The Summons

Chapter 1
The Summons

“Are you sure about this?” Jacob asked.

“It’s fine,” replied Conor.  “This is totally legit.”

Jacob looked at the book, old, musty, and filled with weird writing, like some kind of cheap Halloween prop; at the dozen unscented black candles from Bed, Bath, and Beyond scattered around the toolshed; at the box of Morton salt from the grocery store that Conor was busily pouring in a large circle in the middle of the floor.  It definitely did not look ‘totally legit’.

He sighed.  Why did he always get roped into this sort of stuff?

Jacob and Conor were childhood friends, now sophomores in the local high school.  A week prior, Conor had approached him in the hallway between first and second periods and led him over to an alcove near the stairs, just out of earshot of the students busily moving to their next class.

“Listen,” he’d whispered, “I’ve got the solution to your problems.”

“What problems?” asked Jacob.  He wasn’t doing amazing this semester or anything, but he certainly wasn’t failing.

“Your girl problems,” said Conor.  “You just got turned down by Sophia two days ago, didn’t you?  And now it’s all over.  Someone filmed it and it’s on Tiktok.  Everyone knows.”

Jacob blushed a little bit, but put on a brave face.  “Well, shit happens man, it’s no big deal.”

Conor arched an eyebrow at him.  “It’s a very big deal,” he said solemnly.  “Your love life is on the line, Mister ‘I can be your Don Juan.’”

Jacob blushed in earnest now.  His older brother had given him that one, telling him it would be a sure hit with the Hispanic object of his desire.  When he’d gone home the night of his rejection and recounted his humiliation, his brother had guffawed, gasping out between laughs, “Holy shit, you actually said that?  Why?!  I was joking, you dumbass!”

So yes, it was kind of a big deal.  Sophia, who sat behind him in Geometry and was normally sociable, had refused to make eye contact since the ordeal, and now he could feel the stares and hear the whispers everywhere he went.

“Listen,” Conor continued.  “You know that crazy old guy who lives down the street from us?  Into voodoo and wicca and all that shit?  Well, he’s got some kind of occult demonology book or something.  He says we can use it to summon a powerful spirit and bind it to our will, then make it grant wishes.  So here’s the deal: I use it to get you a girlfriend, and you pass History for the rest of high school for me, okay?  Like writing all the reports and shit because I hate that class.”

Jacob blinked.  There were so many things wrong with this he didn’t even know where to start.

Conor gave him a cocky grin.  “Next Saturday, my place, back in my dad’s toolshed.  My dad is out of town and my mom will be at one of her social things or whatever.  We’ll have the place to ourselves.  You in?”

Jacob opened his mouth, but before he could say anything Conor clapped him on the back and said, “Great!  See you there.”

And now Jacob was there and…well, it certainly looked like they were going to summon the devil.

Conor had drawn a broad circle with the salt, then neatly outlined a pentagram inside, careful to align the whole thing on an east-west axis as the book had apparently instructed.  He’d placed a candle at each intersection of the lines of salt and lit all of them.  With the lights out and the windows covered with blackout curtains, it was actually a bit spooky.

“Okay, so.”  Connor flipped the book open to a dogeared page and laid it carefully on the ground in front of a plain copper bowl.  “This is all in Latin or whatever and I don’t speak Latin, but Google gave me the pronunciation of everything so I should be fine to just read off of that.  I just say this, and then I have to make an offering of life essence into the bowl-” here Conor pulled a box cutter out of his pocket “-and then a demon will appear and do our bidding.  Easy.” 

This is so incredibly…I don’t even know, thought Jacob.

Conor sat down on his heels and began.  “Au-deer-ie me, tree-moray spear-eetus!” he intoned.  More gibberish followed, Conor’s voice rising as he struggled through each unfamiliar syllable.  At the climax of the passage, he flicked the blade of the boxcutter out, sliced his palm, and let a few drops of blood drip into the bowl as he practically shouted, “Ten-eeter ad volun-tateum meme!”

Silence.  Nothing happened.

Seconds ticked glacially by.  Finally, unable to contain himself anymore, Jacob cleared his throat and spoke.  “So, uh, do you want a bandage?”

Conor waved his good hand at him, then held a finger to his lips.  Shhhh.

Jacob looked back at the circle.  Nothing was happening.  He sighed.

“Look, man, I have a math test coming up,” he said, “and I need to study or I’m not going to pass, so if it’s cool with you, I’m going to –“

A blast of hot wind cut him off and blew out all the candles.  As his eyes adjusted to the sudden darkness, he realized the lines of salt were glowing a dull purple.  The smell of rotten eggs hung thickly in the air.

But that wasn’t all.  Standing in the middle of the pentagram was a tall, thin man.

Jacob squinted at him.  He was wearing what appeared to be a neatly tailored and probably very expensive silk suit, black, or maybe just some other dark color, it was hard to tell.  He was handsome, a square jaw and high cheekbones, his hair neatly coiffed.  His eyes were fixed on Conor.

“Uh,” said Conor, “are you, um, the demon?”

The demon’s eyes closed in a very slow blink.  “What kind of question is that?” he asked in a smooth, deep voice.

“Uh,” Conor managed.  “You’re, um, bound to my will, right?”

The tips of the demon’s lips curled ever so slightly downward.  “I heeded your summon and I am here to offer my assistance.”

“So you’ll grant my wish, then.”  Confidence was returning to Conor’s voice.

“That is what I just said, yes.”

Reassured, Conor stood up.  “Great.  My friend over here, Jacob, he’s helpless with women.  I want you to find him the love of his life.”

The demon’s eyes flicked over to Jacob, and he felt like someone had just opened a burning furnace in his face.  Skin crawling, he shrank backward.

“And where is the payment?” the demon asked.

Conor froze and blinked.  “Uh, according to the book, I already offered you my life essence.”

The demon smiled beatifically.  “Yes, you certainly did.”

“So it’s paid, then.”  Conor’s tone was firm.

The demon’s smiled widened into a toothy, deeply unsettling grin.  “Oh, paid certainly, but not yet collected.”

Conor opened his mouth to reply, but before he could say anything, the demon’s eyes glowed a dull red and he snapped his fingers.  Tendrils of shadow seemed to unwind from his form and leapt across the room to ensnare Conor.  The boy managed only a strangled cry before his clothes were torn off and he was left naked, his arms held out to the side by shadowy tentacles.

“You didn’t read the fine print, did you?” said the demon casually.  “I suppose you couldn’t, given your poor education.  Life essence isn’t just blood – it is the body.  Most people would have had the good sense to sacrifice an animal in their stead, although those tend to result in lesser summons.  But then, fools never do anything by half measures.”

The demon sneered at Conor, his eyes glowing a deep red.  “I will have your life essence, boy.  All of it.”

The tendrils holding Conor’s arms squeezed tight as more shadows reached out to embrace him.  The scraggly hair on his chest and armpits fell out and drifted to the floor.  A tendril of shadow reached down and wrapped around his penis, stroking it to attention; another cupped his testicles and gently squeezed, and a thick rope of sperm blasted from his cock and made him moan.  Another tendril wrapped around his neck, and the pitch of his moans rose gradually higher and higher.  Spent, the tendrils withdrew from his genitals, leaving his scrotum hairless, his balls useless and shrunken, and his penis a tiny prepubescent nub.

More tendrils lashed across his chest and legs.  His muscles lost definition and his belly began to fatten and round.  He was shrinking, not just in height, but his whole body: every wisp of shadow that touched him seemed to drain another week, another month, or another year from him.  Tears streamed down his face as a line of urine arced from his pathetic little penis unto the floor in front of him.  Adult teeth fell from his mouth and clattered to the floor.  He couldn’t be more than a few years old, but he still shrank and shrank, the tendrils now holding him on his feet as much as they were holding him in place.  Soon he was a toddler, chubby and cute; then he was a baby, and his teeth retracted into his gums as his legs began to buckle.  Finally, when his shaking legs gave out, the tendrils lowered him to the floor, and at last the transformation stopped.

Conor was a newborn, maybe a few hours old, wiggling weakly on the floor.  Jacob stumbled backward, away from his one-time friend, but tripped over something and fell hard onto his back.  When he sat upright, he realized the demon was staring at him.  “Was this your idea?” the creature asked.

Jacob swallowed hard.  “No,” he squeaked.

The demon sighed.  “Here’s some free advice, boy.  If someone asks you if you want to do something that does not sound right, you should decline.  It is better to disappoint your friends than it is to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”  He glanced down at the mewling newborn.  “As it stands, I have now been paid, so I owe you the rest of the contract.  One essence of life for one love of your life.”

There was a knock on the shed door.  “Conor, are you in there?  What are you doing?”  It was the muffled voice of Conor’s mom, Amanda.

“Speak of the devil,” said the demon.  He snapped his fingers.  Amanda appeared inside the room, hand raised as if to knock again, a look halfway between annoyance and shock on her face. 

The demon looked back to Jacob.  “Here’s a woman,” he said.  “Does she meet your criteria?”  Amanda was deeply attractive, with curly brown hair, warm hazel eyes, and a slim toned waist between generous breasts and wide, swaying hips.  Though she’d recently turned forty, most people would have assumed she was a decade younger.  Unbidden, all the fantasies Jacob had had of doing all the things he’d seen on Pornhub with her sprang to the forefront of his mind.  His cock twitched to life as images of him fucking the brains out of Amanda in every position known to man briefly flashed before his eyes – and then it was over, leaving him painfully erect and bright red with shame.  The demon smirked at him.  “Seems so,” he chuckled.

The demon’s eyes began to glow dull red again.  “As it was, so it shall be again,” he intoned.

Another blast of hot, stinking wind whipped through the shed and tore Amanda’s clothes off.  She stumbled backward, far enough for Jacob to get a good look at her nakedness, and a detached part of him realized that the only tan lines she had were in the shape of a thong – did she sunbathe topless somewhere?  She reached to cover her breasts and her bald pussy with her arms and turned away from the demon, trying to run for the door, but the tendrils of shadow wrapped around her arms and held her fast.  Jacob watched with a mixture of arousal and horror as they went to work.

Two tendrils arced over her shoulders and reach down to cup her breasts, which immediately began to grow, a network of thick blue veins appearing under the surface of her skin as she swelled.  Her areolas, tan before, expanded and darkened to a rich coffee brown as her nipples hardened into big brown nobs.  Still resisting, she managed to take another step forward before more tendrils wrapped around her thighs and cupped her ass, plumping up everything they touched and holding her still.  But that was just for a moment: the tendrils tugged her legs open, forcing her into a squat with her pussy bared to Conor.  Another tendril passed over that pussy, swelling her labia and leaving her wet.  Still more shadow tendrils wrapped around her trim waist and began to massage up and down her tummy.  A dark tan line appeared, tracing an arc from just above her mons, through her belly button, to her cleavage; she moaned and doubled over, her engorged breasts hanging above a belly that was rapidly expanding. 

Jacob’s eyes were glued to her swaying tits until her heard a wet plop and glanced down.  A glistening cord had emerged from between her legs and was snaking across the floor toward Conor, who flailed weakly as if trying to get away.  Upon reaching him, the tip of the cord reared up like a cobra and then plunged down into his navel, drawing a sharp cry from mother and baby alike.  Now the cord drew taut and dragged Conor across the floor to beneath his mother, then yanked him up feet-first until his toes began to part her swollen lips.  Amanda closed her eyes and groaned loudly as Conor was pulled back into her.  Jacob watched in fascination as her belly began to contract, her breasts shrink, her nipples lighten; in a few moments, she was as tanned and toned as she’d been when she’d first appeared.  She whimpered, wiggling her hips, and a thick drops of something white oozed out of her pussy and fell to the floor. 

Now the tendrils redoubled their attack.  Shadows wiped over her face, and where they did the wrinkles, creases, and crow’s feet vanished.  The tendrils around her thighs throbbed, and her cellulite smoothed over.  A tendril passed across her waist, and the little heart-shaped tattoo she had on the crest of her hip disappeared; another one passed, and her pussy, once lasered smooth, sprouted a trimmed bush of curly pubes.  Her breasts shrank slightly and drew higher up her chest as her nipples and areolas pinkened.  A galaxy of freckles dusted across her cheeks, her nose turned just slightly up, and she even looked like she lost some height.  Her moans were getting higher and higher in pitch as each tendril tore another year off her body.  She was no longer Conor’s mom, she was no longer a MILF: now, Jacob was quite sure, she was a sophomore in high school just like him.

Finished, the tendrils melted away, and Amanda stumbled forward and collapsed onto Jacob’s lap, unconscious.  He stared slack-jawed at her, then at the demon.  Somehow, he knew that Amanda sat behind him in English class, that she was madly in love with him, and that he’d come here to her dad’s tool shed at the insistence of his male friend, who’d loudly told him to make her toes curl.  Something about that male friend rang a bell, but what precisely was just out of reach, just on the tip of his tongue…he blinked and it was gone, replaced by the beautiful girl sleeping on top of him.

The demon cleared his throat, interrupting Jacob’s reverie.  “And there you have it,” he said.  “One life essence for one love of your life.  Do your best, ‘Don Juan’.”  And with that, he disappeared in a puff of black smoke, leaving the stink of sulfur, the darkness of the shed, and the two teenager lovebirds.