It was night on earth when Mammon landed on Mara’s balcony. He, too kept his mouth and nose covered, just like his master had before. Though his reasons, however were more for hygiene and self preservation. It was unclean, this odour of humans and their cities. Most demons would relish in the stench of corruption and the sweat of desperation, but it was far too much for his delicate wolf nose. This was just another reason he would forever be a misfit among his fellow demons.

Shiro was on him immediately, barking.

‘Good to see that you still have enough energy, friend.’

Shiro’s barks came to a stop and whimpers replaced them as Mammon squatted to greet his new friend.

‘You are big. Your master treats you well.’ Shiro groaned, sniffed and then licked his hands, searching. Mammon retrieved a small pouch from his side pocket, unwrapped it, and placed it on the floor. Inside were thick biscuits, which Shiro sniffed and then gobbled with greed.

‘Eat up, my friend. Your master awaits and she will not see you starved. She misses you an awful lot.’

How over the centuries, humans domesticated his kind he would never understand (or accept). He wondered what his clan would think of Shiro. Probably send him straight to the slave pen. His only worth would be to serve other warriors and do basic tasks, like he was made to do once. But this was a long time ago, why think of it now?

He stood up and looked around. The darkness of the room didn’t bother him, his wolf eyes saw what they needed. He pottered about the place. It was crude, although he could see her attempts to improve it. It also desperately needed a good wipe down.

Focus! He wasn’t here to clean her flat!

She had filled the place with photographs and paintings of various sizes on the walls and shelves. He recognised the older couple as her parents. There were a multitude of small children in various photographs, which he assumed was more family. Then he saw her with a young man wearing glasses. Particularly in that picture, her smile seemed more genuine. She was relaxed and happy next to this young man, much like she used to look like when she was younger. How long would it be until Lucious saw that smile again? If he didn’t change his attitude, maybe not so soon. Looking closer, he recognised this wavy haired young man in the picture. He was that friend she made while at University. They had become inseparable then. Lucious had mentioned him before and it seemed to predetermine his foul moods, often tempting him to irrational measures. It used to take an immeasurable effort to dissuade him from acting out on his jealousy. Then one day it all stopped. Suddenly, the man was no longer a threat. At the time he said the man was harmless and his interest in Mara was that of a sibling. They never spoke of it again and the man faded in their memories, but looking at this picture now, Mammon could see why his master had been so tormented to begin with: there was a strong bond between these two.

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He moved to her small art studio and, even though he wore the mask, the smells of paint hit him hard. He was forced to bring his hand to protect his sensitive olfactory nerves.

What he saw next took him by surprise.

Hell’s colours, they were there, in her paintings. She had captured their unique likeness so precisely. There were various canvasses around, but Mammon moved to the three largest ones in the middle of the room. He touched the dried paint on the one in the middle. The young boy, with porcelain skin, wasn’t he young Lucious? Even having his face relatively blurred, everything matched so perfectly. Those were his eyes, he could never mistake them. This would’ve been around the time they met, when he and his father had visited their clan. When he picked him. Lucious was a happy child back then, cheerfully smiling, rambling and asking endless and long-winded questions about everything. Even as he was now, hardened by grief and pain, there was still some of that merry child within him. Perhaps he was the only one that saw that now. He got so much better at withholding his feelings. What would be like today if they hadn’t lost Beelzebub? Would he have kept the innocence like the child in this picture? Mammon pulled his hand back, closed it in a fist. This had to work. He would go back to being the way he was once they got Beelzebub back. With Mara back in his life, there was still hope. She would open a new path for him.

The last painting to his right caught his eye.

Underneath the blurred face, the wistful, detached eyes were there. She had captured all of him… as he is now? No, there was something more. He had a scar in this painting, but besides that, it was him.

How? It shouldn’t be possible.

The last time Mara saw him, they were children. She couldn’t have seen him in his adulthood. Over the years Lucious continued to watch her, but always from afar, never revealing himself to her. Or had he kept it from him? No, that couldn’t be, not when it came to Mara. He was the only one he had opened up to about her during all these years. Still, it made no sense. The more he looked at that painting, the more unquestionable it was: it was Lucious.

The doorbell sounded then, and a light started flashing repeatedly. Then Shiro ran in excitedly and started barking.