Chapter 1: The Summoning's Price
The last rune smeared under Julia’s thumb, a shaky curve of ash and wax on her bedroom mirror. The air in her apartment, already thick with the scent of patchouli from the dozen thrift-store candles, tightened. It tasted like ozone, like the moment before a lightning strike.
Her reflection looked back at her: mousy brown hair escaping a messy bun, freckles standing out against pale skin, eyes wide with a hope she hardly dared name. Around her, the evidence of a lonely week lay scattered—half-empty wine bottles, romance novels splayed open face-down, a coffee table buried under a leaning tower of takeout containers.
“Please,” she whispered to the glass, her voice barely there. “Just… let her see me. Just once.”
The sigil pulsed, a dull red line in the fog of her breath. The candle flames dipped, then stretched toward the ceiling, painting the walls with frantic, wavering shadows. A sound like tearing silk filled the room, and the space before her mirror rippled.
Smoke, dark and smelling of incense and something darker, coiled from nothing. It solidified into a shape, a silhouette that curved in ways that made Julia’s spine go rigid.
“Well,” a voice purred, smoky and amused. “Aren’t you a darling little morsel?”
The succubus stepped forward. She was tall, impossibly so, with skin the deep crimson of old wine. Curling ram’s horns, slick and black, swept back from a flawless forehead. Her eyes were pools of obsidian, absorbing the candlelight and giving nothing back. A smile played on her full lips, revealing the hint of a sharp canine. She wore what seemed to be shadows and suggestion, leaving very little to imagination that wasn’t already screaming in Julia’s head.
Julia’s mouth had gone completely dry. The book she’d found online, Arcane Attractions: A Modern Guide, had said to be specific. It had said to state your terms clearly. She’d practiced in the shower.
“I… I want the power to seduce. To be irresistible. To… to have her want me.” The words tumbled out, aimed at Jennifer’s laughing face in her memory, at the way Jennifer’s hand had brushed her arm in the library and left a brand.
The succubus tilted her head, a predator considering its prey. “Irresistible? How quaint.” She drifted closer, and the temperature in the room soared. Julia could feel the heat radiating from her, a physical pressure. “Mortals so often ask for a key when they should ask for the entire door. Seduction is a flavor, little one. Let’s give you the whole feast.”
She reached out a long, crimson finger. The nail was black and sharp. Julia flinched, but the touch landed not on her skin, but on the air between them, right over her chest.
A snap.
It wasn’t a sound. It was a concussion in the center of Julia’s being.
It started as a deep, internal warmth, a sudden, alarming fullness. Then it became pressure. A stretching, heavy, pulling sensation that rooted her to the floor. She looked down.
Her simple grey cotton t-shirt was straining. The fabric over her chest tightened, the small bird print logo distorting. A seam under her arm hissed and gave way.
“Wh-what is this?” Her voice was a panicked squeak.
The warmth turned to a hot, insistent ache. The pressure built, a swelling crescendo of impossible growth. She could feel it, cell by cell, an expansion that defied biology. Her shirt, once comfortably loose, was now a taut canvas, the neckline strangling her. Another seam ripped, this one across her back with a sound like a gunshot.
“Stop it!” Julia cried, her hands flying up to her chest, only to encounter heavy, warm curves that spilled over her own grasp. The weight of them was shocking, an anchor dragging on her shoulders and spine. She was tilting forward, off-balance.
The succubus laughed, a sound of pure, smoky delight. “You wanted to be a object of desire, yes? To command lust with a glance? Behold… efficiency.” She gestured with a flourish. “No need for clever words or learned charm. This is pure, undistilled id. Anyone who sees them will burn for you. Consider it a… concentrated gift.”
The final button on Julia’s shirt popped, pinging off the mirror. The fabric fell open, and Julia stared, her mind blank with a horror so complete it was silent.
They were enormous, impossibly so, a cartoonish parody of sexuality grafted onto her slender frame. They were hers, yet utterly alien. And they hummed with a visible, faint golden aura, a hypnotic, soft light that seemed to make the very air around them shiver with promise.
“This isn’t what I asked for!” Julia wailed, trying to pull the tattered shirt closed. It was futile.
“It is exactly what you asked for,” the succubus corrected, leaning in. Her breath was hot and smelled of spices. “You just didn’t have the imagination to ask for it properly. This is so much more fun. Watching you navigate this will be worth a thousand simple seductions. The chaos, the misunderstandings… delicious.”
“Take them back! Undo it!”
“A deal is a deal, little morsel. The price is paid. The power is given.” The succubus was fading, her form dissolving back into scented smoke. “Good luck. You’re going to need it. Try not to start any wars.”
With a final, echoing chuckle, she was gone. The candles snuffed out simultaneously, plunging the room into murky twilight from the streetlamp outside.
Julia stood, paralyzed. The new weight on her chest was a constant, horrifying reality. She shuffled to the mirror, her movements clumsy and unsteady. In the dim glass, a stranger stared back—a pale, frightened face atop a body that looked ripped from a fantasy novel. The supernatural allure was a tangible force; even she, in her shock, felt a bizarre, detached pull towards the reflection, a magnetic hum of raw desirability that made her nauseous.
A soft knock at her apartment door shattered the silence.
“Julia? You okay in there?” It was Mrs. Gable, the sweet, elderly neighbor from across the hall. “I heard a bang. Sounded like something broke.”
Panic, ice-cold and sharp, stabbed through Julia’s haze. “I’m—I’m fine!” she called, her voice strangled. “Just… dropped a book!”
“Okay, dear. Well, if you’re sure…” The old woman’s voice trailed off, but the shuffling footsteps didn’t retreat.
Julia looked around wildly. Her robe was on the back of the bathroom door, four feet away. It might as well have been a mile. The tattered remains of her shirt hung open. Moving meant exposing herself, even in the empty room. The knock came again, a little more insistent.
“Julia? You sound odd. I’m just going to peek in, alright?”
The doorknob began to turn. It was unlocked.
“No, wait—” Julia gasped, lurching forward, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. The motion was ungainly, the unfamiliar mass shifting painfully. She stumbled, knocking a tower of books over with a crash.
The door swung open, revealing the concerned, kindly face of Mrs. Gable, her glasses glinting in the hallway light. Her gaze swept the cluttered room, found Julia frozen in the middle of the chaos, and then slowly, inevitably, drifted downward.
The old woman’s eyes widened. Her pleasant, concerned smile slackened. A flush, deep and sudden, bloomed on her wrinkled cheeks. Her jaw went slightly slack, and the paper grocery bag she was holding slipped from her fingers, hitting the floor with a rustle. She didn’t seem to notice. She just stared, a strange, glazed look of utterly bewildered longing flooding her features.
“Oh… my,” Mrs. Gable breathed, the sound utterly unlike her. Her voice was thick, distant. She took a half-step forward into the apartment, her hand reaching out, not for support, but towards Julia.
Julia backed up, terror sealing her throat shut. The chapter of her life that was quiet, bookish, and invisible was over. It had ended with a snap. And the first chapter of whatever this was, had just begun with a stunned, lust-filled stare from a seventy-year-old widow.