“Dude! It finally came!” His roommate barely withheld his excitement as he barreled into the living room of their apartment with a package in his hand. “Check it out, Logan.” He smiled as he tore at the brown paper surrounding his purchase. 

         As he ripped the covering off the package, bits and pieces scattered all across the floor of the living room like confetti. For a second Logan thought about lecturing Rafe about not making a mess of their apartment, but who was he kidding? This place was already a shithole. At least some half-assed confetti would make it feel a little livelier.

      His roommate was your stereotypical stoner archetype. Seriously, he looked like he belonged in a hippie van solving mysteries with a Great Dane. Rafe ’s long, blond hair was always greasy and unkempt, and the smell of the sweet leaf reeked off him so frequently that most people just assumed he was using a hemp-laced cologne. To top off his look, Rafe wore a bit of scruff on his chin in the shape of a rough soul patch, as well as a t-shirt with the logo of whatever old-school rock band or metal band that he was currently listening to.

           Logan's friend was giddy as he removed the final piece of packaging to reveal a leather-bound book that had to at least be a hundred years old. The book’s pages were wrinkled and dirty, the cover had scuffs all over it, and the spine was screaming for dear life as if it held onto the pages by only a single thread. Logan was surprised that it didn’t crumble into dust the second it touched Rafe's fingers. He jokingly blew on the cover to remove the nonexistent dust, brushed it off with his left hand, and then started to flip through the pages eagerly.

     “What did you get?” Logan groaned because he had already guessed.

      “The answer to all our problems!” His roommate slammed the book closed with a giggle and grinned proudly as he handed Logan his new reading material.

       Logan took the ancient tome from him as if he was accepting a venomous snake. This thing was hundreds of pages long and had definitely seen a lot of use over its lifetime. He looked at the title- Your Guild to Realms, for Our Time.

      “Did you seriously buy another demon book?” He questioned the scraggly man.

      “Bro, not just any Multi universe book,” he tried to explain. “This is the big one. The big tuna. The book to end all books. The one book to rule them all—”

        “I get it,” Logan chuckled. “This thing looks old as fuck, where did you get it?”

         “The internet is a wonderful place, my friend,” Rafe clicked his tongue at my question. “I found it on this obscure occult website and had it shipped in from Russia. It only cost two-hundred dollars!”

         “Wait,” Logan sighed. “That wouldn’t happen to have been the 

  two-hundred dollars I gave you for rent now, would it?”

      “Don’t be mad.” Rafe held out his hands to calm me down. “If all goes as planned, we’ll never have to worry about rent or jobs or that kind of thing ever again!”

                     “Rafe …” Logan growled at my roommate.

          Their apartment may have been super shitty, but at least it was a roof over their heads. Logan had been struggling ever since he moved out here from Kansas City a few years ago and, even though Rafe had been his best friend ever since middle school, Rafe sometimes made things difficult with all his impulse buys. They needed food and rent, not books that’d feed his occult hobby. Logan stood to storm off, but Rafe caught him by the shoulder.

    “Bro, hear me out,” he pleaded. “When have I ever steered you wrong before?”

    “Do you really want an answer to that?” He raised an eyebrow at him.

   “Yes, because we both know the answer is never.” He laughed and crossed his arms confidently. “And even if it has happened once or twice in the past, this time will make up for it.” He touched his thumb to his pinkie. “Scout’s honor.”

       “Fine.” Logan sat back down and handed the book back to Rafe . “So, what’s it do?” He couldn’t stay mad at Rafe or long. For all his crazy shenanigans and odd viewpoints, he always meant well. Logan was sure whatever hairbrained scheme he had that went along with buying this book, it was because he wanted to help them get out of their shitty situation. The least he could do was listen. 

               What was the worst that could happen?

     “You won’t regret this.” He gave Logan a pleased nod before he flipped through the book for a few moments. He eventually stopped on a page halfway through the text and gestured at it emphatically. “Do you know what a Elves is?”

      “Vaguely.” Logan nodded. “Aren’t those the hot female with long ears?”

     “Precisely! Though the male have long ears too. My vast knowledge must be rubbing off on you,” Rafe giggled. “Elves are beings from other realms. The female Elves can be summoned to fulfill your wildest fantasies, normally in bed. But they are also said to bring luck, fortune, and even crazy-ass abilities to those who summon them!”

          “So…” Logan trailed off for emphasis. “Your solution to our money problems is to summon one?”

      “Survey says- Yes!” Rafe pointed at him and made a dinging noise. “Besides, I’ve got some wild fantasies I’d like them to fulfill as well…”

      “I’m gonna stop you there, Rafe ,” Logan laughed. “I’ll go along with this. Not because I think it’ll work, but because it would be pointless to have spent all that money on this book and not at least use it once. Where do we begin?”

      “First thing’s first,” Rafe said as he read over the text on the page.. “We need a pentagram, a metal bowl, and a piece of paper!” He thought for a moment. “I have just the bowl. It’s by my stuff in the closet. Can you grab it while I start drawing the pentagram?”

       “Sure…” Logan nodded to his friend as he set to work. Finding a bowl wasn’t very hard in this place. Rafe had them all over in his bedroom closet. As he stared back at all the “water pipes,” bowls, and other assorted paraphernalia before him, he questioned which bowl a demon would most likely want to use. The blue marble-ish one? The one that was shaped like a dragon? Then he saw it. 

      Right in the center of the collection sat a large metallic chalice. It was blackish-red and had a pair of horns on its stem. Definitely what we were looking for, so he snatched it up and waltzed back out into the living room. Rafe had already spread out our furniture and drawn a pentagram on the floor, and he was lighting candles at each corner when he noticed Logan out of the corner of his eye.

    “An excellent choice, ey!” He smiled when he saw the one he had selected. He lit the final candle and then brandished a small pocket knife and a piece of paper. “So here’s what happens now,” he explained. “We both take a sheet of paper and write down our wildest fantasies and innermost desires. Make sure the letter is addressed to Brethil.”

                            “Brethil?” Logan questioned.

    “Yes, Brethil. The Queen of the Dark Elves.” Rafe nodded. “In the Elves lore, she was one of the Six Elves ever created , but she refused to submit to the goddess that created them. After that, she allied herself with a Demon lord to become the first Dark Elves, and in the eons since she’s become known as the Elven Queen Of The Dark Realm, ruling over every single Dark Elves that has ever existed.” 

    “You sure know a lot about this,” Logan couldn’t believe his friend’s encyclopedic rant. 

      “Oh, that’s just rookie stuff. The knowledge in this book, however, is the big leagues!” He waved off his train of thought. “Anyways, after writing our letters to Brethil, we need to smear it with a bodily fluid and burn it in the bowl.” 

       “Please tell me we’re using blood and not jizz,” Logan joked. 

     Rafe just shrugged. “Dark Elves prefer semen, but I’m gonna do blood since it’s the essence of the soul and all that. But hey, you do you,” Rafe laughed before offering him the neon-green sticky note. “Now, best get writing.” 

      Logan nodded and scribbled down his desires. It’d been awhile since he had been in a relationship, and the last girl he had been with made him wonder if she was actually a demon in disguise. 

        So, Logan started there. He jotted down all the qualities he wanted from a hot Elven woman, as well as all the crazy things he wanted to do to her in bed and, well, in life in general. When he had finished, he realized Logan was already done, so he motioned for Rafe to hand him the knife. 

        For half a moment, he studied the small pocket knife, and the feel of it in his fingers made this whole endeavor feel way too real. He glanced at Rafe, and he gave him an eager smile and nod. Logan realized that if he bitched out now, his friend would never let him hear the end of it. Besides, what was the worst that could happen? 

     He just have a small cut on his finger, and then Rafe would mope around the apartment for a few days when he saw that the book didn’t work. Maybe he’d actually stop spending their money on this kind of shit. 

     He took a deep breath and then raised the knife to the tip of his left index finger. The blade slid along his digit slowly as it left little more than a dull sting in its wake. He closed the knife and handed it back to his roommate, who grinned at him like a maniac. 

           “Let’s do this,” He said as he met my friend’s eyes. 

     “You’re not gonna regret this.” Rafe said, and Logan nodded to him. 

        “It’s weird. Usually, I’m unsure about, well, everything, but this time, I’m really hoping it works.” Logan laughed as he squeezed the tip of his finger to expel a droplet of blood, which he then smeared onto the letter to Brethil. 

       “Me too, bro. Me too.” Rafe nodded before they each crumpled up our piece of paper and tossed it into the bowl. 

       Rafe grabbed a couple of matches, struck them against the ignition strip of the box, and then dropped them on top of the paper. 

       The sticky notes danced in the black and red cup as they caught fire and incinerated before their eyes, leaving only the faint smell of burnt ash and ferric blood. As the last bit of paper turned to ember, all the lights were cut in their apartment, and the candles blew out with an unseen gust of wind that raised the hairs on Logan's body and for a moment he felt an invisible force pressed down on him. Just like that everything became normal. 

        “Did it work?” Logan exclaimed, somewhat freaked out. “That was definitely not normal!” 

        “I don’t know.” Rafe shrugged. “It says here that if the ceremony works, the succubus will come to you in your sleep.” 

   The lights returned at this point, but a lingering chill spread throughout the apartment.