A ring of candles burned steadily, footlong waxen staves speared atop brass bases. Each had been lit in order and placed carefully on precisely measured points on the bare, pale floor. Below them, marked in black paint, a very neatly created, permanent pentagram, marked all about with runes of entrapment and protection, ornamented with extra design and flair without interfering with the summoning circle's functionality. Three lines burst from one side of the pentagram and spiraled around each other, fusing into a smaller halo a few feet away, even more heavily marked and guarded by runes.
Ok I'll admit, I was impressed.
I've been around for a very long time. I'd tell you in years, but honestly I've lost count. In the Mist, time isn't really a thing, so that makes it a little hard for me to pin down a certain age. I just act like every day is my birthday, and that works well enough for me.
See here's the thing: we get called up every so often, some of us more because we're the better ones (this is me) and some of us less because we're shit (not me, I'm the best). I get called up very regularly; my name is in a LOT of books and guides around, so I guess people are cool with pulling my name from a text and throwing it on their floor. But I've been called up so many times I thought I had seen it all: magicians in flowing robes and gilded finery calling me up to impress women who clearly were neither interested nor entertained; shaman entrapping me in stones and branches to harness my power for their actually pretty decent social work; kids just new to the whole summoning deal who drew out runes and pentagrams in chalk on sidewalks past midnight when their moms thought they were just having an innocent little sleepover. I like those last ones. They taste good.
So my surprise here was particularly in that there was no show, no grandeur, no shock and awe. I felt my name being called and sighed, letting the summons drag me out of my nice Misty napping, and slowly materialized in a stark white, almost soulless room.
Particularly surprising was the woman–if one could call her that–sitting cheekily cross-legged in her witch's circle. She didn't look the part of a witch; long fiery hair pulled back in a braid flopped over her shoulder, slouching a bit, in fuzzy socks, leggings, and a sports bra. Frankly, I was shocked.
So what to show myself as? Maybe she wasn't the witch but the assistant? Just stumbled on her trainer's books and stumbled across a page that looked interesting and accidentally called me up?
No, actually. Her hands, stained black from the heavy paint that now ensnared me.
I decided to arrive as a spider. Not a little one, nor even a tarantula, but the kind of spider you have nightmares about. Hard, beige shell and massive eyes, fangs dripping in poison, barely contained in my pentagram, bulging and pulsing disgustingly, abdomen swollen. I even threw in a fake body ender me for good measure. Add a touch of rotting flesh scent and a few crunching bones and squishing flesh and you're good. I cheated a little and took that dolphin clicking noise and fucked with it to make my spider seem even more menacing, clicking away as I feasted on my fake meal.
Boom! I arrived, costume and all. If I was lucky, the little witch would be so shocked she'd tumble back out of her circle and I'd be free to return to the Mist or stay as long as I'd wish.
But she just sat there, plopping her head in a hand and flipping through her book. I focused my many eyes and saw headphones plugged tight into her ears. I frowned as much as a spider can and shook about a bit, hoping for some reaction. I slammed the body against the floor and tore it apart, letting intestines and all manner of slimy internal organs fall to the floor and pop.
If she could see or hear or smell any of this, she made no indication.
Another surprising thing about this young witch, then. Most summonings, the sorcerer in question would immediately be very moody and demanding. Go here, fetch this gold amulet, kill my rival, jump out of this plane and destroy this town. I swear, as if we're nothing but servants. It's tiresome.
But this one sat still and quiet, so I halfheartedly melted the body into fog and sat there dejectedly, my hard shell sinking to the white floor. I quickly fashioned thick eyebrows onto my spider's face so I could frown at her in case she looked up.
Finally, she spoke, her voice not timid or overly pompous, but familiar, almost mocking, really, now that I think about it.
"If you're entirely done with that nonsense, I don't really care for it. I read the book you know, and I know all about your forms. The Hunting Desert Spider, whose body you so carefully shaped and used to protect Ancient Egypt. And here it says something about the Man, your casual form. And in another book there's this mention of the River Wraith, that one was pretty cool, I liked that. Hanging out in a river and sweeping those away who sought to do your Master harm. Very inventive, he must've been."
She looked up, smiling smugly, bouncing on the floor with ill concealed glee.
"But you look so silly like that! Frowning at me and so much smaller than the hundred-foot beast you once were, oh my god–" and interrupted herself in what could be described as nothing else but a giggle.
A giggle. This...girl, was giggling at me. Me!
My arachnid body vanished and reformed as a towering demon, replete with horns and hellfire, the screams of the damned erupting around me as I boomed out in a voice so deep it would rattle windows for a mile round.
"Excuse me, little girl, but while you describe me as a demon of wide regard, of great and mighty power, you mock me with your laughter. Perhaps you forget with whom you speak! I am Cael the Destroyer! I have seen far into the future and past, grappled with forces far beyond your tiny planet, watched and aided in the destruction of your Sun, clasped hands with the powerful and delighted equally in shredding their fragile forms! I have razed and built cities alone, killed thousands of men, women, and children! I am the Atomic and the Original Sin, one of the first demons to have set foor on this planet and one of the most storied among those from the Mist, and you dare to mock me who could enter your mind and leave it a ruin, touch your pale, fragile flesh and make for myself a thousand lovely ribbons? How lovely you would look in pieces on this floor, and yet you dare to mock me?"
I kept the screams of the damned thing going because it was a neat trick and I always had fun with it. It worked better in the old days, but there was still some shock value to it. My voice was still echoing around the room. A glass of water sitting in a far corner had simply shattered, spraying its contents and vessel everywhere. I turned to look down on the redheaded witch, now twenty feet below me.
In my defense, I could see she had at least turned red and her hands were shaking a bit. But even if her body was shaken her resolve was not. She stood.
And laughed, I swear to Azrael, this girl.
"You know what's funny?"
