I tried my darndest not to sneeze as the burning smell of brimstone and ozone clogged my nose.
“I apologize for the inconvenience sir, but we simply cannot approve your request until the proper certifications have passed through our systems”
A grating wheeze from my client blew tarry smoke in my face before he spoke
“So what am I supposed to do until then huh! I already passed my shifts off at work, my family’s got our bags packed and ready to go and you’re telling me I gotta send em back cause our license to go topside is revoked?”
“My apologies sir but we simply can’t allow you to reach the human world, without the necessary forms”
Dark smoke began to roll off my client and the haze surrounding him blurred his form.
“Don’t play with me girl!” His voice rose like thunder and judgement. I fought off a splitting headache and raised an eyebrow at him.
“If you wish to expedite your process. Please see Management for Veil Passage, three halls back, one floor down.” I said mechanically. “NEXT” I peeked around the black and spiky shoulders of my current annoyance, trying to catch the eye of the next demon in line.
My break came three hours later, I huddled in the pitiful staff room with a few of my coworkers. We all shared heavy sighs and dull stares.
Another day down. That much closer to fulfilling my side of the bargain.
It all started three weeks ago.
I work the service desk at a department store. I had just finished a suitably horrible shift. Between cleaning up a smelly and unspeakable mess in a changing room and trying to convince a lady that she could not return a t shirt that she had bought 20 years ago, I was pretty spent.
I had just crashed onto my couch when a circle made of fire bloomed in my floorboards.
“Holy Hotwings!” I yelped, rising to my feet ready to run to the kitchen and grab the extinguisher. Then, a black leathery hand reached out of the blackness inside the circle. Soon a head and dark bat wings exited as well. It was a demon. An honest to goodness demon.
What came out of it’s mouth next was not what one would expect from a demon.
“You work at the mall right?” It asked, in a voice that was certainly grating but not unfriendly.
I had to open and close my mouth a few times before anything would come out. “Yeah why?”
It’s eyes widened and burned a fiery red. “Great! You’re exactly what I need!” It grabbed me by the front of my shirt and dragged me into the hole in my floor without further explanation.
I plopped back down in my station and flipped the sign hanging above me to say “Window Open”. A long and formidable queue of demons was filed out the door of the office. A rather slimy specimen with multiple arms scuttled forward.
“I’m here to get my Wyvern license renewed” it rustled from one of its many orifices. A rotten smell blasted across my face as she spoke.
“I’m sorry ma’am but Wyvern licenses are one floor down in the Lower Department of Licensure”
She sucked inward slightly
“You’re telling me I waited in that line for NOTHING” she hissed, bits of goop flew out of her mouth, several droplets went airborne and stuck to my glasses. I held in a groan.
“I’m terribly sorry ma’am, you’ll need to go to room Excubis 15 Delta. Ralipast is managing down there. Please see HIM” I said forcefully.
She spit another blast to goo before twisting herself like a dishrag and scuttling back towards the door.
“Next” I said with a smile made of gritted teeth. I did not bother to wipe the goo off my glasses as the next demon in line was belching black smoke that I knew would leave chalky residue everywhere.
Why was I working as an office drone for demons you ask? That demon who popped through my floorboards was supposed to be running this horror show of a bureaucracy. However, he and one of his coworkers had struck up a little bet .
“So this is a ‘customer service employee?’ The hulking demon asked. He was basically a Minotaur with crab legs. His giant floppy cow ears reminding me of a field trip my class took to a farm when I was 10.
“Yep! Now I bet you 500 souls in purgatory that she can do your job better than you!” The bat wing demon (he had introduced himself as Cody, short for Malacoda) said with unholy glee.
The bovine demon leaned down in my face. “Please! She won’t last 5 minutes!”
“Doing what? Mooing at people?” I asked, bothered by this giant sirloin’s disregard for personal space. His big fuzzy ears flopped in annoyance.
“I happen to have one of the most important jobs in the lowerarchy!” He snapped, stomping a crab foot and making a cracking sound.
“I command the demons of the realm in their passage to the human world. I determine who goes and who stays! I am the final authority on passage through the veil!” He gestured broadly and excitedly with his front two crab legs.
“He’s a border agent. And his job boils down to stamping forms” Cody chuckled in his grating, screeching goat voice. He ushered me aside “look, I think that you can handle his job for a month. If you do I’ll make sure all you student debt gets paid off”
I practically started shaking at the prospect.
“Seriously! I keep this job for a month and you’ll cover my student loans?” I asked, more than a little flabbergasted.
“Yeah, but I gotta warm you it won’t be easy. Demons are worse than soccer moms when it comes to bureaucracy” he responded, already seeing the dollar signs in my eyes. I pulled back for a second.
“How about, I hold this job for a month. You cover my loans AND pay off my car” I say, stiffening my shoulders and trying to look professional. The demon breaks into laughter that sounds like a million goats dying.
“You got a deal human!. Just make that old cow eat his words”
It. Was actually not the worst job I’d ever had to hold down. As it turns out, mopping up fresh blood is not nearly so pungent as the bathroom at most fast food places. Furthermore, demons absolutely suck at paperwork, but once I had the departments down I was actually able to expedite the process of getting demons to turn in their paperwork to the right offices. I increased efficiency by about 12% all things said and done. At the end of my four weeks there, the undersecretary of the department asked me to stay on for an internship.
I said maybe, by that point knowing not to give a straight answer to a demon. He seemed impressed.
When Cody dropped me off back in my apartment I had zero dollars in student loan debt and a paid off car. Not bad for a months work. Even if my hair still smells like brimstone.
