The Succubus In My Closet

Chapter 2: A Mysterious Circle

By eight o’clock that evening, Erick had pushed his coffee table against the living room wall and rolled back the rug.

He stood in the middle of the bare hardwood floor holding a sewing needle, the slate-colored chalk, and the brittle parchment. The city outside his window was dark, rain drumming a steady, melancholic rhythm against the glass.

“I am an idiot,” Erick muttered to the empty room.

Still, something stubborn and reckless inside him pushed his hand forward. He took a breath and pricked the tip of his left index finger. A bead of dark red blood welled up. He smeared it across the head of the chalk, watching in mild surprise as the porous stone greedily absorbed the crimson ichor from his finger until it felt numb.

Bracing himself on one knee, Erick traced a broad, unbroken circle around himself on the polished wood, roughly making the diameter of his own height – which was approximately six feet. The chalk left behind a faint, shimmering purplish residue that smelled oddly like wet soil after rain.

He stood up in the center of the circle, holding the parchment with both hands.

He looked down at the angular, incomprehensible scribbles. For a second, they remained jagged lines. But when he blinked, something unraveled. The alien runes shifted. They didn’t become English; rather, an ancient cadence resonated in his mind, unlocking a language his throat somehow understood.

Erick parted his lips, and a deep, melodic voice that hardly sounded like his own echoed through the apartment.

“Leu uare thur... azael mar... vok’ren khorath...”

With every syllable, the ambient light in the room dimmed. The ceiling lamp flickered and went black, yet the room was far from dark. From the chalk line on the floor, an intense, luminescent violet radiance flared upward, casting a sharp circle outline onto the ceiling.

Runes made of pure, crackling amethyst light materialized in a helix that spiraled around the perimeter of the circle and rose to the ceiling like a vortex of glowing dust. The temperature in the apartment plummeted, freezing the moisture in the air until Erick’s breath puffed out in white clouds.

The air at the center of the circle shattered like glass. A dense cloud of violet mist erupted from the air, carrying with it a heavy, intoxicating aroma – a sweet, overwhelming musk of crushed lilies, burnt vanilla, and spiced honey that hit Erick’s senses with the intensity of a sledgehammer.

A force threw him out of the circle. The helix shifted and morphed with the mist. Within the swirling violet fog, a silhouette began to take form.

First came the curve of slender shoulders, then the generous arch of hips and the line of long, shapely legs. The light solidified into flesh, collapsing inward until the mist vanished, leaving a figure kneeling on the hardwood in front of him.

Erick froze, his breath catching in his throat. The creature before him was a voluptuous young woman. Every part of her seemed dipped in varying shades of violet. Her skin was a pale, luminous lilac that possessed a faint and pearlescent sheen. A pair of tiny, glossy obsidian-violet horns curved gently backward from her temples, nestled within a thick cascade of deep amethyst hair that fell past her waist.

Behind her, a short, stubby tail tipped with a spade-like fin twitched nervously against the floorboards.

She raised her head, locking her eyes onto his. Her pupils were sharp, vertical slits of glowing gold set within deep violet irises.

Erick stumbled backward, his back hitting the wall.  His heart hammered furiously in his chest.

The demoness lowered her head immediately, pressing her palms against the floor in total subservience. When she spoke, her voice was melodic and sultry, yet laced with an undeniable, trembling deference.

“I have answered your summon,” she whispered, her golden slit pupils looking up at him through thick, dark lashes. “I am here to serve you, Master.”