A Devilish Negotiation

Writer’s note: Boo the title all you want, I’ll use a pun if I want to use a pun. This is the shortest thing I’ve put up here thus far and the first not set in the same shared world, but instead in an urban fantasy setting. The demon who appears is taken from ‘real’ grimoire on demonology ‘the Pseudomonarchia Daemonum’, from which I took his description and traits, though he also appears in the first book of the related grimoire ‘the Lesser Key of Solomon’, the ‘Ars Goetia’, with a similar description. Also, acknowledgements go to my friend Hakim Aknouz for checking that I didn’t butcher any real legal terms too badly. The piece is a little over 2,000 words - have fun with it.

A Devilish Negotiation

It was a standard summoning circle, the kind first year demonologists learnt to draw by heart. There were no particular requirements listed for the demon she was about to call forth – at least none that she had found in hours of research through all the old grimoires as well as the rather newer evocation handbooks. The lines were perfect, the runes all correct, and the candles flickered and dripped just right in all the necessary positions.

Georgie Davies stood up, smoothed down her skirt, and sat in one of the low backed office chairs at one end of the room. Really, she should have had one of the trainees draw it, but she took satisfaction in measuring out the lines herself.

All her documents were with her. She had everything she needed. Safe in the knowledge that all was adequately prepared, she began the ritual by chanting from the book before her.

The colour in the room distorted. A sound like distant trumpets came from everywhere and nowhere. Georgie broke out in gooseflesh. The air cracked and from it emerged a hideous creature.

Half of it wore the façade of humanity, though where legs should have been was the tail of some cruel sea serpent, scaled and oily. The human part was hairless entirely, with bloated pale skin tinged with blue and grey. A smell of salt and rot engulfed the room. Georgie had grown up on The Little Mermaid; what stood before her in the circle killed her childhood nostalgia stone dead.

The man-fish creature blinked cold, inhuman eyes. He looked around the room, all glass and steel and muted colours, and smiled with teeth like a shark’s; pointed where they weren’t cracked. The gums they lay within were black and flies danced in and out of his maw as he spoke.

‘Who dareth summon Vepar, great duke in Hell, he of ships and storms, who putrefies the wounds of men and killeth them in three days, he who commandeth nine-and-twenty legions! Looketh upon my form and despair, thee of weak spirit and weaker flesh!’

She cleared her throat.

‘Vepar? I have Separ written down here… oh, no I see – alias. Apologies, I’ll correct that. I have here that you were last summoned on… the seventeenth of November 1717, do I have that right?’

‘Your puny attempts to measure the passing of the Heavens do not signify in Hell, mortal. In my native country, infinity is a moment and every moment is an infinity.’

‘Yes, my apologies. But could you confirm that at the last instance of your evocation you were tasked with… let me see… “destroying the enemies of and giving great knowledge to” one Doctor Johann Faber of Cologne? And that in return you received… ah, here it is: “his immortal soul”. That’s all in order?’

‘He art indeed my plaything, though he hast long since forgotten his name and glories.’

‘I see. Well, it was shoddy work: imprecise and without a reasonable quid pro quo but, regardless, let’s get to business. Now—’

‘I do beg thine pardon, worm beneath my foot but…’ He paused. ‘What art this “quid pro quo” thou speaketh of?’

‘Listen, Mr Vepar—’

‘His Grace, Duke Vepar. He of the deeps, tormentor of—’

‘Fine, listen, your grace. A lot has changed in the past three centuries of demonology. For a contract between a denizen of our world and yours to be valid these days, there must be a reasonable exchange of payment for services rendered. An immortal soul, being by its very nature infinite, cannot be part of a quid pro quo unless the services received in return are equally unlimited, according to the precedent established by Jones v Mephistopheles, 1879. I know you haven’t visited the mortal realm for a while, but I assumed you demons, you know, talked. Told each other things.’

The mass of scales and flesh faltered.

‘I, um… I am not often invited to Lucifer’s court. There was an incident. I shan’t discuss it.’

A smile almost touched her lips. His cracked and bled.

‘I see. Well, you are bound to the circle until I release you, which I shall do upon completion of our negotiations.’

‘Times change but the nature of your souls cannot. What art thy heart’s desire, oh little fruit fly dancing upon rot of my Father’s creation?’

‘The desire isn’t mine. I have called you here to negotiate a contract for your services on behalf of my client, a Mr Jasbir Singh representing Portsline Shipping LLC.’

His eyes, which would have looked more at home on a fish than set within a human face, blinked.

‘Beg pardon?’

‘Portsline has been losing rather a lot of containers to the sea when their ships are hit by rough waters. You are, as you said previously, a demon of ships and storms. They wish for you to becalm the seas around their ships for the next five years – the logistics of which we can work out at a later time, in consultation with you of course, a sigil, a familiar, whatever you prefer. They’re offering… oh yes, the sacrifice of a sheep per month for the duration – a month here we shall define as a period of four weeks – and shall fund a ritual practice of your choice in your honour and worship on the day of each equinox, again for the duration.

‘They have also asked me to further inquire as to any esoteric knowledge on shipbuilding that you might give them to avoid the problem in future. They left it up to me what to offer in return. Obviously the knowledge is not time limited so I was thinking of something else perpetual – perhaps a small shrine to be maintained in every ship built with the aforementioned knowledge? With an act of worship to be performed each week? I can draw that up in the same contract or we could make two, whichever you prefer.’

‘I traffic in the trade of immortal souls, my little bleating lamb.’

‘Jones v Mephistopheles, your grace. We’ve covered this. I have provided what I assess to be eminently reasonable terms for what shall be, for you, surely only a small inconvenience.’

‘It soundst as though thou, dear witch-bride of Lucifer, wish to tameth me. Catcheth me on thy hook as if this art not merely a visage I wear like the scraps you have clung to since the day the apple touched your lips.’

‘Your grace, will you bestow this favour or not? There are others of your race I could summon if you find this all beneath your dignity. Your services are not by any means unique – I can take my business elsewhere.’

He cracked his neck with the sound of a ship being broken in two, timbers giving way to inrushing water. His breath was stale and putrid as he spoke.

‘I shall listen to thy proposal. It is thy brief shudder of life thou wasteth.’

‘Very good. Now, some logistics. By five years, I mean five years from when you first begin to provide the service. Which must be within a month of the contract being signed and after mutual acknowledgement that both parties are ready to begin meeting their duties under the contract. Is there anything on that front that you wish to discuss in greater detail?’

‘Nothing I wish to concern myself with. Nothing worth the attentions of a duke of Hell.’

‘Quite. At a later date I could also work through the minutia with any underling you care to nominate. Give me their name before I dismiss you and I’ll have one of the trainees summon them for all the boring details. As to the gnostic knowledge of shipbuilding, is that something you can and wish to provide in return for the stipulations I’ve previously laid out.’

‘What manner of worship shall be given?’

‘Oh, the lighting of candles and saying of black prayers in your name by the captain once a week. Something like that is our go-to. If you want to propose any small modifications you need only ask but remember the captains of these ships are busy men. They can’t be spending their whole days singing the praise of demons – they have a port to reach.’

‘Could the ships retain a worshiper whose only duties art to praise me?’ He said it almost meekly. Like the idea of asking embarrassed him.

‘It’s not common practice but I could reach out on your behalf. They’d certainly still be in the black on the whole arrangement. A drop in the ocean, if you’ll excuse the pun. Is this in place of the captains’ worship?’

‘In addition to?’ The way he said it, the question mark was obvious. Georgie almost laughed at the nightmare before her. So coy in his first negotiation.

‘I’m not sure about that, but as I said I’ll reach out. I would also like to talk about remedy and enforceability. If one side fails to uphold their end of the bargain, the other must nonetheless follow the contract while the judicial procedure is embarked up – again excuse the pun, our language is so full of naval terminology. If that procedure finds that the contract was indeed breached, it may be ended prematurely and a reasonable remedy enforced by the court. It is common in such cases for the side in the wrong to be forced to continue rendering whatever service they were performing without quid pro quo for a certain length of time. Do you understand?’

‘I keep my word, as I did to my brother when I stood with him against all the forces of our Father and were cast into the inferno. If any of you attempt to cross me, I shall merely reach over and pluck your beating hearts out of your chests, devour you, and drag you back to my prison.’

‘I’m sorry to tell you that you won’t. Not if you ever want to be beseeched again, at least. All remedy for wrongdoing must go strictly through the courts, any extrajudicial action is severely frowned upon, and death and eternal punishment are quite obviously not reasonable remedies. The Courts of Demonology here in London are very well respected, with a reputation for treating both your kind and ours equitably.’

‘I command legions. No authority of yours do I recognise.’

‘Twenty-nine of them, I know. Nonetheless, if you don’t agree then we can’t proceed.’

He slithered within the tight confines of the circle, his scales rubbing against each other. A few were shed and he bled a black ichor from the resultant gaps.

‘I agree, if only to amuse myself with thy words.’

‘Happy to hear it. Well, I think that’s quite enough for a first meeting, don’t you? I’ll get an answer on those questions you had and evoke your name again… let me see… next Tuesday? I have a free morning. I am on a bit of a schedule here – Portsline want a signed contract by the end of the month and I don’t see any reason why they shouldn’t have one by then at the very latest. As I’ve said, we can pass off the finer print to others if you’d prefer – I certainly wouldn’t want to waste the time of a duke of Hell.’

‘No, thou wouldst not. I have drowned men for a century without the reprieve of death for less.’

‘Well, it was lovely meeting you, your grace. And I look forward to our next meeting. Goodbye now.’

The demon said nothing but merely inclined his turgid head as she spoke the words of dismissal and cast him back into the pits of Hades. Some demons, she thought, are so set in their ways it’s barely worth talking to them. She would try to find someone who had actually been evoked in the past century for her next client.

But she had to admit, the ones who didn’t know how to negotiate, or what the going rate was for, say, raising a loved one from the grave, tended to come cheap. Just one sacrifice a month! She’d have the best numbers in the department after closing this deal. Make partner next quarter for sure.

She looked at her schedule. A working lunch with a client, then she’d blocked out the whole afternoon for research into a case she was preparing. And then… damn! Tonight was her sister’s birthday dinner, and she’d completely forgotten to get anything.

She briefly considered a demon she could summon who was sure to be able to track down a first edition of Jane’s favourite novel in return for hardy anything at all, but no. She’d miss the lunch. She made a note for herself. Buy flowers. That would surely do. Jane knew she was a busy woman. She’d take her to Scotland for a weekend to make up for it. Now, off to that lunch before she missed it anyway.