A Repeated Mistake
“Did it work?” Jake asks. You don’t look over, you stare at the doll and the symbol on the ground.
In a second the doll vanishes and a boy is in his place. The boy looks pissed and barely human with claws and fangs, both coated with blood. His eyes glowing, his skin deathly pale. He should be weaker for at least today though, a week at most if you’re lucky, with the energy it takes to reassign his connections to the last players to the new ones.
What kind of demon did your brother and his friends summon?
“How dare you!” The boy screams, causing the lights to flicker and your friend’s eyes to snap back to the circle’s centre. You hear Jane gasp, and Jake gulps. “I was so close to winning! I’ll kill you all right now for this!” He screams and one of the lights in the room bursts.
“I’ll take that as it’s working.” You say, taking a step away from the circle. The demon’s eyes focus on you.
“Strider.” He growls the word in a way that almost sounds possessive. Even you can’t help but gulp. “Dirk Strider, right? The perfect other brother that didn’t need to sell his soul like the rest of them.” He says, his tone a mix of mockery and malice. “Wonder what they’d think knowing you followed the family tradition.” He smirks slightly and then within seconds you feel claws digging into your chest. You grunt, shutting your eyes tight and trying to ignore the pain. “Whotoldyou?!” He demands, growling, the amusement and mockery gone from his voice leaving only more malice and anger in it’s place.
“None of your business.” You glare back into glowing blue eyes. The demon hisses and his claws come out of your chest when Roxy throws salt at him.
“And the older Lalonde.” He spits the name, like it leaves a bad taste in his mouth, and spits at her, carefully brushing grains of salt off of him. “I should have known.” The room goes completely black as the rest of the lightbulbs burst. You hear Jake whimper and you think someone backs against the wall. Roxy lets out a shout and you turn, trying to spot her. You can’t see her, it’s too dark.
And then there’s a tiny prick of light that goes on to your side and you turn to see Jane, just barely, by the light of her candle. You should have done this in a room with windows. You see a fanged, too big grin, blow the candle out and you rush to Jane when you hear her scream. You hear a thunk and you’re suddenly very nervous.
There’s a flash and you here the demon snarl. You try to blink away the colourless brightness caused by the flash. While you do you register steps being taken and then, as your sight returns, you notice the light of the hall pouring into the room as Roxy opens the door. She’s panting, there’s a hand of claw marks making a gash on her shoulder and completely shredding the arm of her shirt.
Your eyes begin to adjust and you notice movement as Jane sits up, groaning and rubbing her head. She must have tripped, or been tripped, and that must have made the noise. There’s an ugly, painful looing bit mark a little bit above her waist but she’s over wise alright.
Jake stands, panting, with his hand pressed against a runed section of the wall. A symbol to make any demon, no matter how powerful, leave and stay gone, at least for a while. Jake’s hand is covered in blood, no doubt to activate it, but over wise he’s unscathed.
“Caliborn wasn’t lying then.” You comment. “Someone write this down, it’s a miracle.”
“You guys know what this means right?” Roxy’s smiling, smiling, despite the situation.
“That we have a blood thirsty demon after us?” Jane offered, inspecting her injury. You kneel down to help.
“That we did! Our siblings are safe!” She says and you all freeze. In all that chaos you hadn’t even thought of that yet. You can’t help the smile that graces your lips, you don’t think Jane can help the ear to ear grin she breaks out into.
“Just in time too.” You say. “Now we just need to find them.”
“I bet they’ll find us.” Roxy smiles. “They’re smart kids.”
“You’ve got a point there.” You hum and stand. The group of you move into the living room where it’s bright, light shining from the windows and from the lights.
“How’d he know you two?” Jake eventually asks. You notice he’s not looking after the injury on his hand. You notice there’s glass in his hand. Jake hurt himself to save the three of you. You look over to Roxy who shrugs. You take a deep breath, you guess you should tell them. There’s no point keeping secrets.
“Most of my family made a deal with a demon at some point.” You sigh. “Cal, and now that I think about it the demon looks a lot alike to what they described.”
“Why’d you’re brothers make deals? If you don’t mind me asking that is.” Jane asks, you rub the back of your neck.
“D wanted people to look at his movies. He became famous on his own merit, but before that no one would look at the stuff he made and the potential he had. Since Bro hadn’t started the Smuppet business yet, D was our main supporter he got desperate I guess.” You retell the story Bro told you when you were older enough to realize Dave wasn’t ‘normal’. “On Bro’s side of the story he was trying to save Dave. Dave was born sick and basically on the verge of the death so he summoned Cal, and Dave apparently summoned Cal to play this game.”
“And you didn’t tell us this before?” Jake frowns.
“I didn’t know that it was Cal that we’d be summoning.” You shrugged.
“What about you Roxy?” Jane asks, deciding it would be better to move the conversation from you before Jake can start an argument.
“Oh my family is just super interested in dark magic and demons and stuff.” Roxy shrugs.
“I suppose I should have guessed that.” Jane laughs lightly.
“Well, now that that’s outta the way.” Roxy hums. “What are we going to do?” All of them are looking at you. You should know what to do next, you always plan for everything. Except you really don’t. You’d considered it might be Cal so you’d searched the internet and asked Caliborn but came up with nothing useful. Now you were almost certain it was Cal and you had nothing.
They’re all looking at you, like you’re meant to have the answers. Even Jake’s looking at you like you’re meant to have the answers, and he pretty much hates you these days. You can’t just let them down by admitting you have no idea what the hell you’re meant to do, that you don’t even know why Cal was able to attack you during the day.
“We need to make it so that he can’t get in once he recovers from what Jake did.” You say, sounding confident as always.
“Alright, Janey and I can work on that you should help Jakey with his hand.” Roxy announces and you frown. You thought she gave up trying to ‘fix’ your friendship with Jake.
“What about Jane’s bite?” Jake asks before you can.
“I’ll be fine, I can still write.” Jane smiles.
“But I’m completely fine, I can help set up the house.” You frown. Jane frowns back.
“Dirk, I don’t consider your chest perfectly fine.” She states, pointing at what is practically holes in your chest from when Cal dug his claws in. You’d completely forgot about that, now that you’ve remembered however the pain strikes and you grimace.
“I’m fine, you two are hurt worse.” You frown.
“Dirk just look after Jakey will you.” Roxy huffs. She takes Jane’s hand and the girls leave the room. You and Jake sit in silence for a moment before you hear him wince, you look over and see him pulling glass from his hand. You sigh and take his hand from him.
“Hey-“ He starts to protest before wincing when you carefully pull out another piece of glass.
“You’re shaking too much.” You say, as though it’s an explanation. “You’ll make them worse.” You add to nail the point home, but you both know you’re lying. Jake’s dealt with his own injuries all his life, he’s got enough practice to not be shaking. You sit in awkward silence as you start to pull out each of the pieces of the glass, once it’s finally done you stand up and get the first aid kit, getting out antibacterial spray and bandages.
“This’ll hurt.” You warn. Jake doesn’t reply and you start. You’re about half way through when you hear sniffling. You look over and find Jake crying, trying to keep quiet. You don’t know what to do. “Jake?” You ask, trying not to let the worry and concern seep into your voice.
“We could’ve died.” He mumbles. “We could’ve died just now, and we would’ve died hating each other and I don’t want that.” He sniffles. “I don’t want to hate you Dirk, but I know you hate me so I just, I just thought I’d play along.”
“Jake…” You’re not good with heart to hearts, with non-logical communication. “I don’t hate you.” You say. “And we didn’t die. Jake you saved our lives.” You really could have died, you realize. The demon was definitely planning on killing all four of you. Jake shakes his head.
“You’re the one that told us to put the symbols up, I just used it.” He mumbles. “I just… all I could hear was screaming and laughter and I thought everyone might already be dead.” He sniffles. “I was so bloody scared.” Suddenly he’s pressing himself against your chest and sobbing into your shirt. It hurts the claw marks on your chest but you don’t push him away. “I don’t want to die hating you.” He sobs.
“I don’t either.” You admit. “So how about we go back to being friends, okay?” Is that the right thing to say? Jake sniffle and looks up at you from where he’s positioned his head on your chest.
“Can we?” He sniffles. You wipe away a couple tears.
“Yeah, I’d like it if we did.” You nod. You really don’t know if you’re doing this right.
“Thank you.” He smiles up at you and you think that means you’re doing this right.
“Mind if I bandage your hand now?” You ask. He wipes his eyes with his arm and nods, giving you his bloodied hand. You fall into silence again and you don’t think it’s as awkward as before. You finish bandaging his hand and you think about how much you and Jake changed. You were best friends last time you saw your brother, you were boyfriends after, then you were enemies, and now you think you’re friends again. So much has happened and changed and you can only imagine how different Dave is now, how different they all are. The thought makes you nervous.
You just hope they all know they’re safe now.