One Silver Coin For a Pound of Demon

Chapter 14

Draft
____

A bathroom can be a demon's habitat, but it can't be used to house a tenant. You remove all the chains, unpacked a narrow bed and placed it in the living room.

The house does have its guest rooms, but as you've said, the entire building has stood as a fortress against demons for five years now. The master bedroom and the guest room are well cared for, with very tight and reliable precautions, and you've arranged them in a penitential-grade specifications— "repentance" here refers specifically to the hierarchical noun circulating among the clergy, meaning "Sufficient enough to let any demon who enters repent leaving hell," Lemuel wouldn't like this kind of room.

You've carved sacred prayers into many hidden crooks, permanent works that would be difficult to remove in a while. In conclusion, Lemuel has to temporarily stay in the living room until the guest room is tidied up. He didn't complain about it much, but he hardly seemed fond of the bed.

Many mornings you'd find him out of bed and huddled on the sofa. The sofa is very old, no softer than the bed but narrower and shorter than the bed, and if a man of Lemuel's stature laid flat on it, his feet would be long enough to hang down. But you don't see him lying flat, he's always curled like a shrimp, squeezing in the hollow between the back of the sofa and the seat cushion, tightly wrapped in a blanket from head to toe. Lemuel didn't even show his head, he's bunched up the quilt like a cocoon that only grows out of your sofa. 

You ask Lemuel what's wrong with the bed, he shakes his head and climbs into bed at night with the blanket, only to appear back on the sofa the next morning. So you just let him go: he likes the sofa, just let it go. There are often wild cats that ignore the nests you've arranged and instead drill into the cardboard boxes in the pile of debris.

You bought Lemuel clothes and trousers. Your sizes aren't the same but the shop owner holds no doubts about it. You always buy clothes and daily necessities for the people in need. In your first try you manage buy a shirt that fits perfectly, but the pantlegs were a little too short, you realize that this is because Lemuel had never stood up straight next to you. He's always unable to stand up straight for a variety of reasons, such as pain, nervousness, and attempted attacks. In fact, he rarely stands, and in the months you've been together, Lemuel's either sitting in the bathtub or lying on his stomach.

It's the same now, he doesn't get up or move around much, at least, not around you. When you're at home, Lemuel always lays on the sofa with a blanket over his head. Sometimes he'll stare at you probingly, but when you look back, he'll look away. You hope that he's just ignoring you, not that he still lacking the will to survive.

You don't have surveillance anymore, you've ceased using the holy pigeons as your eyes, you don't know what Lemuel does while you're away from home. It's necessary to monitor demons but not people, you shouldn't spy on guests staying over, you don't feel the need to.

If Lemuel chooses to leave or whatever, then it's God's will.

You don't look. If you see him trying to kill himself, you have to stop it, suicide is a sin and has to be stopped. But you secretly feel in your heart that if Lemuel doesn't want to stay here anymore, then you shouldn't lock him up again. You've already stopped him once, he can leave as he pleases, in whatever way. After the act you'll have to accept your punishment for the "oversight", and it'll have nothing to do with Lemuel.

You go back home everyday at noon, and you start leaving work on time every night. There's a guest at home who needs three meals a day, you can’t put the day’s food in a food bowl just once like you would a pet. You bring back ingredients every day, go to the sofa to take a look, make sure the food isn't unappealing to the consumer¹, and then go to the kitchen to start working. Once you're done, push the cocoon on the sofa, and Lemuel will get up to sit at the table. You thank God thrice each meal, the first time you look at the sofa, the second time your hands touch the body under the blanket, and the third time you pray before the meal.