K Stewart - A Devil in the Details

I don’t know how long I’d been sitting in meditation, working the white river pebbles between my fingers, when I heard the scrabbling of claws on stone. I opened my eyes to find a bold squirrel sitting atop a rock not three feet from me. It looked to be a healthy little thing, all fat and sassy, with slick red fur and gleaming button eyes.

I tilted my head to the left. It mimicked the movement. I tilted my head to the right; it did the same. With a sigh, I raised my right hand and flipped it the bird. It repeated the gesture and burst into little rodent snickers. I threw one of the stones at it, and it ducked.

“What do you want, Axel?” My peaceful meditation was officially over.

“Just paying my usual morning visit.” The squirrel scampered off the rock and zipped over to perch on my water bottle, guaranteeing I wasn’t going to reach for it. “I hear you’re working from home this week.”

The first time I’d seen this trick pulled, I’d expected it to speak in squeaks, like the cartoon chipmunks. Instead, the squirrel’s voice was a pleasant tenor and sounded too much like my own. It was creepy. With a groan, I pushed myself to my feet. “I have a client in town, yes.”

“Any chance you’re wanting an edge? A little boost to put that victory in the bag?” The creature’s eyes gleamed an unnatural red for just a moment. “Just a little wiggle of the fingers, a little mojo extraordinaire, and you can be the demon hunter you’ve always wanted to be.”

“Shame on you, Axel. Selling out one of your own?” The eerie little creature followed me as I grabbed my T-shirt off the patio table and pulled it on. A glance through the glass door told me Mira and Anna had disappeared into the depths of the house, and I placed myself where they couldn’t see the possessed squirrel if they came back to the kitchen. There are things I’m just not ready to explain to Anna.

“Spilled milk. You’re worth it.” It zoomed up the back of the wrought-iron chair, tail flicking spastically.

“First, they won’t accept my challenge if I don’t have a soul to offer. Second, you know I’m not going to take you up on it. Don’t you have something better to do than annoy me?”

“Nope. You’re it. As long as I’m hounding you, I don’t have to do anything else.” I swear, the squirrel grinned. I didn’t even know squirrels had those muscles. “And I am, if nothing else, a being of leisure.”

Now that Axel was off my water bottle, I retrieved it to take a long drink. “That’s the same as being lazy, right?”

The squirrel pouted. “You are an uncultured cretin, you know that?”

“That’s the rumor.”

Axel hopped to the top of the patio table. “It’s my move, right?”

The top of the table was worked in a checkerboard pattern. I hadn’t picked it out on purpose, but it turned out to work quite nicely as a chessboard. The pieces were stone, heavy enough that a breeze wouldn’t knock them over. I’d been playing against Axel for a couple years now.

He knew very well that it was his move. After a few moments of studying the board, he nosed a bishop forward a few spaces. “Your turn!”

Damn. He’d put me on the defensive with that one move. I was going to lose this one if I didn’t start paying attention. “I’ll think about it.”

Vicious barking broke out on the other side of my neighbor’s fence, and the possessed squirrel flinched. The thick boards shuddered as the mastiff on the far side tried to smash its way through to get at the demonic presence in my yard. “Tybalt, stop that! Get back over here! Sorry, Jesse!” my neighbor called over the fence.

“S’okay, Ellen. Have a good day at work.”

“Filthy smelly mongrel…” The squirrel’s eyes began to glow red again, and I thumped him on top of his furry little dome with one knuckle. Axel gave a very squirrelish yelp of pain, then zinged under the patio table to glare at me, rubbing his head.

“Ahht! You know the rules, no touchy. You don’t want the dogs to chase you, quit possessing the local wildlife.”

“I could always visit you in my true form. I could eat that dog’s heart and spread its entrails over their trees like garland. Think your neighbors would like that?” He was angry now; his tail was twitching all over the place. He really hated dogs. They felt the same about him.

“I think if you don’t want me to have Mira ward the yard, you’ll behave.” After the talking cockroach incident, she put protective wards on the doors and windows. Axel hadn’t come anywhere near the house since.

The squirrel burst into a stream of profanity in both English and Demonic, ran a couple laps around the patio, then fell over dead as the demon vacated its little body.

“Dammit, Axel!”

Just once, I’d like to start my morning without having to bury some furry corpse. I’m running out of places to stick them in the yard, and I secretly harbor the fear that they’re all going to get up some night and come knocking on the sliding glass door a la Pet Sematary. Like I said, I don’t do zombies.

The neighbor’s dog fell silent the moment Axel disappeared, proving that the demon really had departed. I went in search of a shovel.

We had a strange relationship, Axel and I. His job was to con me out of my soul, something he went about with the bare minimum effort. And my job… I liked to think it was to make his life even worse than Hell. We enjoyed baiting each other, playing the occasional game of chess. Sometimes, we even talked philosophy. I can’t even imagine how old he is, but it gives him an interesting perspective.

His name isn’t really Axel, of course. It’s a “Sympathy for the Devil” reference, and he really didn’t strike me as a Jagger. I don’t know his real name. I never want to know.

I didn’t know his true form, either. He was too intelligent to be a Scuttle or a Snot. The most Snots could manage was the occasional menacing belch. I was pretty sure he was a Skin; possibly even a Shirt. The beast and humanoid demons were equally nasty to deal with, for various reasons, but Axel could fit either profile.

I’ve been told there is a fifth class of demon, above even the Shirts. Those would be the actual angels who fell from Heaven once upon a time. I don’t know anyone who has seen one. It may be our own champion version of an urban legend.

This of course begs the question, do I believe it? Y’know, I can probably believe there’s a God out there-big G and everything. But why he’d want to take a close personal interest in this ant farm down here, I don’t know. There are demons, so I suppose at least at one time, there had to have been angels. But this is Missouri, the Show Me state. So until I see it, I’ll file it in the maybe pile.

Regardless, Axel was no angel. I was certain of that.

Mira was getting shoes on Hurricane Annabelle when I finally made it back inside. I frowned a bit. “You girls have big plans today?”

“I’m going to work with Mommy!”

Mira nodded. “Yes, but we’re not going to color in anything but our coloring books this time, are we?”

The red pigtails bobbed as Annabelle nodded. “I promise.”

I scrubbed the dirt off my hands in the kitchen sink. “Mir, I could probably take her today. You can just sit behind the counter at the store and rest. Dee could do the heavy stuff.” I should know better. Nothing is going to get my wife to stubborn- up like my implying she can’t do something.

“I’m fine, and Anna and I are going to have a fun day.” It was that “Are we clear?” voice. You know, the one that does not invite further argument. “What are your plans for the day?”

“I guess I’m going to head over to Marty’s, see if he’s got my gear ready. I’ll probably have to go out late tonight, too.”