Because she knew his name, he had less power, less protection. He was disadvantaged and he was angry. He turned his gaze to the ground and thought for a moment.
The Devil began to grow impatient with the delay and he coughed once. Theodorus looked at his Master and glowered again. The Devil didn’t say anything but his expression did. His eyes flamed and Dusty’s father cringed under the glare.
Dusty and Hunter waited in silence. It was a very dangerous moment for them both but they had to keep calm and keep their wits about them.
The demon turned his glowering gaze on his daughter and decided to answer her questions.
“I have many of my progeny under my protection and guidance but you are the only one to whom I have offered this honour. The apprenticeship would grant you far more power than you could ever gain in any other ways. You are a half demon, not full and your strengths are diminished because of that. The apprenticeship would guide you in enhancing your powers and teach you how to use them to your greatest benefit.”
Dusty interrupted him. “Do you mean to your greatest benefit, because if I am your apprentice, then anything I do, any action or deed would be credited to you and you would be entitled to claim any reward or profit from such a deed.”
“That is true enough, daughter...” he began but Dusty interrupted him once more:
“Don’t call me that. Just don’t.”
He waved his remaining arm at her to dismiss her words and her anger. She was quieted but furious. He was not making a good case for her to want to join him.
“Eventually, you would complete your apprenticeship and be let loose on the world of man to create havoc and mayhem.” The demon spread out his one and a half arms in a grand gesture as he completed his recruitment speech.
Dusty yawned. It was an exaggerated action in which she theatrically covered her mouth with the back of her hand and looked bored. The demon that had spawned her was furious again.
Dusty looked down at her foot again, she had felt something pushing against her boot and she thought it was Hunter. It wasn’t Hunter; it was the dismembered hand trying to crawl on top of her foot. She kicked it away in disgust again and it bounced beyond the demon that it belonged to. He watched its flight but didn’t make a move to pick it up. Dusty wondered why.
“Come with me, daughter.” He saw her anger but this time he didn’t allow her to interrupt. “We shall be stronger together and therefore more powerful. With your help, once you have finished your apprenticeship, I shall be in a position to challenge for a higher position in Satan’s infernal army.”
Dusty waited until he’d finished and watched as he waited for her answer. Without a word, she gave her father a look of pure contempt and grabbed Hunter’s hand. They turned from the demon and began to walk away.
“Answer me!” The demon’s voice was loud enough to set the ground they were walking on to shudder beneath their feet.
Dusty stopped, let go of Hunter’s hand, turned to face him and said: “You answer me first.”
He was at a loss for words. He knew that she understood that the Devil had taken her under his wing for the time being and that he couldn’t strike her down where she stood. He had no choice but to do as she asked.
“Your apprenticeship would last for half a millennia. I have none of my spawn as apprentice to me; you would be the only one. The tribute made would be that I accept everything that you acquire during your apprenticeship and I could claim payment for your services after you have completed your trials and training for another five centuries. You would declare fealty to me with none above me excepting my Lord Satan. They are the terms, now accept them and we can move on.”
Dusty frowned. Her bottom lip disappeared under her top set of teeth as she thought on the deal.
“One other thing before I decide. Whose life have you promised to deliver to your Lord Satan? I know it’s not mine. You cannot promise his.” She pointed to Hunter but didn’t use his name, just in case Theodorus didn’t know it. “So which life is it to be? Answer me swiftly or my reply will be no, never.”
“Your first born.”
“Really? Did you actually really think that I’d accept that condition?”
“Yes, if you understood who the father was.” The voice came from behind her, not from the demon waiting for her to accept the deal.
“I would assume it’s him?” she pointed again at Hunter but the Devil shook his head in a solemn gesture.
“No, he is not powerful enough; he is only half a demon like yourself. For me to accept a life in exchange for the powers I’d bestow upon you and your father, the life would have to be far more pure in demon blood than that. It would have to be at least three quarters demon.”
The devil stopped talking and allowed Dusty to catch up with the direction of conversation. He saw the exact moment that she did; her face became a mask of utter disgust and shock.
“You want my first born to be his?” She pointed at the demon, her father.
The devil nodded again. “It’s nothing personal, you understand. In fact, it was his idea.”
Dusty whipped around as the Devil said the last sentence, she didn’t see the malevolent expression on the Devil’s face and she hefted her sword as she sprang forward.
The demon that spawned her saw the attack coming and he tried to counterattack with a wave of his arms. Whatever the reason that the magic or demonspells didn’t work, wasn’t as important as the fact that they didn’t. The demon was bemused at first until he realised that his right arm was as important in the spell-casting as his left, so he backed off from his daughter and tried waving just his left arm in the hope that he could conjure something to stop her. Then he realised that he was being prevented from using his spells. He again glared at the Devil who replied with a nonchalant shrug of the shoulders and hands lifted in the air in a parody of ‘I dunno what happened’.
Her father didn’t stand a chance in hell. She lunged forward swinging the singing blue blade, and lopped off his left arm at the shoulder. She moved forward and then sprang away from the useless right stump as it tried to reach her as though the hand was still there. She then spun around and took off his right arm at the shoulder to match the left. Then she swept low to the ground and took both legs off at the knee and with another swing, before the body could overbalance back in the opposite direction, the sword sang happily as she took his legs off mid-thigh. The demon’s body flopped around on the ground like a grotesque landed fish and she went forward to stand above his head. She placed a boot on his mouth to keep him still and silent while she talked to him.
“Incest? You’re not happy that you took my mother from me, you would also corrupt my very soul to meet your own ends?” She could feel the head wobbling under her foot. “I know now that there is something very special about me, because you’ve not given the opportunity to any of your other spawn. I wonder if that is because my mother was a virgin when you seduced her and was still a virgin when I was born.”
Dusty heard the gasp of realisation from the Devil behind her and she understood that she was right.
“Think on this then. I know that I cannot kill you here in this place, but I can inconvenience you.” She turned to the Devil and asked, “Do I have your assurance that we will be returned safe and unharmed, with no repercussions from the events of today?”
The Devil nodded. “You have my word. I shall use no trickery with you Dusty, you have behaved impeccably, with honour and respect. You will be returned as though this never happened. I will not remove your memories, there is no need.”
“Thank you.” Then she turned back to the wriggling demon at her feet, removed her foot from his mouth and before he could utter any plea or threat, she removed his head and kicked it far from his body. “When you find it, I hope you put it back on wrong,” she called loud enough that the ears on the still bouncing head could hear her. Then she took Hunter’s hand and nodded a farewell to the Devil.
He nodded too and there was an opening right in front of them, they could see Hunter’s house, the clear, cold morning and the peace of her world. They stepped through together and just as the gateway closed, they heard the Devil laughing as though they had amused him more than anything else had ever done.
The pair of half-demons looked at each other. They were both deathly pale and smudged with hell grime but they were safe and they knew that Dusty had made another friend – for as long as it suited him, of course.
They made their way to Hunter’s home. His dad wanted to see the sword.
When they got to the kitchen, Hunter’s mother turned to say hello to Dusty but when she saw the dishevelled state they were in, she was shocked and she couldn’t speak for a moment. Then she found her voice again and the questions just kept coming, without any time between them for Dusty or Hunter to answer.
“What on earth have you been doing? How have you got into such a state? What are all these marks on your hands, Dusty?”
Dusty smiled at the tumultuous barrage of questions and it didn’t even phase her when she saw the scratches on her hands. They must have been defensive wounds from her father as she was attacking him.
“Come over to the sink, we’ll get those scratches cleaned up; they look like they could turn nasty. Oh look at the dust on your clothes; you’re both all dusty... I mean... oh you know what I mean. Come on, shake the dust off outside.”
They both shouted “NO!” at the same time at that instruction and it was only then that Hunter’s mother stopped enough to actually be able to listen.
When they had heard the complete story, had cleaned up Dusty’s wounds and collected the hell dust safely and placed it all in secure vials, Hunter had one last question.
“When the doppelganger appeared, you took no time at all to decide which was the real me. How did you know?” he asked. Dusty could see the concern on his face and she smiled and waited for a moment before she answered him.
“You flinched.”
“So?”
“You knew that I can hurt you easily because I punched you. The doppelganger hadn’t learned and I took advantage of it.”
“So by upsetting you, I actually saved my own life?”
“I can’t guarantee that’ll always be the result of upsetting me though,” Dusty said and she lifted her hand swiftly up and he flinched again. She laughed at his expression when he realised what she’d done and then she handed her sword, cleaned of the demon remains, to Osborn, Hunter’s father and she explained where she’d got it and what effect it had had on the demon, her father.
Later, when Hunter escorted her safely to the back lawn of her home, she saw something glint in the moonlight. Curious, she went to where she had seen the glint and she smiled at what she found. It was a miniature pitchfork.
The Devil had left her a memento.
Catch up with Part 1 of the story Here
Part 2 Here
Part 3 Here
Part 4