Demon who was summoned for the wrong job, but is just going to have to make the best of it.
"Uh," Bernadette says, standing in the middle of a summoning circle that's smoking unhealthily. She's dressed in flannel pajamas covered in cartoon ducks, and holding a untoasted, half-eaten Pop Tart. "What?"
One of the half-dozen guys in the room, robed and hooded, starts to declaim something in badly pronounced Latin.
"Oh." She cranes her neck at the floor. "Oh, I see your problem. What'd you get this out of, a fifteenth century grimoire? You are not gonna get hold of this guy, and you shouldn't do this on unfinished wood." She takes another bite of Pop Tart, chews thoughtfully. "What is that, reclaimed floorboards? Sorry about those. Your targeting's bounced off the new firewalls — I say new, but y'know, fifteenth century, guys — and this thing's got no failsafe, so the energy's been forced down through the woodgrain like a grater, scattered off bedrock, grabbed the nearest anything that fits its fragmented criteria. Lucky you guys don't live nearer the Arctic Circle, is all I'm saying."
"Don't listen," the presumable ringleader says. "It worked, look, we summoned a demon! It's lying to get us to release it instead of doing our bidding!"
"Yeah I'm a demon," Bernadette says. "I worked with Youtubers, mostly. You guys should have gone with a succubus, they want you to get through. Practically Hell's honeypot, no pun intended. I would like to go home, though? Because I am no use to you."
She cautiously tests the inner rim of the containment circle with an outstretched toe, and makes a glum face when it's still working.
"Lord of lies!—" the cultist starts.
"I live in Ohio now," Bernadette says. "You summoned a demon...from Ohio. Does that sound like I'm gonna do anything impressive?"
"Lord of lies, we see through your deceptions! You are bound by this circle—"
"Your circle broke! It's not supposed to catch fire, dude!" She kicks the invisible barrier. "Containment's the only thing still running, and that's only because they had no fundamentals, and built the equivalent of a house that stays up despite no understanding of materials science because the walls are four feet thick."
"The circle did kinda catch fire, Chris," one of the other guys says nervously.
"No names! Don't give it anyone's name!" Chris says, a little wildly.
"Dude," Bernadette says. "I can hook you up with the unexpurgated occult edition of The Anarchist's Cookbook, tell you how to set up a mail fraud scam, and teach you the secret password to get the meat in your Taco Bell replaced with long pig. And maybe give you some six-month-old gossip about ASMRtists you don't care about. But the clichéd stuff you're probably gonna ask for instead? Power, money, sex? I am not your gal. I got nothin'."
"Taco Bell?" says the nervous guy. "I knew it—"
Chris holds up an antique book and loudly, angrily mangles some more Latin. "Demon, I bind and command you—"
"You really fucking don't," Bernadette says, sits down, and eats the rest of her Pop Tart. "Hey, can I borrow someone's phone?"
"Why do you want a phone?" nervous guy demands. "Can you even call hell—?"
"You can call Ohio," she says impatiently. "If I'm gonna be stuck here until you guys get bored, I'd like to let someone know, okay? I've got a landlord."
"You're a demon," says nervous guy. "With a landlord."
"She's cool," Bernadette says. "You'd like her. Succubus called Golnaarth. Don't want her to think I broke my lease, you know? Not in this housing market."
It takes another two hours for her to talk the nervous guy into tossing his phone across the circle, when Chris has to go to the bathroom.
"Hi, Naarth? Yeah, I'm — I've been grabbed by a stray summoning circle. No, no, it's — old grimoire, right? I haven't skipped town or anything. No, I think they're backend engineers for Netflix or something? Yeah, cultists, right. Their ideas guy doesn't want to believe I'm not, like, Xinjaggomor Rassussigar, Darkness Enfolding Darkness Enfolding Teeth, keeps yelling at me. No — no, I'm fine. No — no, I'm just gonna wait them out? Yeah. No, okay. Love you too."
"I don't say 'love you' to my landlord."
Bernadette narrows her eyes at him. "Are you a girl, Neil?" she says, and Neil shuffles and mutters, so Bernadette narrows her eyes further and puts her face right up to the containment barrier. "I'll believe you're a girl when you put on stripey programming thigh-highs and bark like a puppy for me," she says meanly, and Neil quails.
"Who gave the demon a phone," Chris demands when he comes back. "Where's Neil?"
"Considering her life choices," Bernadette says, not looking up from installing Candy Crush.
It takes another hour for Djulnael, halo blazing, to kick the door off its hinges, cold-cock Chris, contemptuously kick away the melted candles and salt of the failed ritual, and break the containment circle with a touch of her hand that flash-burns a fresh smoking furrow in the floor.
"Those were quite nice reclaimed floorboards," Bernadette says into her shoulder, as Djulnael princess-carries her out of the house, spitting reverberating threats all the way about getting Biblically accurate on their asses.
"We're getting you out of stupid fucking Ohio," Djulnael says furiously.
"I'm okay! I'm fine!" Bernadette pauses. "Your guys might want to watch nearby Taco Bells, though? I taught them to say 'Act natural and empty the register, I've got a gun' in Spanish."
"Bernadette."
"What? They're a bunch of white guy cultists who kidnapped me!"
