Come closer, ardent acolyte, for as the clock strikes black midnight and the cold shiver of dread runs down your spine so too does my story continue.

As Eldritch Maiden leapt into the convention center to forestall a riot, darker transactions occurred between the minds of Erika and Belphegor. The wazir of waiting, Belphegor, grumbled at his foe, “This section holds me accountable for payment regardless of the use of her information, this is simply unacceptable.”

“Why,” asked Erika. Taunting him, she added, “Think you’re going to fail?”

Belphegor’s tail swished back and forth, agitated. “I do not fail,” he growled. “But I will not promise something for nothing.”

Erika rested her head against the table. Face pressed against the wood, she said, “Not my problem.”

Unseen by the girl, Belphegor cracked a cunning smile and said, “Fine, fine, I agree. But in exchange you must not be present during the ritual. I do not wish to share my secrets any more than I must.”

Erika lifted her head in a lolling motion. “Without her lawyer? You’ll just trick her.”

Belphegor pointed to a bit of tiny writing near the edge of the parchment. “See here? I agreed to indemnify your client against any breaches of contract that I knowingly initiate. Tricking her into making a mistake would fall under that provision.”

“But what if she simply does it on her own?” Erika wondered aloud.

Great droplets of saliva dripped from Belphegor’s maw as he replied. His keen mind raced, sensing blood in the water. “I see your trickery knows no end. But I insist that all I desire is the magic, and my time is fleeting. I vow on the blood of the lamb that I will lay no more tricks or traps into the contract if only you will expedite this process!” he exclaimed in a faux defeated tone.

“Soooo, you saying I win?” slurred Erika.

The god of goldbricking replied in a voice more hateful than that of Cain when he spoke to Abel of offerings to the Lord, “Indeed, mortal female. If I had more time it might be different, but alas I do not.”

Internally the demon rejoiced for he had succeeded in distracting the drunken girl away from his true objective. Of course, ardent acolyte, an astute erudite such as yourself doubtless divined his diabolical intent, Belphegor convinced the human girl to allow her client to face down the devil alone.

With a whoop, Erika flipped the table and threw her hands into the air shouting, “I’m a winner!” Then she paused, puzzled. Slowly, she touched her ears and said contritely, “Sorry, I’m a cat.” A moment later, she amended in an unsteady voice, “A sexy cat.”

The duke of do-nothing Belphegor watched her display, grinding his teeth all the while. He was frustrated for while he’d won the war, the girl took far too many victories in their battle of contracts. It galled him, being confounded, and all by a mere mortal woman. Resolving to return and visit vile pestilences upon her or her line at the earliest opportunity, he controlled his emotions and turned to where the object of his efforts, Eldritch Maiden, had stood.

Seeing nobody there, Belphegor became enraged. In an instant, he turned to Erika and asked in a voice more horrible than any other demon in the endless legions of the abyss, “Where is the witch?”

Shrugging, Erika finished taking another pull of her flask and said, “She does that.” Then she paused to consider something before amending, “Well, not her actually. It’s that one guy from those marvelous movies.” Erika tapped her cheek for a second, “No, not marvelous. That other company that makes movies. I can’t remember the name.”

Belphegor drew himself up, straining mightily against the firmament of God. Enraged, he smote it repeatedly seeking a momentary break in which to strike down the infuriating female. But the barrier of God is stronger than any devil and so Belphegor managed nothing.

Oblivious, Erika continued to think. Finally, her face lit up and she said, “I.C.! Investigator Comics! That’s the company. Now who is the hero?”

Mumbling to herself, she continued to think. All the while, Belphegor strained and struggled with the bindings of the creator. His hands were mere inches away from Erika’s pale and exposed neck when she spoke yet again. “Ratman!” she exclaimed. Satisfied, she glanced up at the hulking form of Belphegor and pinched his nose saying, “You’re not that spooky. Aren’t demons supposed to be spooky?”

Giving up, Belphegor fell back and said with a hiss, “We appear as we appear. Our forms are mutable as the mist.”

Clapping her hands together with a loud crack, Erika exclaimed, “Prove it! Turn into a cat!”

Belphegor growled. Then he pulled out the contract and unfurled it, pointing to a section written in the spidery scrawl of black ink. “According to chapter nineteen, subheading eight point four, lines six through seventeen, if I use magic in front of a mortal other than Eldritch my soul is forfeit and the contract void.”

Erika frowned. Then she perked up and said with a smile, “Well I had to try.”

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As she finished speaking, Eldritch climbed out the window. Slight makeup smears marred her costume as she huffed and puffed from her exertions. After taking a few greedy breaths she said, “Alright, we good?”

Belphegor stepped forth and said, “Indeed. Now, witchy caster, we must begin the ritual.”

Waving a hand, Eldritch replied, “Sure, sure, whatever. One sec.”

With that, she dove back into the room. The sounds of fighting and screaming filled the alley for another minute until Eldritch reappeared. Hopping out of the window she said, “Great, that should be the end of that. Now, how can I help you Mr. Demon?”

“Belphegor,” clarified Erika. Seeing both the demon and her employer look at her in surprise she spread her arms and said, “What? He had to sign the contract, I saw his John Hancock.”

Impatient, Belphegor said in a voice more guttural than the sounds that emanate from the shifting mountains, “Let us be off! The sun wanes and the night rises. It is not long now until the moon will shine down on the land of man. Soon after the sun will rise, extinguishing the life-line of one of my fellows.”

“Cool,” demurred Erika before she turned to Eldritch and asked, “Send me to a bar?”

Sighing, Eldritch nodded and lifted her phone. “Got a car on the way. Really though, do you need to drink more?”

Erika pondered the question. Philosophically, she then replied, “Yes.”

Belphegor grimaced, his monstrous form quivering with excitement. “Leave us, mortal,” he commanded as Erika made her way down the alley. Then he turned back to Eldritch and said in a much nicer voice, “Shall we begin?”

Together the pair absconded to an abandoned church. There, among the rotting pews and crumbling altars, Belphegor drew a circle of profane runes and pentagrams upon the ground. Standing opposite Eldritch, he proffered a claw to help her step into the center of the ritual. As she did, she said, “Don’t forget, you have to explain what you do before you do it every step of the way.”

“I do not forget,” grumbled Belphegor.

Then he reached into his bag and drew forth the powdered horn of a rhinoceros. With a flourish, he cast it about the circle and said, “Now, Maiden, the advent of my spell begins. Using the horn as the thaumaturgical focus, I will elide your magic to my own. Once complete, this will allow me to cast forth the net of prophecy once more to the river of fate using both our powers. With your ability as a guide, I will sense the danger to my cohort and depart anon it is identified.”

“Don’t forget about my reward,” warned the girl.

A sly grin broke across Belphegor’s maw. “Of course,” he hissed, drool from his mouth falling to the cracked stones of the church and sizzling on the floor.

Then, ardent acolyte, the ritual progressed. What a sight it was! For the ruined church sat on the edge of town with naught a soul for miles. It was a small, stone thing with a high rising steeple and the neglected remnants of a cemetery in the backyard. Two rotting wooden doors hung from the hinges and when you entered, ardent acolyte, the only sound was the whistling howl of the wind as it chased lost souls around the belfry and the occasional disturbance of the great bell that summoned the town to its walls. Once or twice, the whipping wind would rise to such agitation that it would send the great behemoth of metal swinging gently, letting out a mournful peal that none but the corpses would hear.

The guts of the church were as decrepit as the outside. Rotting, broken pews scattered across the dusty floor, shards of the frescoed glass windows lying strewn throughout, and a cracked altar demarcating the center of the aged beauty. The black rot that crept up the sides of the church walls grew long like fat fingers grasping towards the belfry. Indeed, ardent acolyte, it was the perfect location for a ritual of the dark arts.

So as the swirling vortex of power and sulfurous magic rose into the crumbling masonry of the church it created an updraft of hot and wild wind that set the bell ringing out across the abandoned fields that surrounded the church. Leashing these arcane forces to his peerless command was mighty Belphegor, chanting in the lost language of the Nephilim. Dancing motes of power shone off his slick skin as his hands moved with preternatural speed.

Throughout it all, Eldritch stood in awe of the unholy creature’s skill. Ensconced in the protective circles and pentagrams scrawled across the floor she had nothing to fear from the roiling energy Belphegor handled, but this knowledge did little to assuage her feeble mortal mind. In between his chants, Belphegor shouted out the various incantations and spells he used in his augury to the girl before he performed each one.

Slowly the pillar of magical power began to settle as Belphegor’s spell reached it’s conclusion. Flaring up one last time before quieting it coalesced into a solid shine that affixed itself to Belphegor’s eyes. Closing them, Belphegor waited for precisely six hundred and sixty-six seconds before opening his eyes once more to use the power of sight he obtained. Great shivers ran down his beastly form as he shook from the wisdom his foresight afforded. Finally, the lights faded and his eyes returned to normal.

Staring down the diminutive girl in the center of his ritual circle, Belphegor howled, “It is you! Your own magic is the danger!”

Calmly, Eldritch sat down cross-legged in the center of the pentagram and said, “Yes. I thought that might be the case.”

Astounded, Belphegor raged, “How could you know? How, when even I did not? I was with you this entire time. I know you had no chance to perform your own ritual!”

Smiling quixotically, Eldritch answered the devil with a superior air as she said, “You’re right, I didn’t have time to do anything.” Tapping the side of her head, she added, “But then, I didn’t need to.”

Growling, Belphegor slammed his meaty hand down on the rotting pews as he shouted, “It will not stand! I will not allow it!”

“Careful buddy,” replied Eldritch, wagging her finger, “you signed a contract, remember? Touch me and you go poof.”

Belphegor turned away and smashed another row of pews. Then, in a voice more sly than that of the serpent in the garden, he said, “Indeed, we signed a contract.”

Then, with speed that defied his prodigious form Belphegor leapt towards the girl with his claws extended. Unperturbed, Eldritch simply watched as he drew closer. Stopping on a dime, or as though he’d hit a wall, Belphegor halted at the edge of the pentagram on the floor. Tapping the side of her cheek, Eldritch said mockingly, “Poor little devil, can’t walk across a few lines drawn in the ground. You really shouldn’t have spent so much time looking into the future.”

Pointing at the ground in front of her, whereupon Eldritch had drawn a few modifications to the circle and pentagram diagrams that traced the floor, she added, “It might have helped a lot more if you’d spent some time looking at what was right in front of you instead.”

As the two faced off, staring daggers at one another, the only sound to be heard was the relentless chime of the belfry as it rang out the tune of some ghastly carillonneur.

And so, ardent acolyte, the dark hour comes bringing another fell chapter to our tale! Huddle closer, for as the wind howls, the serpents hiss, and the clutch of evil creeps across the land our story continues…