Our Devils, page 9
Marcus shook his head. “No. I couldn’t. Is this… real?”
Mrs. Hongo smiled wide. “Yes. Good sword. My husband bought it in Hawaii.” She practically threw it at Marcus. “Keep fighting, okay?”
Marcus struggled not to smile, just to give the moment a little gravity. “Hai. Ganbarimasu. Domo arigato.”
She laughed politely and ran off to the kitchen. She returned a moment later with her husband and four huge bowls of ramen. They watched from the bar as Marcus and his friends ate, and Mr. Hongo had a good laugh when Aster stuck his whole face in the bowl.
With their bellies full and the table annihilated, the four finally got up to say their thanks. The crowd had grown considerably since they arrived. Schoolgirls crowded Pulsar with pets while tech bros awkwardly posed with Aster. The humans got plenty of love and adoration too, but to no one’s surprise, the devils received the bulk of it. Even the red headed girl from the camping store showed up, making a point to thank Pulsar personally. He let her pet him again, squinting and tapping his little foot.
At one point, Aaron waved his hand to get everyone’s attention. They choked around him, phones out for a speech. But instead, he waved to the restaurant behind him. “Eat at Hongo Ramen. It’s my favorite store on the citadel.” A couple of nerds in the back laughed, hopefully.
Once the crowd let up to allow them to move, the gang headed back to the apartment. They crowded into Aaron’s car and drove to the supermarket to replenish their meat supply, and the butcher there was happy to help. The store manager arrived to thank them and tell them that everything was comped. He even encouraged them to pick up even more groceries on the way back to the register, and he didn’t bother to scan anything
“I could get used to this.” Aaron sat on his couch, packing a fresh bowl. It was weird to receive so much praise and attention from people he didn’t know, and people he passed every day, but it was growing on him.
By then the blinds were drawn shut, but a few stragglers were still hovering around their windows, trying to steal glances through the openings. Aaron stepped out to ask if they could all give them a little space, and a few took photos before reluctantly agreeing. He returned just in time for his turn in the rotation.
They were back to watching Jujutsu Kaisen when Aaron’s phone rang. It was his boss. He silenced it—he was a little too high for a work call. He got up to use the bathroom a few minutes later, just as an email arrived in his inbox:
“Hey Aaron. I just wanted to thank you for everything, both at work and for what you did yesterday. You continue to surprise us!
There are still three days of PTO remaining, but I have a feeling that you’ll be busy with new ventures after that. Please let me know if you ever decide to come back to work. I’ll do my best to keep your position open.
Wishing you all the best, Joe.”
Aaron’s face dropped and the blood drained out of it.
Being a hometown hero was great and everything, but all the free ramen in the world wouldn’t pay his rent. And that wasn’t to say anything for his health insurance, which would disappear as soon as his PTO was up. The anxieties started mounting and he sat in the bathroom, his mouth bone dry.
At last, he stepped out and plopped on the couch, filling the others in. The devils didn’t have any concept of rent, but Marcus understood quickly. He hung his head.
“I’m already putting all the groceries on credit, I have to pay car insurance next month, my tires are getting bald, my—” Aaron fiddled with his bong’s bowl as he spiraled.
“We’ll figure something out,” offered Marcus, trying to keep spirits up.
“Oh yeah?” Aaron snapped and tightened his jaw. “You paying rent any time soon?”
“Well, no,” signed Marcus. “We’ve—”
Aaron cut him off with a hard “Didn’t think so.” The words hung in the air and Marcus shook his head. He took a deep breath and stood up.
“Where are you going?” asked Pulsar, wiping away a sniffle.
“I’ll figure it out,” said Marcus, gathering his things.
Aaron sighed with guilt. “You don’t have to go.”
“It’s cool.” Marcus spoke curtly, fooling no one.
Aaron shut his mouth before more of his bad mood could leak out. Marcus packed his bag in silence. The devils looked nervous. Once everything was together, Marcus stepped to the door, turning back to Aaron. Aaron said again, “You don’t have to go.”
Marcus smiled grimly. “You know I have other places to stay, right? It’s cool.”
“Come on, man. I—”
“See you around. You too, Pulsar.” Marcus stepped out, but Aster just stood there and sputtered. He looked back and forth between them and the open door a few times before a small sob escaped him. Then he galloped after Marcus.
The apartment was oddly silent, and it was a long time before Aaron or Pulsar spoke again.
“You really fucked that up,” said Pulsar, looking uneasy.
Aaron exhaled sharply, nodding. “Yeah, I know.”
Together they smoked a bowl in silence, passing it back and forth mechanically. By the second bowl they had both calmed down, letting the weed do its thing.
Soon, they were talking again. It never really occurred to Aaron that Pulsar wouldn’t have any idea about how money worked, or how jobs worked. It must have looked so strange to him when Aaron handed someone a plastic card and received food in return.
So, he filled him in a bit. He told him about cash and credit cards, colleges and careers, get-rich-quick schemes and investments. How a lot of people worked their lives away, little time left for actually living. How some people were born into money and never had to work a day in their lives. They watched Shark Tank as Aaron idly searched through forums, looking for easy ways to make money. Most of them sounded like scams at best.
It was then that Aaron realized that Pulsar knew nothing about the internet, great and terrible. He decided to start him off with a few classics, like Brandon Rogers and History of The Entire World, I Guess. They bounced back and forth between memes, fail compilations, and trying to find a way to make a quick buck. Influencers promised easy ways to make outrageous sums in your underwear, if you only bought their overpriced courses first. Aaron surfed through job boards, realizing that anything he was qualified for would take too much time away from Pulsar and their training. He felt stiff and helpless, and went to bed early.
Like anyone discovering the internet for the first time, Pulsar quickly lost his little mind. With Aaron’s laptop in hand, the algorithm quickly led him to all sorts of weird corners of the internet. The monster ran into makeup tutorials and cat videos, the manosphere and conspiracy theories, cooking videos and family vloggers, long diatribes about Joel Schumacher’s Phantom of the Opera, and a bunch more sites that you probably don't want to hear about. Then it was back to get-rich-quick schemes.
When Aaron woke up around sunrise to take a piss, Pulsar was talking to someone. His webcam was on and his feet were propped up. He was doing a live stream. The monster flexed his toes as emojis flooded the screen. Aaron rushed in and slammed the laptop shut.
“Hey!” shouted the devil.
“Don’t do that stuff, dude. People are going to think you’re a pervert.”
“Pfft. Don’t be a prude!”
Aaron gave him a hard stare before exhaling. “Please, just don’t”
“But I was gonna make money!”
“Trust me on this one. Please.” Aaron picked up the laptop, quickly changed the password, and went back to bed.
Pulsar grumbled in frustration and finished the bowl. Once the weed leveled him out again, the exhaustion started creeping in. The little monster climbed up onto the bed, curled up with his human, and grumbled himself to sleep.
Chapter 16
“Where are we going?” asked Pulsar, now donning his baggy hoodie again. While he could walk free, the hoodie helped cut down on the attention. Plus it was growing on him.
“Dispensary,” said Aaron. “We’re out of weed.”
“I thought you were broke,” said the little monster, still a little irritated that Aaron wouldn’t let him help.
“I am,” admitted Aaron. “But I’d rather be broke and high.”
They arrived at the dispensary, Scoops A-High. It had a mascot above the door that looked like a stoned scoop of ice cream. The guard out front looked at Pulsar suspiciously, trying to figure out what he was looking at. Once he realized that the creature was not a child, but actually the monster that had taken the town by storm, his mood did a 180. He even asked for, and took, a couple of selfies. But when the pair attempted to step inside, the guard still stopped them.
“No one comes in without a valid photo ID. Sorry little man.”
“Can you ask the manager for an exception or something?” Aaron was frustrated, and wasn’t afraid to let everyone else know about it. The guard nodded and radioed to someone.
The owner stepped out a minute later. He was built like Aaron, maybe ten or twenty years older, but with shorter, prematurely grey hair. He beamed at the pair, thanking them profusely for stopping the turtle, and practically dragged them inside.
While Pulsar had grown used to smoking weed, nothing could have prepared him for a fully stocked dispensary. The employees rushed over, taking photos and proudly showing him everything they had in stock. Soon Pulsar had picked out half their inventory, and Aaron stepped in to slow him down, knowing they would have to make it last.
But the owner wouldn’t hear it. He insisted that everything was on the house, and even helped add more products to the pile. Aaron was understandably relieved. His devil was elated.
Pretty soon, they were ushered into a break room where most of the employees joined them, leaving only a skeleton staff to tend to the other customers. There Pulsar learned the joys of edibles, drinkables, spliffs, gravity bongs, and at least three other new ways to do a dab. The employees were stoked to see the little monster take rips like a creature three times his size. His eyes drooped as a silly smile spread across his face.
Minutes turned into hours, and no one made any effort to put a stop to it. Aaron got uncomfortably high, which was typically pretty hard for him to do, and he stepped out to get some air. The owner followed and lit a cigarette.
“Pretty cool friend you’ve got there,” said the owner.
“Yeah,” muttered Aaron. “He’s alright.”
“Alright?” The owner looked offended by the understatement. Then he broke into a dry chuckle. “Yeah, he’s alright.”
Despite shopping at Scoops A-High for the last three years, Aaron had never actually met the owner before. Wade was a funny guy with kind of a fucked up sense of humor—it didn’t take long for them to hit it off. They talked about what went down with the turtle, how Aaron found Pulsar in the first place, and how the guy came to own a dispensary.
“Dude could be a mascot,” Wade joked, lighting up his fourth cigarette.
“For what? Apple Jacks?”
Wade laughed and got a crazy look in his eye. “Did I mention I’m launching an energy drink with my cousin next week? We’re calling it Tweak Sauce.”
Aaron laughed at the horrible name. “Tweak… Sauce?”
“Yeah, we’re doing an event right here. We’re setting up a stage and everything.”
“No shit?”
“Not a pellet.” Wade took a long drag before speaking again. “How about this? We give your buddy a few lines, take a few videos, do a meet and greet, all that good shit, and I pay you $500 for it.”
Aaron sputtered at the offer. “You’re serious?”
“Yeah, why not?”
Aaron slid down the wall with a huff. $500 was far from nothing, but it wouldn’t exactly cover rent. He slicked his hair back and looked up again. “You said he could be a mascot?”
Wade chuckled. “Well yeah. Isn’t that what we’re talking about?”
“Nah, you’re talking about a one-off thing. What about something more… substantial?”
And so, they hashed something out. Not only would Pulsar do the event, but he would also record a bunch of material for social media ads, and they could use his likeness on the cans. Then they haggled over the price, and found a deal that might actually cover rent for a month or two in the short term. It was a crazy idea, and Aaron doubted if it was actually a good deal for Wade, but in the end they shook on it. It was happening.
The two rejoined the others to find Pulsar in a gas mask bong. He coughed through the good news and they had to break it three more times.
Chapter 17
Pulsar skipped back home, riding high on his celebrity status. Aaron’s stocky stride followed a few steps behind him, and the human wondered if the new deal would be too much of a distraction from training. But he was also relieved that there would be some new money coming in—and without a job to weigh him down. He wasn’t sure yet if it was real.
A few people stopped them on the way back home, but it was nothing like the first time. Aaron was grateful for the relative peace. They briefly posed for a few people who lingered outside Aaron’s apartment before slipping inside. Since they were both still sufficiently high from the dispensary, they left the bong unpacked. Aaron put on some mellow music, and then they slipped down onto the couch to space out.
After twenty minutes of idle chatter, laughing, and staring at the ceiling, there was a knock at the door. Aaron tried to ignore it, but after a few seconds they knocked again—a single, quick, hard rap. Reluctantly, he got up to answer.
There, standing on his doorstep, was the girl with the black denim jacket. Her little bee monster hovered next to her with a steady buzz. The girl’s expression was blank and lifeless.
“Hey,” said Aaron. He fully opened the door and let them in.
She was significantly shorter than Aaron and moderately built. She had big dark eyes, a cute chin, a whole lot of piercings, and a punky asymmetrical haircut in deep black. Her skin tone was halfway between Aaron’s and Marcus’s—maybe Middle Eastern, Mediterranean, or possibly even Native American. She stood in her motorcycle boots and jeans that were stained and ripped from actual use. Her expression was hard to read, but mostly she looked tired. When she spoke her voice was worn and flat.
“Aaron, right?”
“Yeah,” said Aaron. “What was your name again?”
“Nat.” She nodded toward her devil. “Honey.”
Honey was a little over two feet tall, not including the stinger, her body equal parts black and white. She read as feminine, with a thin waist and elegant antennae. Her mouth was a black bug-like mandible that showed little to no expression, though her dark eyes looked playful and mischievous. Honey plopped down in the chair opposite Pulsar and crossed her chitinous legs. Her voice was sweet as syrup. “Thanks for the assist, boyssss.”
Pulsar looked uneasy. “Yeah, sure thing.”
“Agent Reyes said I should meet you.” Nat leaned on the back of the chair, not quite sitting.
“I’m sure she did,” said Aaron, taking his place next to Pulsar. “What, uh… what brings you here?”
“Meeting you, I guess.”
“Cool. Yeah, cool. I’m Aaron, and this is Pulsar.” His monster grinned goofily, mouthing “Hellooo.”
The girl stared blankly. “Yeah, hi.” She seemed allergic to smiling.
“Can.. I get you something to drink?” That’s what hosts are supposed to do, right?
“Sure, whatever.” The answer had all the commitment of a coin flip.
“Got any soda?” asked Honey. She smiled with her eyes. “I would kill a bitch for some sugar.”
Aaron had plenty to choose from, thanks to his good luck at the grocery store. He offered up a couple of bottles and Honey lit up at the Mountain Dew. She opened the can and downed most of it in one go. “That’s the good stuffff.” It seems like everything she said ended in a gentle buzz.
Nat rigidly accepted a cola and took a deep swig. “So we’re fighting together now?”
“Something like that,” said Aaron, sipping his own soda. “You really came in clutch against the turtle. Reyes just told us to stall for time, so I guess you were the calvary all along.” He plopped back onto his couch, throwing his arm over Pulsar’s shoulder. Something about it seemed to surprise Nat.
She sipped her soda slowly, as if stalling for time. “How long have you had a devil?”
Aaron smiled at Pulsar. “Since last Friday. He saved me from a big one. Three-eyed owl the size a fuckin’ bus.”
“You saved me.” Pulsar punched his side with a brief flash of playfulness. Honey and her human exchanged a weird, tense look.
“So do you have the scars too?” Aaron kept it casual, as if asking about the weather. Nat held up her free hand in response. She showed off a small but intricate scar that began at her palm and snaked down her wrist.
“Sure do,” she said. “Tell me what you know.”
Aaron and Pulsar were happy to fill her in with everything they knew, showing off Aaron’s ankle scar which had nearly faded back to normal. As they spoke, Nat and Honey became increasingly more engaged. But when Aaron started to repack his bong, Nat looked like she might leave. “Sorry,” she said. “I can’t be around that.”
“Relax,” laughed Aaron. “It’s not going to hurt you.”
Nat fully stood up. She looked frustrated. “Sorry. I’m out.”
Aaron dropped the bud and tried to diffuse the situation. “It’s okay! I don’t have to smoke.”
Pulsar looked at him quizzically, as if to say “The fuck you don’t.”.
Aaron gave him a hard look. Then he hesitated before pushing the bond away. Nat took a slow breath and leaned against the back of the chair again. She briefly grimaced in thanks and sipped her soda. “So what else do you guys do?”
Pulsar answered. “We train at the rock place. Sparring. Weapons training. You know.” He idly checked out his claws and fiddled with a chipped one.
“Rock place?” The girl furrowed her brow.
