The Emotional Support Monster

Emotion Support Monster

 "Why did you give Gertrude the Baker a bat as a familiar?" Esmeralda asked, placing her pointed hat on her desk and leaning back in her chair. Her silvery curls spilled out, framing her sharply featured face.

I shrugged and gave her my winning smile. "It was her arms," I said. "They were the flabbiest I'd ever seen and she wouldn't stop waving them around and shrieking in excitement. Boom. Bat familiar, perfect match."

A column of swirling smoke rose from her pipe as she held it between her teeth. "It seems you didn't think about the fact that she is in the free-range child business, did you?" She said. "With that giant bat flopping all around it's scaring the kids away. She's only been able to lure two kids into her shack since then and they've been goth kids. Do you know how much extra work they require to prepare, removing all the piercings and so on?"

"I'm sorry Miss Esmeralda," I murmured. "Next time I'll consider a puppy, or a predatory balloon."

"By Hecate, I swear!" she replied, sparks flying from her pipe to mirror her frustration. "Puppies turn to slavering dogs, Float-a-chokes would eat her supply of brats. Last month you give nearly blind sorcerer a snake as a companion. He mistook it for his wand and got bit a week later."

"Everyone makes mistakes," I said. "He had a problem with rats eating his potion ingredients. I thought it would help."

"He died, Oswald," she snapped. "Familiars and Friends has been in business for over a thousand years, and this is the first time we've ever been sued. If I lose the company my grandfather founded, I'll banish you to one of Neptune's moons, I swear it! Now go clean the kennels before the next client comes in."

I lowered my gaze and slunk out of her office. Okay, so maybe some of my matches have resulted in fires, businesses going under, and the occasional death - they all seemed like good ideas at the time. Perhaps they would have been better matches if it were not for the familiars being used in spells and their dark workings. They were seen as tools, little more. Maybe if they spent the time to become friends and communicate, things would turn out a little differently. Maybe that entire suburb wouldn't have been shifted into another dimension.

With bucket and mop in hand I made my way through the stone and mortar halls, scrubbing down the pens and taking ample time to scratch a black cat behind the ears and dispense treats to the otherwise squirmy and neglected sorts.

Through my patrols and scouring I finally came across a large door - the largest and heaviest of the lot. Runes of warning were carved into it, flashing red, and four massive locks kept it held shut. Even the faded streaks of blood and desperate claw marks pulling into it would frighten off most. But I couldn't help but smile as I entered, and before I could even put my keys away I was met with a deep and thunderous snarl like the coming of a great storm, a snarl that seemed to echo with the dark and ominous incantations.

"Muckle!" I said throwing my arms wide. "Good to see you too!"

The hellbeast crouched in the corner of the room, with a coat as black as coal and a single eye on the right side that smoldered red like the heart of flame itself. The other eye had been lost when he had eaten his first handler, and the next few didn't last so well either. But he and I always seemed to get along well enough.

Cleaning up after Muckle, however, was about as easy as you would expect for a ravenous, strictly carnivorous, dog almost as large as a horse. He came to Familiars and Friends when he was just a puppy, and was thought to be some street mutt. It wasn't until he made a meal of Jasper the Beastmaster that they became suspicious of his true nature. Strangely enough, the scent of sulfur didn't give him away sooner.