10 Minutes Before-Hand Jessilyn walked up the metal staircase outside the building her apartment was in. She was careful to walk on the ice of the steps. The snow had been coming down since yesterday, and it was a horrible blizzard. Her fingers felt raw and ached with a cold pain. She huffed her warm breath into the gloves she had on them. As she reached the outside of the 2nd floor of the two story building, she pulled her keys out of her pocket, sliding her apartment key into deadbolt, and unlocking the door. She headed inside the apartment. Although she had no funds from her artwork, she lived off her trust fund set up by her parents. With the way her life was going, her funds would run out by this time next year. Her parents would not pay for her to go to Art School, so she had to use her trust fund they had set up for her since she was a baby. Her trust fund consisted of $100,000. She used the majority of it to pay for her college. at $10,000 a semester at the most proficient art college in the world in Paris, she was down to her last $20,000. Her one bedroom apartment itself was $800 a month including all utilities. She had her $110 insurance bill on her paid off Dodge Charger a month, and the rest was for gas a food. She set herself up a $1,000 monthly budget to make her funds last for at least 20 months, but she knew it was just an estimate. In real time, she wouldn't last more than a year before going back to her parents to be sent off to a Business college for four more years. She shook her head at the thought and walked into the apartment. It was a nice apartment, considering the price for rent. She walked onto the hard wood floors. To her right was a sectional couch that slid along the wall away from the front door and against the wall on the right. In front of her was a hallway that led to her room and her master bathroom, and a wall that separated the kitchen and living room. She hung up her gray jacket on the coat rack hanging on the wall next to the door. She took the plastic bags full of supplies she had purchased and walked to the middle of the large living area, dumping everything out into the floor. The contents included salt, incense candles, black charcoal, a silver gauntlet, and a knife. In the floor, she draw an eight foot diameter pentagram in black chalk, and poured salt in a circle around the pentagram, as to trap the demon inside of the pentagram after summoning it. If it was a demon who could not fulfill her desires, she would not allow it to enter her life. She placed a candle at each corner of the pentagram, lighting them and then turning out the lights. She kneeled into the middle of the pentagram and placed the silver gauntlet into the middle of the star. She took the knife and wrapped her hand around the blade, pulling it out of her hand quickly and feeling the blade slice open her hand. She pulled her hand into a fist and squeezed hard, watching the blood trickle into the gauntlet. "I am calling for a demon to grant my desires, and offering my physical body in return," she said. She stepped out of the pentagram, to see if her ritual had done anything. The pentagram itself was a portal and if there were any demons there to grant her desires, she would do as much as she could to get what she wanted.

"A willing replacement?" she asked. She could see a way around that area, but still, the choice to sign away her soul to a demon is still a hard choice to make. She gripped the quill in between her fingers and dipped the quill in the gauntlet of blood, tapping it against the rim to make sure the excess blodd wouldn't ruin the parchment. She glared at the parchment, and read the fine print of her desires being granted for the exchange of her soul. She tapped the quill's feathers against her cheeks, feeling the soft suppleness of it. The choice was a hard one to make, but at the same time she wanted the be a somebody. The only thing she wanted more was her parents approval of her lifestyle, and with the desires that he could grant, she would be able to do just that. She touched the quill to the parchment, and began signing her name at the bottom. She had no idea what the fuck she just did.

She turned to head into the kitchen and grabbed a broom and dustpan. She hurried back into the living room and began sweeping up the salt. She broke the lines, allowing him onto the plane of Earth. "So I take it that you do not mean any harm to me, right?" she asked, continuing to sweep up the salt. She felt that she was more calm than others would have been. Maybe it just hasn't sunk in yet. She did just make a deal with a demon. If she had any clue as to what she got herself into, she probably would have never made the deal with the devil's minions. She looked back up at the blue demon, almost feeling somewhat concerned that he did not return back to the underworld. "Are you staying in my life?" she asked, sweeping the salt into the dustpan. She began walking back into the kitchen to dump the salt into the garbage pail. She turned back to face him, folding her arms across her chest.

Jessilyn was a taken back by the statement that he would be staying for a little while. She just couldn't face her parents with a demon looming around her, or go out in public with him hanging around her. At that moment, when he started pecking on the glass, she could see the flames in the mirror. It gave her inspiration at that moment. She ran out of the room and to her supply closet in the master bedroom. She grabbed a box that contained her acrylics, oils, and pastels and grabbed a cotton canvas and her easel. She dragged her supplies into the living room and set up her work station, grabbing her palette and acrylic oils out of her wooden box and began setting up the blues, whites, reds, yellows, blacks, browns, and whites. She could see painting a demon who was intrigued by mirrors, but it was even better to paint a demon using a mirror to contact the devil himself. She began painting the outlines, hoping he would not mind that he was her subject matter in the painting.