How to Free a Storm

I decided after the death of Mimsy that I would do better. I would be better. I would look after my demons as pets or housemates, not as burdens. Evil or not, I was the one who summoned them. They were my responsibility. I would find them a way home that didn’t end in tragedy.

I went to the towel cupboard and unwrapped Storm - I had taken to calling them Storm despite no confirmation that this one was a sentient demon. It might just be another portal like the blood mug, but until proven otherwise, they deserved a name and a better home than a stuffy cupboard. The faint sound of wind still flowed from the vase. I held it before me, put my mouth close enough to feel the subtle breeze, and whispered. “Hello, I’m Charlotte. If there’s someone in there, I sort of brought you here. If you’re in there, I would like to meet you.”

There was nothing obvious at first, but then there was a change in the wind pattern. It was reacting to my voice. I had felt some form of response before, but this was clearer, more definite.

“I felt your change, but I’m sorry, I don’t know what it means. Can you talk?”

A faint, airy, feminine voice replied, barely audibly, but she spoke words of some strange language. It didn’t sound like anything I’d heard on earth. Some kind of demon language, I suppose.

“Do you understand me? Blow cold for yes, warm for no.”

A distinctly mid-temperature gust hit me.

“Um. That was medium. Colder for yes. Warmer for no.”

A blast of freezing air shot out so hard that I nearly dropped the pot in surprise, and then the voice whispered again in long flowing words, “Your language confuses me. But I understand it. Sorry about the confusing temperature; by my homeland’s standards your medium is my bloody freezing.”

“Ah, it’s all relative isn’t it? I could’ve been clearer.”

“You could.”

“Do you have a name?”

“Names are a foolish mortal concept.”

“I’ll call you Storm. Is that okay?”

The wind in the vase seemed to circulate for a moment as if in thought, and then another medium temperature gust blew out at me. Well, close enough, then. She wasn’t going to kill me over it.

“I’m sorry for shutting you in a towel cupboard so much. I didn’t know you were sentient.”

“Sentience is a silly mortal concept that does no justice to the complexities of thought and existence across time and space.”

“Are you annoyed about being shut away?”

“I have existed for all the aeons of your world and many worlds before it. I can survive a few of your so-called “weeks” in a cupboard.”

“Right, fair enough. Have you been to Earth before?”

“Every storm.”

“They’re all you? Even the ones that happen while you’re stuck inside this vase?”

Another medium breeze. “Both yes and no. You’re too mortal to understand.”

“I’ve been feeling that way about a lot of things lately. Do you know about the place with the river of blood and the plants which think they’re people?”

“I have been blood-storms there many times.”

“Do you know if one of those plants comes to earth, then dies in a blood-portal-explosion… is it really dead or does it just go back to that place?”

“Death is a silly mortal concept. You’re too mortal to understand how a demon-spirit flows between worlds.”

“I thought you might say that.” I sighed. I shouldn’t judge so quickly, but on first impression, even Kazz was a better conversation partner.

A scorching breeze shot past my head. Evidently my sigh was unintentionally an offensive word in storm-language, but Storm calmed down again quickly.

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“Sorry,” I said. “Do you want to get back home? Do you know how to?”

Two bursts of cold air. “But you won’t like the answer.”

“Go on.”

“You have to smash this vase.”

“I’ve lost a lot of pots - some of those were your fault - one more won’t make a difference.”

“Smashing the vase will release me in the form of a mighty tempest the likes of which this realm has never suffered before.”

“I should’ve known there would be a catch. But it would be nice to hear something else on the news for once… How big a storm? Are we talking storm, gale, hurricane, tornado…”

“Biblical Cataclysm.”

“Oh.”

“I said you wouldn’t like it.”

“Well there must be another way. What about back the way you came? How did you get here?”

“How should I know? You’re the one who summoned and unintentionally imprisoned me.”

“Right, I’ll think about things. Do you promise not to make a big wind and smash more pots if I put you somewhere else? Is it safe for you to be outside or will you mess with the weather patterns?”

“I promise I will try my best not to destroy your town in a merciless tempest.”

That was not reassuring, but I suppose it was the best I could reasonably expect from a personification of storms and destruction. I took the vase outside. If she broke the promise and created chaos and destruction, I expected she could do it from anywhere, so why risk having her inside next to my pots. It was a calm sunny day, which might be considered terrible weather for a storm. I hoped it would relax her instead of giving her the urge to ruin it. I tried to stop myself from thinking like that. Stop assuming she will break the promise. Treat her with trust and respect, even if she is a demon.

I went back to my room and explained the new situation to Kazz. He listened reluctantly, but at least he listened. I told him all about what happened with my astral projection into Hell and how I accidentally destroyed Mimsy and the Mug of Infinite Blood. He didn’t seem very concerned. Empathy was never his strong point, but it was still a little bit reassuring that another demon seemed to think I didn’t actually murder Mimsy.

Perhaps death really was a silly mortal concept like Storm said, though she did call nearly everything a silly mortal concept. Once I’d filled Kazz in on everything that had happened, I moved on to the next problem.

“I know you hate Storm, but I need some advice.”

“Storm? You named a literal storm and the best name you could come up with was Storm? No wonder your dreams taste so chewy and bland.”

“Simple and effective. Better than having “the Vile” in your name. That must be like the John Smith of the demon world.”

He did that gurgling growl that I’d come to understand as I’m angry and want to argue but can’t because you’re right, and then said, “Bah! Point taken. What do you need my help for anyway after avoiding me all day?”

“Storm says the only way she knows how to return home is for me to smash the vase she’s trapped in…”

“So do it. Get rid of her. Everyone’s happy.”

“Shush, I’m not finished. The only way is to smash the vase, but and this is a pretty big but - don’t you dare make a butt joke - if I do that, it will also cause a storm which she described as biblically cataclysmic.”

“Hmm, demons don’t throw around words like “biblical” without really meaning it. I see your quandary. If you make a storm, it will be terrifying and everyone will have nightmares, which is good, but I might get blown away in the wind and not be able to eat any of those nightmares, which is bad.”

“Yeah, that’s the main issue here… No, obviously I don’t want to make a giant storm and blow all the houses down and burst all the riverbanks. That would be awful! What I wanted you to advise me on is other routes to get something back to Hell, or the demon realm, or whatever you call it.”

“We call it something that you wouldn’t be able to pronounce… but then again… if you try to say it, it might haunt your dreams forever with the evil power of invoking its name. Go on, it’s…”

The next sound he made was something I couldn’t even imagine how to write down, but I did feel a lot of evil power in it, so I wouldn’t risk it if I could.

I sighed. “Stop thinking about nightmares for a second and help me out. Think of another way to get a storm demon back to Hell. Please, I need this.”

“There’s a cave in Russia.”

“No flights in lock-down.”

“There’s a summoning chant… you could say it backwards?”

“Sounds risky.”

“You could just let the storm happen.”

“You’d blow away.”

“You could reverse the pottery timeline.”

“Humans experience time in a linear path of cause and effect.”

“That’s a deal breaker on my next three ideas.”

“Come on! There must be something. Do you know how you got here in the first place?”

“No, you somehow summoned me by mistake but I don’t know when or how. It certainly didn’t follow any of the normal rules. Usually I have to enter via a nightmare portal in someone’s psychic aura.”

“But if I can bring something here, I must be able to send something back, right?”

“I don’t know, you’re the one who did it.”

It was yet another useless circular conversation. A nightmare… A storm… Infinite blood… a mimic… Why couldn’t I have an academy-demon (an academon?) or something like that? Oh, how nice it would be to have one of the leading scholars of Hell, well-versed in the ancient forbidden lore of returning lost demons to the foul chaotic stormstruck wastelands beyond mortal ken. On the other hand, a demon scholar would probably be even more annoying than any of my demonic housemates. Perhaps if I hadn’t lost poor Mimsy so suddenly I could have used the astral projection to locate their homes and drag them back that way somehow. It would probably have been a longshot, even if she was still around. There was no obvious answer. A small part of me thought of just leaving Storm. My lifetime would be no longer than a flash of lightning to her, but I wasn’t so selfish. I didn’t want the next generation to die horribly in an endless storm either.

After hours of thought, I had a strange idea. It probably wouldn’t work, but I had the urge to try anyway. I slept on it. By morning neither I nor Kazz nor Storm had suggested anything better. I didn’t talk it over with them - it might have more of a chance of success as a secret.