11. What Do We Do Now?!?!
What Do We Do Now?!?!
AZROTH
W hy did this feel like a bad idea?
His plan was brilliant in its simplicity. If he wanted to scare Luke, all he needed to do was reveal his true nature to the human. Show him the awesome and horrific power of an upper-level demon. Of course, Luke was going to be scared out of his mind.
Easy. He was going to win their competition and bragging rights.
So why did this feel like a mistake?
It couldn’t be because Luke was a nice guy that everyone in the house adored.
It couldn’t be that he was always helpful, regardless of how many hours he’d already worked or how little sleep he had.
And it couldn’t be because he was inventive, creative, and fun.
They were demons, Satan, dammit!
They were supposed to be hard, ruthless, and cruel. Going soft on a human was disgraceful. Scaring Luke tonight was a critical step in reminding them all who they were supposed to be. Put this entire house back on track.
Azroth sat in a tall, throne-like chair in the library, grinding his teeth while listening for Luke’s arrival after work.
He’d sent the other demons to their rooms, where he was sure they were all pouting.
Most of them had pleaded with him not to go forward with his plan.
It wasn’t that they didn’t want him to win, but they were afraid of Luke moving out.
Nonsense.
If Luke moved out, they’d rent the room to another college student and begin the game again. Who cared if this human ran off crying?
Sure, he knew it was impossible for them to find another tenant who was as thoughtful, accepting, and fun as Luke.
Not to mention, he was pretty cute with his messy brown hair, enormous eyes, and crooked smile.
Whatever. None of that mattered. It was imperative that he scare Luke and remind them all that they were demons!
A little whimper whispered through the room followed by the drip, drip, drip of water hitting the hardwood somewhere in the library. Books shuffled and jostled on the shelves.
Fuck me. The library is crying again.
“Enough!” Azroth snarled. “I don’t care if Luke was extra careful with your books and always dusted your shelves. You can’t keep him! That wasn’t part of the deal.”
The front door creaked open, and Azroth’s heart skipped a beat. His hand tightened on the arms of the chair, and he willed his excitement back down. Yes, excitement. Not panic.
“Stop your sniveling,” Azroth hissed between clenched teeth. “All your tears will ruin the books.”
The library finally ceased its crying, but there was a deep sense of melancholy hanging in the air as if the damn room was depressed about the coming loss of its favorite patron.
Luke’s footsteps echoed off the hardwood floor as he crossed the foyer and headed to the staircase that would take him up to the second floor and eventually his room in the attic.
Azroth clamped on his irritation with the library and the other demons. He cleared his throat and called out, “Luke? Could you join me in the library for a moment?”
“Az? Yeah, sure. Of course.”
The demon clenched his teeth at Luke’s eager and helpful tone. He undoubtedly thought Azroth wanted him to help with something around the house, even though he’d attended three classes that day and worked a six-hour shift at his fast-food job.
The scent of french fries wafted into the room a moment before Luke crossed the threshold.
“Az?”
With a flick of his fingers, the double doors slammed shut behind Luke, and the lights went out.
Luke’s gasp cut through the darkness. Flames burst into existence at the end of the thirteen candles spread throughout the room.
The shelves holding mountains of books creaked, and the floor groaned as the library protested Azroth’s initial onslaught.
“Silence!” he bellowed.
“I-I didn’t say anything,” Luke stammered.
“I was talking to the house.”
Azroth pushed out of the chair and turned to face Luke.
Gone was his human facade. Azroth towered over the pathetic human, standing more than eight feet tall, not counting the horns that curled out of his head.
His wings exploded from his back, banging into the walls on either side of him.
Eyes glowed a fiery red. He was a nightmare come to life.
“A-A-Az?” Luke stammered. His voice was soft and trembling. The man in front of him shrank, his shoulders hunched and head down, as if hoping he could make himself small enough not to be noticed.
“My name is Azroth, First General of Hell’s Western Armies, puny mortal. You’ve willingly walked into our little game.”
“Game?”
“You’re now our plaything.” Azroth reached out with his left arm to the bookshelves and flung his hand forward.
Books flew toward Luke, but he was careful not to hit him with a single one.
Luke screamed, and the library sobbed anew.
Azroth fought the urge to roll his eyes.
There was no point in telling it to stop.
At least the moaning added to the dark ambience.
Luke tried to run for the doors, but with another wave of his hand, the doors disappeared, becoming a blank wall.
Azroth slammed a hand above Luke’s head and leaned in close, crowding the human on all sides as his slender frame trembled. The entire library filled with the rich aroma of his terror, but it didn’t smell as sweet as it should have.
Never mind. Not important.
“How could you not have realized you’re in a house filled with demons?” he mocked.
“All of you?”
“Yes,” Azroth hissed, savoring the word.
“But…but…”
“But what?” he roared and then ignored the little voice in his head that begged him to take it down a notch. He’d already won the bet. There was no reason to give Luke a heart attack.
“But you’ve all been so nice to me.” Luke’s voice was so tiny Azroth could barely hear it over Luke’s racing heartbeat.
“Nice?” Azroth shoved off the wall and resumed his towering stance while making the entire room tremble. “Demons aren’t nice!”
Luke stumbled and fell against the wall for support.
Hundreds of books tumbled from their shelves to crash onto the floor.
The candlelight flickered wildly as if a violent wind had rushed through the room, causing deep shadows to lunge and dance.
Under their feet, the floor creaked and buckled, appearing a heartbeat away from total collapse.
And yet, Luke kept his eyes on Azroth, staring up at the demon.
“But Ogos talks books with me. And Tog stayed up and watched horror movies with me after I had a bad day.” Luke paused and shoved a hand through his greasy hair, leaving it sticking up in every direction.
“Tog must have been the reason my asshole boss ended up with explosive diarrhea. He was stuck in the bathroom at work for his entire shift, and even then, I heard he shit himself on his way home. Wow. We talked about it, but I never guessed he’d take me seriously. ”
Azroth closed his eyes and silently cursed Tog. Nothing seemed to derail a good scare like talk of explosive diarrhea.
“And you…” Luke resumed, his voice softer and inexplicably filled with a note of wonder.
Azroth eyes flicked open again. “What about me?” he roared, his voice rattling the windows.
“You’re the one who sent those crows to protect me, aren’t you? The one who protected me that day from the frat boys.”
If a demon could blush, Azroth knew he would be on fire. How the fuck had Luke guessed that?
“No! Of course not!” he bellowed, but Luke didn’t go back to his earlier meek cowering. In fact, he was standing straighter now, and his wide eyes were traveling over Azroth as if he found the demon interesting instead of scary. He needed to end this now before it turned into a real debacle.
“Now that I know who you and the others are, does that mean I have to move out?”
Too late. It was a complete debacle.
“What?” Azroth choked out, losing his thundering tone. “You want to stay ? With a bunch of demons?”
“Yes, please,” Luke whispered.
Azroth took a tentative step forward, waving his talon-tipped hands in front of him as if trying to grasp some thin tendrils of understanding in this bizarre situation.
“You’re not scared for your soul? You’re not afraid that we’re going to sneak into your room while you’re sleeping and eat you?
” Had he scared the sense right out of Luke’s precious little head?
“Yes, but I think being homeless is scarier. It’s almost winter, and I’m not sure where I can go next.
And maybe…it hasn’t been that scary living here so far.
” Luke swallowed hard and took a tiny step closer to Azroth.
“To be honest, you and the other demons have been way better roommates than any of my past ones, and the rent is just so cheap.”
Oh. My. Satan. The human wants to live with demons.
With a growl, Azroth waved his hand at the wall. The doors reappeared and slammed open. “Go!” he shouted. He couldn’t deal with this right now.
Luke swallowed hard, and his voice cracked as he asked, “Leave for good?”
Azroth’s black heart clenched. Luke sounded closer to tears now than when Azroth frightened the sense out of him.
“Go to your room!” Azroth snapped. He folded his wings around his shoulders like a cloak and flopped back down in his chair.
“Thank you for the crows. I really like them.”
“Go!”
The scurry of Luke’s feet across the floor and up the stairs was the only sound he made. But it was too late. Those softly spoken words of gratitude had already created a glowing warmth within his chest that wouldn’t stop.
Luke wanted to stay.
That was unexpected, to say the least.
Not that it was a bad thing. Luke had been a perfect tenant, kind and thoughtful of everyone who lived there. He made their days far more interesting.
“So, that went well.” Ogos’s voice crawled through the room in a lazy drawl.
The library had stopped its sobbing and was humming as it returned its books to their proper shelves. Ogos was lurking somewhere in the shadows, cautious of the temper he was purposefully stoking in Azroth.
“It did. The goal was to scare him. I did that. I won.” His tone was clipped and tight as his nails dug into the arms of the chair.
“True. True. But now he knows we’re all demons.”
“Yes.”
“And he wants to stay.”
Azroth grunted. That one still baffled him.
“So,” Ogos drawled out. “What do we do now?”