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Candles flickered gently to illuminate the old sitting room. Noah's aunt had left it to him and it was quickly starting to feel like home. He would have to redecorate eventually, of course, with it's faded floral upholstery and old lady knick-knacks on every surface. But for such an old house, Auntie Sophia took great pains to keep it nice. It only creaked most of the time.

It wasn't especially big but the sitting room was remarkable once Noah had moved all the furniture aside. It was easily the biggest room in the house, even the almost offensively large master suite wasn't quite as large. And as if to prove it, there was a massive etching across the floor. The way Sophia had left the furnishings, it was essentially invisible; covered by love seats, a davenport, ottomans, and a stained but possibly Persian rug. With all of it scattered to the walls however, the floor revealed a vast array of symbols and lines crawling toward the walls in a beautiful, cabalistic array.

Kneeling in a ring near the window, Noah took a deep breath and studied his aunt's journal once more. It was a rather unassuming leather bound book which she'd always called 'the grimoire' since Noah was a kid. He scanned a loose leaf page which had been wedged in between a hastily scrawled dream and a treatise on the value of monk's hood. Sophia's witchcraft was thoroughly derided among the family and vigorously denied in public but Noah was very fond of his aunt's eccentricities. So, for that night, Noah was determined to be witch too. He donned the old baubles and talismans the old lady had given him over the years, a wisp of a robe, and the most suspension of disbelief as he could muster and started to recite the incantation.

"Spirits of the beyond," he started in a melodramatic shout while ash and salt poured from his hands. "Sophia Sullivan has made a bond. I am her executor. I call on this bond."

The bizarre language felt odd in the empty room; performing for no one. He continued though, standing as the carved plank as finally filled with dust. "The sigil awaits and I speak the name: Nos'rup'ku'rson! Abide by your pact, provide what was promised!"

The incantation was the least part of the spell. Almost anticlimactic. Noah paused for a moment. The sounds of New England drifted distantly from the window. Nothing happened.

He smiled anyway and looked at a picture of Sophia in the curio across the room. "Hope it worked for you."

Just when he began to shrug off his robe, a trumpet blared through the window alongside a powerful gust of wind. The wild, whipping air snuffed out the candles all at once and scattering the ash-salt dust into the air. The smoke and particles twisted in currents once the clarion blast died, churning together into a whirling pool, an accretion disk of moonlit darkness.

Noah stood stunned amid the squall, watching as the turning dust cloud twisted faster. The dim of the room made the deceptively large gyre seem oppressive and alien. The furthest reaches filtering in and out of the central whirl unnaturally. Subtly, after a few moments, a faint rust colored glow pierced through the ash and smoke. The sickly wash of orange reset the shadows into a clash of lines that seemed to recoil from the vortex. The shades flickered in time with the revolutions while the light gradually glowed brighter until it was a harsh shine like a laser shot into the dark.

Suddenly, shadows crossed the beam's path, dense, dark bars scattering the orange light into a shifting array of pillars while the eye of the dust storm widened. Shifting shapes writhed their way through the opening; clawed fingers clutched blindly at the ash and smoke until both arms found purchase. It wasn't clear where they grabbed but, somehow or another, they pulled against the whirlwind, light pulsing around the shapes until a glowing orange maw spewed curling steam - or perhaps it was smoke. The rim of the thrashing mouth was all big, angular points; an ink-coloured bear trap snapping through its own billowing breath until an entire head pushed into the room.

It twisted left and right between uncomfortable arms struggling to pry themselves free of the now completely stopped hole. The churning particles slowed and shrank toward the black and orange bust prying more and more of itself into the sitting room. Noah watched paralyzed watching the the artless, desperate clawing and biting. Perhaps, if Sophia wasn't so precise in her description of the ritual, so firm that the circles not be broken he might have run. Still, he trusted the old woman and stood carefully in his spot.

The figure eventually crawled out of the maelstrom and fell to the floor with a hard thunk. It twisted across the floor and though it seemed so solid before, the mass of black and rust seemed almost like ink for a brief moment. But quickly enough it solidified again, standing and giving a pained groan, eyes glowing and pupiless, mouth spread and steaming into the once again still and moonlit air.

Noah clutched his fists as the creature stumbled forward. It was small despite all the flair and circumstance surrounding its arrival but, even so, it looked not entirely unlike a man. Its doll size did little to diminish its thickly formed limbs, vaguely too big toward its heavy, clawed hands or the broad chested torso swinging back and forth while it gained its footing, but once they locked gazes, the bewildered magician couldn't look away. Its eyes were full and expressively weary but were the same rusty color as the light from the gyre it came from and matched the dim glow of its strange yet canid muzzle.

Its features were simultaneously subdued and exaggerated; like a cartoon come to life. The edges of its eyes and mouth stretching and shifting without wrinkles or lines, the points of its lips forming and unforming to keep a consistent gradient of size from front to corner. After much longer than Noah realized, it stumbled to the edge of the circle which blazed white where its snout connected, then faded once it staggered away. The creature hissed violently for a moment then waved one of its hands in dismissal.

"Fucking warlocks," cursed a masculine voice as if echoing down a hall. "You realize that I'm too weak for a circle like this, right? Waste of effort."

The voice was distant but clear and the rhythm of it was much more modern than Noah would have expected. He had imagined parleys with demons and spirits. He'd read a thousand books and seen a hundred movies on the subject. Devils were ancient things that spoke in ancient ways. But this thing seemed quite comfortable with words Noah might have used on his own.

"Oh! This is old Sofie's house isn't it?" the entity continued without much pause or any malice. "Man, it seems like it's been a million years. Where is the old bag? She die? I mean, she must have been as old as dirt. Deserves a good rest if she finally kicked it. Good people, old Sofie."

Noah stammered for a moment, confused. He watched the increasingly comfortable being turn curiously around the room looking at everything except the young man staring back. After the initial confusion however he cut through it with a strange blend of curiosity, fear, and acting. "Are you Nos'rup'ku'rson? Are you here to satisfy your bargain?"

Orange eyes snapped back toward Noah's, somewhere between harsh and skeptical but, after a second, softened. From this direct angle Noah realized that it was like an abstraction of a dog or a wolf, perhaps a fox or hyena blended in to be sure that exactly what it was meant to resemble could never be quite clear. Even its feet, strong but dainty compared to its oversized arms, were angled like a dog's, propping it up like a satyr with a bushy tail.

"Haha. No," it answered amusedly. "I'm not even a demon, much less that powerful. I'm Zha'dny'y, an imp and a pure delight. But you can call me Zhad. You must be the kid old Sofie told us about."

Noah paused a moment, not sure how to respond. He glanced down at the book on the floor and panicked to read Sophia's writing in the dark. Zha'dny'y chuckled and rolled back onto the floor, legs splayed, hands propping him up casually.

"Okay. You obviously have no idea what the fuck you're doing so quick rundown: Demons and spirits are like squares and rectangles: all of the former are the latter but not all the latter are the former. Spirits feed on the energy that mortals generate from their souls. Imps, like me, feed on 'negative, obsessive' energy, fairies on the other hand feed on 'positive, charitable' energy. Demons are just any spirit that feeds directly on souls."

The information flowed bouncily with a liberal scattering of hand gestures including air quotes. Noah still felt stuck in place by it all but the fear faded somewhat so he nodded for the spirit to continue.

"Demons and imps aren't all evil. Fairies aren't all good. Get it? We're a lot like you mortals, we're just made out of different stuff."

"So why are you here if I called on Nos'rup'ku'rson?" Noah finally asked while he scooped up his aunt's journal and hastily turned pages looking for some clue.

"Because the lazy bastard doesn't do much for herself these days. She's made enough deals throughout your world and mine to have someone to do all her dirty work."

Noah fell back onto his own ass, spent. He shook his head so his curled hair spilled in front of his eyes and he tried to catch up to the situation. He heard claws scrabbling against the wood floor and he looked through his fingers to watch the imp stand, brushing it's rump. Without all the glare, Noah could make out the fine texture of fur along the imp's body. Zha'dny'y shifted in place with a vague sultriness rather than the flailing exhaustion from before, showing off the faint glimmer of some pattern disguised by the stark black pelt. The subtle illumination was most obvious around the creature's softly rounded belly. Then Zha'dny'y moved.

"You stay right there," Noah barked, a bit more fear in his voice than he really meant to show. "How do I know you're not lying?"

The canid creature tossed its head aside and stopped with an oddly fey hand on its hip. "Because you have all the cards. You've got old Sofie's grimoire, a circle that's just fucking overkill, and you can banish me whenever you like. I'm not stupid."

And all the more proof, the imp didn't get any closer, waiting impatiently with his claws drumming against his belly. Noah poured himself into the tome in his hands, scanning for any clues about what to do and who to trust. Zha'dny'y seemed far less dangerous after all this time trapped in a circle in the sitting room. A bizarre, living doll, certainly, but not some soul rending demon. Still, Noah felt more compelled to have some guidance so he flipped another page.

In the margin next to the description of yet another ritual spell was a scribbled drawing of something that could be described vaguely as 'resembling' the imp. Between askance peeks away from the page, Noah skimmed hoping she might have explained the doodle somewhere. Her handwriting, which was all at once handsome and illegible, at long last revealed the name. I hope you meet Zhad one day, the text finally offered hidden at the bottom of the page. He could really get all that old family stuffiness out of you. I bet you'd have fun.

There was something coarse about the canid creature that would have grated on his parents. A crass humour that he vaguely liked but thinking on it was probably why he was so quick to assume some sort of malice. But knowing Auntie Sophia had met and liked the inky cretin before gave him the confidence to read over the ritual again. He double checked the banishment clause but he mostly just wanted to keep the advantage if things turned to a negotiation.

A deeply awkward silence fell over the room and Zha'dny'y broke it after a long pause. "So are we gonna make a deal or what?"

Noah adjusted the journal's modest silk bookmark and set it down gingerly, wanting it close in case things changed quickly. "What did you have in mind?" He spoke carefully, not wanting to betray any more confusion than he already had.

"I teach you how to get the most out of old Sofie's grimoire. You give me your soul when you die. Classic familiar stuff."

A worrying word: soul. Noah felt a reflex to grab the manual but he held back and mulled it over for a moment. "When I die?" he deflected as quickly as the thought arose. "How do I guarantee you don't try to hurry that along?"

Zha'dny'y grinned a proud smirk. "Because being a familiar pays off long term. If I can put 50, 60 years into you, a demon would pay out the ass for your soul and I get 50, 60 years to get fat and lazy feeding off you. Everyone wins."

"Except the dead guy."

The imp laughed uproariously and nodded. "60 years from now you'd be what 80-something? That's a long time for a human. So you die. You'll want to by then. You might not win but you don't lose. A nice big sister kiss for the dead guy."

The turn of phrase was strange but it made a grotesque kind of sense. Still, At the price of a soul, the deal was steep. "And if I'm not interested in trading my soul?"

"Then we might as well stop wasting each other's time."

The silence fell again. The imp stood to shake the dust and soot off himself but otherwise seemed much more content to sit and wait than someone giving an ultimatum ought to be. Noah snatched up Sophia's grimoire and scoured it for some mention of a soul and turned up empty handed. Sweat beaded on his forehead despite the cool evening air. Butterflies started to flutter in his gut and he stared deep in the book; a vague sense of defeat in the back of his mind. Yet, there was the temptation.

Sophia must have made a deal like this. She lived a long and happy life, if she ignored the family snickering behind her back. Something felt natural about it. The promise of the 'Beyond', of Zha'dny'y and his knowledge, of Noah's own potential. He could put up with the snickering; he already did. The only nagging thought was his soul.

"Y'know, for old Sofie's sake, here's how low I'll go: I'll throw in the First Law of Robotics," Zha'dny'y delcared, finally bored of the waiting. "I won't do anything or do nothing if it means you'll die. Unless you want me to. Now what do you say? Do we have a deal?"

"And immortality," Noah blurted before he entirely realized the thought crossed his mind.

"I told you: I'm an imp. I don't have genie powers, here. If you're not gonna really--"

"But someone could. It's something that can be done, right? So you teach me Auntie Sophia's magic and help me find a way to live forever, but if I die first then you get my soul."

"You're breaking my balls," Zha'dny'y insisted before a long pause. "The bond has to pass on to your first born then. And before you say anything: you will have one. Even if you get yourself fixed I'll figure out a way."

The bizarre creature's bright, uncanny eyes were unreadable. There were simply too few features to betray anything if they didn't move. Noah raced through the ramifications, the ethics, the cost of the deal. Another soul was a lot to ask but it was a soul that wouldn't exist without the deal. He worried, he stared at the grimoire, he scanned the imp. Finally, the temptation proved too much.

"Deal."

A shiver coursed out of his chest, travelling quickly to the very tips of his fingers. It was like a shock but exquisitely cold. His skin drew tight to his body, goosepimples from head to toe, and, without ever thinking to make the sound, a pleasured moan spilled dreamily from his lips. For a brief moment, Noah was acutely aware of his body, the soft rustle of his clothing against his skin, the air blowing through the window and into his hair. The weight of his shoes, of each trinket dangling from his hands and neck, of the robe, of his entire being gently bending the wooden floor under his feet. Each extremity and follicle came into perfect clarity as if he'd never been alive before.

He could feel all the tingling cool energy flow from his fingertips, the hair on his head, his toes and his skin and pool in his belly. The feeling was almost too much. And just before he could open his mouth to shout it stopped. It was almost worse than feeling it reach its impending conclusion. Shaken and confused for the thousandth time that night, Noah looked back at the imp. He half expected to find some eldritch abomination in his place or that he'd escaped somehow but instead the canid being just stood with his hands against the barrier.

Zha'dny'y watched with salacious hunger, an orange tongue lolled between the toothy spikes of his cartoonishly curled grin. The unabashed leer was as distressing as anything else so far. "The Pact is made. Now you break the circle," he said with far too much enthusiasm. "Come on. Let's make a bond."

Noah slowly broke his circle, a simple gesture of just walking past it, but he hesitated in front of the dark spirit. He watched as Zha'dny'y rolled his hips closer to the boundary and his ebon black fur shifted in a wave across his body. The white glow of the barrier brightened as the imp pressed closer despite the sting from before then, shifting his legs, the canid let out a thick groan. The kind of sound a caricature of a pervert might make. He didn't even seem to notice he was doing anything at all; the spirit was too fixated on making this 'bond'. His crotch thrust harder and harder, drool ran down his chin and into a subtly luminescent splatter on the floor.

After a deep breath, Noah reached toward the barrier but felt nothing as it passed through. A gust of air pushed past him as the barrier fell then a solid weight hit him in the stomach. He let out a startled shout, hitting the floor with a thud, then found himself underneath the hungry looking imp.

Fear coursed through him even though Zha'dny'y couldn't have been much bigger than a foot and a half, but he weighed more than he looked and the shining, rust-orange eyes staring at him promised any number of strange powers Noah couldn't guess. Still, he couldn't seem to move to get away or fight off the inky black figure. Zha'dny'y took control of the moment instead, ripping carelessly at the mortal's clothes. His claws tore through as if the fabric wasn't there but against the skin underneath, the raking points felt like smooth strokes with the same electric chill from before.

A fearful moan morphed awkwardly into reserved pleasure then to shock once the imp worked his way down Noah's chest then between his legs. A scrape against his manhood returned the will to move; he scrambled back, a kick separating the two long enough for Noah to shout.

"What the hell is happening?"

Zha'dny'y panted desperately, the marking on his belly in full glow and a grotesquely over large phallus spilled from his crotch to the floor. It certainly hadn't been there before; it would have been impossible to miss. Two-thirds as long as the imp was tall, the monstrosity was mostly limp, swollen and drooling as much as the rest of him was. His face was all hunger.

"Soul..." he struggled to say through his own gluttonous haze. "Gonna... bind myself... gotta... "

The imp lunged like a predator, his clawed fingers connecting with Noah's ribcage. The chill exploded from each point, an acute almost painfully intense pressure shooting through him. The sensation paralyzed him again forcing him to just watch Zha'dny'y slaver over him. The claws sunk in slowly, a churning darkness poured out where he might have expected blood but it didn't feel like he was being gored or stabbed. Instead the icy storm in him grew, forcing his loins erect, shaft fencing with the much larger one furled on top of it.

The imp sat back, easily wedging the mortal flesh between supple cheeks. His hungered gaze gave way to mind numbed satisfaction almost immediately, tongue and fanged jaw dripping sloppily onto Noah's belly. With a lurch he pushed all the way back, tail brushing against Noah's balls as he took the length all at once.

The mortal felt for a moment that he almost exploded. The claws slipped through his body, pulling the overwhelming chill with them but leaving no sign of their passage as the intense pleasure focused entirely on his crotch. He couldn't even tell he'd orgasmed into the imp through all the feelings washing over him. But it didn't stop Zha'dny'y.

The imp rode hard. Long strokes of his hips let him take every inch of cock Noah had to offer. His diminutive frame distended around the mortal flesh, the swell of his belly even stretching to handle the generous seven inches. Noah was lost in the moment. His vision narrowed in slowly as the excruciating pleasure numbed him to the world and eventually himself. He could feel the imp vaguely as a pulsation in the storm, his body convulsing into dreamless sleep until everything became still again.

The sunshine woke him hours later. He felt like he'd been hit by a truck. The previous night was vivid in his mind. His body refused to move.

"Zhad," he managed after a few minutes of listening to New England on the other side of his window. "Zhad?"

A weight manifested gently on his stomach. It didn't feel as oppressive as it had before.

"Relax," replied a familiar, masculine voice. The sound didn't echo like it had last night. "Don't be stupid, I'm still here."

Zha'dny'y looked as he did before the barrier fell: a living, sexless cartoon. Perhaps the slightest bit larger but that could just have a been a trick of the eyes. Noah still couldn't conjure enough strength to sit up but he forced himself onto his elbows and studied the imp. The massive cock from the 'binding' was gone, a not subtle but indistinct bulge had taken its place between his legs. It was almost disappointing now that things seemed to have settled down since last night. The hungry look in the imp's eyes was replaced by a self superior grin

"What now?" Noah asked after a moment to come to terms with apparting spirits in his house.

"You probably wanna eat something and get cleaned up. I kept going for a while after you passed out. Wimp."

It was obviously true. It felt as if someone had dumped a bucket of cum over his legs and let it dry, some of it was even still fluid and cold making the wood floor even less comfortable than would have been before. Noah opened his mouth to challenge the imp but Zha'dny'y swirled together into a black mote then winked out of existence. He might have missed it all if he had blinked.

"What the hell?" Noah demanded to the empty house, achingly sitting up and shambling to his feet.

Zha'dny'y suddenly felt very present if ephemeral; a silent voice in Noah's head not unlike his own internal monologue insisted, Food now. Metaphysics later. I'll never be far. Never.