I had no choice but to bring Phil to my mother’s house. I couldn’t bring him to my apartment, and I couldn’t leave him with Kitsune without somebody to keep an eye on her. She could double-cross me again. As much as I disliked my mother, she wasn’t a duplicitous shrew, just an annoying and manipulative one. I left Kimberly to look over the storage unit.

“I don’t understand,” Phil asked before we went through the portal I’d opened. “How can you hate your mother and still hang out with her?”

“How could you hang out on Earth for so long and not understand us at all?” I replied. “Just because I hate her doesn’t mean I don’t love her.”

“Odd,” Phil said.

“Yup, love is stupid.”

The sound of Billy Joel played through the house when I entered. Mom was sitting on her leather sectional couch, reading a book, tapping her foot in time to “Uptown Girl.”

“Three times in one day,” my mother said when I entered her living room. “This is a record. What degenerate have you brought this time?”

“This one’s not a demon,” I said. “You even like him, if I remember correctly.”

“Ah yes,” she said, setting down her book. “Phil, right? I see you’ve stopped pretending to be human now. I’m glad. This is a good look on you. We should all be true to ourselves.”

I dropped down on the couch with Phil. “I need him to stay here for a while. Since he’s not a demon, I assume it will be fine.”

“You could have left the girl here, too. It just threw me off guard to see a demon in my house in the middle of the night but look at me now. Completely on guard. Not even a little bit fazed by your entrance. It’s just—you just know how your father—”

“The last thing I want to hear about is my father right now.”

“So hotheaded. You’re just like your fa—” Mom corrected herself. “Sorry.”

I called open a portal. “I have to go. That little girl you turned away risked herself to save Phil, so please protect him.”

Mom nodded. “That’s very noble of her. I didn’t think demons had it in them.”

“I always told you, Mom, there are no good or bad beings. Just ones that make different choices.” I put my hand on her shoulder. “Now, I really need you to say that you’ll help him and protect him. Please.”

She kissed me on the forehead. “I’ll protect him like he was my own.”

I turned away from her. “Please do better than that. We both know how I turned out.”

I stepped through the portal and onto the roof across from the storage unit where the dagger was. Kimberly had set up two lawn chairs. I slumped down into the empty one. “Nobody’s come yet?” I asked.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“Nope,” she replied. “All good with Phil?”

“He’s gotta hang out with my mom for a few hours, which sucks, but otherwise, yeah, I think so.” I let out a gasp of air. “Which is a big deal considering how pear-shaped this day has become.”

“Do you ever get tired of it?” Kimberly asked. “The life?”

“Oh god, all the time.” I looked over at her child-like face. “I feel bad for you, a whole lifetime to go putting up with this garbage. I would tell you to stop, but I can see the fire in your eyes. The same fire I had when I was your age.”

“Any advice for me?” she asked.

“You for sure don’t want advice from me. If anything, look at everything I did and run the other way.”

“You seem to be doing all right.”

I laughed and then caught myself to avoid giving our position away. “I’m broke, tricked by a demon trying to start the Apocalypse, and now I have to save a girl who is way braver than I’ve ever been by ambushing whatever demon comes to get the dagger—one that’s already cost me everything. I wouldn’t say any part of that was all right.”

Kimberly turned her attention back to the storage unit. “Who do you think they’ll send?”

“Some peon,” I replied. “It’s always a peon. That’s why they’re so easy to turn. No creature getting paid a pittance is going to give up their lives for their boss.”

A long shadow hobbled toward the locker. When it stopped to pull up the lock, it came into focus—an imp, about as peon as demons got.

“There he is,” Kimberly said.

“Looks more scared than most.”

The imp dropped the lock and disappeared into the unit.

“That’s our cue,” I said.

I leaped down from the roof and made my way toward the unit. When I arrived, Kimberly appeared next to me in a puff of smoke. The dagger was on a podium in the center of the room, and I cleared my throat as the imp reached for it.

“Hello,” I said, clearing my throat again. “We have some questions.”

Imps could teleport with the snap of their fingers, which made them impossible to catch unless you were fast as all hell.

I leaped forward and grabbed one of his hands while Kimberly grabbed the other. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a pair of gardening gloves, which we slid over his hands. I used a piece of rope to tie them together at the wrists.

“Where are they taking Anjelica?” I asked, trying my level best to stay calm. “Tell us what you know, or we’ll make life very difficult for you. And trust me, I know how to make a demon’s life a living nightmare.”

“I ain’t saying nothing!” the imp growled back. “You can’t make me!”

“I’ll bet I could.” Kimberly grabbed the dagger from the podium. “Do you know what this is? What this really is? It’s a weapon that can kill an antichrist.” She held it against the imp’s skin. “I’ll bet it can kill an imp, too. What do you say we find out?”

“You don’t scare me!” the imp screamed, but he was shaking like a leaf in a stiff breeze.

“Don’t we?” I asked. “Because I would be very scared if I were you.”

“She’s right,” Kimberly whispered. “I love knives. They are so versatile. I wonder how thin I can fillet your skin.” She pressed the dagger closer against him. “Or you could play nice and go free.”

“All right, fine,” the imp cried. “You’re both crazy!”

Kimberly slashed him across the cheek. “That was not nice, imp. Now, tell us where they are.”

“The western edge of Kamokuna, in Hawaii, by the volcano. There’s a gateway to Hell there, and they need it for the ritual. Now let me go.”

I cut the rope off the imp and watched him scurry off into the distance.

“He’s going to tell his boss, you know.”

“Are you kidding me?” I laughed. “If any of his buddies found out he got jumped by two girls, he’ll never live it down. No, if I had to guess, he’s going home to Hell to cry in his piss warm beer.”

Kimberly stood and followed me out of the unit. When she pulled down the door and locked it up, she had a wistful look on her face.

“Do you think that was too mean?”

“Not even close. You really do have a knack for this type of work.”

“Thanks.” She looked down at the dagger. “It was fun. Really easy, too.”

“Told you,” I replied. “Gotta love peons.”

She handed me the dagger. “Well, let’s go save the world.”

“Don’t you need this?” I asked.

“Too fancy.” She pointed to the daggers on her belt. “I prefer these.”