Goetic Justice 2
Chapter 1: Neophyte

Copyright© 2018 by Snekguy

Fantasy Sex Story: Chapter 1: Neophyte - Ryan's idyllic life is shattered when a shadowy organization that seeks to control the spread of summoning in the world attempts to have him killed.

Caution: This Fantasy Sex Story contains strong sexual content, including Ma/Fa   Fa/Fa   Mult   Consensual   Magic   Reluctant   Romantic   Lesbian   Heterosexual   Fiction   Horror   Mystery   Extra Sensory Perception   Paranormal   Furry   Genie   DomSub   FemaleDom   Light Bond   Rough   Sadistic   Group Sex   Orgy   Cream Pie   Masturbation   Oral Sex   Petting   Big Breasts   Body Modification   Size   Caution   Politics   Revenge   Violence  

The messenger’s shoes squeaked on the tiled floor as he made his way towards the inner court, the black and white squares a symbol of holy Euclidean geometry. The Masonic lodge was steeped in arcane symbolism, from the golden reliefs that decorated the walls, to the carving of the all-seeing eye adorning the massive keystone that held up the stone arch above the court’s twin oak doors.

He stopped before them, straightening his black suit and adjusting his tie nervously as he prepared to enter. Disturbing the Grand Masters of the thirty-third degree when court was in session was almost unheard of, but the information that he had been tasked with delivering was of the utmost importance, and no less unusual. He took a moment to compose himself as his eyes played across the marble busts of the organization’s most important members that were lined up to either side of the lavishly furnished corridor. They rested atop white columns that were themselves a symbol, denoting the busts as princes and nobles. There were some that he recognized, great thinkers and presidents, and others that he didn’t.

He could hear muffled conversation coming from the other side of the massive wooden doors. Court was in session, and the most important Freemasons in the country were currently engaged in debate. Someone of such a low degree couldn’t fathom what they were discussing, perhaps they were deciding the future of a country or corporation, or maybe they were in a heated theological argument.

Finally mustering the courage to proceed, he pushed one of the heavy oak doors open and stepped into the inner court. The door creaked on its ancient hinges, the sound echoing throughout the sanctum. The conversation died down as all eyes turned towards him.

He was immediately awestruck by the sanctum’s brilliance, having never set foot in this part of the lodge before. The room was shaped like a rough rectangle, with a checkered floor in the center that almost resembled a chess board, the rest of the floor carpeted in regal purple. To the left and right were raised stands, the dozens of leather seats currently occupied by frowning Grand Masters. Each of them wore a purple leather apron and a pair of matching cuffs over their suits, adorned in the mystical symbols of their ancient order.

The ceiling was high above his head, the circular recess in its center occupied by a relief of a blazing star, the many rays that extended from its core embellished in shining gold. It was held up by decorative pillars, not dissimilar from those that he had seen in the corridor outside, but as thick as tree trunks and fifteen feet tall. That same gold and purple theme was present everywhere, as prevalent in the jewelry and adornments of the Grand Masters as it was in the furniture and murals that decorated the room.

Seated in a golden throne at the far end of the court was the Grand Master of this particular lodge, the others having traveled from around the country to take part in the meeting. Each of them had their own grand lodges and oversaw Masonic operations in their own jurisdictions.

“Most worshipful Grand Master,” the messenger began, “honorable Grand Masters. Please forgive my intrusion.”

The man in the golden throne leaned forward, the many pendants and jewels that hung around his neck indicative of his high rank. He had a large salt and pepper beard that betrayed his advanced age, his wrinkled face contorting into an expression of displeasure as he looked the messenger up and down through a pair of round spectacles that were perched on the bridge of his crooked nose.

“What is the meaning of this?” he boomed, his powerful voice echoing through the chamber. “Can you not see that court is in session?”

“I know Grand Master, my deepest apologies,” the messenger said as he bowed deeply. “I was sent to deliver a message of the utmost importance.”

“Well? Out with it!”

“Of course Grand Master. There has been a...” His eyes darted about the room, examining the leering faces of the Freemasons to ensure that all present were of a high enough degree to hear what was about to be said. If he revealed this information to the wrong people, if a servant or a janitor overheard him, then they would both be severely reprimanded. Few members of the order were privy to such sensitive information.

“There has been a series of unauthorized summonings in a nearby city.”

“That’s four this year alone,” one of the Grand Masters in the stands exclaimed, “we must get the spread of this information under control!”

The messenger waited for him to finish before continuing.

“The novice summoner in question appears to have obtained the information from an internet message board. The appropriate steps have been taken, and it is now being astroturfed. It will soon become flooded with inaccurate information and rendered unusable.”

“Who was summoned?” the Grand Master asked, adjusting his spectacles as he waited for a reply.

“It was Orobas, worshipful Grand Master.”

“A lesser demon,” another of the men in the stands scoffed. “It’s hardly worthy of our consideration. Just follow procedure and have the summoner in question eliminated, what’s the problem?”

“There have been some ... complications. It appears that Orobas assigned a familiar to the summoner, one of the ancient Seirim. The summoner somehow succeeded in feeding the familiar enough magickal energy that it was freed from Orobas’ control. He started a local myth, drawing a summoning circle in the woods outside his city and taking a video recording of the Seirim in question manifesting, which he later uploaded to the internet. It garnered enough interest to get the local news organizations and a supernatural television show involved. The combined magickal energy produced by such widespread belief has been considerable. The nearest lodge is working in conjunction with members in the local media and the city council to suppress the story, but we fear that the damage has already been done. The myth is self-sustaining and has propagated both throughout the surrounding area and in online circles. The video alone now has millions of views.”

“Then this is not a normal summoner,” the resident Grand Master mused. “He was able to obtain all of this information from an internet forum? How did this situation escape our attention for so long?”

“We must push through legislation that will allow us to take down these websites,” another of the Masons added, “seeding them with false information is a half-measure. We have to be proactive, we have to stop the spread of information at the source. Senator Griswold, you have contacts in the entertainment industry. Can we make this an extension of the digital millennium copyright act?”

“We already have members in the NSA who have been feeding us information,” one of the men replied, perhaps Griswold. “But these forums are often so obscure that finding them at all is a challenge. Taking them down isn’t the problem. Consider how few people will be interested in demonology or the occult, and then the minority of those people who will actually attempt a real summoning. Sometimes it can be as few as a dozen individuals sharing fragments of information.”

“There’s more,” the messenger continued, and the Grand Masters went silent. “As you well know, familiars feed on the energy of the demons to which they are bound, they cannot exist on their own. In order to free the Seirim familiar from Orobas’ control, the summoner had to awaken the Seirim’s original master.”

A concerned murmur spread through the court, a few of the less knowledgeable Grand Masters looking about in confusion as they waited for him to elaborate.

“The original progenitor of the Seirim is the Watcher, Azazel,” the messenger explained.

“Impossible,” a member of the court scoffed. “No novice could summon a fallen Angel, it would tear him apart on the spot. Even an experienced wizard would have to take special precautions.”

“We have reason to believe that the magickal energy accrued was enough to awaken and free him, along with the entire Seirim tribe. Millions of people saw the internet video, thousands more saw Azazel’s sigil, as the summoner seems to have drawn it everywhere. Azazel may have gained enough power to manifest in our plane.”

The resident Grand Master considered, stroking his beard as he absorbed what he had been told.

“If this information is accurate,” he began, “then strict measures must be taken. We can’t very well have Watchers running around unsupervised. It is our duty to ensure that knowledge of the occult is suppressed, it must remain under the unique control of the Freemasons if we are to maintain order in the world.”

“Do we have a contingency plan for this situation?” one of the Grand Masters in the stand asked.

“Yes, this should be treated as a high-level summoning gone awry. Contact the most experienced wizards in the state and have them convene a meeting. We can’t afford any delays, there’s no time to bring people in from overseas. We’re going to need contracts written up for high-level demons, and they’ll need to be ironclad if we’re going to be operating in a major population center. Get in touch with local law enforcement and have them be ready, we’ll need to send in a special response team to clean this mess up.”

“As you wish, honorable Grand Master,” the messenger said as he bowed again. He had expected to receive such orders. After all, it often took a demon to catch a demon.

“Watchers are fickle creatures,” the resident Grand Master added, “we can’t be sure what kind of relationship it has with the summoner. Relay my concerns, I don’t want any mistakes. You are dismissed.”

The messenger bowed once more, then turned and marched back towards the safety of the oak doors. Although he was not usually privy to such highly sensitive information, rumors usually made their way down through the lesser degrees, and he had never heard of a Watcher being awakened before. They were fallen Angels, Seraphim, holy beings that had been cast out of heaven for their transgressions during the antediluvian period. Azazel was prominent among them, best known for fornicating with human women in order to produce a tribe of Satyrs known as the Seirim and for teaching mankind forbidden knowledge.

If such a creature was free to roam the Earth once again, then who knew what kind of havoc it might be causing? One thing was for sure, he didn’t envy the poor summoner. The man probably had no idea what he had gotten himself into, and his death warrant had just been signed...


Ryan stepped through the door of his apartment, shrugging off his jacket and hanging it up on the coat rack. The sweet scents of cooking were already reaching his nose, Nahash must be preparing dinner. He spotted her in the kitchen, hunched over the stove due to her exaggerated stature, the massive Seirim was hard to miss.

She stood tall enough that her crown of half a dozen twisted, black horns scraped the ceiling, protruding from the soft wool that lined her head and neck. The mane of feathery, white material stopped at her collar and shoulders like an Elizabethan ruff, where it tapered into ashen skin, smooth and clear. A pair of heavy, full breasts hung from her chest, swaying gently as she stirred something that was cooking in a pot on the range. They were as large as his head but appropriate on her massive frame.

Her belly was soft and paunchy, her hips and thighs curved and feminine to give her a full and comely figure. At her elbows and knees, the fluffy wool began anew, covering her forearms and her lower legs. Her arms ended in three-fingered hands, two digits and a thumb, which were tipped with black nails that were almost sharp enough to be described as claws. Her legs were bent like those of a goat, ending in cloven hooves that looked like they might belong to a cow or a deer.

He watched one of her ovine ears flick as she sensed his arrival, turning to greet him in her musical voice. It was husky and feminine, unearthly, almost sounding like it was being run through a synthesizer. It was beautiful in a way, hypnotic.

“Welcome home, Ryan,” she cooed.

She smiled at him, her golden eyes brightening. Her face was a little odd at first glance, but he had gotten so used to her appearance by now that to him it seemed flawless. It wasn’t quite that of a goat and not quite that of a woman, more like something between the two. Her features were softer and subtler than those of an animal, with an almost imperceptible snout, her clear face framed by her mane of soft wool. Her nose was undeniably that of a goat, the same pink color as her lips and her nipples. Her eyes were amber in color and sported the horizontal pupils of a sheep, her long lashes batting at him as he drew close.

Ryan sidled up behind her, wrapping his arms around her wide hips and burying his face in her back, the Satyr too tall for him to reach her fluffy head. Her flesh was warm and yielding, his fingers sinking into the pleasant dough of her belly, her skin as soft as silk despite its unhealthy color. She was wide enough that his fingers scarcely met on the other side, the generous cushion of her plump rear pressing against him as she chuckled to herself.

“Did you miss me so terribly?”

“Always,” he sighed, breathing in her flowery scent as she stirred. “What are you making?”

“Does it matter?”

He had to admit that it probably didn’t. One of her many powers was the ability to influence his senses, making him taste, smell and feel anything that she desired. She could make water taste like the finest wine, or a pot noodle taste like food cooked by a gourmet chef. Whatever she was making, it would be divine once it touched his tongue.

It had been almost two weeks since she had been freed from Orobas’ service now. Ryan had summoned the Goetic demon in a last-ditch attempt to get his life back on track, never really expecting it to work. The entity had used its powers to secure him a high-paying job, along with various other resources that had seen him go from being unable to pay his rent, to working a dream job that paid more than he could ever hope to spend. Wealth had not been his goal, however. It was merely a side effect, and it was one of the reasons that the summoning had gone so well. Demons did not take kindly to greed, they would only give you what you needed.

Ryan’s needs had been urgent and genuine, he was not merely in search of undeserved riches or unwarranted power. He had drawn up a contract with Orobas, and the demon had exceeded all of his expectations, rescuing him from the brink of poverty and depression.

During its work, the demon had assigned Nahash to him as a familiar, her job being to act as an intermediary and to help Ryan sleep with her uncanny powers. She could induce a relaxation in him that would overpower even the most troubled mind, allowing him to sleep properly for the first time in months.

He had quickly fallen in love with her, and after a long and arduous process, he had succeeded in freeing her from the demon’s control. The Seirim were Pagan deities, sustained by the belief of mortals. As the legends of Satyrs roaming the untamed wilds had slowly faded, her tribe had been forced to enter into the service of more powerful entities, living off their energy to survive. Ryan had managed to rekindle belief in them by starting a myth, resurrecting their patriarch Azazel and securing a new source of vital energy for them.

As a reward for his efforts, the ancient Watcher had crafted a ring for Ryan, black as night and engraved with arcane runes. It was both a wedding band and an object of binding, an item that would bind a demonic entity and allow it to manifest without the need of complex summoning circles and rituals.

Nahash was drawn to the ring like a moth to a flame, and as long as he wore it, she would be able to find him anywhere in the world. He liked to keep the old chalk circle that had been drawn on the floor of his apartment all the same, it gave her the run of the place, letting her manifest here when he was at work.

She had been acting as his doting housewife since she had been freed, enjoying the mundane aspects of human life that were still a novelty to her after spending countless centuries in the formless void where demons resided.

“So what did you do today?” Ryan asked, taking a step back and releasing her from his bear hug. “Anything interesting?”

“I’ve been using the internet,” she replied, her attention still firmly focused on her food. “Humans have certainly been busy over the last few thousand years, it makes for interesting reading.”

“I can imagine,” he laughed, taking a seat at the kitchen table and drinking in her figure as she worked. “How’s the power situation?”

“Strong,” Nahash replied, knowing that he was referring to the energy that she used to manifest in the physical world. “It has been a very long time since I have felt this ... material.”

Prior to Ryan freeing her, Nahash had only been able to make use of what little energy Orobas could spare, meaning that she could only manifest when necessary and for limited periods of time. Energy was everything to a demon, it was their currency and their life force, accrued through the belief of mortals. The more worshipers and believers an entity had, the more powerful it became, able to expend that energy in greater quantities in order to increase its influence. When a demon was forgotten and ran out of energy, they either faded into nothing, or they entered into the service of a more powerful demon. Most demons had legions of servants and lesser entities to do their bidding, Nahash had been one of them until recently.

Ryan’s scheme seemed to be keeping her and her sisters fed, that was good. The media storm around what was now referred to as the haunted forest had been immense and was still being fueled by blurry videos of the Seirim that now inhabited the woods, filmed by mystery hunters and cryptozoologists who had traveled from far and wide to investigate.

He hadn’t seen head nor tail of Azazel since their last encounter at the bonfire, the Watcher seemed to have vanished from the face of the Earth. It was probably for the best. Despite the creature never showing any ill will towards Ryan, it exuded an aura of palpable unnaturalness that made him wary and uneasy.

Nahash interrupted the thought, placing a bowl of what looked like tomato soup in front of him, standing with her hands on her wide hips as she waited for him to taste it.

“What’s this?” Ryan asked, picking up the spoon and stirring it. There were floating spices in the thick liquid, perhaps basil or thyme.

“Doesn’t matter,” she replied with a smirk, “eat it.”

As he brought the spoon up towards his lips, he felt a familiar warmth overcome him, as though he had been draped in an invisible blanket. It permeated him to the core, making him feel comfortable and drowsy. The hairs on his arms and neck stood on end, and he felt Nahash’s warm breath on his skin as she leaned closer to whisper in his ear.

“Eat,” Nahash breathed. Her musical voice was low and husky, seductive. He could almost make out the faint sounds of instruments accompanying her as if heard from a great distance.

She was using her powers on him, his mind growing foggy and muddled as she manipulated his senses. It was a kind of dull euphoria, irresistible and overpowering. As soon as he felt the warm liquid touch his tongue, he was assailed by an explosion of flavor. It was the most delicious thing that he had ever tasted, sweet and savory flavors mingling to produce a wonderful contradiction, ambrosial and divine. It was food fit for the Gods, every swallow bringing with it new and unexpected tastes, as if she had somehow combined every spice and herb that existed into a single dish.

He ate like it was going out of style, wanting to taste every last drop of the soup before the wonderful sensation subsided. When the final spoonful had been swallowed, Nahash released her hold on his mind, Ryan snapping out of his trance-like state. He blinked to clear his eyes, glancing up at the Seirim as she smiled down at him, an unearthly glow slowly fading from her golden eyes.

“You never disappoint,” he chuckled.


The armored truck bounced along the city street, the SWAT team that was seated in the cramped interior checking their submachine guns and adjusting their helmets as they neared their target. The half a dozen police officers were clad in matching black body armor, their uniforms beneath the tactical vests and protective padding a shade of dark blue. They wore balaclavas and ballistic goggles beneath their helmets, all the better to conceal their identities should things go awry. The patches and lettering that would have denoted their police department were absent, but that wouldn’t be noticeable to a bystander. As long as nobody inspected them too closely, they would look like any other armed response unit.

The call had come through from the Grand Lodge, there was a priority target that needed to be dealt with quickly and quietly. There were Freemasons in every branch of the city’s police department, the commissioner included, and it was a trivial task to orchestrate this kind of operation. Any non-Mason officers in the area had been called away, and their counterparts in the emergency services had been tipped off. They wouldn’t respond to any calls from this block until the raid had concluded, it was on lockdown.

They would get in fast, take out the target, and then falsify the paperwork. The records would show that one Ryan Cutter had called in a false police report claiming to have hostages and that he had opened fire on the officers when they had stormed his apartment, intending to commit suicide by cop. One of the officers had a weapon ready to plant, a handgun with the serial marks filed off, untraceable. The paramedics would arrive too late to save him, it had already been decided.

“The target has a familiar,” one of them said, raising his voice over the sound of the engine. “Mike, did you prepare the vessel?”

The officer that he was referring to brandished a brass container, roughly the size of a coffee mug, designed to serve as a vessel that would contain a demonic entity while being as compact as possible. Like a Genie in a lamp, the demon could be commanded into it using the correct seals and wards.

“The seal of Solomon is ready,” Mike replied, “I’ll take care of it. Just make sure your wards are visible, we don’t know how much energy this thing has loaded up with. The Grand Master said it was a Satyr, and there isn’t much info on them. Near as we can tell, they’ve not been sighted for hundreds of years.”

“Do we have backup?” another of the masked men asked.

“Halphas is seeing us to our destination,” Mike replied, “and if the familiar gives us too much trouble we have Haures on standby.”

“Is that necessary?” one of the others asked. “We’re in an armored truck, and nobody knows we’re coming. I don’t want to be anywhere near Haures if shit hits the fan.”

Mike shrugged his shoulders, bouncing in his seat as the van went over a pothole.

“They don’t want any fuckups on this one, this guy is apparently a big deal. He’s already summoned one demon, we can’t be sure that he hasn’t done it again. There are plenty of lesser demons who could have tipped him off. Speaking of which, where the fuck is Malphas?”

A terrible stench of sulfur filled the truck, and their eyes were drawn to a shape in the middle of the floor. It was as if all of the shadows in the compartment had coalesced into a single point, blacker than black, creating a darkness from which a writhing shape emerged. It was twisted and formless, seen with the mind as much as with one’s eyes as if it was projecting an image directly into their brains like a hologram. Their breath crystallized as the temperature in the truck plummeted, the air thick with acrid fumes as the shape became solid, manifesting in the form of a small and unassuming crow.

The little bird hopped up onto Mike’s lap, flapping its wings as they watched it. It opened its beak and began to speak in the voice of a man, hoarse and guttural.

“I have done as bidden,” the demon croaked. “The mind of thy enemy is clear of suspicion. He knoweth not that you approach, he knoweth not of thy secret order, nor has he taken any measures to shield himself from magickal threats. I cannot see into the mind of the Seirim, her powers cloud my vision.”

Malphas had the power to see into the minds of his master’s enemies, able to relay their thoughts and desires. It was an incredibly useful tool that made being taken by surprise almost impossible. If the target had set up an ambush or knew that they were coming, the team would be warned well in advance. The Seirim was an enigma it seemed, but it was unlikely to take any actions without the approval of its master.

“Your work is complete Malphas,” Mike said, “return to the magician who summoned you and complete your contract.”

The demon bowed its tiny head, and then it was gone as abruptly as it had appeared.

“We’re coming up on the apartment block, two minutes,” the driver called out from the cab.

“Alright, lock and load people,” another of the masked men ordered. “Let’s do this by the book.”

There was a chorus of clicks and clatters as the team loaded their weapons and chambered rounds, checking safeties and affixing silencers. They were all equipped with H&K UMPs besides Mike, who was sporting a pump action shotgun. The submachine guns were accurate and incredibly quiet with a suppressor, even in the close confines of an apartment block the sound wouldn’t carry too far. They could kick out six hundred rounds of nine-millimeter parabellum per minute on full-auto, with a thirty round magazine, enough to turn Cutter into Swiss cheese and to obliterate whatever physical form his familiar had taken.

That was the problem with manifesting in the flesh. A soul was invulnerable to damage, but most demons would succumb to a shotgun blast to the face just as well as any human. Once they smoked the thing, it should be weak enough that they could seal it inside the brass vessel. Assuming that the entity wasn’t jacked up on energy of course.

The truck pulled up and came to a stop, the SWAT team piling out of the back with their weapons shouldered. They were in the parking lot of a fairly average apartment block, deserted save for a handful of shitty cars and one old lady who was pushing a walker on the other side of the street. The sun had set, and the stars were just peeking out through the cloud layer. The building was tall and made from ugly concrete, it looked like a miserable place to live. This Cutter guy had used Orobas to land himself a high paying job, why had he not moved out?

Their target was on the eighth floor, and the building had no elevator. Fantastic. Mike took point and waved the team forward, the SWAT team making for the stairwell.


Ryan opened his eyes groggily, rubbing them as he sat up and got his bearings. Nahash was sitting next to him on the couch, her massive frame cushioning him with its soft flesh and downy wool. He looked around the room, night had fallen, and the streaming service that they had been watching on the television had paused their show at some point. Everything was dark besides the pale glow from the screen, casting them in deep shadows. He must have fallen asleep.

“Nahash, did you put me to sleep?” he grumbled. He leaned his weight on her as he felt her long arm curl around his shoulder. Her original task when she had been assigned to him by Orobas had been to help him sleep, and whether by association or through her insidious magick, he always seemed to get drowsy whenever they were sat together for long enough. It was like her fleece was laced with sleeping powder.

She curled her fingers around his head and guided his face into her chest, pressing it into the soft wool, her bare breasts scarcely an inch beneath his chin. They hung free, large and heavy enough that they would have snapped the spine of a mortal woman, but Nahash carried them easily on her massive frame. Besides, her weight was ... wrong. She should be far heavier than she actually was, judging by her immense size. It was as if her body wasn’t entirely solid, or like she was able to modulate it through magickal means, the weighty globes held aloft as if by some invisible force. These were certainly physical manifestations, their mass such that he would have needed two arms to lift one, her supple flesh deforming and yielding wonderfully beneath his hands like putty when he kneaded them.

She was so warm and inviting, her skin as smooth as glass and as soft as velvet where it wasn’t covered in her white fur. He took the liberty of wrapping an arm around her waist, letting his fingers sink deep into the plump flesh of her hip as he breathed in her earthy scent, the delicate strands of her wool tickling his nose. She smelled a little like wet soil, bringing to mind images of droplets of dew clinging to blades of grass and the sprawling forests that she called her home.

They would be headed off to bed soon, and Seirim were creatures that reveled in earthly pleasures. In the weeks that they had been together, they had made love every night, usually more than once. Tonight would be no exception. He looked forward to sharing a bed with her again from the moment that he was forced to leave her side each morning.

“No,” she replied, her voice low and husky. “I’ve not needed to ease you into sleep for some time. It seems that your troubled mind has been calmed.”

Ryan heard a knock at the door, the hollow sound echoing through the apartment. He rose to a sitting position, looking up at Nahash in confusion.

“Who can that be? Did you order a pizza or any takeout?”

Nahash had taken to ordering random items from the various fast food menus that were still scattered about, a relic from his battle with depression. She wanted to taste the largest variety of food possible as if making up for lost time. After spending centuries imprisoned in the soup of formless thought and emotion that was the demonic realm, he could understand her desire to make the most of having a sense of taste.

She shook her head.

“No, I didn’t order anything. Stay here, I’ll see who it is.”

Nahash rose from her seat on the couch, morphing before Ryan’s very eyes as she crossed the room. She was able to take the form of a lanky, platinum blonde that she called Natasha when she had to appear before humans other than Ryan. He still wasn’t quite sure if she was actually able to change her physical manifestation, or if she just influenced people’s senses so that they perceived her differently. Based on what he knew about how her powers functioned, the latter was perhaps more likely.

He watched as her white wool gave way to flowing, curly hair. Her massive frame shrank down to a more modest six feet, the Seirim’s exaggerated figure narrowing and slimming. Even as Natasha she was still a beast of a woman. She looked like a Russian or perhaps a Scandinavian supermodel with a perm. This was after his pleas for her to make her disguise a little less conspicuous, as nobody would have believed that someone like him could land someone like her. She had been even taller and more endowed before she had reluctantly agreed to his demands.

As she neared the door, casual clothes grew around her, a pair of worn jeans and a loose fitting t-shirt covering her nude body. Another of Ryan’s suggestions.

From his seat on the couch, he watched her open the door across the open-plan apartment. Almost as soon as it had swung ajar, there was a sound like a stick snapping, muted but loud enough that he heard it across the room. There were two more cracks, and Nahash took a couple of stumbling steps backwards. Sensing that something was very wrong, Ryan rose to his feet, his blood running cold as she turned towards him. Nahash was holding her belly, and as she pulled her hands awa, y he saw a dark streak of crimson staining her clothing. She looked up at him in confusion.

“Ryan... ?”

Before the plea had even left her lips, a dark figure pushed through the door and entered the apartment. Ryan had seen enough movies to know that the long, black barrel that he was pointing at her head was some kind of shotgun. The man was clad in what looked like a police uniform, with the black body armor and helmet that identified him as SWAT or some kind of special forces soldier.

Everything seemed to be running in slow motion, like time had been slowed to a crawl. Without breaking stride, the intruder pulled the trigger, a sound like a jackhammer ringing out through the apartment. If Nahash had been a human, the shot would have exploded her head like a melon. Instead, she fell sideways, knocked off her feet by the blast. Halfway through her fall, she seemed to burst, her corporeal body melting into what looked like a cloud of dark ink that had been poured into a glass of water. The smear of black gas spread through the air like a stain on white linen, slowing until it seemed to hang there, frozen.

Ryan watched in horror as a red casing bounced out of the gun’s receiver to clatter to the wood floor, two more men wearing matching uniforms pushing through the door. They were also armed, and they pointed what looked like submachine guns at him, shouldered and ready to fire.

It was all happening so quickly. Naught but a couple of seconds had passed since the first shot, and even as he tried to react, his body moved like he was underwater. His synapses were firing faster than this body could react to the commands. The men’s faces were featureless, obscured by opaque goggles and ski masks, their movements precise and rehearsed. In another second he would be dead, and he wouldn’t even know why...

He braced himself for the pain, but then something moved in his peripheral vision. The cloud of dark ink that had been Nahash shifted, springing back to life, moving across the room so quickly that he could scarcely process it.

The dark stain on reality put itself between Ryan and his assailants, coalescing into a solid shape as more muted gunshots rang out. Ryan flinched away, but the wall of shifting smoke seemed to have absorbed the bullets.

It took shape, as if all of the shadows in the room were coming together to form a vaguely humanoid silhouette. The lights flickered, the television screen hissing with static. Ryan realized that he was standing above the chalk summoning circle that was still drawn onto the floor beneath the couch. It was the one spot in the apartment where all of the magickal energy was concentrated. The circle acted as a bridge between worlds, drawing ambient energy towards it like a magnet, a conduit that would give a demon enough energy to manifest.

The figure sprouted horns, rising to eight or nine feet, white wool growing from the black sludge. Nahash now stood before Ryan in her Seirim form, her back to him as she faced off against the intruders, hunched like a beast ready to pounce. She wasn’t dead? Could a demon be destroyed by a mortal weapon like a gun? There was no blood on her white fur, and she didn’t seem to be injured.

She was exuding an aura of menace, the temperature in the room plummeting such that Ryan could see his own breath condensating in white puffs. She glanced back at him, her amber eyes burning like hot coals, her usually soft features twisted into a savage snarl. He wanted to ask her if she was hurt, if she was going to be okay. He wanted to express his relief, but he was being assailed by so many powerful emotions in such quick succession that he couldn’t muster as much as a word. Fear, loss, relief. His brain was being turned to mush.

“She’s juiced up,” one of the men called out, his voice muffled by his mask. “Get the seal!”

More men piled into the small apartment, six in all, their weapons aimed at Nahash. They didn’t seem remotely perturbed by the presence of a giant demon goat standing right in front of them. Who were these people?

A glint caught his eye, and he noticed that they were wearing matching pendants around their necks on the outside of their clothing. He recognized the symbols that were etched onto them, it was a Pentagonal Figure of Solomon, a ward designed to shield the wearer from demonic attack. Those wouldn’t work very well against a Seirim. While the ward might give a lesser demon pause for thought, without knowing that entity’s personal sigil and having it engraved on the other side of the pendant, it wouldn’t do them a lot of good. Nahash shared her sigil with Azazel, a powerful Watcher who could not be compelled by such tricks and trinkets.

Nahash moved to attack, lunging towards the men, but the one holding the shotgun brandished some kind of badge. It was made from brass, decorated with a figure that resembled a rough pyramid, ringed by arcane runes and incantations. The Secret Seal of Solomon, a ward designed to compel a demonic entity into a brass vessel, trapping it as King Solomon was said to have done in his day.

Ryan had studied these tools and had even used some of them during his attempts at summoning. Were these men here for Nahash?

The Seirim shuddered as if some invisible force had overtaken her, stopped in her tracks. The man withdrew a small, brass bottle from his pocket as he let the shotgun hang from a strap about his chest. The container was about the size of a soda can or a coffee cup. He began to recite incantations under his breath in a language that Ryan couldn’t understand, perhaps Hebrew or Aramaic, rhythmic and trance-like. Nahash’s form flickered, becoming less solid as if he could see right through her. He knew this ritual, they were attempting to confine her to the vessel!

He had to act quickly, he might only have seconds left to intervene before her spirit was contained and she was sealed forever. They could close the vessel with a lead cap and drop it into the ocean for all he knew, she would never be able to free herself. But what could he do against a squad of armed men? Only Nahash’s massive body was shielding him from the hail of bullets that would no doubt spell his demise.

Beginning to panic, he looked around the room, trying to find some kind of tool or weapon that was close enough to reach. He had to distract the man who was reciting the incantation. If his concentration was broken even for a moment, then it might give Nahash time to break free. The other men were slowly inching around her flickering form in an attempt to get a shot at him. She was still fighting against the spell, struggling as if she was battling physical restraints.

All that was in reach was the couch and the remote for the TV.

A spark of inspiration came to him, and he picked up the remote, inching backwards to put the couch between him and the armed goons. One of the first things that he had bought since landing his new job was a modern media center with a large flat-screen and a powerful surround sound system. The TV was still on, and he cranked the volume up to max, hitting play on the movie that they had been watching earlier.

Immediately the floor began to shake as an action scene resumed, the powerful sound system blasting the noise of a car chase, clashing metal and revving engines drowning out the incantation. The SWAT team likely had hearing protection on, but the distraction was enough to interrupt the spell, Nahash taking advantage of their momentary lapse in concentration.

She charged the man wielding the brazen ward, knocking it from his gloved hands. As soon as she moved there was a hail of gunfire, bullets whizzing through the air as the noise overpowered even the sound of the film that was coming through the speakers. They were firing their weapons on full auto, the projectiles digging holes in the far wall and destroying the furniture. Glasses in the kitchen shattered along with the windows, a container of milk that had been sitting on the table exploding as a bullet tore through it. The television sparked and went dark as a stray round hit it, the microwave exploded into a cloud of smoke and the cabinets splintered, books on his shelf erupting into plumes of shredded paper.

Ryan dove behind the couch, hearing the bullets as they whizzed past not an inch above his head, sending bursts of stuffing spraying into the air where they impacted the cushions and armrests. The wooden frame of the couch seemed to be shielding him for the most part.

He heard the signature crack of the shotgun, peeking up from his hiding spot to see Nahash tear the weapon from the man’s hands. She delivered a powerful kick to his chest with her cloven hoof that sent him flying into the wall behind him, the drywall denting and crumbling as it fell down around him. It seemed that their weapons were no longer doing the job, not now that Nahash was inside the circle and charged up with energy.

He had never seen her like this before, she was ferocious, wild. Her sheer size and strength made her formidable in such close quarters, she was throwing her assailants around like they were dolls. He ducked in alarm as she flung one of them towards the couch, the flailing man passing clear over his head and smashing through the already broken window in the living room. They were on the eighth floor, there was no way that guy would survive a fall from that height.

She gored another with her horns, impaling him through his vest. Apparently, it wasn’t demon horn-proof. She lifted him off the ground like an angry bull, blood pouring from his wounds as she swung her head and sent him flying into the glass coffee table.

Suddenly Nahash was stopped in her tracks again. The man who had been reciting the incantation had pulled himself free of the half-collapsed wall. He had recovered his Seal of Solomon and was resuming his spell as he waved it at her. She twitched and shuddered, his words staying her rampage as she was rooted to the spot. The speakers were no longer working, the game console that they were hooked up to must have caught a bullet.

Ryan sprang into action, throwing himself towards the prone figure that was lying in a heap in the ruins of the coffee table in front of the couch. He fumbled with the man’s weapon, still attached to him via a sling, struggling to free it from the motionless body. There was broken glass and blood all over the floorboards, Ryan trying not to think about it as he succeeded in freeing the weapon.

He had never fired a gun before in his life, but he had seen them in movies, played with them in video games. Just point and shoot, how hard could it be?

One of the surviving team members was rising unsteadily to his feet after having been flung into the kitchen, struggling to get his bearings. Ryan aimed the gun and squeezed the trigger.

Immediately the weapon jumped in his hands, the recoil strong enough that the last few rounds of the burst went into the ceiling directly above him, showering him with dust and debris. Ryan struggled to get the weapon under control, the noise making his ears ring like he had tinnitus. Even a poor marksman couldn’t have missed a person from ten feet away with an automatic weapon, and he watched with a mixture of pride and horror as his target slumped over, bringing the kitchen table down with him as he crashed back to the floor.

Ryan turned towards the man who was casting the spell, Nahash’s shivering form was directly between the two of them, and he couldn’t get a clear shot. He edged around her, bracing the stock of the gun against his shoulder as he had seen the SWAT team do. The man was already drawing a sidearm from his vest, keeping the bronze badge held in one hand as he chanted.

Nahash was tall and wide, but she was standing an open-legged posture, frozen in position like a statue. The man took advantage of that to fire off a round between her legs, the bullet narrowly missing Ryan’s foot as it chewed up the wood flooring.

Ryan danced out of the way, retreating back behind the couch. Surely this guy couldn’t keep his attention on both Ryan and Nahash? He couldn’t participate in a gunfight and recite a complex incantation at the same time. Ryan had to act quickly, dropping to a crouch and scooting around the back of the couch. A bullet tore through the lining where he had been a moment earlier, that round would have found its mark if he had been a second slower.

Keeping his body out of view, he raised the gun over the back of the couch and pumped the trigger, loosing a few random shots. They didn’t seem to do a thing to Nahash, and so there was little danger of accidentally wounding her. When the ringing in his ears cleared, he heard the sound of a scuffle. He peeked out of his cover to see the furious Seirim pounding the man into the floor with her powerful leg, stomping on his body until it went limp. Ryan must have provided enough of a distraction for her to break free of the spell.

She turned her head to look back at Ryan over her shoulder. The white wool on her head and neck was stained with blood that was not her own, her eyes burning with an infernal heat. He was afraid of her for a split second, and then her enraged expression softened, the Nahash that he knew and loved resurfacing.

“Ryan,” she gasped, “are you hurt?”

“Me?!” Ryan stammered, “what about you? I saw you ... for a moment I thought that you had been killed!”

“They dissipated my corporeal form with their weapon,” she explained. “But I am bound to your ring, and I cannot be so easily banished. If it was not for the circle...”

She glanced anxiously at the bare wood beneath the shredded couch where the chalk circle was still visible, it was no doubt all that had permitted her to reform as quickly as she had. If it had not been there, the men would have gunned Ryan down before she could intervene. Without the ring to which Azazel had bound her, perhaps her spirit would have been cast back into the immaterial realm after her body was destroyed.

“Who are these people?” Ryan wondered aloud, crouching to inspect one of the downed men. They were wearing police uniforms all right, but there were no markings, no badge numbers or identifying information that might tell him which department they belonged to.

“I do not know, I have never seen their like before. But Ryan, they were equipped to contain a demon. The Aramaic incantation, Solomon’s Seal, the brazen vessel. If you had not intervened when you did, I might have been confined to that brass jar.”

The adrenaline was wearing off now, leaving Ryan shaky and exhausted. He felt sick, the carnage in the apartment was turning his stomach. He had never realized that blood had its own smell before, metallic and cloying.

“I ... killed a guy,” he muttered. “I think I killed a cop. I shot him.”

“Ryan,” Nahash said, attempting to snap him out of his stupor. “We must leave, we are not safe here. More may come.”

“I have to call someone,” he said, “I have to call the police. But these are ... police. What do we do?”

“We must leave,” Nahash insisted, walking over to him and placing her hands on his shoulders. He looked up at her, staring into her amber eyes, the fog of confusion and fear seeming to clear like storm clouds parting to reveal a blue sky. He suddenly felt composed, collected, certain now of what he needed to do. Was she using her powers on him, manipulating his emotions to sharpen his mind?

He nodded vigorously.

“Should I bring anything?”

“Your wand and your grimoires, bring anything you might need to perform magick. Someone, somewhere knows that we are here. These mortals were well prepared, I fear that it is only by chance that we prevailed.”

He wasted no time, collecting his books and the summoning gear that was laid out conveniently on a table beneath the living room window, intended to be within reach of the summoning circle if he should ever need them. It appeared that none of the dusty tomes had been hit by stray bullets, but anything on the bookshelf a few feet to its right was toast. He had a cloth pouch filled with chalk and a wand that was fashioned from a stick. While it couldn’t shoot fireballs, it was used to direct energy and to give commands to demons.

He filled a rucksack with his belongings, taking a moment to tear one of the protective pendants from the neck of a nearby body. He retrieved the brass vessel and the Seal of Solomon too, they might come in handy at some point. These were nothing like the makeshift wards and seals that he had crafted when he had first summoned Orobas, these appeared to be professionally made. They were sturdy, forged from metal rather than drawn on paper, their carved runes and symbols intricate and precise.

Just who were these guys, demon hunters? Ryan had never bothered anyone in his life, why would they come after him? Were they just after Nahash?

He paused when he noticed a black handgun lying beside one of the motionless police officers. Should he bring a weapon? He might need to defend himself, and it was probably better to have one and not need it than to need one and not have it. He couldn’t wander around with a machine gun, but he could easily conceal a pistol in his bag. He stooped to pick it up, examining the weapon and turning it over in his hands.

Guns had safeties, right? He should probably find it, or the weapon might go off in his pack. There was a click as he flipped a small lever just below the receiver, it only had two settings, and so that was probably the safety. He aimed the weapon away from himself and squeezed the trigger tentatively, but it didn’t fire.

Ryan took a moment to look around the apartment. It was completely destroyed, littered with debris and bodies. It looked like a war zone, there were shell casings all over the floor, bullet holes in every surface and appliance. He had to hope that his neighbors were safe and that no stray bullets had made their way into the adjacent apartments in the building. He stowed the weapon in his bag and then slung it over his shoulder.

“Alright Nahash, let’s get out of here. What did you have in mind?”

“We will take your car, beyond that I do not know. We should leave this city, we might seek sanctuary in the forest with my sister Seirim. But I fear that if these people know of me, then they may know of them too.”

“Azazel wouldn’t let any harm come to them,” Ryan replied, trying to reassure her. She stooped and lifted him in her arms, his stomach lurching as she turned towards the window.

“Aren’t we taking the stairs?” he asked.

“This way is faster.”

She began to run, crossing the apartment alarmingly quickly on her inhumanly long legs. There was a crash as she leapt out of the window, clearing the frame of what shattered fragments of glass still remained and splintering the wood, shielding him with her body. They began to fall, Ryan closing his eyes tightly and clinging to her soft wool like a baby monkey. Nahash impacted the ground hard, her hooves making a sound like a thunderclap as the asphalt beneath them cracked, the demon absorbing the impact with her legs.

She released Ryan from her grasp, and he looked up at the window. The damage was almost unnoticeable from the ground save for the busted frame where Nahash had powered through it with her massive body. He turned towards the street and recoiled at the sight of the cop who had been thrown from the building. He was lying in a pool of congealing blood, his limbs contorted at unnatural angles.

Where were the sirens, where were the gawking pedestrians? There had just been a gunfight, where were the ambulances and the police? The parking lot and the street beyond it were a ghost town, there wasn’t so much as a solitary car driving on the road. It gave him an odd feeling of foreboding. Had nobody in the identical tower blocks that surrounded his own come out to investigate the noise?

There was a sudden chill in the air, Ryan noticing that his breath was misting again. It was a cool night, the stars visible through the cloudy sky, but not nearly cold enough to make his breath frosty. The street lamps that had been casting the road in their yellow glow flickered on and off, the darkness that surrounded them suddenly growing thick and oppressive.

“Something is coming,” he whispered.

“I sense it too,” Nahash confirmed, “a demonic energy...”

Ryan’s eyes were drawn to a point of orange light that was resting on the asphalt between the apartment complex and the street. It was an ember, the kind that a bonfire might produce. It must have floated in on the wind, but from where?

It caught fire before his eyes, bursting into a crackling flame, growing as if it was being fueled by unseen means. There was nothing there for it to burn and yet the ground was catching fire all the same. The burning flames grew and spread, licking at the air as they danced, so hot that he could feel it on his face even from twenty feet away.

From the fire emerged a dark shape, black as night and hunched like a beast made of shadows. It traversed the flames easily, stepping through them as if they were some kind of doorway, seemingly unharmed by the intense heat. As it took shape, Ryan saw its massive paws spread on the ground, tipped with wicked claws. A pair of burning eyes emerged from the roiling mass, not merely glowing, but shooting jets of flame like a blowtorch. They fixed on Ryan intently, hungry and predatory. It filled him with a primal terror the likes of which he had only felt once before, when Azazel had manifested inside his apartment for the first time.

The shadow took the form of a monstrous panther, its fur as black as soot, the beast beginning to circle them slowly as the fire that had carried it into the mortal realm faded. It was the largest big cat that Ryan had ever seen, tall enough at the shoulder that it would have reached his chest. Its black coat was rippling with muscle, powerful and primal, its body like a coiled spring.

As it walked, paws as large as Ryan’s head spreading out to take its weight, he noticed that the slaver dripping from its jaws was also aflame. It looked like molten metal, hanging from its mouth in dangling strands that melted the tar of the parking lot where they fell. Every breath that it took exhaled a plume of dark smoke like a mythical dragon.

“Haures,” Nahash whispered, her voice wavering with fear in a way that Ryan had never heard before. She was a Seirim, immortal for all intents and purposes. What kind of infernal beast might fill her with such palpable dread?

The panther spoke with the voice of a man, course and gruff, disconcerting.

“Away with thee, Seirim. I have no quarrel with thee, my contract is for him.”

“The mortal is under my protection,” she replied, taking an offensive posture as the demonic creature paced back and forth like a tiger behind the bars at a zoo. It kept those flaming eyes fixed on Ryan, unwavering and fierce, sending a chill crawling down his spine like icy fingers.

“What ... who is that?” Ryan whispered as Nahash placed herself between him and the beast.

“Haures, a Great Duke of Hell. You may know him as the sixty-fourth Goetic demon.”

A Goetic demon? Then he was far more powerful than Nahash, who was a mere familiar. Someone had conjured this creature, they had brokered a contract with it, and Ryan was its target. Had this demon been assigned the task of killing him if the SWAT team failed? Why? What made Ryan so important? He was a nobody, completely inoffensive.

“Why?” Ryan called out to the demon. “Who summoned you?”

“It matters not. I have been contracted to burn thee to a cinder. Step out from behind thy familiar, and I may grant thee the mercy of a quick demise.”

“Run Ryan,” Nahash whispered hurriedly, “run and don’t look back.”

“But what about you?” he protested, “what if-”

“As long as you wear that ring I can always find you, no matter where you are.”

He traced the runes on his onyx ring with his finger, then nodded. He turned and sprinted back towards the apartment complex, letting his adrenaline carry him. He flew across the asphalt, faster than he had ever needed to run his life, a very real devil was on his heels. He made it around the side of the building, vaulting over a few scraggly bushes as he tried to escape.

The parking lot was to the front of the high-rise, and some distance behind it was the freeway. Between them was a short stretch of dilapidated, urban woodland, the skeletal trees scarcely serving to shield the buildings from the noise of passing vehicles.

As his scuffed tennis shoes left the tarmac and found unkempt grass, a flash of flame appeared before him. Haures sprang from the puff of black smoke, pouncing onto the ground two feet in front of him, the heat that the demon gave off enough to singe his eyebrows. He skidded to a halt, digging his heels into the dirt to slow himself, the black beast crouching as it prepared to tackle him.

Nahash shot by him like a bullet, driving one of her powerful hooves into its side, kicking like a mule and sending the smoldering panther rolling across the ground. Plants caught fire where it passed, leaving a trail of flames, and it quickly leapt back to its feet.

It snarled at Nahash, the yowl of an angry cat mingling with a terrible, bestial roar that filled Ryan with an unearthly terror. It spat flames from its open jaws, pearly teeth glinting under the starlight like porcelain knives. Gripping the earth with its wicked claws, it charged the Seirim, its powerful muscles rippling beneath its velvet-black hide as it powered forward at alarming speed. Something that large and that heavy should not have been able to move with such agility.

Before he could even turn himself around, Haures had knocked Nahash to the ground. It pinned her beneath its bulk, her white wool singing from its proximity alone, the fluffy curls turning black and shriveling as if they were recoiling from the heat.

She brayed like a goat, kicking and scratching, jabbing at Haures’ face with her crown of twisted horns. Her assailant dodged and weaved, the two of them moving faster than Ryan’s eyes could track, the clashing of their titanic bodies making the ground shake.

Haures gained the upper hand, baring its pointed canines and sinking them deep into Nahash’s neck, dark blood staining her wool as she writhed and twisted. The great panther shook her like a dog with a chew toy, maintaining its grip and sinking those cruel fangs deeper.

Fuck this, he wasn’t going to stand by and let this happen to her, whether she could reform afterwards or not. He swung his rucksack from his shoulders and rummaged inside it, quickly finding the items that he needed.

A loud crack rang out, and Haures’ savaging was interrupted, the beast raising its dripping jaws to glare at Ryan. He was holding a smoking handgun in a trembling hand, having seen how the shotgun had destroyed Nahash’s corporeal form and hoping that he could achieve the same effect.

“Brave, but foolish,” the creature growled. “I shall have thee on a pyre, boy.”

It stepped off of the motionless Seirim, its jowls red with her blood, crouching low as if stalking him. It inched closer, those flaming eyes locked onto him, so intense that he dared not meet its gaze. He could feel the aura of heat that it projected, the blades of grass beneath its feet blackening and shrinking away as they cooked.

It lunged, and Ryan stood his ground, extending his other arm towards it.

Haures faltered, skidding to a stop on the dirt, its burning eyes turning towards the brass badge that he was brandishing. It was the Secret Seal of Solomon that he had recovered after the battle in the apartment, a ward that would compel a demon to obey his commands. He didn’t have Haures’ sigil on hand, and he was nowhere near a skilled enough magician to command the demon into the brazen vessel, but it was a powerful symbol that would at least give the demon pause for thought.

“Get out of here, you fucker!”

Not exactly an Aramaic conjuration of exorcism, but Ryan was angry and scared out of his wits.

Haures seemed to be struggling against an invisible force, as if a strong wind was pushing it back, and it lunged to swipe at him with its massive paw. Ryan skipped back a few feet, knowing that this seal would not keep it away for long. It was a fully fledged Goetic demon, it would have taken an experienced summoner to call this thing into a circle and then reason with it.

The demon spat and hissed, droplets of its burning slaver landing at Ryan’s feet and sizzling as they charred the grass. He shot it again, the gunshot ringing in his ears, and Haures shuddered. It didn’t yelp in pain, nor did its furious expression change, its smoldering eyes glowing brighter as it bared its fangs at him. The bullets weren’t doing much, but it was feeling them, it had a physical body that could be damaged.

Haures took a step closer, its face morphing into a disturbingly human smile as it realized that what limited power the seal had was wearing off. It licked it chops hungrily, preparing to pounce.

Instead it lurched, Ryan peeling his eyes away from the creature to see Nahash holding its tail like a rope. She was on her feet again, still corporeal, the wool on her neck and shoulder stained crimson on one side where the beast had bitten her. Her golden eyes were glowing like a pair of headlights, she must be mustering all of the energy that was available to her. Ryan could see smoke rising from her hands where they gripped the panther’s long tail, its heat burning her palms.

She dug her cloven hooves into the soil and heaved, dragging Haures backwards and throwing it to the ground.

“Run Ryan!” she brayed, her usually musical voice taking on an eerie resemblance to that of a goat. He didn’t need to be told twice, heading off back towards the parking lot as he heard the sounds of the scuffle behind him. He had to get to his car, perhaps he could outrun this demon if they couldn’t defeat it. His instincts screamed for him to turn back and help Nahash, but there was nothing that he could do for her. He had no idea what two demonic entities doing battle entailed, but he had to hope that like with the shotgun, Nahash would only lose her physical form and not her soul.

He rounded the building and found himself in the parking lot again. He spied his car, changing course and running towards it. He reached out to open the door but quickly recoiled, the skin on his hand blistering as the metal burned him. He sucked in air through his teeth, his fingers throbbing, and then he was knocked back by a puff of dark smoke.

Haures appeared before him, Ryan scrambling to his feet as the demon snarled and snapped its jaws, standing between him and the car.

“Thy familiar is defeated, novice. I shall take great pleasure in rending thy meat from thy bones before I burn thee to a crisp. Beg for mercy if you think that thy pleas will move me. I have always been fond of theater with my meals.”

It smacked him with its massive paw, knocking him on his ass and singing his clothes where it touched them. It could probably incinerate him in an instant with a plume of hellfire, but he had pissed it off, and now it was toying with him like a cat with a mouse.

Haures let Ryan rise to his feet again, then knocked his legs out from under him with a powerful swipe. The demon sauntered over to him as he lay on the ground, confident that its prey was overcome, that same disturbing grin twisting its feline features.

A sudden movement caught Ryan’s attention, a black shape passing across the sky, blocking out the stars as he lay on his back on the asphalt. Not a second later there was a massive gust of wind that sent him tumbling, a hurricane force that buffeted the bushes and trees, followed by a tremendous impact that set off every car alarm in the lot. The flashing lights from the vehicles illuminated a truly monstrous, humanoid figure, its leathery wings folding into its back as it stood with one foot on top of Haures’ writhing body.

It was ten feet tall at least, broad-shouldered and muscular. Two sharp horns sprouted from its head, curling into two enormous and ornate spirals, the unmistakable horns of a ram or an ibex. Dark fur grew all over its body, a shaggy coat of long, black hair that obscured many of its features. It had the long beard of a goat and massive, cloven hooves that tipped its ovine legs, not unlike those of Nahash yet far larger in scale.

Its head was that of a goat, with no human features to speak of, a third eye glowing like a hot coal in the center of its hairy forehead. It exuded power and menace as if an aura of dread surrounded it like a miasma, giving Ryan the distinct impression that this thing should not exist.

It was Azazel, the fallen Watcher, Patriarch of the Seirim.

The nightmare creature had crushed Haures beneath its hoof, the panther squirming and writhing as the asphalt beneath its body melted and steamed. Azazel released it, and the demon sprang away from the fallen Angel, glaring up at its trio of eyes. Haures was afraid, Ryan realized, wounded too by the looks of it. There was a nasty tear in its side where thick, glowing fluid that looked like magma was oozing forth.

“Ryan Cutter,” Azazel brayed, setting the hair on his arms on end. Its booming voice had a flanging effect like two people were speaking at once, as if a man and a goat were sharing the same body. “There is a game afoot, and it would be a shame to see thee fall at the first hurdle.”

Azazel put itself between Ryan and Haures, the demon panther shrinking back in fear. How would the creature respond? It was a Goetic demon, summoned and contracted for one purpose. Ryan had never heard of a demon failing to accomplish a reasonable task before, nor had he ever heard of them abandoning their objective, not when their contract was properly thought out.

“This mortal is my mark, Watcher. I have no quarrel with thee.”

Azazel extended its furry arm towards the night sky, opening its thick, clawed fingers as if preparing to grasp something. Shadows were drawn to it, blacker than black, swirling like a whirlwind to create a shaft. They became solid, what looked like a wooden pole appearing before Ryan’s eyes. It must have been fifteen feet long. The Watcher planted the haft in the ground, and then the tip burst into violent, roaring flames. It seemed to burn itself out quickly, leaving a glowing slab of metal in its wake, the molten material forming an axe head. It was a gigantic halberd, conjured from thin air.

Haures made to flee, but Azazel gripped the phantom weapon with both hands and drove its pointed tip into the panther’s side. Magma spilled forth like blood, the demon yowling like a wounded cat. As its paws scrabbled to find purchase on the asphalt, Azazel raised the halberd above its head and brought the axe down on Haures’ midsection. It dug deep into the ground, cleaving the demon into two clean halves. A look of horror was frozen on the creature’s face as its smoldering eyes cooled and it dissipated into a smear of black ink.

His heart pounding in his ears, Ryan rose slowly to his feet, his legs trembling as Azazel turned to face him. The unholy abomination was grinning, baring its tombstone teeth as it examined him with its horizontal pupils.

“Consider thy favor repaid, Ryan Cutter. I am no guardian Angel, but I honor my debts.”

He wanted to thank the beast, but no words came to him, the Watcher looming over him with that sardonic smile. Was this all merely entertainment to this thing? It seemed to have almost limitless power, it could probably tell him exactly what was happening and what to do about it. But Azazel would rather watch this all play out it seemed, and it sounded as if Ryan could no longer count on its protection.

“To thy vehicle, Ryan Cutter. Go to the forest. Thou shalt find safe harbor there, for a time.”

Azazel began to laugh, the sound rising from deep in its throat until it became a baleful braying. It spread its massive, leathery wings, casting Ryan into shadow as it flapped them. It rose into the air, Ryan shielding his eyes from the powerful gusts of wind. The Watcher rose into the air and then vanished, shooting up into the dark sky so rapidly that he quickly lost track of it.

He was left standing alone before his car, only the cooling puddles of melted asphalt and the dead police officer who had been thrown from the window serving as proof that anything had transpired here at all.

Wrapping his hand in his sleeve, he gave the door of his car a tentative prod, feeling that the handle had cooled. He swung the door open, throwing his rucksack into the passenger seat and climbing inside. He fumbled with his car keys, then the engine revved to life. Fortunately, he hadn’t forgotten them in the scuffle. He pulled out onto the street and sped away into the night.

Chapter 2 »

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