Read your Contracts

"How many are there?" Harry asked her father.

The demon looked down upon him with the closest thing to a smile on his draconic face. "Several thousand. There may yet be tickets floating around up there, but their number pales in comparison to these."

Memi progressed from sobbing to maniacal laughter, flame magic gathering in her hands, and she lashed at the box, scattering the tickets to the wind as ash. She tackled Harry in a hug that set them twirling, raining kisses.

"Happy birthday Memi." Harry said.

-

The important part of the party being over with, the band came back for a last dance while the guests trickled out the front door. Memi held Harry tightly, spinning in the music without regard for anyone else.

Eventually, the music faded away and the two of them were alone once again. Memi took him by the hand and led him to the place they'd met, the room with the magic circle, and stood him there.

"Hairy, I love you." She said. Tears built in her eyes, red from all the crying she'd done today.

"I love you too. So, what are we going to do, now that you're pretty much finished with those tickets?"

"I don't know yet... I might have to become a succubus for real after all. I know that's what mom wants for me."

Harry thought of her having sex with all sorts of things and it didn't sit well, but he wanted to be supportive. "Whatever you do, I'll support you. I'm yours after all."

"I know. That's what makes it hard."

"Makes what hard?"

She made a gesture and a ring of white magic appeared on the floor around him, coming up as a wall.

"I'm sorry." She said. "I really do love you, so I'm sending you back home."

"What!?"

"You're my property, I can do with you what I want. I can give you any order I care to." Memi turned her back to him so he couldn't appeal to her. "This is my order: go back to earth, live your life in a way that makes you happy as long as you can. One of us should be free of this place."

Harry started his rebuttal, but the wall of magic flared up and his vision was whited out, he was reaching out for nothing, his old room around him.

He didn't feel like it had only been a week, but the smell of his dirty dishes was a harsh reminder that he was really here. It was his garbage on the floor, his dirty clothes in the corner, and his pc running under his desk.

At least he hadn't been gone long enough to miss rent payments, so his stuff was still here for him. His phone blinked with a dozen missed calls that all turned out to be from the university wondering why he missed so much class.

This place didn't feel real, like his real life had been the last week and he was re-submerged into dream.

The milk in the fridge was past its prime and the veggies were wilting. Harry didn't feel like waiting for the oven to warm up and ended up throwing a plateful of frozen tater tots in the microwave to get soggy and hot. Enough salt to embalm it brought it almost to the level of edibility.

He stared at it, threw it away when he realized he wasn't really hungry.

Absentmindedly, his hand went to his pocket and came back with the paper he'd gotten from the witch.

He unfurled it, read it, and felt himself growing a rictus grin.

It was easy enough to follow the instructions on the card with a trip to the dollar store for candles and chalk. Set up in his kitchen, the largest flat surface he had access to, Harry set up five multicolored birthday candles around a chalk circle with the symbol of Memirellin's true name drawn in the center.

"Ashen memory, I command your presence." He whispered, poking his finger with a pin, let a drop fall on the chalk circle. "Tear the bonds of this mortal veil and appear, I command it. Come here!"

A flash of fire and smoke emerged from thin air in the middle of the circle. When it cleared, she was there.

Memi stared at him dumbfounded, turned to take in her surroundings. "Why?" She said.

"I have a deal I want to make with you."

"Hairy, you already belong to me, there is nothing you can use to bargain." She stepped through the circle as if it wasn't there. "See, you cannot even trap me, such is our bond. I set you free, now return to your life. Live as long as you possibly can."

Harry pulled out the witch's contract and handed it over. "Ashen memory, I want you to become my familiar, to stay with me and guide me throughout the rest of my natural life."

"No." She scowled. "Are you trying to get yourself damned!? Even now you walk the razor's edge. Your soul remains untainted despite your dealings with my kind only for your unwillingness 'till now. It isn't too late for you."

"Fine then, I'll go to hell! I've already been there, haven't I?"

Memi charged into his arms and buried her face in his chest. "You haven't." She looked up with pleading eyes. "Mother's house in in the second circle, not Hell proper. The torture for lovers is light compared to most others, but it is still torture that will last for all time. If you live a moral life with me at your side, the best case would deposit you in Limbo. The torture there may only be that it isn't heaven, but that is still torture."

"I don't care!"

"I fucked you seven times today, who cares what your sex-muddled mind cares about!" She was crying softly against him. "Of course you don't care now, but can you say you won't resent me in fifty years, when damnation is on your doorstep? In a hundred years when your only pleasure is knowing those under your level are suffering more? Don't ruin yourself with so many years left to regret it."

"When I die, will you visit me wherever I end up?" He wiped away her tears despite her weak protest.

She nodded, too choked up to speak.

"I read this contract up and down. I say we remove the yearly auto-renewal and take the rest as is. I didn't believe in heaven until recently, can't say I'll miss it."

Memirellin read the contract through tears. After what seemed like an eternity considering it, she pricked her fingertip on a fang and pressed her bloody fingerprint onto the page.

"I own my master." She giggled, wiping her eyes clean. "What now?"

-

The end.