Terrible Friend

33

"Shit! You think this is shit?"  Beverly yelled back and then sucked in a breath to control herself.

"Calm down. It's just not easy to talk about. Neither of you deserve that, but honestly, it is the safest option. Jax was a hunted demon. As long as he is bound to something, he isn't. It's the equivalent of a bounty on someone's head. If they are in prison, they aren't hunted. You know that much."

"What you don't know is that there are technically several types of magic.  For the purpose of this discussion, and to prevent your mortal little head from exploding, we will only be discussing personal and universal magic. Sound good?"

Albert calmed down a bit and the room stopped shaking. "Was I doing that? Jesus!" Albert tried to calm himself down further. "I'm sorry. Yes. That works. Go on please."

"Okay. Universal magic the universal pool of energy where all my magic comes from, but it's separate. When things are as they should be, I can cast a spell, and universal magic will support it and keep it in place. You follow me?"

"I think so."

Okay good. Personal magic, is my own personal pool of magic. I can cast spells and do things with my own power outside of universal magic, but the spells I cast using my magic only last as long as I do. When I die, the spell breaks."

'Okay. I see that."

"Right now, my magic is what is binding Jax to the necklace. When he was inside you, he was held there by universal magic.  So, when I die or am no longer able to maintain the spell I cast, Jax zaps back into you, unless we come up with an alternative."

"Is there an alternative?" Albert asked.

"Not one that will allow him his human form I'm afraid."

Albert sat there, trying to wrap his head around the situation. "So, in human terms, Jax is going to have to be trapped inside something else to not be hunted anymore."

"That's not right. You helped save the world. You deserve to be free. Is there, like a council or a judge, that we could talk to? I can explain all the good things you have helped me.."

"Unfortunately, things don't work like that. Demons are lower place natives. When they are turned out, as he has been, there is no return, and the upper place is not an option, ever, because of his nature."

"So, what does happen to him if he goes back inside me? Does it make me an immortal?" He got a little more excited about the idea than he probably should have.

Beverly snorted. The excitement at the thought of being immortal was funny to her. She was already centuries old, and although not quite immortal, it was many more years than she wished it was going to be. Life is hard, filled with anguish, despair, hatred, and loss. Sure, there were some good and even happy times, but most of it was hard and ugly. Humans are lucky it is brief for them. It explains their morbid desire to chase it, but they were lucky.

"Unfortunately", she stifled a chuckle, "it does not make you an immortal. That's a good thing. You don't want to live as long as we do. Especially not him." She counted herself lucky there. She could easily live to be five hundred years old, but death would finally become her. Jax would exist forever. The thought of that chilled her to the bone. She swallowed hard before continuing.

"That is why it's a tough decision. If Jax remains bound to you until I die, when you die, he will stay with you, bound to your soul, until I die."

"That's an issue because?" Albert didn't want to see Jax bound to him again. The silence inside his head was a long awaited welcome, but he didn't want Jax being hunted either. It was a cruel sport with animals, and worse when people were hunted. He realized Jax was not a person, so to speak, but the logic expanded to this particular demon. He couldn't say the same for all of them, since Dongorul was not one he would want to see walking free.

"Because she could live to be five hundred! I would be bound inside your corpse for..." he looked at Beverly, guessing her current age. He raised an eyebrow and braced for a swing from Beverly as he continued. "...another three hundred years, on the safe side."

Beverly nodded in agreement. His estimate of her true age was nearly dead on and she was impressed with his ability to safely guess on the lower side. She was considerably older than that, but she would never tell him. "Yeah, not to mention, your souls are bound, you would be one in a sense, and demons can't get into heaven."

"So what would happen to us, if we can't go to heaven? Would we go to hell?"

Jax laughed out loud. "Not that you would ever want to go there, no, we would not be allowed there either."

"So what then?" Albert was confused. He only knew of three possible options. Heaven, Earth, or Hell. He often joked that he was already in hell here on earth, but that didn't really play in here.

"Nothingness."

"Nothingness? We would cease to exist then?"

"We would wish we didn't exist. It is an existence in nothing. Floating and swirling around, for the ages, in nothing."

"That doesn't sound so bad. I mean, we could be burning."