Chapter 1: Summoned Salvation
The dust in the attic didn’t so much float as it did congeal, a thick, golden soup of neglect that Mike Davis stirred up with every step. His forearm, streaked with grime, left a damp snail-trail on the already peeling wallpaper as he braced himself against a rafter. He swore under his breath, the sound swallowed by the suffocating heat.
“GameCube, GameCube,” he muttered, a dusty incantation of his own. “Where the hell did teenage me stash you?”
A week of rain had left the air up here clinging and fungal. It was a tomb for things with no future: milk crates of Yellow Pages, a dress form with one busted hip, a box labeled “Misc. Cords (Important)” that hadn’t been opened since the Bush administration. The second one.
His hand brushed against something bound in cracked leather, tucked behind a moth-eaten loveseat. He pulled it free, triggering a miniature dust-storm that made him cough. The book was heavy, the cover embossed with symbols that looked less like magic and more like a toddler’s attempt at drawing intestines.
“The Practical Theurgist’s Almanac,” he read aloud, his voice flat. “Yeah, that sounds practical.” He flipped it open. The pages were brittle, the ink a faded brown. Diagrams of circles, lists of ingredients like “powdered nightshade” and “tears of a penitent.” He snorted. “Tears of a penitent. Right. Can you pick those up at the Home Depot next to the grout?”
He nearly tossed it into the growing discard pile by the pull-down stairs. But a weird illustration caught his eye—a squat, jolly-looking figure surrounded by what seemed to be floating roast chickens. He smirked. “Demon of dinner. My kinda occult.” He set the book on top of a crate, meaning to chuck it later, and went back to his fruitless search.
The GameCube remained a myth. The book remained on the crate.
Three days later, the silence in the house had started to talk back. It was a specific kind of quiet, bred from empty cupboards and a bank account that blinked like a warning light. The drizzle outside wasn’t weather; it was just the sky being as bored as he was. He’d exhausted his streaming subscriptions, re-sorted his toolbox twice, and the thought of another can of store-brand beans made his soul feel thin.
He found himself back in the attic, not looking for anything, just because the discomfort of the space was a change from the discomfort of his living room. There was the book, right where he’d left it. This time, he picked it up and carried it downstairs, dropping it on his rickety kitchen table with a thud.
A beer helped. Two beers made the diagrams look more like interesting graphic design. By the third, the whole thing seemed like a decent way to kill a Tuesday night.
“Tears of a penitent,” he chuckled, scanning a page titled ‘Lesser Conjurations: Complimentary Spirits.’ “Substitute: any strong brine, or a squeeze of lime if you’re feeling fancy.” That was in pencil, a cramped note in the margin. Some previous owner had been a cheapskate, too. Mike felt a strange kinship with the unknown scribbler.
The instructions for the ‘Satisfaction of Mundane Needs’ circle were simple. Chalk, not salt. A few basic lines. A symbol that looked like a stomach with a smiley face. No animal sacrifice, just an offering of “something sincerely desired.”
His belly gurgled, a hollow, empty sound. He hadn’t eaten anything today but resentment. What did he sincerely desire? A real meal. A stupid, giant, ridiculous meal. A porterhouse steak so big it barely fit on a plate. Truffle mashed potatoes. A chocolate cake the size of a truck tire. The fantasy was vivid, tactile. His mouth watered.
This was idiotic. Sublimely, gloriously idiotic.
With a shrug that was mostly for his own benefit, Mike grabbed a piece of sidewalk chalk his niece had left behind. He swept the cracked linoleum floor clear of crumbs and got to work on his knees. The circle was lopsided. The symbol was more of a wobbly oval with two dots. It looked like the ghost of a pancake.
He stood back, wiping chalky hands on his jeans. The offering. He opened his fridge. The light blinked on to reveal a half-empty jar of mayonnaise, a single wilting green onion, and a can of cheap beer. He took the beer. He placed it in the center of his sad little circle.
Then he read the incantation. His voice felt too loud in the empty kitchen.
“Spirit of the bottomless feast, keeper of the larder, hear this call. From want, I speak. From hunger, I beckon. I offer a token of my thirst. Show yourself.”
He felt like a total asshole. Nothing happened. The refrigerator’s motor kicked on with a damp rattle. Outside, a car drove by.
“Welp,” he said to the empty room. “There’s three minutes I’m never getting—”
The air inside the circle warped. It wasn’t a pop or a bang, but a sudden, heavy blurring, like heat haze over asphalt. The can of beer crumpled in on itself with a sharp fizz-hiss.
Mike stumbled back, his chair legs screeching against the floor.
The haze solidified, tinted the warm, deep red of a rich wine. And then she was there, standing barefoot on his chalk lines.
She was… vast. Voluptuous in a way that defied anatomy, all rolling curves and soft, generous flesh. Her skin was a uniform, beautiful crimson. A simple, dark shift dress strained over a belly that was full and round, her navel a delicate dip in the smooth expanse. Her face was wide and friendly, with plush cheeks and a smile that seemed permanently fixed, genuine and bright. Her eyes glowed like banked coals, a warm, cheerful orange.
She looked at the crumpled beer can, then at Mike, and her smile widened. Her voice was a smooth, rich alto, like honey warmed over a flame.
“A token of your thirst,” she said, nudging the can with a toe. “Literal. I appreciate a literalist.” She stretched, the movement a wave of lush topography. “So! You’re the new one. You rang?”
Mike’s brain had short-circuited. All it could process was: woman, red, food. The last thought was the loudest. He hadn’t eaten. He was maybe hallucinating from hunger. That was a thing, right?
“I…” he started, his voice a croak. He cleared his throat. “I was looking for a GameCube.”
The demon—it had to be a demon—threw back her head and laughed. The sound was full and infectious, a sound that made you think of crowded banquet halls. “And you got me instead! Far more useful, I promise. I am Gluttonia. A minor spirit of the boundless appetite. You desired a feast.” She stated it as a fact, her orange eyes twinkling. “The want was so sharp in your words. It called to me.”
Mike just stared. His eyes kept drifting from her glowing gaze to the soft curve of her stomach. It was… hypnotic. A profound, absurd sense of want, utterly different from hunger, uncoiled in him. It was fascination, pure and simple.
She watched him look, and her smile turned knowing, pleased. “Ah. You like that? Good. It’s my best part.” She patted her belly with a soft, drum-like thump. “Now, about that feast. A placeholder, to seal our compact.”
She snapped her fingers.
The air filled with smells. Charred, seasoned meat. Yeasty, buttery bread. Rich, dark chocolate. With a soft, almost musical clatter, Mike’s kitchen table was suddenly, unquestionably covered in food.
A steak, precisely as he had imagined, rested on a platter, juices pooling. A mountain of mashed potatoes sat beside it, studded with black truffle shavings. A cake, layered and glistening, occupied the other end. There were sides, sauces, garnishes. It was a caricature of a meal, a cartoonish abundance.
Mike’s knees went weak. It was real. The scents were real, the visual was real, the deep, resonant growl from his own stomach was definitely real.
“How…?” he whispered.
“I am the idea of the next bite,” Gluttonia said, leaning casually against his fridge as if she’d always been there. “The satisfaction before the swallow. I make the thought tangible.” She gestured grandly at the table. “Eat. It’s yours. Consider it a… signing bonus.”
Desperation overcame terror. Hunger overrode sanity. Mike didn’t need to be asked twice. He fell into his chair, grabbed a fork, and carved into the steak. It was perfect. Better than perfect. It was the platonic ideal of steak. He moaned, a helpless, involuntary sound of pure pleasure.
Gluttonia watched, her orange eyes soft with contentment. She seemed to swell a little, to glow more warmly with each bite he took. “Good?” she purred.
Mike, his mouth full, could only nod vigorously. He swallowed. “This is… this is insane.”
“It’s a start,” she corrected gently, moving to stand behind him. A warm, heavy hand came to rest on his shoulder. It was a comforting weight. “You called from a place of true want, Mike Davis. Not for power, or revenge. Just for… this.” She gestured at the feast. “It’s refreshing. I can work with that.”
Mike slowed, a forkful of potatoes halfway to his mouth. The implication sunk in. “Work with?”
“Well, you summoned me,” she said, as if explaining that water was wet. “We’re linked now. A minor binding. I provide. You… enjoy.” Her fingers gave his shoulder a slight squeeze. “It’s what I do. I’m rather good at it.”
Mike looked from the impossible woman of crimson and curve to the impossible food on his broken table. The pragmatic part of his brain, the part that lived with leaky faucets and overdraft fees, finally spoke up. It wasn’t a voice of horror, but of cynical calculation.
“So you’re like a… sentient microwave?” he asked.
Gluttonia’s laugh filled the kitchen again, rich and delighted. “Oh, I like you. Yes. A sentient microwave that also does dishes.” She leaned down, her voice a conspiratorial whisper near his ear, the scent of her like cinnamon and roasted nuts. “So. What do you want for dessert?”
Mike looked at the colossal cake, then back at her glowing, eager eyes. He took another huge bite of steak. A feeling he hadn’t known in years—something like safety, like satiation—began to unclench in his chest.
“I’m thinking,” he said around the food, “we might need a bigger table.”
A bigger table was the first of many, many small adjustments.
For two weeks, Mike lived in a state of stunned, greasy bliss. The hollow ache in his wallet from grocery bills vanished. Gluttonia conjured breakfasts of fluffy omelets stuffed with cheese and chorizo, lunches of deep-dish pizza that wept fragrant grease, dinners that were symphonies of starch and fat. He ate like a king recuperating from a famine, and Gluttonia watched, her warm orange eyes aglow, her crimson form seeming to grow ever so slightly more substantial with each satisfied groan he uttered.
He’d come home from another day of dead-end IT contract work, the existential dread of his overcrowded email inbox still buzzing in his skull, and the smell of roasting garlic and searing steak would meet him at the door. His drafty, peeling house became a sanctuary of aromas.
“You’re a lifesaver, Glutts,” he’d say, shrugging off his coat.
“It’s Gluttonia,” she’d correct gently, always with that permanent smile, as she set a plate before him. “And it’s my purpose. It’s what I am.”
That was the thing, though. After the initial shock wore off, Mike’s requests became… practical. Efficient. He wasn’t dreaming of ten-course banquets or fountains of chocolate. He wanted a solid meatloaf with mashed potatoes. A really good bacon cheeseburger. Maybe some spicy wings for the game on Sunday. Sustenance, not spectacle.
One Tuesday evening, he found her standing by the kitchen window, staring out at the overgrown yard. Her usual vibrant aura seemed dimmer, her form almost… still. He was shoveling down a perfectly serviceable and delicious chicken parmigiana.
“Everything okay?” he asked, mouth full.
She turned, her smile never faltering, but her eyes held a faint, glimmering exasperation. “Of course. The chicken is to your liking?”
“It’s great. Always is.”
“Good.” She drifted over, the soft whisper of her form against the linoleum the only sound. “I was just thinking… the potential. This energy, this connection we have. It could be so much more. I could manifest a suckling pig glazed in honey and myrrh. A tower of profiteroles that reaches the ceiling. A stew so complex it alters your perception of time.” Her voice took on a wistful, almost hungry tone. “A real feast, Mike. A testament.”
Mike swallowed, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “That sounds like a lot of dishes. And I’d probably just get a stomach ache. This is perfect.” He gestured to his plate. “Honestly, you’re saving my ass. I’m putting actual money into my savings account for the first time ever.”
Gluttonia’s smile tightened at the edges. She looked at the simple, homely plate of food. It was, undeniably, perfect. And that was the problem. It was small. “Of course,” she said again, her voice softer. “I am glad to be of… utility.”
The dynamic settled into a comfortable, if slightly stifled, routine. Mike enjoyed his newfound financial breathing room. He fixed the porch step. He finally bought the decent set of shelves for his tools. His life was objectively better. Yet, a low-grade curiosity began to itch at him again. The success of the first summoning had been a fluke, a wild, terrifying, amazing fluke. The book sat on his now-clean kitchen counter, a dark, leather-bound temptation.
If one accidental summoning could solve his most pressing daily problem, what could a deliberate one do?
The thought buzzed in his head one Saturday afternoon. Gluttonia was in the living room, ostensibly watching a baking competition on TV, but she was mostly just staring at the contestants’ creations with a melancholic intensity. Mike stood in the kitchen, tracing the embossed symbols on the book’s cover.
Improving his life more. That was the goal. Food was handled. What else did he hate? The soul-crushing tedium of his job. The constant anxiety of his car breaking down. The sheer effort of everything.
He flipped through the brittle pages, past “Spirits of Verdant Growth” and “Entities of Unseen Guardian.” His eyes landed on a section titled “Harmonizers of Fortune & Favor.” The page showed a stylized, almost art-deco image of a handsome figure surrounded by floating coins and gears. The description was vague but promising: “To attract felicitous circumstance and smooth the path of enterprise.”
No powdered nightshade required this time, either. Just a circle of silver dust (substitute: aluminum foil shreds, the margin note helpfully added), a specific sequence of lines, and an offering of “something of personal value representing toil.”
Mike’s eyes swept his kitchen. His gaze landed on his multi-tool, sitting in a jar of pens. It was cheap, the pliers were wobbly, and the screwdriver bits were always getting lost. But he’d carried it for years. It represented hours of fixing leaks, assembling furniture, futilely trying to improve things. It was pure toil.
A fizz of reckless excitement shot through him. This wasn't hunger. This was ambition. A lazy, cut-corners kind of ambition, but ambition nonetheless.
Gluttonia was engrossed in a spectacular soufflé collapse on screen. Mike quietly gathered his supplies. He tore a sheet of aluminum foil into tiny, glittering shreds. He cleared the floor. He drew the new circle, this one more angular and geometric than Gluttonia’s rounded one. It looked like a clumsy corporate logo. He placed the multi-tool in the center.
He took a deep breath. The incantation for this one was more businesslike.
“Spirit of favorable chance, who turns the gears of luck, attend this call. I offer the symbol of my labor. Ease my way. Bring opportunity to my door.”
He read the words carefully, feeling slightly sillier than he had the first time. The air in the circle didn’t warp with a heat-haze blur. Instead, it seemed to… fracture. A sharp, tinny ringing filled the kitchen, like a hundred tiny bells being shaken with aggressive force. The aluminum foil shreds vibrated and shot outward, peppering the cabinets.
Mike shielded his eyes.
The light was different—not a warm glow, but a sterile, fluorescent flicker. When it faded, a figure stood in the circle.
When it faded, a figure stood in the circle.
She was all sharp angles where Gluttonia was soft curves, a flurry of motion where Gluttonia was a placid lake. The newcomer blinked, her eyes—a startling, electric blue—darting around the shabby kitchen. She was dressed in what looked like a professional barista’s outfit gone rogue: tight black pants, a crisp white shirt under a grey vest, but the vest was unbuttoned and the sleeves were rolled up with frantic energy. Her hair, a messy heap of blond and pink, seemed to defy gravity.
“Oh my gosh! A human! A real, live, in-the-flesh human!” Her voice was a rapid-fire clatter, like dice on a table. She spun once on the spot, taking in the peeling linoleum, the ancient fridge, Mike’s stunned face. “And a domicile! A fixed-point dwelling! This is incredible! Is that a microwave? It’s so boxy!”
Mike just stared, his multi-tool lying forgotten in the center of the now-smudged circle. “Uh.”
“I’m Charlie! Charlie Morningstar! Lesser Spirit of Fortune’s Favor, at your service!” She gave a little, enthusiastic bow that was half-skit, half-sincere. “You called, I came! So, what’s the venture? What’s the enterprise? Are we starting a small business? Ooh, is it a bakery? I love bakeries! The alignment of flour, yeast, and heat is a cosmic ballet of precise timing!”
“It’s… it’s nothing like that,” Mike managed, his brain finally catching up. A spirit of fortune. To smooth the path. He’d wanted an easier life. This was… a lot.
Gluttonia had silently appeared in the kitchen doorway, a wall of crimson calm observing the blue-electric chaos. She said nothing, her warm orange eyes fixed on Charlie with intense curiosity.
“Okay, not a bakery! Even better!” Charlie paced, her hands moving as fast as her words. “Investment portfolio? Real estate flipping? We can optimize your daily commute! I can shift traffic light patterns, you know. Not by much, but statistically significant!”
Mike’s life unspooled in his mind. His job was a bore, but it was remote. He didn’t commute. His investments were a sad little IRA. Real estate was this crumbling house. He had no venture. He’d just wanted… less hassle. A parking spot always open. A coffee machine that didn’t break. The vague notion of things being easier.
He looked from the frenetic demon to Gluttonia, who gave him a slow, almost imperceptible shrug. The contrast was absurd.
“Look, Charlie,” Mike said, rubbing his forehead. “I think there’s been a misunderstanding.”
“No misunderstanding!” Charlie chirped. “The call was clear. ‘Ease my way. Bring opportunity.’ I’m opportunity’s lubricant! A karmic grease monkey!” She finally noticed Gluttonia and froze. “Oh. Hello. You’re… not human.”
“Gluttonia,” the crimson demon said, her voice a warm, slow syrup. “I handle sustenance.”
“Sustenance! Vital! A robust metabolic foundation is key to any successful undertaking!” Charlie nodded vigorously. “So, team meeting? What’s the first project? I’m buzzing with synergies!”
Mike felt a headache coming on. This wasn’t a helpful spirit; this was a supernatural hyperactive toddler. “The project,” he said, the words flat, “is not causing a problem. I don’t have a… venture. I just wanted things to be a little less of a pain in my ass.”
Charlie’s brilliant smile dimmed by about thirty percent. “Less of a… pain. Okay! Operational efficiency! I can do that! Let me just—” She whipped out a notepad and pencil from seemingly nowhere. “List your daily friction points.”
“My daily friction point is currently named Charlie,” Mike sighed. “Here’s the deal. You can stay. But you have to… chill. Do not ‘optimize’ anything without asking. Do not touch my computer. Do not try to synergize. Just… be quiet. And don’t cause trouble.”
The light in Charlie’s blue eyes flickered. The frantic energy seemed to drain from her shoulders, leaving a slight deflation. “Stay. And be quiet,” she repeated, as if translating a dead language.
“Yes.”
“And… don’t cause trouble.”
“That’s the whole job.”
She looked down at her unused notepad, then around the quiet, dusty kitchen. Her expression was that of a rocket that had been built, fueled, and then told the launch pad was closed for cleaning. “Okay,” she said, her voice suddenly much smaller. “I can do that. Quiet. No trouble.”
Weeks passed.
Gluttonia thrived in the quiet rhythm. Mike’s requests, though simple, were constant. They were an anchor. Charlie, however, floated like a ghost in a too-big house.
Mike would find her staring out windows at rain, her fingers tapping arrhythmic patterns on the glass. She’d try to read his old magazines, flipping pages with a speed that suggested she wasn’t absorbing a word. The vibrant, crackling energy she’d arrived with was slowly being smothered by the sheer, mundane nothingness of her directive.
Her one rebellion was sound. She’d hum. Not songs, but complex, shifting tones that sounded like the dial-up internet noise made sentient. It drove Mike nuts, but it was better than her trying to reorganize his tax files for “karmic efficiency.”
And she began to snack.
It started idly. A bag of potato chips Gluttonia had conjured for Mike’s movie night, left open on the coffee table. Mike came back from the bathroom to find Charlie on the sofa, mechanically eating chip after chip, her eyes glued to a infomercial for a vegetable chopper. She didn’t even seem to taste them.
“You know those are just empty calories, right?” Mike said, settling back down.
“I don’t have a metabolism,” Charlie replied distantly, crunching another. “They’re just… something to do.”
Gluttonia, watching from the kitchen doorway, saw it. She saw the aimless hand moving from bag to mouth, the blankness in those bright blue eyes. She recognized the void, not of hunger, but of purpose. An idea, slow and warm, began to form in her mind.
The next day, the bowl of chips was joined by a plate of freshly made churros, dusted in cinnamon sugar and glistening with oil. They were gone by noon.
Another day, a small mountain of gourmet cheese puffs appeared by the TV remote. Charlie consumed them while watching a documentary about the formation of igneous rocks.
Gluttonia didn’t just make snacks. She crafted them. Studied Charlie’s absent-minded consumption. The girl—spirit, whatever—wasn’t eating for pleasure. She was eating to fill the silence. So Gluttonia would fill her. She began engineering for density, for cling, for pure, unadulterated decadence that would lay heavy in a non-existent stomach. Baklava dripping with honey and butter. Petit fours layered with ganache. Donuts so rich they left a sheen on your fingers.
She did it quietly, without fanfare, placing the creations in Charlie’s path like edible landmines of fat and sugar. This was a different kind of conjuring. It wasn’t about answering Mike’s blunt desires. It was a test, a silent collaboration with a captive audience. Every empty plate was a standing ovation.
Mike noticed the change before he understood it.
He was heading to the fridge for a beer one evening, passing Charlie where she sat cross-legged on the living room rug, sketching meaningless, intricate patterns in a notebook. She wore the same vest and shirt, but the shirt was pulling differently across her middle. The buttons looked… strained.
As she reached for a miniature eclair from a tray beside her, the fabric of her pants tightened visibly across her hips. It wasn’t a dramatic transformation. It was soft, incremental. But it was there. The sharp, frantic angles of her were being gently padded. Her face was still all eager, pointed features, but her belly had softened into a definite, round curve against her tucked-in shirt, and her once-slim-fitting pants were now snug around her thighs and backside.
He paused, his hand on the fridge door. “You, uh… you settling in okay, Charlie?”
She looked up, startled, a dot of chocolate ganache on her lower lip. “Hmm? Oh. Yes. It’s very quiet. I’m being very quiet.” She popped the rest of the eclair into her mouth.
Mike’s eyes flicked to the nearly empty tray of pastries, then to Gluttonia, who was pretending to wipe down the already-clean counter. Her crimson shoulders were hunched slightly, as if suppressing a smile of deep, profound satisfaction.
He opened the fridge, grabbed his beer, and decided, for now, not to ask. The chaos had settled into a strange, plump quiet. And for some reason, the sight of that previously-hyper demon now softly rounded and contentedly munching didn’t alarm him. It felt, weirdly, like something had finally clicked into place. He took a long swig of his beer, the faint sound of Charlie’s happy, absent-minded chewing the only noise in the warm, full kitchen. Gluttonia caught his eye and her warm orange gaze glowed with a secret, triumphant light.