Chapter 3.1

I stumbled out of the room, tripping over the leg of a desk but managing to keep my feet under me. As I left, I clutched tightly along my dress, pulling it down in a vain attempt to hide my legs and hopefully not flash anyone in my rush out. No one needed to see what they already knew had just happened. I needed to hide, to get away from all the lusty stares and gawking. But where could I go?

The library! I’d been intending to go there after class regardless, and the hallways were likely to be still empty. With the hope to find a quiet place to be alone, I crept down the hall, fortuitously avoiding any passerbys. With much relief, I shoved open the doors outside and moved down the path to the library building. It was a bright if somewhat cloudy day out. The cool wind chilled my warm red skin, making me shiver, and I continued clutching my dress in fear that the breeze would pull it up.

As I made my way through the doors of the ancient towering building, the old librarian at the front eyed me but thankfully said nothing as slinked in by her. I scanned down the aisles of tall old bookshelves, looking for a section that could help me, or if I was truthful, anything that could distract me. It wasn’t long wandering down the isles before I was deep in the library standing in front of a familiar bookshelf in a small section devoted entirely to demonology.

In front of me sat a familiar book, one that had started this whole adventure into summoning demons. It was the same book that Hamilt had read from in our failed summoning the night before. My fingers traced down along its dried old cover, and I felt a tear fall from my face. How had things ended up going so wrong?

Alone, I slumped down against the bookshelf, turning to press my back into the old wood shelf as my head bumped up against a random book that poked outward. A sob made its way out of my throat, and I choked it back down. Why was I crying? What would it possibly solve? It wasn’t going to help me change back. I sniffled and rubbed my nose, before scowling at myself for being so weak. This wasn’t like me at all.

“Hello?” a nearby sweet voice called out. “I thought I heard crying, are you --” My face shot up to see an athletic girl in a long red dress moving around the corner of the aisle. Her eyes were a bright green, and her light brown hair was made up in a stylish bun. She stopped and paused to stare at me. “Okay?” Quickly, I pulled my legs together and attempted to pull my dress down further.

I frowned at her and felt my anger rise. I wasn’t a fool. She was just another person here to use me, to take advantage of a perceived weakness. I tensed up, shifting my legs once more to make it easier to either quickly pounce toward her or run away.

“Umm okay, a demon. I didn’t expect that,” she muttered to herself, brushing the lengthy brown bangs out of her eyes. I watched her like a hawk, waiting for her to make some kind of move. She seemed to catch on as she said, “Hey, it’s okay, I’m not here to hurt you or anything.” Her hands moved up as a sign of peace. A likely story, I thought. “My name’s Victoria. You, umm, mind if I sit?” She gestured across from me.

I considered it a moment and ultimately shrugged. It would make it easier to get away if need be, so I didn’t mind. She plopped down along the floor across from me and tried to give me a reassuring smile. I wasn’t falling for it, however. It was the people with the nicest smiles that often had the darkest hearts.

“What do you want?” I said somewhat icily.

She winced at my tone as though it had struck her personally and said, “I just came here to find somewhere quiet.” She shrugged. “But I can’t walk away from a young damsel who’s distressed.”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m fine, you must have misheard.”

“Oh? Then why are your eyes so red?”

My hand moved to brush under my eyes before I realized I was a demon. “My eyes are naturally red.” I scowled at her.

Victoria grinned. “I didn’t honestly expect that to work.” I frowned and looked away. “But come on, you want someone to talk to, right?” she continued. “Otherwise I expected you would have just gotten up and walked away. So, tell me about it.” She wrapped her arms around her knees and bent forward.

She was being surprisingly gentle toward me. It didn’t allay my suspicions much, yet I couldn’t help but see she had a point. She was right in that I could have just gotten up and walked away, yet hadn’t. In fact, I could do so still. Did I really want someone to talk to badly enough to chat with this unknown stranger? I pondered it for a moment and realized that perhaps I really did.

“And why should I trust you?” I asked back. “Some random girl I just met in the library.” I couldn’t really be considering this, could I?

She looked to the side and thought for a moment before giving me a shrug.

It caught me somewhat off guard. I’d expected her to try and defend her trustworthiness, perhaps give some sort of reason that I could trust in her. Instead, she’d just shrugged? I stared at her a moment as she gave me a shy and seemingly embarrassed smile. At least she also seemed to realize how silly it was.

“I…” I trailed off, uncertain of what to say. My eyes wavered away from her. “I was human, until yesterday.” The words sort of spluttered out of my mouth with little thought. “I’m trying to find a way to change back.”

Why was I telling her this? It wasn’t what truly had me upset and angry, I knew. That wasn’t something I felt ready to talk about with a complete stranger. Still, why tell her anything at all?

She hummed and said, “A human turned demon. Can’t say I’ve heard of that. Though demonic magic can be both foreign and quite powerful. Guess that explains why you’re here in the library.” Her eyes traced along the books to my back. “Any luck yet on your search?”

I shook my head. “No, I haven’t even really started.”

She stood and smiled down at me. With a step forward she reached out her hand. “Well, sounds like you could use some help.”

I frowned. She was suddenly offering to help me? Did she really think that offer would work? I eyed her hand for a moment before slowly moving to meet it. As our hands clasped I couldn’t decide which of us was the naive one here. She pulled me to my feet, and I blushed faintly as we nearly bumped into each other.

“You really want to help me look?” I asked, wondering why she would be willing. Did she see something she could gain from this? Perhaps information to use against me later?

“Sure, it sounds interesting, and you probably need the help.”

I considered it for a moment, wondering whether she could have any other ulterior motives. When nothing else came to mind, I decided to simply accept it. I probably could use the help, and it wasn’t as though I had to actually trust her. Or perhaps I could trust her until she proved untrustworthy? I shook my head. What a silly idea.

Twenty minutes later we were sprawled back across the floor with several open books around us. I suspected the librarian would’ve had a heart attack if she’d known, but I had no interest in finding a table when I could just stay here in this small corner of the library in peace. Victoria didn’t ask any prodding questions about me, like one would expect of someone fishing for useful information. Instead, she just focused on scanning through books. Slowly I began to relax around her, allowing me to focus better on the texts instead of worrying over the strange girl.

We stayed like that for hours. Over time she began to try and make idle conversation, but I mostly stuck with my search. It took a while, but eventually, I lucked out on a bit of a breakthrough. I’d found it in a section detailing the differences between demonic magics of the Under and chaotic magics of the Above. It explained how a lot of chaotic magic could only be truly countered by its demonic opposite. It was for this reason that the summoning of demons and learning some of their magic gradually went from being completely outlawed to grudgingly accepted, at least in some communities. If there was one thing mortals feared more than the cunning and powerful demons of the Under, it was the dark creatures of the Above.

What was implied but not exactly specified was that to counter the workings of demonic magic, one would likely need its chaotic opposite. A pit of dread dropped into my stomach from the realization. Chaotic magic was Forbidden. Unlike demonic magic and other dark arts, no one sane practiced the magic of the Above, partly because practitioners literally lost their sanity.

I showed my new apparent friend what I’d found. She frowned down at it for a long moment, deep in thought.

“Well, that’s not the best of news.” She looked over to me, her uncertainty over what to say clear on her face.

I couldn’t help but scowl back. “It’s possibly the worst news we could have come across. Even finding out it was utterly impossible would have been better.”

She grimaced but didn’t deny it. “Just because chaos magic would be a way to counter it doesn’t mean it is the only way,” she insisted optimistically. “In fact,” she tapped her chin for a moment before continuing, “Are we sure that the spell used on you was entirely demonic in nature? What sort of spell was it? Was it cast by another demon?”

She had a point, now that I thought of it. Demonic summoning was a mixture of human ritual magics and the demonic. It was why demons couldn’t simply summon up their own kind to the Medial realm. While clearly something went wrong, there was still a major human element to whatever spell actually occurred. Thus, there was still a chance it could be reversed.

I met Victoria’s eyes to find that she was still looking towards me with a questioning gaze. Right, she’d asked about the magic spell.

“I was trying to summon a succubus for, um…” My cheeks flushed as I paused. “Well, I was trying to summon one, and instead, the pentagram trapped me before turning me into one myself.” It was one thing to be turned into a succubus. It was another to become one because you were trying to have sex with one but messed up the summoning spell. I struggled to meet the girl’s eyes.

She smirked at me and raised an eyebrow momentarily as I looked away from her. Thankfully she broke the brief silence. “I should have expected something like that. Not nearly as impressive as what I was imagining, but much more realistic.”

As I pondered how to reply, the school’s loud gong echoed through the walls of the library five times. Was it truly already five hours past noon?

“I’ve got to go or I’m going to be late for my evening class,” Victoria said. She stood and stretched. I watched as her dress shifted around her, displaying her curves as she arched her back. Blinking, I looked back up to her eyes. She smiled at me, and I tried to pretend I hadn’t just been ogling her. “I can help you look more tomorrow if you like? Same time?”

I nodded back, dumbly. “Umm, yeah, sure.” Was that the best I could think to say?

She smiled once more. “Alright, tomorrow then,” she said and turned to leave.

As she began to move away from me a thought ran through me. “I -- wait!” My hand reached out and gently touched her lower arm as I rushed to my feet. She looked back curiously, our eyes meeting only a few inches apart. “Thank you. For, you know, helping me. It’s -- it’s not the sort of thing most people here would do. I --” My words left me as I stared into her bright green eyes once more. They seemed to almost sparkle with a mischievous glow in the ambient light of the library. I realized then that we’d somehow moved closer to each other, and my hand was still clutched around her arm. I looked down to her lips and did what felt natural. I leaned forward. Our lips met and my eyes closed as we kissed.

Time stopped for a moment.

My eyes blinked open as I realized what I’d just done. Moving back, I found myself looking more surprised than she did. “Umm,” I muttered. What was I thinking? No, that was exactly the problem. I clearly wasn’t. I’d just acted.

“That’s certainly one way to say goodbye.” Victoria grinned. Victoriously. She leaned forward and placed a soft kiss on my cheek. “See ya later, cutie”, she said softly. As she turned to leave she eyed me up and down before giving me a wink. “Maybe tomorrow you’ll tell me your name.”

I let out a sigh and leaned my shoulder up against the bookshelf as she turned the corner of the aisle. My tail swished from side to side, and much to my mortification, I found that my dress had ridden up and was showing off much of my naked nether regions. Heat flushed across my face and I hastily stretched it back down. Had she seen?

Then another panicked thought went through me. My name? I’d intentionally left out the fact that I’d been a boy before my transformation. There was no way I was telling her my name was Gordon, but what was I going to tell her? Did I really have to come up with a name for myself?

I shook my head. None of this would matter if I could figure out how to transform back before tomorrow. With that thought, I began my search once more.

Several more hours went by, and my progress had dwindled. Besides the one hint about chaotic magic, nothing else had been useful. After a long period of consideration, I’d made a decision. I would look through the small handful of books in the library that discussed the Above. There weren’t many of them, and the ones that existed likely wouldn’t have much useful within them. Still, I felt I had to check. If I could find even a small clue on how to change back, it would be worth it. Most importantly, whatever small amount of information the library had would likely not be enough to impact my sanity. Information like that would be far too dangerous to keep around in a place like this. The only risk would be if someone found out I was snooping through information on the subject.

With my new goal in mind, I began my search. The new trouble of course was finding much of any information about the Above at all. It wasn’t as though there was a convenient section in the library for it. As I sat in the corner scanning through the contents of an old book, my eyes began to drift closed. Blinking, I realized I was getting sleepy and would need to stop soon. Yet I didn’t want to give up, as the evening curfew wasn't for a few hours still. On and on I read, until the words in front of me barely made sense anymore and my mind began to drift.