15. Plotting with Demons
Plotting with Demons
AZROTH
L uke had a proposal for the demons.
This was faster than Azroth had been expecting. He was even more impressed that the little human had requested a meeting with all of them. And so soon after discovering their true nature.
“Do you think he’s going to ask to move out?” Tog asked. A scowl twisted up his large meaty face as if he meant to fight Luke if he dared to leave them.
“Do you really think he’d ask to talk to us if he was?” Ogos replied. Azroth clenched his teeth, waiting for Tog to stomp on Ogos for his sarcastic, condescending tone.
Mullmag shuffled closer, all four of his hands wringing and twisting together. “Maybe he’s afraid we’ll hunt him down if he attempts to sneak away.”
Of course, after Luke’s talk with Azroth, it didn’t feel like Luke intended to run. He’d been adamant about staying, and not nearly enough time had passed for him to find an alternative residence.
Not to mention the crows had told him about a very promising meeting between Luke and Matteo.
No, Luke wasn’t leaving. This was something else.
Before the demons could continue their speculation, the front door opened, and Luke’s footsteps echoed through the hallway.
They stopped close to the main living room, where the others were gathered.
The thick, heavy scent of grease and fried food wafted in the air ahead of him.
It was after midnight, and Luke had just gotten off work at that nasty fast-food restaurant.
After a brief pause, Luke continued until he was standing in the doorway wearing his uniform and a heavy coat with a backpack slung on one shoulder. His eyes were bright, and his cheeks were red as if bitten by an icy wind.
As he stood there staring at the group of demons, his breathing sped up, and Azroth could hear his racing heartbeat across the room. Of course, this was Luke’s first time seeing all of them in their true form. It was undoubtedly overwhelming.
“Has it started snowing yet?” Azroth called out in a friendly tone, breaking Luke’s paralysis with a mundane question.
“Snow?” Luke blinked at him like he’d never heard of such a thing.
His brown eyes widened when the information seemed to click, and he exhaled.
“Uh…no, not yet. Soon. I think,” Luke answered haltingly.
It sounded like his brain was coming more online with every word he spoke.
He licked his lips and swallowed hard, his eyes touching on everyone in the room.
“Would you like us to assume a more human form?” Azroth offered.
“No! Uh…no, thanks. That was part of the agreement, right? If I stay, you get to be your true selves. That’s only fair.
” He took a slow step into the room and then another.
“I’m still adjusting. You’re scary, but also kind of cool.
Plus, I’m trying to figure out who is who.
” He stopped in front of a towering, hairy creature. “I want to guess that you’re Tog.”
“Yep!” Tog grinned, showing a mouthful of large yellow teeth. He tipped his chin higher and puffed out his barrel chest.
“Can you guess who I am?” Mullmag inquired, throwing all four of his spidery arms up in the air.
“Mullmag. Totally,” Luke said with a chuckle.
“He recognized your voice, moron,” Ogos grumbled.
Luke spun to the greenish-yellow gelatinous blob behind him. “And you’re Ogos. There’s no mistaking your snark and sarcasm.”
“Hey, Luke,” the cyclops greeted with a tiny wave.
“Bath’tuk.” Luke waved in return, his shoulders lowering as the tension seemed to seep out of him. He turned to Azroth as he dominated that high-back chair, his leathery wings wrapped around him. “And of course you’re Azroth, but where’s Annod? Could he not make it?”
“I’m here! I’m here!” Annod called out as he crept out from behind Azroth’s chair.
He was trembling so badly his bones rattled.
The demon was barely more than a skeleton wrapped in sagging chicken skin with frizzy blond hair.
He hesitated, still not coming out completely. “I didn’t want to scare you.”
Luke nodded. “You are scary, but you’ve also helped me battle the neighborhood cats, so I know we’re friends, too.”
Azroth sighed. Okay, they were all friends again. He was more interested in getting down to business. “Take your coat off, Luke. I’m assuming you called us all here because you’ve got news about Matteo.”
As expected, there was a bit of an uproar when Azroth mentioned Luke’s love interest. The young man looked overwhelmed for a moment but laughed as he slid off his backpack and set it by the coffee table. He removed his winter coat and dropped onto the end of the sofa.
The fear and worry seemed to fall off Luke, and he was back to being as comfortable with them as he always had.
He was the most remarkable human. They were all frightening creatures crowding the room, and he barely blinked an eye at them.
Mullmag, with his spiderlike limbs, had given more than one human a heart attack just because of his ghastly presence.
And yet, Luke barely reacted. It had to be his steady diet of horror movies.
If he laughed at those, how could their true selves frighten him?
“Your crows are more like magpies,” Luke teased.
Azroth could only shrug. “They couldn’t tell me specifics, but they reported that you had a chat with him, and Matteo has now begun feeding them treats. Was that your doing?”
Luke scrubbed his hand through his messy hair. “Sort of. After he was accidentally attacked, he thought he would give the crows some treats so they wouldn’t mistake him for the enemy any longer. He asked for some advice on what to give them.”
Azroth leaned forward, tenting his fingers in front of him so that his nails clicked together. “Was that all you talked about?”
The other demons leaned in as well until Annod fell over. Mullmag and Tuk made disgruntled noises and claimed open spots on the couch so they could be closer to Luke as he spoke.
The human didn’t seem to notice. His face had grown red, and he stared at his battered sneakers.
“No. He was talking about how noisy his dorm is and how hard it is to study there. I might have mentioned that the house I’m living in is quiet, despite having so many roommates.
” Luke lifted his eyes to Azroth. “He might have hinted that he’d like to see where I lived, but I told him I’d have to clear it with my landlord and roommates first.”
Chaos exploded within the room. So much for the quiet house that he lived in.
The floor shook under the combined weight of Tog and Bath’tuk dancing around.
However, the rattling of the windows and the slamming of the various doors was likely from the house eavesdropping on their conversation.
It wanted to celebrate Luke’s good news as well.
Azroth rubbed his brow as all the other demons began talking at the same time about ideas they had for making sure that Luke won Matteo’s heart.
“Candles! Humans love candles! We need to fill the house with candles!” Mullmag argued.
“That’s too much fire. Humans burn easy. Dinner. Feed the humans. They find sharing a meal romantic!” Tog shouted back. “Luke, do you think blue eyes or brown eyes taste best? We can make a casserole with eyes and lots of crunchy bits.”
“You can’t feed humans eyeballs!” Ogos snarled. “The most successful way to win a human’s heart is to get him drunk. We need to stock up on bottles of wine. The red kind.”
“What if we scare Matteo a tiny bit and give Luke the chance to rescue Matteo from a scary thing?” Annod murmured.
Azroth nodded. That wasn’t a bad idea. Just a little scare could send Matteo running straight into Luke’s arms, giving Luke the chance to play the role of the protector.
Except he could feel Luke’s hard, narrowed eyes on him. Luke did not look pleased with that idea. Maybe these suggestions were not the direction he had been thinking.
“No, please,” Luke said, lifting his voice to a shout above all their ruckus. “There’s no reason to rush anything. I can count on one hand the number of times Matteo and I have had a conversation. What if he’s not gay? Even if he is, what if I’m not his type? What if he’s not my type?”
Azroth sighed. Luke was bringing up some excellent arguments, which he didn’t appreciate. He and the other demons wanted to get to the point where they were convincing Matteo to fall in love with Luke. That was the fun stuff.
“He’s not gay?” Annod whispered, sounding heartbroken.
“Can we make him gay?” Tog asked.
“What?” Luke screeched loud enough to almost shatter glass.
“No, you can’t do that! I don’t know what kind of magic you guys have, but you can’t force someone’s sexual orientation.
That’s wrong. Matteo is probably gay. He gives off that kind of vibe, and I thought I heard he was dating someone on the men’s soccer team, but they’ve since split up. ”
“I don’t understand his not being your type. Or you not being his type,” Mullmag interjected. “He’s a man, and you like men. Does there need to be more?”
“And how can Luke not be Matteo’s type? Our Luke is perfect!” Bath’tuk shouted.
“Agreed,” Ogos chimed in.
“Luke is smart and funny.”
“He laughs at horror movies!”
“He’s thoughtful!”
“Maybe this Matteo isn’t good enough for our Luke!”
Luke propped his elbows on his knees and dropped his head into his hands.
The tips of Luke’s ears were growing bright red, and the coloring was spilling down across his cheeks.
However, Azroth was more inclined to believe the humble man was embarrassed rather than angry at the demons’ enthusiastic words.
Azroth waved a hand and conjured a cold bottle of water from the refrigerator. He stretched out and held it within Luke’s line of sight. The young man jerked upright and stared at the bottle for a moment before looking at Azroth.
“Sorry. We’re a bit overeager. We’re not trying to harm you or Matteo. This idea of romance and the dating process is very new to us,” Azroth stated in a calm, even tone.
“Thanks.” He accepted the water and cracked the seal as he twisted off the cap.
“I think maybe we should approach this first encounter as a sort of fact-finding mission. My job is to discover whether he’s interested in me romantically, or if he only wants to be friends.
If it’s the latter, we have to come up with a new contest for you.
You’re not allowed to punish Matteo if he’s not romantically interested in me.
I would be sad, but it’s understandable.
Yet, if it’s the former, we can come up with ideas to win him over. ”
“I really hope it’s the first one,” Mullmag murmured.
They all did. Of course, there was the argument that if Matteo was simply looking for a friend, they could still “help” him fall in love with Luke, but he doubted Luke would support that kind of coercion.
“This is a good plan,” Azroth announced.
“Tell us what day you will bring Matteo to the house. We will all be in our human forms for his visit, or we won’t be visible at all.
” Azroth peered around the chair to gaze at Annod, since the demon struggled so much with his human form.
The skeletal demon cringed and waved his hand at Azroth. He got the hint.
The plastic bottle crackled in Luke’s hands, and he sighed.
“That’s the other hard part. I have little free time between the two jobs and classes.
It’ll have to be a day where I have one class and one job.
Or maybe one job and no classes.” He made a growling noise and ran a hand through his hair.
“Of course, Matteo also has his classes and studying to think about. I don’t know if he’s also got a job. ”
“I thought we discussed that you don’t need to pay rent any longer.
Why do you still have so many jobs?” Azroth grumbled.
Discussed was a bit of a misnomer, he admitted to himself.
There had been scant discussion. He’d stated that Luke no longer needed to pay rent, and the young man had nearly fallen down the stairs. But humans were clumsy like that.
“Uh…yes. We did. But I still have other expenses. My grants and scholarships don’t cover all my school costs, plus there are other things like food and clothes.”
The other demons whispered and mumbled behind him, and Azroth waved a hand in the air to silence their nonsense.
He got it. If Luke was spending all his spare time working, how in the world was he supposed to win Matteo?
And if he wasn’t actively courting Matteo, they couldn’t compete in their contest.
No. No. Luke working all these jobs wouldn’t do at all. They needed to fix this.
“Okay. Tomorrow, you will notify both of your jobs that you are quitting. We will match what they are paying you, plus…” Azroth paused, scratching his chin as he thought of what Luke might believe to be an enticing number without being over the top.
“An extra twenty-five percent! Your task will be to help keep the house tidy. As long as you keep the house clean and live here, we will pay you this sum of money every month in addition to not needing to pay rent. Is this fair?” It went without saying that he would order the house to keep itself tidy, so Luke didn’t have to do anything at all to earn his wage.
Luke stared at him with his mouth hanging open. It was as if his brain had stopped working.
“I think you broke him.” Ogos snickered.
“Is he broken? You weren’t supposed to break him,” Mullmag whispered, his voice growing more and more panicked.
“Azroth, fix him!” Annod whined.
“What? No! I’m not broken!” Luke shouted, his poor, exhausted brain cells seeming to work again. “Just…stunned. I’m sure it would take me far less time to keep up with the house, and I can use that extra time to catch up on sleep and study more.”
“Plus, spend time with Matteo,” Azroth pressed.
A bright blush reddened Luke’s cheeks, and he nodded. “Yes. That too. I’d have the money to take him out to dinner at a nice restaurant.”
“Excellent. We have a plan. You will quit your jobs and set a date for Matteo to visit the house.”
Yes, this would work out nicely. Once they had Matteo in the house, they could all watch the young man and discover his true intentions toward their Luke. Feeding the crows was a good touch, but Azroth wasn’t entirely certain Matteo was worthy of Luke.