I got a call from Judy a few nights later, but let it go to voicemail by reflex.
“Timmy!” she yelled in the message, reminding me how good it felt when a happy Judy said my name. “You had me worried there, but you did it! I thought you were flaking on me, but you got the whole inventory project done a week early! Just like I said you would! I’m so proud of you! My boss thanked me for the recommendation! Said you did a great job and said he hoped you were feeling better? Did you get sick and not tell me? I’m gonna feel really bad if it turns out I was leaving shitty voicemails when you were sick!”
Her message reminded me I didn’t have to dodge her calls anymore, so I called her back.
“There you are! Thank you so much! And I guess they paid you already? What are you going to do with all that money? Will you finally move out of that god awful depressing apartment?”
I smiled. “Maybe. Gotta buy some groceries and get some things fixed first.”
“Well, I really appreciate it. Please, let us take you out to dinner.” And before I could ask what she meant by “us,” a lithe male figure crossed behind her. Judy forgot to hit the mute button and said, “This is my friend from high school, Timmy the Computer Guy.”
“Can he fix my phone?” the man said, only half-joking.
“He can fix anything! Come say hi! Tim, meet Brian!”
The man leaned down to the camera, and I was face to face with a dirty blond surfer, straight out of a ‘90s movie, complete with sun-bleached hair and an impossible tan.
“Hey Tim!” he waved. “Judy said you were her best friend for like ten years! I can’t believe I haven’t met you yet!”
“I can’t believe it, either! How long have you two been together?”
“I dunno,” he shrugged. “Three, four months? Anyway, it’s great to finally meet you, we really should get together!”
“You bet,” I said tersely, as Brian crossed behind Judy and squeezed something, making her giggle, smile, and blush in a way that I had… honestly never seen.
“Sorry I didn’t introduce you guys before now,” she said. “I guess I didn’t want to set up a dinner where the two of us just bored him with museum stuff. But you finished your project, so now we can go do something fun. I’ll call you back when we figure something out!”
I nodded and smiled, just to get her off the phone.
* * *
They had been together months before my birthday, and she hadn’t said a word. It’s not like this was some great shock. I had met several of Judy’s boyfriends since we had renewed our friendship, including a couple who were so much like me, we had actually played co-op games together.
It always annoyed me to see her with a new guy but seeing her with programmers and technical guys - even the fraternity guys didn’t bother me like this one did. Something about the way she acted around him, weird and shy and girly in a way she never was with me. The obvious attraction, the way she looked at him. Since when did Judy start dating guys who looked good with their shirts off?
I closed the door behind me, flopped on the bed, and curled up in a ball, asking Jeeves to play my “Wallowing” playlist to drown out anything Lydia might hear.
I must have been tired, because I slept all night, alone. Sleeping was supposed to make me feel better, but instead of sad, I woke up angry. I had no right to be mad at Judy, but I was angry anyway, and getting madder, angry at myself for being angry, fueled by an old self-loathing that I thought I had grown out of.
I should have gone for a walk to burn off energy. Instead, I pulled up all my screens and very carefully stopped myself from searching Brian’s name. I might have taunted myself like that before I got magic, but now, getting angry was straight up dangerous, and it was too cold for me to wander around in the Zone.
Lydia was looking at me with this concerned head tilt that I found infuriating. “You want to tell me I’m being stupid? You want to give me another demon pep talk?”
“I want to remind you that you’re not just human anymore,” Lydia said, “and to see you thrashing yourself over this pair of idiots is… unseemly, no matter what this girl meant to you. But I’ve already said too much. The mood you’re in, anything I say is going to make it worse.”
“So, what could I do right now, if I was a full-on evil wizard? What did my ancestors do to their rivals? Could I curse his family or turn him into a frog?”
“Yes, and… perhaps. Xavier enjoyed transmuting objects, but none of your predecessors really got into transforming people. I hear it’s quite difficult.”
“I can’t tell if you’re joking,” I admitted. “I can’t even tell if I’m joking.” I stared at her for a long time and said, “You’re a demon,” as if I was just remembering.
Lydia let her horns and tail pop out when I said that, as if I needed a visual aid.
“You’re a demon,” I repeated. “And you said you’re really good at watching and hiding. Could you spy on them without being seen? Could you observe the two of them together and report back to me?”
Lydia said, “Yes.”
I made a “come on” gesture as if I was encouraging her to finish her sentence. “But?” I prompted. “You always say, ‘Yes, but…” when I ask you for something stupid. Where’s my dire warning?”
“Very well,” she sighed. “Timothy, as… as someone who cares about you, I’m telling you not to do this. These omissions, these little secrets people keep; these exist for a reason. Truth can be the ultimate cruelty and lies can be the purest form of kindness. Normally I would just say no or distract you until you forgot about this. But you need to understand what I can do for you, and you need to know how this feels, to use your power to break the rules, and live with the consequences.
“If you do this, you’re going to see some things most men turn away from and feel some things that your society protects you from. If you want to do this and survive, you have to learn to rise above your emotions and see people exactly as they are, see them from outside yourself, objectively, like a demon or a god. You think you’re ready to do that?”
I threw my hands up. "Okay! Okay, I get your point. But maybe you could just…"
“No,” she said, interrupting me. “You are not confiding in me. We are not having a chat. In this moment, we are not lovers, and we are not friends. You are a mage commanding a demon. So, if you want this, look me in the eye, and command me to do something you know is wrong.”
“Lydia,” I said, in my negotiating with demons voice, “go spend a day watching Judy and Brian together, making absolutely sure they cannot see you. Then come and report back to me. I want to know… how they behave together. And I want to know why she loves him more than she loved me.”
Lydia bowed low and vanished.
“Oh, fuck me, what have I done,” I said immediately. “Lydia, come back! I changed my mind! Cancel that command and come back! Lydia?”
* * *
Lydia was gone for 24 hours, and I spent most of that time in bed, trying to sleep through the whole day, to keep myself from imagining all the things she would say when she got back. I was a sweaty, puffy mess by the time she appeared again, in exactly the same spot I dispatched her from.
She didn’t say hello, just “Are you ready for my report?”
“I don’t need your damn report,” I said. “You’ve already made your point. I did the one thing you’re never supposed to do with a supernatural creature; I made a sloppy Wish. It was impulsive, it was stupid, and I’ve had 24 hours to reflect on my stupidity. Let’s just drop it.”
“We have a Bargain in progress, and you commanded me to give you a report. We’re not done until I do that.”
“Is this a demon thing, or a Lydia teaching me a lesson thing? Because if you’re just here to rub my nose in a mistake, you can fuck right off.”
“If you had given this assignment to any other demon, they would not let you rest until they gave their report. Demons have to honor their Word and complete Bargains, or their Masters will punish them. I will even honor an active Bargain after your death. Are you ready for my report?”
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
I was obviously not gonna win this one, so I said, “Report.”
“I thought it might be difficult to honor your request in full, because there’s only so much I could learn by observation. But Judith went into great detail with a friend on the phone, anticipating the rendezvous she had scheduled with Brian that night.
“Judith is very proud of the work she’s done to improve her face and body, and Brian is her reward. She’s always thought of herself as plain, so she’s very proud to be fit now, and just a bit glamorous. She’s always been charming, but she believes Brian is the first man she’s ever seduced with her looks. And Brian is the first man she’s ever chosen for his body.
“She has never been with a man who was this conventionally attractive before. Brian is a sports model and semi-professional athlete who does some kind of skating? The sport requires some technology I don’t understand, but apparently Brian looks so good doing it, he’s able to earn a decent amount of money doing what he loves.
“He’s a very happy, very simple man, self-conscious about his lack of education, but otherwise quite healthy and carefree. His capacity for pure, uncomplicated joy is a big part of why Judith loves him, although she brags to her friend that it’s mainly a physical thing. She’s very proud of her ability to seduce a man like this with her new body, but she worries that she’s just using him, with no pretense of a deeper connection.
“She feels a bit guilty about that, to be overwhelmed with passion for a man she doesn’t respect. She wonders if the sex is better because she doesn’t respect him, or because when she’s with him, she doesn’t have to respect herself.”
“God damn you, Lydia,” I said softly, as she continued.
“They went to a lovely dinner and an art gallery exhibit last night, which was actually a pretense for Judith to impress the gallery owner and set herself up for a job. Then they returned to Judy’s house and spent the night together.
“Brian lives in a pod provided by his corporate sponsor, but he has, for all intents and purposes, moved into Judy’s house. I don’t think you’ve been there. It’s small, but very nice, by modern standards, and most of the furniture still smells like you.
“It’s been a while since I watched normal humans make love. I forgot how sweet it is, to see people trying to love each other, when they don’t completely trust each other yet. Judy talks about him like he’s some kind of incubus, but Brian is a very kind and gentle lover, to the point where it annoyed her. Judy had to constantly exhort him to go harder, until he finally complied.
“In summary, Judith had a perfect day with her lover, and she didn’t think of you at all. That report should answer all the questions you asked. Do you consider our Bargain concluded?”
“Our Bargain is concluded,” I said. “Now get the fuck out of my bedroom.”
Lydia vanished in a flash of golden light.
* * *
Morning light played across my bed, but I wasn’t in it. I was huddled naked in the corner of my room, rocking back and forth with my knees in my chest. The room was filled with music - sad, evil music, recorded by some Scottish band from the ‘90s that my mother liked, filled with songs about gullible idiots and lost love. When I first explained it to Judy, I called it “Music to Slit Your Wrists By,” but that joke didn’t seem quite so funny today.
I had closed the door and commanded her to stay on her perch, but Lydia started knocking when the sun went down and simply would not stop, knocking every few seconds for an hour until I finally let her in.
“Are you here to gloat?” I asked. “Maybe twist the knife a little more? Provide a few anatomical details you skipped the first time?”
She handed me a liter of water. “I’m here to give you this, and watch you drink it.”
I took the water and mumbled, “Thank you,” before I drained it. “There, I drank the water. Now fuck off.”
“You think you’re the first Kovach to shut down on me?” she asked. “They all do it eventually, and I say the same thing, every time. Whatever you’re afraid of right now, whatever’s hurting you; hiding will always make it worse. Always. I know you’re enjoying your misery, but I can only indulge this for one more night. If you’re still like this in the morning, I’ll have to do something you won’t like.”
“There she is,” I said. “There’s the demon I’ve been waiting for. Can we finally stop pretending you’re my fairy godmother and get down to the threats?”
Lydia sighed. “Timothy, I was trying so hard not to scare you, but I can see now that I’ve been too gentle. I was so happy to have a new heir. You were so brilliant the night we met, so controlled and precise with your questions, I thought you might be like Stefan, that I wouldn’t need to seduce you, or threaten you at all. We could just make an agreement, where you serve my Master and I serve you. But you won’t let me do this the easy way, so now I have to scare you.”
“There’s a demon in my bedroom. You think I’m not scared?”
“I know you’re not scared, but you should be.” Lydia said.
“Scared of you?”
“You should never be afraid of me, but you need to fear my Master, and right now you don’t. At first, it was because you didn’t believe this was real. In the culture you’ve described to me, people spend so much time in fantasy, they start treating life like a game. But I don’t think that’s the problem anymore. You believe what’s happening, and you understand what I am, but you’re not afraid, because you think you have nothing to lose.”
“What do I have, Lydia? What can you take from me that I haven’t already thrown away? Five years ago, I had a good job, friends, and a woman who loved me. Judy would have married me, if I hadn’t fucked it up. I would have kids by now, if I hadn’t fucked it up.
“And I’m supposed to replace all that with what? Pie in the sky promises about magic power? Spending every night with a woman who was ‘assigned’ to me? Busting my ass so I can be a murdering piece of shit like my grandpa? Fuck that and fuck you. I’d rather die.”
“You won’t die,” Lydia said, “but you’ll want to. My Master and I can make you very happy, or we can make you very unhappy. I know you’ve had your share of suffering, and you think you’re suffering now, but these things you’re feeling, this is not pain. This is just jealousy, the melancholy of a man who’s regretting his choices. I’ve seen it for generations, and I know it will pass.
“And the alternative… Timothy, the alternative is not merely death. There are levels of pain, depths of despair you can’t even imagine right now. There are so many kinds of suffering between life and death, and my Master will take you through all of them, until he finds the one that breaks you.”
“So, you’re gonna cut me? Put me on the rack? You think I’m gonna be your happy little attack dog after you torture me?”
“He won’t torture your body; he will extract your soul and leave your body right here. But once a soul is in Hell, it feels just like a body. My Master’s Inquisitor can take you apart and put you back together, over and over again.”
“I guess I should be afraid of that, but I just don’t care. You can make me scream and cry and beg, I guess, but that’s not failure to me. I may be a loser, but I’m not a killer, so if I die resisting demons, I’ll finally belong in Heaven. You can torture my soul for a while, but eventually my body will die, and I’ll wake up in Heaven with Mom.”
“Oh, Timothy, no. You won’t go to Heaven if you let us kill you. Suicide by demon is still suicide. You won’t wake up surrounded by people you love, you’ll wake up in the Wood where the suicides go, in the darkest, loneliest corner of Hell. Have you ever had a nightmare where you woke up, but you couldn’t move? Imagine that for eternity, cold and helpless and imprisoned forever. The trees don’t have eyes, so every soul in the Wood thinks they’re alone.”
* * *
“You need to understand what happens if I fail. I have a limited amount of time to get you trained and working. Even less than I usually do, since Jim was taken early. If I can’t make you honor this contract, my Master will bring in Sylvia, and there are no choices after that.
“All the horror stories are true, Timothy. Every tale you ever heard about a succubus, they’re all true. I would never hurt you, but Sylvia uses everything. Sylvia is twice my age and has developed powers that are well beyond me. She has mastered compulsion magic to a terrifying degree, and once you violate your contract, all your protection is gone.
“She will command, and you will obey. She will tell you what to do, and she will tell you how to feel. When you please her, you will feel joy that will drive you to your knees, and when you fail her, you will feel absolute despair. She will turn her body into a drug you need, and you will debase yourself until you can’t even look in a mirror anymore.
“You think you can resist a twelve-hundred-year-old succubus? You can’t even resist a spoiled college girl. Judith is controlling your emotions right now, and she didn’t even need magic.
“You think you can escape us by making us kill you? I assure you, you will not be allowed to die. You will never be allowed to die. I can give you one more night with your melancholy, and then I have to call Sylvia, to show you what you get if you reject me.”
* * *
I stayed in my room listening to music for another hour after Lydia left, trying to pretend she hadn’t just scared the shit out of me.
Then I put on some reasonably clean clothes and padded out to the kitchen in bare feet. I grabbed some eggs and started cracking them on the side of the pan as I turned the heat on, while Lydia watched from her perch.
Finally, she said, “Timothy, what are you doing?”
“We don’t have any junk food in the house, so I’m cooking eggs.”
“No,” she said. “You’re burning eggs because you forgot to put butter in the pan.”
“It’s fine,” I said. “I can cook my own damn eggs.”
“No, you can’t. You’re mixing in a chunk of the shell that’s going to ruin them, even if you pretend they’re not burnt! I can’t watch this anymore. I’ll make you some eggs. Just come sit down.”
“I can make my own damn eggs!” I repeated, enunciating each word.
“No, you can’t!” Lydia said, not quite yelling. “In this frame of mind, you can’t. You won’t listen to me, and you won’t let me in the kitchen with you, so you have to come sit down!”
Defeated, I turned the heat off and sat down behind my desk.
Lydia hopped down and surveyed the damage. She dumped out my ruined eggs and started scrubbing the pan.
Then she turned around and asked, “Do you have a whisk?”
“A what?”
“A whisk. A wire brush used for cake batter and scrambled eggs! Do you have a whisk?”
“I dunno. Maybe. Check the cabinet over the oven.”
The cabinet was too high for her to reach, so Lydia had to levitate. She rummaged in an old box, pulled out a wire brush, and waved it at me. “Why would you…? Nevermind. Just… nevermind.”
She washed the whisk in the sink and started scrambling eggs in one of Mom’s old bowls. She added ham, cheese and a tiny bit of milk to them and created something beautiful. Then she brought me the plate and returned to her perch.
I ate the eggs like I resented them, and they were slowly winning me over.
“Thank you,” I mumbled. “That was good.”
Lydia nodded silently.
I took my plate to the sink, carefully washed everything she had used to make dinner, and returned to my chair. I leaned back and stared at her for a long time, then I said, “If I asked you to kill them, would you do it?”
And Lydia said, “Of course.” No inflection, no hesitation. Just, “Of course.”
And suddenly, I remembered that I was looking at a demon, a demon who would do anything I said. I couldn’t have these little pity parties anymore, because if I got careless and blurted out the wrong command in a fit of depression, somebody could die.
Like it or not, I was a wizard now, and that power came with responsibilities. I had a duty to protect people, and a responsibility to keep this demon on a leash.