by Ivy Asher
Last time he was on watch, he knocked on the door and helped himself to my couch and TV for an hour. We didn’t chat much, but I was grateful for the company anyway. I was kind of hoping it would become a thing. I’ve realized lately how much I don’t love being alone, but the fact that he hasn’t come in tonight makes me even more anxious than before. He’s probably sick and tired of babysitting me too.
I let the curtain fall back and then head to my closet, ignoring the paint cans and brushes on the floor as I snatch a jacket from a hanger. Shrugging it on, I step into a pair of slippers before heading out and going into the living room. I left the lights on again, which I know is going to really suck for my electric bill, but I’m already in default and dangerously close to being disconnected anyway, so I might as well suck it dry while I can.
Going to the front door, I undo the chain and the deadbolt and wrench it open before stepping out into the night. The air is misty and cold, biting through the sleeves of my jacket and sinking into my leggings. I walk down the path a few footsteps while looking around, hoping that Crux will show himself, but he doesn’t.
“Crux?” My voice sounds way too loud on the dead street, the darkness somehow making my voice reverberate even louder.
The haze of the streetlight across the road looks like an orange halo through the mist, offering the only light available to my eyes. I scan the shadows, but I don’t see the surfer demon anywhere. The back of my neck prickles, and chills sweep over my body at the inkling intuition that’s crawling over me like insects.
I’m being watched.
Holding the front of my jacket closed, I back away from my weed-ridden front lawn that’s speckled with dewdrops, the soles of my slippers scraping against the cement. I’m breathing fast but stilted, my inhales getting stuck in my chest with a rattle of unease.
Just as I make it to the threshold of my door, I hear a noise like something heavy slamming against pavement. My heart leaps into my throat, and the noise is so loud I almost feel the impact vibrating through the ground.
Cursing at my own stupidity for coming out here, I whirl around and grab my doorknob, but the damn door is stuck. The wood swells when there’s humidity, and the fact that my palms are slick with sweat isn’t helping me to grip and turn the knob properly.
Hurried footsteps sound behind me, and my heart goes into overdrive. I’m so gripped with fear that I’m shaking all over. I risk a glance over my shoulder, spotting a silhouette heading right toward me from the street. Terror takes over.
With all my might, I heave my shoulder into the door, once, twice, three times, and when I can feel the ominous presence behind me, I give the door one last shove with all my strength, and the swollen wood finally scrapes open, sending me hurtling forward.
I fall inside, barely catching myself on the doorknob, and then spin around and shove the door shut as fast as I can, but I’m too late.
A black boot slams between the door and the frame, immediately halting my movement. The body pushes the door open, and even though I do my best to keep it closed, I don’t stand a chance. A scream climbs out of my throat as the door is shoved open the rest of the way, but then a dark hand is covering my mouth and another arm bands around me, keeping me from falling back. I have to blink several times to realize that the person staring down at me isn’t a demon attacking me, but Jerif.
My eyes widen for a split second before I shove away from him. “You fucking asshole!” I yell, seething.
“Quiet,” he snaps impatiently, like this is my fault.
He turns and closes the front door, locking it before pressing his hand against the wood. He murmurs a few unintelligible words, and a faint red glow emits from his fingers, like the way your skin looks when you hold a flashlight against it.
“What are you doing?” I demand.
“Adding another ward to your house,” he says before dropping his hand.
“You fucking scared me to death,” I hiss. “You could’ve just told me it was you. I thought I was about to be murdered!”
He turns on his heel, his lava-red hair swept back, the orange and yellow highlights looking warm despite the cold hate that seems to have settled in my house. “I had to be quiet,” he grits out, looking down at me with anger radiating in his fiery eyes.
“Why?” I ask warily, noting for the first time that he has black splatters all over his dark jacket and jeans. I reach forward and swipe a finger against one of the drops, and my finger drags away stained red. My face goes pale. “What is this?”
“Demon blood.”
Swallowing hard, I turn around and hurry to the kitchen, feeling suddenly queasy. Rushing to the sink, I start scrubbing the putrid blood off my finger, cringing the whole time that I touched it. I scrub my hands again just for good measure, wanting to make sure I get rid of all traces of the oily residue.
When I’m satisfied it’s actually gone, I dry my hands on the dishrag and turn around, keeping my palms braced on the countertop behind me as I look at Jerif. “What happened?” I ask, even though I don’t want to know.
“Why do you care?”
“Don’t be a dick, Jerif,” I tell him. “Are you saying that demons came to attack me tonight?”
“Tonight. Last night. The night before, the night before that…” he trails off when the blood drains from my face.
“Every night?” I whisper, shell-shocked. I hadn’t seen or heard a thing.
“Just about. They prefer to attack at night, but we’ve dispatched a few during the day too. Mostly imps.”
“Why?” I ask, running a hand through my tangled purple hair. “I don’t understand why they keep coming for me.”
He gives me a look like I’m an idiot for asking. “You’re a powerful demon. They can sense you. If they’re able to kill you, then they can take in some of your power. If there’s one thing demons are hungry for, it’s more power. Nobody revels in being at the bottom of the pecking order.”
My mouth drops open. “Nobody said anything about that!”
“What difference would it have made?” he asks. “We’d still be right here in the same place we are now.”
He’s right, but I don’t want to admit it. “What about Iceman—I mean, Rafferty? Has he found anything yet to get my block put back on? Then these demons wouldn’t be able to sense me anymore.”
“If he’d found something, do you think we’d still be wasting our energy babysitting you every damn day?”
I clench my teeth and press my fingers against my eyes, like they can somehow be a reset button to my life. I want to go back to when things were simple. Things still sucked, but at least it wasn’t to the level of demons are trying to kill me suckage.
“Where’s Crux?” I ask, feeling exhausted as the earlier adrenaline that spiked through me outside drains away.
I know I look just as bad as I feel, the heavy circles beneath my eyes giving me a battered appearance. My limbs are leaden and my brain foggy, but sleep is still an elusive bitch, and Jerif doesn’t look like he’s faring much better. Physically, he’s the same enigma he’s always been, pitch black skin and flickering flame eyes and hair, but the exhaustion wafting off of him is palpable.
“That’s really none of your business,” Jerif growls, and I have to fight the urge to break his nose and then revel in the sight of him choking on his own blood.
I blame my irritability on lack of sleep and definitely not the steady flow of demon blood in my veins. I glare at Jerif, but he’s too busy looking around at my house to notice.
“Remind me again why you insist on staying here instead of on our property where you’d be more protected? This place is a dump,” he observes, and just like that, any goodwill I was feeling toward him for his protection tonight evaporates, and my stomach clenches with hurt. If my dad were alive to hear that...
“Thanks for stopping by, Jerif. Don’t let the door bash your skull in on the way out,” I tell him with saccharine sweetness.
He gives an unamused snort
and levels me with a look that says tempting, but no dice. I pointedly ignore him and then turn, pulling a mug out of my cabinet. Maybe a nice warm cup of tea will help calm my violent urges. I purposely don’t offer Jerif one. I wouldn’t want him to get the wrong idea and actually think he’s welcome here or anything.
“You know, if you knocked this wall out, you could double the footprint of your kitchen. No one needs a formal dining room anymore, and you’d have plenty of space for a decent sized breakfast nook.”
I turn an incredulous look on Jerif. Is he serious?
“Thank you, Tim the Toolman Taylor, for that unsolicited opinion. I’d just like to point out that you have a formal dining room in your house.”
“Of course, because my house is a mansion, and mansions have formal dining rooms. But in this shack, the space needs to be allocated better.”
Fuck’s sake, does he even know how condescending and insulting he’s being?
“Is that your professional opinion based off of all your years in construction?” I snark.
Jerif smiles at me, but it looks more like a taunt than an expression of amusement.
“My cousin’s stepdad was a pretty prolific carpenter. I learned a thing or two,” he defends.
I cross my arms. “Oh, really?” I challenge.
“Yeah, you might have heard of him. His name is Joseph...you know, Jesus’s dad.”
Fuck. Walked right into that one.
I give Jerif my best come the fuck on stare, but he just meets my irritation head-on with a look of amused gotchya on his face. I immediately don’t believe him, but the more I stare into his flame-filled eyes, the more I wonder if he’s not actually pulling my leg. Just how old are these guys? The question is on the tip of my tongue, just ripe for the asking, but I swallow it down instead. Not my demons, not my problem. I’m trying to get as far from their world as I can, not dive curiosity-first into their life stories.
“Well, regardless of what this house needs or not, you have to have money to do those things, and my account balance has a tight strangle hold on exactly two hundred and thirty-seven dollars right now,” I tell him. “So that would be just enough to cover putting a hole in the wall that offends you, just so long as I never eat again.”
Jerif’s eyes fill with judgment. “You spent your pay that fast? He looks around, feigning even more bewilderment before his stare settles back on me and my ratty clothes. “Where did it go?”
“Pay?” I ask, my judgmental tone matching his. “What pay are you talking about?”
“Uh, your paycheck,” he intones, as if I’m slow to the uptake. “Perdition Estate paid you for the hours you worked. We also threw in the agreed hazard bonus for the attack and for your trip to Hell.”
Eyes widening, I have my phone out of my pocket and my bank app loading in no time. I try to calculate exactly how much a hazard bonus might constitute. If I’m lucky, maybe around eight hundred, give or take? That seems fair. Elated relief surges through me...until my account balance loads.
I stare at the screen, but my head does not comprehend what I’m seeing.
“Well?” Jerif asks impatiently. “Did you get it?”
“It says my balance...I got a deposit of twenty thousand dollars,” I tell him, showing him the screen like my words need evidence to back them up.
His eyes scan the screen with a nod. “Like I said, there was the hazard pay added to your hourly rate.”
Confusion morphs into outrage, and I slam my phone down on the counter at the same time that the microwave beeps at me happily, announcing it’s done a great job of heating up my tea water.
“What the fuck, Jerif? If you assholes think you can buy me off, then you’ve got another thing coming,” I tell him evenly, my tone dripping with anger.
“Excuse me? Buy you off?”
“Twenty thousand dollars,” I yell at him, like that’s all the proof I need of their shady intentions.
“We paid you exactly what the hazard rate was in the contract that you signed. We’re not doing this out of the kindness of our hearts, trust me. It’s what we agreed to as part of the job. Now, you may be unfamiliar with people actually following through on the things they commit to, but that’s how we operate,” Jerif snarls at me.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
He shrugs. “Exactly what I said. We committed to a certain rate of pay hourly and in the event that something hazardous happened. That’s exactly what we paid you for. Did you read anything that you signed?”
He shakes his head like he’s utterly disappointed in me. I’m not going to lie, it stings.
“You’re so quick to accuse us of tricking you, but if you bothered to read any of the paperwork the hiring agency gave you, you would have known exactly what you agreed to when you accepted the job,” he tells me.
I open my mouth to argue with that and then promptly close it. Missy the receptionist had emailed me something that said copies of new hire paperwork, but I never bothered to open it. And now...twenty thousand damn dollars? With that kind of money, I won’t lose the house. I can pay my bills. I can slip out of the financial noose that’s been wrapped around my neck. Overwhelming relief surges in me, buoying the other emotions that come with it.
“Well...no one ever reads the paperwork,” I lamely defend, but Jerif just rolls his eyes.
“Pay you off,” he scoffs, repeating my earlier words. “We shouldn’t have to pay you off. You accepted a job, and you should see it through. You shouldn’t be paid for not staying true to your word.”
“I never agreed to guard a damn Hellgate,” I grit out. “I agreed to be a boring, human cemetery security guard and nothing more! Maybe you should just outright ask people next time instead of assuming they have time to read one of the dozens of forms shoved under their noses for a signature and then promptly taken to be filed away. This is not my fault,” I say, completely frustrated.
Jerif takes a step toward me, and he suddenly makes my small kitchen feel even tinier. “It’s not about fault, it’s about doing what needs to be done. It’s about things that are more important than our individual wants and needs. You’re being a coward and putting the rest of us at risk because of it. And that doesn’t even scratch the surface of the problems this realm will face if the Gate breaks beyond repair. How does none of that matter to you?” he demands, his face thunderous with blame.
“You can’t put all of that shit on me,” I argue.
“The fuck I can’t. Right now, you’re our best bet to solving this problem. If it were up to me, I’d chain you to the fucking Gate if that’s what needed to be done.”
“Well, good fucking thing it’s not up to you then,” I snap as I walk past him, making a beeline through the living room to the front door.
Jerif stalks after me, like he’s not going to let me get away that easily. I’m so pissed at him that I’m shaking. Yeah, it’s easy for him to pluck out parts of this situation and paint me with a selfish brush, but that’s bullshit. You can’t just say, Surprise, you’re a demon, and now we need all these things from your demony ass, and just expect shit to go your way.
I get that they were willing to sacrifice everything for the Gate. I respect that. But how can they expect me to be willing to do the same thing? I just found out that their world exists, and now I’m supposed to just up and sacrifice my entire future for a cause that just got dropped in my lap?
I didn’t sign up for Hell field trips or demon Gate shifts and all the other bullshit that comes with it. I don’t want to blow up my entire life and existence as I know it. People—aka pissy demons—should give me a fucking break. I know this is not what they want, but they can just join the fucking club. Welcome to life in the Mortal Realm, the place where things hardly ever work out the way that you want them to, and yet you still have to pay taxes on that shit anyway.
My footsteps stomping with anger, I unlock the door and then yank it open. Well, I try to yank it open, but the fucker is stuck again. I pull
the handle and put my foot against the frame for leverage. After one strong tug, the bastard opens, and miraculously, I keep from flying back.
“Bye, Jerif. Feel free to ignore the urge to visit again if the fancy strikes you in the future. Let’s hope for both our sakes, it doesn’t.”
He looks pissed as he bends forward, eyeing the sky through the open door. “I’m on babysitting duty for another couple of hours.”
“Under the lamp post looks to be a cozy spot,” I retort.
“I already dealt with one attack today,” he argues, not moving an inch. He crosses his arms in front of his muscular chest which is still covered in demon blood.
I spot the scythe in my umbrella holder, and before I can think it through, I reach for it. I extend the weapon toward Jerif, fed up with his judgy presence in my house. “I want you to leave. Now.”
Jerif shakes his head at me and glares at the scythe and then at me as he walks out the door. “You can’t run from the truth, Warrior Princess. This temper tantrum just further proves that you’re unworthy of such a sacred weapon.”
“Fuck off. Pretty sure the weapon I’m currently holding disagrees with your assessment of things, or it wouldn’t have let me find it in the first place,” I reply as he walks out. “Stay safe and warm now, the night is fraught with assholes and bitterness,” I say with an unkind smile.
He turns to look at me over his shoulder, but before he can open his stupid mouth again, I slam the door shut and lock the deadbolt and secure the chain. With a loaded exhale, I press my back to the door and slide down until my ass meets the floor. I feel like I just went twelve rounds with Holyfield, and as much as Jerif’s words and tactless delivery piss me off, I hate that they ring true to something inside of me.
I stare at the scythe sitting in my lap as if it somehow has the answers. I want to ask it why me? Why now? But it’s a stick, and I’m not that crazy yet. Give me another nine days of this shitty sleep scenario, and who knows what I’ll be talking to at that point?
