Fantasy Meihem- Part 2
“Mei’s a cute name! Mei, Mei, Mei. Feels good on my tongue. You feel good on my tongue. Mei, Mei, Mei.” The demon yammered on from above her. She groped up blindly with her seeking fingers until she found a suitable hold amongst the rocks, pulling herself up with a little struggle after pushing her sleeves out of the way yet again. “Would you please stop distracting me, demon!” “Oi, you just going to keep calling me ‘demon’ then? I don’t like that much, too impersonal, like me just calling you ‘human’ over and over again, Mei. Can’t give you my true name but, how about you give me a nickname! You’re a nice girl, you could name me something nice.” He rolled over onto his back on the flat space up above, staring up at the sun as the ice mage valiantly struggled on the cliffs below. “How about it?” She was really, really not in the mood for this right now, banging her staff against the rock as a little platform of ice crystallized on the rocks to give her a foothold. But it began melting quickly in the desert sunlight. His high-pitched yammering continued on, though she only heard half of it, and finally she snapped back at him, ““Well…how about Jamison? That’s the name of one of my old boyfriends?” The demon’s eyes lit up, blazing bright yellow as he pressed his claws to the side of his face. “Y-you would really consider me-” “It was a bad break-up. I don’t like him very much,” she said matter-of-factly, scrambling a little further up.
“Jam-i-son,” he tried, tasting the syllables in the mouth as he chanted it a few times. “Jamison! Yeah, that’ll work. That’s a great name for me, darl, you’re so good at this,” he praised, apparently ignoring or simply unaware of her attempts at an insult. She sighed again and tried to concentrate on climbing. “This here’s the place! Just up ahead! Can’t go too far from the sigil or it’s curtains for yours truly. Really glad you’re here to help a guy out, you’re my lil’ fluffy hero.” The annoying demonic entity was hovering in a lounging position up on the cliff just above her, levitating a foot or so off the ground in a ridiculous way as she struggled to climb. “You uh…you sure you don’t need any help, there?” “I’m not just here to help you, demon,” Mei retorted, trying to keep her hat in place while ascending the escarpment. “This is my duty to investi-gghh!” Her words turned into a squeal as one of the rocks below her came loose, tumbling down in a torrent of dust and pebbles and leaving her foot hanging, flailing and kicking as she found a crack and wedged her cute little boot into it for hold. “I’m okay! I’m okay!” “How about a boost? I promise I won’t tell,” he cajoled as the dust settled, settling both hands under his chin in an infuriatingly coy way. Mei glared up at him a bit. She was currently stuck on the side of a steep cliff, with her legs spread awkwardly apart, her feet wedged into cracks, and her robes snagging at every limb when she tried to move. The demon might have been smug, but it was better than tumbling to her death to the ground below, just to have her remains eaten anyway. Grumbling under her breath, she finally freed a hand and offered it upward. “All right, maybe pull me up a little, but-” His claw smacked into her palm long fingers curling around her entire upper arm, and she was suddenly being lifted, light as a feather. The newly dubbed Jamison hauled her up as if she weighed barely anything at all, though for a moment she hung perilously out in the air and her belly clenched at the very real possibility of him dropping her. But before the fear could even really take hold, she was being taken in, and settled light as a feather against his bony chest, the tips of her boots scrabbling at the dirt as he very gently set her down. She grasped her chest, heart still hammering. “Um…thank you. I guess that was a little quicker.” When he didn’t answer her, she offered him a puzzled look. He was unabashedly staring at her now, their yellow centers brighter than ever. He leaned down to her height, and she leaned faaaaar back, mouth screwing up a little tightly. “Um.” In a flash of red, Jamison leaned close and sniffed noisily, nearly inhaling a nose full of her hair in the process. “Wha-wait! Hold on a tick! Is that-” He gasped in what seemed like genuine surprise. “Nooo! You can’t be!” She briskly went to push him away. “Stop that this instant! What are you doing?” “You actually are a virgin?! Holy tits, I can’t remember the last time I smelled a whiff like this! Ooooh, that’s the sweetest thing I smelt in a long time. Peaches and cream! Extra cream. No, extra peaches. Both, maybe. I thought I musta been mistaken earlier when you got so huffy about the virgin sacrifice thing, but you’re definitely-” “Get off of me!” She bellowed, voice uncustomarily gruff as she shoved him harder. “You can’t smell something like that!” The grinning demon let her push him, still lurking perilously close by and gesturing to himself with one claw. “Uh…Actually. Ain’t that sort of what I do?” he asked, as if it should have been obvious. He turned his glowing eyes to the girl, who was flushing so dark red they almost matched. “Aw, darl, what’s wrong?” “There is…nothing wrong with choosing to focus on one’s studies,” she said a little primly, staring down at a nearby rock as though it had become the most interesting thing in the world, so long as she didn’t have to look at him. Her voice was halting and hesitant, clearly not used to being confronted on the matter. Especially in such a brash way that only someone like him could pull off. “Not everyone has time for…things of that particular nature…And that doesn’t matter! We still need to focus on the task at hand, here! And you are not to mention that again, understand? You said you wouldn’t be untoward, dem- Jamison.” His eyes dimmed a little and the demon looked conflicted, still sniffing eagerly. But a moment later he sighed and his posture drooped. “All right, you got me there. I mean, maybe later we…Okay, yeah, task at hand, right? So, can you do something about this sigil or not?” He gestured one claw out, and she turned to find the marks on the ground, just like he’d said…and far more than that. Inside the summoning circle were smaller circles, many of them stained with blood or piled high with bones, feathers, and piles of rotting entrails. There were scorched marks everywhere, fire and lightning burning the sand to glass in places. Off to the side lay the charred corpses of two dead men, one who had had both his arms torn off, twisted in the dust, and the sand was dark from long-soaked blood. The smell of death and ash really hit her for the first time as the wind changed, and she turned and bent double, gagging audibly. The scrawny demon man stood over her and asked, “Heh, but I mean…if you still want to talk about the…v-word, thing…” The only v-word she could think of at that time was the word ‘vomit’, and he was definitely not helping. She flailed one hand to drive him a little further away, sucking in air as she finally managed to straighten up, adjusting her glasses beneath her wilting hat. “You didn’t say there were dead men here! You didn’t say anything about it being this level of…this!” “Oh yeah, my friend gave ‘em one hell of a fight! Heh, that one man there, you shoulda heard the noises when his limbs got plucked off. Try waving all your magic wand gibberish when you got no arms, bucko!” He drifted forward amongst the carnage, still levitating just a few lazy inches off the ground. “But that leader of theirs that was with ‘em…black cloak sort, weird owl mask, he got a hold on my friend and it went downhill from there. Bindings got him and I couldn’t help.” “A black cloak and an owl mask? And you said they were summoning more than just you two, right?” She retrieved her little notebook, scribbling this down. “That’s why I didn’t even try messing about with them. By the time we’d arrived, they already had quite the crowd here. Some even more powerful than my buddy, and that’s hard for me to even imagine. Even the pig only got a few blows in before they were on him.” He gave one of the corpses a little kick. “Wankers!” She was hurriedly trying to draw a chart of the sigil before her, mapping out where each circle was and what was in them. “My superiors are definitely going to need to see this. Illegal cabals performing mass summonings can never lead to anything good. It’s a bit of a travel to reach the city, but I have to deliver this information. Come on!” “For the last bloody time, I can’t ‘come on’! I can’t go beyond these canyons or out of range of this gate. You were gonna help. You said you’d let me loose, right?” “I never said I would set you loose, Jamison,” she corrected with a frown. “You can’t just go loose. That’s irresponsible.” “You can’t just leave me here!” He spread both arms, taking a step forward. “How about…How about you just take me with? Bind me to you instead?” “I can’t do that either. I can’t have demonic servants.” “Er…Bind me to something else, then! Something you can take with you, just get me outta this hole. Maybe I can still be able to look for my friend with you. Please, I’ll beg ya if that helps, just…don’t leave me behind?” He clasped both claws pleadingly, leaning down to almost bow before her, the spiky bones of his vertebrae jutting from his spine with the motion. “I’ll be quiet as a little rat in your pocket if you just bind me to something you can carry, won’t be any trouble at all. I’ll do it willingly, just need your permission and a quick spell, that’s all. You can take me with, drop me off with your folks if you like, do whatever you like with me. But don’t leave me here.” She tried to keep telling herself that he was a demon. A demon who was an epitome, an amalgamation, of base instinct and evil. He certainly looked the part, with his flaming hair, red skin, and dripping fangs. But…for a demon, he seemed awfully sincere, and hadn’t really tried to trick her yet. He didn’t really seem bright enough to, when it came down to it. He’d showed her where the circle was, he’d helped up the cliff, and though his manners were certainly lacking and she really needed to be clear with him about the virginity-sniffing…thing…he seemed to have no qualms with throwing himself upon her mercy. “Well I guess…Maybe I can turn you over to someone who has more experience in this sort of thing? If I temporarily bound you to an object, you’ll be harnessed to that instead.” She began searching in her bag for something she could use, and his shadow fell over her as he leaned in as well to watch. She had packed light, and most of the things in her bag were too practical or already magical implements she didn’t want to break with any demonic spells. She had a few camping supplies, though. The sleeping bag and her clothes were right out, of course. The last thing she wanted was this entity being so…ugh, close against her skin like that. Maybe a cooking pot? But then what would she cook in? She had a dirty sock with a hole in it, maybe that…No, that would be insulting to both of them. Or maybe it wouldn’t, to him? He was so weird… The sun was beating down on her, and she pulled off her pointed hat to wipe away more sweat. Jamison gasped and clapped aloud suddenly, flesh meeting metal with a hollow clank. “Oooooh! Shiny! How about that, right there?” She felt atop her head, suddenly remembering the presence of her bun…and the hair pin that she kept usually hidden beneath her hat. It was long and thin, topped with a glass bead and a dangling snowflake charm, in the style of her homeland. She reached up with both and very carefully plucked it out, her hair falling loose in messy waves down around her shoulder. The snowflake’s metal gleamed in the light, jingling as she held it up. “Would this work?” “That’s perfect! Shiny, pretty, and I get to be tucked all cozy in close with you under your big ridiculous hat, the virginal scent of your hair…” He sighed dreamily. For a moment, she really re-considered the dirty old sock option. But he was already moving, scrabbling across the ground as he dug his metal claws into the dirt, drawing a set of circles and symbols she didn’t recognize. His serpentine tail, pointed and black at the end, whipped around as he spun, drawing another circle around his entire body, before straightening and giving her a cheeky wave. “Oi, Mei-love, put it in the other circle and put one drop of your blood on the pin for your permission, and right she’ll be!” He swayed back and forth within his circle, though she couldn’t tell if he was giddy about getting to leave this dreadful place, or getting to temporarily live under her hat. She took up the pin carefully, examining the sharp ends of the snowflake’s crystal. Pressing one fingertip to its edge, she pushed until the delicate needle-edge pierced through her skin, and a single droplet of scarlet red welled up. She smeared it quickly onto the red bead at the tip before setting it down in the little circle on the other side, and stepped back. He said something, in a language that she didn’t understand, guttural and unpleasant and it made her ears hurt. But a moment later that was a cracking noise and a flash of light, and then nothing was left of the demon’s form save a few embers floating away in the foul breeze. Waving her hand in front of her face, she approached the makeshift demonic sigils and retrieved her pin. The red bead seemed different now…lit up from within, red and yellow and orange whirling violently inside the glass. Hesitantly, she touched it, and it was warm against her skin. With a shudder, she twisted her hair back up and went to tuck the pin back into place, placing her hat back atop it, and scrubbed the eerie demonic heiroglyphs from the dirt with a few kicks of her foot before turning to leave this awful place. She paused abruptly when a voice seemed to echo out of nowhere, 'Yeh! Now this is ace! We’re gonna have such a great time, you and me, we’re gonna find my pal, we’re gonna have sparkling conversation, we’re gonna-’ Her eyes rolled up to her hat. “Why am I hearing your voice in my head!” ‘…Well I mean, I’m right here next to it and all, and we’re going to be together for a while so…Did I forget to mention that part?’ “JAMISON!”
