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They aren’t bad jobs, not by a long shot.
But any time I reach the “duties include” section, I simply can’t imagine myself crunching numbers and making tables for insurance companies anymore.
It’s painfully boring work.
For the third time in ten minutes, I check the clock. It’s just after three pm, which means I can quit for the day.
I approach looking for a new job the same as going to my former job. I start early, scour the internet until lunch and then do a few more hours until my eyes bleed.
But trying to find a job, even one I don’t actually want, is a nice distraction.
So at four pm, when I’d fully committed to the sweatpants and daytime tv life for the day, I almost don’t notice it.
Mindlessly binging a mediocre show on Netflix, a warmth I mistake for being overheated fills me and my dumb ass pulls the throw blanket off my legs and stuffs another Flamin’ Hot Cheeto in my mouth.
Lily?
I shoot off the couch. Cheetos fly everywhere as I’m startled by the sudden voice in my head.
Where the hell have you been? You were gone so long I thought you were dead or hated me. So long, your voice startled me.
Barbas was gone so long I’d apparently grown a whole new back bone and started saying what was on my mind.
I’m terribly sorry, Lil. We had some complications at the dormitory. I returned as quickly as I was able.
Complications? Are you OK? Is everyone OK?
Barbas goes silent, the warmth he usually flows to me cutting off entirely.
You know that’s a dead giveaway that you’re hiding something, right?
I’m well aware, Lily. But I cannot tell you. Not yet. Not until we’ve all agreed.
Well, bring everyone here. Let me hear what they have to say and I’ll decide whether I want to hear it.
I’m afraid that’s not possible.
Why not?
Because one of us must stay with our physical forms at all times.
Right, that makes sense. OK, how about take me there?Oooh, I really like the sound of that. Going to their realm? Absolutely.
Humans cannot withstand the between realm. I cannot bring you to the demon plane, just as I can never come fully to your plane.
That uncomfortable bit of information lands like a rock in my chest. I’d suspected—given they need a human host to do their bidding here—that they wouldn’t be able to be here. But I hadn’t expected to never go there.
So, that means I’ll never meet you? I’ll never see what any of you look like?
That’s correct, Lily.
Another rock, this time with pure jagged edges, right to my heart.
Which is completely ridiculous. I’d known this demon for all of twelve hours or so?
I’m sensing grief, Lily. Are you all right?
No. I absolutely wasn’t all right. I’d latched on hard to the first thing that felt right and good in my life and assumed it was meant to be. Meant for me.
