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“Stop playing games and tell me why you’re here, demon!”
“Claudia, I’m not playing games.”
She thinks I’m possessing you fully, controlling what you say.
“Malphas says you think he’s controlling me. I assure you, I’m in control of this situation. It’s why I’m here to talk to you, actually.”
Claudia stares at me, teeth bared. “Prove it. Prove Lily is in control and not the demon parasite in her head.”
Ouch.
I know, right? She seems a little prejudiced against your kind.
I mean, who can blame her?
You mind if I… ?
Oh, by all means.
I’m not entirely sure what Claudia can see, so I hope what I’m about to do is enough. Except, I have a panicked moment of not remembering how to do it.
“I’m waiting,” says Claudia.
Sweat coats the back of my neck as I try to remember exactly how I ejected them from my head before.
Claudia stands, hovering over me like a toothy storm cloud. “Demon, if you don’t leave this woman—”
“Give me a second, Claudia! It’s hard and I don’t eject demons from my head every day, let alone with a shark witch threatening violence if I don’t perform fast enough.”
Malphas laughs and I latch on to that joyous, bright sound and imagine myself throwing it as far away as possible.
Because the only time I’d ever done it before was out of scared desperation. Calling up the strength to do it now is entirely different.
“Happy?” I ask when I no longer sense Malphas with me.
Claudia inspects me like I’m a horse she wants to buy, pulling down my lower lids, opening my mouth, looking in my ears.
“All right, all right, that’s enough,” I say when she tries to inspect my teeth closer.
“It’s you.”
“As I stated.”
“Yes, well,” she reseats herself and continues serving tea like she hadn’t just tried to cattle-appraise me. “Never be too sure. So, tell me, what brings you by?”
I sketch out the last few days, going light on the soul collecting details and stress how different each of the demons has said I am. Claudia nods and sips her tea, listening in silence as I explain exactly how strong they say I am.
“They have you dragging souls to hell for them?” she asks flatly.
“Oh, no. It’s not like that at all.” I try for at least ten minutes to explain how souls are simply energy and not person bubbles. That I’m not taking grandmas and kids to hell to be tortured.
I’m not certain she believes me, but she doesn’t judge me further.
“So, anyway, I was wondering if you might know whether I’m something more than human, because that’s the only thing I can think of to explain what I can do. You even said so yourself, the first time we ran into each other at the convenience store, that you thought you saw kin.”
I just need something to explain this. Something to put this whole experience into a neat little box for me.
Because as willing as I am to help them, I don’t think I can keep watching people die. My hope is, if I can better understand what I am, I can accept what I’m doing.
