Satan's Little Helper

V I I - [ C H R I S T I A N A ]

I AWAKE to an uneasy feeling at the pit of my stomach.

Getting up, I feel a presence beside me and my neck jerks at its direction at lightning speed as if sensing a threat near me.

What I see is nowhere near a threat.

Caden is sitting in my reclining chair, legs stretched on top of my table and toying with a Rubik's cube.

"What the hell, Cade? What are you doing here?" I ask as I stand up, relieved that he isn't a burglar or anyone dangerous. Not like I wouldn't be able to face them head-on or anything. "Who even allowed you in my house?"

He looks up at me briefly but averts his attention back down once he's seen me, resuming his solving. "Laufeia." He nods at the cube. "You're finally awake."

"Laufeia?"

"Didn't Lord Daemon make you change your name to Laufeia?"

"What... Who are you?" I narrow my eyes at him, trying to spot anything suspicious. He seems legit, but I somehow I can sense that he's not human.

"I'm Caden." He says matter-of-factly, not even bothering to look up at me as we talk.

"Alright, then. Wrong question." I huff and roll my eyes at him. "What are you?"

"Glad you asked. See, it goes all the way back to twelve years ago." He says, setting down the cube on my desk and bringing his legs down from the table. He stands up then and rests his tailbone against the desk instead, arms folded in front of him. Even from this distance, I can still smell his cologne—but this time, he also reeks of something else, something that is probably too soon for my knowing and is yet familiar altogether—death.

"The year I met you?" I question him, recalling a young Caden inviting me to play with him.

"That's right, the year you met me. You see, I was sent here to watch over you and protect you. Also, I was not as young as I seemed to be—I'm still not, to tell you honestly. So really, even though my body was of a five year-old, I was much older than that. Now, I am five-hundred and twelve years old."

"So, what? You're a pedophile?" I deadpan.

"Hell, no."

"Then what's all this got to do with me?"

"I'm getting there, Laufeia. Be patient." He says and clears his throat. "Anyway. I was, and always have been, Hell's very best. And so when Lord Lucifer himself took interest in you, he commanded Azazel to send me here—to earth—for the sole purpose of watching over you and protecting you at all costs."

I start connecting the dots mentally. I remember this one winter when a bully in third grade threw me off the slide. I, for some reason, managed to survive without so much as a scraped elbow while I was told the next day that the bully had slipped on ice and broke his right arm trying to break the fall. At the time my family and I had only considered it a miracle from God, but now that Caden is telling me all this, I start to rethink all those times where I was in harm's way; each time I was in danger, I would somehow get away with it.

"I was watching your every move; Lucifer forbids I ever take my eyes off you. He would have me punished quite severely if I did." Caden cringes at the thought.

"So why did Daemon want to protect me?"

Caden's eyes widen. "We must never call the Lord by his first name!"

"I can call him whatever the hell I want, thank you."

"No you may not! That is very impolite, and as a rule we with lower ranks m—"