Happy Halloween
Buffy-esque AU: Please see "Kate has super powers and beats up some vampires"
“Okay, I know no one is very comfortable writing in Sumerian, but could you please be careful? If we mess this up we’ll get the wrong kind and we DON’T need another mischief demon on our hands.”
Taylor groaned, knowing this comment was almost definitely directed at her. Courtney stood on the edge of the great spiral, looming over the workers actively involved in its creation: Nathan, Taylor, Rachel, and Hayden. Even if she didn’t really hold all that much power in the club, despite being president, none of the other four wanted to pretend they had the precision to make sure the creation of the conjuration glyph went to spec. And, despite the amount of work going into this thing, it was only so large, maybe eight feet in diameter, and it wasn’t like so many people could work on it at once.
It had to be meticulously created - the spiral of the vortex club, but it was just too much for Courtney to tackle all by herself, so she just acted as supervisor.
She leaned over to inspect some detail that Hayden had just made as he connected his section of a given line of text to Nathan’s, and glared down at it. “You duplicated the line Nathan started on and forgot your own section. Turn the book a little - you’re the lower left wedge, remember?”
Hayden groaned, but promptly worked to remove his section and begin again.
They were on the bottom floor of the light house, forming the circle out of apparently magically enhanced, colored sand of some form, using wedges to shape the sand into Sumerian script, which ,predictably, they did not recognize. Courtney had photocopied the drawn reference of the glyph from the original ancient text, which she paced around them with, constantly uncomfortable with both the quality and quantity of their work.
Eventually, though, the work was done, and the five Vortex Club basket members stood on the edge of their demonic creation, a near-perfect spiral all surrounding a strange, singular focus item: a stack of boxes of cookies, but like the thin, wafer-y ones that cost too much. The book had simply, and rather strangely, requested the best cookies cookies available, and Hayden, as connoisseur of cookies and other things to eat while baked, had concluded these were their best bet.
Courtney consulted the book for the next step. “Okay, so, now, five servants must offer their blood at five points around the spiral, and the binding force will form the stabilizing element for the demon to manifest. Give me a minute, and I’ll make sure we get it right.”
Courtney whipped out measuring tape as well as some actual tape, so she could mark all of the appropriate locations with perfect precision, while everyone else stood near the door of the light house.
“So, why cookies?” Rachel inquired, obviously having been mulling this over for the last few hours since they placed the cookies in the exact center of the lighthouse’s floor, according to Courtney’s specifications. “Like, I can’t imagine the Sumerians had access to a wide variety. Or, you know, any.”
Nathan shrugged, his hands stuffed in his jacket as he leaned up against the door. “I’m not sure whatthefuck demons think, but this is one of the easiest demands I’ve ever heard of - my dad once had to sacrifice something like 44,444 spiders to a frog god, and that was just to keep it from eating some property. We just had to get cookies, and we’re getting a succubus for a whole day. Good fuckin’ deal.”
Taylor frowned: “Do you think she’s like, a compulsive eater, maybe? Or maybe she can’t eat when she’s not summoned? It is a she, right? Like, I’ve heard sometimes succubi and incubi are considered the same thing but it’ll be a she, right?”
Hayden shrugged, not really bothered by the idea of getting a masculine succubus to hang out with for their Halloween party the following night. “Don’t really know. I gue-”
Courtney seemed completely oblivious to the fact that the others were talking, as she suddenly let out: “aaaaaaAAAAND DONE! There we go. Everyone take a place and use the ceremonial knives on the stairs in the box there to cut open your thumb, then place your thumb at the designated spot, and the glyph should activate, if Nathan’s book is correct.”
Nathan rolled his eyes at that - as if there were any books in his dad’s library on demonology that hadn’t been confirmed 10x over save the apocalyptic ones - but everyone sauntered over towards the base of the steps, where Courtney was waiting with an open cardboard box like she was handing out doughnuts. Everyone took their ritual knife and spread out - “make sure not to mess up the sand!” - before looking to Courtney to continue.
She pursed her lips a little as she stood in place, but then silently cut open her thumb, then looking expectantly at everyone else to follow suit. Groaning a little, (especially Taylor), the girls followed a few seconds later, and Nathan bit his lip while he did it, letting out a stream of swears as the blood welled up over his thumb.
Hayden, though, was hesitating, the blade still a few inches from his skin. “I dunno, bro. I really don’t like blood.”
Courtney rolled her eyes, “Oh, come on. It’s like, a few drops.” She lifted her hand so he could see it as a reference, but a line of blood that had made its way down into her palm only made him swallow nervously.
He looked back down at his hand, but everyone was staring at him now. “Ahh... shit . . .” he said, closing his eyes. He raised his hand a bit dramatically, so his thumb and the knife hung in front of his face, but still, he didn’t do it.
“Bro, seriously, come on,” Nathan urged.
Hayden grit his teeth, squeezing his eyes especially tight closed, and lowered the knife to his finger before slitting it open. “Ow, ow, ow, fuck,” he whined, eyes now snapping back open, and immediately dropping the knife to the side of the circle to inspect the cut.
“Okay, now, everyone - at the same time - press your thumb to the cement directly in front of the tape I placed down, okay? On three. One, two, three.”
Everyone crouched down, and placed their thumbs where it had been specified. When they left their bloody fingerprints there, for a brief moment, nothing happened.
Nathan said, “So, do we like, have to-”
And then, their thumb prints began to glow bright red, like a sith’s light saber. Or, at least, that’s how Hayden and Courtney thought of it - the other three hadn’t watched the original trilogy 40 or so times. From there, lines formed of that same light spread out, connecting the five points until a geometrically perfect pentagram was formed over the spiral, which had lost all of its color, somehow turning all of the colorful sand black.
Then, the cookies caught fire.
Courtney gasped, “Oh, shit, the sacrifice! Fuck, it’s ruined! We’re done! We’re so done!” But as the flames consumed all of the boxes, it seemed to grow much larger than it should from such a small amount of fuel, several feet tall. The fire did not spread, but soon it stood nearly six feet high as it burned away the small stack of cookie boxes.
And then, all of the flames disappeared. The sand seemed to vanish, leaving in its place the entirety of the Sumerian script carved into the cement surface. The pentagram’s light faded, and everyone’s thumbprint, too, faded.
And, standing in the center of the spiral, a box of chocolate in their hands, was a tall blonde woman, dressed very differently than how they had all imagined. She wore a pale yellow button-up with a fine cashmere sweater over it, the shirt tucked into what looked like dark purple skinny jeans with a sort of velvety look. Short blonde hair was pushed behind her ears, though everyone took rather little notice to it, considering the curved, dragon-like horns extending from the front of her skull back towards the top of her spine.
Taylor was the only one to notice her nails, which were short and somewhat stained, noting like the manicured, pornographic beasts she had imgained. They looked like an artist’s hands.
Modestly dressed. Modern. Small breasts. Short hair. Rough, stained hands. Not what they were expecting.
But for some of them (please see: Rachel and Taylor), even better than they’d hoped.
She strode forward, off-handing all of the boxes of cookies under the crook of her left arm while offering out her right hand to shake everyone’s, starting with Courtney. “Thanks for summoning me for Halloween! It’s a favorite of mine. My name is Victoria,” - she finally reached Taylor, and the hand shake between them lasted longer, and she paused to make more than glancing eye contact with her. “But you can call me Vicky,” she said, the comment 100% directed at miss Christensen.
Hayden and Nathan shot her thumbs-ups, and Rachel winked at her.
Taylor flushed red.
Courtney cleared her throat. “Hi there Vicky. I’m Courtney Wagner, and this is Hayden, Nathan, R-”
“I’m Rachel Dawn Amber and I’m really gay,” Rachel interjected
“-achel . . . uh, yeah. And that’s Taylor. We were hoping you could help us spice up a party tomorrow.”
Victoria’s eyebrows darted up as she inspected the lot of them, and a smirk fell on her face. “I’ll tell you what.” She looked back to just Taylor now, and gestured to her. “Taylor buys me dinner, and we’ll meet up with you at your party afterwards. Sound good?”
Everyone swallowed, looking nervously over at Taylor. Taylor looked up into the bright green eyes of the demon, and she too swallowed, likely visibly sweating. “Yeah.”
Victoria took a step back, looking between Rachel and Taylor, then gestured for Nathan to move out of the way of the door, which he quickly did. She held placed her hands on her hips, forming little loops with her arms. “Well, Rachel, Taylor, if you would do the courtesy of showing me what this town has to offer, I’m sure your friends can take care of the party decorations until then. Ta ta!”