The Deal <Magic, mind control, demons, size, other specific tags on chapters>

Greetings everyone! Thanks for taking the time to read my first major story post on FP. I have been enjoying (lurking) these message boards for quite awhile now, and thought it was time to put some effort into giving back to (turning on) all the talented people here.

Anyways, this story got its start as a fantastic roleplay scenario with the lovely and talented Symbio, who was an exceptional muse and partner. Like most source materials I am going to draw very heavily from the original, but some names will change (partly because I don't have records and forgot them) and not all the situations and interactions will play out quite the same way.

Thanks go out to Symbio of course! <3 Beyond that the astute might notice influences of Gaiman's mythology and Butcher's Magic theory in my writing, and if it's presumptuous to cite literary giants like that as influences, tough. This is MY story, darn it. ^_^

A Friday night on campus had a sort of savage rhythm all of its own, an atavistic beat that could be felt in the chest almost as easily as sensed from the ears and eyes; a hormonal tide-surge of gathering tension and loosening inhibitions.

The cheap, oft-repainted window pane of Jacqueline’s dorm room hummed slightly, tremored by the nearly subaudable base beat of some nearby party, a cricket-like night nose to replace all of the usual evening dwellers driven away by the tribe of adolescent apes that now ruled in their long ago vacated haunts.

For a moment, the young woman on the floor of the small room felt her legs tighten; a bunching of the smooth muscles of her bare upper thighs, a quickening in the femoral pulse running from groin to inner knee. Those were her tribal drums; the summons to dance and drink and mate, ancient patterns written in the deep places of her brain, calls to community and safety, but those things were far from her mind tonight.. well, the first, at least. Safety, on the other hand, was very much at the front of her thoughts, pushing back the distractions in the businesslike, efficient way that so few other mental topics seem to muster.

One soft fingertip resting against the book beside her, Jacqueline leaned over to once more trace the circle on the floor with her eyes. The tilt of her supple, toned torso allowed the loose robe she wore to fall open, shadows from the ill lit room spilling down her swaying breasts, her smoothly tanned skin darkened in the candlelight. Unconsciously she tucked a hand across her waist, gathering the silk robe up against her navel, keeping it from dragging on the floor on front of her. The book said that even the slightest imperfection in the circle could be disastrous, although she had not bothered to translate all of the no doubt lurid detail that the long ago author had felt justified in going into as to just how disastrous it would likely prove to be. Her workman like knowledge of Aramaic had allow