Chapter 9

It was a demon! A demon was sitting with her legs stretched out on my couch, watching a rerun of The Simpsons on my tube! A demon that looked just like me, save that her wings were more reddish in colour and her horns curved down and forward instead of swirling to the sides like mine. She also had hair that appeared to be long and blonde, unlike mine, not to mention the fact she was also smaller than me, and—sad as I was to admit it—cuter than me in my lilin form...

I was staring agape from my vantage point in the doorway when she turned and looked straight at me.

"How long do you intend to stand there?" she asked.

When I didn't make any response, she got up from the couch and walked towards me. I slowly inched back.

She paused, and put both her hands on her hips. Smiling sweetly, she said, "You come here right now or I swear you will regret it. I don't have time to play around with you."

When I didn't do what she asked me to do, she made a little gesture with her right hand and I felt myself wrenched forward through the open doorway, landing on the floor right in front of her.

She raised my face with the tip of her boot under my chin and said, "I can be mean, sister, so don't piss me off."

At that point, my very numb and confused mind finally recovered from the shock and I immediately rolled away from her. She watched amused as I got to my feet. We spent the next few minutes or so just staring at each other.

When she didn't say anything, I asked, "Who are you? What do you want from me?"

She kept looking at me, smiling sweetly like a little girl scout selling cookies. If not because she had such a pretty face, I thought I might've struck it in annoyance. Funny, her face reminded me of someone, but who?

Finally she said, "My name is Shaina. You are Ilyse, daughter of Sarai?"

For some reason I got really pissed off at hearing that.

"My name is Patrick, and I'm not a daughter of anyone."

She chuckled, "Oh yes, I got the correct person all right. Mother did say that you are in denial. As for why I'm here, let's just say that you owe me and I intend to cash in the favor."

"What favor? I've never even met you before!"

"What favor?" she asked as she walked closer, her wings seemed to expand behind her, "What favor, you ask?"

She was really getting too darn close now and it really made me nervous. I didn't know where to look. Do I look at her face? No, those pouty lips just begging to be kissed. Do I look at her neck? No, that neck looked so long and pale and clean that I felt like ... biting it. Do I look at her breasts? No, totally bad idea, hers appeared to be about 2 cup size larger than mine - I mean my breasts in demon form, of course. I couldn't look sideways, because I didn't want to show weakness in front of her, so I decided to fix my eyes on hers. At least she didn't have that one thousand years of torment in her eyes like Mother did.

She stopped in front of me as her face closed in on mine. She didn't look pissed or annoyed, in fact, she looked like she was about to giggle, "You owed me one, because I had to give up my only contract to your little sister.

"Do you know how hard it was for me to get that one contract? I had to spend months just to finalize the deal. Do you know how many job opportunities I've missed?!" she said, her voice rising with every word spoken, her pretty face still making that sweet smile, except that this time her eyes were closed tight.

I was incredulous. I was confused. I didn't know what the hell she was talking about. "I have no idea what you're talking about. And what in bloody hell is a contract!?"

"Of course you have no idea," she finally dropped her smile, "It was Mother who gave that order. But that doesn't mean that you can walk away scot-free. I'm holding you directly responsible for me losing my contract!"

"What the hell is a contract!?" I asked again, almost shouting.

She frowned, "Sarai never told you about contracts?"

I shook my head no.

"What's the point of having a talented mother when she never told her daughter a single thing?"

I kept silent as my hands positioned against her flat stomach, discretely trying to push her away. It was proven futile when her tail came up and slapped my hands away. I groaned. I think she must've broken my wrist.

Her sweet smile came back as she said, "A contract is a binding agreement between a Lili and a human. The human gets whatever he wants in exchange for the Lili receiving the human's soul when they die. An agreement cannot be amended, but can be replaced. Until their deaths, we are bound to honour the words of the agreement."

"What do they normally ask for?"

"You're human, you should know. The most common are money, a harem of bimbos, magical powers... ," then her tone changed, "That particular contract forced me to become his personal slave until the day he died. I have never been so degraded. I, who was the idol for teenage girls around the world, was reduced to a mere sex slave who performed for him and his degenerate friends and being loaned around like a lowly whore!"

"I must say that I didn't regret arranging for him to be hit by that particular trailer. It was so satisfying to see his face being smashed when the trailer's brakes suddenly stopped working," she said with a grin.

"So what do you want me to do?" I asked as she stepped back and sat on the couch.

She grinned, "You are going to help me get a new contract."

"What?"

"No one can resist the idea of having two Lilim as personal slaves ... or toys ... or servants. Of course, we'll make the contract very vague in that regard. I don't want to have to share the contract with you once he's dead."

She gestured for me to come to her, though this time I didn't feel any magical pull, "I've never seen you in your lilin form, but Mother said that it didn't differ much from your human form, unlike your mother. From what I can see, I think both of us together would look irresistible."

"Why did you give your contract to my sister?" I asked as I sat down as far away as I could, which wasn't really far enough.

"I've told you, Mother told me to do so. Why she picked me, who had only one contract, instead of the others, who have accumulated hundreds of contracts over the years, is beyond my understanding."

She paused, looked at me, then continued, "I supposed it had something to do with protecting your sister from your own powers. From what I've heard, your control of your own power is as raw and immature as Sarai's when she was young, despite the fact that you're a bicorne, a two-horns, like me."

"What's a two-horn?"

"Two-horn?" she pointed to one of her horns, "One horn", then pointed to the other, "Two horns. Or have you forgotten how to count?"

I was annoyed. Why was it that everyone from the supernatural side looked down on me? "How was it possible for you to taunt me with a smiling face?"

"My human self is an actress, dear sister. Times like these, I normally spend either practicing my lines or sleeping. Right now, I'm practicing, because there's no other time to do that. I've told my manager to give me some breathing space, but so far, she doesn't seem to be listening. I'm too busy to even feed properly, which really sucks. I could use some extra energy," she said as she made a slight frown, which was immediately replaced with her trademark winning smile.

I was really curious about this contract thing. If it involved torture, maybe I could make a contract with Chris, since the geas ensured that I couldn't run from him anyway. I loved the idea of torturing his soul, he had tortured mine long enough.

"So, what does this contract of yours do?"

She huffed, her smile losing form, "Before I passed it over to your sister, nothing. I have to give it an attribute or property that will be beneficial to me. You mother, Sarai, made a lot of guardian-type artifacts with her contracts. I supposed because it was hard for her to control her own powers. Anyway, I hadn't exactly decided what to do with that contract before Mother made that decision for me."

She paused, laughed at a certain scene in the show and continued, "Now it's set to disperse all pure ether, diffuse some ether-based spells as well as resist hypnosis. I'm not sure if you've learned how to do that yet, but she would probably need it soon."

"That's interesting. So basically it means our magic can't harm her? I could use something like that."

This time there was a hint of a sneer behind her smile. "Your magic can't harm her. Mine still can, because that contract is still mine. Mother told me to give it to her, but she didn't say anything about relinquishing my claim on it."

"Since she asked you to do that, can't you just ask her for another one?"

"Because ... it's easier to bully the new ones than to ask Mother for something," she said, in a tone which made it sound like common sense.

"Figures," I said dryly, "When did you give it to Little Tell anyway? I don't remember seeing any kind of parchment tucked around her."

"At tonight's party. I forgot to remove the taint of lust from it, but it was still pretty interesting. And it's not a parchment, it's a pendant."

"Taint of lust?" I asked as I pondered the significance of that phrase with tonight's events, "Wait, you're saying that you're the reason that my sister suddenly turned gay?!"