Page 1 of The Monster of Darkspell Comics

Pashar

I lean against the counter as I watch the demon industriously working on the order ahead of mine.

The humans are all smiles and waiting eagerly, practically slobbering all over themselves, as they make appreciative sounds at the smell of cooking meat.

My lips quirk with amusement as their order is turned over to them.

They immediately dig in, looking for all the world as if they are having the best meal of their life.

I shake my head as I watch them go and glance over at the lumbering male behind me.

No Casanova in his true form, he’s an ugly bastard as a human as far as I’m concerned.

“You do realize that’s sick, don’t you?”

He smirks as he wipes down the counter with a swipe of his rag before starting my order. “It’s not like they know where it’s coming from. And why waste good meat?”

I snicker, and he gives me an impatient look when I don’t move away from his counter. He may get a kick out of feeding humans bits and pieces of those being tortured in the pit, but he sure does get a pike up his ass when it comes to serving a fellow demon.

“What will it be?” he grumbles, slapping his rag on the counter to glare at me.

My smile stretches wide, and I know he can see behind the illusion to my oily dark purple scales, the hint of my corethi slithering over me, and the monstrously large sharp teeth grinning at him.

Nightmare demons are just built special that way.

Even other demons prefer not to look too closely at what goes bump in the darkest parts of various demonic realms.

“Three to go. Extra crispy and extra mustard. Hold the red crap,” I instruct, delighting in watching the other demon curdle resentfully beneath the yoke of his punishment.

Unlike Dzik, I’m not on Earth for punishment.

I’m on vacation—a lengthy one—in reward for my exceptional services.

Or to remove competition, but when it comes right down to it, I don’t really care.

I’m able to come and go as I please through the portal connecting my shop to my dwelling in the nightmare realm of the infernal abodes and running the comic book store gives me an outlet for my creativity while allowing me to enjoy the chaos that is humanity.

As far as vacations go, I’m having a great time.

I also have to congratulate myself on my timely vacation.

The eighties has it all. Beyond the nicotine soaking into everything and the drugs that seemed soaked into the skin of many adult humans that pass through, there is a blatantly energizing glamor to everything that sparkles like demonic fire. And there is rock and roll.

It is a hell of a lot more entertaining than my last vacation in 1348.

What was supposed to be a leisurely vacation with an idea to torment some of the rank clergy and local populace in Florence, Italy while enjoying fine meals and a good Tuscan wine ended up being dead in the water—quite literally.

The Black Death probably was a good time for some demons, but everyone was a little too dead, or dying, to be much fun.

I did spend most of it drunk on said wine, so I suppose there was a kind of fun in that.

I consider the casks I still had from all of those that I smuggled back to my den, and I smirk.

The landholders had not lasted too long after they let their servants die and rot in the fields but first, I was quite happy to liberate them of their stock while they ineffectually cursed me, their decaying bodies covered in lesions while they screamed, caught in their own private nightmares.

Normally I don’t send nightmares to those suffering or dying, but I made a special exception for them, leaving just enough lucidity for them to watch as I stripped them of their wealth.

I scratch my jaw thoughtfully. Come to think of it, I have some nice jewels as a take-home gift for myself from that vacation as well.

The wine, however, was a gift that keeps giving.

I found so much of barrels of wine stored at the winery because of the ports closing down that I had to construct an entire basement level beneath the lower levels of my home just to fit them all.

At my current rate of drinking, I suspect it will take a few more centuries before I get through them all.

Unless I find someone to share my life and wine with.

I snort in amusement as my gaze follows Dzik as he puts my order together. There is little chance of mating. It is rare for my kind to mate at all since we are terribly territorial. The only thing a nightmare demon enjoys sharing is...well... nightmares.

Dzik squints at me as he slaps my order on the counter in front me.

My grin simply widens as I toss the required paper bills on the counter beside the to-go bag, and I pick up my order.

His upper lip curls in a sneer as he snatched the money up and puts it in the till before shutting the drawer a little too forcefully.

I hear it clang loudly as I walk away. Snickering to myself, I remove a corn dog and take a healthy bite, my eyes landing on a couple of pimply faced boys loitering around the food court.

A maniacal cackle escapes me before I think better of it, and two pairs of eyes snap to me warily.

“Relax, boys,” I soothe as I take another huge bite of my corn dog. “How would you like to make a couple bucks?”

As it turns out, no matter the realm or what century you are in, even the wariest youngling will react greedily when coin—or in this case, cash—is offered. I relay my instructions and grin with wicked glee as they scamper toward The Good Char, their eyes alight with mischief.

Let’s see how that pain in the ass demon likes that for an attitude adjustment.

Another cackle leaves me as I head toward my shop.

Because I’m something of a hobbyist even when on vacation, owning my own little comic store appeals to the youngling in me.

That each comic book drags its unsuspecting owner into the nightmares woven into it while they sleep at night is part of the charm of my own little slice of eternity.

That... and Chewy, who is far less “charming.”

For all of my shop’s considerable charm, it’s unfortunately hard to keep servants.

.. ah... staff. I can tell immediately I am about to lose another employee the moment I step inside.

It probably has to do with the fact that he’s not breaking his speed at all as he barrels toward me, his face white as a sheet.

I bite back a sigh as he shoots out the door and slowly turn to look over at the menace occupying a shelf in a roped off corner of the store.

I narrow my eyes at the innocent looking fern.

“Chewy,” I growl, stalking toward it.

Its enormous fronds slowly curl inward at my approach, her numerous pod-like, flowering heads and stinging vines tucked out of sight, but I’m having none of that.

Chewy is the one inconvenience of this whole vacation.

A sentient, carnivorous plant from the nightmare realm, she can be a real bitch to deal with sometimes.

It’s bad enough that she will try to eat a customer who gets too close if someone isn’t keeping an eye on her—a problem that was mostly solved by putting the ropes in—but the fact that she gets her kicks out of frightening my employees is what makes her company unpleasant at times.

And now she thinks this mournful routine will work on me? Ha!

Pointing a heavily glamoured claw at her, I snarl deeply. “No more of this. No more trying to attack or eat customers or employees if you don’t want to end up mulched and thrown into the flaming pit.”

This time I mean business.