What’s the difference between a torrential downpour and a blinding nighttime blizzard? Apparently, two goddamn degrees. The temperature on my car’s dashboard read 36F in bright orange, like the display screens of those old 80s computers. The sound of rain battering the roof as I did my best to navigate the barely-lit woodland backroads on my way home from work felt like someone trying to break in from above. It only prompted me to drive a little faster, a little more recklessly. Barren trees danced back and forth in the brutal winter storm, swaying to an invisible rhythm, or more likely drowned out by the sound of my car’s engine as I accelerated over gravel, mud, and unkempt asphalt.
The radio blasted my normal playlist, a one I’ve started from the beginning so often that the first few songs became a blur I didn’t pay any attention to unless I‘d recently added a new song. The sound of the rain and my car’s damaged muffler made it almost completely inaudible, regardless.
The night had been miserable. My bitterness had only multiplied as I gripped the steering wheel with an aggression I wouldn’t really show anyone I liked and attempted to navigate the usual way home in a deluge of rain. Of course, there were more well-kept roads that led to my house. I could take the highway and only have to take a few local roads on the way there, but the same frustrated feeling that had taken me during my miserable work shift and made me work in a less efficient way just to upset someone had kicked in here. My defiance, however, was kind of misdirected in this case. Who was affected here besides me?
Mother Nature? Scoffing to myself, I stopped looking at my phone for long enough to notice a bump in the middle of the road through the downpour. I did not, however, hit the brakes fast enough. If there’s anything my shitlord of a dad had taught me, it was that when you were stopping short to avoid a collision, you should turn the wheel slightly just in case. I did as I recalled and my car, which had started to hydroplane for a millisecond, decided against it. My front wheels weren’t touching the ground, and in a moment, one which felt like several minutes of loud banging sounds from underneath and in front of my shitty 2000’s sedan, my car had come to a stop horizontally in the middle of the road, my driver’s side window just a few feet away from the large, unmoving lump, my front end lower than the back. I was unharmed, luckily, but my car’s front end WAS in a ditch.
“Fuck me, dude.” I exclaimed to nobody in particular. Grabbing the raggedy yellow raincoat and a maglite I think had been passed down for three generations out of my backseat, I struggled it on in the limited space and opened the car door in a huff.
The wind buffeted me first. It felt like the rain had suddenly changed direction to blow directly into my face. Just what I needed. First thing’s first. What had I likely sacrificed the continued life of my 170,000+ mile Honda Civic for? I took a few steps forward, pulling the drawstrings on the hood taut and feeling it closing slightly around my face. At my feet was a mess of white, cream, and brown feathers. Mixed in was a lot of red. It could’ve been something else, but it was definitely blood. As the incandescent light from my emergency flashlight flickered weakly and I had to squint in the weather. I could feel my shitty, worn work boots starting to squish. Wet socks, too, huh?
It was definitely avian or something. I couldn’t really tell anything specific through the wind, rain, and mess of feathers. Maybe a hawk had decided to swoop down at night and got slammed onto the pavement? Either way, it was a depressing sight, and the last thing I wanted to see on a night like this. Loose feathers blew in the gale, joining the dormant trees in their swaying.
“You’ve gotta be like, the world’s biggest owl or something, man.” Shaking my head, I turned away from the bloody heap and immediately to my most pressing issue. The howling wind and pounding rain seemed more like it was trying to kick my ass personally than just doing normal inclement weather stuff. It almost made me wonder what I’d done to deserve it. I mean, I could think of a few things, but anyone I tried to explain it to told me I was being far too hard on myself.
I approached the front end of my car. The damage seemed to be minimal, but I’d have to take a look at it in the daylight to be sure. Luckily, the ditch I had climbed into to check didn’t seem to be too large, and was mostly concrete, and some leaves that had survived the several snowstorms and melting cycles that had already ravaged the area. The downpour even more visible in front of my foggy headlights, I put my head down and pushed on the front bumper towards it, and then a little upwards, luckily getting some leverage. It felt like I was lifting the cheap car for just a minute. I could feel it get over the hump at the edge of the ditch, and then the dismal feeling of straining your muscles far too much. Pain shot up through my shoulder as I did my best to persevere and push my stupid ass car out of the ditch I had put myself in.
Eventually, I succeeded and nearly collapsed in the ditch. My first thought was that someone would definitely t-bone my poor sedan if I stopped here, and my second was that my jeans were getting soaked, and I was fucking freezing. I got up with some trouble, taking care not to lean on the shoulder I had already fucked up, and climbed out of the embankment on the side of the road. There was probably something I could do to make that easier. I think my pops had told me you could put the car in neutral while you pushed? Or maybe that was with another person in the car. Either way, I had done it. I got myself out of an immediate problem I’d caused. Of course, when I thought of it that way, it simply reminded me of all the other immediate problems I’d caused and hadn’t gotten out of yet. Looming thoughts of year-old tolls sent to my mailbox and deposited quickly into the document shredder beat against my brain from the inside while the torrent pummeled me from above. Out of sight, out of mind wasn’t always right. With that in mind, I turned to the bloody, windblown lump of feathers in front of me.
Except it was moving.
At first, I thought it was the wind. The air currents had clearly just picked up a different part of the feathers that weren’t blowing before, perhaps stronger, and in a way that caused it to move.
Then I heard a sound, weak at first, then stronger. A cry. Consistent and heart-breaking. The creature on the ground was still alive, whatever it was. Without thinking, and without hesitation, I scrambled over to it, very nearly falling over as I dropped to a knee to inspect it. I took the lump in my arms, the horrible, rain-drenched thing stirred in my arms, blood pouring down my coat and flecking off into the rainstream in the middle of the road, flowing down into the ditch. It was surprisingly light for a mystery animal, but it also felt wrong. The mess of feathers felt twisted and broken in my hand. This thing must’ve gotten nailed by like, an F-150 or something.
“I’ll at least bury you somewhere, dude.” I said to it. Was it like, an owl? Opening my passenger’s side, I ripped off my raincoat and wrapped the likely dying animal in it like it was a precious bundle. I don’t know why I did that. To be fair, everything about the next fifteen minutes was a blur. Getting in my car soaking wet, maneuvering back onto the road proper, driving home with the same old playlist. It was still miserable. Everything was – but the only thing on my mind was that bloody heap that seemed to be breathing in my back seat. I cranked up the heat while I sped home, careful not to even bother looking at my phone this time. God forbid I encountered another dying animal in the mood I was in.
You know, I’d read somewhere that the temperature down here on the ground doesn’t actually matter when it comes to snow, and that it’s decided up in the clouds. It’s snow way up there and sometimes it’s too warm when it gets down here so it doesn’t stick. Or, sometimes it just turns to rain. Sometimes, instead of a blizzard, you get a downpour in the middle of january. The kind that makes the sky gray for two days after. The kind you hydroplane your car into a ditch during.
The kind of downpour that makes you pick up dying animals out of the road.
The creature seemed to be breathing weakly when I rushed it into my apartment after laying down a bunch of my shabby, worn towels across the living room floor.
“Alright, dude, listen, I’ll call my friend, he’s a vet, he’ll tell me how to like, I dunno… put you out of your misery or something?” It probably wouldn’t be comforting at all if the creature could understand English, but I said it in a comforting tone, and I’m pretty sure animals understand that. The pile of twisted bone and light brown feathers stirred slightly, and I heard a weak whistle coming from somewhere deep within. I could see what looked like a beak poking out from under a broken wing. It seemed it was done bleeding profusely, to which I was grateful. God knows my landlord would nail me for a Stanley Steemer or whatever. I quieted down and focused on the pile, ignoring the “new text” notification from my vet friend. The only sound was the rain railing against the windowsill behind me, and the breathing. It didn’t sound like an animal’s. But what did an animal’s breathing even sound like? Probably similar to a person? Smaller?
What did I even mean by smaller?
My own heart was pounding against my chest. I was starting to panic over a dying fucking owl I had brought into my apartment of my own accord. It was then that the shock of the very nearly catastrophic car accident and the dying creature laying on my floor in front of me hit. It was weird that I had been strangely numb to it all up until that point.
Dried blood stained rain-dampened work pants as I took a step back. The whistling had grown louder.
The whistling had grown into what sounded like a voice. It emanated deeply, like the echo of a voice within a cave. From within the mess of blood and broken bone and leaking viscera, a voice spoke to me.
“Blood…” It trailed weakly.
“Fuck. Fuck.” I couldn’t think of a response. I think the normal response would’ve been not to say anything? I don’t think dying owls can speak. I don’t think regular owls can speak. My poorly decorated living room felt like it was spinning. My soggy socks squished on the bristly rug beneath me as I took another step back, tripping and falling backwards into my secondhand armchair. The re-upholstered fabric gave under my weight as I sunk into it.
“Blood.” it spoke again. The voice was growl-y. It sounded like it was gritting its teeth, but as far as I can tell, the only thing moving was what appeared to be the chest of the owl, rising and sinking slowly.
It was bizarre staring at a creature known for being majestic and intelligent in such a state. I’d seen cute owl videos online, so I know when they got wet, the feathers and soft down underneath actually shrunk and they looked quite shriveled. But that wasn’t what I was looking at. It was almost as if the rain hadn’t touched it, and it was merely suffering from getting smashed head-on by some asshole’s pickup. I simply couldn’t tell in the rain. I got up and with trepidation, crept towards the heap, my hand outstretched to touch it and confirm my suspicions.
I probably shouldn’t have been trying to touch something that could speak. Animals couldn’t speak. Nothing about the past hour had been normal, though.
My hand hovered over the owl. It occurred to me at this moment that I hadn’t touched it directly at all up until this point. I wrapped my raincoat around it. I rolled it onto the towels. I remember reading that your brain will instinctively do things to protect you from harm, and that you wouldn’t even notice.
Shaking, I lowered my palm, fingers bracing for something terrible. I don’t know what. The squelch of blood-soaked feathers? The soft give of flesh to slight pressure? I was close enough now that I could feel its chest rising and falling. Labored breathing that sounded more like a dude with a broken rib poking his lungs. Did birds even have ribs? Any thought in my head to take me away from what I was doing. I just wanted to get it over with. Where was all that impulsivity I had in the rain?
The rain pounded against my windows full force. I could hear the wind howling outside. Begging to be let in. Whatever force was outside seemed tame in comparison. I had no idea what I was doing here. I could text my friend. Did he respond yet?
My palm lowered more, slowly. I finally felt the creature. It just felt like a normal owl. At least how I expected a normal owl to feel. There was no blood on the towels underneath. Soft, downy feathers rose suddenly as I brushed my hand against the limp-looking wing beneath. The avian shifted to the left slightly, and I nearly jumped back. A mysterious force, or far more likely, my own fear, kept me in place. I was way too worried about making any sudden movements. The room seemed to grow. My heart was still pounding just as hard in my chest. Why was I so worried?
“Blood…” The voice spoke again. I couldn’t move. I froze, hand resting on the bird. It was bone-dry, as I had suspected. A lump formed in my throat as I eyed the abominable thing. I went to lick my lips, which had grown dry as I continued to exhale through my mouth, and felt myself grimace as my tongue passed over the middle of my lower lip, finding it was already split, and tasting iron.
I let myself relax a little. I shouldn’t have. I leaned forward, and my hand sank into the mess of feathers and mussed, downy fur for just a second, and it felt disgusting, like what I imagined was akin to grabbing a handful of raw flesh. The dissonance between what I was touching and the sensation made me scream out. My split lip ached. Blood dripped from my mouth and onto the creature. I tried to pull back, but it was too late.
As if awoken suddenly, the crumpled mass rippled like a wave, and each and every feather stood up in tandem. I couldn’t pull my hand back. I screamed out, but my voice was immediately drowned out by a deafening screech. It didn’t sound like anything should be able to produce a sound like that. The feathers and wings towered over me as I remained stuck on my knees, unable to detach my hand from the mess beneath me. My heart pounded against my chest like it was trying to escape.
It’s not just you, buddy.
“Please, god, please don’t let me fucking die like this, I’m sorry for bringing this thing into my house, man. Fuck.” I pleaded to whatever force would listen, now pulling so hard it felt like I’d dislocate my wrist. Black tendrils climbed from the abyss of feathers and darkness and crawled up my arm like some kind of malignant ivy. I felt like a cornered, trapped animal. Over on the coffee table across the living room was a knife I used for whittling when I was bored and I cursed loudly, wishing it would just roll over here. The rain battered my windows even harder, shaking the screens I had neglected to switch out for the storm windows like my landlord had demanded. It felt like my ears were ringing. I knew I was yelling. I knew I couldn’t hear my own voice.
“Surely that’s not all you have to give.” The voice seemed to echo through my living room, which felt like it was increasing in size around me by the second. Or maybe I was shrinking?
The tendrils slowly worked their way into my forearm like parasitic plant roots invading a tree trunk. My entire arm was numb. I couldn’t feel a thing, and yet the sheer terror of watching wormlike slithering appendages dig into my arm made me imagine the pain so much it seemed like it actually hurt. The tendrils pulsated, drinking deep of my blood while I struggled to pull my arm out. Weakened and lightheaded, my knees gave out. I could feel the coarse rug against my elbow as I struggled to keep myself in a position where my arm, stuck in the pulsing mass of feathers, wasn’t terribly contorted.
The room was spinning. My vision blurred for a moment and I struggled to angle my face upwards at the mass, which had grown to the height of a normal adult, which meant it towered over me. That weird high pitched noise that sometimes just happens was ringing in my ears. Accompanying that was the sickening sound of bones cracking and crunching as the mass began to stand erect.
“I’m going to die like this. I’m going to get my blood drained by a bloated owl corpse.” I thought, tears beginning to stream down my face.
Just then… it stopped. The room continued to spin and I felt like I was going to pass out, but the pressure keeping my arm in place felt like it had been released. It felt like all the sound had returned to my surroundings. The sound of rain aggressively pounding on my ill-equipped window resumed as if nothing had happened. I could even hear myself subconsciously sniffling like a frightened child. My throat stung from the screaming that I’m sure the rest of the building heard except for me. My once-captured arm was covered in small black puncture marks.
When I stared up at the mass, it stood towering, like an obelisk. Perhaps that was because I was still on the ground. I scrambled back a little, eyes locked on the monstrosity before me, hoping whatever it was wouldn’t change its mind. I had made it about a foot before it leaned over to look at me.
Perhaps it’d be more appropriate to say that only the entity’s head moved, arching over the mass of feathers that made up its body to stare at me.
And then… a humanoid face? Large, pure green eyes, with a strange sheen to them like you’d see on a cat or some kind of other nocturnal critter stared holes into my face. The gaze alone gave off enough pressure that I froze in place, damp clothes and body alike feeling like they were melting into the carpet from the intensity.
It was, admittedly, far less horrifying than when it was just a mess of feathers and bone.
Hair, human hair, soaked in blood and viscera and sticking to the figure’s face and neck, dripped down on my face from the ends of loose strands that managed to hang down past the mass of feathers. Beyond that, a sharp, beaklike nose poked out.
“Owl…?” I muttered quietly. Was it? That’s what I was under the impression of. I brought it back to my house thinking I was attempting to nurse an owl back to health. “Woman?” beyond the deep emerald orbs peering down at me, my brain, desperate to make a connection between this… thing and a human, spotted and focused on the figure’s thick, dark eyelashes. The abomination pondered me as much as I pondered it… She?
“Human… This one… thanks you.” I couldn’t see its mouth from the angle I laid, but the rest of its facial contortions were consistent with someone speaking. Prior to this, the voice sounded like it was everywhere in the room. Echoing throughout the halls of my apartment and bouncing off the walls. And yet, this time, it was entirely localized around what I assumed was the face of the “Owl”. The voice was regal, and yet stilted. It sounded as if it were being run through a translator.
“Huh?” Is all I could muster. The eyes, unblinking, continued to focus on me. There was silence for a few moments, save for the rain outside. It would’ve been comforting if there wasn’t a giant, bloody owl woman in my living room.
“For the sustenance, and the shelter.” The owl threw its arms wide and a mess of loose feathers fell towards the ground. Beneath the shroud of feathers and down were birdlike legs ending in sharp talons, which gripped the shoddy towels and worn carpet beneath like it were at risk of falling over. To be honest, the carpet had probably been through more than I had today.
Blood had been splashed on the yellowing walls and a little had splattered on the television I saved a few weeks for. I always wondered why I wasted my time doing it when nobody had ever come over and I lived by myself.
I tried my best to get up to my feet, but my weakened arm wasn’t really helping. I leaned on the other and tried to kind of half-crawl over to the shitty re-upholstered seat. The Owl’s voice rang out. When I turned around, I realized I could see her mouth from the distance I was at. It was wide and a deep crimson and the owl licked at blood trickling from the corners of her mouth. That was mine, I think.
“This one hopes you won’t start screaming again. Was giving some of your vital fluid truly so horrible?” The voice seemed just as regal, but more like a person of royalty trying to coax a small animal out of the corner. “I simply assumed that as you had brought me in after my… flight, you were consigning yourself to this one’s service?”
My heart stopped beating as fast and I tried to speak, clearing my throat first, as words were having trouble making their way out.
“I… uh… how did you end up in the middle of the road?” I spoke, careful not to use all the excited, frightened expletives I had thought of while forming the sentence internally.
“Wouldn’t it be more prudent to ask who – or what this one is, first?”
The creature was right. There was a crest at the top of its head that drooped slightly when it spoke. It looked kinda like the ones from all the old drawings of owls from like, “ye Olde English” stuff. I had always thought that was their eyebrows, but here was definitive proof to the contrary. The owl’s dark hair had begun to dry in the heat of my apartment, which I had turned up higher because of the rain and cold. It was becoming frizzy and poofy.
“This one’s title is the Demon Librarian, Trismegistus.” The owl took a sweeping bow, moving one bird leg behind the other, placing one human hand, sharply clawed, in front of her chest, and presenting the other as if she were welcoming me into my own house. It was quite interesting that she seemed to stand bipedal, but had an unknown volume to her body beneath the layers of fluffy down and now-dry feathers. Her wings remained outstretched. It was likely that since I had rescued the owl from the crumpled heap in the rain, she hadn’t had time to stretch them. Regardless, the span was massive, as was to be expected from a creature likely two or three feet taller than me. On her left, the sharp ends to her feathers poked my crappy pleather couch, her right brushing against the cheap synthetic christmas tree I should’ve moved into the hallway closet two months ago. The baubles I’d hung on it dangled precariously when she exhaled.
“So… Trismeg… Tris.” I began, swallowing loudly.
“I suppose that is acceptable. This one is willing to extend certain courtesies to her retainer.” Trismegistus’ mouth curled into an unsettlingly wide smile, peering down at me from her beaklike nose.
“Retainer? I don’t recall signing any pact! I just wanted to rescue an animal from a miserable time!”
“You think this one a mere animal?” Tris’ thick eyebrows curled downwards and it felt like all warmth in the room was suddenly sucked out. I had finally managed to climb onto the upholstered seat, and I felt like I was on the verge of falling off of it again.
“You presented me with your blood. You fed me, and signed away your being. This is my new dwelling.”
I already knew I couldn’t make this hellbound monstrosity leave even if I had wanted her to. The second Trismegistus had started stealing my goddamn life force, I figured I would either die or wake up in a cold sweat. I guess it was time to try my luck again.
“And what do I get out of this? It seems to me that you’re just a freeloader.”
“You get to continue living on the mortal plane.” Trismegistus stated matter-of-factly.
“I couldn’t care less if you killed me.” I lied through my fucking teeth.
“Hear me, Human. I am the Demon Librarian Trismegistus. Within the span of my wings I hold millenia of wisdom, both human and arcane. I have spoken with scholars unfathomably more intelligent than you. I have advised kings, stood at the precipice of marvels of human invention, and dragged those who sought forbidden knowledge to the depths of Hell for their folly. Now pray, tell this one why you feel as if you’ve any sort of platform to be bargaining.” Tris’ regal voice cut like a knife. I didn’t for a second doubt anything she just said. But…
“You, in all your infinite wisdom, got pancaked by like, a Ford F-150 or something, huh?” The effect was immediate. The pale skin of The Demon Librarian’s face flushed a bright red, and for a second, I thought she’d immolate me or something.
“Such insolence… You should be bowing down to this one. Begging for just a sliver of the wisdom I could impart upon you.” her sharp clawed hands dug into her feathers, and I thought she’d make herself bleed or something. Nothing happened, though.
“I’m pretty happy with my ignorance, Big Bird. I’ve seen how those scholarly dudes on Twitter act. I’m certain there’s like, a burden of knowledge. You probably go insane if you know too much.” I replied. Her nose twitched slightly. A few feathers stuck up out of place.
“It’s inconceivable that I’ve retained the service of someone so… Stupid.” She spoke with genuine vitriol. I’d been called dumb before, but the way she said it was so personal and mean. It kinda hurt. “So content in their stupidity.” Tris’ wings folded closed around her large body like a traveling cloak around a cold adventurer and she looked away from me for a moment, pondering. Well, I assume she was pondering. She certainly wasn’t looking at me. The room was silent, as it had been multiple times since I’d arrived back home with the small dog-sized bundle of feathers. The same bundle that was probably contemplating performing a lobotomy on me as she muttered to herself, voice quieted by a veil of brown, black, and cream colored feathers. They were actually really pretty when her wings weren’t broken in nine places and splayed across the pavement.
“ Look, Tris-” I was interrupted by the demon spreading her wings again, catching me off guard. I jumped, very nearly toppling over the chair I was seated in backwards. Trismegistus had sent more viscera that hadn’t dried on her body splattering against my walls and TV again. I was afraid of the abomination, sure. But I was getting increasingly angry about the blood on my walls. That comes out of my security deposit, and if she wasn’t going to kill me, I’d have to experience losing $900 bucks a year from now.
“Human.” She had begun walking towards me. Something about her gait was unnatural. I mean, what was natural about a seven-foot owl woman? Beyond that, though. She was favoring one slender raptorial leg over the other, kind of limping. For a moment, I thought it’d be comical and even a little cute if she hopped towards me, like all those Youtube shorts of domestic birds of prey I binged when I couldn’t sleep. Something inside me couldn’t bear to break down her pride like that, and so I stared at her face. It was made up of sharp angles that would be suited to a model, or a woman who was otherwise extremely out of my league. A mole just below her eye. And, inexplicably, she was wearing glasses.
“Where did you get those?” I asked, pointing at the spectacles. They were large, circular, and magnified her eyes to such an extent that I could see that the deep emerald wasn’t the only thing in them. She had several rings in the center. They were black and thin, and they’d clearly have been swallowed up by the rest of her eye if not for how huge those glasses made them.
“They were within my breast.” She responded, as if I was supposed to assume she kept spectacles inside her tuft of chest feathers. I nodded.
“This one is not sure if you’ve realized, but I’ve not regained my full power.” Tris started. Her regal voice was calm. It sounded like how I’d imagine a queen trying to appeal to peasants would. Kind of condescending? “For instance, I attempted several times to rip your head off magically.”
“I should’ve left you on the side of the road.” I said. A sly grin crossed the Owl’s face. I couldn’t tell if she was joking.
“My command is this. You shall serve this one as my retainer until such a time as I’ve returned to my former glory.” The Demon Librarian’s head alone seemed to slowly grow closer to me. I wondered if she was lanky under all those feathers like I’d seen from owl skeletons in the past.
“And how long will that take?” I replied, trying to shrink into the chair as she approached.
For a moment, she said nothing. The downpour outside had seemed to calm down. That, or the temperature had finally caught up to the season and it had begun to snow. I didn’t dare turn around to check. Huge green eyes behind comically large spectacles resting on her beak of a nose seemed to study every detail of my face from less than a foot away. When she opened her mouth, I could smell copper. It was a strange, heady scent. For a moment, I didn’t think about what was going on. The Owl’s tongue was black, I’d realized.
“That… depends on how willing you are to continue feeding me.” She stopped me with a clawed hand directly over my mouth before I could speak up in protest. “I could simply… drain you of every drop. This one is giving you a choice.” her sharp, hooked nails poked against the skin on my face and I felt my heart start pounding again.
“Not giving me much of a choice, are you?”
“I’d be less inclined to drain you to the point of exhaustion every single day if you provide me with literature.”
Come to think of it, my body did feel heavier than usual. Shaking my head, I looked the creature in her massive, ringed eyes and tried my best to sound indignant. “Do I seem like a library? Do you want me to go on a weekly trip to the bookstore on my way home from grocery shopping?”
“T’would be delightful. And in truth, any literature will do. For instance, I’ve already found this among a small bookcase by the front door.” Trismegistus held up a small untranslated manga I had only brought to support the artist between two clawed fingers. “Though this one is not sure of its educational value.
“Once again, what do I get out of this?” I asked once more. I didn’t have a choice, but if i had any chance to receive a response beyond “You get to live, of course!” with that stupid toothy grin of hers, I’d take it.”
“This one has said it before. Your continued existenc-” I cut her off, right there.
“Nah, that’s not going to do, Tris. You’re a demon, right? Don’t you guys offer contracts to humans all the time?”
“I think you’ll find that my not attempting to coerce you into a contract is more a boon than a curse.” Trismegistus the Demon Librarian had moved her large, feathery body closer to me, pinning one of my hands on the armrest of the badly reupholstered seat underneath sharp, raptorial claws. Her face was as close to mine as it had ever been, though I suspect that when I was having my blood stolen, I may have sunk my arm directly into her monstrous maw. Her breath was hot and saliva dripped from the corners of her wide mouth. I kind of shrunk back as much as I could in the seat, ready for her to likely drink more of my plasma at her whim.
“As much as… this one is loath to admit it, human… You have a rather unique taste to your blood. There’s more than one reason I’m not simply striking you down or leaving you bound to your own refrigerator for my free use.” I shuddered as the words flowed from between her lips, the saliva dripping from the corners of her mouth thick and syrupy. Her eyes, with the rings more visible, felt like something they’d use to hypnotize you in an old cartoon. Except I feared the longer I stared, the more effective it’d be. It was more alarming that I had the urge to keep staring. Perhaps it was already working on me.
“And don’t you ever make this one repeat herself about it again.” I nodded quickly in response.
Tris’ face was flushed red.
I realized pretty soon after why she was practically panting. My split lip was dripping blood, small rivulets forming right in the center. I licked at it quickly and could see a scowl forming on her face.
“A…anyway. Seeing as this is my home, and you’re going to be living here,” I began, trying to get up as I noticed the owl’s claws retract a little, leaving noticeable puncture marks in the armrest, “I’m going to make myself something to eat. If you tried to drain my blood right now, I’d probably die.”
Trismegistus seemed to consider this. I hadn’t noticed it before, but the robe she wore draped over her downy fur-covered body was rather grandiose. Fading gold trim lined the neck and accented her feather colors nicely. I imagined if I complimented the various trinkets hanging from her robes, she’d turn her nose up like a bird and say something like “of course, human.” The idea was almost cute.
“I will allow you to prepare food for sustenance. Should you wish it, this one has memorized the contents of millions of cookbooks.”
I nodded slowly, trying to do that kind of dismissive “uh-huh, okay,” thing you do when the annoying coworker who talks too much is speaking to you long past the time they should’ve stopped. But in this case it was more because I was worried that if I didn’t, she’d rip me in half with her mind.
Or, you know, her talons.
“I’m just going to go make a sandwich. It’s late, and I’m also missing like a quarter of my vital fluid. You can eat sandwiches, right?” I kind of slinked around her, stroking her chin in thought, to hurry into the kitchen.
“No need for that. Between your… rather luxurious blood and my previous meal, this one’s hunger is satiated for the time bei-” Tris’ response was interrupted by a hacking cough. Loud enough to echo through the hall into the kitchen. I trepidatiously made my way back to the living room, peering around the doorway. Perhaps she was allergic to my blood. Maybe she’d leave me alone?
Wrong on both counts. Scattered on the rug directly in front of a keeled-over, panting Trismegistus was a pile of rather human-looking bones, covered in a mixture of slime and what appeared to be regurgitated blood. There was no tissue on them, so I could only assume that this was her “previous meal”.
I could make out a pretty obvious femur. For all those teeth, I expected her to at least crunch the bones.
“And here I thought all that blood was yours.” I thought closely about the rainwater and red liquid drenching the raincoat I had wrapped Tris’ weakened form in to avoid messing up my car. I guess it didn’t make sense for something as small as she was at the time to bleed like that, but I could barely see what I was doing.
The rain-slick concrete outside had started to produce mist. The kind that only occurred when it was humid out. Given the temperature, it seemed strange.
“Don’t be silly, human. If this one bled that much, I’d be dead.” Tris attempted to scoff, still regaining her composure from her coughing fit. “I had just finished consuming far inferior human flesh for sustenance when I passed out in the street.”
“I… you ate an entire person?” Staring down at the human bones at her feet, I suddenly wasn’t so hungry for that salami and cheese I was planning to make.
“According to this one’s research, he was some kind of felon. The world will not miss one of his kind.” She sounded so sure, I couldn’t help but nod. I kind of just stared at her again, after painstakingly asking her to move those bones somewhere I wouldn’t be an immediate suspect for a police investigation. She nodded in agreement, remarking that it was “a fair trade”.
“Leave your window open, human. Otherwise, I will shatter it upon re-entry.” Tris warned me, talons gripping my windowsill, her body contorted unnaturally so she could speak to me before she took off. In a gust of wind, the owl demon flew off towards the woods a mile or two away from my apartment building, bundle of bones in hand. With the myriad of magical Hell powers Trismegistus seemingly had, I wondered if she could just pass through walls or something. Ah, but according to her, and my begrudging agreement, she lives here now. I left the window unlocked.
“That ought to be enough. This eternal demon librarian should be able to operate a window.”
A few hours later, I was woken up by what I could only explain as “the aura that someone staring at you while you’re asleep gives off.” my eyes shot open and were met immediately by two glowing green orbs, unblinking and locked directly on me. Trismegistus’ wings blocked out the rising sun attempting to shine through my pulled curtains. Her raptorial talons clung to my bedroom windowsill, claws digging into the shitty, chipping wood. For a second, I felt like it was one of those sleep paralysis demons.
“Human. This one hungers.” She spoke, her voice sounding almost like she was requesting, but more likely than not, demanding.
Yeah, it wasn’t a sleep paralysis demon. It was a librarian. I sat up in bed and saw she had dropped a pile of books by my bedside.
“I procured these. Your collection was lacking, so this one came and went overnight.”
There were several manga I was missing from the shoddy collection in my entryway bookcase. Knowing full well that Trismegistus had murdered and eaten some kind of woods-dwelling criminal seemingly hours before I “rescued” her, I was really reluctant to ask. I raised a finger, as if to even begin to inquire. Seemingly knowing what I was going to ask, she turned her beaklike nose up at me and replied.
“This one purchased them. I left the vendors a single pinion from my beautiful coat. A single filoplume could keep them in business for a decade.” I was too groggy to think of anything snarky. I also couldn’t even see anything special about her feathers in the dark.
“And how did you get into a bookstore at five AM?” I asked.
“I willed myself through the wall. To be exact, this one willed the wall out of existence for but a moment.” Tris seemed proud that her powers were already returning. No wonder she was hungry.
“Then why did you need my window open?”
“Because if you had locked it, I couldn’t return. This one simply tricked you into a nonverbal contract.”
I sighed, resigned to my fate, and turned my forearm upside down, presenting it to Trismegistus. She licked her lips in anticipation.
Hell, if I passed out from blood loss, at least I’d get a few more hours’ sleep.
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