30) Shouldn’t this be about what’s best for the kid?

Thomas Wesson is a cute kid.

His skin color is a few shades lighter than his mom's which is to be expected since as far as his mother knew her her husband was white.

The only thing is that while lighter in shade, the kid’s skin is a sort of brick red color.

Similar to what his father really looks like after he got taken and reborn as an Infernal.

Which is why Thomas has the red colored skin, the two fuzzy little knobs where his horn are going to grow in, and the long sharp midnight blue colored nails on his hands and feet, that match his kidney shaped dark blue eyes.

Just like his father’s, at least when his father drops the glamour that makes him look human, something he never bothered to do around his girlfriend until she was so far along in her pregnancy that she had to carry Thomas to term.

Which, Jolene Turner says, "Is what pisses me off the most. He didn't give me a choice. I mean, I knew I was going to have a mixed raced baby, but this is a different species."

Technically she might be right, but since she, a human, and Wayne, the father who was an Infernal had managed to have a kid together, the lines defining what different species were a little hazy at best.

Wayne Wesson is the one who called me in, I think more for damage control than any real desire to get interviewed.

"I was over there for seven years, drafted into a war against my will. All I ever wanted to do was get home and get my life back." He waved his hand at himself at a few inches above six feet of bright red skin, blue horns, talons, and goat eyes.

Along with the spade tipped tale and hoofed feet which his son didn’t inherit.

“I’m stuck like this. I can’t go back to being human, not really, but I could fake it. At least with most people.” He gave me a disgruntled look. “I could have faked being human for my entire life, and been happy. But I didn’t think about birth control, I didn’t think I needed to.”

He waved one hand at himself again. "How is this supposed to have a kid with a human being.”

Wayne has been kicked out of the house he co owned with Jolene, but which he paid for in its entirety with the loot he hauled back home with him. But with the money he got from the same source he has already bought another house.

"And yes, I have paid my taxes on everything I brought back home with me. Including the new import taxes, both on what I sold off since they introduced those and on what I had already sold off as a sign of goodwill. Just because I got mine doesn't mean I don't want to pay my fair share."

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

The problem, or at least one of them, is that Wayne feels that Jolene is asking for more than her fair share in the divorce.

"She wants the house, she can have the house. She wants alimony and child support, it's all hers. I’m good for it. But she asking for my new house and more than half of everything I not only have but brought back with me, even though we weren't married when I got home."

He shook his head sadly. “I don’t even think it's just her being vindictive, although she refused to agree to shared custody, but with the money, she's just outright being greedy."

Other than the whole Infernal and human spin, it sounds like a typical divorce, but then there’s

the other complications.

The protesters that show up everywhere little Thomas goes.

Outside his home, his hospital, even following Jolene around when she tries to run errands.

I guess Thomas is close enough to matching up with all the identifiers for being the Antichrist, at least for this bunch.

I tried to interview them, but even the ones that weren't outright crazy got a look in their eyes that tells me their getting something out of calling for a baby to be harmed.

Wayne doesn't stay at his new home much, instead, he is keeping an eye, invisibly, on his kid as much as he can.

From a hundred feet away.

Wayne explained. “It’s bullshit, just because I look like this they granted her a restraining order. I haven’t hurt her, or even threatened her, ever. Not before I got taken or after. Hell I haven’t hurt anyone since I got back and I’ll admit with some of the people calling for my kid to be killed, it’s hard to hold back.”

With his ability to disguise himself, and turn invisible, I don’t think it would be hard for Wayne to do something to the people who want to hurt his kid. And…

Well… My personal opinions on this matter are a little biased. I don’t have much tolerance for anyone who wants to hurt a kid just because they’re only half human.

I have a sister. A half sister. A half human sister.

If anyone called for her death just because she don’t look entirely human. Well, I’ve learned a few things over the last fourteen months about how to solve problems with the right tools and a willingness to do harm.

Then theirs the other issue.

Her Imperial Termitrix, Queen of the Damned of Extroil, Grebela Harkon Grimmfang. First of her name and sole ruler of seven infernal Planes…

Wants to visit her grandson.

I went to hell for this interview. Imogene provided the transportation and the paperwork.

Yeah, we have that now. You’ll need a special stamp for your passport.

Her infernalness laughed when I mentioned my opener about visiting hell. "Oh please, there are many Hells, this one is called Sulfuric Glades. My ad people suggested after we got access to your internet since I’ve taken an interest in your world.”

The eight foot tall void of darkness in the shape of a woman grinned, showing off her metallic teeth.

"And in just a few years I will be able to visit for more than a few minutes at a time, but Thomas will only be this little a for a few months. I want to, and will, hold him while he is still small enough to eat him up in one bite.”

She leaned forward on her throne of skulls and blades. “Or the brood mother will suffer along with all of those in your 'State Department'"

No greater fury than a Grandma scorned.

I hope she was joking about the eating him up bit.

It turns out that it only takes an Infernal five years, local time, for an Infernal to mature after hatching. And most of them are savage little monsters up until the age of one which is why their species lay dozens of eggs all at once.

Wayne, who was hatched with most of his memories available right from the start, organized his brothers and sisters to keep them from killing and eating each other and instead led them on raids until their mother came along to collect the survivors.

Temitrix “Call me Greby” Grimmfang laughed. “Normally I get two or three kids surviving out of a hatching who all still want to kill each other, this time I got eighteen little darlings who all have each other's backs." She shook her head in bewilderment with a big smile on her event horizon lips. "Even against me. I am so looking forward to seeing what they will do once they get out of battle school, even if Wayne dropped out.”

Now what was a relatively simple messy divorce complicated by money being involved, now involves interdimensional diplomacy, possible incursions from a Grandmother who isn’t used to hearing the word ‘no”, and our own religious extremists.

But at least with the world as it is now, something else should come along soon to distract everyone.