Blood Price

first night he'd tried this, he'd almost stopped with the myrrh, had almost been unable to get past the weight of history that came with it. For centuries myrrh had been used to treat the dead, and all those centuries of death were released every time the oil poured over the coals. By the second time, he could shrug aside the dead with the knowledge of worse to come. By this, the seventh calling, it no longer distracted him from the task at hand.

    The sterile pins, identical to the ones the Red Cross used to take the initial drops of blood from donors, he'd bought at a surgical supply house. Usually he hated this part, but tonight the anger drew him through it without pause. The small pain spread down from his fingertip until it joined the throbbing between his legs and the sudden sexual tension almost threw him out of the ritual.

    His breathing ragged, he somehow managed to maintain control.

    Three drops of blood onto the coals and as each drop fell, a word of calling.

    The words he'd found in one of the texts used in his Comparative Religions class. He'd created the ritual himself, made it up out of equal parts research and common sense. Anyone could do it, he thought smugly. But only I have.

    The air over the center of the pentagram shivered and changed as though something were forcing it aside from within. Norman stood and waited, scowling, as the smell of the burning spices gave way to a fetid odor of rot and the beat of his neighbor's stereo gave way to a sound that throbbed inaudibly in brain and bone.

    The demon, when it came, was man-sized and vaguely man-shaped and all the more hideous for the slight resemblance.
    Norman, breathing shallowly through his mouth, stepped to the edge of the pentagram. "I have called you," he declared. "I am your master."

    The demon inclined its head and its features shifted with the movement as if it had no skull beneath the moist covering of skin. "You are master," it agreed, although the fleshy hole of a mouth didn't adapt its constant motion to utter the words.

    "You must do as I command."

    The huge and lidless yellow eyes scanned the perimeters of its prison. "Yes," it admitted at last.

    "Someone laughed at me tonight. I don't want her to ever laugh at me again."

    The demon waited silently, awaiting further instruction, its color changing from muddy-black to greenish-brown and back again.

    "Kill her!" There, he'd said it. He clenched his hands to stop their trembling. He felt ten feet tall, invincible. He'd taken charge at last and accepted the power that was his by right! The throbbing grew more powerful until his whole body vibrated with it.

    "Kill who?" the demon asked.

    The mildly amused tone dragged him back to earth, shaking with fury. "DON'T LAUGH AT
    ME!" He stepped forward and, remembering just in time, twisted his foot at an awkward angle to avoid crossing the pentagram.

    The demon's answering lunge brought them almost nose to nose.

    "Hah!" Norman spat the word forward even as he retreated back. "You're just like them!
    You think you're so great and you think I'm shit! Well, just remember you're in there and I'm out here. I called you! I control you! I AM THE MASTER!"

    Unmoved by the stream of vitriol, the demon settled back in the center of the pentagram.
    "You are master," it said placidly. "Kill who?"

    The amusement remained in the creature's voice, driving Norman almost incoherent with anger. Through the red haze, he realized that screaming Kill Coreen! at the demon would accomplish nothing. He had to think. How to find one person in a city of over three million? He stomped to the far wall and back, caught the heel of his right boot and almost fell. When,-after much tottering, he'd regained his balance, he bent and picked up the bit of scarlet leather that had nearly brought him down

    "Here!"

    The demon speared the glove out of the air with a six inch talon, the loose folds of skin hanging between its arm and body snapping taut with the motion.

    Norman smiled. "Find the glove that matches this one and kill the person who has it. Don't let anyone else see you. Return to the pentagram when you've finished."

    The odor of decay lingered in the air after the demon had disappeared, a disgusting aftereffect that only time would remove. Sucking the finger he'd pricked, Norman strutted to the window and looked out at the night.

    "No one," he vowed, "is ever going to laugh at me again." No more toys, no more clothes, no more computers; he'd taken