Disclaimer: Kitty, Nathaniel, Bartimaeus, and other characters from this series are slaves. Johnathan Stroud owns them, and I'm just borrowing them. I DO NOT OWN THEM. All OC's are mine.

I Don' Wanna Be a Demon

Bartimaeus

With my message sent, I floated over to a friendly-looking group of afrits, djinn, and foliots. "Hey, guys," I greeted them, "How's life?" That came out wrong and I knew it immediately. (1) One particulary nasty-looking afrit (2) hissed at me. I lowered my head slightly to acknowledge his greater rank. (3)

"You like making fun of this place, huh, pal? Well, you're gonna be here for the next eternity. Maybe you'd literally like to stay here, like right here. Hmmm, djinni?" This wasn't good. I had been here only a week or two, and now it looked like I was going to be here for a millennia or two. I didn't doubt the afrit could keep me here, either.

So, as it was what I had been doing for a long time, I ran. Unfortunately, I ran into a wall of the Underworld. Or Death. Or whatever it was called. The afrit and his gang trapped me. "Hi. Uhh…" I struggled to come up with a lie. "I was just going to get you some punch."

The afrit laughed a cruel, inhuman (4) chuckle and fired a Detonation, and then Sealed me to the wall. Pushing and pulling to get free did nothing. The group of demons snickered and left. I nearly panicked until I decided to transform to get free. I was frightened by the results. There would be no shape-shifting for me.

Truly worried now, I tried firing a Detonation. No luck there, either. No luck as in, I couldn't fire a Detonation. I was panicking by now.

Where were my powers?

Nathaniel

I was tearing into that delicious chicken fried chicken again. I really needed to start coming to this restaurant more often, or at least get the recipe. My thoughts, however, were interrupted by a girl who looked suspiciously like Kitty. For a second time. "Nyx," I spat out the word as if it was the worst thing in the world.

"Hey, it's not my fault I'm trying to kill you. I was enslaved thousands of years ago against my will. Otherwise, I'd be enjoying life and wouldn't give a care about you," she responded nonchalantly. (1) Hoping I could keep her busy until I woke up, I asked, "Who were you?" She smiled a bitter, sad smile. (2) "I don't honestly remember anymore. The daughter of some duke or lord. All I remember was that I was a noble."

She paused for a minute, and continued, "By the way, if you were hoping to keep me busy till you woke up, think again. I shudder to think what Death will do if I fail a third time." Oh, well, it was worth a try anyway.

I shoved away from the table and ran for the door. I should've figured she had magic of some kind. She just teleported to the door. (3) Instinctively, I raised my hand, and despite knowing there was nothing in it, threw my hand forward. Nyx exploded. Not pausing to figure out what had happpened, I pushed through the door and into the cold, rainy street. With a in-control expression on her face, Nyx appeared in front of me.

Not entirely certain what I was doing, I smiled, turned, and dove for a rain gutter. Remember for this next part that I had no idea what was happening. Before I knew it, I had eight legs, several eyes, and two mandibles. I had become a spider. In too much of a rush to worry about how it happened, I struggled to crawl up the rain gutter, but the water in it pushed me out of the water. (4)

However, I never hit the ground. The dream ended.

---------

I woke up staring at Kitty's worried face. That worry changed to confusion when I moaned, "I don' wanna be a demon."

Nyx

"You dared fail a third time? What is your excuse this time, slave?" Death roared at me. In my humblest, most innocent voice I could manage, (1) I squeaked, "The boy has magic, Great Overlord. This allowed him to get away until his dream ended, O Glory of the World." Death looked at me with that dark piercing stare he has.

"Do you dare lie to me? The only inferior humans (!) that have demonic magic are you and my other slaves. Or are you telling the truth?" I took this as a rhetoric question. When dealing with Death, it's always best to remain meek. I had felt and seen some of his meager punishments. I would hate to see an actual harsh punishment.

"I have made my decision!" Death boomed, "You shall be sent to Punishment (2) and he shall decide the severity of your chatise. Meanwhile, I shall send a Fury to scout out this demonic human."

Had it been a lesser being than Death, I would have argued that the Furies were out of date. He needed to be more modern. But, that just would have hurt me more in the end.

And so I went to Punishment.

Bartimaeus' Footnotes

(1)We were all dead, remember?

(2)No kidding. He was a Cyclops with snakes covering most of him except for his eye.

(3)I was currently in the guise of a dark-skinned boy right now, just to let you know. No prizes if you guess who it was.

(4)Well, that was kind of an obvious description, since he literally wasn't human.

Nathaniel's Footnotes

(1) This kind of creeped me out. How can you talk so calmly about being enslaved to kill people? Anyway…

(2) I almost felt sorry for her. Almost.

(3) I sure hoped she was getting good benefits from Death. I mean, who wants to be a demon-human thing?

(4) Does this remind you of a certain nursery rhyme? How embarrasing.

Nyx's Footnotes

(1) I could, after all manage a lot of voices. There were few voices I couldn't use, actually.

(2) Punishment is supposedly of the same race as Death, but no one really knows. Point is, he's good at punishing people. If you didn't figure this out by his name. Anyway...

Author's Foonotes

(!) If you've ever played Tales of Symphonia, you understand where I got the 'inferior humans' from.