Torque (Sera)

[Anatoly Khlystov]

“And here I was led to believe that you were a genius…” said a voice that was like chocolate to the ears, no matter how dry its tone. It was the last that anybody would expect for it to come from a demon. Tolya gave an irritated snort…almost a snarl…but didn’t bother to turn his head around. He kept his attention on the MTT Turbine that he was trying to repair.

“I am a genius!” finally exclaimed Tolya, annoyed not only at the back-sassing demon but also at his own ineptitude to fix the bike. He was a genius, there was no issue there. He scored one of the highest I.Q.s in world, under twenty. But then poses the question…why he couldn’t fix his bike.

“If you’re such a genius, why can’t you fix your bike” asked the same voice…as if echoing his own thoughts. Tolya finally turned around and steadily met the eyes of his demonic slave- Dantalion. Dantalion had a smug look on his face as he leaned against the table with his arms crossed over his chest. He looked like a gorgeous young man, no more than five years older than Tolya, tops. But that wasn’t the first thing that people would notice about him. Most probably they’d notice his literally paper white skin, or maybe they’d notice his arms and lower half covered in spiny armor that seemed to be crafted from shiny black beetle carapace, and if still that wasn’t enough to grab somebody’s attention…it could have been the two, long, thin and fuzzy feelers that grew from the inner slopes of his brows. But then again, Tolya had known people who noticed Dantalion’s waist length black hair before everything else.

Dantalion was enjoying Tolya’s dilemma and wasn’t making any effort to hide it. He hated Tolya with a passion, one part because the young demonologist sealed perpetually sealed him into service as a butler and bodyguard, another part because the young demonologist was as epic of an asshole as it came. But that was how the master-slave relationship worked around here in the Khlystov household. Slaves hated their masters, but were bound by merciless spells that made them physically unable to go against their master’s commands without any explicit damage to their essence. It made the demon mentally scoff at the irony of it all, and humans even had the audacity to think that they were the non-evil ones in the partnership.

“Maybe you should seal another demon inside that bike? I know a couple of bastards that I wouldn’t mind letting you get out of my hair.” That came from Shax, Tolya’s other demonic slave. He was curled up in the corner of the garage, idly chewing on what seemed to be a human skull. He took the form of a large canine skeleton, with internal organs made from fire and shadow. Tolya always thought that he was a Doberman skeleton - a Doberman the size of a Shetland pony that is.

“You know I’m not allowed to do that…” began Tolya, the tinge of annoyance getting more apparent with each statement. “…I’m bound by something stronger than magical spells. It’s called a dad.” Shax chuckled at that, his laughter sounding much like the crackling of a bonfire. Dantalion just rolled his eyes. He didn’t see the joke as something funny. Tolya finally stood up, and he brushed his hands against his jeans. He wore a plain white tank top, which had about as many black streaks of grease as his face did. Wiping the sweat from his brow, he pondered on the mechanics of the bike. That was the thing with being a genius, Tolya tended to get used to knowing everything. So, whenever a situation happened to involve him being at a lost, he was exactly that - lost.

“A motorcycle can’t be this difficult to fix…I mean I’ve been treating the Nuclear reactors back in Russia like legos since I was eleven…but why can’t I stop this thing from veering left all the time?” Those were Tolya’s thoughts, and since he was in the presence of his demonic slaves, he spoke them out loud. The was one of the things that Tolya had yet to learn, despite being the most powerful demonologist of the century, demons weren’t your comrades…they’d kill you as quickly as they’d kill your enemies given the chance.

“Maybe it calls for more practiced hands.” suggested Shax lazily as he began scratching the back of his skull with a skeletal hind leg. The human skull he was chewing on disappeared in gout of flames, he probably had just materialized it because he was bored. “Or maybe you should just admit that you aren’t a genius after all” remarked Dantalion spitefully.

Tolya turned around to meet the demon’s eyes again. That was another thing that Tolya had yet to learn, never show a demon what struck your nerves. In fact, never show a demon anything that they could use against you. But Tolya was young, being born as the most powerful demonologist this side of the century, caused him to grow in large leaps, it also caused him to miss the things that demonologists usually learned with experience [and sometimes at the cost of a limb]. His eyes narrowed angrily at Dantalion before a magical circle of light erupted beneath his feet. Simultaneously, the triangle of Solomon appeared beneath the feet of the demon and then Tolya began muttering a spell.

“Now, O thou Spirit Dantalion, since thou art still pernicious and disobedient, and wilt not appear unto me to answer unto such things as I would have desired of thee, or would have been satisfied in; I do in the name, and by the power and dignity of the Omnipresent and Immortal Lord IEHOVAH TETRAGRAMMATON, who is the marvelous Disposer of all things both visible and invisible, curse thee, and deprive thee of all thine office, joy, and place; and I do bind thee in the depths of this unyielding prison of lamentation, there to remain until I give word to cease , I say into the incarceration of Fire and Brimstone which is prepared for all rebellious, disobedient, obstinate, and pernicious spirits. Let all the company of the aire curse thee! Let the sun, moon, and all the stars curse thee! Let the Nine Planets curse thee into the fire unquenchable, and into the torments unspeakable. And as thy name and seal contained in this sphere chained and bound up, shall be burned in this immaterial fire; so in the name IEHOVAH and by the power and dignity of these three names, TETRAGRAMMATON, ANAPHAXETON, and PRIMEUMATON, I do cast thee, O thou wicked and disobedient Spirit Dantalion , into the Mournful Orb which is prepared for the damnéd and accurséd spirits, and there to remain unto the day of doom, and never more to be remembered. Be judged by the dead, and the world, and by fire.”

A bright red pentagram ignited right below Dantalion, and at once he knew that he had pushed his luck too far. Tolya was usually very touchy when people insulted him on his intelligence. From the corners of the triangle translucent blue energy, like liquid lightning, materialized and started to pulsate with an apparent power. The energies twisted before conforming into a sphere where he was trapped in the core. Dantalion scrambled up on the table he had been leaning on, the small part of it that was inside the bubble at least. The bubble of energy didn’t affect the table at all, but he knew that if any part of his body touched that energy it would burn at his essence, the spell wasn’t christened as the mournful orb for no reason. Tolya uttered a continuation of the spell and the bubble shrank about a tenth of his size. Dantalion hissed and stared back at Tolya with the utmost hatred before he assumed the form of a scarab beetle to save on space. Tolya didn’t know how it was possible, but the beetle still looked angry.

All the while, Shax was laughing and rolling on the ground. “You’re a twisted kid you know that.” He managed to say between wheezes. Tolya couldn’t help but smile with self-satisfaction. “I’ve been told…” answered Tolya as he walked towards the sink in the garage and began washing the grease from his hands and face.

Afterwards, he looked at his watch and found out that it was already morning; once again he didn’t get any sleep. Tolya did have the tendency to do that; he’d get so focused with a problem he couldn’t solve that he’d completely neglect the time. He looked back towards his bike…yeah he still couldn’t let it go…he had to fix the veering-to-the-left problem. He picked up his light blue button down shirt from the back of the seat, where he had draped it, before pulling it on. There was not much he could do with the grease stains on his tank top, so he settled with buttoning up the shirt. He also retrieved his red and white, biker jacket and his black helmet before swinging up on the motorcycle.

“Come on Shax, looks like you’re going to be my escort for today.” Shax gave a groan, but he quickly got up while simultaneously shifting into the form of an average looking Doberman. The disguised demon padded across the garage, until he reached the wall where the button to open the garage door was located. He went up on his hind legs to press it and sure enough the large steel doors began to fold upwards.

“I hope you break your neck in an accident…” hissed Dantalion from the table; he was still in the form of a beetle. Tolya turned to him and gave a mischievous grin. “That would suck for you though, that bubble’s going to shrink every hour that I’m gone. You better hope I’m coming back alive you dipshit.” With that he put on his helmet and rode out of the garage.

Shax spared one last look at Dantalion “Tough Nuggets, Dan…shouldn’t have messed with the kid so much.” With that he clicked button that would start closing the garage door, before he lopped off after Tolya.