Tim watched, with a mixture of curiosity and terror, as the body of the drunken would-be groper twitched with
painful looking spasms while the glowing, scarlet aura of otherworldly energy enveloped him. Although he
seemed to be in excruciating pain, he was utterly silent. Perhaps part of the magic, mused Tim. After all, Tim
didn't want to attract any unnecessary attention.
Slowly, the man's body began to shrink until he was about the size of a small dog. His body grew a coat of
short, pitch black fur. His ears lengthened and sharpened to a point. A short, flexible, whip-like tail
sprouted from the base of his spine. The man's limbs contorted, becoming beast-like haunches with long, sharp
claws at the end of each digit. His mouth and nose lengthened out, becoming a single canine looking snout, but
one that sported far bigger and sharper teeth than any earthly dog. They were practically small tusks,
reflected Tim.
Finally the red glow ebbed away and the man was left, a small but deadly looking creature – a hell hound of
some kind, thought Tim.
The beast stood obediently at Tim's feet, not making a sound. He inspected it for signs of intelligence, and
thought he saw a faint glimmer of human emotion in the beast's fierce red eyes.
Again, Tim's demon intuition came to the rescue. He suddenly found himself with an empathetic ability to both
sense and communicate emotions with the creature. It was fearful and full of hate, but utterly loyal to Tim.
This creature would follow him literally to Hell and back (a likely scenario for the pair, chuckled Tim).
“Beast, what is your name?” Tim ordered.
The answer came telepathically in the form of a rush of confused, animal-level thoughts. It didn't know who or
what it used to be, but it always answered to the name Sam. If mistress wished to call it, the beast would
happily answer to this name.
“Looks like I just acquired an assistant,” Tim said to himself. “Or an accessory before the fact.”
Tim thought again about his mission. He was actually supposed to corrupt his own soul (or rather the evil
inhabitant currently using his soul), and damn this person to an eternity of hell. Until recently, Tim hadn't
given Heaven and Hell much thought. He came from a family of atheists and had always been highly skeptical of
anything supernatural. But after the recent events revolving around Paul and that stupid spellbook, Tim had to
conclude there just might be something to the dubious stories of an afterlife!
What was the line from Hamlet? Something about there being more things in heaven and earth than you could
possibly dream of? Tim wasn't much of a Shakespeare fan, but the quote nonetheless seemed appropriate.
And now that Tim had undeniable proof of the existence of Hell at the very least, he felt a bit fearful about
getting his own fragile soul further tangled up in evil deeds that could damn him for all time.
“There isn't a commandment in the Bible about thou shall not be a demoness, is there?” he asked Sam.
The beast barked stupidly, and Tim got a mental impression that the creature knew nothing about Biblical
commandments, either now or in its past life as a human.
“Well, what do we do then Sam?” said Tim. “Do we go track down Evelyn and corrupt her, hoping that my demon
superior down below will stay true to his word about releasing me? Or do we try and double cross the old
bastard and figure out something on our own?”
What next?