Prologue:
A lifelong collector of goods and objects from far and wide has passed and left the entire collection and the business built around them to the only remaining relative, a niece on a career path of her own. Vikki has taken on the task of administering the estate and liquidating the business and collection. However, she has come to find out that many of the goods have been cursed or enchanted with amorous powers that affect those who encounter them. These are the stories of some of those encounters with objects found at Amorous Goods.
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The dreams had been getting intense since Jack returned from Canada. He always awoke with flashes of imagery: torchlight against stone pillars, the reek of incense smoke, a pair of inhuman green eyes. Also, a word ringing in his ears: "Rozrael".
Jack didn't immediately make the connection between his dreams and the obsidian pendulum he bought from a store in Toronto.
It was the weirdest pawn shop he had ever seen: a red brick mansion that seemed curiously out of place within the shopping district. It was called Amorous Goods, which sounded like a sex shop.
When he entered, it looked more like a shabby antiques store. Its items were a curious mix of the mundane and erotic. Lamps and pill-boxes sat beside bizarre pieces of erotic artwork -- statues of nude women, early twentieth century paintings of orgies.
Jack really wanted the antique erotic art, but he couldn't afford it. The owner didn't seem open to haggling. But he had to get a memento of the weirdest shop in Canada.
So, he picked up this obsidian pendulum, with a metal chain. It was cheap and interesting. The pendulum looked like a pyramid with a hexagonal base. He paid for it, chucked it in his satchel and left. The owner looked like he couldn't wait to see the back of him.
Days later, he was back in the UK, and the life from which he had fled for a week. He returned on Saturday night, and was expected back in the office on Monday.
Jack wondered if the money spent on the flight should have gone into something that could have improved his career prospects. Or if he should have spent that time doing something to get out of that job.
But he had been down that path too long, and it led him straight back to where he was now -- in his thirties, doing data entry, and living with his parents. He needed that holiday.
Sunday night, the dreams came again. The exotic, torchlit temple. And that word: "Rozrael".
He woke to see the pendulum, previously in his satchel, now on his bedside table beside his alarm clock.
"The fuck!"
He jolted upwards. Did he put it there? He was tired last night, maybe he forgot. He looked over at his satchel, which was still in the corner of his bedroom where he dumped it yesterday.
Sitting on the bed, he picked up the pendulum, examining it in his hands.
"Take me with you."
Jack dropped the pendulum. He heard a voice. A female voice. Was he dreaming?
He wondered if this was a side-effect of jetlag. He put the pendulum back on the table, took out a notepad and biro and wrote down "Rozrael".
#
Amorous Goods, Toronto. One year later.
Dylan entered the shop floor holding a ledger open in front of him. Behind the counter was a young woman with red shoulder-length hair, peering at a laptop.
"Vikki, look at this."
"Mm-hmm?"
"You know anything about a pendulum that uncle sold?"
"Ask Marshall,' she replied, 'he knows about this stuff."
"This one might be tricky," said Dylan.
"What do you mean?"
"Uncle sold it to someone in England."
"England?" asked Vikki. "Someone came all the way from England to shop here?"
"Ever heard of tourism?"
Vikki slammed the laptop shut.
"Goddamn it," she exclaimed. "Does this mean we'll have to pay for a flight to fucking England to get this thing back?"
"Hey, relax," said Dylan. "This thing was just a cheap trinket. Could be nothing."
"I hope so."
They turned to see a middle-aged man with a stack of papers under his arm. Marshall seemed unremarkable in khaki chinos and a button-down shirt. He was big-built, but had developed a paunch with age. Once, he would have been physically intimidating, but he still moved with youthful energy.
"I heard my name," said Marshall.
"You know anything about this pendulum in the ledger?" Dylan asked.
"Oh, the pendulum of Rozrael? That item has quite a history behind it."
"I knew it," exclaimed Vikki. "It's cursed, isn't it?"
"You could say that," said Marshall. "It houses a powerful demon."
"Okay, tell us about this demon," said Dylan.
#
Plymouth, UK.
Jack had a whole morning to kill before work. He wanted to see if this pendulum was an antique, if it was worth anything. He sat before his PC with a coffee.
First, he wanted to google this word he kept hearing for the past two days.
Google turned up results, but they were scarce. All he could find was the name of a demon from some grimoire called Liber Virtute. There was an online archive of historical grimoires, scanned from public and private libraries across the world.
This demon seemed to be on the lower end of a demonic hierarchy, nothing else to be read besides a name and a seal. While other demons had descriptions of their office and their position in the hierarchy, this one didn't seem to be worthy of description.
So, he was being contacted by a demon. Or he was losing his mind. There was only one way to find out.
Jack signed up to web forums frequented by occultists, people who actually practiced this stuff.
He made his intro post to several of them, and then posted his request for information, along with a quick photo of the pendulum.
Then he packed his rucksack and left for work.
#
"The pendulum was created in sixteenth century Venice," Marshall explained, "on commission by an occultist named Marcilio Cellini for a merchant called Filipo d'Este. Filipo married into the family who became the Hapsburgs that ruled England since the British Empire. Filipo did not simply want money. He wanted power.
"To get that kind of power, one must be a commanding presence. Filipo was simply a merchant who rode on the tails of his ancestors."
"So, the only way he could get that kind of power was through magic," Vikki interjected.
"Precisely. He hired Marcilio to create a talisman for this purpose. Unfortunately, he did his job a little too well. This thing housed a demon of immense power, giving her a foothold in this world. She piggy-backed on Filipo's earthly desires to establish her own kingdom."
"And this demon was Rozrael?" asked Dylan.
"Correct. When the she unites with the owner, her power shines through them, making them charismatic and unstoppable. She eventually was stopped when the pendulum was passed on to his eldest son. He made too many enemies in business and politics. And he slept with the wives of powerful men. One of whom had him assassinated, ending his reign, and ending Rozrael's influence."
#
Jack's day at work was the same underpaid monotony he tolerated for years. He got off the bus at the local depot, where he worked in data entry for a communications company. Every day, for seven hours, he sat at a desk and typed in postal addresses.
It was an open plan office. Thousands of black and white address labels passed his screen every day. Nearby, a huge window opened out onto an industrial landscape, where he glanced at the sun as it set each evening.
Jack's attempts at leaving this job in the past had been met with a wall of silence: job applications, the occasional "informal chat" over the phone, a half-assed LinkedIn profile. All of which no one cared about.
Every day Jack started his shift with this thought, which he kept to himself. Until he opened his rucksack, and found the pendulum at the top of the pile.
He dropped the rucksack. Did he put it in there without thinking? He must have put it in there by accident. Somehow.
Jack took the pendulum out, looking at it. He noticed the cluster of desks on the other side of the office where the managers carried out administrative tasks at their own computers.
Among them was Sadie, striding between desks with papers in her hand, obviously busy.
Sadie would have been plain and unnoticeable. However, she knew what she was doing with her hair, clothes and make-up, making the most of what she had. She had long, dark voluminous hair that framed mousy features, although her lips were full and luscious. She would flash a beautiful smile at him as he passed her in the corridors.
Sadie was slim, but curvy in the right places, and she dressed in a way that accentuated her figure.
Jack never forgot the Christmas Eve when the managers wore casual clothes. Sadie's tight jeans made a lasting impression on him. When she bent over the desk in front of him, his erection got so big, he had to spend his break sat at his desk.
Jack absent-mindedly fingered the pendulum, thinking about that ass as Sadie walked towards his desk, a mound of papers clutched against her chest. He let the pendulum drop between his fingers, watching it swing back and forth, always in the direction of Sadie walking past. Jack looked at it, then put it back on his desk.
#
"So, the pendulum," Vikki asked. "What's so sinister about it?"
"It houses Rozrael and is used to communicate with the user," Marshall explained. "It answers simple yes or no questions. It points him in the direction of business opportunities. Sometimes, it will point to sexual opportunities. Filipo used it to judge which ladies in the Venetian courts would be open to sleeping with him."
"Are you saying," asked Dylan, "that this pendulum dowses for pussy?"
"Correct," Marshall smiled. "But to Rozrael, sex is a means to an end. Any domain she establishes won't be in the interests of humanity. It may be a portal between whatever hellish dimension she comes from into our world."
