Deep in the inky blackness of the void a Demon is jolted awake.

  Trapped, she knew that she was fading away. She had not talked to anyone in over a millenia and was starting to panic. She knew that she was female, knew that she had been in the void a long time, but other than that she knew nothing.

  She had lost herself to the void.

  Suddenly the reason for her awakening had revealed itself, someone was summoning her. A bright portal appeared in the void shedding light on the infinite darkness. The demon was relieved, she had been about to die, if not half dead already.

  She ran to the portal.

  ---

  The life of a 20 first century magic user is not as amazing as it sounds.

  At least Asa Newcomb thought so, he was the youngest in his family and over all a disappointment to his spymaster parents.

  Spymaster! You must be thinking, how awesome and edgy would that be. Of course, all this meant really was that Asa had to use a fake name with anyone other than family and was expected to be a master in the arts of stealth by the time he was 3.

  This is what had Asa down, he was not a prodigy in the arts of stealth like his father, mother, or sisters. Instead he was more proficient in the more obvious brute force versions of magic like his wind and telekinesis attack spells.

  This series of thoughts that he had the last two years of his life is what put him in the position that he was in now.

  Asa’s back ached.

  He had been hunched over a summoning circle for hours on end and still he was not finished.

  Asa had stolen from his father’s library of books, not really stolen as he was allowed to have them, but saying he stole them made him feel cool. He had stolen the oldest book on demonology (the study of Demons) in his father's library and was copying a Demon's summoning circle out of it.

  Stupid, yes, bound to get him killed, yes, but if he could land a contract it would make him stronger and hopefully make up for the fact that he wasn’t good enough in the eyes of his family, so that finally his dad would stop being such a colossal ass hole.

  Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

  Asa put the finishing touches on his circle 4 hours and a lunch break later.

  This was the moment he had been preparing for the past couple weeks. Reaching for the pure mana produced by his soul he touched the edge of the circle and started channeling.

  The summoning circle appeared to flip and bend itself into a portal with only infinite darkness on the other side. At first he thought that he had failed the summoning, but then out of nowhere a feminine figure wearing black smoke like a cape jumped out of the portal and into the summoning circle.

  Asa analised the demon with his eyes. Judging from the smoke this was some kind of stealth Demon, it probably had two offerings at best. Asa frowned, when demons were summoned to the mortal plane they traded offerings in order to get some time away from the void, usually the offering was servitude for several years, or a new type of magic. The less offerings the worse each one would be and the less variety of choice.

  “Hello” Asa said, attempting to start a dialogue.

  “Hello” the demon said in a monotone voice.

  “What are you offering” Asa said.

  “I only have two offerings, one that lacks details and the other is servitude for 40 years”

  Asa’s Frown grew deeper what use was a servant that didn't give him strength. “What does the one that lacks details do”

  “It makes people stronger” the Demon responded “a least I think so”

  This improved Asa’s mood considerably, without thinking too much about the possible effects of this contract, Asa agreed to both.

  The world then exploded with light.

  ---

  Now for a second let’s establish something, what Asa did with the Demon was not very intelligent. The Demon could have easily been lying to him. Remember, never trust a Demon.

  ---

  Asa looked around, and saw nothing.

  The sting of the bright light hurt his eyes and he tried to put his hands in the way to get a break from the pain but it did nothing as he found that his limbs would not move.

  Asa struggled briefly against the invisible bindings then he went limp, this was what he had trained for since he was three years old, after all the only thing that he was good at in spymaster training was escaping.

  He made a blade out of wind, with a thought he condensed it into a thin sharp blade that could cut through steel. He slowly turned his hand around and started cutting into the invisible bindings.

  When the blade of air made its way through the bindings the light illusion fell apart. Asa looked around. He was half standing in an empty flat plane that seemed to go on forever without any identifiable landmarks. There was nothing to look at out there so he turned his attention towards himself. He was strapped to a large metal table in a starfish position with one of his arms free, near him stood the Demon and a glowing man in a suit. They were having a conversation but Asa couldn’t understand the language, it seemed to be heated through.

  Asa started to cut his other hand and his leg at the same time slowly liberating himself.

  This is when the Demon he had a contract with noticed him. Without missing a beat in the argument she cast a spell of pure demon magic, in coiled along the ground from her ankle and started snaking along the floor to Asa. At first he resisted squirming out of the way of the tendril but it grabbed onto his wrist and started spliting and coiling it’s way around his body.

  Unfortunately for Asa and the Demon the man in the suit noticed Asa’s struggles, but by then it was too late. The black material had surrounded Asa completely, the man yelled something in the language that Asa didn’t understand and shot a blade of white hot fire at him. It was deflected easily by the black material and flew off into the distance, The man turned to the demon but she was already gone.

  Frowning the glowing man looked straight at Asa.

  “Whatever you do, do not trust her”

  Then Asa was pulled from that plane by the demon's magic once again it looked like he was peering into the void.

  A thumb pressed itself into his forehead and he fell fast asleep.