A Weapon’s Serenade

Kuria crossed her arms and chuckled at the pale young man before her. He had met the girls outside as promised and he got to see a real demon, just as promised.

“Sie sind ja wirklich echt!” He was quite surprised that Kuria was real.

“I am, poke me if you need confirmation.”

“And you speak English!”

“I do but I’m currently not. You hear me speaking English because that is apparently what you prefer. I expected that you would hear me in German.”

He shook his head. “Took a few years to get rid of the accent, but I’m Irish on my mum’s side, grew up with mostly English. Sorry, I’m blabbering. You’re a real demon!”

“Yes. And you can ask me anything you wish, no strings attached. I am here as a tourist. You allowed me into your church to sightsee, talking to you is only a fair repayment for such a favour.”

“That is very kind of you.”

“I do have a question for you too, but first we shall answer yours.”

“Okay… you are okay with all this being out here in the open? Uhm… why doesn’t anyone seem to care about a literal demon standing here, hooves, horns and all?”

“Because no one else sees me like this, only we four. No one else will be able to listen to what I say, it will just make no sense to them and they will move on.”

“I trust you won’t use that to do anything bad to me.”

“That would defeat the point. Someone in the church hierarchy would notice that I turned you into a spy for us and then they know it was me. It’s also not our style. Once we are revealed, we don’t lie, we don’t deceive. Anyone turned to our side did so through their own free will without any deception needed.”

“That makes a surprising amount of sense. God gave us the free will to choose our actions, that also includes the ability to pick our side, to sin as we please, and to repent. If the side of sin were to deceive humans, that would defeat the point of sin in the first place.”

“An interesting perspective and, given your framework, a logical one too. I would disagree about the things God did and didn’t do, but that is a tale that would cause you more problems that it is worth. I assume your faith gives you comfort at the very least, I don’t want to ruin that.”

“And that’s how your ways work, isn’t it? You leave hints, doubts, words to nudge thought. Now, I know that you won’t lie to me and that you disagree with what we believe God did when he created us. And that’s not even something you do in bad faith, is it? The fact that we fall for you isn’t on you, it’s on us. We follow the doubts you leave behind by just being kind, by being open, we fall for desire to know. May I ask your companions a question?”

“They are their own people, I cannot decide for them. You speak to whoever you please, as do they. They are my companions after all, not my slaves.”

“Fair. Well, how did you two even get involved with demons? Was it the way I think?”

Melody shrugged. “I was adopted by demons when my parents died. Their world is the only world I know, the one I was raised in.”

“I see. Hm, I suppose that is similar to how most come to be religious. It’s your culture. Would it be fair to say that you were raised like a demon?”

“I was certainly raised to become a demon. My parents made sure that I experience humanity, this world and what growing up as a human is like but in the end, I will stop being human eventually.”

“Hm. How does that work? How do you stop being human?”

“A demon cuts my soul from this world and gives me a part of theirs, that will, well, it might be right to say that it will corrupt me and transform me into a demon.”

“And become a tormentor of wayward souls? If there even is such a thing as Hell.”

“There is a Hell, but it is merely our home. No human soul will end there.”

“So, Christ’s sacrifice worked. Hm.” He sounded quite thoughtful.

Melody gave him a reassuring smile. “I won’t become a tormentor of anyone. My pursuits as a demon will likely be the same as they are now, understanding the world. A demonic scientist of sorts.”

“Fascinating. What about you?” He turned to look at Anne.

Anne smiled as well. “I met the demons when I met Melody here. Confessing our love for each other needed that knowledge to be out in the open. How could I decide to be in a relationship with her if I didn’t know the truth about who she is and what world she walks in? A world she now shares with me. I will be a demon too, one day. I won’t be a scientist but an artist, following my love of creating small things that others enjoy.”

“Do all demons do something like that? Follow their passions in ways that seem so constructive.”

Kuria nodded. “The pursuit of a passion to share with others is the foundation of demonic society.”

“A working society still based on individual desires. Truly fascinating. I have so many question but I am sure you have plans today, right?”

“We do, but talking to you was a nice surprise.”

Melody spoke up. “I can just give you my number or an email address, we can keep talking in the future. We can literally live the new peace between the heavens and Hell on a small scale. Mutual understanding, conversation, embracing our differences and learning from each other. We humans are in the middle between two incredible powers who finally agreed to coexist peacefully again after so many thousands of years of hot and cold war. We don’t need to uphold old hatreds, especially when the powers above and below already overcame them.”

“That is a good idea, do you have a paper?”

Kuria conjured a business card. “Here. These are all the reasonable human ways to contact us. Your church has other means to get into contact with the powers of Hell, but I doubt your superiors would approve of you using them.”

“Yea, that seems like a bad idea. Thank you, I have much to think about and so many questions to write down. Before I head back inside and you go back to being tourists, you said you had a question?”

“Yes, one that only makes sense now, at the end of our meeting. Did anything change about your faith?”

“I didn’t become a priest because of doctrine, I am not catholic because I believe everything in the scriptures is correct. So much is metaphor, misunderstanding, a perspective from the times the texts were written. The more I learned, the more my own faith changed over the years. When I graduated with my degree in theology, I thought I had a pretty good grasp of what I believe, but the more I learn, the more wrong that thought became. The foundation of my faith, the sincere believe that God is good and that he made us and the lessons that Jesus Christ imparted on us, those fundamental baselines of my faith have never faltered, even today. You didn’t shake those foundations, but you gave me other pieces to build upon them with. And I am grateful for that, and I really look forward to continuing this once you return home, wherever that is.”

“A small city in England, not Hell just yet. I am just a young demon and I chose to walk a human path for a while.”

The young cleric smiled. “Then I am glad I met you before you leave this world. I should return to my duties. Thank you for doing this for me.”

“It was my pleasure, thank you for indulging us.”

“Always happy to oblige. You three enjoy the city and have a wonderful evening.”

“You as well.”

Melody nodded. “Indeed, have a nice evening.”

Anne did a little wave. “Hope to hear from you soon.”

The young man waved as he walked back into the cathedral. Once he was out of sight, Kuria shifted into her human form.

“What a nice young man, I didn’t expect that.”

“Yea, he was far more open than I would have thought.” Melody nodded in agreement.

“It was a positive surprise. As was the cathedral itself, truly beautiful.”

“Oh yes. Shall we get moving anyway? I love standing here beside this incredible piece of architecture, but we still have three and a half hours until our dinner reservation and a lot of lovely old town to explore.”

Anne nodded. “Yes, let’s go! Maybe we can take a picture of the cathedral at sunset from a little further away if we’re lucky.”

“Not sure how possible that is, it’s a lot of small alleys and tiny streets here.”

“Fair, but we can try.”

“And we sure should.”

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