A human dressed like a creature of the night walks back into the house. All eyes flick onto him. A meathead with screws in his neck comes up to him. "Yo, Vince, did ya take care of that?"
Vincent paused, nodding his head. "Yeah, he's gone… look, I was just trying to help someone out, I wouldn't have picked him up if I knew…"

His friend grinned, patting his shoulder. "Ahh, it's fine, dude… but seriously, don't pick guys up on the street like that, aye? Ya don't know who they are." A few seconds of silence before a red plastic cup was offered. "Who got to him, anyway? That doesn't look like a paddy wagon."
The wild-haired human took the cup, looking out the window, down to the street. An unmarked black van stares back at him. "…I don't know."


Officer after officer, department after department. Transferred, carted around like livestock. Cell after cell. Needles filled with tranquilisers, hazy sedation, jab after jab. Disorientation, driven for hours… then days. The darkness of the bag thrown over the imp's head.

The darkness of his cell. Shaking, shivering, sweating. The walls close in, the sound of his whimpering absorbed into the walls. Pure isolation, no distractions, alcohol leaking out of his system. The tremors are the only thing in the room that remind him that he is alive. To everyone else, he was dead. To his friends, to his family, especially to his clients. Even to the human society that reviles him.

He started screaming. "HEY! HEYYY!" Limping to the front of the cell, banging on the door loudly. "FUCK, LET ME OUT! LET ME OUT!" Punching the door, smashing his forehead into it, kicking it with his usable leg. Anything to let the world know that he existed. No response. "Shit… shit, you got the wrong guy, let me out, I'm fuckin' innocent…!" A flagrant lie. No response. Back to screaming, louder, panic and desperation wallowing out of his throat. "LET ME OUUUT! OUT! NO NO NO NO NO- HEELP! HEEELP!"

His fists were no longer used as his noisemakers. His head hit the steel door. Then again. Again. Again, again, again, again. Screams, incomprehensible, shots of pain rocketing through his brain. Unseen liquid leaking out from the torn cuts in his forehead. One more. Tears welled in the imp's eyes and he slid down, collapsing onto the concrete floor. "P-pleaase… no…" His words trailed off as he gave into his emotion, primally sucking in air, head pounding. A light sob opened the floodgates. He was gone, self-loathing consuming him. How could he have let this happen? How could he have been so stupid? He was alone and it was all because of him. Maybe he deserved this. Maybe he deserved the jabs, the abuse, the isolation. He cried into the void… and the void echoed back complete silence. No surprises. No distractions. Nothing to cut him off from his true self.

Stolas. Dead on the ground. His face gaping open from the bullet that had rocketed through it. A lake of blood. The imp was just as pathetic now as he was then. How could he have been tied up with that Goetia? Why did he care? Why was it so important to him? All the imp wanted was the book… the book…


In the past. The imp's complexion was without splotches, without his condition. He had already bitten the cyanide capsule that led him into this cell. The owl sighed out as they laid in bed together. "Well… that certainly was a surprise… what did you say your name was again?"
He was panting, voice raw, catching his breath. "B-Blitz… the O is silent…"
The Goetia puffed from a cigarette attached to a large holder, a stick that seemingly extended for miles. "Blitz… mind if I call you Blitzy?~ It rolls off the tongue a bit better."

Blitzo grumbled, gritting his teeth for a moment. What was he going to do, tell him off? "…errghh… sure…"
Stolas ruffled the imp's bald head. "Good imp. Very robust. I'm surprised you had that energy in you! Usually the sweatshop imps are a little… well, exhausted after their work."

The sweatshop. Work, work, work. No sleep. Futons on the floor, strewn about, crowded. Men, women, children, hacking their lungs up, on death's door. Never seeing what their work amounted to, the finished product, without hope of ever purchasing it themselves. A contract, serfdom, in the name of Stolas. "…yeah. I can see why."
The owl chuckled for a moment, taking another drag. "Makes me wonder just how much energy you have." His tall frame went to reach over to the ornately-decorated side dresser, opening a drawer and taking a large book out. "Now… I'm not supposed to do this, but… would you like to take a read of my grimoire?"
A bead of sweat formed on Blitzo's forehead, and he looked to the book, and then to the other side of the room, to the wall. "Uhhh… shit, I dunno… are we allowed to do that?"
Stolas smiled over at the labourer. "Of course! I allow it, and since I'm your lord, well… that should give you all the permission you need!" He let off a soft, high-pitched chuckle. "I'll even let you cast a spell or two!"

The imp lifted himself up, propping himself with his pure-red hands and arms. "Wait… I can do that? I thought… you know…"
The taller owl sat up, opening the grimoire up, letting Blitzo read it. "Imps are capable of so much more than you think! They have innately magical properties!" He reaches over to pinch the imp's cheeks. "You've got so much mana in those red little cheeks just ready to be used.~"

Surprisingly, the grimoire was in plain English, and although the imp understood, he was averting his eyes to anything that the Goetia wasn't pointing out to him. "Oh… cool, well… ah fuck, I guess one spell couldn't hurt. Kinda curious about it." Blitzo let out a smile, the first time in years he can remember doing it.

Stolas pointed out a line. "Wonderful! All you have to do is read this line to tie yourself to the grimoire. It's, uh… it's not like English, but I'll help you along with the pronunciation! The first word is familiar to you, though."
"Satan, right?"
"Yes, yes, very good… Satan gure Jauna…" They read the passage out, bit by bit, the two working on their pronunciation, doing this for a while. An imp connecting with a Goetia. Giving the imp power. Neither understanding what would be done with it. After a while, Stolas gave a little clap. "Now add it all together." The imp nodded and began reading the phrase.


A loud, robotic voice blared from the speakers of the human facility. Chamber of steel and concrete. A door frame filled in, inaccessible. The grimoire in front of a number of human scientists, looking out from the glass pane of an observation room. "Satan gure Jauna hilezkorraren izenean, nire arima piztiaren zigiluarekin markatzen dut!" The grimoire emitted a blue glow, sparking a few times, hovering over the counter… before slamming back down. The humans backed away, eyes widened… before they let out relieved laughs and began slapping their hands together in a strange custom known as a 'high-five'.

One of the scientists spoke up. "Yeah, look at that! I think we paired it!" He stepped over to the book. It was still open on the same page that Blitzo read all those years back. "Basque, huh? That's interesting. We're gonna have to tell our linguists that."
A triumphant smile from another scientist. "There might be a connection to Basque and whatever languages these demons use, yeah! Maybe there was a period where there was some cultural cross-pollination? Like… a portal was opened or something!" The smile wavered for a moment. "We don't have enough evidence for any conclusion though. Not until we figure out how this guy got through…"

A human finger points at a passage. "We're thinking it's probably this line here. 'Opening portals to the living world requires a significant amount of energy. These reserves can be acquired through tapping into the innate magical abilities of the user of the grimoire and concentrating them in one location. It is important that the user of the grimoire is authorised to do so, as Goetia are not the only ones capable of opening portals; imps have stores of energy which allows them to use grimoires in this fashion'… so it looks like if we don't have this 'magical energy', we're kinda-"
The other scientist chimes in. "No period there."

"…hm?"

"No period." He points to the end of that sentence.

"…no period…" The human handling the cursed book turned the page… the page was thicker than the rest. "Wait… hold the phone…" He took the page, running his thumbnail in between... "…holy shit, the pages are glued together- hold the fuckin' phone!"
"Oh fuck, oh fuck, careful…!"

The pages were separated softly, the pops of glue separating from glue sending a cringe down their mammalian spines. Their eyes lit up and their expressions brightened as they read the next sentence of the passage. "…bingo!"

The humans had their way in.