High school junior Maggie Taika looked down proudly at the summoning circle she had painted on the stage of the auditorium. It was going to be a pain to scrub it up when she was done here but if this worked, totally worth it. Risking the gnarliest of computer viruses while researching demon summoning online? Totally worth it. Staying in the school after it closed? Totally worth it. Making a deal with a demon? Totally worth it!

Maggie lit the candles and said the words of power and with a puff of smoke, a demon appeared!

Except, not in the summoning circle... She just sort of... sashayed through the stage curtains. The spell had been definitely very clear on the importance of the demon appearing in the circle. For safety reasons.

"It never fails," said the dazzlingly plumaged presumably demon. Her voluptuous body was packed into a witchy costume in fishnet and latex and not a lot of it. The demon examined the summoning circle. "You're taking some time off for yourself to break in a new fat ass toy and the phone rings. Although that's a bad metaphor. You're just kinda blasting it out for whoever will hear it, so its more like a radio. Probably no one would have heard it, if I weren't around and curious."

"Hey," objected Maggie. "You're that new girl, who set that fire."

"And I have no clue who you are so you must not be very interesting."

Heather Strange was her name, Maggie remembered. Hot, popular girls made Maggie anxious. Hot, popular bitchy girls made Maggie very anxious. Heather Strange made her VERY anxious.

Sexually and romantically anxious.

The bird finished looking at the summoning circle. "What is a sweet, boring thing like you summoning demons?"

"What is a slut like you doing lurking backstage where the theater nerds dwell?" Maggie shot back.

"I felt you making this shoddy circle and have been waiting for you to finish. Took your time."

Heather Strange walked around the periphery of the circle, never crossing any of the lines, until she stood in front of Maggie. She reached out a hand, touched Maggie's face, and stared deep in her eyes. The black panther felt a lump of emotion in her throat. This bitch could tell her to do anything right now.

The bird chuckled to herself. "Tempting. I already have one toy and you seem kind of underbaked. But we can definitely make a deal since there is something -- someone -- you desire?"

"You're really a demon?" asked Maggie. "The hot new porn-body transfer student that made Jenny cry in first period is really a demon... no, yeah, that sounds plausible."

"Not just a demon but a succubus!" With a flourish, Heather brought her arms up across her head and pointing down toward the floor. In an arc, hand to hand, a light show of different items flash and shone. Half a heart. A flask. An gem on a necklace. A more different flask. A card. A whole holed heart. And a crystal. "Not just a succubus but a princess of the netherworld! Boring, little girl, you are blessed with the sin of lust so I am the perfect demon for you. Name your affection."

Maggie fumbled her phone out of her pocket and showed a picture of Jessica Timbus. Cheerleader. Senior. Total smokeshow. Entirely out of Maggie's league. "She never gives me a second look but if I could make her like me..."

"Damn, she's hot," Heather said. "The cheerleader and the nerd getting together for some awkward sex. It's so perfectly pathetic, I almost want to do it for free! But that's not how I operate."

The self-proclaimed succubus demon looked Maggie over again. "Your soul ain't worth much and you're not worth a succubus princess' time. I mean, you're definitely a virgin, right? It'd be like putting a seven course meal from the finest chef in front of a kid who only eats buttered noodles. Plus, I have a fat-ass hamster to get back to... Let's call it TBD. UOI."

"What?" Maggie asked. The hamster comment had thrown her and she missed Heather's intention.

"What? What?" mocked Heather. "To be determined. You owe I. I give you what you want now and you can have fun with your booby cheerleader. And once I think of something you can do, I'll come collect a fee of equal value."

"Deal!" said Maggie, with the enthusiasm of the young, dumb, and horny. She held out a hand and Heather shook it. Maggie would swear she felt a tingle go through her body when Heather touched her. But that was probably the aforementioned horny.

The black panther looked at the sparkling magical images that Heather Strange had summoned and wondered which of them the demon would give to her. Maybe one of the flasks? Filled with a mysterious love concoction? Maybe the necklace, with enthralling properties?

But the images vanished and Heather pulled a stack of post-it notes out from her hat. She scribbled some instructions on several of them and stuck them to Maggie's hoodie.

"There. The rules of demonic hypnotism. Read 'em, learn 'em, use 'em and the cheerleader is yours."

"I thought it would be something more... magical?"

The avian demon scoffed. "You think you're Faust or something? Getting all the knowledge and wonders of the universe? You're a horny nerd who doesn't know how to talk to hot people. This is the amount of my effort you're worth."

She flipped off Maggie and walked out of the auditorium.

--

"And you never saw her again??" guessed Christina. She and her master Maggie were lying in bed together, in the dorm apartment they shared.

"What?" Maggie laughed. "We were in the same English class. Although she skipped class a lot more often than she attended."

"Was she a real demon?"

"Hell if I know at this point," said Maggie. "The instructions she gave me were BS. Didn't work at all. Tried them on Jessica and she just laughed. But she had a thing for hypnotism and started paying more attention to me. Which was nice."

"Okay..." said Christina, still trying to wrap her head around the magical world when sometimes stuff like curses was just not knowing you were a girl into girls. "So you saw her around school but she never asked you to pay up?"

"She never did," confirmed Maggie. "And she never should! Again: what she gave me was entirely bullshit!"

"I like the part where indirectly it led to us getting together," said Christina, snuggling against her black panther roommate/girlfriend/master.

Maggie laughed again and kissed Christina. "Okay, that part isn't bullshit."

---

I've implied a few times that demon princess Razor Tongue factored into Maggie and Jessica's deal. And spelled out a possible timeline of things here. This spooky witch YCH of Razor Tongue I didn't manage to post during October was a good way to explore Razor Tongue's involvement.

Given her attention span its possible that she never gets around to calling in Maggie's debt. Maggie might join the pile of Razor Tongue's loose ends with Grace Hormel, the Oracle, and Gabriela.

---

Heather Strange a.k.a. Razor Tongue owned by me
Art by  Glitter