Chapter Three
This job was beginning to turn a little complicated. I consulted my internal database which I suppose is the modern word for memory. The power chuck, my telekinetic powers had been hard won over a thousand years ago. It was in modern parlance, I suppose, an upgrade as I hadn't started out as a crossroad demon, I was a common or garden black-eye although I suppose I shouldn't mention the word garden it has that whole other iconography for us demons. To be frank being a woman way back wasn't a particularly good deal.
I didn't make a good human woman I disobeyed my father, my brothers, the husband that was forced upon me. I was punished over and over again but I would not yield to what they needed me to be. I suppose you might say I was a proto feminist in my own little way, slitting my husband's throat in his bed whilst he slept may not be regarded as a good role model for the modern woman though. The demon thing was a chance encounter with a Knight of Hell as I moved from village to village. I had a knack with goats, still do but there isn't much call for it now, I could up their yield by singing whilst I milked them. I knew how to cure their ills. I discovered that a woman who increases a man's profit is allowed certain huge privileges, like food and not being raped.
Then came my death, a stupid accident up in the mountains and there was this head honcho demon offering me a deal and I took it, he didn't care if I was male or female he just demanded loyalty and an ability to kill. I was fine with that, still am but it gets to be a chore rather than a delight after a few centuries. The step up to crossroad demon was quite a thrill for a while. A bit of one on one with humanity with time to talk was interesting and I got to change my clothes every now and then when they wore out, got a little wrinkly and baggy. Shut it Shiree I am not going to your plastic surgeon for a little work yet.
So I digress ( see what I did there, the posh vocabulary is coming along nicely, I am nearly as loquacious as Crowley). This girl should have been weeping in fear and agony and she was still standing there laughing at me. The crack about Downton was that just a coincidence but then there is no such thing as coincidence, I've learned over the centuries, stuff doesn't just happen there is cause and effect. If this girl can resist my powers then something in the universe is amiss.
I edged a little closer just to get a real sniff of her, you can smell things as a demon, we don't broadcast it much as it seems a bit dog like but everything has its own olfactory signature; humans, demons, vampires, monsters, witches, prophets, angels, cherubs, weir wolves, gods, even hunters, they all stink of something and a human soul has a particular aroma. I sniffed, she took a step back.
"What the fuck are you sniffing at, is it some sort of demon fetish thing!" She took a step back and I moved one step forward.
"Just stay still I'm checking you out."
"For what? Body odor, Chanel Number 5, cookies? Please don't tell me you'll want to sniff my shoes. I once had a foster dad who had this thing about smelling my shoes, he was a little on the deviant side but one kick in the crotch got him out of my shoes and my life come to think of it." Mercy was feisty I had to hand it to her. I may be in this small neatly coiffured body with a good spray tan, some Botox and a beauty and fitness regime that would have a Navy Seal on his knees by midday but I knew right now I was scary. I was giving off the full pheromone of demonic that should have triggered her fight and flight mechanisms big time but here she was talking back.
"You have a human soul I can smell it and there's no faking that. There's another couple of smells mixed in there that are distinctly strange, nothing I've ever smelt before." I looked her up and down checking for signs of hex bags, strange tattoos anything that might give me a clue about her.
"Look, I'm not trying to trick you or anything, I just want a deal and you are supposed to give it to me. There was nothing about all this sniffing in the instructions." She seemed genuine enough and we are good at spotting liars, we are the children of lies after all.
"Instructions, where did you find fucking instructions?"
"On the dark net, I made sure I didn't go for all the Wiki crap."
"They have the full instructions on the internet somewhere? Where the hell is all that coming from, doesn't anyone have any respect anymore for oral tradition, ancient spell books of summoning, secrets handed down by old hags in villages? You can just sit at a keyboard in nowhere Wisconsin and get access to all that stuff? There's going to be more and more of you doing it, I'll have teenagers and loners queuing at every crossroad from sea to shining fucking sea to get a deal of some kind at this rate. They'll want to marry a Kardashian, get into Harvard, sing like Taylor Swift, get a bigger penis…this does not augur well."
"If you know what you are doing it's surprisingly easy," This girl was smiling and yanking my chain, she was some piece of work as Shiree interjected. I had to get her rattled it was professional pride, I grabbed her wrist and yanked her towards me.
Suddenly I didn't feel well, I was falling through space and a thousand voices were calling and jabbering around me. I fought to stay upright. I let go of her and vomited on my own Jimmy Choos.
