A DEMON BY NIGHT

By night, he walked the path of fire and brimstone. By day, he endured the pain of his black-sky rendezvous. Baredeux, the morning named him, but the twilight did not call him by it.

For the hands, hands of blood, appeared at dusk. Summoned him in silence as the sun crept nearer to the city. Drew closer by that same sun's dying rays.

By the light of the moon, they clutched him.

The hands, the bloody hands, clasped his throat and, though he begged, they relented not. He offered his mind, his brilliant mind. He offered his clothes, his tattered clothes. He offered his watch, his watch spun of silver and gold. But the hands wanted naught but the fire, the fire burning where his soul had once been.

When he would at last relent, that fire consumed him and he died each night beneath the starry sky.

Tonight, Baredeux walks. He walks the back streets as always. The wind whispers through Autumn leaves, a quiet sh-sh-sh shaking them from their branches, and he checks his watch.

Baredeux waits, waits for the sun to sink. And he watches, watches for the hands, the bloody hands, that will swoop down and steal him away. Away to a different world.

A world he gave his soul to conquer.

When the hands come, he barters as usual. But of course, they want naught but the fire, the fire marking him as King. So he relents, as he always does. He lets the flames take him, covering his face as his bones crackle, his blood boils, his skin melts and reforms.

He stands from it, a phoenix rising, and the ground envelopes him.

It takes no time at all to arrive; it takes a lifetime to get here.

The Demon King falls into place feet first and lands already with a lengthy stride. He glances at the watch, the only remnant of another life. A life made of paint and rules and pathways. He flips the watch closed with a click and steps harder, faster. Late.

The marble walls and the checkered floor speed by him, eddying into a blend of smoke and ash. But smoke and ash look better than the fire and brimstone raging just outside the thick paned windows of this place. This palace, if it could be called.

The Demon King, forgetting about his lateness (or perhaps knowing that it does not matter), stops at a particularly picturesque window depicting a particularly prosaic wasteland. Orange and red and gold consume everything in sight. Once a world of dirt and rock and rivers of liquid ash, now a world of flame and smoke and endless pain.

But the Demon King, too, is made of endless fire.

He pushes away from the window, resumes his brisk pace. No one passes as he goes. Almost all those not consumed by fire cower in the darkness beneath it.

The hall ends and the Demon King skids to a stop at the doors. The doors, crafted of ivory and pearl, open before he even forms the thought to lift his hand and push. Inside, four pale and gaping souls with dark eyes and darker expressions sit around a table shaped like a hand and stare at a ticking clock shaped like a heart.

They wait for their Demon King, who, despite that he is a slave to the night, will set their souls free.

There is near silence, all but for that incessant tick, tick, tick of the heart-shaped clock. The Demon King slams his fist against the clock and breaks its glassy face.

The pale and gaping souls' eyes slowly turn, widen. They fall from their rigid chairs and fall prostrate to the floor, a silent cry for mercy.

And the Demon King obliges.

For he is made of fire and brimstone and he has come to save them. He has come to save this world as he has a hundred worlds before it. The monster who ignites the night outside will soon be like the rest. The monster who spews fire upon this realm of twilight will soon be consumed by the Demon King and Baredeux will be born again come morning.