The Devil & The Child

“You summoned me lord?” I bow deeply.  I’ve just met what is possibly the most evil person in all my lifetimes, in a blue blazer and khaki shorts.  I smell his thirst for death and destruction like body odor, seeping from his school uniform.  He is untapped potential for evil and I can see his future clearly as I can see my own hand. 

“Yes,” he leans forward, struggling to tie his shoes.  I kneel and take over. 

“Not like that,” he hisses. “Get…. In….Me.”

Possessions are my specialty, hey, you hang around in H-E-double toothpicks for nine-hundred years or so and you pick up a few things.  

“I am at your service,” I say, squashing myself into his much smaller frame.  Stretching my temporary tiny fingers around the laces, I pull them tight.  He sighs and I stifle a laugh.  What a cute little demon!

“Don’t even think like that!”  

He can read my thoughts!  Surprising.

“You’re wandering.” He snaps his fingers at me, at me in his body.  “Keep up.”  Tossing a backpack onto his shoulder, he calls out, “Mum! Bye!”  

No response.  My demonic jeffe rolls his eyes and mimes drinking.  It’s just past seven in the morning.   He walks stiffly down the sidewalk, so I throw my hips into it and give him a little swagger.  His soul looks back at mine and I shrug.  We stop at a curb.

“I don’t like Billy Vain,” he says simply, “And you’re going to kill him for me.”

“It is possible that you are overreacting,” I say attempting to placate him, “I myself tended to be sensitive to the actions of certain people, during my youth.  That passed later in life.”

“Cut the crap,” he says flicking a booger at the school crossing guard.  

“As you wish,” I say, scratching my chin.  Since I arrived in hell all those centuries ago, I grew extremely powerful and, like I already mentioned, I’m ancient.  Its a quiet existence.  You could say I’ve lost my passion.    After breaking into the Louvre or the Metropolitan and stealing so many Van Gogh’s, I do so love how that fucker suffered, I just got BORED.  I mean, I already contemplated Van Gogh’s anguish for two hundred years, I needed something new.  Something fresh.

The Big Guy suggested going back to per-diem summoning.  You know, being someone’s devil for the day.  All in all its been fun.  You know the game, do a dark deed, collect a soul as payment, move on.  Typically the people who summon me are at the end of their ropes so we arrange a transaction and I take what’s left of their soul, not that there’s much left at that point, but it adds up, and sometimes they have some great stashes that keep me excited for a day or so and its not like anyone misses them.  One guy in Germany had a car collection, that was fun for a week. I wrecked every one of his cars on the autobahn. 

Today though was an entirely new experience.  I’d never worked for a child before.

“By the way, I’m George,” he said.

George had a full life of destruction and mayhem ahead of him.  His ability to summon and command would only grow.  I had never really worked with another demon. 

“Keep up,” he barked at me.  We entered the school and found his classroom.  We took a desk near the front, our tiny legs dangling from the seat.  A few globs of moistened paper smacked into his backpack and then our neck and ear.  We glared around the room; the other kids looked innocent enough but when we turned to the front of the class, the room broke out in sniggering laughter

I smited the room with a wave of my finger.  Several of the children turned red and choked, dashing from the room.  The teacher yelled.  I knew where they were headed. With a wave of my left hand, I increased the water pressure on the hall drinking fountains and the water pressure pushed several children down the wet linoleum floor.  They screamed.  The teacher ran out and promptly lost her balance.  

My little cretin boss dujour smiled ear to ear.

The day passed easily as we went from class to class.  The place looked slightly familiar but boredom set in so I examined my cuticles.

All elementary schools have one thing in common: large polished gymnasium floors.  Our shoes squeaked across that floor.  In the locker room, we exchanged the blazer and khakis for sportswear.  I felt a bump to our shoulder and looked down.

“See you on the court,” a large hulking boy passed between us and the bench.  George’s eyes begin to smoke.

“That’s Billy,” he said.  I felt the hate coursing in his veins. “That’s him.  Kill him during Dodgeball.”

Billy Blain looked like a miniature line-backer.  “Was he held back?”

His eyes burned me.    “Just do it!”  Blain, that name sounded familiar.

“Let me know if you reconsider,” I said, “these decisions tend to be permanent.”  

We were at the doors leading to the gymnasium.  I noticed the ceiling, it reminded me of my elementary school gymnasium.  “It will cost you,” I calculated.  “It costs a full soul to kill a child.”

“Take what you want.”  My jaw hit the ground.  Children pooled around us in a knot, giggling. I saw his darkness.

“Look you do this and you’re done for the day,” he said.  “You don’t have to stay till sundown.  He pushed to the front of the knot, smoothing his shirt.

Bleet!  The gym teacher blew his whistle.  “Line up!”  He set rubber balls along the center court black line.

“Billy,” Mr. Blain, the gym teacher called out, “You’re captain one and…..” he scanned the group, his gaze pausing momentarily where I was not.  

“Hey,” I whispered.  “Isn’t that Billy’s dad?”  I pointed our hand at the gym teacher.

“So?”

“That’s unfair.

“Annnnd George, you’re second captain,” announced Mr. Blain.

“Welcome to my world,” George whispered.  One by one, Billy picked the strongest players.

Bleet, Mr. Blain’s whistle rang out.  The teams lined up on either side of the center court line. 

“When,” I asked.

“Just before he wins,” George responded.  Billy cracked his knuckles.  Mr. Blain smiled.  Then I remembered.

The whistle blew and I snapped our fingers.  Time clung to itself as the balls hung in air.  With my finger I traced trajectories, not the beautiful arches of a golfball, no.  Line-drives from maniacal screaming children.  TWANG the unnatural sound of rubber rang out as I closed my hands over it, my skin stinging.

“Get him!”  George’s blue eyes blazed and I felt hot blisters rise on my skin, it would hurt more if I hesitated.  The balls whizzed by, third graders pinged one another, laughing.  There would be bruises tomorrow.  I held our ball out in front of us, blocking.

Billy was a line-drive, ball grabbing, ball throwing machine, destroying our team.  I snapped my fingers again and deflected every single ball he sent towards our head.

Then he was out of balls.  

George will need hundreds of years for him to develop to my talent level.  It occurred to me that it might be fun to hang around with him and teach him things and from time to time, even the playing field.

I reared our arm back and flung the rubber ball forward connecting with Billy’s temple at a speed that should have been tracked with a radar gun.  POING. Blood spurted from his ears as he fell onto the polished floor.  The whistle blew.

I stepped out of George and shook myself off, back to my normal dimensions.  In my hand rested Billy’s soul, it was dark gray and had a unibrow.

“Thank you,” George croaked, his gaze on Billy.  Mr. Blain blew a hurricane into the whistle, grabbing George, my now ex-boss, by the shoulder.

“How. Many. Times. Have. I. Told. You!  NO HEADSHOTS!” Mr. Blain leaned into George’s face.  He was turning purple.  “NO HEA….”. He reared back and collapsed.

 I had always hated Mr. Blain.

The bell rang.  I followed George home, at a safe distance.

“You can go now,” he called over his shoulder.  “I released you.”

“I’ll stick around awhile longer, if you don’t mind.”

He turned to me and smiled.

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