"Mr. Pate, how are you today?"
The man sitting across from her looked like he was doing quite poorly.
Calling him a man might have been generous, Dr. Winter saw. He was a large teen, probably still in high school, but his face bore the look worn by inmates on death row. Though filled with melancholy, he had none of the trappings that usually accompanied children in their late teens. His arms bore none of the self-harm scars Winter usually found. He wasn't festooned in dark colors or piercings, and even his haircut was unassuming.
Still, something seemed to hang around him like a smog cloud, and Winter was curious to find out what it was.
"I've had a pretty unique childhood, and there are some things I'd like to get rid of. I've talked to people who say you're legit, and I'm hoping you can help me.
Winter nodded, rising as she made him a cup of the tea. Winter cherry, ginseng, and something known only to her created a heady brew in her nose as she filled the cup. When she handed it to him, some of his despair melted away. He took a careful sip, wincing as it burned him a little, but smacked his lips appreciatively.
"You'll have to tell me where you get this when we're done. I think this is the best tea I've ever had."
"It's a special blend," she said, picking up her notebook as she took up her own cup of tea and had a sip, "Now, why don't you start with what you'd like to forget?"
"I guess it all started about seven years ago when I lived with my uncle on his estates."
* * * * *
My uncle was kind of a weird guy.
I lived with him for two years after CPS took me away from my parents. My parents were not what you would call reliable caregivers. They were way more interested in pushing dope into their veins than caring for a child, so I was bounced around between family members after the state finally took action. Thankfully, I've got a pretty big family, and most of them are pretty reliable. My aunt is a photographer for a magazine and took me in for two years. I was four and still young enough to accompany her when she left town for business, but she feared I wouldn't get a consistent education living with her. So, I went to stay with my grandparents for a while. My grandma was a loving woman with plenty of time for a growing boy and a curious child. My grandfather, however, was a grouchy old man who didn't want some young kid running around and making a lot of noise. I stayed with them for a few years until Gramps had enough of it one day and asked my uncle if he would take me.
He agreed, so I packed my things and went to stay with Uncle Mark.
One thing you should know about Uncle Mark is that he was loaded. I don't know exactly how much he was worth, but he had purchased a small estate outside our hometown with ten acres and a "manor home." I have no idea how he made his money, but that led right to the second important thing about Uncle Mark.
Uncle Mark was nuts. Everybody knew it, and everybody accepted it. He wasn't nuts in the traditional way, the kind that will get you put away forever. Uncle Mark just believed in some rather outlandish things. He believed heavily in the occult, especially their connection to important figures in the government. He’d talk for hours about the Illuminati or the Skull and Bones controversy and would tell anyone who would listen that demons and Hell are as real as you and I.
So when a big black sedan pulled up to Grandma and Grandpa's house, and a guy with greasy black hair and a neat suit stepped out to open the door for me, I assumed he was just a fancy cab driver. The man identified himself as Cassius, and it turned out he was Uncle Mark's right-hand man. The drive wasn't long, but it seemed to last longer since Cassius said nothing. We turned off the road, and I could see Uncle Mark's mansion as it rose above the trees. It had once belonged to a general in the Civil War, my uncle told me multiple times, and he had spent a fortune restoring it to its glory days. People were milling about when we pulled up, and I pressed my nose against the glass as I counted about ten men and women in sand-colored robes, going about different tasks.
"Who are they?" I asked, nose still pressed against the glass.
"They are your uncle's disciples. He's gotten quite a following in our community, and some people like to live close so they can receive his wisdom."
I had about a thousand questions, but Cassius was around the car and opening the door before I noticed he'd stopped the car.
He showed me inside, and the house looked like a museum more than a home. The more I saw, the more excited I became. It looked like a house from an old movie, everything being lacquered wood and old soft furniture. A fire was burning in the grate, and I could see more of the robed people as they cleaned. I had thought maybe there were a few families here, five or ten people at the most, but the more I saw, the more I realized there were more people here than I had imagined. We went upstairs, Uncle Mark wanting to have a look at me, and when Cassius pushed open the doors to my Uncle's library, I got my first look at Uncle Mark as he sat in his element. He smiled and welcomed me warmly to my new home.
"It's good to see you, my boy. I'm glad we can finally speak candidly."
I had only met uncle Mark a handful of times, but I knew my Dad was a little bit scared of him. He said Uncle Mark was always into weird stuff while they were growing up, and if a smack addict is afraid of you, there's got to be a pretty good reason. The few times I'd met him, he seemed like a nice enough guy. Uncle Mark always asked weird questions, like if I could read or if I could see strange things, but I always figured he was just having the same problems my parents were. Dad said all kinds of weird stuff when he was high, so I assumed these interactions were normal.
Living with Uncle Mark showed me that these things were only normal for Uncle Mark.
I tried to pay attention as my uncle told me about his home, but I couldn't stop looking around at the mountain of books that surrounded us. I had taught myself to read, though my mother had helped a little. It gave me something to do while my parents lived in a warm haze. I loved books, and I was a voracious reader. I wanted to explore this place filled with new experiences, but I had begun to notice that many of them looked strange. Quite a few were written in languages I couldn't read, but that made me want to learn all the more.
"You like books, do you?" he said, and his laugh was rich and genuine, "Seems you and I share a similar desire for knowledge."
I turned back to him, afraid of the coming slap or the yell that would ring through my head, but he just smiled at me, no clouds darkening his mood. I think I truly saw him for the first time then. He was dressed like a sultan, his white robes covered in strange symbols and his pointy shoes up on an autumn. He was drinking something from a real glass and being attended to by a few of the people I'd seen in the brown robes. He told me he had been looking forward to meeting me for years, and it was the first time I think someone other than my Aunt had been genuinely happy to have me around. I told him we had met a few times before, but Uncle Mark said he had been waiting to meet me properly.
"Your father and I never really got along, but I could tell that you were a little brighter than your parents. They kept you from me because they feared I would tell you the truth. I'm glad that you finally found your way to listen."
That was the start of my education. Uncle Mark and I talked a lot that day, and he explained what he wanted for me. Uncle Mark had created a paradise for himself here, but it had come at a price. He could not have children and would have no one to carry on his legacy when he was no more. He wanted to teach me his ways, to teach me the things that had brought him success, and in exchange, I would inherit his legacy when he passed on.
"But only if you learn the things I have to teach you. I can make you better than where you have come from, but you must be willing to learn."
I told him I wanted to learn, not knowing what that terrible knowledge would be.
I would learn in time.
Uncle Mark took me out of school, deciding to homeschool me instead. I had been a good student. I'd mostly received A's and B's, but Uncle Mark's lessons were a little different. He still taught me Math and English, but the History lessons were more of an arcane variety. He taught me about witch trials, the beginning of secret societies, practitioners of actual Magic, as he called them, and many other things I had never even heard of. He taught me to read many of the books he kept in his library too, and seemed happy when I took to languages like a sponge. They say the kids will do that, but I look back now and see that some of these languages were so archaic that it should be impossible that anyone could read them. I never had to take any of the tests that I had to take back in school, and I think now that Uncle Mark must've been bribing someone to keep them from having a closer look at his curriculum.
It wasn’t like going to Hogwarts, or anything. Uncle Mark told me that real capital M Magic takes years to cultivate, and I needed to build a foundation before I was ready to do spell work. He believed I would be ready in a few years, and my days were spent pouring over old books and learning runes and sigils in languages I came to be very familiar with.
This went on for a few years and culminated one night when he called me to the basement.
I came down at moonrise, not an uncommon time for Uncle Mark to teach me lessons. I found a bunch of his disciples making symbols on the ground with chalk as others used crowbars and chisels to open canals in the stone. Some of them I understood, but many were things I'd never seen before. Uncle Mark held court over it all, nodding here and telling some of them to fix little things there. When he saw me, he put a hand on my shoulder and cast his other hand out at the space like a game show host showing off prizes. He seemed to be waiting for me to say something, but I wasn't sure what he wanted. I was twelve, after all, and all this was a little new to me.
"Well?" he finally asked, looking a little perturbed.
"It's, uh, pretty cool, Uncle Mark."
"Pretty cool?" he asked skeptically, "It's a little more than pretty cool, my boy. As my apprentice, I would've expected you to recognize a greater circle of binding."
That got my attention. Uncle Mark had taught me about circles. Some of them were used for protection, some of them were used to channel things, and some of them were used to hold things if you could get them inside. This one, it appeared, was of the latter variety. I didn't know what Uncle Mark was going to try to catch in his circle, but everything I had read made me think it might be a bad idea.
"What are you going to try to catch?" I asked, unable to help myself.
"A demon," he said, almost casually.
He must have heard me suck in my breath because I pretended to cough when I felt him looking at me.
I had been learning about all these things, but I wasn't really sure I believed any of them. I had watched my uncle do some pretty cool tricks, but I'd never actually seen him do Magic. Parlor tricks, things you could've seen on any Vegas show stage, sure, but nothing like on the Lord of the Rings anything. He was a good enough manipulator to convince people he could do Magic, but I always figured that was about as far as it went.
"Is this safe?" I asked, and for good reason.
All the books Uncle Mark had in the library about demons made them sound dangerous and temperamental. Priests sometimes banished demons back to their plane of existence, and warlocks sometimes pressed them into service, but demons were strong and usually best left alone. The idea that my uncle wanted to trap one made me very uneasy.
"You're with me, boy. There's nowhere that could be safer." but when he said it, his hand tightened a little on my shoulders, almost painfully.
Uncle Mark had never been cruel to me, but I knew he could turn mean if the mood took him. I had seen him yelling at some of his followers, even seen him hit a few of them, and I knew enough to know I didn't want that anger turned onto me. I shut my mouth, nodding along as I agreed with him. Uncle Mark had always been careful up till this point, but this sudden desire to show his power in some grand gesture was not what I was used to.
Most of this probably had to do with Samuel.
Samuel had been one of Uncle Mark's oldest followers besides Cassius. He acted as the representative between my uncle and his disciples, but lately, something had changed. He had begun telling people Uncle Mark was a charlatan, and they should follow him instead since he had the real Magic. Uncle Mark could have thrown him out, but that might lend some credence to Samuel's lies. My uncle lived comfortably here with his servants, and losing them might cut into some of that comfort.
Thus, Uncle Mark would have to prove his powers.
I watched as his disciples worked, observing in silence as Uncle Mark corrected their labors. The circle was made of different items, each ring a collection of something unique. The inside ring was silver, his followers heating the metal as they set it into the floor. The middle layer was gold, and they poured the molten liquid right into the stone ring. It was crisscrossed with veins of silver once it cooled, and gems were set into the hardening ooze at key points. The outer ring was the oddest of all, a circle of frozen water that seemed ever on the verge of sweating back into a liquid state.
The combination of elements was impressive, but I couldn't begin to understand how they all came together.
"When do you think you'll trap it?" I asked, watching the rings come together.
"Tonight, I should think." He said, smirking at me like he'd just told the most outrageous joke.
"So soon?" I asked, hoping I had misheard.
Uncle Mark's face grew stern as he watched them at their work, "It's time I put Samuel in his place."
As the hours ticked closer to midnight, Uncle Mark assembled his disciples. Samuel was amongst them, looking smug as he watched my uncle open his battered old grimoire, and begin chanting. Uncle Mark never said where he had found that old grimoire, but I had seen it many times. As he spoke, the rings began to hum, and the stones in them seemed to twinkle with eldritch light. He turned to look at his followers, seeing the circle flare to life, and his smile was confident as his eyes fell on Samuel.
"My students, I'd like to thank you for joining me tonight. I know there have been some amongst you recently who have come to doubt my power but doubt no longer. Tonight I will demonstrate my abilities for you by catching and caging one of the strongest entities of the nine hells, a demon."
A thrum came up through the crowd, but Samuel pretended to yawn as he grinned at his teacher. Samuel clearly thought my uncle would do no more than put on a light show for us, but he was wrong. Uncle Mark had clearly brought his A game and meant to show us all who the real Wizard was that night. He drew five others to the points of the star, Cassius opposite him in the order, and they began to chant and call out to something whose name could not be known to mortals. Demon names are strange. They sound furry on the tongue, they have too many consonants, and their vowels are not in ordinary places. The members of the circle began to chant the name, and the circle danced with fairy light.
As they chanted, the inside began to pulsate with a strange light.
I trusted my uncle, even revered him, but I agreed with Samuel that night. My uncle was a man of means, and clearly, this was some show meant to cow the spectators. He would call something from a secret compartment in the floor, I had no doubt, but I doubted it would be some demon from the pit. Most likely it would be someone in a costume. Some convincing bit of prosthesis that, in the dancing firelight and the moody shadows of the basement, would seem very real and very devilish.
The chanting and light show went on for the better part of a half hour, and many of his disciples had begun to fidget nervously. They were becoming slightly bored by it, and some of them might've been starting to think that Samuel was right. My uncle had meant for this to prove his power, but all it was doing was cementing in their minds that he was a fake. Samuel seemed unbothered by any of this. He stood with his arms across his chest, smirking at my uncle as he dared him to do something besides stand there and embarrass himself.
That was when my uncle obliged him.
The chanting stopped suddenly, and my uncle raised his head and uttered a single guttural word that the rest had been chanting constantly. It fell confidently from his mouth, and there was no slur or hiccup in his pronunciation. He spoke it with a practiced tongue, and it seemed to vibrate the entire room as he uttered it.
"Malisphul Rihn!"
Suddenly, and without warning, an unearthly scream echoed across the chamber. In the center of the circle, a creature that defied logic had appeared. It was man-shaped but bestial formed. Its head appeared to be that of a bulldog, but there was no happy, lapping face on this one. Its body was something like Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime, set onto the torso of a silverback gorilla. It had four massive arms, three huge legs, and a set of wings that seemed to crackle against an invisible dome as they attempted to unfurl. It was the color of molten cheese baked into a cheap pan, and its skin seemed to undulate like a living sore. That's the closest I can come to describing it. Its dimensions and form we're not of this world, and to try would be to do it a disservice.
As the creature loosed another of those unearthly screams, the disciples fell to their knees and began to pray to my uncle to save them from this abomination.
"Worry not," he said smugly, "He cannot hurt you. I have trapped him inside a greater circle, and he is mine to command."
The demon flexed its arms, ready to test this, but as I watched, its eyes seemed to dart around the room as if it were counting. The demon relaxed when it saw how many were assembled, glaring at my uncle as if he were the most audacious thing he had ever seen. I didn't trust its sudden helplessness and wanted nothing so much as to tell my uncle to release it before something terrible happened.
I wish now that I had, despite the beating it likely would have earned me.
"Are you he who is known as Marcus Pate?"
The demon's voice was deep and dark, and my uncle had to steel himself to avoid the shutter that tried to ripple up him.
"Do you see that?" he asked his disciples, "even the demons of hell know of me."
Whether the creature agreed with this statement or not, it remained quiet. It sat in the circle, folding its legs as it hunkered in the circle's confines, glowering at my uncle. Its dog's face was filled with rage, but I sensed a quiet patient in it. The demon was a being of the burning hells, an immortal creature of another plane. It could wait for my uncle to die if it needed to, and I think it knew that.
As I turned to ask my uncle something, I was suddenly aware that a small throng of disciples were around him. Samuel was amongst them, confessing his sins to Uncle Mark and telling him how sorry he was that he had ever doubted him. My uncle played the magnanimous guru, but I could tell how much he ate this up. Uncle Mark was wise but also had a deep reservoir of ego that enjoyed being placated. He generously forgave them, telling them how they knew better now, and sent them off to their assigned tasks.
"Cassius, you may take the next watch of this one," he said, indicating the demon, "My young ward and I will take the first. Come by sunrise and bring your witts. He may try to trick you and gain his freedom."
Cassius said he would be there at dawn, and as they left, my uncle and I found ourselves alone with the creature.
Uncle Mark said nothing the whole night. He walked around the circle, observing the demon from every angle. He seemed in awe of his own daring, not quite believing it had worked. The demon studied him as well, its piggy eyes glaring at him with hatred. The creature's intentions were clear, and I feared what it would do to Uncle Mark if it ever got loose. I was still young enough that the thought of my own death was laughable, but Uncle Mark had been so kind to me and given me so much that the thought of something happening to him was truly upsetting.
As the three of us kept our vigils, the creature turned its attention from my uncle to me.
I was looking at the demon as it followed Uncle Mark when its head suddenly shifted on its thick neck to regard me. Its eyes bore into me, the doggish face holding a pair of suddenly captivating orbs. Those eyes seemed to promise me things. They told me of great prizes that could be mine, and when my uncle stepped in front of me, I growled as I tried to lunge around him.
I shook myself when he slapped my face, unsure of what had happened.
"Don't let him hook you, son. He's a terrible beast, and lies are like mana to him."
"I wish you'd turn him loose." I whispered, unable to stop myself from peeking under his arm at it, "I don't think I'll sleep a wink as long as it's in the house."
"Don't be foolish," he spat, suddenly angry, "this creature is my legacy, and I'll let all the naysayers and doubters have a look."
The idea of letting people down here to see it filled me with a new sort of dread.
I didn't know what my uncle was planning, but I suddenly felt sure that it would go poorly.
Uncle Mark began sending out invitations. Not emails, not phone calls, but actual invitations. They were these little cream-colored things with black traces around the edges, proclaiming that the holder was invited to a miraculous show. It honestly made him sound more like a Las Vegas showman than a master of the universe, but he assured me that it was how things were done in his circle.
"They will expect a little showmanship for what I have in store for them."
He sent them to everyone, it seemed. Rivals and friends alike, especially those who had doubted him. Uncle Mark had been running in the circles since his late teens and seemed to have accumulated more doubters and rivals than actual friends. Like Samuel, many looked at him as a charlatan, but he assured me he would end all that a week from now.
"When they see what I have in store, no one will doubt my power ever again."
His disciples set about making the house ready for guests. The rooms were cleaned, new furniture was brought in, and many little display cases were set up around the house so Uncle Mark could show off his collection. There were wands, daggers, books, and even items my uncle claimed were enchanted. These were all things he had found in his journeys, and he hoped they would lend credence to his claims.
The demons stayed inside the circle, but I had come to mistrust that placid beast whenever I had reason to be in the cellar. He never moved, never ate, never drank, and seemed only to watch those who were with him. That wasn't to say that he wasn't busy as well. In that week, three disciples killed themselves while on watch, one of them by tearing his own eyes and tongue out. By Wednesday, Uncle Mark had taken to guarding him himself. The two of us sat down there for hours with the creature, and if Uncle Mark wasn't guarding him, then Cassius and Samuel had the task. Samuel was like a changed man after witnessing Uncle Mark's summoning. He apologized daily for doubting him, and there has been no more talk of leaving amongst the disciples. He and Cassius seem to be the only two Uncle Mark felt he could trust to watch the creature, other than himself and I, of course.
That is how I came to be in the cellar with him the night before the gathering and had a moment to speak with the demon.
Uncle Mark had been awake for two days, and I was unsurprised to find him asleep in his chair around two in the morning. The demon had noticed him, too, and our gazes found each other yet again. I approached the circle, careful not to cross it. That would've been a very big mistake and one I would likely not have survived.
Instead, I stood at the edge as the two of us observed each other.
"Why do you let my uncle think he has trapped you?"
The demon's laugh was like a stone falling to the bottom of a very deep well.
"What makes you believe he hasn't?"
"I've been studying the circle for five days. I'm not as scholarly as my uncle, but I know it has imperfections. I think you could leave if you wanted to, so why don't you?"
The otherworldly creature blinked at me, and I got the feeling it was really seeing me for the first time.
"You might be smarter than that old man gives you credit for."
"Smart enough to know it's not a good idea to trap things you can't control."
The demon sat back, grinning toothily at me, "Make sure that's a lesson you remember when you grow as old as fat as that one." it said, indicating my sleeping uncle.
I let my uncle sleep, and the demon and I continued our silent vigil over the others.
He would need his strength for tomorrow's show and for what I suspected might be the biggest and brightest show of his life.
They begin arriving before sunset the next day. They all came whether they wanted to or not, enticed by the curiosity of his invitation. Some wore suits, and some wore cloaks, but they all possessed the sort of fantastical assurance that my uncle did. It was in the way their faces pinched or their eyebrows raised when you said something they disagreed with. It was the kind of assurance that says, "yes, yes, I know more than you, I've seen more than you, and the things you think are amazing are the things I see as I butter my toast every morning." They arrived in old cars and limousines, one even came in a horse-drawn carriage, but as night set upon the house, they all arrived.
With the spectators in attendance, my uncle came down the grand staircase of his manor house like the belle of the ball.
He was dressed in a long white cloak, stars and swirls emblazoned upon it, in a new crushed velvet suit that must have cost him more than some of the cars in front of the house. He shook hands, greeting all of them by name, and as his disciples walked around with drinks and food, he told some of them about the wonders he had under glass. Some of them were impressed. Most of them simply nodded and smiled politely, treating the items on display like you might a stack of knick knacks at a garage sale. They undoubtedly had their own collection of strange antiquities, and his were nothing to write home about.
No, what they had come for was nothing less than the show he had promised them.
He let them mingle until the grandfather clock struck midnight.
Then he ushered everyone down to the basement for what he promised would be the event of a lifetime.
They all clamored into the confined space, crowding around the curtain that Uncle Mark had hung around the circle. Some of the disciples stood around it, politely advising the crowd that they not touch. When everyone was downstairs, my uncle stood before the opening and rolled his sleeves with a practiced flip. Like a magician at a children's birthday party, he pulled the curtain to reveal his grand finale. They all gasped appreciatively, a few of them even screaming in fear, but they all looked at my uncle a little differently when they saw the demon he had trapped in that circle. I would later realize that even the people he called friends had considered him a faker. They all thought he was charismatic, a real Jim Jones type or maybe even another Herschel Applewhite, but when it came to Magic, he was a little more than a convincing performer.
What they saw now convinced them they had been wrong, and my Uncle Marcus was the real deal.
Immediately the questions came.
How had he done it?
Where have you gotten the knowledge?
How had he constructed his circle?
They gathered around him like a flock of birds, their incessant questions increasing as my uncle told them all would be explained. They wanted to see his grimoire, where he had found the name of this creature. They wanted to inspect the circle so they might duplicate it in their own environment. They wanted to inspect the demon so that they might have a better idea of his makeup. Could my uncle contain him so that they could get closer? Could he destroy it while maintaining the body so they might inspect it closer?
All of their questions inflated my uncle's ego, but that ego died as quickly as their questions, when the lights suddenly went out.
My uncle turned, trying to see if someone had bumped the lights, but when a glow rose up in the room, he knew it had been no accident. The glow came from the creature as he hunkered in the circle, and when he stood and unfurled his wings, the barrier did not repel him. Many in the crowd took a cautionary step back, but they were trapped in the basement, and all the space allotted would not save them.
The demon's voice sounded huge in the small space, and every word he said will forever be indelibly etched into my memory.
"Perhaps I can answer some of your burning questions," it said as it stepped over the first ring of the circle, "This man has constructed no circle that will hold me. This man has constructed nothing that would hold the likes of me. This man is a charlatan, just like the rest of you. You all play at Magic. That's why you call it practice. None of you can grasp an iota of the divine that is stored in my smallest finger, let alone muster the power to travel from your pitiful little dimension into mine."
As he spoke, he attempted to step across the middle ring. To my surprise, and my uncle's credit, his foot stopped in the air for a count of four. It was a minute thing, no more than an eye blink, but the ring had stopped him momentarily. As his foot came down on the other side, however, I knew that it had been only a piddling thing.
"The only thing he did correctly was to call me by name, and I will give him credit where credit is due. His pronunciation of that abyssal tone was precise and enlightening. Truly, it gives me hope for your species, though not a lot."
He stood between the middle and final rings for what felt like an eternity, and I imagined that everyone in the basement was holding their breath.
"And why did I stay inside the circle of an underwhelming wizard for so long? Well, it's quite simple. Every one, above and below, knows of the deep insecurities and deeper pride of Marcus Pate. I can assure you, you fumbling pretender, I wanted nothing more than to rip you apart and drink the squirt of mana you and your little flock have. But I realized that if I stayed and made you think I was powerless, you would draw bigger fish for my dinner. Fish with more than a splash of mana. You are all pretenders, all bumbling apprentices before the power I was weaned to, but you are also, all of you, churning with stolen power, and I will feast well tonight."
He stepped over the final circle, shattering whatever protection may have existed within it.
The rest is, thankfully, a blur. I was nearly trampled by the crowd as it surged around me, and as they shoved me down, I felt one of the columns in the basement bang hard against my back. I ducked down, curling into a ball as the sea of people parted around me. I was pulled and pushed, but I did not get taken by that tide. I was content to sit on my rock as the river was cut by a pike much too large to hold it.
I remember the first warm splatter as it hit me.
My hair was suddenly damp, and as a loud roar cut through the cacophony, I put my hands against my ears and felt my skull vibrate dully.
I cowered through almost all the carnage. People fell around me, their blood making my hair and skin tacky, and there always seemed to be more. The demon moved amongst them like a shadow, cutting and slicing as he came, turning them into a slurry. I felt his claws slice inches from my head more times than I could count, and when the hair wafted down around my ears, I realized how close he had actually come. The fifty or so people in the basement took forever to be shredded, though I remember it seeming to end just as quickly as it began.
When the screaming and moaning had finally come to a low death, I opened my eyes and looked up to find the impossibly large demon standing over me.
As I looked up into the urine-colored eyes, I saw my short life pass before my eyes and was not impressed with my journey.
I could feel his acrid exhalations on my face as he knelt to my level.
It smelled like hell itself.
"I have decided not to kill you, little one. I want you to remember two things as you go about your long and eventful life. The first is that your spark of mana is greater than your uncle could have ever dreamed, though you will need to tend it to grow it to its full potential. The second," and as his wet, squashed nose bumped mine, I almost shrieked in fear.
"The second is that demons are not the playthings of the magically stunted. Tell them that my kind are not to be trifled with, and the next time one of you apes feels like you can stand on even footing with a demon, I will do much worse than this."
He touched the column I was cowering against, and as the flames licked down it, I glanced up and saw them sprouting to the ceiling as well.
"This house will be ashes in less than an hour. If you want to live, I suggest you not be in it.
I found myself rising, little as I wanted to, and climbing the stairs as I walked from my uncle’s house. They told me later that I had burns on my feet, similar to walking through a bed of cooling ashes, but I didn't feel them while they were happening. I walked out of the house like someone in a dream, standing in the courtyard of Uncle Mark's palatial house as the flames consumed it. I stood there until the twinkling lights of the fire trucks came into view, and the men in the fire coats led me to the ambulance. My uncle's closest neighbor was two miles away, but they had apparently smelled the smoke and seen the blaze from their bedroom windows.
I went to live with my Aunt again after that. She worked mostly from home now, her job more relaxed than it had been. My Aunt moved us here, to Cashmere, for a job with the local paper, and that's how I came to be sitting on your couch, Mrs. Winter. Some parts of my childhood are foggy, I've forgotten a lot of the things my Uncle taught me, but many of the more practical things have wormed their way into my daily life. My teachers are trying to push me into a career in Anthropology or Antiquities, like my Uncle. They think my knowledge of languages and certain old-world customs could be beneficial to me in those fields, but I don't know if I want to invite those kinds of feelings in again. What if I become as bad as my uncle was? What if I fall into the same trap that snared him? What if next time, I'm the one looking at a rabbit cage and thinking it will hold a tiger.
* * * * *
The young man looked on the verge of pushing the lump from his throat, and Winter hoped he wouldn't choke when she suddenly brought his teeth back together with a gentle hand. He gagged, his throat bulging as he swallowed his memories again. The cup spilled from his hand, and he looked at her in bewilderment as she stared back at him evenly.
"What did you do that for?" he asked, tears leaking from his eyes.
She could tell that he wanted to be rid of this memory, had been rid of it for a wonderful moment, only to find out that it would be with him forever.
"I won't take this memory. I'll tell Juliet to tear up your paperwork. Don't come here again, Mr. Pate. I won't take this memory from you."
Winter turned, and when he grabbed her arm, she turned back to give him the full brunt of her stare.
"Why not? I need this gone! I don't want this terrible knowledge to," but he stopped when he looked into her eyes.
She wondered what he saw there?
She wondered if it seemed familiar?
"Touch me again, and I will teach you a lesson that cannot be forgotten. Go, take your knowledge, and serve your purpose. Study old bones and other people's leavings who were much wiser than you, and spread your truth to those who have decided they are wise."
He tried to let her go, and when she grabbed his arm and pulled him close, she saw the cowering boy he had once been.
"Demons are not your playthings, and you would do well to remember it."
Dameon nodded, his head flopping a little as he wobbled his acceptance, and when she let him go, he knocked his chair over as he scuttled from the room.
Pamela could have used the money from that session, but the lesson was one that needed to be taught.
She knew creatures that would thank her for not scrubbing one, such as him, even if he wouldn't.
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