Grim

Chapter 15 - Ornias

"Are you stalking me now Ornias?"

The demon smiles with perfect white teeth. "I like to make everyone think I can be everywhere at once. Like God."

I would roll my eyes if that were possible. "You demons will take any chance to spit in his eye."

"You would too if he ruined your life, then kicked you while you were down, then urinated on your face, and on and on. "

I extend my fingers again to put some more burn designs on the brick wall. "Hate to burst your bubble Ornias, but you died long ago. Hope you're enjoying your afterlife of torture in hell"

The demon's smile falters. "I'm going to tell you a story Thomas. I haven't told anyone this story before. I used to be a good person once."

I look at the demon. "Really?" I can't wait to hear this piece of fiction he's going to try to sell me.

He looks off in the distance as if remembering something that happened in the distant past. "I wasn't always a demon. Once I was a man, a priest actually. A small church on a hill where I got to spread the message." He exaggerates the word message while using his fingers to make air-quotes. "There was a woman who was in pain. Her husband had died young. She didn't have anything once her house burnt down, and she had nowhere else to go. I let her stay in a back room at the church. We talked into the early hours of the mourning almost every night. She wasn't the most beautiiful woman, but she had her charms. She was always so cheerful, and I was just happy to be there in her time of need."

The demon looks up producing a half smile. "Days turned into weeks, then months. We were secretly married a year later in the big city. We both smiled like children who were skipping out on school, once we got back. We couldn't help it. That lasted about a week, but it was the greatest week of my life. I had a whole sermon on the joys of loving and helping your fellow man. I remember when we used to sneak off into the woods to have sex. In retrospect, we could have used her room in the back of the church without anyone bothering us. The church would fill up on Sundays and holidays, but not many housecalls otherwise."

He pauses for a moment and looks down producing the demon's approximation of sorrow. "One day, I went into the market to get breakfast supplies. I was humming a Christian song that one of my charges had written, and the choir had sung for the first time the previous Sunday. Halfway back I see the smoke. It's coming from the church. The eggs in my sack fly out one by one as I sprint towards the blazing building. One or two of them break in the sack, the yolk stains the bread, berries, mushrooms, and cheese I had traded for. When I get to the church, I see that someone had nailed the door shut and barricaded the windows. She was still inside. I heard her last whimper as she died. She suffered that whole time."

I let loose a particularly strong blast of electricity from my fingers. "I'm guessing that hurt your feelings demon? I didn't know you ever cared for anyone." Sarcasm drips from each word.

"Joke all you want reaper, but God did this to me. Do you want to know who burnt down the church?"

I bet the demon did it himself, but I play into his fiction. "Who?"

"Those damned Protestants! They claimed that God spoke to them and demanded that I be struck down! That was the day that God decided to take everything from me, but he didn't stop there. I thought I had lost everything, but I found out there was so much more that could be taken." He finishes at a whisper.

He sounds almost sincere. It was a moving performance. I try to control the next lightning strike to make an outline of an oscar statue, but it doesn't quite come out that way.

Ornias says, "How can you be so cold reaper?" He sounds on the verge of tears, but I've never known a demon to cry unless it was to take advantage of another's sympathies.

I start to respond when a young girl turns down the wrong alleyway, and is followed by a group of four young men who are cat calling. One of them pulls out a switchblade.