Date with the Devil

“We’ve tried everything, I just don’t think it can be done.”

Isroh stares for a moment before letting out a heavy breath of sheer disappointment. “How many times have we tried throwing her in the harbor?”

“Three times.”

“Beheading?”

“Five”

“We still have that favor owed by the military base, right?”

“Sir, The sergeant said he’d never seen anything eat a shell like that and continue to live”

“Fuck.” The demon lord spins in his office chair for a second as he dreads what is to come from this surprise mystery creature.

It wasn’t every day a demon slaughtering warhead walked itself right to the front door, and it was an even rarer occasion when such a thing couldn’t be dealt with in usual mob fashion. What a strange creature he was burdened with. At this rate he couldn’t afford to keep her confined until she was no longer a problem, she had been slaughtering his goons at a rate of close to three per hour, not even including the dozens she’d cleaved appart in the first fifteen minutes of her setting foot in his bar. Currently they’d had some luck with simply nailing through her bones and staking her onto a steel support beam in the wine cellar. Yet still every so often she’d wrench her flesh free from the nails and continue to fight. It was impressive, yet disturbing enough to make Isroh dread having to face her himself.

“Tighten the nails down. I’ll deal with this.”

“S-sir? How?” The imp cringes as the devil pulls on his overcoat.

“I just want to talk.”

Xxxxx


Isroh couldn’t help but cringe at the state his wine cellar was in, smashed glass covered the floor like glittering snow and the smell of expensive wine stained the air along with copious amounts of demon’s blood as well as the scent of something else. Sure enough, the woman in question sits on the floor, backed up against one of the supports with both arms drilled through in multiple places from the elbow upwards and firmly secured into the steel beam as the blood trickled from the wounds. She was staring a hole into into Isroh before he’d even made it in the doorway, which was enough to make him pause. Part of him wanted to just abandon this diplomacy approach and continue with trying to dispose of whatever monster this thing was, never had he felt this oppressive energy she was putting off, feeling almost unnatural in it’s ability to unnerve him.

“What a mess you’ve made.” Isroh starts only to feel her gaze shift from his face to the rest of him, as if sizing him up. He could see the muscles straining subtly against the nails, on occasion retching a bone to shift and bow allowing a nail to slip through and loosen. He didn’t have too much time or she’d free herself and somehow he just knew she’d be on him in an instant.
“Alright, look I know this isn’t optimal quarters for your stay here, I-”

“Why do you have a soul?” Her voice echoes with a strange undertone of femininity. Isroh didn’t know what he was expecting as part of him had forgotten this was a woman and not some hideous beat out to get him.

“You can see souls?”

“It is all I see. You have the stench of a demon, but the soul of a child.” The woman’s hair wisps like smoke as she becomes more restless, straining against the beam in a half-hearted lunge forward, which did have Isroh flinching back as if she had been freed anyway. However after a moment of fighting she slumps back to looking like an angry house cat… with three nails popping loose and hitting the floor.

“Anyway, Your name is…”

“Fuck off.”

“Hell of a name.” Isroh groans, sitting himself on the floor to meet at eye level. She wore outdated armor from another time, yet with impressive craftsmanship. “Let's try again. I am Isroh.” He asserts.

“... Rai.” She growls, simply choosing not to look directly at him. Isroh gave an internal sigh of relief as he was at least starting to get somewhere. It was a start, now if just to start making meaningful strides before those nails gave out.

“Alright, Rai… You obviously do know what I am… but what are you if you do not mind me asking?” He inches a tiny bit closer to test the waters only for Rai’s attention to snap back to him and earn another pull against the beam… costing him another nail. She just stares for a moment, teeth gritting before slumping back down. “I am a reaver… from Dis.” Although giving up for now, her voice still held no notion of defeat… just terrifying patience.

Isroh had never heard of a reaver before, nor had he heard of Dis, however he knew just who to ask. Shifting to access his phone, Isroh groans in defeat as he realizes the signal was nonexistent for some reason. He’d just have to wait on that one.

“Alright, Rai from Dis. Well, obviously you’ve seen right through me. Human soul and all.” He inches a moment closer, only to find her face softened with the intrigue.

“Must admit, Have not seen that before.”

“Right. I don’t think anyone had. So… you would like an explanation, correct?” Isroh offers, only hoping and praying that she’d be curious enough to take the bait.

“Actually.” Rai turns away, choosing not to look at the demon once again, but not fighting for once. “I would.”

A breath Isroh didn’t know he was holding escaped him, relaxing into the floor, only to find his pants stained with the wine pooling in the floor. “Alright. I will explain… but I have to buy an hour of your time.”

“Not like I am going anywhere.” Rai rolls her eyes, scraping her horns against steel.

“Oh, no. I mean if you are freed, I just need an hour of your word to not.. Well.” He gestures to the absolutely demolished cellar. “Do this.”

There's a moment of silence over the cellar as he watches Rai weigh her options just to give a sigh of her own. “Alright. An hour.” The reaver huffs and seems to shrink down a bit, no longer even straining against the nails passively just as another clatters to the ground. “You get only an hour to convince me.”

“It’ll be worth it. Just please resist killing my men.” He nods as he stands, knocking on the cellar door to be let out. ”Release her and get her ready for dinner.” He announces to a very shocked group of pit fiends.

Xxxxxx

Isroh finds himself at one of the nice tables, he’d purposefully had pulled from storage. Usually these tables were meant exclusively for valentines day events in which the bar went from party scene to five star restaurant for a week. Upon the table was a perfectly cooked roast duck with orange sauce and an assortment of sides such as potatoes, green beans and rice. Pretty much anything he could do to impress his murderous guest. About three different bottles of well aged wines were available on demand and he had his demonic staff swapped for human waiters he’d borrowed from the restaurant he’d quickly ordered the duck from. Never in his life had he been so nervous for a “date”, however the nerves weren’t related to fear of rejection, but rather he wouldn’t be able to convince her not to burn everything he’d built to the ground with prejudice. In the meantime, he had managed to text Otto, a mage who owed him a favor about what a Reaver was and where in blue blazes was Dis. Perhaps if this went poorly he could simply opt to toss her back to Dis and forget she ever existed. Somewhere between weighing his options on what to do with Rai and ensuring the dishes were perfectly spotless, the tell tale clicking of boots on marble floors alerted him to the heavy footed approach of his “date”.

“Good Evening I- What happened to the nice dress I had for you?” Isroh asks, taken about back Rai’s choice to continue wearing her blood stained armor, her arms still spackled in red.

“Not interested. You have an hour and I don’t wish to waste a moment of it.” Rai sits herself in the chair across from Isroh before he could even go to pull it out for her, leaving him both stunned at her audacity, yet thankful for her pragmatism. He could only be glad she was keeping up her side of their deal. “Start talking, demon. My patience wears thin.” She sets a wrist on the table, blood staining such a nice white tablecloth.

“I promise I will explain in time. You said it yourself. We have an hour to burn. What fun would I be if I just blathered on for fifteen minutes leaving us no topic for conversation for the rest of our time together.” Isroh looks back to the waiters on standby as they begin plating the duck l’orange and pouring the pair their wine.  “You like duck?”

“Ducks? I mean… I’ve seen a few. The swimming birds?” Rai asks, only to have Isroh holding back laughter. If she wasn’t absolutely terrifying for reasons beyond Isroh’s comprehension, she’d be adorable. He couldn’t help but begin to notice her deceptively thin stature and delicate features now that she wasn’t in such an unfortunate position. Her disinterest in their fine meal, however, also did not go unnoticed.

“Yes, those are ducks. But I mean cooked duck. I supposed that means you’ve never eaten it. Go ahead. Try it.” Isroh presses, anything to relax her growing impatience. He watches as she sighs and breaks, choosing to delve a fork into the bird on her plate as uncomfortably as anyone with high class tastes could watch.  Her face did betray her attempt to not show how spectacular this duck was, causing Isroh to crack and cheeky smile. “Not so bad?”

“I suppose not. You have fifty five minutes left.”

“I know, I know. But this isn’t just about me. I have some questions for you as well.” Isroh settles back into his chair, placing his phone on his thigh to continue waiting for Otto’s text, however much to his shock, his phone was once again out of signal and the screen was shorting out in such close proximity to the reaver. “Tell me, if you are from Dis, how did you end up here?”

Rai was silent for a moment, face as stony as ever, only reminding Isroh of himself growing quiet when about to devolve into murderous behavior, but was relieved when he realized she was just looking for the words to use. Her accent growing heavier as time goes on. “I chased a beast called the Striggan. It eats holes in dimensions, leaving portals in its wake. It led me here about six months ago” She pushes a potato around with her fork, sinking down into a slightly more comfortable position, yet not even bothering to stop her staring into Isroh’s soul both literally and figuratively. ”My turn. How does a demon get a soul. A child’s soul at that.”

With a light laugh Isroh waves his hand to dismiss the waiters, leaving the pair truly alone in the massive bar room, the waning sun shining hues of red and gold from his windows. “Yes about that. My own story about how I got here. I must say I do not remember specifics.”

“You better start remembering.” Rai growls, shifting her weight as the demon puts his hands up defensively.

“Easy. Easy. I’m getting there.” Isroh smiles nervously. Part of him was growing concerned he wouldn’t survive another forty-five minutes with her if he didn’t start talking now. “What I don’t remember much on is my life as a boy.”

There was a moment of silence as Rai just stared, Isroh was choosing to let her speak, however Rai tilts her brow forward as if to urge him to continue on. “I know I was human once. I remember very little about that though. I assume that means I didn’t get very old. I know I had a family, but all of that went away at some point.”

“No demon has ever come from a man. It just isn’t done.” Rai sets her fork down and sits back, continuing to study him with scrutiny, making Isroh squirm.

“But it was. I remember some people I didn’t know in a church of some kind.” Isroh swirls his wine around in his glass for a moment, losing himself in a vain attempt to remember everything about life. “Then I woke up in hell.”

“You woke in hell, not here?”

“About as far down hell's gullet as one can be thrown apparently.” Isroh downs the last of that glass before pouring himself another. “Kind of wish hell would have choked on me.”

“So you despise hell then.” Rai shifts, taking up her fork again and taking up more of the duck, seemingly her anger quelled by conversation.

“Oh absolutely. Despised it enough to climb my way out.”

“So, just to be clear. You somehow die, and get tossed as far back into hell as one can possibly go, as a child none-the-less. And decide to start climbing?” She laughs before shaking her head. “And what of all this? You despise hell, yet build a monument to it here?”

“Built it? Oh no. no. It was already here when I got here. I just contained it.”Isroh glances to his marble floors, realizing just how this had to look to someone on the outside. A hellish demon owning an entire city and expanding rapidly. It probably looked more like conquest than anything else.

“Look, climbing my way out of hell was the easy part. Dealing with what was here once I got out was the real hell. When I got here demons ran the place in whatever methods they saw fit. Killing people in whatever sick method they see fit, causing crime riddled shitholes wherever they go and causing the humans that just happen to live here to live in fear. It was shit.” Isroh groans, only quelling his own rage at the absolute chaos he was still trying to squash down.

“So you kill the demons then? Your own kind?”

“Killing them would simply mean sending them back to hell to come back and rinse and repeat. No point. I just had to make them come to a heel.”

He watches as Rai checks the clock, realizing how quickly their time had run low. Ten minutes remained and Isroh only had to hope she remained convinced to simply leave his castle alone. “Alright. So you actually do keep the demons contained… but how?”

“By giving them something to be truly afraid of. Chaos is a haze that just allows killing for killings sake. If a demon kills a man on my land, I will know about it.”
“And then?”

“And then I make them wish I had simply opted to kill them in the first place.”


Rai sits back in her chair, finally giving a prolonged blink and crossing her arms. “Alright Isroh. So you do keep demons under control. Are there any that simply refuse to follow your rules?”

“Absolutely. All the time and I squash those rebellions all the time. I, however, get the feeling you would be very interested in this endeavor? You do have quite a talent for it.”

“I will not be indentured by a demon… however if demons do pose a threat to humans, I care not how I get that information, only that I get it.”

“We are not too different after all. I do believe we are five minutes past our time, Rai… And we haven’t even gotten to dessert.”

“Continue with your story another time. You are clearly not a demon, but a boy in a suit. And this I am willing to tolerate.” The reaver waves her hand standing to take her leave. “I will be back to ensure your story is true, but the second I smell human blood on your hands, you will not be allowed to stay around any longer.” She turns without another word, heavy wooden door slamming behind her, leaving a baffled Isroh, his hand only lightly trembling from hidden stress as his phone begins ringing off the hook from his lap.

“Hey! Otto!” He chimes as he hits the button to take the fifteenth call from his friend. Hiding his frayed nerves.
“Isroh, what the hell are you doing with a Reaver!? You need to get out of town or that thing will tear you apart.”
Isroh stares into the vacant bar with a dumb smile on his face as Otto only goes to ramble on about the horrible danger he had been in only for Isroh to burst out laughing a second or two later.

“Don’t worry so much Otto. Everything is alright. I let her go.”

“You WHA-” Isroh hangs up his phone, reclining his head on the chair only to revel in another catastrophe avoided through sheer charisma.