The Importance of Spell Checking

I see the smudged symbol too late. Times like this, I wish spell check existed for Satanic rituals. The best I can hope is that nothing happens and I just have to find another squirrel to sacrifice.

The pentagram bubbles. I should know better than to hope by now. A sulphurous bang rocks the basement. When the smoke clears, a teenage girl is pouting in center of the circle. For a moment, I think her hair's on fire, but no, it's really that red, the same lively shade as her eyes. She looks almost human otherwise, gangly and awkward and freckled.

She's definitely not the low-level demon I was trying to summon. Those tend to be more humanoid than human, and usually have at least one horn or bulbous lump.

"Who the hell are you, and why am I here? Also, where is here?" she demands.

"Uh," I say. I've never been asked such useless questions by a demon. Every question answered creates a debt. She should be smart enough to avoid that. It's got to be a trap. "I'll answer your questions if you swear to answer mine."

She shrugs and rolls her eyes. "Sure, whatever."

Has she never done this before? Don't demons have some kind of schooling for this? "You've got to swear it."

She groans. "Ugh, you're just as bad as my dad. I swear to answer your questions in exchange, blah, blah, blah."

The ground rumbles somberly, unleashing a fresh wave of sulphur.

"Who's your dad?" I curse my self for wasting a question, but there was something about the way she said it.

She looks at me sideways, mouth twisted in disbelief. "Seriously? Isn't it obvious?"

A crueler man would count those as questions, but, whatever she is, she looks enough like a child that I can't bring myself to add them to the tally. "No, it's not obvious," I answer.

She rolls her eyes. "My dad is Satan. Duh."

I stumble back a step with a strangled gasp. "Satan, as in the Satan, our immortal lord and damner, rules Hell and all that?"

"What, is there another one?" she says.

I shake my head in disbelief. "You're really trying to tell me you're the daughter of Satan?"

"Um, yeah. I've got his eyes, see?" She leans her head forward and widens said eyes. Having never actually met Satan, I've got no idea whether his eyes also look like they're on the verge of shooting flames, but it seems plausible.

If she is Satan's daughter, keeping her trapped in a circle might trigger his fiery wrath. If she isn't, and I let her go, there's a good chance she'll take the opportunity to kill me painfully. Actually, even if she is, there's a good chance of that. But banishing Satan's daughter is definitely a no-no.

Painful death is better than Satan's fiery wrath, I decide.

I turn to the girl who might be literal Satan-spawn. She says, "Dad's gonna to be real pissed either way, but you should really let me out of this circle." I wonder whether she can read thoughts or just faces, but even I am not dumb enough to ask that.

I cringe. "Uh, yeah, I'll get right on that." I pick up my oaken staff, close my eyes, and focus on the energies in the room. Despite the buffer of the circle, I can sense the immense potential for power barely contained by the girl's form. She's not lying, and I am so screwed. I sharpen my focus on my tightly woven circle. It's a pretty good one, if I do say so myself. A shame to break it, but I bring my staff down to shatter it's hold. Power rushes back to the Well and the girl-shaped powder keg steps over the remnants.

I open my eyes to see her staring at me, arms crossed. "Are you done with your little magic show?" she asks.

Knowing better than to tally any of her questions now, I say, "Yes, again, so sorry about the inconvenience. Is there anything I can do for you? And maybe you can forget to mention this when you get back home?"

She tilts her head in mock thoughtfulness. "You know, some ice cream couldn't hurt."

I nod, desperate for anything that might delay the ineveitable. "Yes, of course." Satan is going to torture me so, so much. "Kitchen is upstairs."

She smiles savagely, relishing my pain. "Lead the way."

I gulp, but she could kill me just as easily while I'm facing her, so I turn and go up the stairs. Satan's daughter follows me to the kitchen. I go to the freezer, thankful for the burst of cool air. Is the room getting warmer? A line of sweat carves a path down my back.

I clear the lump from my throat. "I've got, let's see, chocolate, mint-chocolate chip, lemon, and rocky road," I say into the freezer.

"Hmm," she says from somewhere in the vicinity of the kitchen table. "I think I'll have a scoop of each."

"Yes, of course, right way." I gather the tubs and place them on the counter.

She laughs. "Wow, you're so much nicer now. You're real scared of my dad, huh?"

At this point, I might be just as scared of her. "He is all-powerful."

I see her shaking her head out of the corner of my eye. "No, not all-powerful. Just, super-powerful. Definitely way, way, way more powerful than you. I mean, I'm just his daughter and I could crush you like a bug."

Shit shit shit. My shaking hands rattle the dinnerware as I grab a bowl. I cast about for some plan that does not end in my painful death and eternal damnation as I scoop the ice cream.

I all but drop the bowl in front of her before darting back to cower beside the sink. Not that I'm any safer there.

Satan's daughter, whose name I'm not sure whether to ask, sits in my kitchen, spooning the strange ice cream concoction, and says, "Dad's gonna kill you so, so bad."

"Yes," I agree in resignation.

She regards a spoonful of ice cream. "My name's Lucy, by the way." She licks the spoon and tilts her head at me.

I'm not sure whether I'm supposed to use her name or not, but I'm in for a whole lot of pain either way, so I say, "Hi, Lucy."

She smiles a little. "No one actually uses my name. My dad calls me DD, you know, like darling daughter? It's embarassing but he won't stop. And everyone else just calls me Your Highness."

Shit. "Should I, uh, call you Your Highness?"

She sighs in exasperation. "You're literally not listening at all. I don't even know why I expected you to."

"You want me to call you Lucy?" I ask hesistantly.

She rolls her eyes. "Yes. You're so dense. But, everyone is. Even my dad."

I'm pretty sure I'm not supposed to agree with that. "Okay, so, Lucy."

She nods and takes another bite of her now half-melted ice cream. I twitch in the silence. She notices my twitching and sighs. "Fine, okay, I'm not gonna tell my dad. Happy?"

She's definitely messing with me. "Well, yes, that would make me happy."

Setting her spoon on the table with more force than is strictly necessary, she turns in the chair to face me. "I'm serious! I just wanted to watch you, you know, squirm a little. It's funny. But, like, my dad would actually fuck you up real bad and I don't really like watching that. It's kinda gross? With all the squishy guts and everything."

I force myself not to think about all the terrible things that could happen to my squishy guts. It still seems too good to be true. But what the hell? "Er, thank you. Very much. I also like my squishy guts untouched. So, thank you very much." I stop as an unpleasant thought strikes me. "Wait, does this mean I owe some unpayable debt to you?"

Lucy gapes at me, affronted. "No, does everything always have to have a price? You're just as bad as the demons! Always talking about debts and promises and bargains. It's so annoying."

"Uh, yeah. I guess it is."

She tilts her head. "Why do you even deal with demons? You know, you don't have to. Not like me, I don't have a choice. But you bet your ass the moment I'm eighteen I'm getting the hell out of Hell." I doubt it'll be that easy, but I'm not going to be the one to burst her bubble.

She's waiting for me to answer. "I'm, well, a kind of businessman, I suppose," I say. "I used to be a more conventional sort of businessman, and demons are actually much more pleasant to deal with than my old clients. It's also more lucrative."

She wrinkles her nose. "So all you care about is money."

I shrug. "Not all, but money is power, and I like power."

She huffs. "That's messed up."

"Yeah."

She scoops up the last bit of sludge from her bowl. "Where should I put this?" she asks.

I must look surprised, because she rolls her eyes and says, "What? I can have manners when I want."

"Yeah, of course. Uh, just in the sink is fine." I watch as she deposits the bowl into the sink and lets it fill with water. She rinses her hands and shakes them dry. I wince a little as the droplets land on the freshly shined oven door.

"I should get going. My dad's gotta notice I'm gone eventually," she says.

"Yeah," I agree.

She salutes me with a grin. "Been nice knowing you. Thanks for the ice cream."

"Er, you're welcome. Lucy," I say as she vanishes into a portal of spinning flames. The portal blinks out, leaving a faint scent of sulfur and the echoes of the screams of the damned.

I sink slowly onto the concrete kitchen floor, staring at the after-image of the afternoon.