Not My Fault

Magic works. Think about it, though. Magic works. That should just blow your mind—it did mine.

When I found the book I assumed it was a joke. I mean, come on, who really buys a spell book in a second hand shop? Well, me apparently. Not that I thought it was real at the time. I just thought a Grimoire would look nice on my bookshelf. It did too.

Then, of course, came the party. We got a little drunk—okay, a lot—and decided to try out the ‘water into wine’ spell. When it worked we were amazed, and rapidly even drunker. Fortunately no one really believed it the next morning and I passed the whole thing off as a trick. I needed time to figure out what I had.

So I started to experiment. The ‘water into wine’ spell was easy—you just need at least six people and some common herbs—but some of the other ones proved to be harder to manage. The skin of a skink is hard enough, but you try finding the tongue of a dead man on Amazon. Some of this stuff is hard to track down.

Which, of course, is where I got onto the Dark Web. You have to really. There’s no way of getting some of this stuff without going into some dark places. The other users, though, were great. They helped me find some of the weirdest stuff. In fact, I think they enjoyed it—the weirder the better.

So I decided I had to give back. I posted a spell on the Dark Web. Nothing much, just a little thing that made sure you’d get some money in the near future. Not like a lottery win, just a little windfall.

Well, that opened the floodgates. After a few days, when people realized it wasn’t a joke they were on to me to post more. So I did. A little at a time I slowly let the secrets of the Grimoire out. Every time I posted one, there would be thousands of users on at me again in a few days demanding more. So I gave them more. I mean, they’d helped me—why shouldn’t I share? It’s not like money or something. There’s enough for everyone. Or so I thought.

I was sitting at my desk, not really doing anything, when it happened. It started with just a feeling. You know that feeling you get sometimes, when it seems that something isn’t quite right? That’s the feeling I had, only it kept getting stronger. I started to worry that there was an intruder in my house or something. I went to check the doors and windows—nothing open. I sat back down at my desk.

Then the cold began. The temperature in the room fell, and quickly. I started to shiver. It was ridiculous. It was the middle of June, and yet I was sitting at my desk, with my teeth chattering. I was about to get up when I realized I couldn’t move.

Now that scared me. I was paralyzed. Then, in front of me, the wall seemed to blur. It started to twist, as if some sort of vortex was forming in the wall. It looked like bad special effects from some 1970s TV program.

It worried me, though. I couldn’t move. My vision was obviously distorted. It had to be a stroke. I was too young to have a stroke, or at least that was my thought. It was then that the demon stepped through the vortex, and into my room.

This made me feel a lot better. At least I wasn’t having a stroke.

To call the creature a demon might be a little bit of an exaggeration, or at least giving him too much credit. To start with he was only about a meter high. His skin was rough and gray. His hands ended in claws. He had horns, albeit small ones, growing out of his head. He was also wearing a very nice dark blue suit, with a pale blue shirt, and a red tie, which kind of took away from the whole demon image, though the cloven feet did help.

He gave me a brief glance and then walked straight to the bookshelf where the Grimoire was. He pulled the book down, though I noticed he had to stand on tippy hoof to reach it. Have I mentioned he was a bit short?

He quickly flicked through the book and then turned back to me. “So, you have been using this book,” he said in a voice that sounded like a cat, with a stomach full of stones, being dragged along a corrugated iron roof.

“Mm, mmmmmmm, mmmm,” was the best I could manage in my paralyzed state.

“Sorry, forgot,” he said and waved his free hand at me. I found I could move again, though I also had the worst case of pins and needles ever.

“Ow,” I said. “Ow, ow, and ow.”

“Bloody humans, never satisfied. It’ll go away in a minute or so.”

He climbed on a chair and looked me in the eye. “You’ve been causing us a whole lot of problems, you have. I’ve been sent to tell you we want you to stop it.”

“Ow. What?” I replied.

“This book. You’ve been sharing all the stuff in here with lots of people.”

“Yes,” I said. “Shouldn’t I have?”

“Thought you people had IP laws. That’s not the point, though. It has been giving us no end of hassle.”

“Why?” I asked. Looking back I seemed amazingly calm. I’m not sure if it was because I was in shock, or because I wasn’t exactly sure what sort of emotional response a besuited midget demon deserved.

“Look, when you do magic do you think stuff just happens without any cause?”

“Well, yes. That’s what magic is, isn’t it?”

“They’re right, the people up here are all poor dumb schmucks. Nothing happens without some force. Don’t you know about conservation of energy and all that stuff?”

“Well, yes, but that’s physics. This is magic.”

“Magic is still in the universe, isn’t it? Still has to follow the rules, doesn’t it? Still needs someone to do all the dirty work, doesn’t it? That’s the job of the Powers and Principalities. Folks like me here.”

“Eh?” was my best response.

“Well, look,” he said flicking through the book, “see this one here about attracting the opposite sex, quite popular I hear. It says ‘I call upon the power of Azathulu’. That’s quite clear. That’s calling one of my pals to do your work.”

“I didn’t know that. I thought it was just, you know, some sort of incantation.”

“Well, now you know. You’ve been sharing this with too many people and we are run ragged. You have to stop it. Don’t send any more letters or whatever you’ve been doing.”

“I’m not sure I can stop this.”

The demon drew himself up to his full meter height and glared at me. A dull red glow was starting in his eyes, and a slight whiff of smoke came out of his nose.

“Why not?” he asked very slowly.

“Because it’s all out on the Web. There’s no way I can call it back now.”

“Web?” he asked with a look of confusion. “You gave it to a spider?”

“The Web, you know, the Internet. Computer network? All around the world.”

His look of confusion grew. His eyes grew wide, much wider than you would think they could, and he shook his head.

“You have no idea about computer technology, do you?” I finally asked.

“Most demons, we don’t really do technology,” he admitted. “Magic is our thing. I’m not sure exactly what a computer is.”

It took me a good half-hour to explain what a computer is, how a network works, and why stuff on the Internet couldn’t be recalled. By the end smoke was drifting from his nose again.

“See,” I said finally, “there’s nothing really I can do.”

“Hmm,” he grumped, jumping off the chair and heading for the vortex. “I can’t do a damn thing with technology, but you people need to be punished, and we have to stop this stuff spreading.”

“But what can you do?” I asked, rhetorically. “You don’t understand simple computer technology. You have no way of doing anything.”

I admit, I was gloating a little. It’s not everyday you get to outsmart a demon.

Then, as he stepped back into the vortex, he said something that made my blood run cold and my heart skip a beat.

So, when you get that ‘Error 404’, or ‘domain not found’, or ‘mail undeliverable’, remember, it’s not really my fault. It’s his. He was the one who said, “Release the gremlins.”