze. Something was wrong. My eyes scanned the dim light of the room, searching. There...someone was in my La-Z-Boy. I could see...bell bottoms? And...small round lift shoes?
"'bout time," said a sultry female voice. The figure rose from the chair and stepped into the light of the entryway.
She was the most female being I'd ever seen. The first thing I noticed is the leather half top she was wearing, the tops of her breasts spilling out over the low cut hem. The half top tapered down to a slim waist, then expanded into sexy hips that many women would kill for. Her jeans clung to her like a second skin right down to her knees, and then belled out to her feet. What I had assumed to be shoes were actually...Oh God...hooves?!
I looked up from the woman's gorgeous body to her face as it came into the entryway light. She had straight ash blond hair spilling down to her shoulders, and a headband with peace symbols keeping it in place. She was absolutely beautiful and I realized that she looked like Janis Joplin, a singer from the 1960's...well, Janis Joplin at her most beautiful and if she had been given a crapload of plastic surgery, not to mention a reddish tinge to her skin.
Then I noticed her horns, one on each side of the top of her forehead, poking out just a little above the headband. Finally my eyes locked on hers and I was lost.
She walked toward me slowly, purposefully. "Stupid little mortal...your protective circle was imperfect. I received the soul sacrifice but you have no power over me." She was in front of me now. I could do nothing but gape; her red eyed gaze held me fast. I could smell brimstone.
"Now you shall join your victim, with a single kiss," she drawled.
I had summoned a succubus, a female demon that stole men's souls through intimate contact! I couldn't do anything but lean forward as she beckoned. I was going to die! Why couldn't I do anything?
Sniff.
My lips were puckered and waiting. She was only inches away. Would it hurt?
Sniff sniff.
And...I was still waiting.
"Is that...ganja?"
"Uh?" My brain wasn't properly connected to the rest of my body. Why wasn't I dead?
She started to pad my coat, searching. She pulled the plastic bag of weed out of my inner pocket. "Oh My doG, I haven't had this in decades!" she exclaimed. She snapped her finger in front of my face and I was myself again.
"Light it up, man! Let's get this party started!" She opened the bag and took a big sniff. "Right on!"
She started to rifle through my desk drawers. Though I could move again, I was still dumbfounded by this...demon...in my home. I could see a long, red, barbed tail coming out from her jeans a bit above her nicely formed ass.
She turned back to me. "Where the fuck are your papers? I got the fire." She flipped me "the bird" and a small flame erupted from the tip of her middle finger.
Action now, think later, I told myself. I had a temporary reprieve, if I could keep her focused on the pot. "No papers," I said, "I have a volcano."
Now it was her turn to look confused. I went to the couch side table and uncovered my vaporizer, pulling one of its bag balloons from underneath. I held out my hands for the weed and she handed it over.
The succubus looked on, fascinated, as I ground up some of the pot, fed it into the vaporizer, hooked up the balloon bag and switched it on.
The balloon started to fill as the volcano vape whirred away. Within a few minutes it was full. I handed it to her. "Keep the end closed until you're ready to toke off it, then you just breathe the vapor in," I explained.
She looked at the balloon dubiously, shook her head and put the end to her mouth. She breathed in and held it. After a number of seconds she breathed out. "This ain't doin' shit, man. I can barely even taste it." She looked upset.