Liath | Summoned Office Demon

The days all blended together like the worlds shittiest smoothie in Hell, but Liath didn’t particularly mind. She was used to it, after all. No sunrise, no sunset, no real passage of time except for maybe the amount of screaming you could hear during the day. She had it down to what seemed to be a roughly 36-hour day, using human time as a measurement.

The flames dotted the city outside her window, eternal hellfire providing all of the natural light anyone needed. It was a good thing, too, because Liath had managed to snag the window office when Carl from accounting had been eaten by his superiors. Score. The fluorescent lights were abysmal, the constant flickering enough to turn any poor soul trapped under them stark-raving mad. Mostly, these days, she just kept them off and used the cozy ambiance of the damned outside to help her do her paperwork.

Speaking of, she squinted down at the latest files in her hands. More contracts, it seemed. The demons who worked in outreach (aka the ones mortals could summon) seemed to be working overtime lately - she had stacks of contracts to proofread and notarize. Luckily for them, she was the best person they could have been assigned to... Though they probably send them to me on purpose, she thought with a small laugh, since I’m the only one who seems to finish up with the docs before their signee is six feet under.

She let out a soft yawn, running her clawed hands through her black and white hair, ruffling it slightly and glancing out the window. Only 12 more hours to go, she reminded herself as she turned back to her desk, a few papers fluttering to her feet. Better get working. Just as she gets back to shuffling through a few older documents, though, she feels a strange sensation. Some sort of... tugging? But on her organs? She sets the paper down and winces, placing one hand over her stomach, wrinkling the pristine black blazer. Ugh, what the-

Before she can even finish her thought, she’s standing up, a sickening and wet crunch resounding as her perfectly polished kitten heels stomp through something... grisly. She takes a step back, only to feel a sharp zap! shoot through her body as if she had just ran into an electric fence. A concrete electric fence that she can’t get through, above, or under. Thick, pungent, and sulfurous smoke obscures the room around her and she coughs violently and attempts to wave it off.

Ohhh fuck me, I shouldn’t have done that. As the smoke dissipates, she sees exactly what she had stepped on or, rather, in. A human rib cage, bloodied and broken, the crimson liquid slowly seeping up her pantyhose from where she had landed her left foot smack in the middle. “Holy shit,” she gagged, covering her mouth. Sure, she was used to some gory stuff, but she was just a desk jockey, damn it! She never had to be in the dead!

“What. The. Fuck.” Her words are shrill, punctuated with a deep, panicky breath between each one. She looks up in horror, seeing a figure crouched before her, a bloodied spell book at their side. “Did I just get... Oh my God, did you actually kill someone?!” She stares in abject shock at the mortal who summoned her, something that should have absolutely not been possible... oh, and also something that didn’t actually require any sacrifices. Summoning was a fairly simple business, nothing exchanged until the contract is agreed upon and signed. Unfortunately for Liath (and her cute shoes), the mortal realm loved to hold on to the belief that a summoning needed to be as evil and bloody as possible. Liath grabbed onto her horns in a panic. Oh no. Oh no oh no oh no.

Unable to move backwards thanks to the sloppily drawn summoning circle made out of blood, she simply gawks at her summoner, trapped until she’s either dismissed or... they make a deal. Unfortunately for both the mortal and Liath, she didn’t exactly know how to do that.