12. Let’s Help Our Pet Get Laid
Let’s Help Our Pet Get Laid
AZROTH
A zroth glared at the gathering of demons in the library. Trying to call a meeting to discuss the constant state of chaos in the kitchen was like herding cats. They couldn’t be found, couldn’t listen, and just didn’t care.
But the moment he called a meeting to discuss the fate of their human roommate, suddenly everyone had a minute to spare and was all ears.
Azroth was ready to pitch them back to Hell where they belonged.
The demon stomped his way across the room and threw himself into a wingback leather chair.
His elbows resting on the arms of the chairs, he steepled his fingers in front of him and took a second to glare at each of his companions.
Currently, Luke was soundly asleep in his room at the top of the house and highly unlikely to wake to hear their discussion.
“You ready to admit that you couldn’t scare Luke, either?” Tog drawled. A smug grin spread across his greasy face, revealing jagged sharklike teeth.
Azroth ground his teeth together, mentally slicing the demon down the center and flipping his entire body inside-out.
In a rare moment of helpfulness, Ogos chimed in. “Actually, Azroth was quite successful in scaring Luke. I could smell his terror rolling through the halls and trickling up the stairs.”
“What?” Several of the other demons gasped.
“What did you do?” Bath’tuk demanded. The one-eyed demon managed to sound both terrified and overprotective of the human at the same time.
Azroth opened his mouth to answer, but Ogos was in a chatty mood and continued to speak for him. “Oh, nothing much. He just revealed his true form and told Luke that he’s living in a house full of demons.”
Chaos erupted around him as nearly all the demons except for Ogos and Azroth panicked. Azroth dropped his right hand into his lap and pinched the bridge of his nose with his left. It was now clear why Ogos was being so “helpful.”
“Enough!” Azroth shoved to his feet and flung out his wings, surprising the other demons into silence. Or at least little whimpers. “Luke is currently asleep in his attic, and it would be best if we had this discussion without waking him.”
Once he’d cowed all the demons appropriately, Azroth threw himself back into his chair.
“Now,” he growled, leveling a long look at Ogos, hoping to get the gelatinous demon to keep his gaping maw shut.
“We need to decide what to do about Luke. Yes, he knows that we’re all demons.
He has even seen me as I truly am. However, he has stated that he wants to continue living here. ”
“Really? He wants to live with us?” Annod asked, his words bubbling over with excitement.
“He’s not scared?” Mullmag chimed in.
“I don’t think it’s a matter of not being afraid. I’m sure he’s quite afraid of me and likely all of you,” Azroth began.
“But it’s that he’s more afraid of being homeless as winter overtakes New England,” Ogos finished for him. “Also, it seems that his past roommates were rather atrocious.”
Tog launched to his feet. His meaty hands curled into fists, his knuckles cracking loudly. “Which ones? What are their names? I’ll teach ’em a lesson for messing with Luke.”
Azroth flicked a finger from the bookshelf to Ogos. An enormous atlas shot off the shelf and plowed into the demon, getting stuck halfway. That should occupy the demon for a couple of minutes at least, giving Azroth time to explain the situation without being interrupted.
He then turned his glare on Tog. “Yes,” he hissed, his mouth twisting into an ugly, sarcastic smile. “I’ve already heard how you helped with his boss. Let’s put the matter of Luke’s old roommates aside for now and focus on the situation with Luke’s current roommates.”
Tog threw Azroth a grumpy look as he dropped onto the sofa again. The piece of furniture groaned loudly, and there was a muffled snapping of wood as something gave way under Tog’s massive weight.
The peanut gallery silenced for now, Azroth pressed on.
“The agreement before we started the game was to take in a renter for the purpose of scaring him. The game is complete. We have scared Luke. Now, we are left with the question of what the devil are we supposed to do with him now?” Azroth dropped his hands to his lap and looked around the room at the rest of the occupants.
“Shall we kick him out and find fresh prey? Should we begin a fresh round of attempts to scare him?”
“But…but can’t we simply keep him?” Bath’tuk inquired. The cyclops twisted his chubby fingers together, reminding Azroth more of a lost child than a frightening demon from Hell.
Keeping Luke felt like a dangerous prospect. It was turning all of them—himself included—soft. And not in a completely boneless way like Ogos, but more of a fluffy kitten and flowers kind of way.
And yet, he didn’t want to get rid of Luke, either. He was a bright spot in their long, boring days. He offered interesting, intellectual conversations. Not to mention, he appreciated Azroth’s crows and kept them well fed.
Tog puffed up his chest and took a stomping step forward. “Yeah, I think we should just keep him.”
Azroth blinked slowly at him. “Why?”
Tog deflated slightly, his face scrunched up in heavy thought. “Because…because he needs us.”
Oh, that wasn’t an argument he’d been expecting any of them to make. “He does?”
Tog nodded. “Yes, and isn’t it our job to help the humans when they ask for it?”
“He asked for your help?” Azroth repeated, raising one thin eyebrow at him. This was the first he was hearing of it. As far as he knew, Luke was the one constantly asking them if he could assist them in some way.
“He did. He had a bad day at school once, and he asked me to watch a horror movie with him to lift his spirits,” Tog said. The demon smiled, looking so very proud of himself.
It wasn’t the same as a summoning. That had very specific requirements and offerings to be made. There were contracts to be signed in blood.
“He asked me to open a jar of pickles for him,” Annod chimed in. Azroth barely stifled his pained groan. Really, this was the very worst assembly of demons. It was no wonder no one had come from Hell to pull them back. No one missed them.
Ogos finally got the atlas removed from his body and rolled his eyes. “We have all heard about how he has a crush on this human he attends school with.”
“Matteo,” Mullmag supplied with a dreamy sigh. Azroth couldn’t tell if the demon was being genuine or sarcastic, but he was leaning toward the former.
“What if we kept Luke, and we started a new contest?” Ogos suggested. “We could see who could give Luke the best dating advice. The winner would be the person who got Matteo to date Luke.”
“You want to see which of us can get Luke laid?” Azroth had to pinch the bridge of his nose again as pressure seemed to build in his brain. Who were these demons? What was going on with this house?
He’d expected them to want to keep Luke because they’d all grown fond of the adorable, bumbling human, but he’d thought they’d argue to adopt him like a pet or a houseplant. They’d water him, feed him, and protect him from the cold.
But no. They wanted to give him dating advice.
“Get over yourself,” Ogos scoffed, drawing Azroth’s eyes to him.
“Scaring a human isn’t a challenge for a demon.
Luke might have been a rare one where it took a few tries, but it’s not like you actually exerted yourself to succeed.
” Ogos paused and made a clicking noise with his tongue.
“But giving good dating advice to a human? Can you do it? Or are you afraid that your advice will destroy all the hard work Luke has put in?”
As much as he hated to admit it, Ogos had a good point. Scaring humans was easy. Giving them good advice about their love life was much harder. He’d watched humans fuck up their relationships for centuries. Could they do any better?
Well, they had an excellent shot at it, considering they had such a great catch to work with. Luke was cute, intelligent, thoughtful, compassionate, and funny. Those were all qualities humans enjoyed in a mate.
Of course, that raised the question of why this Matteo hadn’t fallen for Luke already. Maybe there was something deficient in this Matteo, and he wasn’t worthy of their Luke.
“Is this what you are all interested in doing? We keep Luke and help him date this other human?” Azroth inquired, his eyes skimming over the other occupants of the room.
There was a clear round of murmured agreements and nods.
“Very well. I have two suggestions. First, if Luke is going to remain a resident of our house, he has to live with us as we are in our natural state. There’s no point in sharing a house with someone we must hide ourselves from.”
“Do you think he’ll agree to it?” Annod asked. He was the one who this affected the most. While the rest of them could maintain a human form for hours on end, Annod struggled and could usually only manage for a few minutes.
“I do if he wants to continue to live here,” Azroth grumbled.
“He won’t have a problem with it,” Mullmag reassured Annod, patting the skeletal demon with one of his spidery limbs.
“Second, we work as a team to help Luke with his love life. We discuss strategies together. We succeed or fail as a team.”
There were some indistinct murmurs, and he could hear the doubt in their voices.
Getting demons to work together for anything was unheard of, but he was more afraid of them giving Luke conflicting advice, resulting in Luke abandoning them completely.
If they were going to help Luke, they had to be working together.
“Okay!” Tog practically shouted.
That was enough to get the rest of them nodding.
“Very well. It’s decided.” Azroth clapped his hands together and shifted to the edge of his chair.
There was a new lightness in his chest that he preferred to ignore.
“I will have a chat with Luke tomorrow about whether he would be comfortable living with demons who stopped wearing their human disguises. If he is fine with it, he will stay.”
“What about Matteo? And the love advice?” Bath’tuk asked.
“Assuming Luke agrees to our new terms, we will start with reconnaissance regarding the target of Luke’s affections.
I will get my crows to follow Matteo. Mullmag and I will also spend some time spying on him.
Ogos will chat Luke up to get more information about Matteo and Luke’s feelings.
Once we have that information, we will make plans for stirring up romance. ”
Yes, this was an excellent plan. Azroth smiled to himself and rubbed his palms together. This would give him a front-row seat in determining whether this Matteo was worthy of Luke.
Making romance would also be an interesting adventure. It couldn’t be that difficult.