Part 3: Breadcrumbs and Gingerbread Houses
It's humiliating to look back and see how he played us. He was charming, flattering, funny…ordinary. But his knowledge…it was vast. Ash knew everything about everything. He dropped tidbits like breadcrumbs, and of course we ate it all up. And he wasn't troubled with little things like "our own good," either. Soon our trips to the woods became productive, and we came back with amulets that did amazing things. Amazing to a teenager, anyway. It was all shit you can learn in college today, but to us it was pure gold. Forbidden knowledge.
None of this was free, by the way. We brought him stuff in exchange. Inconsequential stuff, like various spell ingredients one couldn't come by in the Ever After. And gossip, current events, rumors about people we knew. Ash loved getting all the gossip about the people in power, but he was even more amused when we playfully ratted on each other. No harm, no foul, right? No, he never asked for anything we had a qualm about giving, though I'm sure he could have and we'd have done it after a momentary wrestle with our conscience.
He was amazingly patient. The secret meetings went on for the better part of a summer. He waited until we got impatient with the pace of our progress. He knew us in and out by then, our strengths and weaknesses as well as what motivated us. For example, he taught Greg a ley line sex technique on the sly that pretty much assured that Judy would never be dissatisfied with him again. He taught Toby some Brimstone refining techniques that earned the kid some serious cash that summer, as well as a wonderful endless buzz.
Me? I leaned ley line magic. I had a talent for it. I'd say I jumped ahead a few years with the tips and tricks he taught me, and never noticed the satisfied gleam in his red eyes.
He was training us. Ash is a professional. He's been at this for over five thousand years.
"This would be so much easier," Ash commented one day in an offhand tone of voice, "if I could just show you directly. But you'll just have to muddle through, I can't do anything more on this side of the lines."
The seed was planted.
Now, all this time he never let us forget that he was, in fact, a demon. He did it in a very self-effacing sort of way, kinda half joking. Like, "Pay attention, or I'll have your entrails for garlands this Solstice," or the always amusing, "I could tell you, but then I'd have to devour your soul." Ha ha ha.
He even warned us ahead of time, as we told him we wanted to summon him across the lines. "Be careful, I'm a dangerous monster, you know. Set your circle perfectly. One false rune, and I'll get you, and your little dog, too." Ha ha ha.
God, we were stupid. At least we weren't so stupid as to trust him completely. It was one thing to chat with a demon when they couldn't actually get you. It was another to bring one over to your reality. No, we'd play it safe, we'd make the circle tighter than Alcatraz, all of us working together, and then we'd summon him, and make an airtight bargain, and maybe let him out if we really had the guts.
Everyone knows the summoning rules. Demons can't come over without an invitation. When you've got 'em in your circle, demons can't lie, and they can't break their word. They vanish at sunrise so you can only summon them at night.
Why? I've since found out that the Reigning Head Honcho of the demons, someone called Newt (yeah, like "eye of newt," ha ha) says so. And even if you're a six thousand year old immortal all-powerful demon, you don't want to piss off Newt. As for the sunrise thing, I never found out why. They just go poof when the sun comes up.
So we proposed summoning him for real. Ash explained that summoning names were serious business- demons can't resist a real summoning, see, and if you summon them without warning them first, especially if they're in the middle of something, they get real pissed off. Not to mention they're not real happy to be trapped in circles at the whims of lesser beings, either. So he'd only tell one of us. If that person told anyone else, well, he'd have to steal his or her soul then, wouldn't he, ha ha ha.
Oh, and that person would have to owe him a favor. He picked me first, but I wasn't nearly tempted enough to owe him some unknown favor. What if it was something illegal? Or worse, something gross? He shrugged, and offered this dubious privilege to Judy, instead. Yeah, he knew it would rankle me, and it did, especially when the girl accepted without question. This was the girl who could carve out rabbit eyes, after all.
Looking back, it was this one little separation, the singling out of Judy, that broke us in the end. The boys were jealous. I was weirded out. Judy became the teacher's pet.
She might still be, for all I know. I don't like to think about it.
