The Sacrificed Child

“You’re gonna leave without saying goodbye?” She asked, her half-naked form slowly rising out of bed. “Just because I’m a succubus doesn’t mean you should ignore common courtesy Paimon.” 

With a sigh he turned around and spared the succubus a glance, as enamored as he was with her the previous night the magic seemed to have worn off. His focus returned to shimmying his tight black business pants over the deep red skin of his thighs.   

“I have an early shift today; I’m covering for Paul in the human sacrifices department. He said whatever he was supposed to get from the sacrifices I can take.” He began as his pants crossed the final hurdle, the tight glutes that he was extremely proud of. He gave her one last look-over as he approached the door. “Plus, I doubt we’ll be seeing each other again.”  

“Asshole.” And with her final words of encouragement he waltzed out of the room. As he walked by the reflective surface of the glass from one of the office windows, he slicked back his dark red hair and gave himself a wink. Things were going seemingly well for him being an entry-level demon and he largely attributed that to his smoldering gaze. 

“Hey there good looking!” A green demon called out to him as he walked down the hall to the hellevator. In response he loaded his greatest weapon, his finger guns. Click. Click. With two shots of them the green entity swooned and he felt as if his job was done. He then pulled a slip of paper out of his pocket. 

Hm. Level 482. Human sacrifices. 

His eyes scanned the numerous hellevator buttons. Some of them weren’t even numbers, just symbols, his favorite being the symbol of a cat. He often wondered if that was hell for people who didn’t like cats or if it were for cats in general. Finally, his eyes fell upon 482. He clicked it nonchalantly as he checked his watch. He still had ten minutes before he had to be in the office. The doors almost closed before a purple hand shot its way through. A jumbled man carrying stacks of papers and folders burst into the tiny space. His glasses lay crooked on his face although it was hard to see given his small stature and the large stack of papers.

“Could you hit 481 for me?” The demon asked, completely out of breath. Paimon couldn’t help but chuckle at the mess the smaller being was in.  

“Do you need help with that?” Paimon offered coolly, his back leaning on the side of the hellevator. As he offered, the two large winged demons on the outside of the hellevator grabbed the sides and began to fly upwards to their destination. 

“No, don’t worry about me I’m fine.” He answered, although the papers that were now falling out of his hands seemed to tell another story. The fact that he said no to help was now beginning to annoy Paimon. 

“Word of advice, next time someone offers you help when you clearly need it just say yes. It’s much easier for everyone involved.” Paimon raised one hand and grabbed the entire stack. With his other he gently grabbed the man’s glasses and fixed them. He leaned in closely, his intense gaze settling on the purple eyes that were now before him. He saw something in them he hadn’t seen in a demon before, was it compassion? 

The sound of the purple being clearing his throat pulled Paimon out of his thoughts. When he noticed the deep blush that had settled across the young man’s face, he pulled back immediately. Even if he refused to acknowledge it his cheeks grew hotter by the second, he thanked the fact that he was both red and a demon in that moment. 

“Thank you for your help.” He said, looking up at Paimon. The red demon shrugged in an attempt to seem nonchalant which proved to be hard given that he had just gazed into the purple demon's soul. 

“Don’t worry about it, I get off on the floor after you so I can help you take it in.” 

“Thank you, again. My name’s Jarvis, I work in the human defense department.” Huh. Paimon had heard of that before. The human defense department was the only place people who believed they were unjustly brought to hell could go and file a case – only when they weren’t being tortured of course.  

“Oh cool. So, you know a lot about humans?” Paimon asked curiously, maybe some insight on human life would be helpful. 

“Yeah, I try to at least. It’s a lot easier to help judge the moralities of a person’s actions if you know what the typical behaviors of the species are." Paimon nodded, not pressing further as they neared the destination. 

“My name’s Paimon.” With his words Jarvis gasped.  

“Paimon? As in the Paimon?” Usually when people freaked out over who he was it was half annoying and half an unneeded ego boost, but with Jarvis all he felt was a thrill of excitement. 

“Yup. The most handsome but least favorite son of Satan.”  

With a ding coming from the mouths of the demons that flew the hellevator up, the two of them got off, with Paimon signaling to the hellevator demons that he was coming back. 

“My desk is right over here!” Jarvis said, leading him to the brightly colored desk filled with photos of friends and family.  

“Oooh happy family.” Paimon commented as he set the papers and folders on Jarvis’ desk. 

“What, you don’t have fun with Satan?” He asked, Paimon scoffed in response. 

“You wouldn’t know the half of it.” The watch on his wrist dinged, two more minutes. “Gotta go, and could you do me a favor?” 

Jarvis nodded quickly, seemingly ready to do anything that Paimon might have asked of him. 

“Don’t tell anyone the son of Satan was nice to you, okay?” Jarvis smiled at this, then proceeded to look Paimon in the eyes. 

“Maybe I’ll see you again?” Jarvis shyly asked as his hands fiddled with one another behind his back. Paimon looked him over once more, he gave him a soft smile that surprised even himself. 

“Maybe.” 

And with that he hopped back on to the hellevator, little did he know that it would be his last semblance of peace for a while. 

--------------------------------------------------

To say the office was in commotion would be an understatement. There were flames on the walls – that part was normal – and demons running around and pushing each other out of the way to get to one specific desk. The only person in their seat was the receptionist. Her glasses reflected the work on her computer screen, the work being solitaire.

“Hey, could you be a doll and show me where Paul usually sits?” Without looking up she replied in a monotone voice.

“You mean the desk everyone’s crowding over? Right over there.”  Why were they all crowded around Paul’s desk? As far as Paimon knew Paul wasn’t that popular. As he approached he heard whispers of “Can you believe this?” and “I heard Satan is coming to check it out.”

Shit. 

 He wasn’t prepared to see his father today. 

The relationship between Paimon and Satan wasn’t the best. It was his older brothers that Satan loved the most, although neither got their father’s good looks. The twin brutes sported dark green hair and in Paimon’s opinion very, very, ugly faces.  

“Excuse me, excuse me.” He said, although muffled as he squeezed his way past the entire office to his desk. Paimon was the youngest of the bunch, and also the only one that didn’t hail from Satan’s wife. Being illegitimate wouldn’t really sound like such a big problem for a demon, but Satan took his marriage very seriously. Paimon’s own mother had died very soon after giving birth to him, which he thought of as one of the biggest inconveniences of his life. Hence, he grew up as a self-proclaimed demon Cinderella. No affection, no love, and he had no problem with it. He was a demon, so what? 

“Paimon, what are you doing here?” He heard as he approached the front of the crowd, he saw an orange demon he recognized. 

“Calcifer! I’m filling in for Paul, I need to get to the front of this desk.” Calcifer nodded. Adjusting his manager badge before making an announcement. 

“If there is any demon that is not in their seat within five seconds I will personally cut your tail off for you.” His stern tone and glare caused everyone to scramble back to their seats in hurry. Paimon let out a sigh of relief, but also one of sadness when he realized the state his hair was in. 

“So why was everyone crowded around here-" He began, but as he looked up he realized what he was face to face with. Sitting there atop the desk was a small creature. It looked weak and feeble. Its limbs were terribly small and its eyes abnormally large. It was dressed in a tiny pink dress with a matching bonnet. This thing has a terrible fashion sense, Paimon thought as he watched it look around. “Is that?”

“A human baby. Yup. Hasn’t been one sacrificed to us in years. They stopped doing that a long time ago. Since you’re covering for Paul though it’s yours to keep.” 

Paimon glanced at the baby again, this time it was looking at him. Its long eyelashes fluttered as it tried to observe the red individual in front of it. 

“Oh, it's so… Fresh?” Paimon commented, still oddly scared to touch it.  

“What are you going to do with it?” Calcifer asked, leaning against Paul’s office chair. 

“I’m not sure? I’ve never seen one in real life before.” The baby’s skin seemed dewy and clear, almost as dewy and clear as Paimon’s skin. He wasn’t sure if he liked the competition.  

“You’re going to hand it over to me, that’s what you’re going to do!” A voice boomed from behind him, he grimaced knowing who it was immediately. “Ey! Calci! How’s my favorite manager doing in the human sacrifices department?” 

Calcifer laughed, swatting is hand in modesty. “I bet you say that to all department heads.” 

“You wouldn’t be wrong about that!” He said, his laughter letting out a thunderous boom. Paimon finally turned around, seeing his father who was a good two feet taller than everyone in the room accompanied by his brothers.  

“And if it isn’t little Paimon.” He reached over, his large hand rustling Paimon’s hair. Paimon was unsure of how much more abuse his hair could take today. 

“Why don’t you be a good little boy and hand over that baby, huh?” As he reached out his hand for Paimon to give him the baby, Paimon heard chuckles across the room. Why did he have to come embarrass him at work? 

“No. You can’t have the baby.” 

The room went quiet, every employee leaning in to hear the family argument that was sure to ensue.  

“What are you gonna do with it anyways?” The older of the twins Grunt asked aggressively. 

“Yeah! You know we haven’t had Dad’s baby stew in a long time. Why would you try and take that away from us?” The other twin Grant said, as he grabbed Paimon’s shirt and lifted him up by the collar. 

“I’m gonna raise it.” He said with smirk. His brother threw him down as all three of them began to laugh in unison. 

“You’re going to raise a baby,” Satan started, but was too busy laughing. He wiped the tears from his eyes as he tried again.

“You’re going to raise a baby in hell?” 

“As if! All you do is fuck around and drink!” Grunt shouted, his laughter becoming louder while thinking of Paimon as a father. 

Now thinking about it, he didn’t really want to raise a baby. He just wanted to spite his father, which at the time seemed much more important than the responsibility of raising a child. 

Paimon grabbed the baby awkwardly, holding it outwards to show his father.  

“Fuck you and your baby stew, this is my daughter named… uh?” He turned her around to get a good look at her, she smiled as his face came into her view. Huh? He pushed the feeling that gave him aside. “Girl.” She smiled again, and this time he smiled back. He might actually like this baby is what he thought the moment before she puked on his face. 

-------------------------------------------

Paimon’s first day as a parent wasn’t exactly going as well as he thought it was going to. Not that he expected it to go well, just not as horribly as it did end up going. 

“You are going to lay here and be quiet.” Paimon commanded, the baby looked back with what Paimon deemed to be very dumb eyes. He sighed as he tried to continue to work, occasionally glancing at the baby. 

He started caring for her by finally using the cat floor button on the elevator, hoping that there would be lots of fresh milk for all of the cats. Unfortunately, it turns out that it was actually a hell for cats and not hell for people who hated cats. This meaning all the milk was extremely spicy. 

He ended up having to leave the office to go get milk, he tried to give it to her warm which she would not accept. Then it was too hot. Then finally she drank it, once Girl was properly fed he felt quite proud of himself. The peace soon ended though as she began crying once more, Paimon began to wonder if this was a human child or a demon one. 

“What could it possibly need now?” He asked aloud, although his question was soon answered with a sniff of the air. Diaper. Given that Girl was very fresh out of the human womb her poop wasn’t that hard to handle and he was very thankful for that. 

“Okay all done.” He said as he buttoned the onesie she had on underneath her dress. Peace began once more until he heard her wails again. For a moment he considered letting his father turn her into stew, but as he looked over at her he still considered it. What? He still hadn’t fully bonded with her yet. This time though, the wails would not cease. Everyone in the office grew increasingly annoyed. 

“Hey, Paimon. Buddy. How are ya?” Calcifier asked as he leaned over Paimon’s desk. 

“Not gonna lie, could be doing much better. I just don’t understand this thing.” He responded, his arms taking position behind his neck.

“Why don’t you head out early and try to figure Girl out. I would help but I don’t think I know anyone who knows much about human infants.” 

With these words a light switches inside of his head.  

“I think I know who might.” 

-------------------------------------------- 

Jarvis was a man of schedule. He has a strict bedtime, wake-up time, and meal time. He had even become accustomed to his huge workloads. What he did not expect on this day was to be back in his apartment with the slightly intimidating but very handsome son of Satan. 

“I’ve tried everything, it just won’t stop crying.” 

“Alright, you put it down for a nap, you fed it, you changed it, did you give it cuddles?” Jarvis asked, wincing as he looked at the screaming newborn. 

“What do you mean cuddle it? Babies don’t need cuddles, that’s stupid.” At Paimon’s comment Jarvis rolled his eyes. With a determined face he picked up the baby, holding her in a comfortable position in his arms. Soon enough, Girl stopped crying. 

“Huh. So human babies need affection. That’s strange.” Paimon commented, watching as Girl relaxed in Jarvis’ arms. She looked peaceful, and Jarvis, he looked absolutely beautiful. The warm light from the lamp in his apartment made his purple skin glow, his hair was very out of place but adorably so.  

“Not just human babies dummy, demons too. You try. I’m gonna go lay down for a second.” Jarvis said with a yawn, breaking Paimon out of his thoughts immediately. Judging from the amount of paper he was carrying this morning Jarvis had a pretty tough workday, Paimon took Girl over quickly and felt a sensation like he never had before. He sat down on the rocking chair in Jarvis’ room as he watched Girl. 

He was the most tired he had ever been. Who knew this tiny human could tucker him out so, he laughed as he saw the sleepy child attempting to stay awake. With her trouble-making skills she could become a model demon in no time. He held her close as she began to doze off, rocking slowly on the chair. As she fell into sleep she gripped him with her tiny fists. The rise and fall of her chest along with the warmth of her tiny self on Paimon felt so nice. So warm. And not the warm he felt from walking through fire, but a warmth inside his chest that began to spread and trickle into the small smile that was now forming on his face. 

His gaze then flitted to Jarvis who was well asleep on his bed. His body was sprawled out in a messy fashion as if he had just hit the bed and fell asleep – which he did. He looked at the two of them, his new child and his new friend and he felt something he hadn’t felt for a long time. Happiness. 

He gently placed Girl down back in her blanket and lazily crawled in bed with Jarvis, falling into the deepest sleep of his life. Well, that is until the sound of crying a few hours later.