Then I stand back from the candles and the circle. I look down at the ridiculous mess on my kitchen floor and laugh a little. That’s going to be fun to clean up.
I repeat the words two more times.
Then, I wait.
And wait.
And wait.
Until it seems like nothing is going to happen. Then again, I didn’t really expect anything to happen anyway if I’m being honest with myself. I thought maybe there’s a chance that I’d figure out what the hell is wrong with me just by lighting some candles and smearing some sticky stuff on the floor? Yeah, maybe I have figured out what’s wrong with me.
I’m absolutely delusional.
I sigh and sit down on the floor on my ass with a little huff. Of course this wouldn’t do anything. Why would it?
Now I need to clean it up before I go to bed so that my cat, Mazie, doesn’t lick it up and get sick.
I look to the side just to make sure she’s not already sauntering in here curiously. Nope. She’s probably snoozing on the couch or under my bed where she usually is at this time of the night.
Just as I start to stand up from the floor something begins to happen. A breeze rushes through the kitchen, which is impossible because the one window in the room is closed and there’s nowhere else a breeze would come from.
I stop in my tracks, halfway standing, and look around again.
“Alright then,” I mumble.
I stand up the rest of the way and that breeze turns into a gust of wind that knocks me back against the wall and sends my hair flying all over the place. With my surprise I suck in a breath.
The candles are flaring in the center of the jammy circle, and that sticky stuff starts to lift off the floor as though it’s made of ooey gooey slime instead of strawberry jam. It’s floating in the air and dripping back down to the floor. Until the only thing remaining is some of the crushed-up flower buds.
“What is happening?” I ask, and I can barely hear it over the wind rushing in my ears.
The lights in the rest of the house go out with a crackle, and suddenly the floral specks fly toward the center of the sigil and make out a form, a form that is slender and at first seems slightly feminine but then quickly shifts into something more masculine and flatter.
What is just a shape made of specks along the outer edges bursts into a form that is undeniably humanoid but not of this world.
I gasp as the wind disappears so fast that my ears ring.
“What the hell am I doing’ here?” a voice from the person in the middle of the jam and standing on top of the candles that are now just smoking all around them.
The lights in my house come back on, and the one in the hallway is the only thing that illuminates the kitchen.
In the dimness I see him. A man, a few inches taller than me, with dark red skin and dark hair that rushes down his back, tied together at the back of his neck. But several strands of it hang along his forehead and the side of his face.
He’s dressed in half of a suit, black dress pants, white button up shirt and a tie that’s undone around his neck.
“Oh my God,” I whisper. “What have I done?”
His eyes are on mine. He squints at me.
“Did you summon me?” he asks.
I move forward quickly. “I didn’t mean to! I was trying to do a spell I found online. It was supposed to…help me.”
He growls under his breath. The sound is low and animalistic. Something about it makes me shiver.
“I swear I didn’t mean to!” I add. Fear climbs up my body, but at the same time, so does excitement.
“Of course you didn’t. You’re just another human doing some bullshit spell off the internet, summoning a demon in your kitchen…how intelligent of your kind.” He comes barreling at me, pinning me against the wall beside the entry way and slams his fists to the sides of my head.