“You show up randomly, eat me out of house and home, and insult my friends before disappearing again,” Foster said. “Not to mention you spy on me for my sperm donor, so fuck you for that.”
“I do not spy,” Cwall pouted. “I tell him you’re alive and it keeps ‘im off your back, so you’rewelcomeya lil shit, ‘cause I know ya don’t wanna see ‘im.”
“Yeah, yeah, do all his work for him, give him even more excuses.”
“I just do my job.” Cwall looked somewhere between dizzy and affronted. “Can ya put me down now?”
“Sure,” Foster grinned and flung the imp towards the living room.
He flapped his wings frantically, righting himself just before hitting the far wall and hovering like an angry, oversized chicken. “Rude.”
“Not my fault you picked a form that’s easily tossed around.” Foster rifled through his pantry for his backup coffee. He found the bag, an unfortunately lesser quality he’d been given as agift and only kept for emergencies—like when he forgot to stop by the store, or when Cwall made his random appearances to mooch.
“I like the purple and the wings.” Cwall settled on the back of the couch like an overgrown parrot. “But I don’t like being manhandled.”
He flared his wings then folded them, letting them melt into his back. His limbs stretched and swelled and rapidly lost color, elongating and turning to milky white. His three fingers and toes split into the standard five, and his ratlike face blurred and grew, morphing into a humanoid skull. Cwall groaned and rolled his joints, stretching his new skeletal form. Lidless eye sockets lit with acid green flame as he offered Foster a ghastly smirk.
“Better?”
Foster shrugged. “More badass at least. You’re gonna need skin if you come outside with me though.”
“Where ya goin’?”
“Library,” Foster lied with a smile, knowing that answer was sure to get his Guardian Demon off his tail.
“Ew, no thanks.” Cwall shuddered. “You Morningstar men sure love to fuckin’ read.”
Foster laughed bitterly. “Well, at least he gave me one good thing.”
“More than one.” Cwall flashed that hideous rictus grin again. “Ya got your pretty face from ol’ Luci too.”
“Get out of my house, Cwall.”
“So testy,” Cwall clicked his teeth together. “All this time with the humans has made ya so tempermetal, Fostie.”
“Temperamental,” Foster corrected, rolling his eyes. “And I’ve always been this way.”
“No,” Cwall lost a bit of his jovial tone and his eyes flickered briefly. “Ya really weren’t like this before.”
He blinked out of sight, presumably gone back to whatever limbo he hung around in when he wasn’t bothering the Prince of Hell, and Foster relaxed a bit. Something in the way Cwall watched him made him anxious sometimes, as if the strange demon was reading him more deeply than his lackadaisical nature suggested. As if he was seeing parts of Foster that even the man himself didn’t like to look at.
Foster sighed and turned his attention back to measuring the beans into his grinder. Coffee would help, even subpar coffee. He could analyze the motives of demons after he studied the next ritual. When his mother was returned to his side, he’d have all the time in the world to reflect on Cwall’s cryptic judgements.
Foster closed the front door of his apartment building firmly behind him, jiggling the handle to make sure the latch caught the doorframe. The last thing they needed was another homeless man sleeping in the entryway—it made it almost impossible to get to the mailboxes. He straightened his jacket, raked his hands through his carefully tousled hair, and checked his pocket for the package he had almost forgotten to bring.
His fingers brushed the cloth wrapping and he stepped confidently off the cracked front stoop, crossing the yellowing front lawn in a few long strides. He patted the stone columns that capped the old iron fence as he slipped through the gap where the gate used to hang, and a piece of the crumbling brick broke off the left side.
“I should probably fix that,” he muttered, tossing it into the grass and making a mental note to pick up some stone adhesive. Their lazy, absentee ‘landlord’ wasn’t going to put in any effort. Jeff was a balding, overweight sleaze who would probably puthis back out lifting anything heavier than a slice of pizza. Foster might have forgotten Jeff existed, if it weren’t for the way he came hounding everyone once a month to mail his rent checks on time.
“Hey, Foster!” A stout older man bustled out the door, silver handlebar mustache perfectly groomed as always, wearing an outrageous Hawaiian print button down. “When you have time, could you maybe look at my window? It’s jammed open and the rain keeps coming in.”
Foster offered him a smile, keeping his groans internal. He didn’t exactly love that repairs fell on his shoulders, but he couldn’t let the residents suffer when he could do something to help. “No problem, Mr. Ryan.”
“How many times have I said to call me Carter?”
“Fair enough. I’ll take a look once I get home.”
“You’re a saint, Foster.”
