[Praise, Return]
He felt like a god's paladin. The carnies hadn’t even asked about the crate as they helped him position it on stage. He gave her half a can of dogfood which the salesman had thrown in when he handed over the five hundred in cash. He was still trying to figure out exactly how to use her during the show. He had to reveal her before the collection plate went around but after his sermon, or they wouldn’t hear a word.
“Brothers, Sisters in conclusion, I’m so glad that you could make it here tonight, so we all could praise god together, god is so glad that you made it because he sent me a sign of what the liberal godless government that has allowed the murder of innocent unborn to be murdered. Now abominations are allowed to roam our land. It’s not bad enough that murders and rapists by the thousands are pouring into our Great country over our borders.”
“God has given me a job, I’m a holy warrior in his fight against satan and just this day I captured my first demon. Those that come up and pray with me for gods blessing will get a first hand look at the beast herself. Surely this is a sign of the end times when the faithful will be ascended into heaven to live with jesus, the heathens, the idolaters, the atheist liberals, the communist scum will be left here. Having to contend with satan’s spawn, living among them. It’s too late for them, but not for you brothers and sisters. Come up here now, for god’s blessing and to see what awaits those that deny him, that ignore his word, that don’t support his church and its effort to save as much of sinful mankind as possible.”
“I want to see you all up on this stage, I want you standing with those who will surely be the first of gods heavenly host. Together we will strike a blow for satan.”
He drew back the tarp and revealed the demon, lying in the cage. He poked her with the electric prod. She opened her eyes for the crowd. She moaned, in pain.
“Brothers, sisters come up here with a pledge of a hundred dollars to gods church and use this electric prod to send a direct message to satan. If you send demons among us this is how they will be treated. We are warriors of god, we have no fear, only disgust.”
The teenage boys were practically falling over themselves to get a closer look at the partially covered nude figure in the cage. But the carnies were taking the pledges and it didn’t look like any of the teenage boys had the wherewithal to have a poke with the electric prod or anything else. But their fathers and mothers appalled and disgusted that demons walked the land, came up and paid and took their turns with the prod. The zaps and the moans both seemed to get louder and go on longer as each of the faithful paid their cash and were handed the prod.
This went on for three nights, Thatcher was starting to get worried, every day he put the food in the cage but the demon just would not eat. Even when he drove special to a Micky D’s for hamburgers for the ungrateful bitch, she still wouldn’t eat. He wouldn’t let her die of hunger. No she was his cash cow, the faithful had never come to service so early or had been so generous as they were these past three nights. Somehow even the teenage boys had scrapped together the money to get a closer look, and their chance to make her moan to zap her long and hard. They really enjoyed being gods warriors.
When the last had had their turn and Thatcher was about to lead the closing prayer, urging them to drive the thirty miles to the next stop on the camp revival tour. But he was afraid he’d wrung this little town dry of all disposable income and then some for a long time to come. But those that could still come up with the hundred dollars to send a message to satan, surely wouldn’t mind a thirty mile drive.
Thatcher cleared his throat for silence. But suddenly there was a sound of snapping fingers, the lights went out, there were a few gasps. Some loudly shouted curse words these god fearing folk would never admit to even knowing the meaning of. The lights suddenly flashed back on Brother Thatcher was floating about ten feet above the stage horizontally his face towards the heavens, it was like a rope from heaven was tied to his belt, it did not look like a pleasant or restful pose. A gorgeous completely naked woman stood on stage, horns just peaked out of her silky raven colored hair.
She spoke softly. Yet even the people farthest back in the standing room only crowd, could hear her every word.
“I am the Immortal Demon Lord Nyxophilia, I am an agent of karmic justice. You have been lied to and manipulated for years, one religion after another has led you collectively to where your lack of civilization may end your entire race. For those of you who don’t know what karma is, I suggest you look it up for you will be seeing me again, when your sorry and mean little lives are over. There are no gods, no one can save you except you, and you better get on that path to salvation soon, because every mean little thing you do has a price and my karmic justice is what you’ve all been buying.”
There was another finger snap, the lights went out for a second then came back on, a beautiful little cat, tail held high, sauntered off the stage into the backstage area. A second or two after the cat had disappeared the invisible cord or whatever held Brother Thatcher let go and he landed on his back on the stage. Miraculously nothing was broken, yet to him it felt like every bone in his body was shattered.
The crowd walked out in stunned silence. Over the next few days in the coffee shops and beauty parlors when it was spoken of it was in whispers. Finally it was decided by the town as a whole that demons lie, that's what they do, of course god would save them and karma was from one of those heathen religions, foreigners you can’t trust anything they have to say. Yet there were more than a few google searches mostly at the town library, where your spouse couldn’t see your search history.
What is Karma?
How to avoid Karmic Justice.
Rose stared off into the void, Nyx, Hello Nyx
“What do you want Rose, I did your stupid story, what do you want now?”
“I just wanted to know what you thought.”
“It won’t change anything, just like your last paragraph implies, they are going to believe the lies of their parents who heard the lies from their parents who heard it from their parents all the way back thousands and thousands of years. They are never going to believe that agents of karmic justice, the ones who will be punishing them are the good guys. We can’t lie, unlike the writers of the ‘holy texts’ who it seems cannot do anything else.”
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
“Nyx, I think it might change a few minds besides it, needed to be said, even if no one listens. Draco told me I needed to write it but it took me a while to figure out all that I wanted to say. I want the world to know the honest truth that demons are the good guys, the ones who help us work out our issues, to make us better.”
“Whatever Rose, I feel sorry for the demon who has to work out your karmic justice, you’ll talk the poor immortal to death. I could punish you right now Rose, help balance those karmic scales a little, just say the word, I’ll get to flaying you. Who knows you might even enjoy it. Frida sure as heck does.”
“No thank you Nyx, I know your conditions and I’d be much too embarrassed to take my clothes off in front of you, I’m afraid my punishment will have to wait.”
“You have a lot to account for, like that time you were writing your first story and you were mad at Juliet so you made her gain fifty pounds. They could have rolled her everywhere, like a volleyball. It took her almost a year of hard exercise and calorie counting to get back to a normal weight.”
“That’s not fair, I didn’t know that she was a real girl, I didn’t know that I was a bibliomancer. I was afraid I was going crazy, I even asked a girl in writing class if her characters talked back to her. She never spoke to me again and she turned all the other girls in my class against me. I’d just lost my father and was shunned by the kids at school. It was horrid.”
“It’ll all be taken into account, you won’t be punished one second longer than you deserve.”
“Well thank you.”
“No need to thank me. That’s just how karma justice works, after the punishment time limit is up it’s over. I know what I’m going to suggest to your punishment demon, and it’s not a physical punishment. Do you want to know what it is?”
“No that would just make it worse, I’d be waiting my whole life, expecting the punishment, better off just waiting and finding out in the moment.”
“Are you sure, you won’t just be imagining it is even worse than what I dreamed up for you.”
“Nyx I don’t even know how that would be possible, you’ve been dreaming up punishments for millennia."
“People are always the best at dreaming up punishments for themselves, because they know better than anyone what they fear the most, what annoys them the most, what shames them the most. So I’ll tell you your punishment if you want to hear it.”
“You probably won’t let this go right?”
“Rose, when I get a great idea, I want to shout it to the world. I want to hear the praise, I want it said that is the most brilliant idea I’ve ever heard and have the person mean it. Of course if I tell you it won’t be as effective, you’ll have your whole life practicing for it. Yes you are right I shouldn’t tell you.”
“Come on Nyx, now you have to tell me.”
“No.”
“Come on Nyx, please?”
“Only if you beg me.”
“I’m begging you Nyx please.”
“You call that begging, you aren’t even kneeling.”
“What, you really expect me to get down on my knees to beg.”
“Absolutely I do, I am the Demon Lord Nyxophilia, beg and I just might tell you, give you a chance to practice, to prepare. If you get on your knees and beg. Besides you owe me for appearing in your story so just do it.”
I pushed the chair back from the desk and knelt down.
“Oh great and powerful Immortal Demon Lord Nyxophilia please tell me what punishment of karmic justice awaits me.”
“That’s better puny human, that was proper groveling, I was going to make you kowtow but you groveled so well it doesn’t seem fair to subject to any more. My recommended punishment for you will be, every time you speak or write something down your punishment time will be increased by five minutes, this way your punishment will never cease. Because every minute you are awake either that tongue is wagging or you are writing. What do you have to say to that Rose?”
“Cat got your tongue, Rose?”
“Rose, now you are just being childish. Just remember you groveled for this information. Well if you are not going to say anything I’m going back to my cat form, there’s still a good hour of sunlight falling on my window seat.”
