Demon

He tilted his head to the side and slightly put out his plump red lips. Was she really questioning him after doing all that to summon him in the first place? This girl had used such a powerful ritual that instead of summoning a normal low tier demon, she accidentally summoned the great Demon King! And then she had the audacity to question his identity. These sort of thoughts flowed through his mind and confused him about the identity of this girl. How could she have summoned the most powerful demon in hell so easily?

“I’m not going to prove myself to the likes of you.” He shrugged but ended up doing the exact opposite. He raised the cup with a motion of his finger through telekinesis and hurled it towards Enkeli- stopping it just before it touched her. He wanted a reaction. He wanted her to be scared, to tremble before her and drop to her knees at the sight of a powerful demon. He wanted her to beg for forgiveness and for her life to be spared- after all that he would tease her a little and have his fun and at the end, he would give her what she wanted for a ridiculously high price. That was how demons worked. That was what he had done a thousand times before.

“Good. What’s your name?” Enkeli asked.

‘What?’ He cleared his throat and looked at her clearly. He hadn’t noticed her appearance before but her weird question brought light to it. A petite 5’4 girl with short brown hair and bright brown eyes and yet he didn’t seem to invoke fear in her?

“Shedim”

She nodded. “Then let’s make a contract.”

Shedim stood on his spot, not moving an inch. He simply stood there and stared at her, wondering if she was stupid or brave. After a while, he still couldn’t decide which one of it was more likely so he chose to inquire her further. “Do you realize what this is? What you’re doing?”

“You’re a demon aren’t you? Let’s make a deal. I’ve heard demons love making deals.” She wasn’t wrong, it was true. Though if she was to be honest, she had expected something much uglier to turn up, she hadn’t imagined that it would be in a human form. Was it hiding it’s true form by borrowing a human? It didn’t matter. As long as it wasn’t difficult to look at it’s appearance, it didn’t seem to frighten Enkeli. After all, she had grown up seeing all sorts of creatures of the hell and now a demon shows up in a human meat suit? It wasn’t going to faze her.

“I don’t want to know how you even know demons are real. Usually it’s demons who approach humans to make deals, not the other way around.”

“It’s okay if you don’t want to know, now can we make a deal or not?”

‘Is this piece of human garbage really being serious?’ Shedim furrowed his eyebrows, the annoyance on his face becoming increasingly evident. He grinned inwardly. If she didn’t know who he was and was willing to make a deal with him despite that, it would only be fair for him to take advantage of it- he thought.

He pretended to be thoughtful, portraying a deep thinking face. “That depends on what you’re looking for.”

“A bodyguard.” She breathed out. She wanted him to get rid of any supernatural creatures or curses in and around her house. She would also prefer to be able to call him back if any new ones showed up. One thing she didn’t know was what the price of such a thing could possibly be. ‘I’m sure demon deals don’t come cheap’. Many ideas ran through her head about the price she might have to pay. Despite her shaky breath, she felt more confident than she seemed and perhaps it owed to the fact that he didn’t look as bad as she had expected. In fact, Enkeli thought he looked quite handsome in terms of human standard.

Shedim nodded understandably, as if he could get where she was coming from. It wasn’t uncommon for demons to have their pick of human and harass them in the plain sight of the day. There have even been cases of humans going crazy after seeing one, thinking they have got some mental disease, leading them straight to the psychiatrist. In a way, the stories might be true since the drugs given to them were so strong that they altered the mind’s ability to perceive things past the third dimension. Since the medicine caused them to stop ‘hallucinating’, doctors always believed that spirits and related superstitions were nothing but lies fed to make the mind fearful.

Shedim found it funny, how the same doctors would often pray to god when they were having troubles themselves and yet they refused to believe in the demonic world, simply blaming all of it on schizophrenia and other schizo hallucinative disorders.

“Then, who is it? Asmodeus? Azazel ? Moloch? What kind of demon is after you for you to be summoning me.” It must be someone of a high rank who is just beneath him, is what he assumed. Why else would a feeble girl go to such lengths to summon the Demon King himself ?

Confusion dawned on her face at the names he was mentioning. Weren’t these higher level demons that he was talking about? She had remembered reading about them while studying up on the art to summon a demon but she steered clear of anything that reeked like it would be more than she could chew off.

“Demons? No no, not demons. It’s mostly ghosts and energy vampires.”

Shedim’s eyes widened and his mouth parted ever so slightly. He was silent only for a few seconds before he realised that what she was speaking was the truth. It was so amusing for him that he couldn’t hold it in any longer and bust out laughing. His head hung low and shaking in between the laughs, Enkeli noticed how red and fluffy his hair were, however, she didn’t ponder on it because of how hard he was laughing.

“What’s so funny.” She pouts, feeling impatient with his response. Here she was, looking for help and instead he was laughing in her face.

‘What did I expect? He is a demon after all, of course he is not going to want to help me at all. I think I might have to deal with this by myself in the end.’ Her disappointment was immeasurable.

“It’s- just-,” He continued laughing, this time kneeling on the ground and punching the ground with his left fist to hold in the laughter. With each punch that he made, the whole ground shook violently. Garbage cans from the street rolled down from one side to another and phone booths tilted unnaturally. Enkeli herself almost lost her balance and was about to land on her butt before she widened her legs to make a stance stable enough to keep herself grounded. If she wasn’t feeling nervous before, it was starting to get to her now. He was strong and dangerous and it just now occurred to her that if he could bring on an earthquake with a simple punch while seemingly being in a good mood then what would he do if he was enraged about something?

What could this man achieve?

She gulped. ‘This isn’t the time to drop the ball.  I need to keep it rolling, it’s too late to back out and run away now.’

“It’s just that you’re so dumb that I couldn’t help it.” He wiped away a stray tear from the laughter and stood back up into a straight posture.

Her eyebrows furrowed in disdain.

“Let me get this straight. You wanted to get rid of ghosts, so you called me? A demon? Love, do you want me to explain how hierarchy works?” He put his hand out parallel to the ground and then levelled it above his head. “I’m here.” Then he lowered his hand at the same angle all the way down to the ground, crouching to reach down. “Low lifes like ghosts are here.”

“There’s one thing wrong about that equation.” She breathed out. Shedim raised his eyebrow, egging her to continue. “Ghosts don’t make deals.”

A distant faint smirk played at the corner of his lips as if he had been bored for a really long time and only now did he find a nice toy to play with. The smile was mischievous and inviting, as if asking Enkeli to take a step closer, to walk towards him and let him devour her, let him reach the deepest parts of her that she herself didn’t know existed. In front of her was someone who was devious enough to uncover everything she had to offer. She could tell, this was a game to him. And he could tell, she wasn’t as scared as she should be.

Shedim wasn’t one to make deals until there was anything in it for him. And quite often, he would simply not make a deal at all because it was boring to him. However, he would pull of the occasional ridiculous deal to gain some life years off a poor human’s back simply to fulfil his quota of the month and to appease Lucifer.

This time, Shedim decided to make a deal whose purpose wasn’t just to gain life years or to fulfil his quota. This time, he was provoked by someone who wasn’t afraid of him.

“You do have a point, so I’ll take you up on the deal.”