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From hell he was called – Chën the lightning-bringer, Chën master of the chords of chaos, muse of the sins of the flesh. He rose through the layers of magic that called him, becoming enrobed in luscious flesh, ripe for sinning. He smiled when he became able, ready to fulfil all the worst desire of his new master.
What manner of mortal called him this time? A necromancer, with all their delicious, rotting snacks? A pervert wanting a sex slave? Honestly, that was his favorite. Chën smacked his newly formed lips in anticipation.
He manifested into bright sunshine – the first surprise – in what appeared to be a modest and sparsely furnished residence – the second.
“Behold!” he cried. “From hell’s deepest pit I have come to serve you, o master! My strength to your strength, my will to your – “
“Oh what now,” a voice said – the voice of Chën’s master, he supposed.
A light tenor, indicating annoyance. Chën turned and very nearly erupted into his alternate form of a crashing thunderstorm. Angels could only be bested by the element of surprise: Chën would be back in that hell before he drew three full breaths. What abysmal luck, to go straight back to the abyss.
Chën took one of the breaths required by his new flesh. His master scowled at him: a heart-shaped face, fair and symmetrical enough to be one of the Host, but without an angel’s aura of power. Also, rather small for an angel. Not that Chën was bitter, being himself rather small of demon.
“Master!” he tried again. “The power of your call has brought forth Chën, demon of lightning, to your service!”
“Not again,” his master groaned.
Chën chewed his lip.
“I do not have time for this today,” his master said.
He rushed around, putting grimoires and parchments into a bag, muttering curses that fluttered deliciously over Chën’s skin like tiny caresses. He pulled a pair of spectacles off the top of his head and perched them on his perfect little nose.
A scholar. Chën shivered. He adored scholars, they were always so depraved.
“You,” his master said, pointing at Chën.
Chën stood up straight, then remembered that he was a demon and slouched enticingly. He licked his lips and smirked.
“Do not. Touch. Anything,” his master said, and rushed out the door.
Chën scowled while he rose into the air. He was required to obey his master’s orders. Which were to touch nothing.
A small construct with a green light on top rolled out from under the furniture. Chën swiveled in midair to glare at it. The thing trundled around for hours, making a sound like Cicadiaema, demon of insects, while it moved over his master’s summoning spell, laid out in fabric on the floor. The spell seemed to be an entire alphabet of letters, laid out in neat rows, swoopy and black on a pale brown background. A most curious summoning method. Chën wondered whether he would be permitted to ask about it.
Once he stopped hanging in the air. Forbidden to touch anything, so that even his lightning did nothing but crackle uselessly around him.
All day.
By the time his master returned home, Chën was hanging limply in the air, singing a dirge from the Eighteenth Hell of Skin Rashes about never-ending discomfort. At the sound of the door, he rolled over, hands tucked under his chin beneath a fetching smile.
His master stopped in the doorway and frowned.
“You’re still here,” he said.
Chën broadened his smile.
“Of course, my master,” he purred. “I await your desires.”
Chën’s master rolled his eyes, which, in Chën’s experience, rarely led to anyone’s poking-out parts being inserted into someone else’s dark and damp regions. A pity.
“Whatever nonsense you’re up to, stop it,” his master said.
The command that had kept Chën in midair disappeared. He was a demon of skill with vast lifetimes of experience in sin and depravity, seducer of thousands. So he only stumbled a little when he landed on his feet.
Chën’s master hung his coat and placed his shoes in a small rack. Chën noted his precise movements, worthy of an adept. He approached to stand at the edge of the summoning spell, where he stared at Chën with weariness on his handsome face. Chën scowled. Who dared so exhaust his master?
They would have lightning applied to their tenderest body parts, should Chën determine their identity.
“What am I supposed to do?” his master asked. “An exorcism, or something?”
Chën let a bit of his aura show, which made the room smell of ozone and rain.
“I am a sixth-level demon of the atmospheric realms,” he said with thunder rolling in his voice. “My service is dearly bought.”
Lightning flashed in one corner of the room, and a chilly, brimstone-scented wind blew through. Chën stared at his master, waiting for the inevitable moment when the man would drop to his knees and sob, and the demon would gain the upper hand. Triumph, and screaming, and a yummy soul for a snack.
The man scoffed.
Scoffed!
“Not dearly bought by me,” he said. “Maybe you have the wrong address. Is there some sort of evil directory you could check?”
Evil direct--?
“I was summoned!” Chën cried.
He ignored the fact that his voice sounded considerably higher than could be considered frightening.
The master put one hand on his hip. One full eyebrow lifted over one beautiful, feline eye. He gestured at the pattern of sigils on the floor.
“Buddy, you would not believe how many things get ‘summoned’ around this joint. Why do you think the rent’s so cheap? But it’s not me doing the summoning, I’ll tell you that. So if you need me to banish you or whatever, just let me know. Otherwise, I had a long damn day, and I’ll appreciate being left alone in my own apartment.”
This was an outrage. It was an insult to all the atmospheric realms. It was an insult to every level of demon from the first down to the nine hundred and ninety-ninth. Chën imagined the tortures he would apply to this person were he not technically the master. That beautiful face would contort in agonies before it burned to a crisp.
The small construct bumped into Chën’s ankle. Chën cursed at it, and the lights on top of the construct turned from green to red while its beeps took on a discordant note.
“Thank you for agreeing,” Chën said to it.
Chën couldn’t banish himself, and he’d be blessed before he asked the master for any kind of assistance. That left only one recourse: making such a nuisance of himself that he got banished with the hope of a less boring master next time.
Over his eons of existence, Chën had made obnoxiousness something of a specialty.
The problem was that the master’s apparent extensive experience with summonings meant that he knew the rules.
Chën made the winds from a hell of rotting meat blow through the apartment.
“No bad smells,” the master yelled from his cooking room.
Chën brought the chorus of screams from a hell of violent tortures to wail in the corners.
“Don’t try to scare me,” the master yelled from his bathing room.
Chën made static electricity arise from his very being to crackle throughout the living space and disrupt the energies. The small construct under the sofa screeched.
“If you don’t stop messing with my television I will start singing hymns,” the master growled.
He couldn’t call his last-ditch measure the next morning a “desperation measure,” exactly: the master was beautiful. His face was shaped like an upside-down teardrop, with almond-shaped eyes and hair that waved over his ears. He spoke to Chën with authority in his voice. Chën’s last-ditch effort had been his first hope, once he realized the master wasn’t a member of the Host.
“What. Are you. Doing,” the master said.
“Rubbing your cock, master,” Chën said, “prior to more perverse pleasures.”
Such a nice cock, too, prettily proportioned amid its nest of dark hair.
“Quit it,” the master said, wriggling away.
“But my tongue is prehensile, and I can divide it in two,” Chën said.
“Look,” the master said, “coming on to me after you just spent the past evening trying to gross me out or scare me is extremely weird. I don’t know what you think your purpose is, but if you’re going to stay here until you resolve some intricate spiritual issue, I need you to do two things.”
A task! Chën knelt on the bed, hands clasped.
“Yes,” he breathed.
“One, don’t touch me. Two, find a way to make yourself useful.”
This was not exactly the kind of task Chën had hoped for. “Make yourself useful” was hardly an occasion to sin. And yet he was bound by the strictures of his summoning.
When he stood on the summoning spell minutes later, the little construct circled him, making its insectoid sound.
“I know,” Chën said. “So boring.”
Useful he was commanded, and useful he would be. While the master returned to sleep, Chën took stock of the household. He learned that his master’s name was Kim Minseok, 32 mortal years of age, a scholar of mathematics of such standing that he received compensation for his studies and living expenses. That could be a matter of pride, that master Minseok was a master of scholars, for whom the numerology of the spheres would give up its secrets.
He also seemed a bit of an ascetic: plain furnishings, modest clothing, and insufficient foodstuffs for gluttony. Plenty of spirits, though, and a drunk master was often a master who could be cajoled into further sin.
“Useful” was not much of a guideline. Yet Chën's summoning meant that he had to obey master Minseok, so he had to get creative to meet the summons’ imperative. It was an unusual turn about the mortal realm: Chën found himself cleaning. He made sure to use caustic chemicals to do so, until the apartment had a sharp reek about it, which master Minseok seemed not to notice. Chën learned to cook, and enjoyed watching his master’s eyes stream with the agony of hot spices.
(He similarly enjoyed master Minseok’s “that was delicious, even though I can’t feel my tongue,” but that was a secret.)
There was no sin Chën could find in re-folding and color-coding master Minseok’s sock drawer. That was simply the satisfaction of a task well completed, especially when master Minseok smiled at him.
Not many of Chën’s masters had smiled. He found the expression appealing. And, in general, he approved of teeth.
The mechanical construct was an oddity: it never left its small territory, the summoning spell and under the nearest piece of furniture, but whenever Chën stood there, it tried to run over his feet or bumped his ankles, making a grinding sound at him with red lights flashing.
“That useless thing,” master Minseok said. “It’s supposed to vacuum the whole apartment but never tries to clean anything but that hideous rug.”
How unfortunate to be a useless thing, and not useFUL like Chën, who had the floors sparkling by the time master Minseok returned home from his studies. There wasn’t much depravity in usefulness, but on the other hand, there also wasn’t any removal of demonic body parts for use in spells.
Sadly, there also wasn’t anything else going on with body parts, even when Chën stood by master Minseok’s bed in the morning and stared longingly at the lump under the blanket that was master Minseok’s nicest body part.
“Why are you standing there?”
“I’m not touching you,” Chën said.
“Good,” master Minseok said. “But why are you standing there?”
Chën shrugged one shoulder out of his red tunic and smiled. He even put away the points of his teeth to seem more mortally attractive.
“Don’t you wish to rescind your no-touching order, master? Just think how luscious it would be to allow me to care for your morning needs.”
“No.”
“But master! Bifurcated tongue!”
Chën stuck out his tongue and waved the two ends in opposite directions for emphasis. Master Minseok pulled away and held the blanket against his face.
“What the hell.”
“Exactly! And you know I do not require the same amount of air that a human does, nor am I easily hurt. You can do just as you like with me, master, the worse the better.”
“I am not sleeping with anyone who calls me ‘master,’ that’s horrible.”
Chën blinked. A bit of a surprise, but nothing to worry over.
“That’s no trouble,” he said. “I've a good hand with the whip.”
He reached down to ruck up his tunic and put some thunder into his voice.
"On your knees, slave.”
“Stop,” master Minseok said. “Just stop talking. Oh my god, not one more word, ugh.”
Chën pouted over the breakfast juk and didn’t even bother giving it the spice of hellfire. What an ignominious summoning. Not allowed to touch the master, not doing any sinning at all, and now not even allowed to speak!
He crunched a chicken bone to shards in frustration.
Master Minseok wasn’t wicked at all. How did Chën, beautiful wielder of lightning, even come to this wretched place with all its socks and its silence and its stupidly beautiful master with his stupid restrictions?
He thunked the bowl down in front of his thankless master and glared. His wretched master finished the bowl and put his chin on one fist.
“That was so bland it could’ve been fed to an invalid. Am I in trouble?” master Minseok asked, with a horrible little smile playing about his terrible mouth.
Chën, who wasn’t allowed to speak because his master was some sort of morally upright garbage person, could only glare and bare his teeth. Which were now pointy.
“You can talk,” master Minseok said.
“Master!” Chën cried.
He scrubbed the table to show his appreciation.
Master Minseok was standing by the summoning fabric when Chën emerged from the kitchen. His nice master, a little bit uptight but overall acceptable. Chën stood very close to him. But not touching.
“I wonder how you got here?” master Minseok said. “A ton of strange things have happened in this apartment, but nothing like you, Chën. No one who has been solid and real and stayed so long.”
Real? Master Minseok thought he was real? No one had ever thought Chën real before.
The small construct emerged from under the furniture, beeping furiously. It bumped into the front of master Minseok’s slippers, until he stepped away from Chën.
Master Minseok danced around and cursed at the thing while a dark suspicion bloomed in Chën’s mind.
“I cleaned the floor,” he said.
“Thank you,” master Minseok said. “I never could seem to get to it, which is why I bought that wretched vacuum. I should have known not to buy second-hand electronics. It hasn’t worked right since that storm a couple of days after I bought it.”
The construct circled Chën’s feet, herding him toward the summoning spell. Chën stepped aside.
“Was it on the fabric during the storm?” he asked.
The construct’s lights went red, and it pushed more insistently at Chën’s feet.
“I think so,” master Minseok said.
The construct’s beeps became a lower, scratchier sound that, if Chën didn’t know better, sounded like a badly pronounced dialect from one of the minor hells.
“I did not clean under this furniture,” Chën said.
The construct screeched.
"Ugh, I don’t even want to think about what might be under there,” master Minseok said. “This is a student apartment that came furnished, it could be anything.”
It would require stepping onto the summoning spell, but Chën thought it would be worth the risk.
“Let’s see,” he said, and strode forward to flip the furniture over.
Master Minseok made a sound almost as harsh as the construct did. Chën frowned in a lack of surprise: amid the snack wrappers and globs of dust were an empty bottle of spirits, the bones of a small animal, a very old used bandage, and pages of mathematics.
He knew how he had been summoned.
The construct made a low, clashing sound and unfolded a thin appendage that grasped master Minseok by the ankle. Master Minseok yelped, and the sweet scent of blood filled the air.
Now that he knew to listen for it, Chën heard how the construct’s hell-dialect, although pronounced improperly, was gaining power. He sniffed and listened, recognized the spell as one that would use master Minseok’s mortal remains to transfer demonic authority to the construct, where it was supposed to have been in the first place.
Well. The construct certainly seemed evil. Maybe it would allow Chën to finally get up to some sinning.
“Ouch, let go!” master Minseok yelled.
On the other hand, a grateful master Minseok might let his savior Chën touch that nice cock again.
Metal constructs didn’t have cocks.
Chën made a hoof on his left foot and stomped on the construct’s arm to break its connection with master Minseok, then conjured enough lightning to not only fry the thing (it died with a long, piercing wail) but also set the summoning spell on fire.
That was delightful, because (a) fire, (b) mayhem, and (c) master Minseok screamed very beautifully. When it seemed as if master Minseok might be in actual danger, Chën dumped the remaining breakfast juk on the fire to put it out.
All of this made a marked improvement on Chën’s tenure in the mortal realm. The juk had been too boring to salvage. The construct would never again roll over his toes. And master Minseok said, “I suppose you’re allowed to touch me” since he needed help with his leg wound.
Master Minseok tried to yelp and pull away when Chën bent to lick the wound clean.
“It’ll only help you heal cleanly, my master,” Chën said. “For anyone but my master, it would be deadly poison.”
He smiled up through his eyelashes and licked master Minseok’s leg again. At the faint “Oh … all right,” he knew that his venom had dulled the master’s pain. Planting seeds of sin in whatever ground seemed fertile. Chën gave the wound a little kiss for luck before he bound it up. Maybe the master had liked seeing a demon tongue in action. Maybe Chën would be allowed to lick something else soon.
“You’re saying I had an evil vacuum cleaner,” master Minseok said later, after the construct’s pile of demonic offerings had been swept away and he was lounging on the ‘sofa’ with a pillow under his injured leg while Chën cleaned up cold porridge and burnt fabric.
Chën nodded.
“And with the summoning spell destroyed, there’s no easy way to get rid of me, master,” he said.
He grinned.
“You might be stuck with me.”
He licked his lips and stretched as if wearied by his labors. The stretch pulled his tunic high on his legs. Master Minseok’s glance was not subtle. Excitement did tend to open the mind to new ideas.
“I suppose it’s not as bad as I thought it was to have a personal protective demon,” the master said.
Oh, it would be bad. The most enjoyable kinds of bad. Chën would ensure that.