Page 13

Annoth

The food Theodore hasprocured appears disgusting. Lumpy, brown, slimy, with chunks of orange or green mixed in with what appears to be white animal flesh. He opens the containers and arrays them on the table in front of the couch. I will admit that the smell emanating from the brown lumps is enticing, but I wait for him to tell me which one to try first.

He holds a silver utensil out in front of me and says, “Fork.”

“I know what it is,” I growl as I snatch it from him.

“Yeah, do you use a big one to stab sinners all day long down in Hell?”

“I most certainly do not. Why would I be given command over flames just to use such a rudimentary tool of torture?”

“So you just…burn people?” he asks, his voice full of apprehension.

“Mostly,” I reply, offering him the sweetest grin I can muster. “If I am feeling particularly bored, I may resort to stabbing or shredding, but I would use my claws or tail for that purpose, not a giant fork.”

He swallows and looks back down at the food. “Alright, well, that’s horrific, so we’re just gonna pretend I never asked. Here, I got this one with all the extra spice they could put in it.”

“Spice?” I ask, pulling the container he has indicated toward me.

“Yeah, so it’ll taste like it’s burning you from the inside out.” I stab some of the noodles with my fork and bring it to my mouth.The taste is, dare I say, heavenly. The scorching sensation takes over my human form, causing my eyes to water and my cheeks to burn. It feels so familiar, like Hellfire licking across my skin again, that I am almost homesick. I let out a breath through my nose, exhaling smoke and causing Theodore to jump slightly.

“Does that mean…you like it?” he asks before shoving a clump of noodles into his own mouth.

I swallow and answer quietly. “I believe the word is…delicious.” We eat in silence, with only the noise of the television in the background, and the sounds of the city coming in through the open window. I manage to finish the first dish in only a few minutes, then stand up and look outside.

“How many towers comprise your city?”

Theodore has noodles hanging from his mouth, and for some reason, it makes me want to laugh. Not with malice or derision, but with amusement. “Uhhh…” he mutters, swallowing his food. “I dunno exactly. We really aren’t that organized. They aren’t called First Tower, Second Tower, Third Tower…like yours apparently are.”

“So, humans are not assigned to live in one tower or another?”

“No, people can live wherever they want…or wherever they can afford, I guess.”

“No wonder your world produces so much sin,” I scoff. “There is no order, no organization.”

“Some people might call that freedom,” says Theodore with a shrug. “My turn to ask a question: why do demons possess people? Isn’t there enough sin in the world already? Why come here and then make it worse, and then punish people for the sins you’re forcing them to commit?” I turn to face him and smile. This clearly makes him uncomfortable, but I cannot help myself. It is in my nature to intimidate and to sow fear, even when I am attempting to ‘play nice’.

“Some souls are born corrupt,” I explain. “Others are corrupted by the world as they age, and we need not touch those until theycome to us. But the sweetest victories are the ones we bring about ourselves. Possessed souls are like trophies, to bring home and display to our brethren and say ‘look, after all these millennia, even the purest of human souls can still succumb to sin and vice’.”

“The purest of human souls?”

“Yes, our targets are usually humans whose souls are clean, honest. Those who might not otherwise fall to the type of sin we force them to commit.”

Theodore appears alarmed. “How doIfit that description?”

“I am not in charge of host selection,” I say with a wry smile, sitting back on the couch, “but if I were made to guess, it might have to do with your willingness to show hospitality to the demon seeking to usurp your free will and compel you to commit heinous acts against your fellow humans.” Theodore looks around at the food on the table and crimson blooms on his cheeks.

“So I was picked because I’m…nice?”

“Perhaps, or perhaps because my masters believed that your weakened mental state would make you more susceptible to my influence.” I let out a long sigh. “Clearly, they were misinformed.”

“So, I was supposed to just be Easy Mode for you?” he asks with a laugh.

“What is Easy Mode?”

“Oh, uh…video games? Look.” He goes to the TV, presses a few buttons, and picks up another small device, then sits on the couch beside me. “This one is old school, and it’s not too hard, but with a lot of games you can pick which setting you want to play on: Easy, Moderate, Hard, you know. The game changes based on which setting you pick.” Shapes appear on the screen and begin to move, making small dinging sounds as they bounce off one another. Theodore presses the buttons on his device, which appears to control the shapes on the screen. He also makes small sounds as he plays–grunts and sighs and strings of curse words.

“What is the objective?” I ask.