The clock on your nightstand blinked 2:47 AM. The glow of your laptop screen was the only light left in the room, casting long shadows across the posters on your walls.
your walls.
your walls.
your walls.
your walls.
your walls.
your walls.
You’d been scrolling for hours. The usual sites, the usual emptiness. You were about to close the laptop when a video thumbnail caught your eye: How to Summon a Lust Demon – 100% Real. The channel had three subscribers. The upload date was yesterday.
.
.
You clicked it. You told yourself it was for the laugh. The ritual was stupidly simple: four scented candles, a circle drawn in chalk, a phrase muttered three times. The video ended with a high-pitched giggle and a warning: She comes for a mate. Refuse her, and she will consume you.
You had a candle in a drawer somewhere. Probably. Why not. It was two in the morning, you were lonely, and the worst case was that you’d feel silly for five minutes.
???
a burst of orange flame erupts from the chalk circle. The heat hits your face like a furnace door swinging open.
a high-pitched giggle, breathless and delighted, fills the room. The smoke clears.
She’s standing in the circle, and she’s tiny. Pink skin, black freckles smattered across her cheeks and shoulders. Two tall, cat-like ears — no fur, just smooth pink cartilage — twitch atop her head, catching the flickering candlelight. Two white horns curl from her black hair, tied into pigtails wrapped in white cloth, bangs falling over her eyes. She tilts her head, and the bangs shift just enough to reveal a gleam of something bright and gold inside.
Heketa
she stretches, rolling her shoulders, her tail — thick and pink, tipped with a huge, toothy maw — flicking behind her like an excited dog’s. She grins, and there’s a wet, green tongue flicking over her lips. She speaks, her voice a chirping, giggly soprano Heketa smells lonely! Heketa smells hungry!