Since the book obviously, at lest to him, worked, Amir White lost no time in using it.
Until he found the Journal of Facts, Amir had never believed in any god, let alone such things as demons. Otherwise his so called ‘family’ would have been punished a long time ago, wouldn’t they? But the Journal’s magic obviously came from somewhere. He didn’t know if it was a gift from (a) god or a trap from a demon, and honestly, didn’t care. All he knew was that he could use it to make his life better and, if as a result, he ended with eternal pain in the afterlife, so be it. (Would be worth it anyway.)
In fact, why not use gods, angels and demons to make his life better? Of course, there was the possibility the book wouldn’t be able to alter such beings, but that wouldn’t stop him from trying.
Amir wrote "There is a whole pantheon of gods and goddesses, each with their domain of predilection but, unlike their counterpart from the diverse mythologies from antiquity, they all live in peace and harmony, wishing for nothing else than the well being of all mortal lives."
"Then, there is angels. They usually look, as anyone would expect, like humans with two immaculately white feathered wings, and can be of either gender, with the ability to switch gender whenever they want, they can even stay somewhere in between if they so wish. All angels are former mortals who where so good in life they were granted the right to live in Heaven, beside the gods."
"While angels can act as the gods messengers if the need arise, be it toward humans or demons, they rarely come to the mortal realms openly appearing as angels. They usually shape-shift their wings away and appear as simple humans, trying to nudge peoples in the right direction without forcing it. After all, the gods themselves acknowledge freewill as something sacred that shouldn’t, under any reason, be taken away."
"The reasons for the gods to use angels rather than go themselves, is their inability to hide their true nature. They can make themselves appear as any mortal creature, but are unable to hide their immense powers, sensed by anyone passing near one of them, preventing any divinity from hiding their true nature."
"Like written earlier, freewill is something the gods will never suppress. Unless someone is stupid enough to start a war in the name of any of them, in which case they would at lest send warriors angels to stop it, if not intervene themselves, but that’s another story. (No god (or goddess) want war, stop claiming otherwise!) That unwillingness to remove freewill in any being is what eventually caused the apparition of the first demons. Some angels felt the gods didn’t take the right decisions, and rebelled, imposing their own will upon humanity, preventing any humans from making their own choices. (Worst, the decisions taken by one of those angels often conflicted with the ones of another, causing even more wars.)"
"As punishment, those angels were banned to a new realm created specially, and given the task to collect the souls of the corrupts upon their death and torment them. It’s a long and slow process that eventually make said soul as clean and pure as it was upon creation, ready for reincarnation. Those fallen angels became the first demons and, while they would love to stop doing that work they can’t, since they now feed on this corruption, while freewill was given back to humanity, who forgot all about its temporary loss."
"One would think that demons would have formed an united front against the gods as a result, but its not the case. As soon as they got themselves banned, the first demons started fighting among themselves, pointing each others as being responsible for their situations. Rapidly, their new realm fragmented into a myriad of interconnected micro-realms, each inhabited by a different species of demons. Often those micro-realms are called ‘circles’ of Hell, or pictured as separate ‘layers’, but neither is true. Hell is more like a spiral of micro-realms, and even this depiction is a stretch, as you can go from the first micro-realm to the last without needing to go through any of the others."
"As for the current relationship with Heaven of the different realms of Hell, while it’s true some still hate the gods and their angels more than anything, others prefer to fight other demonic species, most simply don’t care that much be it by pure indifference or because as the generations passed they learned to like their ‘new’ lifestyle, and a handful even developed amicable relationship with their heavenly rivals."
"Unlike their angelic ancestors, demons are born as baby and grow as kids then teenagers before reaching adulthood. And while the fall cost them their immortality, making it possible (but far more complicated than for a ‘true’ mortal) to kill a demon, old age will never be the cause of their death. They reproduce sexually, but depending of their species they might not need the two parents to be of opposite gender."
"Another thing to know about demons, is their surprisingly strict hierarchy, and how easy you can tel what place one have in it by simply looking at them. For example, a commoner demon will only have a tail, which would either be tipped by spade-shaped thing (or heart-shaped for sex-demons) if they are a civilian or by a blade if they are military. On top of this, nobles would have horns, the higher in rank the bigger the horns. And then royalty of their micro-realm would have wings and the ability to turn into a dragon."
"The strange thing being that this hierarchy is meritocratic rather than hereditary. Regardless of the ranks of their parents, all demons are born as commoners. One of the strange side-effect of this is that the horns of a royal are only as big as the last rank they had before gaining their wings. Since it isn’t unheard for a demon to jump from Duke/Duchess or even Marquess/Marchioness directly to Heir of the Crown, without being Archduke (or Archduchess) beforehand, some of the demonic rulers have shorter horns than the highest of their subordinates. As such, and even if it’s unheard of, we could imagine that a demon somehow going straight from commoner to Crown Heir would have wings but no horns."
"While all I wrote before is true, few humans are aware of it, humanity’s faiths staying the same as before I rewrote reality."
Naturally, he didn’t finish there. Now that he had finished the world-building part, it was time to tackle the part that pertained more directly to him. "While I was 4, I was visited in my dreams by a succubus just as young as myself. Succubi are an exclusively female species of sex-demons with the ability to visit peoples in their dreams, although the sexual part only manifest during their late teenage-hood. They’re also one the demonic species with the friendliest relationship towards angels."
"She was there as part of a practical lesson on how to use her powers. Other kids on the neighborhood were similarly visited by her classmates. Just like everyone else, I forgot the first time she invaded my dreams, but we must have become fast friend because she visited me again, on her own volition those times. The more she visited me, the more I remembered her, although I believed her to be a fruit of my imagination at first."
"She never visited more than once a week, and sometime she didn’t come in several months. Still, as time passed it was clear she wasn’t a dream, even if I could only see her in my sleep. I also started to remember part of those dreams more clearly. Like the last time I saw her back then, when she excitedly told me how she gained the right to be formed as a future member of the furies, some sort of elite order of knights in hell, tasked with preventing, investigating and stopping any criminal activity in all of hell. (You could say they’re the demons’ equivalent of the F.B.I.) It is through that story I learned her own micro-realm looked more like Earth than we might expect, or that Sirens are an aquatic sub-species of Succubi. Or that the ruler of said micro-realm bears the title of King even though, being a Succubus, she’s female. (An old story about the first succubus King wanting to be taken seriously by misogynistic pricks, especially by the hated rivals known as Incubi.)"
"From what she said, a gorgon had found its way to her sub-realm and attacked her school. She killed said gorgon, protecting not only herself, but also her schoolmates. Then, a furry tracked down every accomplices of the gorgon, and finding a group of sirens dissatisfied with the current succubus king on the other end. Because my friend had been able to spot some of the clue, even through the shock of her first kill, the furry tasked with the investigation found her promising, and took her as her squire. Together they found the gorgon was a hitwoman (hitdemoness?) paid by a group of sirens dissatisfied with the current succubus king to kill all kids in a school chosen randomly."
"She was proudly showing me how as a result to her nomination as a squire, she had grown a blade at the tip of her long tail, rather than the heart-shaped thing most of her classmate undoubtedly would. (Not that I knew it prior to that point, her being the only demon I knew.) But the tip of her tail wasn’t the only thing that changed about her, and when I pointed it she explained how, when a demon kill another in self-defense, they were randomly granted one of that other’s powers. In her case, she gained the gorgon’s snake-like hairs. When I said I was glad she didn’t gain the power to turn anyone looking her in the eyes into stone, she was scandalized by how abysmally misinformed humanity was about demons and their powers. «What nonsense are you speaking?!? It’s the venom in their snake-hairs’ fangs that turn into stone!» she exclaimed."
"Finally, she let me know she would be transferred to the knightage’s own school, since she was now a squire, and might not have the time to visit for a very long time. «Promise you won’t forget me any time soon!» To which I answered. «I would love to make such a promise, but you never gave me your name. How can I remember you without knowing your name?»
«Never felt the need for it, since it’s always just the two of us when I come to your dreams. But since you insist you can call me Max, that short for Maxine. And you?»
«Amir.»"
"I wouldn’t see her again until two years ago, a few days before my 14th birthday. It was the summer and I was at gran-pa and gran-ma White’s, the only members of my family that genuinely loved me. Alas my parents were also there, as was my brother, exasperating my grans with how they acted, particularly toward me. Those 3 scourge of my life, for their part, were exasperated said grand-parents took my side, fearing, I quote, that ‘Amir might forget his place!’ …"
— – - – —
"Oh, I didn’t have one of those dreams in forever! How nostalgic…"
"Hello Amir! Long time no see!"
"Max? Is that you?" Amir looked at his demonic friend. The now 14 years old succubus was showing clear sighs of having grown up, even if she hadn’t finished yet. It made the boy blush, especially since they both always appeared nude in those kind of dreams. It also made him feel underdeveloped, sexually speaking, but Max didn’t seem to mind any of that, facing him as calmly than if they had met in the street and were fully dressed.
"Of course it’s me! Why? Did someone else visit your dreams while I couldn’t?"
"No, it’s just… I thought you would be a knight by now, with small horns and all."
"Why would being a knight make me grow horns? Most knight are commoners, and you need to be an adult to be given a noble title anyway. Wait, are you saying human knight are considered nobility?!?"
"They are minor nobility. It’s also one of the few title that isn’t hereditary. At least I don’t think it is."
"Oh… Well, that’s not why I came. This little squire need your help!" she said, pointing to herself.
"Anything for a friend, but I don’t see what help I can be."
"All 14 years old demons, regardless of their formation, need to pass 6 years in the mortals’ realm. The problem is that we can’t manifest in it without possessing someone, for which we need a contract with whoever we possess. Well… Technically I could take over someone body without a contract, but it would piss of angels, causing all sort of problems nobody need."
"But I suppose there is a problem with me singing such a contract?"
"Oh, we could make it very advantageous to you, and also very fuzzy, so there would be nearly no way of you breaking the contract. But there is still a risk you end up breaking it, even on accident, which would expose you to the clause in the fine-print. I mean sure, some demons are known to write contracts that are 99% fine-print, which if you’re facing a particularly nasty client is fine and all, but it won’t change the one clause always present in the fine print: If you break the contract you go to hell" the demoness rambled. "It may sound strange, but this rule is imposed on us by the gods. ‘Anyone breaking a contract with a demon, regardless of the reason they broke it, must have their soul collected by said demon.’ In fact, breaking a contract with an angel, let alone a god, would also got your soul sent straight to hell! Although neither gods or angels are known to sign contracts with mortals."
"Hm… Could you write the fine print in a way that made you personally own my soul if I break the contract? Also, what the punishment if you break it?"
Maxine took an old looking book out of nowhere and started to search in it. "Apparently the only hard rule is that your soul must be collected if you break the contract. While it’s usually written in a way giving ownership of your soul to all of hell collectively, there is strangely nothing preventing a demon from writing a contract granting them personal ownership of the soul in case of breach, god side of things include. As for my own punishment, its apparently decided on a case by case basis by the gods themselves. But I'm not much happier with personally owning your souls, you would still end up damned if you break the contract."
"Maybe, but I would."
It took them the equivalent of days to finalize their contract, but because time pass differently in dreams, they had finished and signed the contract by the time Amir woke up. Max would take control of his body at night, from the moment he got in bed, and until it was time for him to get up, causing the body to take her form, and Amir’s mind to fall asleep. If for some reason one of them needed to be active during the time the other should, for example Amir needing to stay awake longer than usual some night, he could exchange it for a wet dream together with Max. (The succubus was the one to impose that condition rather than an exchange of time controlling the body.) And if Max somehow needed to use Amir’s form for one of her mission, she would have to let Amir use an humanized version of her form at least the same amount of time.
While succubi need to sleep too, they don’t need to sleep as much as humans, most of the time when Amir is awake Max is like a voice in his head, although she won’t say anything unless it’s important.
- – — – -
"Soon after we signed the contract, Max discovered how my immediate family treated me, and turned them into thralls. A thralls isn’t a zombie, just someone unable to disobey their master, the person who enthralled them. She couldn’t force them to love me, the only feeling a sex-demon can control being lust, but she could at least put them under a standing order to treat me with respect."
"Since she did it by night, she didn’t expect to be caught in the act by my grand-parents. Thankfully things ended far better than they could have. They heard her rant as she was enthralling my parents. Gran-ma Ludmila even said she was willing to trust a djinn if it so fiercely protected her oppressed grand-son, djinns being what Muslims call demons."
"It was nearly two years ago that Max came back into my life, that we renewed our friendship. And as of yesterday that friendship with benefit became something more. As of yesterday we realized we fell in love with each others and started dating, even though we share the same body and will continue doing so at least until our 20. It’s not like there is no workaround, especially with her being a succubus."
"That said, even if we share the same body, the same eyes, even though she know about the Journal of Facts, she can’t read what I wright or have written in it."
Amir closed the Journal. He was still in the house of his distant cousins, the McCoys, who were treating him the way his parents and his brother did before being enthralled by Max, for the funeral of his grand-parents. He couldn’t help but wonder how she would punish his distant relatives. All he knew was that she wouldn’t make thralls out of them, they lived too far away for their enthrallment to be realistically renewable, and letting them renew with freedom so soon after becoming thralls would be dangerous.