The Heavenly Host

“What would he lie about? It is clearly Reggie, he even rather sounds like the old Reggie, and his account of the party and my death match what I recall. Everything is logically consistent. I can certainly believe his story. It sounds like something he would do.”

Tizzy scrunched up his face. “How much can you trust him? After all, he gave you the drug that got you high and then trapped by Lenamare. Are you sure he’s not one of Lenamare’s minions?”

Tom shook his head in disbelief; that was a pretty out-there conspiracy theory. “Yes he gave me the joint, but he ended up using one himself and got enslaved. If he had been working for Lenamare, he would not have been so stupid as to smoke the joint. Further, Lenamare does not know anything about Earth or humans beings getting enslaved as demons. He and all of the wizards are convinced demons are primordial evil. You and Boggy said so yourselves!”

Tizzy made a pouty motion and harrumphed, turning to look towards the cave as Reggie finally flew up to them. “I’m about dead, guys,” Reggie told them. He was clearly sagging.

“Sorry,” Tom shook his head. “I forgot that I took a nap on the plains before heading to find a cave. The initial materialization and binding takes a lot out of you. We really should have let you rest, but I felt it best we get home as soon as possible. I’ve got a guest to deal with.”

Reggie looked at him quizzically. “A guest? Do demons entertain?”

“I don’t, normally. It’s a long story, but the short version of the story is that I sort of have a hostage.”

“A hostage?” Reggie asked in surprise.

“I’m not sure if he’s really a hostage; I guess more of a prisoner of war.”

“A prisoner of war? Are you at war?” Reggie was looking back and forth between the two demons. Tizzy just ignored him.

Tom sighed. “Well, like I said, it’s a long story. However, the Wikipedia version is that I and a bunch of other demons, including some friends of mine” — he gestured to Tizzy — “got driven out of this city that was surrounded by a bunch of religious fanatics. The religious fanatics started shooting demons out of the sky and managed to bring down one of my friends, and this super-powered knight was trying to kill that friend, who happens to be a ten-year-old boy, so I challenged the knight to a duel.”

Reggie’s eyes were as wide as saucers at this point.

“Anyway, it was a nasty fight; he cheated, a lot, and his army helped him. It was supposed to just be the two of us, but as I said, he cheated.” Tom launched himself back into the air. “So, yada yada, I kicked his ass, gave him the opportunity to surrender, he reneged and tried to kill me again, so I sort of dropped him through a portal to the Abyss and am holding him captive.”

“Shit!”

“You don’t need to do that anymore! It’s like breathing. So don’t do it!” Tizzy retorted.

Tom looked at Tizzy, who just shrugged and took off back towards the cave.

“What exactly is his problem?” Reggie asked.

“Aside from being insane, I don’t know. I don’t think he likes you for some reason.”

Reggie shrugged. “So I don’t have to shit? What about eat?”

“Not unless you want to.” Tom said. “The plumbing seems to work okay, but it’s not required, and we don’t get hungry.” Tom pointed to the mountaintop with the cave. “We’re just heading over now. You can sleep safely there. I’ll make sure Talarius doesn’t try to kill you in your sleep.”

“Great!” Reggie said sourly.

“Actually, that’s another thing we usually don’t have to do: sleep. We only sleep after expending a lot of energy, or getting hurt badly, while we regenerate.”

“We regenerate?” Reggie asked in surprise.

“We are remarkably hard to kill. In fact, if we are on some plane other than the Abyss and we get killed, we just end up here and regenerate.”

“Like in a video game?”

Tom had not thought of it that way. “Yeah, like in a video game.”

∼

Talarius noted some motion in the sky to his left. He tapped his helm to adjust the long-range focus on his visor, zooming in on the flying objects. There were three demons approaching: his captor, that annoying octopod thing, and what appeared to be a humanoid with four arms flying rather drunkenly. They had probably gone to celebrate his capture and gotten inebriated. It was well known that demons had no self-control when it came to overindulgence.

“Your friends are returning, apparently with another demon in tow,” Talarius told Rupert, Boggy and Estrebrius. He pointed to the approaching demons.

Boggy looked, blinked and then turned towards Talarius. “You have uncommonly good eyesight for a human.”

Talarius shrugged, giving no response. The squat demon, Estrebrius, seemed to be hyperventilating or something; Talarius noticed he was making some rather odd huffing noises.

“What’s wrong with you?” Talarius asked, forgetting for the moment that he had no interest in the odd behavior of demons.