Demons and Magic

CHAPTER 6: Tag Along

“For the first time it’s hit me.”

“What? The door on your way out?” Nathan deadpanned as he dried his hair with a towel, still glowering at Alastair who bought a flat screen plasma TV that took almost all of the space inside his apartment.

Trying to go to class with someone like Alastair hot on his heels has proven to be difficult. Much more difficult once they got a detention for the party they threw in the middle of a school week. She’s easily bored and even though none of his professors really gives a sh*t who goes in and out of their classes, she can sometimes be hard to deal with.

Which is why she easily gained popularity for being the school bad girl. Which is f*cked up, actually, if you ask Nathan.

So after classes, he immediately dragged her out of school and back into his apartment, determined to make a deal with her as to how life from now on should unfold. And so far, he hasn’t made any real progress.

Or at least, not yet.

“I have a brilliant idea.”

“Oh no.”

“You said you didn’t want to die, did you?” she asked and took a bite from her fourth slice of cake. Nathan simply nodded. “Well, let’s not kill you, then. Why don’t you and me look for Luci, huh? I mean, it’s not that I need your help. But you know … I might need you to go and buy me things along the way. You could be a henchman. Besides, I still don’t get what these calculators do.”

“This isn’t a calculator,” Nathan explained and snatched his phone away from her. “It’s called a cellphone. It’s short for cellular phone.”

“Uh-huh. And what does this do?” She pulled another phone from God knows where and pointed at the screen where multiple tabs are opened. “I found these on Goggle.”

“It’s not—” Nathan sighed and sat down on the spot next to her, his face tired as he closed his eyes. “—it’s called Google. Not Goggle. And it’s a search engine.”

“Oh, so it could be like a mechanic, then?”

Explaining technology to a thousand year old demon who had last been to Earth in the 1800’s was like teaching an old person how to use a hover board without falling flat on their face. In short, it’s impossible.

“So, what do you say?” Alastair said again when she didn’t get a response from her first question and elbowed Nathan hard on the rib.

“Ow! What do I say to what?”

“Looking for Luci with me? I still haven’t started but maybe he’s just here somewhere.”

“I have classes.”

Alastair whirled on her seat to completely face him, her face scrunched up in disappointment. “So, you’d rather choose the first option, then?”

“What’s the first option?”

“Killing you—”

“Nope. Actually, I’m in. I just told you that I have classes, but I’m totally in. When do we start to look?”

“Tomorrow. I’m still gonna finish watching this.” And with that, she dismissed him with a wave, eating popcorn as she watched an episode of Lucifer on Netflix. “This man’s hilarious. The real Luci would be pissed that someone’s stealing his game. He’s probably out there sulking in one corner.”

“Yeah, well … that makes two of us.”

Spending an entire day with a demon — (yes, all of that sh*t happened in just one day) — has proven to be agonizingly painful. He realized that demons aren’t like humans at all.

They don’t get hungry, thirsty, tired … and in this case, sleepy. They don’t need any of those things. They just do it because they want to. And judging by the way he could still hear her laughter along with some random dude’s British accent flashing from the plasma screen of the TV, it’s pretty self-explanatory that she doesn’t want to sleep at all.

Even though it’s already well over midnight.

“Alastair, go to sleep. It’s already 02:00 in the morning. Jesus,” Nathan grumbled as he pulled a blanket over his head, annoyed that the TV screen was too bright and that the actors’ faces were extremely HD.

Alastair just scoffed. “Stop exaggerating. It’s just 1:48.”

“Go to sleep!”

“I don’t need one. It’s not my fault humans are weak. And stop calling the Son of God. If he knocks on your doorstep, you’re f*cking dead.”

“I don’t care if you don’t need one, alright?” he snapped at her and sat up, ignoring her former statement. “You’re the one who’s sharing the apartment with me. So, let me sleep before I kick you out into the hallway.”

Alastair just rolled her eyes at him, not even at the least bit fazed. “I’m not doing anything to you.”

“Well, the noise from the TV is annoying. You’re gonna wake Mrs. Pratchett in this rate.”

“Oh, don’t worry. I can hear her snoring from her bedroom.”

“What?”

“I said, you’re deaf.”

Nathan lifted his hand up in an attempt to grab Alastair by the hood of his sweater when she scooted away, sticking her tongue out at him like an overgrown toddler. Nathan couldn’t help but smile, rolling his eyes at her as he went back to sleep.

Sometimes it’s nice to have someone. It may be someone who keeps trying to kill you, keeping you up at night, and threatening you over and over again, but for once since he left his mother so he could get better education, he never felt alone the entire day. Jackson is the only friend he has. But he already has a girlfriend and can’t really hang out that much anymore.

At least with Alastair, even if neither of them wants it, they still have to stick together. That is, if he manages to survive.

···

“You spent the entire time cursing me in your sleep,” Alastair said the moment Nathan opened his eyes and he sat up, feeling groggy after all of the ruckus she made all night.

“Who said I was asleep?” he said and rubbed the drowsiness away from his eyes, the prospect of not only getting in trouble in his scholarship but also risking getting fired from the job that paid his bills slowly sinking in as the sun shone brightly outside of his window.

Then he did a double take. Why the hell was the sun brightening up his place?

That was when he realized that his apartment was clean. Actually, not just clean — it was spotless and bright with its newly-painted walls and ceiling. There were no signs of any garbage around, the rug was obviously new, the tables were replaced, the broken kitchen counter was rebuilt, and it was spacious. Too spacious in fact that it’s hard to believe that it was his apartment at all.

He ran outside to see if the entire house was still the same. And it was. Except now, Alastair was standing by the doorway of his apartment with a smug look on her face.

“What did you do?” was the very first thing that came out of his mouth despite his satisfaction with what he was seeing.

Alastair smiled at him— no. More like smirked at him. “I cleaned it up. Looks nice, doesn’t it?”

Nathan narrowed his eyes. “Did you use your ‘I’m an agent of Satan’ mumbo jumbo on my apartment?”

“Yes, I did.”

“You … ” He paused, unsure whether he should be happy that a demon gave him all of this, or to be scared that a demon gave him all of this.

“Me what?”

“Thanks,” he managed to say before walking back in, Keiffer and Joshua’s eyes landing past him and inside his apartment with both their jaws slacked.

“Did you see that?” Joshua asked Keiffer as they watched the door slowly closed.

Keiffer nodded, still staring at it with his mouth open.

“I’m gonna ask gramma to make mine into that, too. Or I could just tell her I want that room once Nate graduates and leaves for college.”

Keiffer was still nodding, way too taken aback by what he saw. “Yeah. You do that.”

···

“Welcome to your detention. For those of you who doesn’t know me — and yes, I’m talking to you with the white hair over there — I’m Chuck. I am currently the Student Council President of this school hence I am also responsible for all of you troublemakers. Any questions?”

Alastair raised a hand in the air and Nathan glared at her.

“Yes?”

“Why’s your name Chuck?” she asked and gave him a look that almost convinced them that she was genuinely curious.

The guy on his far left that Nathan knew as Radley laughed and started crumpling a piece of paper in his hands. “Yeah, I’ve always thought about that, too. Did your parents try to chuck you out the window when you were born?”

“Yes, very original. Haven’t heard that one before,” Chuck sarcastically said and gave them both an irritated gaze, his nostrils flaring as he sat on top of the desk behind him. “If you have nothing important to say I suggest you shut your traps, you a-holes, before I decide to give you an even bigger sentence.”

Alastair’s hand shot up in the air once more and Nathan was smacked right in the forehead.

“What?!” Chuck snapped.

Alastair smiled. “Is Chuck your nickname?”

“Why do you care?!”

“Is your full name Chuckie?”

Radley laughed so hard at this that he almost fell over his chair, his face red with laughter.

“Will you two stop it? And you, no! My real name isn’t Chuckie.”

“Can I call you my chocolatey buddy?”

Another laugh from Radley and Nathan just hung his head in shame, afraid that he might get dragged into the mess that the little demon beside him had created.

All he ever wanted was to graduate in peace. He had done so much better so far in the last five years, but now that he’s already so close to finally leaving, the universe had the audacity to introduce Alastair to him. Now, he’ll never really have the peace that he wanted.

And all because of her.