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That’s it, I’m done. I don’t want any part of this anymore.
Often times, we demons can hear the exact moment of despair that propels someone to summon us from hell. Or at least, that’s what I’ve always been told. I shouldn’t be as surprised as I am to hear this unexpected exclamation as I am, but it does give me a bit of a jolt. I stand up and everyone in the office is staring at me.
“Whacha stan’nin’ fer, huh?” someone questions me, but a portion of the rudeness forgiven due to their accent. The second person is far less kind.
“Sit your intern ass back down, kid!”
Timidly, I look around the booths, seeing only the tops of heads. I’m not even properly a demon yet. My name isn’t in the books yet. It isn’t clear why or how I’m able to hear the voice of my summoner. While shaking, I grab my notebook and pen and race off to the supervising demon lord on my floor.
Just as I’m about to approach him, though, I start hearing a chant. The ritual is beginning which means I don’t have enough to ask my questions, let alone get answers, so I just refer to my notes before I’m plucked out of hell and poofed into a new room.
As my eyes adjust and get a feel for my surroundings, I am able to start piecing together why I’ve been called.
Although, the summoner’s exact words also help me in determining what is happening.
“You don’t look like Sunaar, demon of submission. Who the fuck are you?” he half whimpers, he shouts. Having heard his moment of despair, and now knowing who he intended to call, I cannot help but wonder his motivations for summoning me. I’m not sure it may be as cut-and-dry as the usual work of demons. I don’t know. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but something less sinister as work here.
Besides, Demon 101 says: question everything.
“Hello sir, would you like me to fluff your pillow today? You’re looking sad, and I believe that a good pillow fluff could perk your evil spirts right up.”
The summoner does not like this, and instead of replying turns back to his book and starts whispering under his breath.
Demon 102 says: let them writhe in curiosity if they have made a mistake.
“I wonder how you were able to call me to the surface today, sir. I am simply an intern in the demon’s office in the first circle of Hell. It is nearly impossible to summon a demon that isn’t permitted for field work. You did a really interesting thing by summoning me!”
He drops the book, but then decides he would rather kick it instead, and sends his foot flying forward. Demon 103 really drives home the point of: let them feel the seven sins openly. This makes it easier to sway them and trick them into making more mistakes. It continues this way for several long minutes, him grabbing things and then drop kicking them to other sides of the room. Periodically, to console him, I tell him plainly, “Your feelings are valid, summoner!”
This seems to only make him angier which makes me think that I’ve done my job well. Perhaps when he calms down, I can find out the true purpose in his trying to summon a demon to assist with his problems. After all, in Demon 104: know what they want so that you can make sure they don’t get it.
Part of our job as demons is to mislead people into making deals they shouldn’t be making with us. They are never to get everything that they ask for during a summon, and they are never to be paid in full on the requests that they make from us. This is supposed to make them more likely to commit sins and easier to bring into the circles of Hell as new recruits.
I don’t really pay attention to the passage of time as a demon, though I look at the clock to simulate a human behavior. This may help the summoner to calm down so that I can address him. It takes many attempts at this before it works, but eventually he places himself in front of me at the edge of the trap. “I just want to die.”
“That was very straightforward sir, but I have to ask if there is another way I can assist you today. Committing several acts of harm and, or, death to a summoner is outside of my approved actions. I shouldn’t even be here,” whether or not I should be sharing the inner workings of the circles is unclear in the handbooks and training modules, so I’m making my stance clear so as to avoid further confusion.
“You can’t kill me?” he asks.
“Not without proper licensure, sir,” I confirm excitedly. I vocalize that I’m glad that he understands which prompts him to walk away swearing. This is a positive behavior for someone to be recruited into the circles after death.
It does make me ask, though, “Why do you want to die, sir?”
“Because I’m vampire!” he exclaims without missing even a full heartbeat of time between statements. I am impressed, and also concerned.
“That’s a silly reason to die. I’m going to deny your request and all future requests made improperly. Would you be interested in my initial offer to fluff your pillow? It is the only thing that I can guarantee a positive outcome for at this time, sir.” Even though I know that I am bad at my job, sometimes I don’t fully realize it until it’s actively happening. I fear that I may be too nice to be a demon. I don’t even know what my title would be. Sunaar is the demon of submission, like the summoner stated earlier. Is mine going to be Simon, the demon of sweetness?
Or, as many like to joke, of “stupidity.”
I guess it’s no matter to me, as I continue to follow my mindless and reasonless gut feelings.
“Sir, I know that you’re feeling frustrated and like you can’t do this anymore, but I’m afraid that being a vampire is a very normal thing to be, and I would prefer if you experienced more life before trying to call another demon. In fact, I think I’ll recommend a stop on summons from you for -”
He cuts me off, “Just fluff my damn pillow and leave. I’m breaking the circle as soon as you’re done so you’ll just go away!”
“May I know your name, sir, for my records when I return to the office?” I ask as I approach the bed. As I fluff the pillows and pull the blankets back, he approaches. The boy is slender, gray, and sophisticated in appearance, but his languid features and obvious depression age him and make him seem tired. I am sure that his purpose for summoning right now is not a clear-minded one. Besides, he’s too young to have actually made done the summon in a sound mind.
We are sometimes warned against adhering to those sorts of summons. We need them to have clarity enough to not be able to debate the sincerity in the deals strucks between human- and demon-kind.
“Baz,” he whimpers.
“Baz what?”
“Baz Pitch,” he says, joining me at the bed. He stares down at it and then flops on the sheets. I don’t get a chance to finish fluffing all of the pillows. He doesn’t release me as he said because he just continues laying in the bed face-first against the sheets. I guess I don’t mind much, since it this field experience for me. I can use it on my resume later, and use it as a bargaining chip for a permanent position in the circles in the future.
While I wait for him to wake up, I start cleaning up everything from the ritual so that Baz Pitch can take what I’m going to assume is a very much needed rest. When the room is cleaned up, I explore the types of books he has on his shelves, and the kinds of clothes he has stuffed in his closet. Baz gave me permission to go to his bed, so I can wander around this room freely, but there was no express consent given to leave the room, so I don’t think I can check out anything else.
I do everything I can think of from folding clothes, to using socks with holes in them as dusting rags. I straighten his desk and his shoes, and I line up all of his knick-knacks. He rolls around in his bed for hours, rather peacefully at times, and rather tormented at others. He has one particularly bad nightmare that jolts him upright in his bed.
“Would you like me to comfort you, sir?” I ask gently.
“No,” he groans. “Why are you still here? What have you even been doing?”
Smiling, I go ahead and inform him about what I’ve been up to and detail why I was unable to leave when he fell asleep. Then I tell him that he probably should sleep more often, even if it doesn’t fix his personality. He tells me that I’m rude, but he is smiling too.
I like that he’s smiling. I don’t think other demons get to say they made someone smile when they’ve been in the field. I like the feeling.
“My name is Simon Snow, and if you ever need me, probably just do whatever you did this time to summon me, sir. I would be happy to help you again,” I say, assuming the next step is to be released.
“No,” he laughs.
“It is understandable, sir. Demons are not wanted by the same summoner often, unless they have done a nasty bit of work on them. I hope that you are well and see the value in your life after I am released,” my voice is cheery and light, riding the high of being happy to have made some sort of impact on this Baz Pitch gentleman.
“No,” he laughs again. “I mean to say that I’m not going to summon you again because I’m going to keep you. I’ve read about binding spells before, so I’m going to do that instead so you can stay.”
“That is unheard of,” I remark with surprise. “I haven’t read about demons being bound to a summoner outside of for purposes of slavery. Do you mean to keep me as a slave to clean your room and make you sleep, sir?”
Baz shakes his head and comes over, looking down his nose at me. I’ve seen demons in the lower circles look at the demons in the first circle like this. They don’t just look down at them but they look down upon them, as if they are somehow less than, despite being just as dead and gone as everyone else. It is weird to me and I don’t understand it.
But Baz isn’t looking down on me in that way, not in this moment. He is looking down his nose at me as though he is curious about me. Since I am curious about him I shift my chin upwards to look at him directly. Good eye contact is Manners 101, which I remember from my childhood as a human.
“Yes and no,” he says smoothly.
“Did you know in some Indian cultures that they have a head movement that says ‘yes and no’ without speaking? It is very interesting, and I can demonstrate it for you if you would like,” the ramblings come out of my mouth usually before I can stop myself.
Baz grins and then steps away, going off on his own ramblings, not about Indian culture, or about the meanings of gestures, but about the book he’s looking for that has the binding spells. Since I cleaned his room, I recognize these ramblings won’t help, so I follow close behind him.
“Books without authors can be located on the third shelf from the bottom in alphabetical order by the title, sir. You should find it there,” I explain excitedly.
“This is exactly why I’m keeping you,” he laughs before turning around to get the book that will bind us together forever.
What a wild concept: forever.
When I was a human, forever was limited. It didn’t really mean for an infinite amount of time. Now, as a demon, my time really is endless, and Baz is a vampire. The length of time that he could live is undetermined. Many legends do say that they can live forever if they are never attacked, which will be part of my duty being bound to him.
So I really will get to be with Baz Pitch forever.
And it doesn’t
feel
like it’s going to be a bad thing.