Chapter 1
I was 6 years old the first time I summoned a demon. I’m lucky that the demon I summoned was one that respected purity and innocence.
My parents were occultists, magicians, sorcerers, and my education in the occult sciences began practically from the moment I came into the world. By 6, I was beginning self-guided Latin lessons, and my father had told me to practice composing Latin phrases and sentences. This is how I came to string together the phrases which resulted in my first summoning of Furfur.
Furfur is a Great Earl of Hell, the ruler of 29 legions of demons. Normally a liar, he did not lie to me on our first meeting. Instead, he stood before me in human countenance, looking at first around the room and then down at my small form.
“Do not tell me,” he said, one corner of his mouth turning up in a slight grin, “that it was you who has brought me here?”
“I—I…” I stammered, unable to find the words, so frightening was it to me to have this stranger suddenly appear in my bedroom. I pointed down to the worksheet on which I’d penned my phrases. He looked again around the room, then his shape shifted and whorled, his body seeming to change shape and size. Where there stood a tall, broad, ominous bulk of a man with a full black beard and a wild head of black hair, there now stood a smaller, younger man, clean shaven with longish but less wild black hair, thin with a long face and slender hands.
“So it was you, child?” he asked, his voice less gruff and fear-inducing than it had previously been. He lowered himself to the floor beside me, reaching out to pick up one of the worksheets and gazed at the writing. “It was!” he exclaimed, then looked back to me in wonder. “Do you know what I am? Who I am?”
I shook my head, my eyes wide. I no longer feared him, but I was still apprehensive about this stranger in my presence.
“I am Furfur,” he said, and I giggled. His eyes widened in amusement and he chuckled. “Yes…I guess in this day and age especially, it probably is a comical name.” He leaned closer, then murmured in confidence, “It means ‘bran’ in Latin…so…perhaps you should call me that.” I nodded.
“I am a demon,” he said, raising a hand as if to ward off any fear I may have felt. “But do not fear me, little one. I mean you no harm.” He picked up another of my worksheets. “This is very nice work. Wise work.” He pointed at a particular phrase. “This is the phrase which brought me here.” He slid down to sit on the floor, his back against my bed, and patted the floor beside him. I hesitated for only a moment, then did as he wished.
“You see this here,” he continued, his long slender index finger pointing at the words on the worksheet. “These are the precise words used to summon me…usually for nefarious purposes, for humans to bind me to do their bidding.” He smiled down at me. “That’s not why you called me here, is it?”
I shook my head. “I didn’t even know I had called you,” I said quietly.
“No, it’s obvious you didn’t know.” He ran a hand through his hair. “If you had – called me here to bind me and do your bidding, though – you would have done it incorrectly, and you’d not likely still be here. You’d be a pile of ash there where you were standing.” He touched my shoulder. “I don’t take kindly to being bound and given orders, do you understand?” I nodded. “So what are we to do, child?”
I shrugged. “I suppose I could write down those words and make sure I never use them again…”
“What use would that be to us?” he said. “I can show you the proper way to call me, and a way that would mean safety for you and truth for me.” He grinned at me. “You see, I have a certain reputation for being deceptive…unless I am summoned into a demon’s triangle. When summoned into such a triangle, I am unable to lie.”
