Mimi's Demons

Chapter 46: A Child is Always a Blessing

Duke examined the entire space Honrye had just occupied, all while his mouth went dry, every hair on his body rose up, and sweat beaded on his top lip. That something in him, which had always been so sure and fearless, thinned to a needle long thread.

It didn't last all that long. I could have only been a full minute in which Honrye was simply gone. But to Duke, it lasted hours.

Then the kid was back and reaching for his milk.

"I admit, you shooting me caught me off guard," he said. "But I let you hang me from meat hooks."

Duke narrowed his eyes, furiously coaxing his heart to calm down.

"No one would let themselves be tortured," he said.

"Yeah, that sucked," said Honrye. "But when you don't have the pleasure to compare, pain is just pain. You get used to it."

Duke wasn't sure what Honrye meant by not having the pleasure to compare, but his hands had gone cold. He licked the sweat off his upper lip.

"For Mimi?" he said, disbelieving.

Honrye swallowed his milk, even leaving behind a milk mustache, which stood out all the more on his gray skin.

"Yes."

"...you are a demon? Evil embodied?"

The kid sighed. "I'm a really bad demon."

"As in you're especially evil?"

"As in I'm especially not." A strange look came over the kid's face. "That's...that's why I have a body. Or a pseudo one. I'm still...I was given a chance." He looked away, licking at the milk mustache. His tongue looked bright pink against his dark lips. "For Mimi."

"A chance? By what?"

"God, you idiot, who else?"

Duke felt his calming hairs reprickle again. That thin thread within him went taut.

He would never admit it, even in his darkest dreams, but hearing that God may exist frightened him more deeply than the reality of demons ever had. In fact, even when staring at the mangled bodies of his daughter's kidnappers as she screamed on the floor had only unnerved him. Most of him had been overtaken by blood boiling rage.

But he didn't have to admit it. The wry smile the demon gave him suggested he already knew.

"Yeah, it doesn't make full sense to me either. Why would a perfect God give me a chance after I killed someone for her? Just because I wanted to protect her? Make her happy? But, apparently that's what I need to learn. Prove myself."

"But going hungry and not peeing can ruin that all for you?"

Honrye did not appreciate his dry humor, as was said by his flat green glare as he took another swig of his milk. Duke didn't care. He wanted to be done with this conversation and back by his daughter. He already had plans of sleeping there tonight, and nothing sounded nicer to him just then than curling on the bed next to his daughter and sleeping this drug trip away.

But when had he become so weak? When had being a parent ever been about needing the kid and not the other way around? When had he become dependent on a little girl for his peace of mind?

"I won't die, I'll just lose my form for a bit, like I just demonstrated now," said Honrye. "In a more permanent fashion until I can eat more fear, which I don't particularly like doing. It..." But whatever it was, the kid couldn't find the words for it, and swallowed down the pause with the last of the milk.

"What's wrong with not having a body? Sounds preferable. Is it the power thing?"

Honrye licked the last of the milk from his lips. "It's a lot more than that." He turned to put the glass in the sink. "Once you've tasted what it's like to have a body, being just a spirit is torture, like sensory deprivation. Not being able to taste, smell, feel, hear, even see to some extent. Power is simply an ability to enact change, and there's hardly any change one can make as a spirit. That's why demons are so obsessed with influencing humans to sin and feeding off their resulting suffering. It's a more powerful being bowing down and handing that power over. It's a temporary balm to an everlasting damnation against change and growth, of stagnation."