[WP] You are a drug dealer who deals in drugs nobody else can get. But instead of money, you want books. Rare books. The rarer, the better.

“Martin Alexander Smith, what in all the Endless Hells did you do with my book?” I glared at my nephew. He was hitting that awkward phase of adolescence where he wanted to puff out his chest, but not quite rebellious enough to stop his lanky, pimply frame from shrinking at my every word.

“I, um, don’t know what—”

“Then explain why you have an entire can of himalayan sea salt in your backpack—which was full this morning yet is now mysteriously half empty—and squirrel blood on your hands.”

“Aunt Veronica, I just, um, my friends—”

“Oh, it was your friends’ fault?” Gods above and below, I wished my sister and her husband hadn’t run off with that succubus. I told her kids were a bad idea, and now here I am, four years later, dealing with it. I had come home to find that my copy—no, copy is the wrong word—the singular instance of the *Bow of the Eternal* was missing from my library along with my nephew. He had tried to sneak in after midnight stinking of brimstone.

“I wanted Jessica to like me!” Martin blurted out. “She’s kinda getting into the whole goth thing, and I was like, ‘well, my aunt knows magic,’ and she was like ‘no way,’ and we were like hanging out yesterday and remembered that today was—”

Martin stopped speaking, probably a combination of realizing that he was just digging a deeper hole and further realizing that whatever he was about to say would make it deeper. His face was stretched into that nervous, side-eyed expression I almost recognized from my sister. I waited for him to continue. The black cat clock on the wall ticked, mocking his silence. After enough time passed that even I was getting uncomfortable, I said “Today was…?”

“4/20.”

I pushed my glasses up to rub my temples in an attempt to massage away the stupid that had just entered my head. That’s what I was smelling underneath the brimstone. “Jesus Christ, Martin.”

“I thought it would look really cool if I like, did the whole warlock thing and got us some weed. Weed’s not that big of a deal, Aunt Veronica!”

I breathed out a long, long sigh. “No, Martin, it’s not that big of a deal. You could have just asked me, Martin.”

“You smoke?” Martin’s eyes were wide.

“Are you kidding me? Me and Sophie would sneak out of the house all the time to get high when we were barely older than you.”

“Mom smoked?!?”

“You have a lot to learn about adults, but that’s besides the point. Now what happened to my book?”

“Well, um,” Martin looked askance again, “I needed to do the exchange in front Jessica, you know, but I didn’t remember the steps so I *borrowed* your book. One thing led to another and, well, I ended up trading the book for an ounce.”

“You WHAT?!?” I was fighting an intense rise of anger now. Before this high teenager could react, I pinched his wrist and bit the inside of my lip, just enough to taste the barest hint of copper. In my other hand, there was a puff of dank smoke as I conjured a single nugget of Golden Kushala. I might have pinched him harder than necessary.

“The Contract of Equivalence, Martin! Did I not teach you anything? I know a guy in the First Layer who only needs two tiny sacrifices of pain so our deal can satisfy the barest minimum letter of the Contract. The *Bow of the Eternal* is a one-of-a-kind book, not just on Earth but in the entire multiverse! It literally cannot be copied because of all the elder amethyst in its ink, and you thought it was only worth an ounce of weed?”

Martin was silent. It was enough time for me to realize that the summonings in that book were not exactly for novices either. As Martin grew older, I had more and more gotten used to this weird feeling of combined pride in his abilities and absolute disappointment at his stupidity. The trade must have happened with at least one of the marquises. I took another deep breath before I could yell at him again. Patience, Veronica. I suppose I’d done some dumb trades in the past, as well… I shivered slightly remembering what I had offered to get rid of my acne once. Of course I wouldn’t tell him that story until he had learned from this mistake. Had to keep the pretense of responsibility.

“Who did you trade with?”

“Sarzallon from the 86th sphere.”

“Good God. Sarzallon? Really? That motherfucker—don’t smirk at my language—has been after my collection for years. Of course it was him.”

I started pacing around the room, taking mental inventory of what I needed to open a portal to the 86th. Couldn’t do this over the phone—Sarzallon wouldn’t take that as an insult, but from my dealings he was easier to work with face to face. I was rummaging around in the minifridge to find that last bag of AB+ blood I knew was in there when I caught Martin trying to slowly back out of the room.

“Stop right there, young man.”

He froze.

“You’re not off the hook. Fill the camelbak with water. It’s hot in Hell and we need to stay hydrated.”

“We?” There was a quiver to his voice. He hadn’t been down there before. “You’re… not going to trade me for your book, are you?”

I cackled. “No, of course not. Well, the thought crossed my mind. A human soul would *probably* be a good enough trade to get back the *Bow of the Eternal*, but no, I wouldn’t do that to you. We’re related, and having part of the bloodline bound to a demon is usually not great.”

“Is that the only reason?”

“Of course not. Now go fill the camelbak.”

Martin uneasily grabbed the bag and left the room, and I opened my third eye to make sure his aura was headed toward the kitchen, not up the stairs. Once I saw him standing at the sink and heard water rushing through the pipes, I pulled out one of my tarot decks and began shuffling, guiding The Chariot—no, The Wheel of Fortune would be better for the 86th—to the top. I threw the bloodbag onto the floor and stomped on it, muttering a quick spell so that the splatter would form into a heptagram. I tore up the card and threw it in the air, and almost as soon as I had done that, my office wall opened 86 human eyes of various colors. They all blinked spastically before all erupting into hot, orange flame and coalescing into a single, burning portal. I waved a hand, willing the window open and a blanket over the fire detector as thick smoke billowed out of the rift.

Martin came back into the room, though he came to a dead stop at the sight of the portal. I walked over to him and took his hand, gently but firmly, then went guided him over.

“Nothing really prepares a first timer for the screams, so—” I just stepped into the portal, pulling Martin along with me.

“Why do I feel like… I’m in Arizona?”

Martin loudly slurped from the water on his back as we continued walking down a deserted street. It wasn’t just a comment about the dry heat–not to say that Duchess Azamach didn’t do the usual thing other Princes did of turning their little slice of the 86th into a literal convection oven, efficient air flow and all. His question, I think, was more due to the fact that we were surrounded by two story townhouses repeating as far as the eye could see–which was pretty far given that the entire plane was flat. Ignoring the orange glow from the eternal fire blanketing the sky, and ignoring that the cacti had veins, and ignoring that the tumbleweed screamed as it rolled by, I could be convinced that we were in some desert suburbia.

“Demons are a weird bunch.” I shrugged as I applied some chapstick before all this heat could crack my lips. This was the sixth time already. “A lot of fascination with the hells we humans make for ourselves in the mortal plane.”

“I was expecting…”

“Torture, depravity, people crawling all over like something out of Caligula’s wet dreams?”

“Who’s Caligula?”

“I thought you were taking Latin this year.”

“I, uh, may have missed that day.”

I hadn’t had to write any notes to the school nurse this year… though that could have explained the pile of feathers I found in the trash a month back. “Did you use Usiwyn’s or Ekey’s forgery spell?”

“… Ekey’s.”

“Good.” Usiwyn was a hack. “Anyway, the depravity you’re thinking of exists in places. Everything you can think of and everything you can’t pretty much exists in the Endless Hells. Ever wonder what demons actually do with the sacrifices they collect?”

“I’ve tried not to.”

“It’s all a game. Everything about Hell is about status. People think it’s about domination, but really, domination is just one way to establish that you are higher on the pecking order. The difference between status in the mortal plane and status in Hell is that status in Hell actually gives demons the power to make and shape things.”

“Uh huh.”

I was losing him. “Martin, the point of all this is that demons have been doing deals for a long time. There’s a whole complex economy based purely on hierarchy, promises, and wishes down here, so once we start talking to anyone, just keep quiet. Especially since you forgot how the Contract of Equivalence works.”

“I know how it works, Aunt Veronica.”

“Oh? Tell me.”

Martin sighed. “Humans and demons may exchange goods and services that are equal in value. Nothing can be given or taken freely.”

I waited for him to continue. He didn’t. “Equal as defined as? Value as defined as? Free as defined as?”

Martin looked askance. “Um.”

“As defined by a third party arbitrator and witness, agreed upon by all parties prior to signing.” This was usually the part where demons took advantage of folks not familiar with dealings since a “third party” wasn’t necessarily someone who wouldn’t benefit. That loophole and all the fine print were always an adventure. Given that Martin completely forgot about the arbitrator clause, I wasn’t holding my breath on if he understood the full terms. He didn’t even have a copy of the contract, which is why we were passing through Azamach’s offices first.

My dowsing bracelet gave a gentle tug toward a house on the right. Finally. The streets were entirely empty; there were no cars nor were there people. There was the occasional screaming tumbleweed that bounced by, but one seemed to come on an interval like clockwork. Every single house looked exactly the same, with the same arrangement of veiny cacti on the front yard. It was as if we were walking through an agonizing facsimile of Groundhog Day, except the loops happened at every mailbox. Couldn’t even get a full day to breathe. Gods, Azamach was good at her job.

“Over there. Remember, don’t speak to anyone except me. Last thing we need is another accidental contract.”

Martin just nodded before wiping sweat from his face using the front of his shirt. I was glad that Sophie instilled enough responsibility in him to do his own laundry before she absconded. Teenage boys stink, and his hellspawned sweat stains were not inspiring confidence. Though the only reason I seemed to be fairing better than him was because I was wearing all black. Cliche for a witch, sure, but black doesn’t show sweat or ink or blood.

I knocked on the door and waited for a moment before it swung open accompanied by a rattling of metal on metal. Standing behind the doorway was what was likely the source of the sound: a humanoid shaped pile of what seemed like animated chains.

“Veronica?” the chains said. I recognized that voice.

“Suzy?”

“Oh my God, so good to see you!” Suzy shuffled forward and wrapped an uncomfortable hug around me. I hugged her back. Suzy Ford was a friend of a friend of a friend I’d met a couple times; the kind of person that I had absolutely no positive or negative feelings about. The best way I could describe her was that she was just kinda… there. Last I saw her, she’d broken some fine print and had to serve her punishment in Hell. From what I knew, the punishment itself should have been over, but I guess she stuck around to serve a few more years as a kind of investment. It was a pretty common thing. Since demons and humans couldn’t do even the most basic things for free for each other–such as opening a door–demons would use indentured humans to do such things for them. If it wasn’t part of some punishment, then it was usually in exchange for flexibility in future contracts or other kinds of power access. Kinda like a shitty internship.

“You too,” I lied. “Can we come in?”

Suzy stepped to the side. “Yes, please, Veronica, and–“

“My nephew, Martin.”

“Martin, are invited and welcome inside. So, what brings you in town?”

I stepped through the threshold, feeling a familiar shiver as two things happened simultaneously. First was the feeling of a hospitality charm washing over me. Second was the air conditioning. Gods. Putting that here was pure evil, knowing that anyone who came in to this momentary oasis would have to step back outside to the literal hellscape.

“Well, my nephew made his first deal and, you know how it goes, it wasn’t great. So I was hoping to see the boss?”

Suzy let out a sardonic laugh. “Oh, I know that feeling. Unfortunately, though, Azamach’s busy leading a battalion against Broglamoth.”

“Of course she is.” Azamach was merciful at times, and was usually one of the fair ones when trading favors. Given that Sarzallon swore fealty to her, I was hoping to speak with her and get some leverage. Alas. “Can we at least get a copy of the contract?”

“I remember forgetting to get a copy of my first contract, too,” Suzy said. “Follow me.”

The foyer of the townhouse was almost exactly what you would expect from seeing it on the outside: standard, suburban America decor. Suzy led us past some stairs and into what could have been a living room, except where a coffee table would be was a stone altar with an 8ft tall demon standing behind it. They looked more like a fallen angel than a demon born here: no horns, completely androgynous features, alabaster skin. Bright crimson veins crawled like spiderwebs over their skin, though, and their eyes were pure black. Atop the altar was one of those old spaceship-looking iMacs that the demon was currently using to scroll through Twitter.

“Hey Tabris,” Suzy said. “Got some folks with a contract request.”

Tabris looked up. “Go on.” Their voice had a deep velvet and caramel feel.

“Just me,” I said. “Martin, will you witness this deal?”

“What?” Martin asked.

“Just say ‘yes.'”

“Uh. Yes.”

I fished around in my purse to pull out a notebook, pen, and some cash, then set them all on the altar. I flipped open the notebook and started writing as I spoke. “I, Veronica Morgan, wish to trade this $10 bill for a copy of the contract between Martin Smith and Lord Sarzallon, made yesterday trading the Bow of the Eternal for an ounce of weed. Martin, do you find the terms of my trade equivalent?”

“$10?”

Before Martin could start speculating out loud in front of Tabris, I explained. “They’re both printed pieces of paper that encode a promise backed by the full authority of some nebulous entity.”

Martin tilted his head. “I guess that makes sense?”

“Tabris, do you agree to the terms?”

“I do,” they said without any hesitation.

I signed my name on the piece of paper and pushed it over to Tabril. They did the same then turned to the computer. They typed some things, clicked a few more things, and about three minutes later, I had a print out of Sarzallon’s contract. Without asking, I plopped down on an empty couch, pulled out my reading glasses, and started going over the fine print.