Drunk on Shadows

There was a part of Chloe that almost believed him, about the summoning-her-from-hell thing. She had spent a lot of time lately feeling like she was going through a living hell. Holy shit, she thought, it would explain so much if I was actually summoned from hell, wouldn’t it?

“I… I don’t remember getting that old. I remember being old enough to go to high school. And… doing that. Not being a succubus.” Chloe was trying to convince herself as well as him. If any of the stuff he was saying was true, then why couldn’t she remember any of it being true?

He said he had proof. Proof that her entire life was a lie? That she was actually a sex demon he summoned from hell? She had to see this. But she also didn’t want to open herself up to anything threatening. “I’ll see your proof. And I’ll… and I’ll snap your neck if you try anything stupid. So… don’t.” Her voice was shaking with fear and uncertainty, but she still tried to sound threatening.

As Chloe expected, Loch entirely failed to prove to her that magic was real.

“You can turn into a horse,” she said, visibly unimpressed. “Like, don’t get me wrong. Shapeshifting is pretty weird. But it’s not magic.” she shrugged. “And I have the ability to drain strength from people by touching them, which is pretty fuckin weird, but that’s not magic. It’s genetic. And we’re both still human.” Chloe was saying these things as though they were widely accepted facts, as though you would need to be an ignorant child to draw any other conclusion about a boy who could turn into a horse. Loch could turn into a talking horse because of his genetics. Obviously. Chloe looked like a demon, walked like a demon, and quacked like a demon, so she was obviously a human with a rare genetic condition. Also obvious to anyone who knew anything.

Did Loch think she was born yesterday? Was he actually insane? Or was he just so drunk and high out of his mind that he believed what he was saying?

Without skipping a beat, she stood up, keeping the tail around his neck and looking down at him. Now, he would be able to see her legs. “…You said this was a school? Does anyone in charge here know what you’re doing?” If Loch was going to be useless to her, maybe someone else could help her get to the bottom of this. Or maybe that thought would scare him into dropping this charade.

“Yes,” Chloe confirmed. “I’ve had my horns for about a year, but before that I was just human.” She shrugged off his comment about never being human – lots of people in her position felt that way, about themselves and about her. It was just semantics. Her parents were both human, so she was human, as far as she was concerned.

But she wasn’t thinking about that. She was thinking about how none of her attempts to make sense of this situation were adding up. She was thinking about how she legitimately tricked Loch by pretending to be a succubus, and that he must legitimately believe in magic. And she was starting to think that Loch’s story might actually be true on some level. Chloe listened, with interest, as Loch mentioned getting approval from the ‘grand council.’

“Did… did the Grand Council also think it was cool for you to do this drunk? By yourself? I mean you look as old as I am, when you aren’t a horse.” She furrowed her eyebrows and stared at the floor. Slowly, her tone had softened – she was less demanding and scared, and more confused. “Why would any of this be okay?”

He did say that this was a magical school for fuckups. So it would make sense if the grand council were a bunch of grand fuckups too. Kind of?

Did she get bit? “It’s a genetic thing,” Chloerepeated. “It just sort of… ended up this way. Think, super-puberty.” That was the best way she could describe it.

Chloe listened to Loch attentively, then sighed and shook her head. She had reached a conclusion – this was all getting too elaborate and too stupid, to be some kind of deception. As she dutifully picked up the horse-boy’s demon-summoning tome, she removed her tail from around his neck. She could still change her mind and try to kill him if she had to, she told herself, but he didn’t seem like that much of a threat anymore.

The book looked ominous – bound in beat-up black leather with worn, yellowed pages. Leafing absentmindedly through a few of the pages, she saw indecipherable handwriting and elaborate diagrams of what she imagined to be summoning circles. “Latin,” she muttered to herself. It was her weakest subject in high school so far – she had already begun to regret taking it instead of French or Spanish. But maybe it would finally come in handy for her.

What had she been doing in hell, he asked. She couldn’t decide if this was a good question. “I don’t… think I was in hell,” she admitted with a shrug, “But I sure felt like it sometimes. And it would be kinda funny if my school was actual, literal hell.” A bitter chuckle. “If I did anything evil in a past life to deserve it, I don’t remember it.” But the not-remembering and not-understanding-her-suffering could have been part of the punishment. She couldn’t rule it out. Nor could she rule out being in a dream. She could rule out literally nothing about anything at this point. Except for this:

“…Oh, and uh, just so we’re both clear: I don’t tend to have sex with people I’ve just met. Or anyone else, really. I haven’t tried sex yet and I don’t feel like now’s a great time to start. Sorry.” She wasn’t terribly sorry, but it would probably be safer to let him down softly. Maybe he would cooperate, that way.

Chloe was looking back into the book. Specifically, at the pages it was open to when she picked it up. The diagram on the page resembled what was drawn on the floor, so it was probably the right page, but beyond that it was useless to her. She didn’t know what she was expecting to see – something that would tell her how to get un-summoned? Nasty thought – as much as it would make sense, she really hoped it didn’t involve pleasuring her summoner.

That comment about an ‘Aurora’ person came just in time; she’d rather not spend too much time thinking about… with a horse, even?

“Who’s Aurora?” Chloe asked, visibly agitated, forcing herself to focus intently on this line of inquiry. “Is she someone who could fix this?”

That couldn’t possibly be comfortable, Chloe thought. For either of us. Chloe breathed in sharply, realizing that she was still thinking about it. Now she was even more agitated. She didn’t want to be thinking about… that, especially not in that much detail, but she couldn’t get it out of her head. The more she tried to suppress the thought, the more forcefully it fought to stand at the forefront of her mind.