I didn’t quite believe it, not until the door exploded off its hinges and bounced away between the shelves. In its place was Remilia Scarlet, standing there with her foot raised. She put her foot down and walked in.

“I’m too late,” she said. She was holding her spear as she looked around the room. “Where’s the threat?”

“A poorly-worded question,” said the demon. She put her hands on her hips. She didn’t move or add anything as Remilia turned to face her. The vampire’s face was hard.

“Alright. And who perished?”

“Maroon….” said Patchouli with watery eyes. “The fairy.”

“Which?” asked Remilia.

“Ma–Marron.”

“The tree fairy from the countryside? I was just thinking about her this morning.” Lady Scarlet looked at the koakuma with disgust. “I’m going to unsummon this demon now. Forcefully.”

I agreed with the sentiment. I felt my own rage rising, ready to pour out and destroy the monster. I wouldn’t use angry danmaku, I’d hit her with a chair. Or strangle her. Even Arnold had raised his ax.

The koakuma spread her arms, as if daring us to take a swing.

The vampire hesitated. The humans hesitated. The demon didn’t move, but her smile grew fractionally larger.

“Everybody stop,” said Patchouli. She straightened up. “This is a wrathful demon, and damaging her is against our contract.”

“What does that even mean?” I asked, barely caring. I wanted violence. Maroon was dead, but if I thought about that too much my rage would crumble–or maybe I would. Some part of my own soul was threatening to flicker out like a candle.

“One, you’re only making her stronger.” Patchouli took in a breath. “And two, if we attack her the binding will definitely break, and an unbound demon will get us in trouble. Let’s just calm down for a second.”

“Why don’t we just kill her, then?” asked Remilia. “She can’t be unbound if she’s dead.”

“You–” started the koakuma.

“Silence!” roared Patchouli, but the shouting sent her into a coughing fit. She finally continued in a normal voice. “One moment, Remy. I’ve got to get to the bottom of something.”

“Fine.” She set her spear on her shoulder. “We have some time.”

Patchouli turned to face the red-haired demon. “Before you say anything else, explain to me exactly why causing that fairy to stop manifesting wasn’t a violation of our contract?”

“Provision two hundred eighty-six allows me to cause minor harm over the course of carrying out a request,” said the koakuma, her voice flat. “Provisions three through eight are against telling lies. The fairy asked a question. I answered, causing minor harm.”

“An end to manifestation is a major harm.”

“The fairy wished that she would no longer be a fairy,” said the koakuma with a shrug that renewed my rage. “That was a harm she had already chosen; I merely spoke the truth when asked, without exacerbating the harm.”

“The straw that broke the camel’s back,” said Arnold, slapping his hand with the back of his ax. His voice was level. He didn’t seem that angry, and I realized he was getting ready for a fight only because I was angry. Or maybe he’d taken Patchouli’s warning seriously, and he could control his emotions. I was finding that difficult.

“This is why it’s risky to ask demons questions,” said Patchouli as she shook her head. “They’ll play along until the worst possible moment.”

“Don’t allow them to answer questions, then,” I said. “Amend your contract!”

“The spell won’t work unless they can respond to questions,” said Patchouli. “The summoning spell I use is for granting knowledge.”

“Go figure,” I bit out. I was trying to make a joke, but it only sounded angry. It was a failed spasm toward normality.

“If they can’t answer questions, they can’t be summoned at all, and before you ask, the other types of summoning are far worse.”

“Then don’t summon them.” I put my head in my hands. Maroon was gone, and it was my fault. The demon had provided the last straw, but I was the one who didn’t know enough about her to avoid overloading her with alien concepts until she’d twisted away from her identity as a youkai. Later, I’d consider things like ‘someone had renamed her’ or ‘I wasn’t the one who hired her for indoor work,’ but in that moment I only blamed myself.

“Not an option,” said Remilia. “We need their firepower, among other things. We can afford to lose one every once-and-awhile, mind you. May I unsummon this one now?” She grit her teeth. “Part of me does feel like it’s a bad idea, but I really, really want to stab her.”

“I’ll do it,” said Patchouli. “Non-violently, so she can’t escape.”

“You can’t stab someone nonviolently,” I said.

“I meant I’d unsummon her,” said Patchouli. The librarian began drawing runes on the floor. “It’s clear you’ve never thought about surgery.”

“Or blood donation,” added Arnold. “I’ve been stabbed gently twice, now.”

“Why don’t we just destroy this demon?” I asked the librarian less-than-rhetorically.

“Provision four compels me to tell you that demons cannot be permanently destroyed,” said the demon with that tiny infuriating smile. “Demons manifest whenever humans suffer; eliminating their presence is impractical, and destroying an individual is impossible. I promise you, I can and will manifest again, whatever the fate of lesser youkai.” She smiled at me, openly and fully, and I almost leapt at her, except a small hand got in my way.

The vampire Remilia Scarlet was standing between me and the demon. I took a deep breath.

“That’s definitely not true,” Remilia told the demon. “You can be destroyed. Wipe that smile off your face, or I’ll show you how.”

“Remy,” said Patchouli, her voice full of warning. “It’s trying to make you angry.”

“And it’s working.” Her anger must have been icier than mine, because her face was neutral. “We don’t have to unsummon her, you know. No information can leak if she’s dead.”

“And who will come to further summons?” asked Patchouli.

“Pah. Nobody would notice this one was gone, so they’d keep coming.”

“They would notice eventually.”

“It is impossible to destroy a demon,” repeated the demon, her smile suddenly missing. I tasted something new, like rotten eggs. It was the taste of the demon starting to believe in its own destruction. “No one and no method can destroy a demon.”

The vampire snorted. “I say that we go get–”

“She’s also probing you,” said Patchouli. “Let’s not give anything away?”

“Very well,” said Remilia. She pointed at the koakuma and her voice changed into a frightening, powerful cadence. “Fate will bring you to me again. You can be sure of that. As long as we both live, and I keep summoning demons, I am certain to see you again, you wanna-be immortal. You can contemplate whether you are indestructible until that time, before I answer the question once-and-for-all.” She let her hand fall.

“You shouldn’t make promises to demons,” said Patchouli as she worked, but her voice was gentler this time.

“If you let me destroy them, I wouldn’t have to. What do you think of that, little demon?”

The demon’s eyes had narrowed. It said nothing. Remilia had been trying to intimidate it, and I could taste that it had worked. Despite its neutral expression, the demon was afraid–but the fear tasted different from Patchouli’s. It was acrid and rotten. It made me want to vomit. It made me feel weak.

My anger diminished. Sorrow was ready to leap up in its place.

“I thought they didn’t have emotion,” I said, putting my palms over my eyes. “How can you even work with these things?”

“They don’t,” said Patchouli. “Just a poisonous facsimile. And, I work with them as much as possible, because saving them for special occasions would make me less skilled in their use. For example, I will now add a provision to the contract about not answering questions where the interlocutor hasn’t indicated a specific respondent.”

“And you just hope to eventually get it locked down safely one day…”

“I will make them locked down enough for our purposes.”

“It is dangerous and foolish,” I said. “Maroon is gone!”

“Just because the tool is dangerous doesn’t mean we can pretend that it doesn’t exist.” She kept writing. “Other youkai struggle against demons even more, so it might as well be us who face them.”

The librarian completed the circle. The koakuma hadn’t moved, and it still didn’t move as she activated the magic and caused it to burst into flame. Its contract did not allow it to resist, even by speaking. Or maybe this wasn’t a battle it cared to fight.

A sulfurous smell filled the library. The fire burned bright, then dim, and then it went out. The demon didn’t leave a pile of ash when it was gone.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

My anger went out just as completely, except it left me in the middle of the room, ashen, crying, and failing to hold back my feelings in front of the Mistress and the librarian. I was ashamed. Arnold embraced me, and I tried to at least cry quietly.

“Maroon is dead…” I said.

“No,” said Patchouli, “She has just stopped manifesting.” My heart leapt.

“How do we make her manifest again?” I asked, controlling my speech carefully. “We can do that?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “But I do have some ideas for examining the question.” She looked at Remilia.

—

Lady Scarlet tried to tiptoe out of the library. It was performative; Patchouli was looking right at her. Even I could tell that getting Maroon back would involve manipulating fate. I wondered whether the performance was self-expression or a manipulation itself.

“My Lady,” said Patchouli. “I require your assistance when searching for a solution to this conundrum.”

“Don’t ‘my Lady’ me!” said the vampire. “Can’t you just look it up or something?”

“No,” said the purple witch. “Every fairy is unique, and although I know all the general knowledge about fairies and their manifestations, Maroon is an individual. Manifesting Maroon once more isn’t a matter of creating a summoning circle, or offering the right gift. It will take a creative solution and an application of power.” The plea had the unmistakable flavor of a conversation that had happened many times before. Patchouli had expected Remilia to resist, but she already knew how to push against the resistance. “I need your help.”

“You know I hate tentacles!” said the vampire.

“Wait, what?” asked Arnold, who had been lost in thought.

I opened my mouth in confusion, then closed it a moment later. I wanted an answer for saving Maroon, true, but for some reason my mind refused to imagine how tentacles might possibly provide it. I’d had too long of a day already, to have to deal with this shit.

“I think I’ll step outside for a minute,” I said.

“I think I’ll stay here,” said Arnold.

“I’m going with Jake,” said the vampire.

“Remy,” said Patchouli. “Maroon is of great importance, both personally and for the project.” Project? “Can you please help?”

Patchouli’s sorrowful look melted my ‘I’m done with this shit’ heart. But would it work on a vampire?

Remilia Scarlet looked at her friend and sighed. “Fine. I did promise to protect my employees. But you’ll have to make me tea, later!” A manipulation after all, I thought.

Patchouli’s head tilted. “I thought that I didn’t make it as well as Miss Izayoi?”

“She’s been too busy with Lady Yakumo,” said the vampire. “I’m not actually asking for tea, here. I just want to catch up. We can drink that mountain water if you want.”

“Mountain Dew,” said the librarian, referring to a stimulant that had been banned in the Outside World.

“Yeah,” said Remilia. Patchouli nodded.

“Please wait while I prepare the circle.” Patchouli cleared her throat and stood up straight. “Demon!”

A koakuma stepped in from the door I’d been about to walk out of, causing me to fall on my butt. It looked just like the one we had sent away, a moment ago, except for the faintest tint of red on its cheeks as it walked by me. I had the absurd thought that it felt awkward about not knowing whether to help me get back up onto my feet.

“She’s a different demon, Mister Thorne,” said Patchouli. “Please remain calm.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I witnessed a demon just like it murder my pupil a moment ago, so I’m a bit jumpy.” I tried to keep myself from getting angry again, and it was surprisingly easy. I wasn’t offended to have to see the demon, just generally depressed.

‘Hooray!’ said Maroon in my imagination. ‘Just depressed!’

“I would punish his insolence,” said Remy. “That’s no way to speak to his lady and master.”

“He’s not my servant, he’s a collaborator,” said Patchouli. “Additionally, Mister Thorne has been through a lot. I encourage healthy expression.”

She worked as she talked. The koakuma helped her draw new sigils on the ground, presumably for summoning tentacles. I moved to the exit again, but the librarian called out before I could step away.

“Apologies, but I’m going to have to ask you to remain in the library while we do this.”

“Why?”

“To clear up any misunderstandings. I suspect you and Arnold have a flawed apprehension of the purpose of the summoning, given the type of demon that came to assist us.” Her lips puckered. “The Outside World has many misapprehensions.”

“This is a different type?” asked Arnold. “She looks the exact same as before.” It really did, except for the faint blush. It had long red hair, formal business clothes, and wings sprouting from its forehead. There was a second set of wings at its back and a long spiked tail.

I felt mildly bad for thinking of it as an ‘it’ instead of a ‘she’, but a demon had recently committed a murder. I would never again forget that they were monsters.

“This is a lustful demon,” said Patchouli. “You are, or were, thinking lustful thoughts.”

“Oh really?” asked Arnold as he appraised the koakuma. “How can you tell she’s different?”

“You can’t, which is part of the point.”

“But you did. Right away, too.”

Now Patchouli’s cheeks also had a faint redness to them.

I could see that this koakuma’s cheeks were slightly red, and when I bothered to look, I noticed her blouse did have a single button undone at the collar. It was subtle enough that I’d never become aware of it unless someone pointed it out, and maybe not even then. It really depended on how my magical sight functioned.

Arnold seemed to be noticing things now, too. He was looking right at the demon as she bent over to draw runes. Patchouli gave him a warning.

“Don’t get any ideas, Mister Thatcher. This demon is for menial chores only.”

“I would never,” he said, and I didn’t need magical powers to sense his lack of resolve. He might never initiate, but… One of the slides had been about things that we weren’t allowed to ask demons. Questions were verboten, but so were ‘favors.’ I hoped the demon’s contract also had a provision against making any suggestions of that nature for itself, but I wisely didn’t ask.

“We don’t have many of the lustful kind,” said Patchouli. “Maybe the wrathful kind are shy right now.”

“They don’t want to work here?” I asked.

“No, we just don’t hire them, and when we do they don’t contribute as much. They tend to slack off and hide in closets.”

“Why don’t you make the types more distinct?” I asked her. “If we don’t know what type of demon it is, then we don’t know what emotions to avoid.”

“Exactly,” said Patchouli as she continued to paint the ground. “Don’t think of a pink elephant, Mister Thorne.” I didn’t, just to spite her.

Patchouli and the koakuma finished drawing the summoning circle. The demon was dismissed, and it disappeared back into the hall.

“Stand back,” said Patchouli. She activated the circle. The tentacle monster appeared in a flash of purple and black lightning.

It looked like a sea urchin but with muscular, pitch black tube-limbs instead of spines. Each arm was like a dark hose, and ended in a small suckered pad the size of a hand. It had perhaps thirty limbs in total. These waved lazily through the air, as though they were waiting blindly for a bird to fly a bit too close. The limbs were as dark as night.

“This is a mnemovore,” said Patchouli. “Don’t approach it. It feeds on sentient beings.” She began using magic to lock down the limbs one-by-one. They were pressed to the floor like roped cables, or strings stapled to a board. The mnemovore began to squirm.

“How does it feed on them?” asked Arnold. “I don’t see a mouth.”

“An insightful observation. It consumes memories, so it does not need a conventional mouth. However, each of its limbs has a psychic eye that can feed on the mind of its victim.”

“Memories?” I asked. I pulled out my notebook with a frown. I knew that Wiki was going to bitch about conservation of mass again. “It’s a youkai.”

“You thought it was something else?” asked Arnold.

“The ocean is a big place,” I said. “And space is even bigger. I didn’t want to make any assumptions.”

“Well, these youkai live in dark forests, and are most probably not extraterrestrial,” said Patchouli. “If you’ve ever heard of a person getting lost in the woods and appearing again later, with total amnesia, it was probably a mnemovore.”

“They’re nicer than they look, if they let you survive.”

“It depends on how many memories you have. You might die of physiological thirst in its clutches, before it finishes draining your mind.”

“What about psychological thirst?” asked Arnold.

“I can’t help you there,” said the librarian. Only four of the mnemovore’s tentacles were still free. Patchouli pulled a vial of green fluid out from her extra-dimensional space. “With this, we can use it for fast bidirectional telepathy.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“It’s mutual mind-reading,” she said. “My knowledge and Remilia’s ability, together, will be able to extract a much more powerful manipulation of fate.”

“No, I meant the vial.”

“A memetic emetic.”

“Gross!” said Arnold. I agreed; if I wanted meme vomit I could always hop on the local disinternet. Except, I didn’t have a phone and neither did anyone else in Gensokyo, so I guess I couldn’t. Which was probably good, because unregulated memes were awful.

Such memes were where I’d gotten my ideas about tentacled monsters.

“Do you consume honey, perchance?” Patchouli asked Arnold.

“Yes,” said my roommate. “Why do you ask?”

“Just checking you for inconsistencies, and finding some.” She stepped forward, and two of the monster’s tentacles snaked up toward her. They reached up and slapped themselves to her temples. She poured the vial out on the creature’s midpoint, a bit hastily to my eyes. “Remilia, if you please.”

The vampire grumbled and stepped forward to subject herself to the monster. It grabbed her forehead. She looked as though she were wearing oversized transductive headphones. The two (three?) youkai turned to face us.

“Now we manipulate fate,” Patchouli and Remilia said in unison. Their eyes stared off, not looking at anything in particular. They stood stock still, except for a periodic twitch or eye motion.

Arnold and I waited.

—

After twenty minutes they apparently hadn’t manipulated fate hard enough, and I was beginning to worry.

“I thought this would be more interesting,” said Arnold.

“The interesting things are happening inside their minds,” I said. Patchouli had started to drool. “Probably.”

“I don’t envy them,” said Arnold, peering at Patchouli’s forehead. “That thing really seems to be sucking.”

“Blowing too, if the emetic is working,” I said.

“I can still hear you,” said both of the youkai. “Cease with your puerile humor.”

“Sorry,” I said. “Have you made any progress?”

“Yes,” they said. “No. Normally it is over without this much strain. Either the desired outcome is impossible, or it is simple. It is rare for me to search so hard.”

“Me?” They were speaking as one.

“Us.” They waved their hands.

“Manifesting Maroon is an edge case?”

“Yes. It is definitely possible, but the circumstances required are… byzantine. I am close to figuring it out, but we lack processing power.” She frowned. “I have more than me, jerk.”

“Processing power…” I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach. “Do you need me to lend you my brain? I could perhaps help.” Being mind-melded with Patchouli and Remilia would be somewhere between mortifying and deadly, depending on whether they could become aware of my secret meetings with Sekibanki or just my shower thoughts.

My anxiety turned to offense as the youkai laughed. “No,” they said, “Your brain is insufficient for the task.”

“Rude,” said Arnold.

“Ours are insufficient as well. You take that back!” The youkai both blinked. “We need a computer.”

Patchouli unstuck her forehead with a staccato popping sound. She had a bunch of small circular bruises. Remilia did the same, but she was completely unblemished. The vampire rubbed her temples.

“This hurts me a lot more than you, you know,” she said.

“I do know,” said Patchouli. “At least for a moment. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. Well, getting the computer is going to be a bit dicey.”

Patchouli frowned. “Why’s that?”

“If I knew, I wouldn’t be able to tell you,” said the vampire. My hair stood on end. “You’d better go get her.”

“Wait, the computer is a ‘her’?” asked Arnold, proving that he hadn’t been paying attention during our planning session on the Scarlet Devil Mansion. I was pretty confident I knew who would appear. Patchouli disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Several minutes passed. I was a bit worried about talking to my boss; she might decide that I’d used my third call for intervention. Fortunately, Remilia Scarlet picked up a comic book and read it, saving me from the awkwardness. Arnold continued his drawing.

Patchouli eventually reappeared with a fox youkai that Wiki had described to us already. The woman was tall, with a bifurcated hat that (probably) hid immense fox ears. Her hair was golden, as were the multitude of tails behind her. She wore a blue tabard with a familiar design over her white dress.

“Yakumo Ran,” I said. “Yakumo Yukari’s shikigami.” A personal assistant of sorts, but in this case Ran was powerful enough to have servants of her own.

The youkai yawned. “That’s me.”