Vengeance of Cristmas Past

The Story

The spell finished, I raised my head in satisfaction. After years of waiting and planning, I would finally get the revenge that I had wanted.

A chill swept throughout the room as the temperature dropped by about twenty degrees. As the items that I had poured over the train rose a few inches and began to circle the metal toy, my excitement rose. Soon, the ghost of my uncle would appear. With his ghostly appearance, I could start getting my revenge.

As the temperature fell to a few degrees below freezing, I began to see a shadowy figure start to appear just above the old toy train. When the features of the figure began coming into focus, I felt something that I had not felt since sometime after I had been turned. Fear.

After the shadow figure finished coming into focus, everything became deathly silent. The spell ingredients, which had been circling the toy train just a few seconds ago, remained suspended in midair. I stared at the thing that I had summoned, my unbeating heart clenched in terror.

The shadow figure studied my workroom in silence before turning to face me once again. Its goat-like horns were approximately eighteen inches long and seven or eight inches round near the base. Fangs poked out of its mouth, and its body was covered in what looked like large fish scales.

I attempted to move away from the entity that I had just summoned, but found that I was unable to do so. The creature moved forward, stopping an inch in front of my face.

"Why did you call for me, young one?" it asked me, the words swirling around my head.

"I . . . I meant to bring back my uncle. How you got here, I have no idea," I stammered.

The creature grinned. "Your uncle, you say. Why would someone like you want to summon a dead relative?"

As it looked at me, face tilted in what would have been curiosity in a human or vampire, I struggled to not answer it. I wanted to put this thing back where it came from, but there was something that was not letting me. After thirty seconds, I gave up on trying to not answer the question that the thing had asked me.

"Revenge. I wanted to get revenge for what he had done to me," I spat out, my teeth clenched.

The thing reached out and put its clawed hands on either side of my head. A second later, I felt it probing my memories. After what felt like hours, but was really about five or ten seconds, the memory probing stopped and it took its claws off my head.

"Your desire for revenge has gone unfulfilled for so long, you have forgotten what it is like to live without it. I can feel it in you, simmering away at the back of your mind," the thing murmured. It appeared to be talking both to me and itself.

My curiosity slightly overcomes my fear for a few seconds, and I asked the thing what it is.

"Your kind would call me a demon," it replied.

I stared at the demon in a mix of shock and horror. The plan had been to summon my uncle, get my revenge, release his spirit, and get on with my undead existence. No part of my plan had been to call forth a demon.

Every time a demon was summoned, there was always a price to pay. The stronger the demon, the larger the price. Since each demon required something different, those who had summoned a demon never knew what to expect to pay. Most who succeeded either refused to talk about their experiences or were never heard from again.

The demon grinned, as if it knew where my train of thought was going. "I know you know that summoning a demon requires a price," it said. "However, I admire your dedication. Instead of just taking some of your blood, like I had planned, I have decided to take you with me."

Afraid, I tried to back away, but the demon reached out and grabbed me, dragging me down to hell with it.