2 – Demon-assisted Deception

“What do you wish to discuss? I won’t raise any more complaints about the mortal’s soul. I also humbly apologize for the offense I’ve caused.” The demon, Melchiadazal, was shaking ever so slightly, almost imperceptible due to his body being made of constantly moving smoke.

I gave him my best ‘totally-not-threatening’ grin.

“When I said your contract was invalid, I didn’t mean the whole thing. After all, it only specified you got Kalin Steelheart’s soul. Since I am not him, you obviously don’t get my soul. But the other parts must still be kept, right?”

Melchiadazal nodded uncertainly.

“While it was a soul contract, most of the conditions apply to this body,” – I gestured at myself – “meaning they are still in effect even after you get claim your payment. It is signed in this body’s blood after all. Now, I believe this condition here states you would serve the contractee truthfully and to the best of your ability for one hundred years after the ritual is performed. Though it is worded in a way to apply to the body, not the soul.”

I looked him in his trembling eyes.

“Cleverly worded, so that you could claim Kalin Steelheart’s soul and then puppet him around, effectively nullifying the whole clause. All while sweetening the deal for poor Kalin, not to mention the implication of you being entirely truthful and helping the best you can even before the ritual.”

Melchiadazal’s eye was twitching, but he was clearly holding himself back from speaking.

“Since I’ve inherited Kalin’s body, I obviously also inherit all the obligations you had towards it. Meaning, you, Melchiadazal the ‘arch’demon, must serve me for the next one hundred years. Any objections?”

Taking a deep breath, the demon was just about to start talking when I cut him off.

“Also, you really shouldn’t oversell your title like that in a contract, it could lead to a contractee disputing your legitimacy. Though I’m sure you could handle the consequences of breaking a soul contract just fine, hmm?”

Of course, I didn’t actually know the consequences, but it was undoubtedly something nasty just based on the name. The face Melchiadazal pulled just confirmed it.

After a minute of silently staring at each other, he finally answered, deflated.

“I will follow the contract’s terms and obey you truthfully and to the best of my ability for the next one hundred years. I am Melchiadazal, mid-ranking minor demon.” That last part was barely a whisper.

“Good, good. Now tell me, Mel – can I call you Mel? – what do you know about this ritual you helped ‘me’ perform?”

I could see a moment of hesitation, followed by the resigned acceptance as he began talking.

“The ritual is known as ‘Blood Ascendance’ and requires seven willing participants, one of which is the recipient. It transforms the recipient into a powerful creature known as a ‘vampire’.” He said the word like it was foreign. It was unknown to Kalin at least, based on what I could piece together from his memories.

“I already knew that, get to the actual effects.”

“Alright. Your new body is immortal in the sense that you will never age and are very hard to kill conventionally. You are immune to all mundane and most magical diseases. You can drink the blood of other creatures to heal or empower yourself. In general you are more powerful, stronger, faster, those sorts of things. That’s all I know.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “What about drawbacks?”

“Oh, uh. The uh, book– I mean er… You burn in the sunlight. And the power of the gods will easily harm you. And maybe a few others that I don’t remember…” That last sentence was barely mumbled out.

“Where did you learn of this ritual? It seems a bit beyond what someone like you should be capable of.” Pure speculation, of course, but he wasn’t giving the most competent impression.

Mel gave me an affronted look, but still answered my question.

“I read it in a book I uh borrowed from…”

“From?” I asked, getting impatient with his hesitancy.

“An archdemon,” he practically squeaked the answer. Not a very pleasant noise with his already uncomfortable, scratchy voice.

No wonder this guy dared to pretend to be an archdemon himself. If his ritual was sourced from one, that would definitely lend a lot of credibility.

“I didn’t quite get the chance to read the whole thing, so my knowledge is limited,” he admitted. “But I fully memorized the ritual, since that was the most important part! Mortals just love the benefits, with their short lifespan. Especially if the only price is their soul ‘on death’ if the ritual makes them ageless. They all think it’s a loophole.”

“So you’ve done this before? What happened to that vampire?” This was important information, whether there were likely to be many vampires running around, or more importantly many vampire hunters.

“Eh, yes. I’ve had two contracts like this before. One had his house burn down with him in it in the middle of the day and the other got eaten by a wyvern because I picked the wrong cave to shelter from the sun in. Neither puppet lasted more than a week.”

“Wow, you really have terrible luck.” I felt like laughing, especially with the sour face the demon was pulling. Still, it wasn’t really funny. No matter how pathetic he might look, this guy still tricked at least two people into giving up their souls to him. Not to mention the twelve other sacrifices needed to perform the two rituals.

On to more pressing matters.

“Do you have any plan how to deal with this situation? If you wanted to use Kalin as a puppet, you must have had an idea how to not immediately get him killed.”

I gestured at the dead bodies and blood strewn all about the place.

“I was just going to wait until nightfall and then leave through the window. I had my previous puppet place some wards that will stop anyone from checking on this tower until then.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“What do you mean, master?”

“You know this guy is a noble, right?”

“Yes.”

“And you were going to just throw away all of that and turn yourself into a fugitive on purpose? Do you see how stupid that is?”

“What do I care if this mortal is a noble? He has no real power anyway, not to mention it was annoying enough to keep up the pretenses when using my mage puppet.”

I sighed in frustration and dragged my hands down my face.

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“You have got to be joking. Wow, I can see why you are just a minor demon.” I ignored the indignant look. “Do you have the power to remove all traces of this ritual, including the bodies?”

“…no.”

“Useless. What can you do?”

“I can possess mortals with weak minds. Anything else requires me to make a contract with them so I can have more impact on the physical world and actually manifest. In my defense, I am just a minor demon.” I could swear he was pouting.

“You are forbidden from making any new contracts while serving me. Can you at least hide yourself appropriately?”

The pout was becoming more noticeable. “I am quite confident in my hiding capabilities. Though it would be even better if you’d allow me into your body…”

“Absolutely not.”

“Tch. Worth a try. So long as I don’t influence anything in the world, nobody should be able to detect me. Actually, just no mortal. Some higher beings can detect me no matter what. Like other demons of at least high rank, dragons and celestials,” he said the word as though he was spitting on the ground. “The only way I can avoid them is by returning to the Abyss. Though that would mean I couldn’t return here for quite a while.”