The circle looked wrong, even though it shouldn’t have. Salt and ash, that’s what the book said. Just a ring, clean and even, but the line seemed to move when you weren’t looking. The flames of the candles burned a blue color as hot wax dripped from their shrinking bodies. As you recite the incantation, you tried not to think about what would happen if it worked.

Your words held meaning, unbeknownst to you, even though they sounded like gibberish once you spoke them out loud. The more you read, the colder the room got. Everything went still as you finished your chant.

It was almost as if the world around you was too scared to move.

Then she appeared.

The candle flames bent toward the circle, trembling like they wanted to bow. The air shimmered, folding in on itself, and then she stepped through.

She didn’t crawl out of the ground or fall from the ceiling like the drawings in the books. She simply… was. One heartbeat she wasn’t there, the next she was, standing in the center of the circle as though she’d always belonged.

The woman’s skin looked too pale for someone alive. She had horns guarding her face like pincers and a wispy imp tail that teetered infernal.

Her eyes, a soulless purple, watched you in silence. There was something ancient in the way she looked, something that made your ribs ache.

Her lips parted slightly. She exhaled, slow and deliberate, as if tasting the air itself. The blue flames flared, stretching taller, seemingly bending at her will.

The books never said what succubi smelled like, but now you knew. She smelled like something sweet, something wrong. Like fruit that had gone soft on the inside but still looked perfect on the outside.

Her voice followed after, low and alluring, “My,” she said. “What do we have here?”

The books never said what succubi smelled like, but now you knew. Her scent was that of something sweet, something wrong. Like fruit that had gone soft on the inside but still looked perfect on the outside.

The woman slowly stalked towards you, her eyes trailing up and down your figure. It was clear that you interested her, but her intentions didn’t seem innocent.

“Tell me, little mortal,” she murmured, her tone lilting with something close to malevolence, “What was it you wanted so badly you’d tear the veil just to ask?”