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She finds the instructions in the back of an old book that must have been tossed across five or six dimensions over the course of its lifetime. It's in Latin, rather than a demon language. She knows Latin. She's pretty sure Imrainai doesn't know Latin, which is presumably why she didn't confiscate the book.

The book says you can follow the instructions to summon an angel, a fairy, or a demon. (She's really unclear on where the first two categories have been all this time, but whatever.) Angels transform stuff into other stuff. Fairies move stuff. Both of these sound potentially strategically useful, given enough time to strategize. Demons, though? Whatever kind of demon this is talking about is an entity that can make stuff. A summoned demon could maybe make her a cell phone. There's maybe something to be said for sticking with the devil she knows, but the devil she knows is actually pretty terrible? So hey, lots of room for improvement even within the evil fiends category.

The instructions are clear that if you're going to summon anything, especially a demon, then you gotta make sure that your circle has bindings. The book gives some examples, and suggests other precautions one may want to take. It strongly, strongly suggests gagging demons, because demons are evil and stuff, and talking to evil things isn't a great idea, apparently. On the other hand, she has practice on that front, and she doesn't have a lot of stuff to trade away or a lot of time to do it in, so playing twenty questions with a demon sounds possibly more dangerous than just talking to it, under the circumstances.

She spins up a binding. It's on the conservative side of the book's suggestions, but the gag only keeps the demon from speaking out loud, not from writing or signing. When she's moderately sure that she knows how to make a summoning circle work, she goes to bed in her room as per usual, turns out all of the lights, very quietly and stealthily tapes some black construction paper over the hidden cameras, piles a blanket in front of the crack under the door, turns on a flashlight wrapped in tissues that gives her just enough light to see what she's writing, draws the whole circle out on her floor with chalk, and thinks about how if this works then she might be able to win.

In the quiet and not-quite-blackness of her room, Suzanna Teller summons a demon.

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A demon appears promptly. It waves.

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The very intense twelve-year-old in front of it holds up a paper that says VAMPIRES ARE LISTENING. DON'T MAKE SOUNDS. You can use ASL to communicate things if you know it.

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The demon replies in ASL: I did even before you summoned me, I get all the languages you know. Vampires? Is this a LARP? You probably shouldn't summon demons for LARPs.

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She stares at him in disbelief for a second, then judges him sincere.

If you don't even have vampires in whatever demon dimension you come from then that's going to take some explaining. Skip the suspension of disbelief for now and assume that there are five normal adults keeping me locked in this house, then. They are not nice people and if they hear you then bad stuff happens.

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Gotcha. I'll keep quiet.

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Cool of you. I don't know what the limits of the making things thing is. If you could make a cell phone with unlimited texting then that would probably be a help in getting out of this totally normal abusive household that definitely doesn't torture people to death twice a week. I don't have a lot to trade but I know magic, knowing about magic is useful?

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I can't get you on a cell network but it's possible even a phone with no credentials can make 911 calls?

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Possibly. Of course then the police will come with guns, and guns don't work so well on vampires, so maybe they call the force and get us out, or maybe they don't and a bunch of police officers die and we move out of the area before anyone's able to follow up.

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Who were you otherwise planning to call?

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I have some vaguely reasonable cousins who aren't dead yet. And I know the number of one of the priests at my old parish who I think maybe they didn't get. Figured I could text one and get them to figure out how to contact the Council of Watchers, since it's kind of their business.

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Okay. I'm happy to try the cell phone idea just in case it works, but I think it won't. Ex hypothesi how hard would vampires make it for me to just break you out of here?

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This sounds like the sort of plan that's going to result in me looking back in ten years going "man, I really shouldn't have unbound that demon to kill the vampires so that it could bring about hell on earth, have I learned nothing from the story of the old lady who swallowed the fly".

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I didn't say snap my binding, I don't want to kill anybody, you could let me tie them up or something!

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Oh. I don't know who wins in a fight between four random vampires and one superpowered ex-slayer vampire and one random full demon with bindings on, but given my aunt's track record I'm betting she just beheads you.

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My head, uh, doesn't come off? That's how demons work.

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Lotta headless demons around these parts, man.

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Okay, I'm trying not to tell you that you're delusional, but it's really hard to discuss the tactics of removing you from your abusive household when we have this degree of difference in opinion.

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I agree that your total ignorance of basic supernatural information is tactically frustrating.

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I know things! I can teach a university level course in summoning! I know about weird medical fairy tricks and how to get the most out of angel range limits and I'm not even one of those! I know parlor tricks, for crying out loud! But vampires who can behead me aren't a thing.

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What's a medical fairy?

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They're way less common than medical angels but they can be useful in restraining patients who need to be awake, and for some surgeries and stopping bleeding without sealing off whatever the wound is, and specialist applications like that.

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This seems incompatible with any description of medical practice in her world.

Maybe you're from some kind of weird cut-off demon dimension that can't be connected to this one through normal dimensional portals. Which I guess makes it weird that I was able to summon you, but maybe nobody on this side knew the specific ritual that works for you guys.

She stops signing to very very quietly page through one of her books.

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I've been summoned before. I put up apartment buildings and stuff, he says, but if she's not looking at him there's not so much he can do about that.

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She looks up when she sees motion. She bites her lip.

Nobody asks demons to put up apartment buildings, although this seems like the sort of objection that isn't going to get us anywhere.

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I have also done firefighting, translation, food...

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