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“Nanny?” Warlock Dowling tugged at her skirt. “I’m a monster, right?”
“Yes, of course you are,” Nanny Ashtoreth assured him.
“Yay! I’m a monster!”
Nanny smiled indulgently down at him. Her godchild was learning so well. “You are the most monstrous of all monsters,” she agreed.
“I’m a monster!” Warlock repeated, beaming.
“Dark Lord of all the other monsters,” Nanny encouraged. “The rest of them tremble before you. Everyone trembles before you. You—”
“Me want cookie,” Warlock Dowling declared, in excitedly growling accents.
Nanny fell silent. “What?”
“I’m Cookie Monster!” Warlock treated her to an endearing smile he could only have picked up from Brother Francis. “Me eat cookie?” he added hopefully.
“You already had a cookie earlier,” Nanny told him. “You already had two cookies, in fact. No more cookies today.”
Warlock pouted. “You said I’m a monster! Cookie Monster!”
“I meant, you’re not a monster,” Nanny tried for a belated recovery. “Not that kind of monster, I meant. I meant you’re the kind of monster that…”
But her attempted backtrack was far too little, far too late.
“Me want cookie, me eat cookie, om nom nom!” Warlock was chanting, with the attitude of one who has no doubt whatsoever that his goal will be achieved, and sooner rather than later. “Me want cookie, me eat cookie…”
Blast. This was all Warlock’s adoptive parents’ fault. Americans and their television. Ruining a good old-fashioned word like monster, so that it meant something cute and kind and dessert-loving. The things they taught kids today. Next you knew they’d be showing soft demons who were wrapped around the little fingers of their adversaries and godchildren. Stuff and nonsense.
Helplessly, Nanny Ashtoreth conjured the cookie jar. After all, there was no point in resisting when the Antichrist had set his mind on something.