Ardent Acolyte, how fortuitous is your return! For my tale continues on this night as the Witching hour draws closer.

As they stood opposite one another, puny Eldritch and mighty Belphegor, the import of his mission settled itself upon the demon prince. For even during the rebellion against Heaven no demons perished. God, in his weakness, was wroth but sore wracked by guilt at the thought of destroying even a figment of his creation. Preying upon this weakness, all the demons persisted in creation and never fell to any deeper underworld beneath the planes of Hell. Now faced with the knowledge that one fellow would not return tonight Belphegor’s jowls trembled with fear at the implication. What, he wondered, could slay a demon?

So it was, ardent acolyte, that Belphegor hardly waited a moment before speaking out. “Mortal woman!” he cried, “grant me license to make use of your magic!”

Folding her arms, Eldritch answered, “First, are you a real demon?”

In a voice promising more rewards than Satan did when he tempted Jesus atop the mount, Belphegor replied, “What does it matter? I can make you rich. Is this not what matters?”

Shaking her head, Eldritch responded, “No. What matters is that you’re a demon.”

Swishing his tail impatiently, Belphegor roared out, “Indeed! I am Belphegor who sits at the left hand of Satan! I am the demon prince of Sloth! I am the disputer! I am the master of the black arts who practices grave witchery on behalf of Hell’s Parliament of demons! Fear me mortal girl.”

In an unimpressed voice, Eldritch said, “And tonight you’re bound. Yes, I know about all that. You can’t do anything other than watch. That means no flashy magic, no fighting, and no forcing me to help you.”

Falling silent at this revelation, Belphegor contemplated his foe. For it was true, all that she said, and just as she said it. Belphegor could do nothing to her on that night. But the claw of a demon is long indeed, ardent acolyte, and it extends far beyond the ken of mere mortal beings. So it was that with a flick of his hand Belphegor conjured a parchment and quill plucked from the hindquarters of a large Bullockornis in eons past.

With a flourish, he said, “Then might we make a contract? With assurances on both sides, of course, you might rest easy knowing that the paltry payment of time is all I can take.”

Considering his words, Eldritch replied, “A contract?”

“Indeed,” hissed Belphegor.

Cracking a smile, Eldritch responded, “Well in that case, I’ll need to call my lawyer!”

“I’m not just a cat,” the drunk young woman at the bar said in a serious tone. “I’m a sexy cat.” She hiccupped slightly and glanced around with a guilty expression. Blinking owlishly, she fixed her cat ear hairband and leaned back over the bar with a come-hither expression. “Bartender,” she sang in the siren song of the sultry and slightly too merely sort-of-sober seductress she imagined herself as, “I need another beer.”

“Lady,” said the bartender, “it’s still pretty early, all things considered. Maybe you should slow down?”

“Maybe you should get me a drink!” exclaimed Erika. Then, distracted by the buzzing of her phone, she left the bartender alone. “Hey!” she said loudly, “it’s Eldritch!”

Grunting, the bartender replied, “Yeah I know,” then he pointed to a group of girls playing darts, “she’s over there,” and to a pair of enchantresses flirting with Elvis and Beacon, “and there,” he then pointed to the door where a ghost and mummy stood next to another Eldritch, “oh and can’t forget them too.” Pausing, the bartender swept the room with his eyes before nodding. Then he said, “Yep, I think that’s all of them.”

But his words fell on deaf ears, ardent acolyte, for Erika had already absconded from the bar in haste, winging her way by Uber to the convention center downtown and more importantly to the alley containing her client, Eldritch Maiden, and the lord of laziness himself, Belphegor!

“Heeyyyy!” said Erika in a drunken excitement as she tumbled out of the car. “You called?”

“Umm, yeah,” replied Eldritch in a careful voice. “Are you sober enough for this?” she then asked.

“Who are you calling drunk!” asked Erika in an irritated tone.

Then, slowly, she walked forward in a straight line, placing each foot carefully in front of the other. When she made it a halfway down the alley, she pivoted and began walking backwards out of the alley. Wroth at this excessively tedious display, the prince of procrastination Belphegor growled and said, “Is this your lawyer?”

Doing a snappy about face, Erika replied, “Yes indeed!” Bowing deeply, she added, “Eldritch Maiden’s mediator at your service.” Frowning, Erika stooped down to the pavement of the alley to retrieve her cat ears, which fell off when she bowed. Mumbling, she said, “Next time, I’m curtseying.”

Eyeing her legs nervously, Eldritch said, “You don’t have the skirt length to pull off a curtsey.”

Frowning, Erika replied, “You don’t say that. I’m on holiday. I’d be making out with Blind Justice by now if you hadn’t called.”

Helpless, Eldritch replied, “You could have said no!”

“I’m billing triple,” Erika said in reply.

“I don’t pay your bills,” said a bewildered Eldritch.

Smiling drunkenly, Erika answered in a conspiratorial tone, “Exactly.” Then she straightened up and puffed out her generous, and well-presented, chest and said, “I may have makeup whiskers on my face, cat ears in my hair, and I might be slightly…” Erika pauses to think about what she was going to say, “slightly…” she considers her words carefully, “slightly…” her expression becomes puzzled, “slightly…” and then a light seems to appear in her eyes as she exclaims excitedly, “slightly drunk!” She nods confidently before continuing. “I might be slightly drunk, but I’m still more than enough to beat this ugly guy.”

The demon prince Belphegor, who holds dominion over the Deadly Sin of Sloth, drew himself up and said in a voice more dire than the endlessly raging tempests of the hellish waters of Styx, “Put pen to parchment then and let the bargain be struck!”

“Not so fast mister,” responded Erika, wagging her finger under Belphegor’s bulbous nose. Then she paused before whirling around to face Eldritch asking, “Is this mister even a mister?”

The rajah of relaxation intoned, “I am not. I am the darkness manifested. I am the demon prince Belphegor, one of the seven who sit at the left hand of Satan in the infernal congress of the abyss. I am the sole master of the nigromantic arts reserved for the blackest, foulest, most iniquitous of Satan’s horde. I am-”

Waving his words away, Erika cuts him off by saying, “Sure, great costume buddy. So are we writing a contract or what?”

With a clap of her hands, Eldritch summoned a table and pair of chairs into the alley. Then she and Erika sat down, facing the demon.

Sneakily, Erika blabbed to Eldritch, “We used to do this in law school, write contracts and try to cram in as many loopholes as we could. Loser had to drink.” Then she slammed a hip flask down on the table.

Alarmed, Eldritch asked, “Um, what is that? Are you going to be sober enough for this?”

“I promise I’ll get better the drunker I am.” Erika then screwed off the top and slammed back a swig of her mystery alcohol. Finishing with a loud smack of her lips she announced, “Alright! I’m feeling frisky and risky, so let’s dance pal.”

Unnerved, Eldritch said, “You know, maybe this was a bad idea-”

“Nope!” cried out Erika. “He’s a big bad demon or whatever right? Well there are superpowers, mystic artifacts, and a whole lot of other mojo. But none of that is half as scary as the bar exam. So, trust me, I’m ready for this.”

Considering her words, the sultan of slovenliness said, “Hmmm, this ‘bar exam’ you speak of… I will need to investigate it as a torture device when I return to Hell.”

With a flourish, Erika slammed her hand down on the table and shouted, “Let’s go already!”

Smiling, Belphegor conjured an aged parchment and began to speak, “See here? Subsection seventeen, paragraph twelve, sub-heading six delineates the most important terms of our agreement. The witch at your side, specified as one ‘Eldritch’ in heading nineteen, will provide assistance in exchange for a wondrous invention certain to make her wealthy.”

Pausing to peruse the paper drunkenly, Erika held up a wavering hand for a few seconds. Then she said, “Yeah no. How about we change this word here from exonerate to indemnify. Then in chapter seven, section twelve, subsection eighteen, sub-heading four, paragraph eighty, line nine, it looks like we need to swap out some language.”

Moving quickly, Erika grabbed the giant quill and began to write all over the document. Belphegor immediately began to do the same, arguing with her all the while in terms so verbose and full of legalese that poor Eldritch’s head began to swim. Sighing, she said, “So do you need me?”

But Erika and Belphegor were so ensconced in their battle of wits that nether spared her a second glance! So, shrugging, Eldritch used her powers to levitate to a nearby window where she could watch the end of the costume contest. Inside, a giggling woman tried in vain to find a place she could pin a ‘crowd favorite’ ribbon on a shirtless vampire. A little further down, an overjoyed child in a werewolf costume stood holding a trophy.

With a smile, Eldritch glanced back at the alley. At the table, Belphegor’s reptilian skin ran slick with sweat as Erika coolly chugged from her hip flask. “I guess that’s going well,” Eldritch murmured before glancing back at the costume contest.

Inside, the woman ran her hands up and down the vampire’s chiseled abs while he affected a smoldering smile and the girls in the audience stared jealous daggers. At his side, the werewolf growled at his mother, who took photos of him posing in various displays of wolfish manliness. He seemed quite enamored with his prize, although the rest of the crowd left him quite alone with his enjoyment.

In the corner of her eye, Eldritch noticed the vampire jump. Looking back over, she noticed that the woman trying to pin the ribbon on him decided to try affixing it to his form fitting leather pants. While she succeeded, evidently she drew a slight amount of blood.

Seeing his injury, a horde of fangirls began shouting and clamoring for the chance to help assuage his pain. With growing alarm, Eldritch noted the group beginning to get more and more rowdy. One lady in an Eldritch costume, one that the real thing felt was much less realistic than her own, decided to take matters into her own hands and hoisted herself up on the stage. Seeing the bold girl dressed as Eldritch move, the rowdy crowd bubbled over with unrest. With a roar, the girls began storming the stage. Each clamored to be the first one to touch the handsome devil atop the stage.

“Oh joy,” sighed Eldritch before opening the window and jumping into the room.

She shot a spare glance back at Erika and Belphegor as she went. Erika had her arms crossed, a hard expression on her face. Crying out in a voice more terrible than the roar of Leviathan Belphegor said, “Mortal woman! These terms simply will not work. If you reject my language for section nine, sub-heading twelve then you must allow me to amend your verbiage in chapter four, heading twenty six.”

Shaking her head, Eldritch muttered, “Lawyers.” Then she vaulted over the edge of the sill and into the room. Immediately, she made her way over to the werewolf child and his photo-obsessed mother to rescue them from the incoming tide of ladies.

Ah but the hour of darkness creeps ever closer, ardent acolyte, and as the sun begins to wane and a black pall falls upon the land our story continues…