Chapter 10: Occult Play and Light Bondage

Roquefort, Lucretius and Fr. Stephen were happily on their way to see the Three Prophets when the limo started to rattle, hiss and glow.
“I say, making it rather hard to drink, eh?” said Roquefort, who had been feeling bored and was not averse to a diversion.
“Are we going to explode?” said Fr. Stephen, not without a trace of hope.
“No,” said Lucretius, with a look of deepest horror and fear. “Worse than that. We’re being---”
However, there was a sudden flash of light and bang and sense of movement.
Fr. Stephen looked around. He was in a darkened room. He felt for a gun, and stroked it to reassure himself. He was surprised to find that the sound of Lucretius and Roquefort bickering was oddly comforting.
“I strongly suspect this is something to with you, Lucy!”
“Oh, of course you do! First thing you always do, we find ourselves in a Circle of Demonic Summoning and you blame the demon! Racism!”
“A what of Demonic whating? Did my keen little ears hear the word ‘Demonic?’”
“A Circle—you know the word, I can only hope—of—it’s a possessive—Demonic—and I want to reiterate that I did not orchestrate this…”
Stephen tuned them out and peering into the darkness. This did not look like hell, or indeed, anything demonic. If he wasn’t very mistaken he would have said he could see a Blink 182 poster—but that didn’t make sense…
A shrill, female voice. “Sisters, it worked!”
“Do they come in threes, usually, Katie?”
“Well, we are new at this—ahem!”
(“We don’t have time for this!” “You never have time for my problems. Or sympathy.” “Lucy, I was wrong. This is entirely your problem. I really have no reason to be extremely angry—oh, I say, someone is talking to us…”)
Three young female faces, which Stephen would put at roughly fifteen, peered out of the darkness, illuminated by flashlights they held under their chins and a considerable amount of pale makeup and red lipstick. Stephen felt a sudden burst of pessimism. They were wearing black nail polish.
The one in the middle had a nose stud and was clearly in charge. “Are you all incubi?”
“No!” said Stephen and Lucretius in unison.
“Yes!” said Roquefort, predictably.
“Can I just interject, gentlemen,” said Lucretius, “that this is a perfect lesson in negative stereotyping? I am a perfectly respectable, certified demon, trying to make an honest living---”
“Sorry, you can’t expect me to just let that pass,” began Stephen, but Lucretius was enjoying a rare moment of righteous outrage.
“And every four or five years, this happens, a group a prepubescent baggages summon me because of course, ALL demons are incubi, we ALL have the same interests, profiling, I call it, profiling of a most pernicious nature. And by the way, we’re stuck in the Circle of Summoning until they let us go.”
“Well, I am certainly an incubus. Rawwwr, demon lover!” Roquefort said, hungrily. “Just let me out of this little Circley whatnot and I’ll drain you dr—erm, fulfill all of your innermost sexual fantasies.”
“This is what I put up with constantly,” Lucretius muttered to Stephen. “Everywhere we go, its suck this, seduce that, change into a bat that flies up women’s skirts. And who cleans up the mess?”
“You?” said Stephen wearily. He was wondering if divide and conquer might not be the way out of this kidnapping pickle. Lucretius was clearly more reasonable, but Roquefort was probably easier to manipulate. He glanced over at the girls. There would be no help from that quarter. They probably thought being kidnapped by a vampire and a demon was the best thing that could possibly happen to a girl. Roquefort, with admirable shamelessness, was encouraging this impression.
“Well, the problem with being an incubus,” he purred, “is that all sorts of hideously unattractive women summon you. Imagine, ladies what very pleasant surprise the three of you were!”
Stephen noted that the girls were trying, in some respects, to look like Voluptua. They had all died their hair jet black, and were wearing the sort of tight, low dresses that cost about 11.50$. Two of them had obviously stuffed their bras and the one that didn’t need to do so had neglected to wear one at all.
“One grows so world weary… so lonely… searching for a woman who understands the recesses of my troubled, complex heart. And loins,” Roquefort was saying.
“Beezebub’s blood-stained crockpot,” grumbled Lucretius. “We’ll be here for hours. Where’s a priest when you need on?”
Stephen blinked. “I am a priest.”
“What? Why didn’t you say so? You think you know a person.”
“Lucretius,” Fr. Stephen said. “We’ve been fighting each other for years. Because I’m a priest and you’re a demon. You’ve been calling me ‘Father.’ I am wearing a cassock.”
“Well, yes, but you sort of forget the specifics of a mortal enemy, don’t you? I mean, it’s like you have blond hair, but every time I see you, I don’t take especial note of it, because it would be beside the point.”
“The reason that we are mortal enemies is beside the point,” Stephen said flatly, feeling a twinge of sympathy for Roquefort.
Roquefort was picking up steam. “It’s just heart-breaking. You finally meet a woman, three women, who move something in your heart that you thought had died long ago, women who could teach a bad man to love again, and you find yourself stuck within a demonic circle of some sort.” He sighed wistfully. “Oh, if only there was some way to get out… to embrace the fires of love…”
The plump one looked sideways at the central girl. “Urm, should we let him out, Katie?”
There was an awkward silence. “Well, I don’t know. I didn’t think we’d get an actual demon,” Katie said nervously. “What do you think will happen?” She blushed. “I mean, I know what will happen, but there are questions of, you know, how soon, where, with what, all that.”
“Really?” said the plump girl hopefully. “What will happen?”
Roquefort changed paces rapidly. “Romantic kisses. Light petting. Parchesi.”
“Right, this has gone just about as far as it should,” said Stephen. He whipped out his crucifix. “In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, this circle is broken!”
“Soothing talks about books,” continued Roquefort. “Hand-holding. Tea and----GAH WHAT ARE YOU DOING HE HAS A CRUCIFIX LUCY!”
“I know,” said Lucretius, in a tone of pride, as if he were responsible for this discovery. “Turns out he’s a priest.”
“And they always carry those things? Bloody dangerous.” Roquefort prodded the circle’s edge with his evening boot. “Oh I say. Seems this thing has broken.”
There was a pause both pregnant and distinctly virginal.
“Um, just remembered an important geometry homework curfew going to the bathroom,” said the third girl, the quietest and apparently the most intelligent, and left.
Julie, the plump one, stood up and folded her arms. “I’m leaving. Don’t try any funny business.”
“He won’t. I’ve got a crucifix,” said Stephen, feeling protective, and, for the first time in several hours, in control.
“Eurggh, Boringus Maximus Alertus,” said Roquefort, stepping toward Katie in what could only be described as a predatory manner.
“No, we’re leaving. And you are too, you bloody encourager of racial profiling,” said Lucretius. “We can go back to the limo through the circle now they’ve let us go.”
“They didn’t,” said Roquefort, “Whatsit here broke it. No way of getting back now. My dear, can I interest you in a moonlight stroll?”
Lucretius grabbed Roquefort’s velvet-clad arm and jerked him backward. “We are on a mission to prevent Tarin the Righteous from overcoming the forces of evil, ie, us, and when I am not in a Circle of Demonic summoning, I can disapparate when I like. Now come on. He’s a vampire, by the way, you silly girl. As in, he vaaants to suck your blooood.”
“Wait!” Katie threw herself on the ground. “Take me with you! Show me the ways of love!”
“You see? She wants to come along. Everyone knows vampires only go where we’re invited, more or less.”
“He’ll show you the ways of a light snack,” said Lucretius. “Now come on, you useless lout!”
Stephen felt a familiar jerk and flash, and, faintly in the distance, Roquefort’s voice saying like, “Interfering, judgmental of lifestyle choices, hungry, bag of hot air demon, back to hell where he belongs, no harm in a light bite…”
Then there was a thud, and they were not back in the limo at all.