| Genre: originals | |
| Chapter 1 | |
| Disclaimer: This work is my own. Do not repost this story beyond the limits of the Fair Use standards of Copyright Law (quotes, examples, 'you gotta read this' excerpts, the usual). The characters are my own. The author is not making any kind of profit from this story. | |
| This story is an endquel to Reversal. I'm not sure what all is going to happen to Dave and Masak over the stories, but I figured out where it ends. The story 'Reversal' should be read before reading this story. | |
| He was 142 years old. When he'd lived to be 100, it was hardly noteworthy, not to the media, not with the baby-boomer funding of life sciences. At 105, he was the oldest living alum of his college, and got a 1-inch write-up in the newsletter. | |
| After his 120th birthday, he started getting visits from reporters. They wanted a sound bite on how he'd attained such an advanced age. But by his 121st birthday, no one wanted to hear his story about binding his soul with a demon, especially when he couldn't help anyone else do it. | |
| There was a brief surge in popularity for Retro New Age about the time he turned 127. His observations about how higher powers and souls worked didn't match the popular writers of the day, though, so he was largely ignored. | |
| At least, outside of the family he was. His great-great-great-great grandchild loved to sit on his lap and hear stories about cars without safety circuits, planes that were limited to atmosphere, refrigerators you had to refill manually, and credit. | |
| Her cousins, aunts, and uncles had heard all the stories. They'd even booted up his 'desk-top' more than a few times to see what it was like. They were hopeless on the keyboard, which was to be expected, but they kept at it until they could make the thing function. | |
| And of course, they all played with Masak. | |
| David had had a full life, a big family, and almost no regrets. There was one regret, though. And it was getting to be a big one. | |
| He sat on the porch, watching some of his two- and three-greats grandkids play Hide and Taser with his familiar. She gave as good as she got, but never came close to harming any of the kids. She claimed it was only the restraint of his influence, but he wasn't so sure. | |
| She had her favorites, and they weren't the same children he doted most on. She was always the first one to suggest Christmas gifts for all of his surviving descendants. And they were always the perfect choice. He really thought he'd reformed the immortal child of evil incarnate. And that was his regret. | |
| He was old, he was dying. He'd been almost ageless for so long, it was a shock how fast it was creeping up on him now. He knew the end was close. And when he went, this bright, energetic creature was going to die as well. | |
| If she'd remained a barely-leashed force for hatred and torture, he wouldn't mind taking her out of the universe with his departure. | |
| But now, he'd spent more than a century with her. She was his friend, as well as his familiar. He owed her his life, and now a creature that had existed since time began would die with a pitiful mortal. | |
| All because he'd had a whim to have a beautiful creature as a familiar. He didn't really regret that. Lives had been saved because she was in his life. He'd lived to welcome 82 descendants. He'd seen disease conquered, poverty diminished, people walk on a comet. He just wished there was some way to release her. | |
| "A penny for your thoughts, Master?" she asked. She'd appeared on the porch rail in front of him without his noticing. | |
| "Masak, I'm sorry." | |
| "Oh, don't be, Master. I know you have no pennies." She hopped over to his lap and sat down. "You feel somber, Master. Why? It's a sunny day, your family attends, no one wants to sell you time share in the Asteroid Belt and Star Wars XXIV premieres next week." | |
| Dave gave a brief snort at that. As the only man on Earth who'd been alive when the first SW movie came out, he was invited to the show. It wasn't going to be the high point of his year. They'd stopped asking his opinions since the divine ascension of Jar Jar, so he'd just be allowed to stand and wave. | |
| "Oh, I'm just thinking, Masak." | |
| "A bad habit, Master. That's why I avoid it." Truer words were never spoken, he thought. She tensed as a bird landed on the porch railing and gathered herself for a leap. She was about to attack, and Dave was reaching to grab her, when one of the little girls shouted 'BIRDIE!' from the lawn. Masak instantly relaxed, the bird was off limits. | |
| Dave's reflexes were slower, so his hand continued to grab at her. He ended up gripping her around the waist, cupping her ass with his hand. Masak wrapped her tail around his wrist and ground her butt into the palm. | |
| "Oooh, Master. So soon?" | |
| "Uh, no, not that," he said, regretfully. "Masak, does it bother you that I'm going to die?" She shrugged, still wriggling in his grip. | |
| "Not particularly, Master. All things do, eventually." The answer surprised him. It surprised him a lot. Maybe he hadn't reformed her. | |
| "Well, what about you? You die when I die, right? How do you feel about that?" | |
| She stopped what she was doing and stepped up to the arm of his rocking chair. "I'll miss the microwave, of course. And the cinematics." She shrugged. "And sunlight and Frisbees and cooking oil and grubs." Then she turned to look him in the eye. "But I'll never have to watch you bury a child, again. I'm not sure I can take many more of those." | |
| He was touched and reached out to stroke her tiny shoulder. Then a thought occurred. "Masak, you have, on occasion, eaten children, haven't you?" | |
| "Long ago, Master," she said, in that tone that tried to convey innocence. "But no one lets me take ketchup to the funeral anymore. It's very unfair." | |
| He laughed, the mood broken. Finally, he continued. "Well, it's just that my lawyerbot seems to have gotten a report from my autodoc and wants me to update my will. I was wondering if I needed to make provisions for your care? I mean, is there any chance, any chance at all that you could still be alive after I..." | |
| "Don't you DARE suggest that!" she screamed. Then she ran. Quick as a wink, she was off the porch and through the bushes. He still felt her, through their linked souls, and knew that she was seriously crying for the first time since he'd summoned her. | |
| Her tear-filled eyes didn't see the elm tree growing next to the bushes. He saw it. Looking straight out over the brush, he felt her impact, and saw the distinct shudder in the trunk when she hit. The solid 'thunk' drew the attention of everyone on the property. | |
| The profanity that followed could have been no one else on the planet but his demon. He laughed, even while everyone else wondered what had happened. | |
| He continued laughing, louder and louder, as the absurdity of it all caught up with him. Months of growing guilt and worry evaporated in seconds then minutes of laughter. | |
| Then the edges of his vision got darker. Tendrils of darkness fingered their way into his world, which got smaller and smaller, and farther and farther away. | |
| He seemed to be trying to say goodbye from the bottom of a well. Faces of his children's children circled the lip as he sank. In the center of it, Masak smiled down at him. His next to last thought was that he was glad she'd come back. | |
| His last thought was that she should have at least picked the bark out of her teeth before smiling at a dying man. Then the darkness flowed over and into him. | |
| "I was in a hurry, David." Her voice brought him back from the darkness. Dave sat on a dark plain, with indirect light that seemed to be twilight glowing all around. | |
| Before him, small plots of surreal flowers dotted the ground. One was close enough that he could smell the blossom. It reminded him of sulfur and blood, and for some reason he liked it. | |
| He started to stand and was surprised at how responsive his body was. He glanced down to find it young and strong, unmarked by time. Oddly, though, the scar from that car accident Masak caused was still across his chest. | |
| As he ran a finger across it, a great serpent circled his body and yanked him into the air. He yelped and kicked, stopping when he was turned to face the rest of the 'snake.' It was Masak's tail. | |
| The demon stood over him, smiling down through her fangs. She must have been fifteen feet tall. He dangled from her tail and looked her over. She was as beautiful as he'd ever seen her. The lighting complemented her natural coloring. | |
| "As I said, in answer to your last comment," she repeated, "I was in too much of a hurry to pick my teeth. You were leaving and I didn't want you to go alone." He wasn't sure he liked the way she was smiling down at him. | |
| "Masak...I thought I was dying?" | |
| "Oh, you did." | |
| "Then, where are we?" | |
| Her eyes bugged wide. "You didn't KNOW?" She swept him up in a gigantic hug. He was crushed to her chest and distinctly felt two ribs crack in her arms. "No wonder you've been a Gloomy Gus! Some wizard you are." | |
| "Masak...can't...breathe..." Her grip shifted, pressure released, and she held him below her bosom as a child. Then she lectured, as if he was a child. | |
| "Now, everyone who knows about such things knows what it means to die. Death is the end of an Earthly existence. It's one of the Big Rules that you can't be on Earth unless you're alive." She paused at the sound of his ribs popping back into place. The pain faded. | |
| "Good," she continued. "Now, when you're mortal, death means Death. No arguments, no backsies, no do-overs. But if you're a demon, an angel, or any other supernatural being with at least part of your life force kept..." she waved to indicate the Garden around them, "...elsewhere, then death on Earth merely means that you're banished from Earth, for at least 735 years. Sometimes more, sometimes less. Does that make sense?" She was looking down past her boob at his face. | |
| He looked into her eyes and was amazed to find she was even more beautiful than he'd realized. He laughed to realize, "I guess I wasn't as familiar with my familiar as I'd always thought!" | |
| "No puns," she warned, "this place is what the mortals call Hell. We have Standards." He laughed even louder. | |
| "But," he asked, when he regained control, "but why am I here? I'm mortal." | |
| "You were, David, but you joined our souls. You have an off-world place to go when you die on Earth. Technically, you're a demon." | |
| "Oh. Okay, cool." He pondered that for a moment. It explained his fondness for blood-sulfur flowers. "Hey, you called me by my name. Not Master. I've been telling you for a century to call me Dave. Hell, MOM told you to. What changed?" | |
| "You're no longer my Master, little man. We have equal access to our one and only soul right now." She drew him up to plant a big, toothy kiss on his face. "You're my partner, now and for pretty much the rest of eternity." | |
| Her tail worked its way slowly along his side to his ribs. When it was next to his heart, it started tapping the rib. "Or, well, you would be an equal partner, but for one thing." | |
| "What's that?" he asked. The tail struck like a rattlesnake and he convulsed. He shrieked and fought, but she held him tight and helpless in her arms. | |
| With a wicked grin, she told him: "I'm not ticklish." |