Demon's Sacrifice Ch. 01

Her father bowed low to the ground and her mother and all the other adults followed suit. Victoria suddenly felt wide-awake and she glanced around with wide-eyes, wondering if she should also bow to the strange young man who had so magically appeared. Then the young man frowned and spoke, his voice deep and booming, seeming to fill the space all around them though he didn't shout.

“Who dares to summon me?”

Victoria's father looked up at the man and answered him quickly,

“It is I and my companions here who have summoned you, Lord Belzathior. We would ask a boon of thee.”

The young man inside the chalk markings glared at Victoria's father, his eyes seeming almost to shoot sparks as he said, “A boon? You dare to summon me and then ask a boon of me?!”

Victoria's father made a gesture towards her mother and she jumped up and scurried over to where Victoria sat on her cushion. Pulling hard on her arm, her mother hauled her up and dragged her forward towards the man. When Victoria was standing directly in front of him, just outside the biggest chalk circle, her father said,

“We do not ask for this boon without recompense, my Lord. We offer you a virgin sacrifice. Our own beautiful daughter, guaranteed untouched.”

As Victoria's foggy brain struggled to understand the impact of her father's words and then screamed silently in denial, her mother gave her a hard shove in the middle of her back, propelling her forward and into the circle towards the young man. Victoria stumbled forward with a soft cry and hit the man's hard body and then fell to the floor against his leg, her soft, white silk dress puddling around her. As she tried to pull her trembling limbs together to move, she felt his hand settle gently onto her head and her own mother's voice saying,

“We give her to you, freely, my Lord. Do with her as you will.”

The man's voice was soft, but somehow threatening as he replied, “And if I choose to kill her? Tear her limb from limb for your insolence in summoning me?”

Victoria's father instantly replied, “That is your right, Lord, as she belongs to you now.”

Her mother's voice followed on his heels, “Yes, Lord, she is yours. Just give us power!”

Victoria felt frozen in shocked horror as she heard her parents words although a terrible shivering seemed to wrack her whole body. They were giving her to this man? Was he even a man? They had summoned him by magic. They had told him he could tear her apart if he wanted. What was he? And how could her own parents do this to her? She felt like her throat was choked with tears but her eyes were dry as dust. The hand on her head remained gentle as he lightly stroked it over her golden curls and said,

“And how old is this virgin you give to me?”

Her father replied, “She has just turned 11-years-old, my Lord.”

The hand moving over Victoria's curls stilled and she managed to move just enough to turn her wide blue eyes up to look at him. His eyes seemed to glow with silver light and although his features were taut and still she knew he was furious. Somehow she could actually feel the tension in the leg she leaned against as he said in an icy, angry tone,

“You dare to offer me a child?! What sort of abomination do you think I am?! I may be a demon but even I am not the sort of vile creature that would harm a child!”

He bent his head to look at Victoria and then leaned down to whisper softly to her,

“You heard what your parents said? That you belong to me now?”

She nodded numbly.

“Then do as I bid child, wipe away those chalk marks before you.”

Victoria nodded again and took hold of the soft hem of her silken dress and began to scrub furiously at the chalk marks on the floor nearest her. First she rubbed away a portion of the six-pointed star, then part of the smallest circle, moving on her knees to wipe away one of the symbols her mother had drawn between the two circles.

Victoria's mother made a move towards her, stretching out her hands in entreaty and crying out, “No! Victoria, what are you doing? Stop it! Don't touch those markings!”

Victoria paused for an instant, her instinct to obey her mother stilling her hands. Then, suddenly she was filled with a terrible fury, her sight darkened by a red haze of rage at this woman who had borne her but never truly loved her and now gave her away like a piece of garbage. She redoubled her efforts to scrub away the chalk marks on the wooden floor, hissing angrily,

“I'm not yours now, Mother! I don't have to listen to you anymore!”

The man- demon, Victoria supposed, stood tall and laughed a cruel, mocking laugh.

“Fools, you have no idea what you've done. First you dare to summon me and demand power, then you
insult me with this vile sacrifice and then give me the means to escape your control. None of you shall live to see the dawn.”

As Victoria crept forward and rubbed out the closest bit of the largest circle, an odd red flash sizzled up from the rest of the chalk marks and they all just vanished. At the same time, the fat red candles at each point of the six-pointed star flared up and then snuffed out. The adults in the room all jumped up and began to move, running for the closed door to the stairway. The demon whispered to Victoria again, saying,

“Close your eyes, child. No matter what you may hear, don't look.”

Then he moved out of the area where the chalk marks had been with terrible speed. Victoria obediently closed her eyes tightly, even curling up in a ball and wrapping her arms over her head to avoid looking. She heard horrible sounds and knew she didn't want to see whatever was happening. She couldn't help hearing though and she shivered as she heard voices screaming in agony and the meaty thunks of bodies hitting the walls and floors and the wet sounds of tearing flesh. The sounds only made her curl up tighter until finally, the last whimpering cry of pain cut off abruptly.

She felt strong hands lifting her small body off the wooden floor and uncurled just enough to wrap her arms tightly around the neck of the demon. His strong arms held her tightly against his warm, hard chest. She managed one quick peek over his shoulder as he carried her swiftly out the door and up the staircase. Fortunately, her shocked mind could make no sense out of the quick glimpse of the red-splashed room and the random chunks of meat strewn about the floor. It seemed as if it took no time at all for the demon to carry her up the narrow staircase, down the hall, through the grand entryway and out the double doors of the big house. Before she knew it, the demon was setting her down again and her legs folded up to leave her sitting on the cool grass on the hill across from the circular driveway. She glanced up at where the demon stood, tall and strong and so very handsome. She knew he had killed all of the people in the house, but there was not one spot of red marring his face or body. His face was set in stern lines and his pale gray eyes glowed silvery in the moonlight as he stared at the house they had just fled. He raised his hands towards the house and murmured some soft words that Victoria could neither hear properly nor understand. Suddenly, as she watched in amazement, flames burst out of every window and door of the big house at once. The demon lowered his hands and looked at her again. His expression softened and his light eyes went back to a soft gray.

“Child, do you have other family that can care for you?”

Victoria had to force her numb brain to think for a moment before nodding slowly. “Yes. M-my aunt, I think, she'll take care of me.”

He smiled at her briefly and the beauty of that smile nearly took her breath away.

“Good.” He said, “I'm sorry about your parents, little one but they all had to die. They knew my name and thus had the power to summon me, so I couldn't allow them to live.”

With those words a column of red smoke rose up around him, swirling like a ruddy dust storm in the moonlight. When it died down, the demon had vanished.

Victoria blinked at the spot where the demon had disappeared into the red smoke for a moment and then turned her stunned gaze back to where the house was rapidly being consumed by merrily crackling flames. The sound of far-off sirens pierced the night but even she knew that the house was beyond saving. As she sat on the chilly grass in her white silk dress, numb to the bone with cold and heartache she watched the house collapse and burn down to ashes. One whispered word escaped her lips,

“Belzathior.”