Incandescent

Ayer avage aloren Asmoday aken.

A circle had been drawn in pale rock salt, with a triangle outside of it.

Ayer avage aloren Asmoday aken.

Three red candles had been placed at each point of the triangle, and lit accordingly.

Ayer avage aloren Asmoday aken.

The Sigil of Asmodeus had been drawn in red on a piece of white paper, and placed within the triangle.

Ayer avage aloren Asmoday aken.

Now Simon sat back in the salt circle and waited. He repeated the summons over and over, focusing all his thought, all his energy on the triangle, and the sigil inside it.

Ayer avage aloren Asmoday aken.

Nothing happened. He was about to give up when he thought he could detect the smell of sulphur. The temperature in the room rose rapidly, and he began to perspire. Simon continued to focus on the triangle of salt, as his head began to feel heavy, and his eyelids drooped. The ritual was sapping his energy, and he had to fight the urge to keel over and fall asleep.

Ayer avage aloren Asmoday aken.

And then it happened.

With a surge of power that blew the lightbulbs in the room, and a sweeping warm wind that blew out the three candles, the demon Asmodeus appeared in the centre of the triangle.

Simon immediately rallied, and clapped his hands and laughed. Sitting up to his full height, he addressed the demon.

'Foul creature from the Underworld,' he began, 'I, Simon the Mage, have summoned you to do my bidding!'

Asmodeus tilted his head to one side and appeared to squint.

'You don't look like a mage,' the demon said, 'you look like a child.'

'I'm not a child! I'm fifteen...'

The demon rolled his eyes in his head, 'You are a child!'

'Silence, evil one! I am in charge here!'

'If you say so, Simon the Mage.' The demon replied, playing with a few grains of salt with a red claw, 'I like the candles...'

'Don't touch them please.' Simon asked.

'Red is definitely my colour.'

'I said silence! You have been called forth for a reason.'

'Ah, I see - you want something from me.' Asmodeus stretched and yawned, 'Well go on then - I haven't got all day.'

'How long have you got?' Simon asked, craning his head to see whether the salt triangle was still intact.

The demon shrugged. Simon looked down at the spell book he held in his lap.

'It says here that so long as I keep you within the triangle, you must do my bidding.'

'It does, does it?' Asmodeus, 'And what book might that be?'

Simon held it up for the demon to see, and tapped the title with his finger. 'It's Daemonology by King James the First...a new version with modern commentary.'

The demon rolled its eyes into the back of its head. 'That man...if I had a soul for every time one of you demonologists mentioned James....' the threat lingered in the air with the smell of brimstone.

'Did you know him?' Simon asked.

'King James?'

'Yes.'

The demon looked at him suspiciously. 'Why do you want to know?'

'I have an essay I have to write about him for history class. About his interest in demonology and the occult. I thought you might be able to provide a unique perspective of the man.

'Is that so?'

'Yes.'

'What's in it for me?'

'I'm sorry?

'What do I get out of the deal?'

Simon looked at the demon in disbelief, 'You don't get anything. I summoned you, you do my bidding, and then I banish you to whence you came!'

'Let me be clear on this,' Asmodeus hissed, displaying a forked tongue, 'you'll banish me back to the Underworld with nothing to show for it?'

'Pretty much.'

'No deal.'

'Tough! That's how it works, according to my translations...'

The demon nodded sagely. 'Tell you what, Simon the Mage, I will tell you everything I remember about King James, if you break one of the lines of this triangle before you banish me - just so I can stretch my legs a little before I have to go back.'

'Stretch your legs?'

'Just to have a little run around. Not for long. I would be most grateful.'

Simon looked down at his book, flicked a few pages forward and back, and frowned. 'It doesn't say anything about breaking the triangle.'

'That's because dear old James the First never got that far. He didn't do much in the way of dabbling. He wasn't a mage like yourself. Come on, what's the worst that could happen?'

Simon slammed his book shut dramatically. 'If you trick me...'

'No tricks,' was the answer, 'just stretching my legs.'

Simon placed the book down inside the circle, stood up and walked up to Asmodeus in the triangle. Breaking eye contact with the demon, he reached out and scooped up some of the salt.

'Oh Simon,' said a voice from over his shoulder, 'you fool.'

Simon looked up - the triangle was empty. He looked over his shoulder and gasped. Asmodeus held up the demonology book, which smouldered in his grasp.

'Oh God,' Simon gulped.

'Bit late to ask for His help,' Asmodeus laughed, 'now where were we?'

The smell of sulphur now filled the room, and Asmodeus gripped the book tightly. The cover started to char, the paper curled and darkened, and finally it burst into flames. Simon could only watch as Asmodeus held it up, allowing ashes and embers to fall to the floor and ignite the carpet.

Simon ran from the room and Asmodeus disappeared in a cloud of acrid black smoke. The young demonologist ran downstairs to raise the alarm, but the demon was waiting for him at the foot of the staircase. Asmodeus gripped Simon by the neck with red-hot claws that burned through his skin. Tears rolled down Simon's cheeks, drying before they reached his jaw line. He was powerless to do anything, and the demon was so strong.

'I am a fallen seraphim,' Asmodeus said, 'a prince of demons. I still burn with the holy fire that created me. Inside I carry an incandescent light, the like of which you have never seen. And you call me foul. You call me evil one? Let me show you how evil I can be!'

Simon looked into the demon's eyes, which seemed to be two coals, burning white-hot. His eyes streamed as if he were staring at the sun. What little air that reached his lungs was hot and dry. He felt like he was burning up from the inside.

'You are nothing but a child!' Asmodeus hissed, and squeezed Simon's throat further, burning away layers of flesh, 'A weak, feeble, human child!'

Simon passed out, and the demon dropped him. He fell to the floor in a heap, and Asmodeus placed a burning claw on his head.

'Poor child, meddling with things you don't understand. Be rest assured, I shall bring Hell upon this house and all living in it. Thank you for freeing me - now burn.'

Simon's hair ignited under the demon's grip, the flames engulfing his body, consuming him and igniting the stairs beneath. Asmodeus looked up to see the fire from Simon's room taking over the landing. A door creaked behind the demon, and a young girl appeared in the hall.

'Simon?' She asked, rubbing her tired eyes.

The demon smiled.

Within half an hour, the fire brigade arrived at the scene, responding to neighbours' calls, but it was too little, too late. Try as they might, they couldn't put the fire out, and it showed no sign of abating. Some said that it was the worst fire they had ever seen. The light from it was visible all across town, and the smoke hung low in the air so that people had to stay indoors and keep their windows closed for days. No matter how much water was poured on it, the fire wouldn't go out - it was as if it had tapped into some kind of fuel supply that kept it burning and raging.

Before the sun came up the next morning, there was a huge explosion, and an enormous fireball burst forth from the house, enclosed within a mushroom-shaped cloud. Whatever had fuelled the fire was running out, as it died down quite quickly, leaving the house to collapse in on itself. There was no way of determining what had started the blaze, which was labelled in the press as an awful tragedy. The whole family had been consumed by the flames - there were no survivors.

In the weeks that followed, parents hugged their children close, and lovers clung to each other. The town had suffered a sad loss, and it had left a scar not only on the street where Simon's house had once stood, but also in the minds and hearts of those who lived there. Some turned to religion, and it was true to say that, following the memorial service for the family, more people began attending church regularly than had been seen for a long time.

Far from the scene of the disaster, across national borders and continental divides, back in the desert that it had once called home, Asmodeus raged and burned. The demon stayed away from mankind as much as possible, grateful to have been set free, but angry at being stuck in the human world. Tribesmen recorded more wildfires than had been seen for generations, burning what scant vegetation grew in the desert. They stayed close to the villages and oases, and left the wild desert to the elements, for it was well-known that the desert was where the Devil lived. Children listened to their parents, and didn't stray. Even the livestock stayed close.

Everyone was in agreement - there was something out there that hadn't been there before, and it commanded fear and respect. What it was, and from whence it came was unknown, but there were those who swore that when the hot wind blew across the dunes and shifted the sands, a voice could be heard speaking words whose meaning were all but forgotten.

Ayer avage aloren Asmoday aken...