Terrible Friend

12

"So now what?" Albert asked.

"I don't know. Why did you bring him here? What did you think I could do?"

Albert had no idea. The last thing he wanted to do was get into another argument about demons and the like, but Jax said she would know what to do. "I don't know. It was Jax's idea and he doesn't seem to want to talk much when you are around. He insisted that I bring him to you, though."

The man on the stool looked back and forth from Beverly to Albert and then at the floor. He chuckled.

"He can't." Beverly said.

"He can't what?"

"Jax can't speak to me unless I address him. He shouldn't even be able to be in the same room with me. It must be agony for him."

"Agony? Jax doesn't feel...whoa. He felt the necklace. Why?"

"Because I banished him from me, a long time ago."

"Banished him? What does that mean."

Beverly, also wanting to avoid a repeat of earlier, thought for a moment about how she was going to answer his question. She inhaled and slowly exhaled before responding. "Are you sure you want to know about this? It will challenge your beliefs to their core, and we don't have time for you to have a another melt down because you don't want to believe it." Never one to pull punches. She took a step backwards and waited for his answer.

Albert scratched his head. He didn't. He really didn't want to hear anymore about demons and witches, but he had been attacked, in his home, by this guy spewing nonsense about the same things. This meant, to him at least, that Beverly wasn't the only crazy one in this case.

"Yeah, I guess I'm as ready as I will ever be. I don't want to believe this shit, but this guy was in my house, dressed just like the guys that attacked me here earlier. Something is going on and I won't be able to do anything else until we get to the bottom of it. So, yeah, what does it mean?"

"It means I cast a spell that made it so that he cannot so much as speak my name without experiencing pain."

Albert took that in, swished it around in his head, and let it steep a moment. "So, that creates so many questions. Where do I start."

"Let me break it down for you. I'm a witch. I am almost 300 years old, and I am a demon hunter. I trained for over a century to be able to smell, hear, and sometimes even taste demons. It is my job to capture and imprison them when they sneak into this realm. I'll let that sink in a moment."

Albert nodded. He took the information and thought about what that meant. He was standing next to and talking with the oldest person he has ever met. She didn't look a day over forty. "So, how is it that I ended up with Jax?" The sarcasm that rolled out with his question was palpable.

"Yeah, that...that was an accident. A mistake I will not make again. I had no idea where he had gone. Had I known, I would have fixed it immediately."

"So, you could fix it?"

"I can."

"So why don't you?"

"More pressing issues at the moment I suppose. That and the fact that it's not a simple snap the fingers and he is gone process."

The man on the stool sat up and cocked his head to the side. He shot Beverly a questioning look. "Fixed it? He is blessed with the internal presence of a God, and you would fix it?"

Beverly shot a look back at the man. "He isn't a God. He is a demon. He needed to be put away for his crimes, just as your demon is."

Jax interjected. <Well, actually. I am.>

Beverly and Albert both shouted at Jax at the same time. "Shut up Jax!"

"He will not be for much longer." The man rolled his eyes away from Beverly as he spoke and stared off into the darkness at the back of the room.

"What does that mean?" Beverly and Albert asked in unison.

The man looked back and forth between them again. "The holy one will be returning for us soon. We shall revive him from his sleep in that stupid statue and he will reward us."

Jax howled with laughter. <Your reward will be death. He will eat you because eating you is the only thing that matters to him. Some reward!>

Beverly took 3 long strides and met the eyes of the man on the stool. "Revive him? It took me years to put him there. You will not revive him!" Her nostrils flared.

Albert placed his hand on her shoulder and pulled back gently. "Hold it. You put him in a statue? How the hell does that work?"

Beverly spun on her hills and glared at him. "Are you dense?"

Why do you guys keep asking me that? No. I am highly intelligent. Top of my class in school, lucrative business owner and yada yada yada, but this kind of stuff is new to me. So please, stop asking me that, and humor me with an explanation." Albert's response more demanding than sarcastic.

Beverly checked her anger. She inhaled and exhaled slowly. "Ok. Crash course in demonology. There are demons. They are everywhere. They shouldn't be, but there was a loophole in an ancient plan, and here they are. It is my job, well my other job, to collect them when they get out of hand and imprison them in artifacts. I store the artifacts. That is job two"

Albert followed the course and swished the information around for a moment.  When the realization hit him, he shouted. "Wait a minute! This place is full of demon prisons? And you display and sell them? Like art?" Albert glared at her this time. He still wasn't sure about the whole demons and possession thing, but this was almost disgusting to him. "So, so Old Lady Dimock could be waltzing around the next ball with a demon in a glass bubble around her neck? That is kind of awful."

Beverly laughed lightly. "Yes, sort of I suppose. I've never thought of it like that. It is kinda creepy when you put it that way.  This stuff is more artsy though. It's extremely old and expensive.  It's mostly kept on display under glass cases or hung on a wall in a gallery type stuff. It's kind of like reverse sea monkeys, they are on the inside looking out but can't be seen or heard from the outside. A very specific ritual puts them in and a very specific one will let them out. The stars pretty much have to be completely aligned for the ritual to work."

"Perfectly aligned? You mean like what is supposed to happen Friday night?" Albert's voice squeaked.

"Is there an actual alignment Friday night? Well, that explains the robbery. I'm actually surprised that more items haven't been taken then. Beverly laughed out loud but stopped suddenly when she felt Albert's eyes on her in a hard glare. "Look, I'm a demon hunter. It's what I do and what I have done for a century. They rarely get out after I put them in. It's a gift."

<That's exactly right, Rarely. I've been trapped here for thirty two years now.> Jax threw in.

"The equivalent of a day in your life span demon. Hush."

<A day in line at the DMV!" Jax squealed. Laughing at his own joke.

Albert shook his head. "Alright, then explain that to me. I'm not art. How did I end up with Jax?"

Beverly took a deep breath, hung her head, and exhaled slowly.