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Ronnie sat cross-legged on the floor of the abandoned warehouse. It was cold and uncomfortable, but since none of the neighborhood kids came here anymore he'd been able to prepare the ritual without being disturbed. Even so it'd taken him nearly a week of sneaking out of the house and working by flashlight, first to draw out the large double square in chalk and to write all the runes inside, and then to paint all of it over with the mixture of blood and ash prescribed by the book.

The book.

The book he still couldn't believe actually existed. He didn't remember anymore who'd told him about it, and when he'd pulled it off the shelf at the public library it had looked as dry and dusty as every other book in its obscure corner of the anthropology section. Even if you read it, it seemed to be just a researcher's account of her time in some tribal village Ronnie had never heard of, notable only due to the minute detail with which the researcher had documented both the village's cuisine and their voodoo-like superstitions and rituals.

But in truth, the book was a grimoire. If you tried any of the the "folk-magic" recipes the researcher had recorded, they actually worked.

Four days wearing the charm against pox cleared up Ronnie's acne like it'd never been. When he'd seen Jonas and a couple of his wrestling-team gang coming down the hall, a pinch of hide-me powder in the air made them pass by rather than harass him like they usually did. When he'd sprinkled a few drops of luck potion on his history test, he got back a perfect score--even though he knew he'd gotten some of the answers wrong. Even the sachet of successful hunting had worked, despite that he wasn't hunting animals, but rather hot guys. He seemed to be running into Brandon all the time now, and just last week he'd passed by the gyms after classes to find the weight room door wide open with music blaring and half the wrestling team mid-workout.

He'd stopped to stare, of course. Jonas and the wrestlers were mostly assholes, but they were incredibly sexy assholes, and to Ronnie the scene had been a sweaty straining vision of Paradise. One he didn't get to enjoy for nearly long enough before somebody spotted him drooling in the doorway and yelled. But even now the memory came rushing back, almost as quickly as Brandon had come rushing across the room. The features beneath his short chestnut hair were contorted in anger as he'd cursed and shoved Ronnie back out into the hallway. There was a low growl of "don't fight me, moron," and suddenly Ronnie found himself crashing to the floor. For a full minute he lay curled into a ball, yelping as the hottest guy in the school kicked and punched and cursed him out.

Finally Brandon stopped, breathing hard from effort. But he still let out a final angry growl as he spun around and stalked back into the weight room, slamming the door behind him and cutting off both the music and the sounds of derisive jock laughter. Ronnie was left alone on the hallway floor, dazed, shocked, tearful, and--when he picked himself up without any trouble and realized the beating hadn't actually hurt that much--very, very confused.

That wasn't how things usually went. And Ronnie should know, since he'd been sneaking looks at guys all year. The wrestling team was a favorite target and Brandon his most favorite of all; the two of them had a P.E. class together, and with how hot Brandon was it was far harder for Ronnie not to look. And it wasn't just a locker room thing either: Ronnie sometimes caught himself glancing over during English just to watch Brandon scowl at his notes. Or mooned at him across the cafeteria as he devoured mac & cheese, while Ronnie's friends rolled their eyes and asked if he was going to finish his sandwich.

If pressed, Ronnie would have to admit having a bit of a crush. He had ever since ninth grade Geology when they'd been thrown together as lab partners. And now, two years later, Ronnie was still the same dark and scraggly kid in the ragged band T-shirt. But Brandon had grown into himself--taller, stronger, handsomer even--and he emanated a casual confidence that pulled at Ronnie like a fishing line pulls at the creature caught on its hook.

If Brandon was on his own, things worked out fine. Ronnie was sure Brandon caught him staring almost every time, and usually he didn't seem to care. Sometimes he'd be pissed off and growl at Ronnie until he left. Sometimes he'd smile and come over to gripe about classes, or what Coach Wenzel was putting the team through, or to ask about the band on Ronnie's T-shirt--conversations where Ronnie's main contributions were a deer-in-headlights look and a pile of awkward babbling. And then sometimes, occasionally, he'd appear to ignore Ronnie completely--but whatever he was doing suddenly involved a lot of stretching and slow movements and sly glances over his shoulder that sent Ronnie's thoughts fleeing and made his pants tent painfully.

There was no rhyme nor reason to it and Ronnie found the entire thing incredibly confusing. What did Brandon even get out of talking to him? Or showing off like that? He had to be doing it deliberately--did he just enjoy tormenting the gay creep? Ronnie desperately wanted to know, but the thought of actually asking was enough to flood him with panic. And this most recent episode wasn't helping his confusion: Brandon knocking him down had left him hurt and betrayed. But Ronnie also knew he'd probably gotten spared something even worse.

Because if Brandon on his own was usually harmless, that was absolutely not the case for the rest of Jonas's gang of jocks. Connor and Jonas were the worst of the lot--both of them buzzcut meatheads who loved to get "creative" with their punishments. But the rest weren't a whole lot better, and to get caught ogling a dozen of them at once--Ronnie would have been lucky just to end up in the nurse's office with a black eye and a twisted arm again.

He didn't know why he kept chasing them. Friends would ask and he couldn't answer. He knew he'd be better off if he stopped. And it wasn't like the internet wasn't full of sexier guys to drool over instead, pictures and videos that wouldn't give you bruises when you looked at them. Maybe some of it was the thrill when he'd watch and then get away clean? Or maybe some of it was that a video would never pay attention to him, not even to smack him around. Regardless, he kept at it. And sooner or later he'd always get caught, and hurt, and when that happened at least half of Ronnie's anger was for himself.

It was anger that consumed him after the weight room incident, trailing him like a storm cloud as as he stomped the two miles from school to his house. Anger and fear and frustration and desire--not just lusting after guys he couldn't have, but desperation to be someone stronger. More confident. More independent. Someone who not only couldn't be beaten up by Jonas's assholes, but didn't even need to bother with them in the first place. Maybe someone who'd have guys peeking at him for a change, guys who'd stutter and blush when he confronted them, then look up with with lust-filled eyes as they begged him to fuck them silly. That would be nice.

Or maybe what he wanted was just one specific very hot and very confusing guy.

By the time he reached his house, Ronnie's mood had crystallized into something like determination. He had had enough of this shit. He was going to do something about it, because now--well, now there was something he actually could do about it. Entering his room, he dropped his bag at the door and made a beeline to the shelf where he'd stuck the anthropologist's grimoire.

But all that an hour of page-flipping got him was four recipes for pickled crayfish and one for vodka-roasted gazelle. There were no spells to make him bigger or stronger. No spells to make him popular or attractive. And no spells to make someone fall in love with him. He did find "protection in battle"--but he didn't bother reading how it was done. He didn't want to just avoid bruises. He wanted the entirety of Jonas's gang on its knees. He didn't really think that was too much to ask after all they'd put him though.

And so the ritual Ronnie was trying in the abandoned factory warehouse was nothing like the ones he'd tried before. It didn't have a set purpose, nor did it produce a potion or powder or talisman. It was one he'd found at the last moment of frustration as he'd thrown the book to the floor of his bedroom and and it had fallen open to a page on the summoning of lishya_._

Unusually for her, the anthropologist hadn't been very descriptive of what a "lishya" was; all that Ronnie could glean was that it was some sort of spirit or god or demon, one who would grant wishes for a price. The diagrams and directions, however, had been recorded with the researcher's usual attention to detail and Ronnie had no difficulty understanding them.

Following them, on the other hand, turned out to be tricky. Even just drawing two centered squares was harder than he'd expected and the runes were all squiggly nonsense. And then when he went to paint over them, the only pig's blood he could find was the powdered kind for cooking. The glass bowl set between the inner and outer squares was supposed to contain an entire laundry list of dried herbs, but half of them Ronnie had never even heard of and he was pretty sure the clerk at the hippie food co-op hadn't either--it'd certainly looked like she was just plucking jars from the shelves at random. Even just getting the red candles to stand up on the concrete had been a pain, and the ritual's chant was a terrible long tongue-twister of a thing Ronnie had had to practice for an hour beforehand.

Strangely, the simplest part had been getting the blood offering. His mom was constantly catching rabbits in the cages in her vegetable garden, so all Ronnie had needed to do was volunteer to release them in the woods for her--and then stash a few in crates in the warehouse instead.

But everything was prepared now. The bowl was filled in front of him. His notes lay spread out on the concrete. A sharp paring knife lay to his side.

Trying to calm his nerves, Ronnie took a deep breath and looked up toward the ceiling, staring at the thin shafts of Saturday afternoon sunlight leaking through the boarded-up windows. Then he lowered his gaze back to the cracked concrete floor, where flickering candlelight beat back the dimness and the rabbits shuffled nervously behind him. He was going to do this. He was going to make his dreams a reality--by whatever means necessary.

Ronnie nicked his finger with the knife, then held it out over the bowl of herbs and cedar chips. He watched the blood flash as it fell, counting drops and drawing his hand back when it was enough. Then he struck a match, lit a sliver of wood, and dropped the burning wood into the bowl. It caught quickly, the sulfur smell of the match turning smoky and dark as the herbs smoldered and sizzled. Ronnie gulped and began chanting.

At first, nothing happened. Ronnie stared down at his notes and concentrated on the chant, on speaking each syllable exactly as the anthropologist had recorded. But by the fourth repetition smoke had started pouring out of the bowl, giant black plumes of it that were drawn into the inner square to form a cloud that refused to dissipate. When Ronnie finally finished the sixteenth repetition and looked up, it had become an impenetrable dark mass of shadow that roiled ominously in the candlelight.

Ronnie blinked and blanched. He'd known this part would happen--the anthropologist had described it, after all--but knowing about it and seeing it in person were two completely different things. So he stared in frozen silence, as the bowl gave out a final gout of flame and the cloud shivered. Then it abruptly collapsed, pulling in on itself like a reverse explosion and coalescing into the figure of the lishya.

For this part, the grimoire couldn't tell Ronnie what to expect. Lishya didn't have a single form. It might show up as anything.

Including, apparently, a giant wolfman.

The figure standing in the square had both human and animal features, blending the fiercest parts of each into a form that radiated power, fiery and feral. Overall he looked more warrior than hunter, slightly too thick-muscled to be called "lean". His hooked legs ended in wide paws, their thick black claws scratching at the concrete. Similar claws tipped broad pawlike hands, one of which was idly scratching at the fur of a broad chest as he stared curiously down at Ronnie. That fur was all the shades of ash and it covered the entire creature from pointy ears to thick dangling tail, interrupted only by the coal-black leather of wristbands and loincloth.

Ronnie leaned back and craned his neck to look up at the lishya's face. It strongly resembled that of a wolf--but no wolf had a muzzle that wide, nor glinting obsidian horns sprouting from its forehead, nor eyes that glowed like embers and flashed into fire when they met Ronnie's gaze. Then the lishya grinned at him, lips pulling back to show vermilion gums and pointed, bone-white teeth.

Ronnie gasped, some primal instinct spurring him to panic. He scooted backward, then spun around and scrambled to his feet to run--only to trip over a rabbit crate and tumble to the ground. His shoulder slammed into the concrete and he yelped in pain.

For a dazed moment Ronnie just lay there. Then he gingerly picked himself up. Slowly, a sound became audible over the pounding of blood in his ears.

It was laughter. A low husky chuckle that rippled around him and faded into the gloom of the warehouse. Ronnie turned back to face the candle-lit summoning square and saw the lishya, standing with his hands on his hips, his tail swaying and amusement written on every feature.

The wolfman took a step forward, then reached an arm to the side to lean on... nothing, apparently. His paw stopped just above the inner edge of the squares, splayed out on an invisible wall.

Ronnie stared at the lishya warily. He didn't seem quite as threatening as a few moments ago, partly because of the casual attitude, partly because Ronnie had just remembered the lishya couldn't get out of the square anyway.

"Oh come on now," said the lishya, still chuckling. "There's no point to being afraid. Come into the light and let me see you."

His voice was a baritone rumble that Ronnie could almost feel on his skin. The lishya nonchalantly scratched himself again, claws raking the fur under his thick jaw--then drifting downward across a broad chest and a flat stomach, before digging under the belt of his loincloth and setting its noticeable bulge to swaying. Eventually his paw withdrew and returned to rest on his hip.

Ronnie shivered, his mouth hanging open as his eyes followed the motion of their own accord. He suddenly realized something else about this lishya: he was fucking hot.

It was then that the lishya's scent reached him. Dark and thick, musky and smooth, with a hint of ash and a tang of a wild animal. Powerful. Seductive. Ronnie felt a grin sprout on his face, his nerves relaxing even as another part of him became more excited. He drifted forward in a daze until he was facing the lishya across a wall of air and runes and candlelight.

This close to the bowl the reek of the smoke fought with the scent of the lishya, cutting it through with bitter herbs and astringent cedar. Ronnie's nose tickled and he doubled over in a fit of sneezing. But he also felt his head clear a little, and some of his former wariness returned.

The lishya snorted. "Don't die yet, human. You haven't even told me what you want."

Eyes watering, Ronnie glanced up to see the lishya grinning down at him. Even with both of them standing up, Ronnie was still significantly shorter, his eyes about level with the wolfman's chest. Suddenly realizing he was starting to stare again, Ronnie yanked his gaze away and focused on one of the candle flames instead.

"Um. What do you mean?"

The lishya blew out a breath, the hot gust just barely brushing the human's cheek. "Well, I assume you didn't haul me into your world just because you like looking at me," he said. "So, you tell me what you want, I tell you the price, and then we make a deal. Sound good?"

Of course. He had to make a deal. That's what this ritual was for, the deal to make his dreams come true.

Ronnie nodded. "Um, yeah. Sounds good. So I want to be, like..." He furrowed his brow and waved his hands in the air vaguely. "Like... um. Y'know..."

Like what? Popular? Strong? Sexy? Confident? King of the School? Whenever he started to say something, none of it really seemed right. And it wasn't like he didn't want anything--every day was another day he wished for something to be better or happier or even just different. Mostly they were little things though. And trying to put a hundred little wishes into one, into something he could ask for and solve all of them in one go--it was was like trying to stack a hundred pebbles into a column. It just didn't work. He'd been in such a fever to set up the ritual, to execute it perfectly, that he hadn't realized until right now that he had no idea what he was actually going to ask for.

The lishya quirked a brow, waiting. Ronnie stared at him helplessly.

"Let me guess," the lishya rumbled. "You have no idea."

Ronnie looked down at his shoes. "Sorry."

The lishya gave a wolfish snort, then flopped down on the floor inside the square, feet stretched out in front and arms propping him up behind. His tail idly brushed back and forth on the concrete. "Well, you're hardly the first. I'll be here until the flames go out, so take your time," he said, sounding resigned.

A long moment passed in candlelight and drifting smoke. Ronnie desperately tried to kick his brain into gear. Anxiety--or maybe the sight of the well-built wolfman stretched out in front of him--made him start to sweat despite the cool air of the warehouse. Weakly he dropped back to the floor--but all that changed was that he was now staring at the padded bottoms of paw-feet as big as his head.

The clawed toes wiggled as the lishya stretched, then sat forward and crossed his paws on his knees.

"So. Would it be better if you were rich?"

Ronnie looked up.

The lishya shrugged his broad furry shoulders. "You do this gig for a couple centuries, you figure out what people want. Money's a popular one."

Ronnie shook his head. "Oh. No. Maybe it would help, but I don't think so."

"So, fame? Skill? Be the best guitarist or actor or basketball player ever? Have crowds of adoring fans?"

Ronnie shook his head again. "Ugh, no. All that attention sounds terrible, actually."

"Hmm. What else then." The lishya scratched under his jaw. "You do seem to like this body you summoned me into. Perhaps..."

Ronnie blinked and looked up at the lishya's face to see a keen, ember-eyed gaze staring back.

"Strength," the lishya growled. "You have enemies, and you want me to smash them into the dirt for you."

Ronnie immediately thought of Jonas and Connor. A grin cracked on his face as he imagined them coming at him--only to be intercepted by a giant wolfman bodyguard who'd knock the sneers off their faces and send them packing. It'd be fantastic.

But afterward... they would want revenge. The lishya might not stick around. And even if he did, Jonas and Connor would just get "creative." They wouldn't just attack head-on; they would jump him in the dark, or go after his friends...

Ronnie hesitated, then shook his head.

The lishya's eyes narrowed. "No? Then how about charisma? Allure. Sex. To be so attractive that anyone you want falls down fawning at your feet."

Ronnie froze. "Uh. I don't--"

"Aha. Closer, but not quite it." A sly smile cracked across the lishya's muzzle. "So maybe you don't want just anyone, hm? Maybe there's a very specific, very special someone you'd like to attract. Someone normally out of your reach."

Ronnie gaped at the lishya. The lishya stared back with a feral expression, like a wolf that's scented its prey.

The lishya leaned forward, ears perked up and eyes focused on Ronnie. "So. Tell me about him," he said, eagerness creeping into his husky voice.

Ronnie opened and closed his mouth a few times. The lishya waited patiently.

Then--everything came spilling out. How Ronnie met Brandon. How friendliness had changed to obsession, just the worst of him pining after guys who'd never pay attention except to kick him out of their way. Incident after incident of longing and hurt and confusion.

The wolfman listened. He absorbed Ronnie's meandering story with focused ears and a relaxed expression, asking a probing question whenever the flow of words started to falter. Until finally he shifted forward to kneel on the floor in front of Ronnie, just across the line of runes, staring down at the human intently.

"So. Before I make an offer," the lishya said, eyes narrowed. "It sounds like you're a virgin. Is that right? You've never had intimate sexual contact with anybody?"

Ronnie stared down at the floor, his face burning. He nodded.

"Lucky. That's useful in the right hands." The lishya adjusted the strap of his loincloth. Ronnie's eyes snapped to track the motion, and his face burned even hotter as he noticed just how thick the wolfman's thighs looked. And how much kneeling was making his bulge stand out.

The lishya finished adjusting and folded his paws in his lap. "Your problem," he said. "Is fear. Of bullies. Of your crush. Of yourself, even. If you were to take that away, maybe get a little protection, you'd find things would be much different."

Ronnie glanced up at the lishya's face, then looked away from the wolfman's sharp-eyed, sharp-toothed expression.

"So my offer is this: I will remove your fear," the liysha continued. "I will guarantee that the jocks can't hurt you again. No pain or bruises. No stupid pranks even, no matter how much they want. And your handsome boy won't refuse you. Nor will anyone object to you being together."

The lishya grinned at him, teeth flashing. "Wouldn't you like that? It's amazing what a little confidence will do for a life, you know. Imagine yourself strolling through the halls, head high, your impotently frustrated former enemies now beneath you. Half the people you pass stare at you with envy written on their faces, because the guy holding your hand is the one everyone's been trying for but no one's caught--until you. And then when you part for your different classes, he takes you in his strong arms, and smiles down, and kisses you. Tenderly, but with a hunger that promises much, much more to come that evening."

Ronnie thought about it. It was hard not to--it was if the lishya had described one of his own fantasies, one of the ones that played out in his mind as he lay in bed trying to sleep. Although of course there were other fantasies he'd had, ones that went far beyond just a kiss...

"Is this offer acceptable?"

Ronnie yanked his eyes up to meet the lishya's gaze, the wolfman's face overlapping queerly with Brandon's in his mind's vision. He nodded. The lishya smiled.

Something about the smile's sharp and hungry look prodded at Ronnie through his daze, and he gulped.

"What... what's the price?" he asked, voice croaking in his dry throat.

As if it mattered. He'd probably pay anything to make that dream come true.

"Oh, that." The lishya shrugged, then raised his well-muscled arms up into the air, stretching one shoulder and then the other in a way Ronnie had seen Brandon perform dozens of times. He lowered his paws to his chest, then slowly ran them down his torso until they were framing the protruding bulge of his loincloth. Ronnie's eyes followed helplessly.

"Well, since you're a virgin, it's easy to get the amount of power I need," the lishya said, toying with his loincloth a bit. "You just let me use you as I like for a while. Fifteen minutes should be enough."

Ronnie gulped again. He couldn't move his eyes, mesmerized by the lishya's bulge. Was it growing larger? His own pants were feeling pretty tight too, and his nose filling with the wolfman's scent, heavy and dark and alluring.

The lishya chuckled. "You're worried. I am pretty big after all, including down there." He gave Ronnie a smirk. "But the pain will only last a few moments. And wouldn't it be nice to have some experience? I'd guess your boy has lots by now. You wouldn't want to embarrass yourself..."

Ronnie took a shaky breath, then yanked his eyes up to the lishya's face. "All right. Deal," he said.

The lisha's ember eyes flashed. But he didn't smile. Instead, he merely held out a paw. Pads up. Inviting. His other paw trailed idly over his body, the deep chest and rippled stomach and twitching package.

Ronnie climbed unsteadily to his feet and staggered toward the rune-scribed squares. Even kneeling the lishya's head was about even with his. Half walking, half falling, he slapped his palm across the lishya's paw and grabbed on.

The lishya grabbed back, fingers clamping over Ronnie's as he stood up and dragged the human fully into the square with him. Ronnie found himself planted face-first against the lishya's hard chest, the lishya's bulge poking into his stomach. He craned his neck back and looked up.

The lishya grinned down at him, blood-red tongue licking over cruelly sharp teeth, eyes glowing like hot iron. His claws dug into Ronnie's shoulder, and his voice rumbled through Ronnie's chest when he spoke.

"See? Easy," he said.

---

The man looked completely normal, like any other 20s-age guy from town. Short brown hair, jeans and T-shirt and sneakers. What was not normal, however, was what he was doing: wandering around in an abandoned factory warehouse on a Saturday evening with a rune-covered silver pendant dangling from his outstretched hand. His eyes tracked its motions carefully as it swayed and glittered in the light of his flashlight. He was biting his lip in concentration.

Footsteps approached from behind him, accompanied by the light of another flashlight. Breaking out of his reverie he quickly wound the pendant's string around his hand, then turned around to nod a greeting to the gray-haired woman who appeared out of the dimness. Her mien was almost military, her face severe she scowled at him.

"You find the book?" she asked curtly.

The man shook his head. "No. It's gone. It was here, but too long ago to track. Whoever did this must have finished the ritual just with those notes we found earlier."

The woman harrumphed. "Great. You can't predict. You can't track. Why do we even keep you diviners around?"

The man scowled back at her. "Look, this town is too far out in the sticks to have good detection coverage. You want to expand the network, you talk to the DIA director and convince him to get on it. God knows the diviners have tried." He threw his hands up in the air in frustration. "But hey, maybe he'll listen to the enforcers."

The woman snorted.

"Besides," the man continued, "We would have gotten here in time to stop it if Hansen hadn't gotten off the highway at the wrong exit. Shouldn't you be griping at him instead?"

The woman's eyes narrowed. "Hansen has been made aware of the consequences of his error," she said curtly.

The man sighed. "Fine. Did we at least find enough to ID the ritualist?"

"There were a few bits. We need to take them back to base for DNA analysis." The woman hefted the translucent plastic bag she was carrying. "It was some local kid, most likely. Won't know for sure until next week. These bastards are getting smarter and leaving less and less for us to work with."

The man pointed his flashlight beam at the bag long enough to make out a sneaker with a bitten-off ankle sticking out and what looked like a bloody scalp--or maybe the back half of a head. He flicked the light away again and shuddered.

"Uggh," he said. "Some infernal lord got a feast."

The woman jerked her head at him. "Come on. If you can't track the book then we're leaving. Hansen's already mopped up the ritual and we need to get back to the Winterfield hellgate in case this is part of an attack there."

"Right." The man nodded, then pocketed the amulet and followed the woman out of the warehouse.

He took deep breaths of the cool evening air as he walked, trying to clear away the memories of the last hour. First the burned and bloody mess of the ritual square, then slaughtering those tainted rabbits, and finally that bag of bloody parts... He shook his head. Maybe he just wasn't cut out for fieldwork.