“Dude! Hey you okay?” A very different face loomed over me when I opened my eyelids, mop of blond hair, blue-grey eyes and a sharp stubble swathed chin. It belonged to Fred, my frequent after work drinking buddy.

  “Uuuh,” I looked around. We were on the edge of the parking lot. I sat on a concrete median, leaning up against a light pole. Not too many cars were left, which gave me an unimpeded view of nearly two dozen vehicles with fshing lights clustered around the entrance. My lungs still ached, and I saw Xianta’s name every time I blinked, but I appeared to be otherwise whole. “Guess so?”

  He made a disgruntled noise from deep in his throat. “Dude, you fucking worried me! I started to think you were the dude who got stuck inside with a frigging Chaos Demon! And here you are taking a nap? Duuuude answer your fuckin texts.”

  “Chaos Demon?” I asked, the ache in my lungs spreading to my head as I tried to figure out what was going on.

  “Yeah! Crazy right?” Fred nodded eagerly, expression lighting up with excitement. “The MDA guy called for backup immediately and refused to do anything until they had a small army. Told us it was a level seven entity at least! That’s like reality melting or some shit.”

  “Level Seven… that's like limited causality rewriting, right?” I said, trying to remember all the… purely recreational reading I’d been studying since getting dumped st month.

  Fred shrugged. “Reality melting, like I said. Hope it didn’t turn the store into a jungle or ancient temple or nothing. If corporate has to close the store due to magical contamination, that's gonna suck.”

  “Huh… yeah.” I stopped myself from assuring him that Xianta hadn’t seemed interested in rearranging the scenery. My brain finally putting it together that she’d teleported me clear of the building. Probably saving me from weeks or months of MDA custody, as they made sure I didn’t sprout tentacles or anything. Longer if they could detect the name on the inside of my eyelids. Actually, Freddy appeared to be the only employee. “Is anybody else around?”

  “Oh no. They told us all to clear out like an hour ago.” He said. “Even the news vultures are staying away.”

  “And you… we’re still here because?” I asked and winced as the ache in my head sharpened.

  Freddy’s face twisted with pain, “I was… worried about you but since you were…” He clenched his teeth, “never innnside.” He gave a relieved gasp, shoulders slumping. “You’re my ride home.”

  Oh… yeah, that's right. I blinked, feeling a push on my mind as the memory crystalized. Freddy’s driver's license was suspended due to a DUI, I’d been driving him to work when we shared hours, which was pretty often. But hadn’t he gotten his license back months ago? I shook my head. Maybe he had a few days left after all.

  “I think I need a drink.” I said.

  “Now there’s an idea!” Freddy spped my back to dispy his enthusiasm. “There we go! Who cares that it's barely noon!”

  We went and found my car, a Big Box Mart approved aqua blue SUV and headed to our favorite bar, TaDED, short for Bill and Ted’s Excellent Dive. Good food, cheaper beer, a couple TVs and a pair of cute fey touched waitresses. One of those waitresses, Alice, damn near bowled Freddy over when we got in the door.

  “Oof!” The air rushed out of Freddy's lungs as a four and a half foot tall woman smmed her armored head into his chest and hugged him with two scaley arms.

  “You’re okay?! I heard about the store! Did the MDA come?” She squealed, long tail wagging, it nailed the ‘please wait to be seated’ sign and sent it crashing to the ground.

  “We’re fine Alice. The MDA just told us to clear out. No biggie.” Freddy patted her dusky colored ptes that protected her head, careful not to touch her rge triangur ears while fshing me a pained grin. Those armored ptes extended down her back, arms, and tail. Her hands and feet bore thick cws. An encounter with a fey blended her anatomy with that of a Pangolin back when she’d been a teen. Nobody knew if she the excitable golden retriever personality had come before or after. Or at least I’ve never been so bold to ask.

  She lifted her head to stare soulfully up at Freddy with her overly rge brown eyes. “You stay away from them, Fredrick. Far away.”

  “Yes ma’am.” Freddy gave her a small salute. “Can we get a table now?”

  Her broad nose at the end of a blunt muzzle gave a little sniff. She let him go and pointed her soot at me. After a single tentative sniff, her eyes widened a tad. “You too Gav,” she whispered. “You stink of magic. Stay far away from the MDA until it fades.”

  “Alice, it's fine.” I smiled at her.

  She gave me a frown as she grabbed a pair of unnecessary menus and led us to a table in the corner of the bar. Alice’s dislike of the MDA is well known. I can only imagine the hell they put her through after she escaped whatever fey that had altered her species. Most people get tempted by the Fey at least once growing up. Most of us tell them to take a hike, like we’re supposed to. Those that take them up on their offer usually disappear for a few years and come back changed in some way or another. Changes as radical as Alice’s are rare. The other fey touched waitress, Sasha, has a cat’s tail and a pair of wings. Both had to go through the MDA’s “society reentry” program, which from recent investigative journalist stories is like going through nine different types of hells, to get employment papers. Even then, it's tough for them to get past entry level in any corporation.

  Its a hell by design. Dreams of a cushy job was definitely one of the reason I turned down a satyress’s invitation to walk with her into the woods a decade ago. Sadly, those dreams never worked out.

  “Are you compining to each other about women or coworkers today?” Alice returned to a cheery tone as we took our seats.

  Freddy grinned. “Three months since Gavin got dumped so probably women.”

  “We talk about other things!” I protested, feeling a flush of warmth spreading across my cheeks.

  She snorted, her eyes dancing with amusement. “Pleeease, you two are predictable as an old married couple. You order dark beers and burgers when you talk about women. When you dump on your boss its pizza and gers. The only reason you don’t date each other is you’d lose one of those very limited conversation options.” A wink softened the observation a tad but…

  My eyes met Freddy’s, and he held my gaze, a strange questioning look on his face.

  “Naaah,” I exhaled, turning away. “I’m not dating this asshole, I know what he does in his spare time.”

  “Yeah,” Freddy added, “We have no interest in your ssher fan fic Alice. And to further muddle your reality I shall have have a whiskey sour and the Reuben. So there!”

  “Mmmmm.” Alice stuck out the tip of her tongue at him before turning to me. “How bout you Gavin? Spicing things up too?”

  I considered it but then I blinked, saw the name etched into the inside of my eyelids, and remembered the sensation of twin tongues coiling around my heart. There’d been enough weirdness for one day. “Gimmie the porter and the bacon cheddar burger.”

  “Comin' right up.” Alice turned and made for the kitchen.

  As soon as she was out of what would be an earshot for a human Freddy leaned over the table.

  “Fishing isn’t weird!” He hissed. “Its a perfectly normal, mainstream sport.”

  I grinned, “Sure it is. Sitting there letting the sun just bake you, staring at little piece of pstic for hours in the vain hope of some dumb creature is gonna be duped by a snack on a barb hook.”

  “Its skill!” He insisted, “You gotta read the water, know the bait…” He continued into a very familiar diatribe about the glories of fishing. I leaned back and let it wash over me. There was no better way to rile Freddy up than to dis fishing. I don’t do it very often because I generally prefer we have a two way conversation. Today though I was kinda afraid that if I got to talking it be about why my lips still tingled and what hooves sound like on concrete. Still, once the meal came Freddy had to pause to take a bite of his sandwich.

  I chuckled, “Unless your jumping in the water and trying to grab those fish with your teeth, its still boring to me.”

  “Its way cheaper than paying out two paychecks of a sary for the right to strap pnks to your feet and go careening down a mountain for a week.” He countered with a smirk.

  “Its not that expensive!” I protested, although saving for my annual ski trip had gotten way harder since the nearest ski area had closed due to ‘Yeti Issues.’ We continued to bicker like a pair of grumpy old men until Freddy started to discuss that time when an imp had gotten into the store. At that point I decided that I’d use the rest of the afternoon to do some chores that I’d been putting off. We paid the bill, I dropped Freddy off and I went home.

  I walked into my tiny studio apartment, flipped on the lights and stared at myself. To make thespace feel a little bigger, both sliding doors to my closet were mirrored.

  Etch my name upon a mirror and sleep within its reflection. Then we shall py a game.

  “No.” I said to the empty room. “That be a bad idea.”

  It be so easy though. I’d just have to fold the murphy bed down from the wall to sleep within the reflection. Then I’d see her again and… I shook the thought away.

  “She’s a demon!” I told my reflection. “She probably wants to eat my soul or something.”

  My reflection nodded and sighed despondently.

  I went to my comfortable and cheap Big Box Mart couch and pulled off one of the seat cushions. Not the best pce to hide my small library of banned books, but its not like I’ve got anything bound in human skin. All basic stuff on fey bargaining and demonology. Nothing with power, nothing that contains Names.

  The Names are thing, you can carve a pentagram, fill it with blood and light as many mood candles as you want. Without a Name, its just a sticky fire hazard. Not that I knew first hand or anything. About a decade ago, while a friend and I were starting a business together, my car broke down, stranding me in the middle of no where. As I stepped outside a fawn greeted me. Six feet tall so long as you included her massive rack of antlers. Her ears flicked nerviously but a hint of a smirk betrayed her apparent bashfulness while the bulge in her skirt hinted at activities other than walking.

  I did what you’re supposed to do. What countless teachers, PSAs and parents scold into you. I told her to sod off, politely, firmly, and with a smile. She frowned, her shoulders slumped in disappointment, and then walked back towards the forest. I too, should have turned and continued on my way, proud that I had resisted temptation. Instead, I kept watching as the shadows of the trees slowly blurred her outline and all I could see was the gentle bobbing of white deer tail in the darkness. Just as I lost track of it, two points of light fshed where her head would be, eyes gncing back at me.

  Pity, you have potential. Together we could have realized it. Her voice whispered as if she had never stepped away.

  A year ter, after the business had left me and investors (aka my parents and grandparents) with nothing, I wished I had gone into the woods with her, or asked for her name. Ever since, whenever I get dumped, id off or really pissed off, I prod at these pulpy magic books and wonder what would have happened if I follow that woman’s white tail into those woods. Never would have lost all that money and I’d be… what? Still a low ranked retail employee but hiding a deer tail in my pants, living in arcadia or maybe… one of those wizards who build towers in the clouds?

  I plucked Raba Nezzer’s guide to demons from my library and flipped to the appendix, Under false demons where I recalled a listing on Chaos Demons.

  It is important to understand that so called Chaos Demons are not true demons but more akin to the spirits of dreams and nightmares. While the motivations of demons are set in eternal stone, the goals Chaos Demons are the stuff of whimsy, while they might desire a soul, but only in the same way a cat might desire a ball of yarn. Do not deal with them, they’re bound to their agreements only by the individual’s sense of honor and leave themselves more wiggle room than even the fey.

  I snorted at the warning, Raba’s own story had hardly ended well once the MDA found him. Closing the book, I shut my eyes and stared into the Name there. Xianta. What did she want?

  Suddenly heat pulsed at the base of my cock and the taste of her tongues flooded my mouth. Seized by need, I threw myself onto the couch, straddled a cushion between my legs and humped it for all I was worth. After a few minutes of thoughtless grinding, I came with a gasp of relief.

  Her voice slithered through my afterglow; Will you wear a colr for me? Or shall you earn a key to whatever you wish to be?

  Shakily I got up and went to the mirror. Using my keys, I scratched first an ‘X’ and then an ‘I’ into its surface. Then I realized what I was doing and the dropped the keys. Summoning her to my apartment? What was I thinking? The MDA would be banging on my door within twenty minutes.

  My reflection stared back at me, deep circles beneath its eyes. Its face sck with exhaustion. The clock above the door made me swallow hard. The little hand pointed toward eight. It been hours since I got home. I stumbled back from the mirror and fell down onto the mattress of my murphy bed. When had I pulled that down? Staring up at the popcorn ceiling, I frantically searched my memory for answers but found nothing but slowly, ever so carefully, scratching the letters into the mirror.

  Rolling over so I could gaze into the mirror, I saw the letters. They were far more than simple marks but patterns that unduted through the space within the mirror. Snaking, slithering, moving on their own in ways that hurt my mind.

  I blinked to clear my vision and suddenly she was there. Sitting on the bed behind me, a pleased smile on her muzzle. Flinching, I looked to spot the reflection indicated, but found the space empty.

  Back in the mirror, Xianta reached down to caress my jawline, and I felt her touch as a whispered tingle on my skin. My eyes grew heavy. My fear, my panic, my questions were all buried under the dark bnket of sleep.

  MisterNibs