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Fred stood before his lounging roommate, hands on his hips, his foot tapping an inconsistent rhythm. "That is the tenth demon summoned this week. You really have to move every once in a while." Truth be told, he was more tired of the sulfur smell and the sooty footprints on the furniture.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Sam drawled, throwing a curl of red hair over her shoulder before straightening out her stained flannel shirt. “You know how rough the previous job was,” she added, gesturing at her lower legs, both wrapped in faintly glowing casts. She had them propped up on their ottoman, a tasseled and burgundy piece that growled when too much pressure was put on it.
He sighed. “I was not expecting a fax machine to give us that much trouble.” Looking at the arm of their sofa, he raised an eyebrow. “Is that strictly necessary?”
She turned to look at the imp perched there, the red creature waving a large oak leaf back and forth with an irritated expression on its pointy face. “What? I need to give it something to do or its contract will start boiling its skin off. And it’s hot, Fred.” Sam reached over to the end table, picking up a glass of lemonade. She scowled, reciting a short spell that caused ice cubes to appear inside it. Tipping back the glass with a sigh, she ignored Fred and went back to watching her television show.
Grumbling, knowing he wasn’t going to get any further with Sam now, Fred sat on the other side of the couch and reached for the remote.
"Hey! Remember what we said, my tv, my rules!"
"It doesn't even work half the time!" Fred scoffed.
"That's hardly my fault!"
He rubbed the bridge of his nose in frustration. "Who else would trap a demon in a pane of glass, and call it a tv?” He pointed at the screen accusingly. “Half your channels don't even make sense! Extreme Baking? Yodel Opera?"
"Whatever, you don't care for the great art that is The Magic Flute by Naomi Bristow!" He tilted his head. "I mean, not that I watch anything like that." Sam blushed, holding the remote to her chest protectively before changing the channel. 'See! Look, a completely normal news program!"
He squinted at the screen, which despite covering mundane news had one glaring flaw. "Why does that anchor have horns?"
"He’s a demon? Ambrose uses them because he’s camera shy. Salazar,” the screen flickered at the mention of the demon trapped within. “Doesn’t like other demons getting away with the honest work of deceiving people, so he shows them for who they are."
"I suppose that makes sense." Fred put his feet up onto the ottoman, but it squeaked and rolled away from them. Sam's casts hit the ground with a thud, surprise on her face before settling back into a bored expression watching the tv.
"Wait a minute-" Fred got out before Sam gasped, grabbing at her legs.
"I mean, Owwwwww, my foot. Ohhhhhh, it hurrrrrrrts," she moaned melodramatically, shifting her grip to the sofa’s upholstery.
"You hurt both your feet."
"Owwww, my feet."
"Sam!" Fred cried, glaring at his friend.
"Okay, okay," she put her hands up in resignation. "So, I might have been fully healed three days ago from the shin thing, but the bruised kidney only finished this morning!" She pouted, before crossing her arms and indignantly grumbling.
"Okay, okay, fine." Fred replied, rubbing his eyes with his hands. "Just don’t let the imp do anything stupid and get those casts off, it's time for dinner. Which, since you haven't left the couch all day, means I'll be cooking again." Fred stood up and cracked his back.
"Wait, wait, wait," Sam snapped her fingers and the casts popped off her feet, emitting a deflating balloon sound before disappearing. The imp at her side let out a discordant yelp as it locked eyes with their familiar, Jeremiah the cat. "I may...... have gotten us dinner." She shuffled in her seat. "As a way to say sorry."
"Is this before or after this conversation?"
"Possibly during."
"I didn't see you do anything."
Sam smiled, getting up from the couch herself. "You don't know all my tricks, Mr. Thompson." She rocked a bit on her heels before the doorbell rang. "I'll get it!" She said in a triumphant singing voice, almost bouncing as she walked towards the front door. Once she opened it, it was clear she had done something. Instead of the nice, affordable, but still rundown street that was usually outside of their apartment, there was fire.
Bubbling lakes of magma glowed in the distance, hissing spurts of steam chiming with a chorus of discordant wails, small specks in the distance moving like frenzied ants. "You ordered pizza from Hell didn't you." Fred covered his eyes with his arm, fighting the urge to stare deeper into the flaming abyss.
"Well, not exactly Hell, so much as a suburb of Hades,” Sam retorted with a waggle of her hand.
Fred tutted. "Same thing."
"While Greek/Roman Hades and Christian Hell share many similarities on the surface-"
"To the trained eye, they are heavily distinguishable, because of blah blah blah." He finished her sentence for her, having heard the lecture an innumerable amount of times in the past. Sam stuck her tongue out before reaching across the threshold, grabbing a floating pizza box that had appeared there. Rummaging in her pockets, she placed four bills made out of smoke and a dead bird onto the pizza box, only for the items to be replaced by a small, smoldering receipt. She pricked her thumb with a pointed canine, and pressed it onto the paper which, rather dramatically, burst into flames to spell out her full name before vanishing.
"Thanks for stopping by the higher realms, Gaz." She said with a smile and a wave, closing the door. Now that the stench of the damned was no longer overpowering it, the smell of very tasty pizza filled the apartment.
"What kind did you get?" Fred asked, his grumbling stomach stamping out most of his concerns as to its origins. He pulled out the tray tables and set them up in front of the couch.
"I believe it was the Unholy Special." She pulled at the air, the flaming receipt appearing once more to float in front of her. "Yeah, pineapple and pepperoni for four fouls and an offering" She shrugged, poking the receipt, dispersing it into thin air. "Seemed like a good deal. The freezer job left me with a nice collection of souls."
Fred shivered. He did not like remembering the freezer job. Too many fingers. He eyed the pizza. "That meat is from actual animals right?" Sam shrugged, then whistled.
Jeremiah stopped batting at the increasingly flustered imp and waddled over to the pizza box, giving it a good sniff. He meowed, nodded once then jumped back to the floor, instantly falling asleep once all four limbs touched the ground. “Lazy lump,” Sam said fondly, gently rolling the cat over to his usual napping area. “It’s got his seal of approval.” She opened the box and took a slice, gave it a once over and then shoved the entire slice into her mouth at once. “It’s not bad,” she said through a mouthful of cheese.
They had both finished a slice of pizza while the tv showed the Star Wars Christmas Special when the doorbell rang, a resonant “Hallelujah” playing instead of its usual ringing. They both groaned.
House calls were never a good sign.