“She is one of the very few things I am capable of caring about.” I swallowed back the thickness in my throat, dragging out a chair and settling into it. “Now, I will wait here until you have made all the preparations required to fix your gross ‘misjudgement’.”

“But that could take hours!”

“I have nowhere else to be.” I leaned back, clasping my hands behind my head. His eyes darted to my horns, black and curling from my hair, and he shuddered.

“Alright,” he mumbled, opening the lid on his computer.

“Can I go now? You don’t need me for this,” Chad whined. I rounded on him, fixing him with a glare full of disdain.

“You move a muscle, and you will find yourself in Hell so fast you wouldn’t even realise it had happened until you were already stripped naked with your body being used as a canvas for a heavy-handed demon using knives as paintbrushes and your blood as his paint. You will wait here, in your wretched piss-pants, until I say you can move.”

Chad slid down the wall, his head dropping to his knees before immediately snapping back up, his nose wrinkled in disgust at his own stench.

I chuckled darkly. “This is no more than you deserve, Ratty-Man. In fact, it’s distinctly less than you deserve.”

“I wish I’d never met Jemma fucking Bliss,” he muttered.

“I can assure you; she wishes she’d never met you either.”

After my pathetic performance today, would she lump me in with Chad Ratty-Man as just another past mistake?

Devils don’t cry.

* * *

Dusk was settling over the city when I emerged from the university. In one hand, I held an official Faculty of Fine Arts envelope, addressed to Jemma Bliss.

“You didn’t reap him!” Bub complained.

“I have all the time in the world to come back for him,” I muttered. “This is more pressing than that piddling little soul.”

We made our way along the street, seeking the red box that I’d been assured was the place to deposit the letter so that it made it into Jemma’s hands. The sidewalks were busy with workers leaving their jobs, seeking sustenance and rest. I, too, needed both, desperately. Today had taken its toll on me far more intensely than I had expected. But ensuring this letter was posted was my priority.

No rest for the wicked. I let out a bitter chuckle. Now, where the Home is this letter thing?

“Excuse me,” I called, approaching an older woman as she passed. “Do you know where I can find a red letter receptacle? I was led to believe there would be one nearby.”

The woman smiled up at me, her eyes widening as she took in my face. “Simeon? Oh my goodness, it is you! How are you? Back from your business trip, then? Jemma’s been missing you like crazy!”