Mercurial eyed the bags his new servants had left near the summoning circle. Some were purses, others larger bags probably used for carrying in the supplies for their ritual. “Bring me your phone,” he commanded Faline. She jerked slightly in surprise, but quickly hurried over to her bag, fishing through it as she returned, and held her phone out to him.

Palming a small transceiver, he laid his hand over the phone. The phone buzzed, and confusion crossed the blonde’s face. “That’s Stephanie’s contact info,” Merc explained, “and her boyfriend Ron’s. Do with it what you wish.” More useful information Katie had found. He then gestured back toward the bed. “I’ll be in touch.”

Faline set her jaw firmly, and gave a quick nod. “Yes, Lord.” Her plans redeveloping, and ready to enact them, she marched to the bed and climbed in.

Mercurial raised his hand near his shoulder, and made a slow pushing motion. As he did, the bed retreated back through the curtains.

“It looked like she was going for your crotch, there,” Gossamer remarked once Faline was out of sight. “A shame you didn’t let her: I hear she gives the best head.”

Merc turned to the remaining two witches. Gossamer grinned, heat clear in her face. Jezebel blushed far brighter, not making eye contact with either.

Folding her hands behind her back and pushing out her chest, the little woman sauntered up to Merc. “Speaking of, we’re all pretty sold on this whole ‘revenge’ thing, but…” she stopped bare inches from him. “...I got my hopes up paying a devil with sex.”

The imposter wrapped his arm around her back, and drew her against him, then looked to Jezebel. “And you? What is your desire?”

“I want all that, too!” Jezebel was quick to insist. She then turned her gaze to Merc, firm and steady. “But now that I’ve seen it, more than anything, I want a female body!

“But,” and here she grew timid again, “please forgive me if this is impudent, Lord, but I don’t want to steal one. I don’t want to take somebody else’s life.”

“I’ll take both if she doesn’t want them!” Gossamer chimed in. “Is there a way I can do that?”

Merc’s lips curled into a grin. “Well, Jezebel, it seems we’ve got a few bodies, willingly given to me, right here.”

Gossamer gasped. “Are you going to give my body to Jez?” She paused a moment to think it over. “That is so kinky! Do I still get to be around for it? Not possessed, though. I think Jez might want some privacy.”

The magician chuckled. “Something like that. Don’t worry: none of you are going to miss more than a couple of days.”

He slipped away from Gossamer, back through the curtains and into a storage area in his basement. There he retrieved a pair of small, silver-framed iridescent boxes, with smaller smoky glass boxes protruding from their top, both with a silver handle. These props had truly tested his abilities, but now that he had them, he found them indispensable. A quick application of cloth changed them red with black-stained frames.

Carrying them under one arm, on his way back out he snagged a place to put them: a low, narrow, wooden table with two broad legs and a notch in the middle to accommodate a neck, letting the head-vanishing box it bore clatter to the floor.

“...pressed against my stomach!” Gossamer was ending as Merc returned to the abandoned warehouse. Both women turned attentively to him.

He placed the table down, and pointed to the space beneath it. “Kneel here,” he instructed Gossamer. “Facing the other way,” he added when she approached.

“Yes, Lord,” she said with a grin and she took her place, settling her neck back into the notch.

She might be a very natural fit, Merc considered, depending on how she took the news that he wasn’t really Satan. He placed one box around her head and handed the other to Jezebel. He then took a firm hold of the handle, and slowly dragged the inner box out. The resistance was a lot like air pressure. The smoky box began to emit a soft, blue glow, and when it was halfway out, the woman beneath slumped, he shoulders going slack. When it had been extracted completely, she dropped to her rear, shoulders falling back against Merc’s knees, eyes vacant and unfocused.

Setting the box aside, Merc took the small form by the shoulders, and drew it back, laying it flat.

Jezebel stared at the glowing box, trembling. Her hands clamped tight around the box in her hands as if afraid what might happen if she dropped it. As Merc stepped back to her, she stared wide-eyed. “I-i-i, th-th, I-” she stammered.

Amused, Merc plucked the box from her hands, brushed the first box aside with it to set it in place. Turning back to her, he picked her up by the arms, and kissed her. She gave a faint cry of surprise, then melted in his hands. She was alarmingly light.

He brought her to the table. Stunned as she was, her feet didn’t try to support her, which was just as well. Setting her on her knees, she picked up the unused box, leaned the wide-eyed staring head into place, then placed the box over her.

After extracting her mind as well, he set it beside Gossamer’s, then laid the frail, thin body next to the small one.

With that out of the way, and not a conscious would-be witch left in the room, Merc set to work bringing out more props. The next part would be a bit more involved, but fun.

Six long, red ribbons he tied to the neck, waist, wrists, and ankles of Gossamer’s vacant body, their other ends trailing up into the darkness, with a puppeteer’s wooden stick and cross in his pocket. Faline’s headless body he levitated into a horizontal box with drawers around the chest and hips. Two five-segment Mismade boxes with accompanying blades, one over six feet tall, the other considerably shorter. A katana standing in a wooden frame.

Last was a standing box for vanishings. Doctor Mercurial knocked on the box, conjuring the last piece he’d need for what he had planned. Within, Raven gasped.