Page 3 of Hexes From Exes

“To what purpose?” the demon asked.

“Revenge,” Chad said, his voice stronger now.

“Yes of course, I’m a revenge demon. What revenge?”

Chad cast a nervous glance to the others, who were all staring at the demon with the same look of utter horror on their face. Tom looked more intrigued than anything else.

“On a woman,” Chad said. “Her name is Stephanie Porter.”

“And what has this woman done to deserve revenge?” the demon asked. Chad could have sworn he sounded bored, like the fact that he’d been summoned just because of a woman was an inconvenience. As if their very valid concerns were something to roll his eyes at. Some customer service, Chad thought angrily.

“She used and abused us all,” Chad said. “She’s lied to us, likely cheated.”

“Ah, a cheater, I see,” said the demon.

“Well, probably,” interrupted Fred.

The demon turned to look at him. “Probably?” he questioned.

Fred nodded. “We don’t know for sure…but it seems likely. It’s the best explanation.”

“I see,” the demon said, then shrugged. “It’s of no matter, what curse do you wish to give her? And what price are you willing to pay?”

“We are offering up our souls,” said Chad. The demon tilted his head, considering. “Of course. I will take it. And the punishment?”

“We want her to have a taste of her own medicine,” Chad said, a smile slowly spreading over his face. “We want her to fall in love with someone she can’t have.”

“It is done,” the demon said, stepping back into the middle of the circle.

“Wait,” Chad said, taking a step toward the demon, stopping when its gaze snapped on him. “How will we know that it worked?” Chad asked, halting suddenly.

“It will,” the demon said, his voice heavy with annoyance.

The candles blew out again, and when they flickered back to life the five men were alone once more.

Chapter Two

Rick really hated being summoned by fucking humans.

He knew he should be grateful - from what he’d heard the revenge business wasn’t what it used to be. The older revenge demons had lots of stories about the glory days - back when you could curse a whole village or ruin an entire royal line. Now? With the cyberbullying and other human advents there was no need for mysticism to really take someone down. Hell, half the time people ruined themselves without any supernatural assistance.

Still, Rick found himself busier than the other revenge demons.

He landed in the portal used to transport demons back and forth to the human realm with a groan, feeling his knees buckle at the impact. Getting old was no fun and having to be summoned like that really did a number on your joints. He gritted his teeth as he stepped off the platform.

“Welcome back, Rick!” said Jerry, the demon in charge of the transport platform. He was a short demon, easily older than time itself, that oversaw all the transports in and out of the demon realm of Anathamea. There weren’t very many, given that interaction between demons and humans was pretty limited over the last few centuries. Something about demons possessing people en masse and getting the human church involved - it was a messy business. Rick heard there were some underground ways to get to the human realm but honestly, he had no interest in spending any more time than he absolutely had to there.

First of all, he couldn’t just walk around in his demon form. Well, he could, but it would cause a lot of problems. He had to don his human disguise, some piece of magic that was crafted by mages for those in his line of work to let him walk amongst the humans like one of them. Clever, really, but uncomfortable. If you’ve ever been shrunken down nearly a whole foot maybe you’d understand.

Rick didn’t respond to Jerry, choosing instead to grunt in his general direction. He heard Jerry mutter an insult under his breath. Rick didn’t even acknowledge it, instead turning to stomp out of the portal area and head to his office. He hoped his unfriendly demeanor would keep anyone else away from him.

Inside the office his annoyance only compounded - it was full of other fucking demons. It was bad enough that he’d been summoned while he was in the middle of taking a nap, now he had to return to a bustling office on limited sleep. He preferred doing his research at night when no one else was in the building to bother him.

Rick made a beeline for his cubicle and practically collapsed onto his chair, rubbing his temples at the base of his horns. He flicked open his laptop and listened to the whine as it started up, remembering that he needed to send a ticket into IT to fix it before it crashed again. Honestly, human technology was such a pain in the ass sometimes. Why they didn’t use magic for everything in Anathamea was a fucking mystery to him. He cracked his neck and drummed his fingers on the desk while he waited for the impossibly slow thing to start up.

“Hey Rick…oh, jeez, you look like shit man,” said Zed, his cubicle partner and perhaps only friend.

“I got summoned,” Rick said angrily, tapping random buttons on the keyboard when the laptop didn’t immediately start up. Zed peered over Rick’s shoulder, tsking. “You still haven’t gotten that checked out?”