Your gateway to endless inspiration
@basement-boy
He drew the blade across his wrist with a small gasp of pain. He was young, and he was new to this. Perhaps he’d hide his youth behind stubble, the beginnings of a beard, but I have spent too long in this universe to be fooled by such a simple trick.
The room was in disarray, with tomes of daemonic names, magic spells and rituals lying open or even with pages ripped out. On the north side of the room, there was a desk covered in notes, with a single candle dripping wax to provide some meager light in the beginnings of twilight outside the window. The center of the room, carved into the wood floor and then traced with chalk was a hexagram, encircled by runes and the names of angels in Enochian. Anabiel. Gabriel. Sammiel. Names to guard against the thing he was summoning. Me.
He began the ritual as his blood dripped into a bowl on the southern side of the pentagram, and his whisperings caused the room to go cold and the wind to pick up through the window on the eastern side of the room, scattering papers and blowing out the candle. The room filled with shadow, despite the sun merely beginning to set.
“I summon thee, Okiabec, in the name of angels and by the six-pointed star. I summon thee, Okiabec, in the names of the Lord and the name of the Devil. El, Jah, Lucifer, Shaitan, I summon thee in these names. Appear and be bound, Okiabec, I command thee in the names of Metatron, Mikhael, Uriel, the watchers of the gate. I command thee in the name of the fallen; the many names of the Grigori, and the names of the Seraphs. Appear, Okiabec.”
When the words were completed, I appeared, as he said. Not that I had ability to avoid the summons. For his youth, the boy was skilled. I took the form of a draconian humanoid, naked, with black scales and a crown of horns growing in a ring around his forehead. In my right hand I held a curved khopesh blade, and in my left I held a net. Not that this form was corporeal.
Pointing the blade at the boy, I growled out a response to his summons in guttural, unearthly tones. “I am Okiabec, the spirit of disease. I fought besides the Morningstar when he stormed heaven, I was at his side when he forged Hell from the nether. I was there when man stepped from the light and left the garden, I was there when Moshe plagued Egypt; I have wrought destruction in my wake for untold Aeons. What makes you think you can summon me and control me?”
The boy was shivering in his monk robes, and I could tell he was not truly prepared for this. But, he would not relent his control. Which was good for him, I suppose, but his weakness was allowing me to gain ground in the battle of wills that was my tether to this mortal plane.
“I command thee to destroy the house of Osha, the worm who has dishonored me,” he barked, or rather, squeaked.
I laughed, a haughty, raucous sound that sounded less human and more like the squawking of a murder of crows. “And in return for this, what will you give me, boy? For such a task, an exchange of great value must be made.”
“I will give you the riches of the house of Ibrahim!”
I laughed anew, this time with more sincerity. “Mortal riches have no sway over me, boy of house Ibrahim. And this you should know.”
“I will give you the lives of our herds! Ten by ten cows, fifteen by fifteen chickens, four by four hounds!”
I growled. I grew bored of this game. “No riches will please me. No number of wretched beasts will sate my desires. You know but one thing you possess and can give me will make me obey you.”
The winds die, and the candle lights anew. “Give me your soul, boy of Ibrahim. Give me your immortal soul and I will serve you for twelve times twelve years, and raise the house of Ibrahim to the heights of greatness. Bring your foes to heel. End your enemies, not by honorable combat, but through the darkness. Disease will eat their pale humours and reduce them to beasts who grovel in your wake; give me your soul, and their riches will be yours. Nothing more and nothing less will satisfy me.”
xfhwnRN1ՙ�q