Mimi's Demons

Chapter 50: A Weird Twist on Living in Your Parents' Basement

 Duke didn't much care for the east basement. It always had this damp chill to it no matter how high he put the heater or how many dehumidifiers the maids put in. He'd given up years ago on changing it, but it seemed to have only increased since he'd told the demon it could stay here. Not surprising. Still, he allowed himself a shudder and a scowl as he unlocked the door and skulked down. There were so many things he'd rather be doing.

The demon was waiting for him at the end of the hall like a horror film, shoulders hunched and green eyes glowing out from his lank gray hair.

"My god, get a haircut," Duke grumbled.

"A demon walks into a barbershop," said the demon, like the beginning of a bad joke. His gray lips even quirked.

"There's scissors in the surgical room, dumbass. Use your brain. It's not like you have anything better to do down here than...what do you do?"

The demon shrugged. "Meditate. Pray. Read." Duke had left him a computer tablet on his request to glen knowledge on the outside world. Apparently, though he could go 'incorporeal,' it was only partially so and he couldn't go through walls a meter thick, just doors and windows, and even then only 'unprotected' entryways, whatever the hell that meant. Sounded like an excuse to Duke. Kid had made himself seem so omnipotent. Seems fear demons were masters of bravado.

"You can read?" Duke snorted. "A demon walks into a preschool."

"How's Mimi?"

Duke didn't sigh. No need to let the demon in that much.

Instead, he leaned against the wall half a dozen feet from where the demon squatted.

"She's recovering."

"That tells me nothing," said the demon. "If you would allow me access to the cameras—"

"I will kick you out."

"I have no sexual desire."

"Like I care, you are not spying on my daughter and I know demons can't be seen through cameras." Otherwise movie nights with his daughter would be very different.

"Like demons are all I'm looking for," the demon said with a clack of its teeth, then jutted out its lower fangs. Duke had learned this was his equivalent to a pout. It was an ugly ass pout. "She survived this far because I was watching her over her before---"

"And now she's mine, here, and not prey to your creepy-ass stalker whims, so forget about it."

Duke really did hate coming down here.

The demon sighed, then stretched. Joints popped and bat wings filled up the space, threatening to crowd Duke out from his spot.

But nothing made Duke move unless he decided to. So even though the wings came within inches of touching him, wafting fetid, humid air into his face, he didn't move.

The demon rubbed its face.

"You know," it said. "The reason she's even here is because of me."

Oh? So the demon had gotten comfortable enough to truth bomb him again. Funny, seeing as it had insisted it had no reason not to tell him everything. But if there was anything Duke had learned about demons, or this one in particular, is that it hid truth by omitting it. If you didn't ask, it wouldn't tell. It was a curious, round-about way to avoid lying he had noticed his daughter taking on occasion when she couldn't just avoid a question by being quiet.

"What, you dug up her mother, forced her to give up guardianship, then inevitably hacked the records to make her legally dead?" Duke said with dry amusement that was more a threat than actual amusement.