Melinda Alcott is a laid-back omega working a minimum wage job while maintaining the hope she may someday afford college. Some would call her life mundane, and it was...until her serene poetry reading became a demon summoning. Now a Canaanite god tu...
After a hard day of work, Mel felt content to sit cross-legged on the fluffy blue carpet in the middle of her small apartment, a plain cover book of Percy Shelley's poetry in hand. The light bulb died that morning and she forgot to buy a new one. Instead, she had arranged several tiny tea candles around her on the floor. The dim light suited her current mood better than an LED bulb anyway. Tension slowly drained from her muscles as she held one of the unscented candles closer to the pages and read.
"Swiftly walk o'er the western wave,
Spirit of Night!
Out of the mighty eastern cave
Where, all the long and lone daylight
Thou wovest dreams of joy a—"
Beep! Beep!
Her neck and back felt hard again. Mel took a deep breath as her phone continued to go off. She desperately needed to change that ringtone, or better: put the thing on "Do Not Disturb" permanently.
"Hello? Who is this?" she answered.
"You haven't customized your ringtone have you, you lazy bum? Come on, we're best friends!" Mel held the phone away from her ear as the nasally voice of her favorite blonde continued to rant.
Her friend, Laura, was the only one who stuck with her since high school. She stood tall at five foot nine and had what Mel called a "free spirit". Though excitable, the beta's calming pheromones smelled of Frankincense with a hint of clean linen.
"Hey, Laura. I'm a little busy tonight," she said when the woman wore herself out.
"Oh?" Laura's tone was suggestive.
"Get your head out of the gutter. I'm reading poetry."
The beta sighed. "Of course you are. Listen, one of my coworkers found a cool occult-looking book. I thought you might like it."
Mel already had a nice collection of bibles and other religious paraphernalia. The mention of an occult book piqued her interest the more she thought about it. "Sure. When can you be over?"
Her friend didn't answer.
A moment passed. "Laura?" Mel hated the feeling of being ignored.
Frenzied knocking on the door made her jump.
"I'm right outside, Bitch!" Mel heard her loud voice through the phone and outside the apartment.
Accepting her night of relaxation ended just as it began, she hung up and went to greet her guest.
"You scared me," Mel accused as she opened the door. A bundle of tangled scents slammed into her, and she struggled to distinguish between them.
A couple of Laura's coworkers and friends stood behind her as she held up a thick, black tome with a red pentagram on the cover.
Mel's hopes died. "Seriously? That's as cliché as it gets." She looked at the others. "You followed her for this?" she asked incredulously.
"Don't blame us. We've been working too hard. We need some excitement," Laura's boyfriend, Carl, defended with his hands held up. The lanky beta had brown eyes with straight hair that reached his shoulders.
Laura pushed past her with a wink. "Oh, wow! You already started setting up. I love it. Hold on, let me finish this."
Mel rolled her eyes. The woman knew she hadn't had enough time to set up.
She opened the door wide for the rest of the group and watched them shuffle through. Carl gave her an apologetic look, as did some of the others. The scratch of chalk against fake hardwood made her cringe.
Laura came prepared. She finished drawing the pentagram and motioned everyone over. There were enough people to hold a candle over each point, with two left standing near the wall. The room felt overcrowded, her rug tossed in the kitchen to make space and the points of the star less than a foot away from the walls. Mel stood in the doorway to the kitchen, hopeful to hear Laura mispronounce some foreign words.
Unfortunately, Laura had other ideas.
"Mel, come over here."
Mel let Laura position her closer to the demon summoning set up and shove the book in her hands. She reluctantly flipped through the pages until she found a favorable heading, knowing she didn't have much of a choice. There was little white space on most of the pages. Spidery black cursive surrounded the printed instructions for summoning, incantations, translations, and sigils. The book seemed to be written for an English-speaking audience, albeit a much older one, but the notes were a mix of modern English and what she guessed was Spanish.
"You ready?" Laura asked with a hint of impatience.
"Yeah." Mel closed her eyes and visualized her chosen demon's sigil for a moment, then carefully pronounced the Latin words. The day's earlier fatigue crept through her skin to her bones.
A tense moment of silence passed, the group waiting – hoping – for something to happen.
Anything.
Nothing.
There was no figure in the star's center, no gust of wind that blew out the candles and left them entrenched in darkness, no ominous laugh, no quiet whisper. Oddly, Mel felt as if a heavy blanket had been draped over her body. Her eyelids fell shut, too heavy to hold up anymore despite her mind's protest. Her body swayed.
Someone said something that sounded like nonsense, then she hit the floor.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Hello, dear readers! This is my first story on Wattpad, so I'm looking forward to the experience of publishing here. I've seen mood boards becoming more popular both here and on Tumblr. What do you all think of my attempt at one? Would you like to see similar stuff in later chapters?
