A Demon of the Not-So-Ancient World

They have taken the bridge and the second hall. We have barred the gates but cannot hold them for long.

-Gandalf, reading from the Book of Mazarbul

"Where is he?"

I was standing on the top floor of the convention center waiting for Gandalf, aka my friend Harry, to show up so we could do our thing. Our thing was a mock battle between Gandalf the Grey and the Balrog from Lord of the Rings.

Hold on, let me back up and help make things less confusing.

Harry and I are massive Lord of the Rings fans. We own all the books, movies, and quite a bit of merchandise as well. Harry even claims to be able to quote all of Legolas's lines from the first two movies.

Anyway, out of all the great movie scenes, our favorite one is when Gandalf and the Balrog have their little tussle on the bridge. So, when we heard that the convention was only a few weeks away, I came up with the idea for the mock battle.

Of course, we both wanted to be Gandalf, so that we could use that infamous line of his, so we flipped a coin. Harry won, leaving me to scrounge around for a semi-decent Balrog costume.

Thankfully, my aunt has some connections, and I was able to put together a pretty realistic costume, complete with a cord of rope painted to resemble the demon's whip. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get my hands on a sword prop. Hopefully Harry will forgive me for that. He likes things to be perfect.

But as I was saying, I was waiting in our meeting place. We had chosen this spot specifically because it was a few meters away from a skywalk connecting the two sides of the convention center. An appropriate place for our battle, if I do say so myself. Except that neither of us would fall to our death on the highway below.

I had arrived about ten minutes early, since my costume was a little cumbersome, and had made it in time, but Harry was nowhere to be seen. So I passed the time scaring little kids and chatting it up with fellow cosplayers.

I finished speaking with a girl who looked goooood in a Zelda costume,then checked my phone. It said 10:30, so I had been waiting for about 40 minutes for the 'self-proclaimed' Gandalf to show up.

"Well, a wizard is never late." I muttered to myself.

"Nor is he early. He arrives precisely when he means to."

I turned my attention to the vendor who had set up shop about a couple meters to my left. He was leaning against the wall behind him, but had cocked his head to the right, so that he was looking at me.

I don't know what it was, but something about him was already making me nervous.

"Nice costume." he looked me up and down. "Not many who could put together a masterpiece like that."

I brushed my uncertainty aside, and taking off my mask, began to turn it my hands, admiring its quality.

"Yeah, well, my aunt knows people. She's to thank for this."

The vendor nodded, then frowned.

"Enlighten me if you can," he said. "but it seems like something is missing."

I nodded. "The sword. Couldn't find a good one."

The vendor's eyes lit up and I noticed he was wearing what I assumed were yellow contacts with red pupils.

"Yes, that's it! Actually..." he bent over and dug around underneath his stall for a minute, then reemerged with a meter long plastic sword with a flame shaped blade. "I got this from a friend. Maybe you could use it?"

I stared in amazement. This was exactly the kinda sword the balrog needed!

I walked over and the vendor handed it to me, so that I could examine it.

"How much do you want for it?"

"Hm...let's see. Normally I'd charge $65-$75 for something like this...Hold on, are you going to hang around here for much longer?"

I looked at him in surprise. "Yeah, my friend and I are supposed to meet up here and do a mock battle on the skywalk."

The vendor nodded thoughtfully. "In that case, let's make a deal. I'll sell it to you for $30, and in return, when people ask you where you got it, you direct them to me. Sound good?"

I nodded, pulled the money from my wallet, and handed it to my new acquaintance.

He smirked, "Pleasure doing business with you, and do remember our deal."

"I will, and thanks!" I turned and started to return to the bridge.

"Oh, there's a switch on the underside of the handle," the vendor called out. "Try it! Maybe it'll light up!"

I gave him a thumbs-up, then locating the switch, flicked it to the 'On' position.

That's when everything went to hell. And that's not a Balrog themed play-on-words/pun thing."

Every light in the convention center went out, plunging the center into near pitch blackness. (I say 'near' because sunlight was still streaming through some of the windows.)

And second, my sword burst into flames. Not fake animated fire, but real hot, flickering fire!

People screamed and fled as the hallway began to fill with smoke. I tried to drop the sword, but to my fear, discovered that I couldn't.

The fire alarms went off, as did the fire sprinklers, but nothing seemed to work, and the fire was only getting bigger. It was chaos around me!

With a mixture of fear, anger, and desperation, I looked around for the vendor, and found him still standing at his stall. He gave me a grin, revealing a single fang.

"Sorry, no refunds." He said, then disappeared with a puff of comically pink smoke.

The last thing I remember was hearing the sound of drums, before I blacked out.