Red and Redhead Ch. 02

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.

"Oh shush, I know. Let me be angry at her."

"I wasn't stopping you, I enjoy the passion. Are you like this on stage?"

"Oh be quiet, I need a minute to think and you're not helping me."

Well...fuck it why not. I decided to give her another different test. I stood from my armchair and subtly increased the definition of my muscles, stretching myself an inch, and conjuring up a puff of strong male pheromones.

"Am I not helping you, Sarah? Am I distracting you?"

She stood stock still, lips parted, pupils dilating and pale skin turning a pinkish hue. I grinned across the room at her lewdly, tilting my head to the side and pulling up a doorframe around me to lean against. I watched as her body shifted, her shoulders pulling back and stretching her shirt across her generous bust, her hips shifting to attract a partner. She licked her lips and then caught herself, shaking her head briefly and frowning at me.

The entire exchange only took a few seconds, but it gave me all I needed to know.

Sarah pointed an accusing finger at me and started to speak again, but decided against whatever thoughts had been brewing in her mind.

"Ok so back to the issue at hand...what I-excuse me what we are going to do is get her stripped of her magic license and title and exiled."

I stood there, trying to come up with a response, but Sarah grinned at me, now in the position of control I had won for a tiny span just a few seconds before.

"Yes, that's right Cael. You're going to fuck a witch."

Yeah I hear you. But Cael! you're yelling at me in-what I imagine-some British fishwife's shrill and murderous voice. You've done such wilder things than fuck a witch! You've fought General Custer and fathered the Kennedy brothers! Yes I know, reader who is annoying and whose throat ought to be slit. And don't remind me about the latter part, I'm still bitter.

What makes Sarah's story interesting is both how it ends and how incredibly personal a part I would play in her actions. It was like being in a play or a television show, incredibly dramatic. Lots of fun.

Her plan was as follows: I would accompany her to classes and events and the like, masquerading as a suitor and warlock from another college on leave for the term. While I would be relatively free-especially compared to my imprisonment in a hundred square foot room and a birdcage-I would still be tethered to her, and could not speak but at her allowance. She was taking a huge risk by taking me out of the house. If I started speaking ill of her or revealing anything she wanted kept secret, she would have to punish me to stop me talking and thus be revealed, or let me spout on and risk embarrassment or sudden antagonism from those she called her friends and yet loudly complained of to me in the privacy of our sessions.

I gave her some points for having been kinder as of late, and so I decided to go along with it. It had been ages since I'd been outside anyway, so I needed some time in fresh air.

Her plan continued; this Elizabeth was extremely competitive with Sarah, past any point of reasonable contention and approaching a certain malicious obsession. Sarah was sure that if Elizabeth saw her out and about with a suit, the damned girl would do everything in her power to sway me from my perceived target.

I have to say, I was delighted at Sarah's plan. It was smart and efficient and brutal. In a week's time at the earliest, I'd say, if I helped speed along Elizabeth's advances, I could be in her chamber undressing. That would be the hardest part to pull off, pun kind've intended.

"So how does my sudden courtship of this Elizabeth end in her exile?" I asked Sarah, amused but still unsure. "And don't start in on 'it's illegal and blah blah blah' because I already know that, I've been active at least every decade of humanity's span of existence."

Sarah rolled her eyes. Silly little redhead couldn't respect my wondrous lifetime full of daring do. Whatever, her loss.

"In most witch's and warlocks homes are candles designed to-"

"Change color when a demon is present, brilliant!" I interrupted. "So what'll happen is I'll go into her room, all sex and seduction and the candles will change and she'll notice but if I've played my cards right she'll want me too badly to care and then she'll end up willingly engaging in cross species sex!"

Sarah nodded, smiling. "And while I have confidence in your ability to...seduce a witch," the redhead admitted, blushing again and stumbling a bit over her words, "I also want to be sure she doesn't know you for what you are until she absolutely cannot control herself and deny you. So I'll be giving you this..."

As she pulled out a tiny vial of black muck I instantly shivered and felt my essence shrink under my skin. No no no no I had done this before, when early magicians and chemists started figuring out magical aids and potions they developed one early on that would temporarily cloak a demon as a human. It was disgusting and felt dirty, the human body was heavy and full of weird squishy organs that nobody wanted around and was really rather ungainly. Whereas demons can just stretch and harden and form their essence into any shape or size imaginable and always feel light as a feather, humans are dragged around on earth, a loose cover of skin slopped haphazardly across a pile of flesh and sewn awkwardly together.

No, you're right, I really don't like humans.

"Do I have to?"

"Yeah I'm sorry. On the bright side," Sarah said, brightening, "you can break through it whenever you've decided it's the right time. Just don't mess this up or I'll torture and punish you for the next year," she finished lightly, practically bouncing as she did so. My eyes narrowed at her, attempting intimidation, but in response all I got was a grin. She already knew my response, stupid curvy witch. I couldn't really say no.

I held out my hand and looked up at the ceiling, sighing as deeply as possible. She cheered sarcastically and tossed the vial across to me for safekeeping. I tucked it into a pocket and rolled my eyes. It could be worse, I said to myself as she snapped me back into the cage. From between the bars, I watched her walk out of the pentacle and to the door, her hips swaying alluringly with each step. I smiled to myself. Oh yes, it certainly could be worse.

"Hey wake up. Time to go."

I looked up at her, raising an eyebrow.

"You know demons don't actually sleep, right? Please tell me you pay attention in your Demon Studies classes because I swear nobody ever does and then y'all say all sorts of crazy shit that doesn't make a lick of sense."

She stared at me, lost in the depths of a slew of phrases and slang terms that wouldn't crop up for another hundred years at least.

"Yes, I know you don't sleep. But it's time to go anyway, come on you lazy ass."

She snapped her fingers and I popped into my circle. It would be the first day I accompanied her, more or less free, in the real world. You could say I was pretty excited, although I damn sure pretended not to be.

Sarah raised her arms and recited a few incantations, throwing sand between our circles and pouring a few drops of blood into the little pile between us. Magic is weird and stupid and there's all sorts of rituals that don't really need to be there. I had to tutor one slaver's kid in calculus once, and watching young witches and warlocks work is like beating pre-calc into a kid's head and then throwing up one's metaphorical educational hands and saying "well fuck this, now you get to learn all the easy ways to do the nearly impossible shit you just did!" Side note for any of you out there struggling with pre-calc or advanced algebra, I feel you. I'm almost omnipotent and have had almost infinite time to study mathematics, and that shit is still terrible. My heart goes out to you.

My point, though, is that Sarah did all these pointless things when a mature witch or warlock-as her mentor should have taught her-can do any command or summoning without making a sound or a motion. Entirely mental. So I got to sit there and pretend to be respectful as she went through some exhausting, half-hour bullshit that would've taken one of my Grecian masters a blink and a frown. Kids these days, right?

Finally, I was out. More or less. I glanced around and filtered through the walls and discovered a bubble enclosing me a mile in every direction from Sarah. Not bad, considering how tightly I had been trapped before. I turned back to her, and she was looking me up and down slowly.

"See something you like?" I leered at her.

She scoffed, still blushing, "Hardly, but we're going to have to figure out what you should wear..."

I shrugged and whipped up the uniform of a college boy who would summon me slightly less than a decade later. He had been fashionable for his time, so a few years back I would be cutting-edge, ahead of the fashion game. Sarah nodded in approval and mimed applause; to her laughing delight I bowed and curtseyed politely. I didn't tell her I had brutally murdered the inspiration for the outfit when he treated me poorly and accidentally slipped out of his summoning circle. He didn't even taste very good.

We made quite the fashionable pair, walking through the cobbled streets of London and dodging this way and that around horse-drawn carriages and through open-air markets, breathing the wild and varied scents of putrid sewage and coal-filled air. I missed that disgusting, abhorrent London air. Anything was better than being cooped up.

Sarah had no courses until one hour past noon, as she put it, and so we opted to wandering about the college. It wasn't long before we came across Elizabeth.

Now in the earlier sessions with Sarah, when I listened to her rants and annoyances mostly out of curiosity and partly out of necessity, she described Elizabeth's voice as "unpleasant." If it were up to me, I think the phrase "total ear death" fits better.

"Oh my, Sarah!" Elizabeth shrieked. Like honestly I've heard some loud, piercing shit in my time here and it was nothing like this girl's voice. Nails on a chalkboard is comparatively soothing. "And oh my, who's this? A visitor from abroad, a friend of yours? Oh how could you not introduce me my word Sarah, such poor manners, and with a visitor of such...fine stature, indeed! I must introduce myself then if Sarah here is to be so crude as to not tell you of me, my name is Elizabeth and what a pleasure it is to meet you sir...?"

Finally holy fuck she stopped talking. This week was going to be torture if I had to deal with that. She was plenty fine when she didn't speak. She looked more Nordic than English though, light blond hair and pointed features, a slight frame and fidgety mannerisms. She was an odd one. Not unattractive, but standing beside Sarah, whose body buckled at every curve and every inch and joint in her body screamed out sex, Elizabeth looked as if she were still not quite matured.

I reached across to her, smiling a bit more than politely and gave her a firm handshake, holding her hand slightly longer than appropriate.

"The name is David, Miss Elizabeth, and a pleasure to meet you as well."

I decided to go the extra yard and raised her hand to my lips, kissing her knuckles gently, lingering there for a moment and dragging my lips across the skin ever so slightly. I was born a tease. If you've never teased a woman, you're not having enough fun with sex.