Chapter Text
The streets of Richmond were busy that September evening. The day was sunny and warm, but as the sun set, cold fog descended and Vincent could see his own breath. But he knew that this would happen. He was a weatherman, Mr Whittman from the news station.
His job was... not what he anticipated. Sure, he was amazing: charming, careful, hard-working, always making sure that his smile brightened the day of everyone watching the program, even when he had to warn about dangerous snow storms and dreadful heatwaves. The little discus fish pin on his lapel shone underneath the flashlights, giving him courage to continue climbing up the ladder.
One day he will be the biggest fish in the news industry.
That was a goal he gave to himself the day his producer shook his hand. It’s been nearly eight years since then and Vincent was still just a weatherman. Nothing was going to give him the fame and recognition his colleague, news reporter Arnold Nate. He was constantly showered in praise as he spoke about all the events Vincent could report on much better, together with that annoying bitch, Sarah Elinore. If Vincent ever becomes a reporter, Sarah will be kicked out immediately! Women should stay at home and cook for their husbands, not screech with their annoying voices all over the news! She only got the job because she was a blonde with big tits anyways!
Vincent grinds his teeth as cold invades his long leather coat. He should have bought a car already! He is 32 and he doesn’t have a car! Of course that he can’t get a normal woman to fall in love with him! They are all gold-digging bitches who think that if a man doesn’t earn as much as an entrepreneur that he isn’t a good marriage material. Maybe he should marry some stupid immigrant that passes as white and have as many kids with her as possible. Maybe then he will get a promotion. He knows that the industry loves family men!
One such immigrant woman bumps into him on the street. She is short, with a black bob cut and her eyes show Vincent that she’s Asian. Definitely doesn’t pass as white, but she at least speaks English fluently.
“Excuse me!” She screams in a high-pitched voice and falls on all fours collecting some strange papers that she dropped after colliding with Vincent. For some reason, they piqued his interest and he offers to help the woman, mostly so that he could read what was on them.
“Oooh, a gentleman!” She giggles with too much enthusiasm for his liking, so he ignores her.
The papers had her handwriting on them, all in red and, thankfully, in English. But it seemed like a very detailed scheme of instructions on how to summon a being she called “Radio Demon”. So, a bunch of nonsense. Of course.
“Do you need one of these, mister?” The woman asks him, smiling way too wide.
“Uh, no”, he made a step back. “Have a nice day, madam!”
She grabbed his hand, however: “You look like someone who needs Radio Demon’s help!”
She stared at him intensely. He noticed that one of her eyes must be glass. Has she had a lobotomy? Is that why she’s this crazy?
“You seem like you have an obstacle in your way”, she continued. “Radio Demon can clean it for you! Clean, clean and nifty!”
Cold chills ran down Vincent’s spine. He swallowed: “What do you mean?”
“Nifty!” She cackled. “Nifty had an obstacle, but he is no more! Nifty is free! Free!”
Did this woman kill someone?
“You can be free too!” She offered him a pamphlet. “Just call the Radio Demon!”
Vincent’s fingers shook as he reached for the piece of paper. This was madness. But he wanted to get rid of that woman as soon as possible. His fingers clasped the edge of the pamphlet and it slid out of the woman’s small hand.
“Have a nice evening, mister!” The woman waved and practically danced away from him, jumping from one foot to another until she disappeared into the fog.
Vincent put the paper inside his coat and rushed home.
He arrived to his apartment on the fifth floor in a frenzy. His hair was disheveled from running through the fog, he breathed heavily and took off his coat, realizing that he was all sweaty underneath it. It was a good thing he lived alone, or his wife would have nagged him all evening.
He stared at the handwritten piece of paper that he got. Somehow, the words blurred in front of his eyes. He cleaned his glasses, over and over again, but his panic continued to blur the text. He went into the kitchen, grabbed an unopened bottle of whiskey he held onto, hoping to open it on the day of his promotion. He felt bad doing it now, but he never had more urge to drink something strong than now.
He filled a glass and downed it in one go. The alcohol burned his throat, making him cough. But once it settled in his empty stomach, he felt warm. He laughed.
Demons? Seriously? Did he really get this worked up because a crazy woman offered him a pamphlet? Vincent didn’t need any demons! He was a good Christian man. So what if he didn’t have luck with the promotion? Rome wasn’t built in a day!
Still, he put the weird piece of paper inside a drawer of his desk. Somehow, some delusional part of his brain was telling him that he might need it someday.
***
“Good morning, crew!” Mr Douglas, Vincent’s boss, greeted the news station workers as they drank their morning coffee. “I have great news for some of you!”
Vincent’s mismatched eyes sparkled in excitement. It was October 10th, the day when promotions were usually given. He gleefully curled up his fists, anticipating to open his hand any moment now and proudly shake Douglas’ hand.
“Mr Oates, Mr Peterson, Mr Cavernacle and Mrs Whittaker, congratulations on your promotions!” Douglas smiled and began to clap as the four people he called out rose from their seats to thank him.
Everyone around Vincent clapped, so he joined the noisy crowd. But he felt numb. He didn’t notice that he was clapping with his hands so hard that the skin of his palms turned white, then red. People were congratulating his colleagues, Sarah was even crying, that stupid overly emotional whore. But Vincent was the one who deserved the promotion just as much as those four. He worked here for nearly 8 years. Who in their right mind would not promote him!?
That day he wore a mask more sinisterly. He smiled after predicting more cold and foggy weather. It was always cold and foggy in autumn in Virginia. It was cold and foggy in Vincent’s field of view. He could barely subdue the shaking of his hand as he pointed from one city to another with his baton. His smile surely seemed more manic than pleasant. He needed to keep the act. He couldn’t lose this job.
He began to walk home, refusing to join the promotion party under the excuse that he had a massive headache. Sarah wished him a quick recovery and even offered him some herbal drops to help him if he caught a cold. He thanked her in the most polite way he could muster and barely controlled himself from slamming the door as he left.
He felt sick. Maybe that ragu he had for lunch wasn’t all that good? To be fair, he barely ate a couple of spoons. The meat tasted cold and foggy on his tongue.
As he walked down the street, a familiar memory sprung into his mind. This was where he collided with that Asian woman who gave him those papers. He grit his teeth. They still were in his desk drawer.
What an idiot he was. A bunch of scrambled words of a lunatic claiming to be able to summon a demon through the radio. But he did read them. Many times, actually. Somehow, it was fun to think of him being able to get higher power and watch everyone plummet. To give his soul to the devil, get them all to burn and grab what he deserved.
Too bad all of that junk is fantasy.
He shook his head and caught a glimpse of a butcher shop nearby. They were selling venison. It was an exclusive thing, rarely they had anything more exotic than a cow. The pamphlet flashed in front of Vincent’s eyes. Venison was one of the things needed to summon the so-called Radio Demon.
Am I really going to spend 10$ on a stupid deer leg?!
But the crazy Asian woman’s words echoed in his ears again.
Clean, clean and nifty!
That woman definitely killed someone.
Vincent walked inside the butcher shop and picked a nice, big piece of rump. It weighed like a carcass in his hand. This was not okay. He didn’t need promotion that bad. But, what could happen? Demons surely cannot be real, regardless of how much the preachers spoke about them. In worst case, he will end up with some extra meat in the freezer and probably have to go to the church more regularly. To atone for his sins. Just in case.
He went through the city, recollecting all the things he needed. Some incense sticks that he had to tie up in interesting patterns, driftwood, dried wild flowers, rye whiskey. He went from shop to shop spending so much of his money on that useless junk. The day was slowly turning into night as the bags in his hands weighed him further down. The fog that choked him the entire day finally lifted up, allowing him to see the tops of the buildings illuminated by the activity of people in the apartments within them and faint glow of street lamps. They seemed too close together, too tall, towering over Vincent, threatening to completely tip over and crush him under tons of cement and glass.
His mouth went dry as the buildings bent further and further. He began to run, feeling the tears in his eyes, tears of desperation, anger and fear. He had no reason to buy any of this, no reason to be so mad, no reason to spend the entire day walking in the cold. His toes stung from how frozen they were, even though his shoes were relatively high quality.
He knew that people were watching him as he ran, people who might have watched him almost break down in his weather segment on the morning news, people who might stop him to ask him if he was okay. He prayed to God that they wouldn’t because he knew that he would break down, fall on his knees and curse the Asian woman for ever giving him the instructions to summon a demon. He needed to burn them as soon as he got home!
But once he walked into the familiar apartment on the fifth floor, his will to destroy the piece of paper vanished. He deeply sighed, took off his coat and began to prepare everything for demon summoning. He felt so silly reading the instructions from the pamphlet again.
He decided that he’d have to perform the ritual in the kitchen. He didn’t want to put the meat he might get to eat later in the bathroom, and every other room in his apartment had wooden floors which he had no interest in cleaning from blood. He drew a complex summoning circle with a red chalk, then began to make strange figurines out of incense sticks. He was certain that this was some form of exotic black magic, there was nothing Christian about using sticks and driftwood to create enchanting symbols. Vincent tied the figures with some threads and used some Scotch tape to glue them to the ceiling. He had to make sure that they hung in right positions, reflecting the symbols he drew on the floor.
That was the hardest part. Now, he just needed to scatter the dried wild flowers he got from one of those fancy arrangements in a flower shop. The petals will be a chore to clean, but it didn’t matter all that much to him. He could take a day off work tomorrow anyways, since he already claimed that he was sick.
Once the petals were all over the symbols on the kitchen floor, Vincent brought a radio from the living room and plugged it in instead of his toaster. Radio Demon seemed to prefer jazz music, which Vincent favored as well, but he still felt odd thinking about it. He turned on his favorite music station and jovial melody filled the room. Somehow, under the tunes of trumpets and piano, this whole ridiculous scene seemed more reasonable than ever. He unwrapped the raw meat and placed it in the center of the summoning circle, together with the rye whiskey.
Now he just needed to seal it all with blood.
He couldn’t get his hands to move, though.
This was stupid. He felt stupid. Ridiculous, even! Demons aren’t real!
Do I need a promotion this badly?
But he remembered the praise, the applause, Sarah’s idiotic face...
I can try.
He grabbed a bunch of gauze from an old first aid kit he had from the time he was in the army. He will need something to wrap around a wound he was about to inflict on himself.
The long kitchen knife reflected the smooth surface of his skin. He grit his teeth as the sharp edge of the blade leaned onto his flesh. His heart was beating in his ears. He was very young. What if he dies from this idiotic ritual? Don’t deer spread all kinds of diseases?
Fuck it!
He grit his teeth so hard that they started to hurt. The pain in his mouth was dulled by the agony of his wrist. Hot red stream gushed from underneath his blade, leaking onto the meat on the floor. Vincent watched mesmerized as his blood trickled down the slab of flesh, adding a much brighter accent color to it. He held his breath as his pulse went up.
The summoning formula! I have to recite this shit before I bleed out!
He fixed his glasses with his elbow as he picked up the paper he was given. He took a few deep breaths and began to read.
“Vene foris, Vox de Tenebris!
Te invoco, Daemon Radiophonum!
Sois prêt à manger!”
Vincent was very confused about the usage of both Latin and French in the invocation, but his confusion didn’t last long. It was replaced with awe, as the blood on the floor began to glow and slide off the slab of meat, following the pattern he drew underneath it.
Thin streams of red fluid turned into hot light that illuminated his entire kitchen. The figurines he hung from the ceiling were throwing deeper and deeper shadows as all other sources of light abruptly died out. The floor appeared to crumble and cave in as kitchen tiles got separated by the glowing streams of blood. The music from the radio began to distort into unbearable noise, then static, than some deep hum and screeching of wild animals.
Vincent wanted to run, but his shoes were glued to the floor. His eyes could see nothing but the glowing red hole he created in his own kitchen. Putrid smell rushed inside his nostrils as more and more shadows gathered all over his walls. They didn’t have eyes, yet he felt so seen by them. His mouth was dry, every hair on his body was standing up, he trembled and yet he stood there as undeniable proof that demons do indeed exist crawled out of the hole.
It was an impossibly thin, impossibly tall man whose eyes were glowing just as red as the hole that closed underneath his feet. Which were not human feet. He had hooves, like a deer, as well as a pair of antlers that grew between fluffy ears on top of his head. He was dressed in all red suit and black pants, holding a strange staff with a black hand adorned with crimson claws. The skin of his face was dark grey and permanently stretched into a wide grin full of dagger-like yellow teeth. The entity reeked, but Vincent was too perplexed to say a word.
“Greetings, Vincent!” The demon spoke, causing Vincent to jump back. His voice sounded as if he was speaking through an old radio microphone and his trans-Atlantic accent was making it even more pronounced. He sounded more like a friendly radio host than a being from Hell. No wonder they called him ”Radio Demon”.
“I, uh, I, guh”, Vincent struggled to find words. “You... How do you know my name?”
“I’m a demon from Hell, Vincent”, the creature pointed out the obvious. “That’s kind of our thing. Besides, you used your own blood in the ritual. That is kind of unusual! The people who summon me usually douse me in the blood of their victims!”
“Victims?” Vincent went pale. “So that Asian woman... The one who gave me the summoning spell... She did kill someone?”
“Ah, my darling Niffty!” The demon fondly cackled. “Kanako Allison, born Jibiki. Her husband was a great offering.”
Vincent took a step back.
“She needed me to take care of him”, the demon continued. “And what do you want me to take care of?”
“I... uh... I wanted a promotion”, Vincent only now realized how stupid he sounded.
The demon blinked, stayed quiet for a second as buzzing noises echoed. Then he laughed out loud: “Promotion!? You summoned a demon to get a promotion!? You couldn’t have done it yourself?”
“I uh, I...” Vincent wasn’t going to be mocked after all the trouble he went through to summon this being. “I’ve been a diligent worker for over seven years and I never climbed the ladder!”
“Tough luck!” Radio Demon mocked. “I guess you’ll have to work harder then!”
“But, aren’t you a demon?” Vincent sounded like he was begging and he hated it. “From what I know, once I summon a demon, I’m supposed to sell my soul to get what I want!”
“You’d sell your soul for a promotion?”
A beat of silence.
“No”, Vincent said quietly. Then a spark formed in his eye. He remembered what he promised to himself: “But... I could sell my soul to become... powerful! To be able to crush those who stand in my path and climb up the ladder! I could... be at the top! I could become a god among men!”
“High aspirations”, the demon hummed. “That sounds more like a reason to summon a demon to me. So, you want to take over the TV network you work for, right?”
“H-how do you know that I work for...”
“Your own blood, Vincent”, he rolled his eyes. “I can know a lot about you just from the taste.”
And at that point, he raised one of the shadows from the floor. It carried some of Vincent’s blood on its finger, which the Radio Demon transferred to his own and licked it off with a long, inhuman tongue. Vincent’s throat bobbed. Why did he find that action... weirdly erotic?
“Now, let’s make a deal”, the demon offered his hand and the room was washed over by blinding neon green glow. “I will be able to give you the means to climb up the ladder, step by step. Regardless of what you do, nobody will ever suspect you. You will be able to crush your competition! Their souls will belong to me, just as yours will once you die.”
“Their... souls?” Vincent flinched. “Are you insinuating that I... that I’m going to kill people?”
“Do you think a demon offers his services to diligent little workers?” The constant grin on his face widened. “No, Vincent, I see so much more potential in you. Potential that, in right hands, could give you what you desire.”
Vincent’s gaze went from the demon’s open hand to his grinning face. His slit pupils were widened in anticipation. Kill people. Well, the ends justify the means, don’t they? Besides, what’s in it for him once he sells his soul? He didn’t know what this entity could even do to him if he refused.
Hesitantly, he lifted his hand: “Deal.”
The black hand with sharp claws wrapped around his own, the demon’s antlers growing in size, enough to leave scratches on the ceiling. The touch of his hand was cold, but not unpleasant. In fact, Vincent never felt such strong vigor coursing through his veins. What a glorious day!
“Well then, I shall be going!” Radio Demon let go of Vincent’s hand and gentlemanly smiled. “I have quite a lot of affairs to attend to in Hell!”
“Wait!” Vincent called as shadows enveloped the demon’s body. “Do you have a name? Something that I can call you besides Radio Demon?”
“Alastor”, he replied and sunk back to the Underworld in a flash of red.
Vincent was left alone in the kitchen, surrounded by shadows that the figurines he made were casting. All the lights were on again, the radio played music, smell of dried flowers and rot lingered in the air, but the venison and whiskey from the floor were gone, as well as the gash on Vincent’s wrist.
He scrambled to reach the bathroom, thinking that he’d vomit his soul out, but nothing came up after good fifteen minutes of hurling. He moved away from the toilet and washed his face with some cold water. The man in the mirror was definitely him, but his hair and gaze were those of a lunatic.
“A lunatic that will get a promotion!” He told to his reflection and began to laugh.
Maybe he did lose his mind, but he gained something better! He left the bathroom and went to clean the kitchen and prepare something for dinner.
***
Later in his bed, Vincent couldn’t get the image of the demon out of his head. Alastor, the tall, terrifying deer-man hybrid. Why the hell was his cock rising when he thought about him? It was true that Vincent had some unacceptable feelings towards other men, especially if they were taller than him, but... that thing? He didn’t even look human. And yet, Vincent felt nothing but hot pleasure as he stroked the length of his penis over and over again. He didn’t remember the last time he enjoyed a self-induced orgasm this much.
Damn he needed to change the underwear again.
He rummaged through the drawers in search of a clean pair of boxers, but he couldn’t get the image of those intense red eyes staring into his soul. The way that velvety voice spoke his name. Instead of boxers, Vincent got a napkin and went to ejaculate once again. He felt sick after doing it the second time. His cock painfully throbbed. He threw the napkin in the trash and went to wash his face again.
Was Alastor one of those succubus demons? Is Vincent going to be cursed to think about him day and night wondering what was underneath those old-fashioned red clothes? Did he have a tail?
Vincent slapped himself. He needed to concentrate. Should he call in sick tomorrow? Well, 1AM was not the best time to call his boss. He returned to bed, but couldn’t get himself to close his eyes.
Angry, he rushed to the kitchen and brought the radio from it to his room. He plugged it in the outlet where his bedside lamp usually stood and turned on that jazz station. Every male vocalist sounded like Alastor to him. Every love song felt like the demon whispering into his ears.
Oh, God and Devil almighty, that being must be a succubus, for sure!
How else could Vincent possibly explain falling asleep with his names on his lips?