Author's Note: If you read the first and second part together, you may notice that I start Ch. 01 in a more modern era, but manage to land Ch. 02 smack in the early 1800's. I plan to work this out later, but until then just roll with it, and sorry about the massive inconsistency. Everything else is coo.
*****
I ran through every drawing and then slowly closed the book just as she was finishing up her rant. I offered advice based on what little I had heard and she seemed placated by even that, locking me up before heading to bed. I watched the stark white room, thinking and thinking of what to do next, and how much fun it would be.
I was certainly in an unusual predicament, reader, I will say that much. While I have had human lovers, never had I stepped across one so calm in my presence and yet so depraved removed from me. I sat in my cage that evening and thought idly on the issue. She was very attractive, I will say that, and in no way would I find fault with fulfilling her sketchbook desires. But in her time, cross-species intercourse was illegal. In far earlier years it was more accepted; I love the Greeks and Romans to death, but they were a bit off on their whole "hero origin" deal. Heroes weren't the kids of gods and mortals, but demons and mortals instead.
Small difference, I know, but we're all quite self-centered in the Mist and like to brag about lives and offspring and the like. I, for example, am the proud father of Heracles, Asclepius, Pollux, and Perseus. And some other more modern ones that I'm less proud of but fuck them. They don't have the class old-world heroes do, modern heroism is so convoluted. Modern heroes have the strength and conviction of ancient ones but they always use their strength so poorly.
Alright sorry I got off topic, where was I? Ok she was totally fuckable but demon-human sex in her time was illegal. Bad enough that not only would it suspend her training indefinitely, but she would be stripped of her title and citizenship, and exiled from England. It was some real shit back then; the world had had enough of so-called heroes.
Naturally, I didn't care about legality. I would be off the hook, there are no punishments for demons because all we can do is follow orders and deal with the consequences. Human courts understand he have neither choice nor interest in Earth life, so they cut us some slack re: prosecution. Even if we manage to get free from our captors and wreak havoc on the surrounding area, we get a pass, and our ex-slaver must assume all responsibility. So if you've treated your demon incredibly poorly, she might do something wild like assassinate the president and have you framed for it (see: 22 Nov. 1963, Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas).
Long story short, my deal here is that I show up, follow orders, and leave as soon as possible. The stories and intrigue come somewhere in the middle, in the "follow orders" section, often because if you give a human a powerful demon, they go a tad bit crazy with it. For an apt comparison, read up on Americans and the 2nd Amendment circa 21st century Earth. It'd be like if you gave those people nuclear weapons and said "please don't do anything wrong." Yeah, I hear you. I'm sure it'd go spectacularly too.
My time with this odd redheaded, too-young-to-be-practicing-summoning-alone witch named Sarah would quickly rise to the top of my "stories to tell" list, along with taking Berlin alongside the Russians and resisting the U.S. Army shoulder to shoulder with the natives. Why would she place so highly?
The best stories, as I have said, come from a dash of crazy mixed into an overdose of power. And Sarah drank that addicting cocktail like she was stranded in a desert.
A week after my discovery of her notebook, I was crouched down in my cage, hanging from the ceiling. A rat had crawled in underneath the door and sat patiently in the pentagram where Sarah typically stood, up on two scrabbly rat feet, tiny nose sniffing the air and beady eyes staring straight at me. Testing my power, I slid a piece of my consciousness into the smudged pentagram and grabbed the rat by its limbs. It was difficult; I couldn't force my entire mind onto the fuzzy little thing, but I grappled with it for a minute and it squeaked in sad admission. Boredom breeds humor, and so I waltzed it about the pentagram, making it tap dance and carefully dance ballet en pointe, then into more wild aerial dancing that wouldn't be developed until the 22nd century. If you're reading this before then, it's incredible. The integration of machinery and the human body will change your life, trust me. You get some rad dancing out of it.
Mid-leap, the door burst open. I dropped the rat in a slight panic and it lay in the middle of the pentagram, tired and confused and ultimately unready to approach regular life after borderline possession. Poor guy. I glanced over at the doorway instead, and there she was, the fiery little witch, shoulders set and clearly angry. I ground my teeth a bit. Maybe she saw my stupid dancing rat, I don't know. Wouldn't she find that funny?
She stomped over to her pentagram and turned to me, fuming. Humans are a strange lot. In Sarah's time, cockfighting was one of the more popular street attractions (although to be fair, it was officially banned two years after this story's timeline). Later, people would hold cats in front of cameras and make them do more or less what I did to the rat; force them into stupid dances they clearly did not want to practice against their will. More than any other pet, I pitied cats. Demons and cats are very similar. We want our independence at all times, and seethe when it is robbed of us. When we want to go unnoticed, demons parade about often as cats. We like them and they like us. But anyway.
Luckily, Sarah had not seen my tiny one-rat circus. She snapped her fingers and I appeared quickly in my circle, stretching out to fill my familiar form. I opened my mouth, but she cut me off before I could even make a sound.
"I don't want your sass or whatever, Cael, something big happened and we're gonna go make it right."
Oh God. Revenge. Where every witch and warlock makes their steps toward either violent rise to power, or sudden destruction and exile. Either way, this would be neither quick nor easy for me as her captive demon. Before I could break in, she tumbled forward into her narrative.
It turned out that one of the other witches in her college (admittedly one of the very few; in those years summoning colleges seemed to willingly erase and ignore thousands of years and uncountable generations of history that clearly showed a relatively equal balance of male warlocks and female witches. Go figure, you lot are fucked up) had stolen into her notebook and copied a good number of pages from it while she slept in the massive campus library. Sarah only came to know this when she paid an unplanned visit to her mentor. She waited outside his office and overheard the girl-whose name (Elizabeth) she spat out with such venomous intent that I half expected her to suddenly shed her skin and become half-serpent half-girl-talking about the exploits of my glorious and storied life, particular exploits that I had revealed to Sarah alone. Tales of the distant future and ancient past, of me doing some pretty kickass shit, to be humble.
I finally broke in.
"Did she say my name though? Like did she give me credit?"
Sarah glared at me coldly, unamused. "Of course she said your name and gave you credit, she's stealing my entire thesis and topic. She copied down all my notes."
"Doesn't make much difference to me," I shrugged nonchalantly. "It's your paper, not mine, and you can't reasonably punish me for this...indiscretion, because I didn't do it. This one's on you, little lady."
I popped my armchair out of thin air beside you and fell backwards into it, the tiniest of smirks tilting the right side of my mouth. It was true, she wouldn't have any reasonable punishment. But she could punish me unreasonably as much as she chose. This was long before the Ethical Treatment of Interdimensional Travelers and Workers Act was passed. What a riot that was, suddenly we had rights and privileges and could report to a local agency. It was like a Demons Union. Solidarity forever, comrades.
What I was doing, then, was testing her. She could punish me if she so chose. All it would take were a few harsh words and I'd be writhing in unimaginable pain. Unable to die, certainly, but not averse to the concept. Her lips parted as if to speak, then closed. She pouted at me.
