“Well, I finally got you alone,” a deep voice came from behind him on the roof where Cade had been standing, two minutes before he was going to head to Ricky. Cade turned around to see a tall entity before him. It stood on two legs that were too muscular and thick to be human, more bear-like, but way too long to be that of a bear. Its torso was fit and bare, with arms long but kind of thin – one of the most human things about it – until you got to the taloned hands at the ends. Its lion like head rested on strong shoulders and a wide neck, its mane flowing long and soft in the breeze. The eyes, however, were what was the most off-putting part of the whole creature. They seemed out of place, even on a strange chimera of a demon as this. They were human eyes, piercing hazel that seemed to glow in the moonlight. They were captivating, entrancing, beautiful. Cade stared in a mixture of wonder, fear, and confusion.
“Who are you?” Cade asked inquisitively. “Oh me? I go by many names. But my given name is Shalek, the Ambitious. Please trust me when I say it is indeed a pleasure to meet you, Cade Johnston.” Cade was shocked. “How do you know my name?” “Oh, I know all of you Cade: Richard, Daniel, Katrina, Brandon, Matthew, and Eli. You guys aren’t exactly doing a lot to keep a low profile in the demon community. Quite the opposite really. At first you guys were just a local little southern team of pests that were sending some low-level demons back to hell. Nothing really groundbreaking. But then you started popping up all over the country. I mean, do you really think there are that many people who could make a storm rage like your friends can, especially one that hurts demons so much? That caught the attention of some higher ups but still, nothing we hadn’t seen before or could manage. Oh, but then you guys did something amazing. Miraculous really. You actually eradicated Simon the Hungry, a funny name when he wasn’t even a Gluttony demon. But that’s beside the point. You actually found a way to completely destroy a demon. How stupid could you be?” Shalek laughed. “You had to know that the Demon Kings weren’t going to just let that go unnoticed,” Shalek held a glint in his eyes, “or unpunished. So they sent out a decree that whatever demon had what it took to kill off the most of you insolent pests would be promoted directly to Demon King status. Do you understand what that means? It means I don’t even have to kill all of you. I just have to kill like two or three and the competition will do the rest by killing one of you each. Sure some will die in the process, and some already have, but as long as I can just keep my number higher than everyone else’s the position is as good as mine!” Shalek was practically beaming with excitement.
Cade didn’t know what to say, or even think. There was a bounty on their heads. His head. He was never an important person and now because of this work he was doing demons wanted to kill him. But even deeper than that, they just wanted to do it to boost themselves. They wanted to use him. They didn’t care about him, or his dreams, or his feelings. They just saw him as a steppingstone. A means to an end. He hated that feeling. But right now wasn’t the time to spiral down that road.
“So why me?” Cade asked timidly. “Surely it would be better to get rid of the most powerful ones first so the rest of us would be easy pickings.” Shalek laughed. “Who do you take me for, one of Pride’s idiots? Come on. Use your head. This is a numbers game. It doesn’t matter who we kill. So why not go after the weakest ones? That’s where you come in little guy. You’re never in the thick of the fight. My little buddy here,” Shalek pointed upward where Cade saw the same entity as before in the sky, “has been watching you guys for months now. He can be quite stealthy when he wants to be. Tonight I told him to make a show of himself. He reports directly to me. That’s how I knew you were here.” Cade looked thoughtful. The last few months? Is that why we’ve had so many missions lately? “Look at you trying to peace shit together. Well, let me affirm things for you. I have been in charge of things around here for a while. While I can’t take credit for all the demon activity around, the majority of the ones where there were groups of demons were my doing. Demons, especially lower ranking goons, are easy to manipulate. A little promise of power or status and they’ll pretty much do anything you tell them. Especially when most of the time the consequences of things going south are a lot of pain and getting sent right back down to Hell. But we live in HELL. There’s always pain. Well, for them anyway. So I’ve been sending little groups to test you guys and sending Travis here to watch and report back to me how it went. This isn’t my first rodeo so once I learned that you and Eli usually stay removed from the dirty work, I instructed Travis to monitor you two more closely. I figured you guys offered some type of support from your position. I figured it would be pretty foolish to go after the light bearer, so I decided to go after the weakest link. So there, that’s why you have been graced with my presence. So take pride in the fact that Shalek the Ambitious, the 786th Demon Lord of Greed, will be the one to end your life. What an honor!”
“Wow, you sure do talk a lot,” Cade snarked. “But I must give you some credit. You didn’t automatically go after the girl in the group thinking she would be the weakest.” “Are you kidding?” remarked Shalek. “That girl is a walking tsunami. I’d be crazy – and stupid – to go up against her alone.” Across the city Kat sneezed unprovoked. “You’re right that would be stupid. But I do feel compelled to let you in on a little secret,” stated Cade. He crouched down and got on all fours, but instead of looking hunched over or awkward he looked…natural. His pupils became thin slits and glowed with the reflection of the moonlight. He started to emit a purple energy as he gathered the spiritual energy around himself. Purple claws formed on his fingers and on the outside of the front of his shoes. The energy formed short triangular ears on the top of his head and a long purple tail at that base of his back began to sway left and right. He looked like a stalking cat, ready to launch at an incoming threat. He looked up at the demon lord with fury in his eyes and spoke through fanged teeth, “I’m not the weakest amongst my friends.” “Well let’s just see about that,” Shalek retorted, readying his own claws as Cade leapt forward.
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