Demon Bound

“Victor, you can’t be serious. This needs to stop!” Martha cried as she looked at her crazed husband. Her hands were shaking as tears streamed down her face.

“Shut up, Martha! I know what I’m doing,” Victor screamed back as he finished tying the knot, securing his daughter to the chair.

“Dad, please let me go...” Stephanie could barely get her voice to raise above a whisper she was so scared. None of the family had ever seen Victor like this before. It was like he was possessed by a mad man ever since they got out on bail.

“Please just let us go!” Mathew cried from his own chair that he was tied to next to his sister. This was the first time in a while all of them had been together, and the first time Mathew and Stephanie had been this close since... Well since some things had come to light, and other realizations were made.

“Be quiet, or I’ll gag you both,” Victor said standing up while picking up his rifle. Looking around the crazed man found the book. The book that was the source of all his recent problems. At first it had solved them, but now they were so much worse. “Fucking god damn monster. How dare she do this to us!”

“Victor, please. We can’t do this again. Look what happened! We’re going to go to prison!” Martha once again pleaded with her husband, knowing what he was going to do. What he was going to offer. She couldn’t do this with her children! Even if she had already done it once before, she never let herself think of their youngest as her child. It would have made it too hard. The price too steep.

“I’m going to make her fix this mess she made! We already held up our end of the bargain, so she’s going to fix this even if I have to give up another one! We all know Matthew’s gay! He’s already going to hell, so why not just a little sooner like his freak brother?”

Mathew looked at his father stunned. He thought no one knew. Absolutely no one! Was he that obvious? Stephanie looked at him in confusion, not willing to believe that the brother she knew ‘so well’ was gay. He didn’t look back at her. Didn’t dare meet her eyes because it would give him away somehow.

“Victor, please...” Martha cried. This was all so wrong. This shouldn’t be happening. It should have never happened in the first place.

Ignoring his wife, the mad man opened the book and looked at the strange archaic symbols he had drawn on the ground in salt. Everything was laid out as it was a little over twenty-one years ago. Taking a deep breath, Victor began to read from the book. The words he spoke were not English or any other known language on Earth. They sounded wrong and broken, but still he spoke them, even if every fiber of his being told him to stop.

Then it was over. There was no fanfare of magic as he finished the chant. No glowing rune. No lights flickering. No strange ominous sounds. Everyone stayed quiet as if waiting for something, but nothing came.

“Why didn’t it wor—”

Victor stopped short as a pillar of purple smoke flowed up from the salt symbols. It was thick and dense, not letting anyone see through it.

“What the—” “—Fuck?” Mathew started with his sister finishing the sentence while their mother shivered in the corner.

The smoke then came to a standstill, before rushing down to the ground, flooding the floor. But that wasn’t all. Where the pillar once stood, now stood a woman. Tall with brown shoulder length hair, dressed in a nice little black dress. The woman had lavender colored skin, and violet cat-like eyes and horns. Said horns rose from her temples and curved back with a beautiful feather-like appearance. She also had a six foot long tail that gently swayed behind her.

Maria opened her eyes to the scene in front of her. When the summoning circle appeared in her and Edith’s bedroom, Edith was still getting ready for the night. The scarlet demon had said that Maria could answer it if she wanted, and that Edith would join her shortly. Maria had never answered a summons in her few months of being a demon, so that thought was exciting. Then Edith had told her who was... Well, Maria was not sure if she should answer, but the new confidence that had been growing in her told her that this was perfect. The best time to confront her family.

Now that she was standing here, she was not so sure. They all stared at her, and she was positive that they all knew who she was. That they all could clearly see it, and all her fear came rushing back. The fear of what her parents would say to her. The fear of her siblings picking on her. Making fun of who she was.

“Who the hell are you?” Victor asked confused as he looked down at the book, sure he had performed it right to summon the same demon he had years ago.

Relief washed over Maria, as she realized they didn’t know. The looks they were giving weren’t looks of knowing but confusion. They had no idea who she was. None of them recognized her! The lavender demon didn’t respond as she smiled and looked over her family. Martha, her mother, cowering in the corner. Victor standing with his rifle and book, trying to figure out where he went wrong. Her siblings, tied to their chairs. As her eyes washed over them, they both flinched in fear of the inhuman eyes that wandered over their bodies. A tiny bit of perverse pleasure ran though Maria at seeing her siblings afraid of her. She curiously looked around the living room they were in. “Hasn’t changed, huh?” was all she said looking around the familiar room.

“Where is she?!” Victor screamed, bringing everyone’s gaze to him.

“Who?” The demon said with a slight tilt of her head. She knew who he meant but she wasn’t going to pass up on an opportunity to toy with the man who raised her.

“The other one! The one I summoned last time,” he said, dropping the book before grabbing the rifle with both hands.

The demon was entirely unfazed by the crazed man brandishing a weapon. Maria knew he couldn’t really hurt her. A rifle wouldn’t do much against a demon’s body, and even then, she still had magic to defend herself now. She wasn’t as weak and scared as she had been as a human. “Oh! You mean Edith? Tall,” she said with a hand gestured to symbolize the other demon’s height. “Red skin. Long tail. Beautiful, fluted horns. Eye that can see straight into your soul.” The demon finished with a little wistful look in her eyes.

“Yes, that one!”

“Don’t worry. My wife will be here soon enough. Oh, pictures! These are new.” The demon noticed one of the bookshelves now supported new photos that weren’t there the last time she was here years ago.

“What do you mean she’ll be here soon? I need her now, so she can fix this mess she made!”

The lavender demon didn’t pay the man much mind as she went over and looked at the photos. Most of them were family with a few individual pictures. None of them included her except one. It was a picture from just before she came out. A picture of her high school graduation, that none of her family came to. The demon made a small sound of disgust before laying the picture flat so no one could see it. “Well, you can’t just expect us to bend over backwards to the whims of a human with a book. We have lives you know,” She turned back to the man. The confidence she had gained felt so good to wield in front of people that hurt her so. “We’re having a date night, so you’ll excuse us if we show up when we feel ready,” she said as a matter of fact. “Also, what mess are you talking about?”

“The one she made! The illegal money! Everything!” Victor screamed pointing the gun at her, but she didn’t even flinch.

“Well, you have to admit, some of that was your own doing,” the lavender demon said with a shrug. “But the rest, well... You made a deal with a demon, what did you expect?”

“You made a deal with a demon?!” Stephanie suddenly screamed at her parents. All her life she had been raised with the church. Raised to know God and all the good He does, and all the evil Satan and demons cause. She was raised by her religious parents, who were the most devout people she knew. How could they have made a deal with a demon?!

“Oh, you didn’t know?” The demon asked, confused. “I don’t know why I thought you would know, but I did. What about you, Matthew? Did you know?” Matthew looked just as shocked as his sister, maybe even more so since the demon somehow knew his name. “I guess you didn’t either. Huh, you really didn’t tell any of your children.”

“It was a mistake...” Martha muttered from the corner. “We should never have done it.”

“Shut up, Martha! We did what we did for the family!”

“You sold your child to a demon for money,” the lavender demon said flatly. Her eyes boring holes into Victor. Admittedly, it had worked out great for Maria, but it still hurt the small child inside her.

“You sold us?!” Stephanie said even more scared now.

“No, not you or Matthew, Stephanie,” the demon corrected. “They sold your little sister.”

“We don’t have a little sister,” Stephanie said.

“Yes we do...” Matthew said, which made Maria look at him with a little hope. They had never gotten along, thanks to him picking on her. If he was willing to accept her as a woman, well, that would be a big and welcome change.

“Don’t call that freak boy their sister. He was barely even a brother to them,” Victor spit. “It doesn’t matter! What matters is that you need to fix this mess that demon bitch made!”

“Don’t call my wife a bitch,” the demon said with an animalistic growl, something she had picked up from said wife. “Besides, the pact is done. Edith claimed her prize on Maria’s twenty-first birthday. That was the end and completion of the pact.”

“Her name was Maria?” Mathew whispered mostly to himself, though with Maria’s new and improved hearing, she heard it.

“No that can’t be it! She said she would give us enough money for a lifetime!”

“Didn’t she?” The demon gestured around them. “If you managed to spend it all, then that’s on you.” Victor leveled the rifle and fired, as his anger reached new heights, but he missed, as the demon suddenly disappeared. “That’s a rude way to treat the guest you summoned,” the demon said, suddenly appearing next to Matthew. Teleportation was great. “I wouldn’t recommend doing it again, or you might lose your arm...” The siblings shivered at the animalistic growl that ended her threat.

“You need to fix this!” He screamed but didn’t level the gun again.

“I don’t need to do shit.”

“Fine! Then how about a new pact? I already made one, might as well make another! I’ll give you Mathew, I don’t care about his gay ass.”

“Why in the hells would I want him? Wait, you’re gay?” The demon turned to Matthew and looked him in the eye. Matthew didn’t know what to do other than stare back at the creature. “That would actually make a lot of sense now that I think about it.” Isn’t there a study that talks about how sometimes the most queerphobic people turned out to be queer themselves? Well, that would definitely fit Matthew if he is really gay. “Still, why would I want him?” The demon turned back to Victor, stepping away from Mathew.

“I don’t know. You can eat him like you did his brother. Take him to hell, I don’t care! Fuck I’ll give you Stephanie as well!”

“No!” the older sister screamed.

“Do you really think that’s what I did with Maria?” A new sultry voice suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Everybody turned to where the new voice came from and found a pillar of red smoke, that washed away much like the purple, and left another woman in its place. This time the woman was taller by at least four inches. Her hair was black and wavy and fell past her shoulders. Like the other demon, this one was inhumanly colored, but a deep scarlet red instead of the gentle lavender. Her horns were larger and fluted, and her tail was just ever so slightly longer than the others’.

“You!” Victor screamed with his own poor mimic of the lavender demon’s growl.

“Me,” The scarlet demon said with a smirk, before coming up behind the lavender demon and wrapping her in a hug. “Hello, dear. Sorry I took a little while.”

“It’s okay,” the lavender demon said with a cat-like purr as her tail wrapped around Edith’s.

“I don’t care what you did with that freak!” Victor said cutting through the cute display of affection between two demons.

“Oh really? You really don’t care?” Edith asked as she possessively held onto her wife. “Even if I took her as my wife?” A smirk crossed Edith’s face as all the humans’ faces dropped.

“What?” Martha said as her eyes went wide.

“Hi, mom,” Maria said to her mother. “Hi, dad.” There was a noticeable growl in her voice when speaking to her father.

“It that really you, Edw—”

“It’s Maria,” the tone in the lavender demon’s voice left no room for argument. Edith was rather impressed by it. “But yes, it is me, mom. Hey, Matthew,” she said gently to her brother. He was a bit of a welcome surprise for her, being gay and admitting she was his sister and not brother. “Stephanie...” Maria was rather dry with her sister’s name. They rarely got alone, if ever, and it wasn’t for a lack of trying on Maria’s part.

A bang exploded in the room, as Victor fired another shot. But once again, the demons disappeared, only for Edith to reappear next to Victor. Faster than the human could move, Edith reached out and grabbed the barrel of the gun. The metal creaked as the barrel bent with ease under the scarlet demon’s grasp.

“I don’t appreciate you trying to hurt my wife.” The growl in Edith’s voice was heart stopping. Victor stood there shaking at the display of strength before him. “Now if you would be so kind as to shut the fuck up for a goddamn minute, and actually think for a second.” Edith let the barrel go, clearly not caring about it anymore.

The knots tying Matthew to the chair suddenly fell away before Maria stepped around in front of him. She didn’t say anything to him, just gave him a passive look before walking over to Stephanie. And as much as Maria didn’t like her, she was still her sister, and tied up against her will. But as she neared the tied-up human, Stephanie panicked and tried as hard as she could to scoot away from Maria. Maria didn’t bother trying again.

“Now, Victor,” Edith said his name as if it tasted foul in her mouth. “We made a pact. And that pact is finished. I have my wife, and I am very satisfied, but that doesn’t mean that you should be satisfied. You made a pact with a demon for money. You never once asked or stipulated where said money should come from. You just wanted money, so that’s what I provided. Now it’s your turn to reap what you sow. I would recommend that you find yourself a good lawyer, but I’d rather watch you rot away in prison.”

While Edith was putting Victor in his place, Maria was writing her phone number onto a piece of paper. “Here,” she said, handing it to Matthew.

“Wh—what’s this?” The poor man was still scared and confused. Not only was his sibling alive, but she was now his sister as well as a demon. A demon married to the demon who took her as payment for giving his parents money.

“It’s my number. You can call or text me if you want. I just thought we might have some catching up to do.” Maria hoped he would. For as much as he hurt her as a kid, he was still her big brother. Being gay and accepting her as a woman was a big bonus, though. With shaky hands, Matthew took the piece of paper just as Edith finished.

“Alright, my dear Maria,” Edith said walking over to the trio of siblings, the two humans of which flinched at her approach. “I think it’s time we got back to our date, don’t you?” The scarlet demon wrapped an arm around the lavender demon.

“I think so too,” Maria said looking back over to her parents. Her mother was still cowering in the corner, while her father seemed to be completely shutting down. Maybe he finally realized that things weren’t going to go in his favor for the first time in his life. “Bye mom, bye dad. Hope you have a fun time in prison.” Maria turned back to her siblings. “Stephanie... Bye, Matthew. Text me if you want.”

With a final wave from the lavender demon, a new pillar of smoke rose around the demonic couple. This time the smoke was a swirl of red and purple that completely shrouded the pair. Then only a second later, the smoke faded completely, and the demons were nowhere to be found.