“Oh, come now. Is that any way to look at me? I dressed up special just for you.”

Since I had decided on summoning the demon, I had been dreading what my reaction would be to seeing the demon in one of the two forms I had seen before. Would it be the swarthy muscular male with tight muscles who terrorized my dreams in equal part horror and pleasure? Would it be the smooth skinned ice princess with blue eyes who forced me to see more about myself than I had been ready to?

I should have expected something else instead.

My government assigned therapist had largely gotten me through the issues with my sexuality and the trauma I had experienced from the sacrifices to the demon. She disagreed, but from my point of view, I accepted my sexuality and that I was abused and it wasn’t my fault. Anything else about how I dealt with it was about how I felt like dealing with it and none of her business.

“Don’t you just love this teddy? I think it’s just delightful,” the short and curvy, slightly older female form in the circle said as she ran her hands over her body with a lascivious lear.

It took a few moments, but I finally stopped my shuddering in disgust and dredged up some of my feelings of courage and defiance. The same off center quirky smile. The same arms that had held me when I woke in horror or shame at night. Far more body on display than I had ever seen before.

This was how every demon worked; corruption, chaos, destruction. I would never look at my aunt's face again, but my thoughts of her will forever be tainted by this creature wearing a likeness of her skin.

I closed my eyes and tried to draw up my short frame and control my shaking. With a slow breath, I locked away my emotions to try and focus on my deal. I couldn’t let this demon trick me, I couldn’t let it get more of the upper hand. Letting this unbalance me would be handing this demon my life.

Finally, my breath slowed and I gained control of my breathing. After I opened my eyes and prepared to speak the demon spoke, throwing me off balance yet again.

“Fine, would this be better for you dear?” The demon asked as it’s teddy was replaced with my aunts favorite t-shirt. The t-shirt replicated my aunts exactly, down to the slight discoloration on the collar were I had smudged my makeup crying after my disastrous attempt at a first date.

Even the word ‘dear’ was said with the exact tone and the tilt of the head my aunt would use.

“Now, officially, what would you like to have? What deal can we make dear? Perhaps the same deal your parents made? Greater magical power? For you, perhaps enough to become an archmage?”

The idea of an archmage in debt to a demon was stomach churning, though I’m sure it had happened before. For a brief moment, the idea flickered through my mind. Power, enough to force my way into the higher strata of magic. Enough power that I couldn’t be forced to do as others wanted.

I let that phantasm of power fade away, and I could see the smile on the demon’s face fade slightly with it. No, no matter how much power you have, either someone has more, or those below you could group together and bring you down. No archmage could stand against ten of their own peers. If I suddenly became an archmage then the hunt for how I gained my power would start and it wouldn’t be long until my demon summoning would be discovered.

My original idea was the only one that made sense. I would travel to another world, one where I could gain power and become stronger. If I run from this world, then my demon summoning won’t matter.

“I want to be transported to a new world, one where I can earn magical power for myself, become strong and powerful, somewhere that my demon summoning will never be discovered,” I said forcefully.

The demon hesitated briefly. The illusion that my aunt was the one inside the circle failed. The body still looked like her, nothing had physically changed, but the mannerisms I knew so well all stopped. The body slowly shifted until a young beautiful Asian woman stood in the circle, dressed in a formal robe of silk, the light blue glowing eyes shifting to a rich brown.

The demon started to walk slowly inside the circle in a casual stroll around the perimeter while tapping her chin with one delicate black painted fingernail. Reaching out her other hand the demon trailed her finger along the inner surface of the barrier, the appendage burning and smoking as it ran around the surface, blue sparks jumping along the edge.

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It was taking everything to contain my breathing. I could see the barrier distort slightly from the pressure of the single finger within. If the warping became too great I would banish the demon and try again after reinforcing the construct.

“Do you know why humans always provide their side of a bargain first?”

The sneer to the word ‘human’ was full of disdain and disgust. It was so full of loathing that I found my eyes locked to the demons without being aware I had stopped looking at it’s trailing finger. Shaking myself I looked back at the structure of the spell to be sure it wasn’t failing. It was still holding fine, in fact, it looked like it would take much greater effort to cause a breakdown. The finger was probably just to disturb me.

I tried not to let my discomfort show and said, “It’s a link. Until you are provided your part of the bargain your magic can’t escape the barrier and affect the summoner.”

Again with the smile. The demon had stopped testing the inside of the barrier and was now stopped in front of me smiling. I was reminded of a tiger I had seen at the zoo when I was a child, one of the few pleasant memories before my parents abused my trust. The tiger had watched me with eyes that said if the bars had disappeared, I was a possible snack. The demon could have taught lessons to the tiger.

“Oh no, dear. I can cast spells on you right now. I’m just bound by the Laws, and they are clear. No direct harm to mortals through spells.”

I blanched and felt light headed as I readied a protective cantrip. My shield was weak, I had no illusions about how effective it would be. The mana shield spell was designed to stop only spells, it would suck up any magic that touched it and would try to use it to fuel the shield itself, the problem was the efficiency of the conversion, the weakness of its structure, and the need to conserve personal energy until it was needed. With it being just a spoken spell effect my efforts would stop a barrage of prank spells but nothing like what a demon could produce.

Waiting, tense, I watched the demon while it simple stood with its angelic face unperturbed. Smiling.

“As I said dear, we can’t harm you. A bargain is an exchange, and you get exactly what you ask for, it’s not my fault that what humans ask for is harmful. But you, oh you dear, you are something precious Erin Ara Weisz, you have created a confluence of possibilities which have never happened since the accords.”

The rapturous smile and the use of my full name were starting to freak me out more than a bit. Anything that made a demon that cheerful made me want to wet myself.

“There is a world, that by its very nature makes demon summoning impossible. The chaos of this world is unclaimed. It’s virgin, unspoiled.”

The smirk that the demon used at that moment while staring into my eyes made me feel soiled and unclean in my own skin. The archmages insist that magic is morally neutral and that what determines the evil or righteousness of a spell is its use and not in its nature but that smirk at my discomfort said otherwise.

Demons were evil or at least malevolent.

“None could send a summoner since that would be harmful. Naughty naughty, not allowed,” the demon said in a sing-song voice made all the more frightening by its childlike crystal tones.

The smile started to spread beyond the limits of human anatomy, the angelic face distorting into the realms of a nightmare, the lips stretching back towards the ears. The head distorted as the eyes grew, shifting from a rich brown to a full pitch black.

“Others demanded power directly, something I couldn’t supply once they had been transported beyond the world, the link effectively severed at their passage.”

The demon’s voice split and warped, becoming the sound of multiple voices but clear and without distortion.

“But you Erin Ara Weisz, you asked only for the right to earn your power and wanted only transport. This allows for something unheard of. Something oh so wonderful dear. For the first time since the accords, a demon will provide a gift to a human. Free transport to a new world, no sacrifice required.”

By the end, the demon's lips had peeled back from the razor shark teeth, I could see row upon row of teeth as her tongue darted out during her speech. Her last words pulled me back from my shock and terror but by then it was too late.

The light blues and purples of the intricate braids and lines of a spell were already forming around me. The spellwork flowing from within the point in the center of the containment circle behind the demons avatar.

I could feel the world around me shiver and distort, bending and wavering as the lines of a spell tightened around me. Far more powerful and complex than anything I had ever conceived. The mastery to create such a spell without gathering power or the forming of runes for focus was terrifying.

“You will be my entry to this world, the chink in the armor of protection it has enjoyed for so long. I will never journey to this world, but you will be my lever there. The chaos you cause will ripple through the world forever and all of that chaos will be mine, I won’t be forced to share it with any other demon. You, dear little one, will be my greatest triumph, and it all comes from giving a human a gift. A gift!”

Even as the world distorted and faded, I could hear the demon laughing clearly. The demons form warped then boiled into a black smoke even as the rest of the world faded away. The spell seemed to close in on me until it hugged my body tightly, the press of the strange magic forcing my magical aura to hug my body as closely as a second skin.

It was likely moments, but in my fear, it felt like hours. The first hint I had of my new situation was the brightening of the world. The spell protecting my passage ripped itself to tatters, a jumble of spell fragments slamming into each other as lines of force tangled and broke. The glimpse through my terror of the formation of the world travel spell had been beyond anything I had conceived of. Even studying just it’s fading remains would have made me an expert in my world on dimensional theory. The demon had torn the spell apart and taken even that chance from me.