"Don't get me wrong. Hell does exist - it's just that where it is can't hurt us. The demons we see causing harm left and right? Those are always summoned by humans, always for some reason. Every single time."
(From Finn's second grimoire)
Dantalion did not like hell. Not any single layer of it. Mortals and other demons might whine and laugh about it.
“At least we’re not the seventh layer. Oh come on, this is not the ninth layer.”
Dantalion didn’t care. It didn’t make a difference. The screams and agony were the same no matter which layer it was. The constant heat never wavered, the dryness of the air didn’t change.
A century could pass in a blink of an eye to a demon, Dantalion had heard. But he had been counting the times he blinked in a century just to prove it wrong.
He had a house. He’d had it for as long as he could remember and he could remember very far back. Most demons did not bother with things like that. Their forms while in hell were too large and unconventional for human conventions, like houses. And it wasn’t as if you needed shelter from the weather in hell. The house was just as dry and just as hot as everything else was.
Dantalion’s house was filled with the objects and memories and experiences he’d gained from the witches who had summoned him over the years. Few from priests as well and one from a mortal who had accidentally managed to summon Dantalion instead of a crossroads demon some decades back.
He had been looking for a fortune and Dantalion for entertainment and a warm bed. The surprise on the man’s face when he realized he’d summoned an incubus and when Dantalion had revealed his price had been a sight to behold. It had been a pleasant week. After which he had obviously taken the man’s soul as a bargain and claimed it a few decades later.
Now it was a lamp on his shelf, as there was no electricity in hell.
He wondered if he’d be any less bored if he had access to the internet. It would be easier to reach mortals and seduce them into summoning him at least, he mused to himself as he settled to lounge in his bed. King sized, obviously, veiled with silk sheets and more pillows than it could fit. Another successful deal he had made with a royal some two hundred years ago: to gift her with a son so her husband the king would not execute her.
Internet would also allow him to chat with Finn.
The thought came uninvited and made Dantalion fall still where he was lying, aiming his gaze at the ceiling lit up only by the dim glow of the soul in the lantern.
He liked the little witch, he admitted. It had only been two visits to him but that was more than with most witches already. Witches summoned Dantalion to get something done and then they would summon another demon the next time they needed something done. Finn had summoned Dantalion twice.
Both times he had paid with what Dantalion had requested. The grimoire had proven to be an endless source of entertainment to him.
It was interesting. Each falter in the carefully inked pages and each typo in the rituals copied down, the little notes at the edges of the pages when the witch had later come back to the previous rituals and spells told him more about the person who had written it. Reading it made him feel warm in a way the heat of the hell could not. It made him crave getting back to the surface and see the little witch again.
A brilliant young mind that was not chained by beliefs and superstitions most witches were bound by. Little witch who had forgotten about protection sigils and then discarded them completely.
Naive. Dantalion might have called him stupid, if he hadn’t known better from his grimoire.
Perhaps this was the witch who could help him with his problem.
He wanted to get out.
Hell might have been the only home he had known for centuries, but it was not all there was. Each visit to the human world was a reminder of something better. Of a place where he didn’t have to struggle to breathe, where he couldn’t taste pain and misery in the air each time he opened his mouth.
Not to mention that was where humans lived. Alive ones, the kind not pushed to their limits and tortured for an eternity. The kind of humans like Finn. Inquisitive, eager to learn and willing to put effort in it. Pampered and kind humans, capable of shameful and evil acts, just like any other.
It was interesting. It always had been. The complexity of humans had always been intoxicating to Dantalion, especially when compared to the demons’ straight forwardness. Inflict pain and misery, be ruthless and vicious to get what you want.
Once it had been Dantalion too. It was the reason he had his little house where no lesser demons dared to wander and no greater demons felt the need to. It was the reason why his name was on the lips of so many humans. But over time, his house had been filling more and more with trinkets and items from humans that he had no intention of trading away, because the memories and emotions from those items meant more to him than advancing in the hierarchy of hell.
He did not want to end up any deeper than the sixth layer. He was not willing to risk getting his essence torn to pieces by a greater demon.
It left him with very few options. Being summoned could only give him momentary respite when the human would pay for his stay in their realm. Escaping hell to do it himself was expensive and he only had a limited amount of valuable items in his collections to pay for those visits himself without the interference of a witch, not to mention he’d have to pay for the passage itself as well.
No, there had to be another way to do it, he just needed help in figuring out what it was.
So he waited. There was no reason he would have to leave his little house. There existed very few demons he’d voluntarily socialize with and he had not felt any greater demons entering the sixth layer of hell for a long time now. He had all the time in the world to do whatever he wanted. This was hell after all.
He hated it.
Sometimes he wished demons would require food or water or sleep, just so it would bring a bit more variety to his dreary existence in hell. Measuring time was near impossible, given the lack of sun or stars, but a clock he had once traded for helped him keep track of the passage of time in the human world.
He counted hours until he felt the tingling sensation in his essence again, a faint whisper in his ears calling his name. It was more of an instinct for him to latch on to the feeling now, anything to get him out of the hells even briefly.
He felt his being dissolving and welcomed the feeling, the smell of candles and old books and dust drifting to him even before he had fully been pulled to the human realm. There was no nervousness that he could taste in the air like he’d come to associate with Finn, nervousness mingled with excitement and adrenaline. Now there was just cold determination, an iron will and-
The shell around the mind of the caster was like a steel wall as it crashed against Dantalion’s consciousness just as he materialized in the middle of the summoning circle.
It was not Finn’s room, he observed and dismissed the feeling that reminded him of disappointment.
The circle was not like Finn’s either. The materials were higher quality bordering on what Dantalion considered cheesy. There was an offering laid out in front of the circle with a single gold ring inside it.
As soon as Dantalion was done checking the ring - no holes, all protection runes in place, along with sigils for command and control - he approached the bowl and took out the ring. The taste of deception and lust washed over him as soon as his fingers touched it and he tilted his head curiously at the old witch standing at the shadows of the room, considering if the offering was enough to make up for the offense of the sigils to command him.
“Ring of an unfaithful husband,” the witch offered, gesturing at the ring, “as an offering.” Dantalion smiled at him slowly, taking in the long black hair, wiry hands and thin frame of a witch that had spent a long time with books and grimoires and not as long outdoors, other than in search of ingredients.
The circle and offering also spoke of knowledge and power, the kind not many witches meddled with these days anymore.
“Not yours though, is it?” Dantalion asked him, his voice lowered to a purr as he flicked his wrist, hiding the ring from the witch.
“No,” the witch admitted, “but I have plenty of other things to meet your price for a few errands I need you to run for me.”
“Oh?” Dantalion lifted himself off the ground to lean his elbow on his arm, tapping his claw against his cheek in a thoughtful, well-practiced gesture aimed to draw the witch’s attention. “What kind of errands would those be? Is there a widow in need of comforting?” Leif shook his head, a small and elegant gesture.
“If there is, I wouldn’t know about it,” he stated firmly, “no. I need parts from a deceased body to be dug up. Preferably at least a decade old one. The local cemetery should do.” He offered a list to Dantalion, his hand positioned carefully so only the paper went over the lines on the floor while his hand remained on the other side.
He had clearly done this before.
Taking the list, he wrinkled his nose at the different parts it instructed him to get as well as suggestions where exactly to find them from. He missed the days when he was solely summoned for pleasure filled nights and heated trysts. Sometimes with the summoner, sometimes for their enemy. One way or another, it hadn’t mattered to Dantalion.
And while people like that did still exist, it wasn’t enough for Dantalion anymore. Hadn’t been for years. But if he wanted more than a glimpse of the human realm every now and then, he needed to do more. It had been a painstaking effort from his part to spread his names on as many lips as he could, not just as an incubus, but as a demon who’d do most anything for a fitting price.
And this was the result, Dantalion thought to himself resentfully as he stared down at the list. Grave robbing.
“Obviously you’ll be compensated,” the witch added and Dantalion wondered if he had let his annoyance show too clearly. “This used to belong to a very powerful witch some decades back.” Dantalion lifted his eyes from the paper, curiosity perking at the words. Leif was holding up a black crystal that Dantalion took a moment to recognize as black moonstone. Protection from energies and emotions of others’, it wasn’t uncommon for witches. Supposedly it could also help against anyone who would seek to affect the person’s emotions or energy.
It was very effective against incubus’ advances, for one. But as it was, he could not sense any emotional connection from the crystal to the witch. It was just a trinket he had found.
“Pretty,” Dantalion observed, disinterested, “but I have little interest in your family heirlooms that you don’t care for. I am not a trash canister.” The witch tilted his head and offered the crystal to Dantalion, again keeping his own hand outside the circle.
“It belonged to Seth,” the witch added and Dantalion felt himself freeze still at the name.
He forced himself to relax and turn curiously at the witch.
“That name sounds distantly familiar, I admit,” he noted, keeping his voice even despite the way he could feel his magic pulsing with excitement. If it really had belonged to Seth, there were a lot of uses for it in hell. Seth was one of the few witches whose name had spread across all nine layers of hell.
Some lesser demons spoke of it in fear, others with anger and fury for having been cheated by the witch to give up their magic and secrets. Some refused to speak of him at all, their silence speaking volumes of their opinion on the matter. Dantalion had never met Seth, but he knew a Greater Demon who had once made a deal for Seth’s soul and when the witch had finally died, his soul had never ended up in the Greater Demon’s hands.
Many were still looking for the witch and his secrets. Some for their own gain, others to trade with the Greater Demons for favors and status. Dantalion was no better from the latter type of demons.
As soon as the crystal was in his hands, he could feel the enchantments and magic thrumming inside him, old and vicious, just as the witch had been. It had been Seth’s, he knew immediately. The magic still sung his name in whispers that would have been intoxicating for any unguarded human.
“This will do,” he stated, a sly smile on his lips as he handed the crystal back, knowing it was not his to keep just yet. “Do you want to seal the contract more traditionally as well?” Leif’s smile tightened a bit and he shook his head.
“Contracts signed with blood are a bit old traditions even for me,” he noted and gestured gracefully at the sigils around the circle, “we have come far from the days they were necessary.”
Dantalion had to agree. While the written contracts had given the demons a lot of leeway to slip something in the wording and between lines, they were a hassle. The circle and sigils forcing on the forging of a straightforward contract were easier to handle and beneficial for both, the witch and the demon. Neither party could escape their responsibility. ANd there were benefits to meeting forgetful witches eager to take what the demon offered, only to be then bound by the spell to provide a fitting price for it.
If the demon was convinced the errand warranted at least a soul in return, the witch would have to be very determined and brave to bargain a new price.
“Then, the black moonstone crystal in payment for a little bit of grave robbing,” Dantalion offered cheerfully and the witch nodded.
“The crystal for all the items on the list, as instructed, from where instructed and brought to me by dawn. Should you harm anyone or bring about some incidents while here, you are to return straight to hell and the deal will be off,” the witch added and Dantalion nodded cheerfully, as if he hadn’t just tried to muddle things up for his benefit. This witch had clearly worked with demons before, possibly even the more powerful and dangerous ones.
The deal set, the circle flickered and the glow died down, allowing Dantalion to step past it.
“I’ll see you at dawn then,” he bowed slightly, a beautiful mix between gracefully grateful and exaggerated that he had taken decades to master. The witch nodded, his attention already turning back to the circle as he started clearing the space up. He left the candles burning and the circle on the floor though, as he should, or he’d risk the demon not finding their way back home.
In truth it was more about the demon’s binds to return home than finding the way, but Dantalion would not be the demon to explain it and ruin it for everyone.
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