The Summoning

Everyday I watched as the other demons get summoned to earth, and bent to the will of the insects that held dominion there. Humans. But not me. I was too strong, too powerful, to be called whenever the whims of their ways were tugged. 

Today was only the sixth time in history that I was summoned from hell to do the bidding of a human. I wasn’t even sure they remembered I existed, and if they knew, none were strong nor wise enough to summon one as powerful as me. I liked it that way, for I was exhausted of the death and destruction they used me for.

The few times I was summoned, I tended to break the world. I’ve destroyed civilizations in a blink of an eye. A stomp of my foot created could sink islands. With a wave of my hand, mountains disappeared. But today, I was perplexed. 

I felt the tug on my conscious to leave my dimension at the call of someone in need. Someone who, I was sure, had dark, twisted, diabolical thoughts. I ignored it at first, not even remembering what it felt like to be called upon. But it persisted, and I could not ignore it any longer. It had to be someone powerful if they were able to pester me incessantly, as they did. So I went to them, more out of curiosity than obligation.

I materialized in a room that was lit only by a small lamp, and the moonlight reflecting through the window. The walls were pink, and had paper with unicorns and flowers drawn on them and a wide variety of stuff animals adorned the shelves and floor. I turned, and my eyes fell on a bed with a small lump under the covers. I stepped toward it and my foot crushed a toy underneath it, sending a shrill sound into the night.

I paused confused as I tried to get my bearings. A whimper sounded from the small lump under the covers on the bed. I looked on the nightstand by it and saw the concoction that was used to bring me here.

A door slammed somewhere in the house.

“He’s coming,” a whisper came from under the covers.

I walked to the bed, kicking toys out of my way, and pulled the covers back. A girl, no older than seven was there, shaking, her wide eyes fixated on the door.

“You summoned me, girl?” I asked perplexed.

“I had no choice,” she whispered. “I can’t take it anymore.”

“Take what?” 

How could one so small not cower in my presence? Not scream in terror at the sight of me? A bruise on her arm caught me eye, another on her leg. Then, a shout floated in the room, and I heard flesh being struck, and a body fall to the ground. Footsteps came down the hallway as it dawned on me what was happening.

In an instant, I made a decision. The Deceiver lead my kind to our doom. I have been nothing but a tool of destruction since The Fall. All of it for nothing. I knew there was no going back. No redeeming myself in His eyes. But this… This I would not stand for. This evil would not be allowed in my presence.

I turned toward the door as a shadow broke the light shining in from underneath it. The door swung open and there stood her father in all his drunken mess, belt in hand and evil in his eyes. Five demons were latched on to him, whispering intoxicating words of sin into his ears. Stoking the fires of his worst thoughts and igniting them.

Once he saw me, he sobered up quickly. I moved, closing the gap between us in two strides and I grabbed him by his throat, and slammed him to the ground as gently as I could, I did not want to paralyze him even thought he deserved worse. The five demons took flight, but I burned their bodies to ash with a simple wave of the hand.

My attention went back to the weakling that could not fight temptation, that allowed himself to succumb to hate and anger.

“You have been beating on that little girl, haven’t you?” I said, my voice deep and grating.

He stuttered an unintelligible response as he stared into the eyes of something he could not scare, could not beat. Something he never knew existed. Me. A real monster.

“Listen to me closely you pathetic, brittle, sack of meat and bones. I am the worst demon in hell, I have destroyed entire civilizations, effortlessly. The devil himself would not try my blade. If I find out you ever caused harm to this little girl again, or her mother, I will come back and do things one hundred times worse than you could ever imagine. Do you understand me?”

No response came, only silence as he stared into my dark, twisted eyes, frozen with terror. I flickered out my forked tongue for effect.

“Answer me!” I roared.

He whimpered an incoherent response, and a slight nod of the head as my grip tightened on his throat. Then, I picked him up, effortlessly tossed him out the room, and closed the door.

“Little girl, what is your name?” I asked, turning back to the bed.

“Kayla,” she responded, her voice small but steady.

“Never summon any other. My kind does not know honor or civility. It is dangerous. There are not many that think the way I do. Summon me, if you ever have need me again.”

Then, I was gone, back to my dimension, knowing Kayla changed me. A human child showed me that some monsters are greater than others. And sometimes monsters had to protect things that could not protect themselves. Redemption was beyond my reach, but that did not mean I could not change my ways. So I watched Kayla, and waited, in case she needed to call on me again.