The Scryer ✔️

~Beezle - Part Two~

I stepped onto the deck and slowly, the demon hoard became quiet as death. I walked toward the edge of the deck then walked down the stairs, my gaze keenly on the huge leathery wings of Beelzebub. The demons parted like the Red Sea for me. "Papa?"

I was ignored. "Papa...HEY BEEZLE!" I managed to get down the steps of the deck and onto the soft green grass of my back yard.

That seemed to get his attention and he grumbled as he turned and faced me. "What is your wish, my Queen..."

When I finally reached him, I pointed my finger, and poked at his muscular chest with it. "Information. I've a bone to pick with you!"

He stared down at my finger. "Cheeky," he growled.

He stared into my eyes and I have to tell you, had I not known him as my Papa there is no way the next words would have ever  been uttered from my lips..."besides, we didn't get to finish our huggle."

He looked over my head in exasperation and grumbled a long growl and the two smaller demons at his feet whined in fear.

Then he did something that I would never have expected...he held his one arm out to me as his great wings unfolded.

"Once upon a lifetime ago, you told me that I was never to be afraid to say anything to you, right?"

"Yes I did," he growled as I fell into his large muscular arms and felt his leathery wings enfold us both. "Yes I did, Daughter."

I felt something at my bare feet and looked down to find a small white cat with leathery wings, feet the looked like they should have been on a turkey, two sets of tiny little antler-horns (they were really quite adorable, really) and very large canines circling my legs. "Spot," he grumbled affectionately. "Nice of you to finally show up. Say hello and be nice."

I pulled away and looked up into his black eyes. "Spot..."

"Yes."

He reached down to scoop up the small cat and brought it to his neck and I watched it settle behind his thick neck, the wings holding him in place. "He can fly, but not nearly as fast as I can so he is a bit late to the festivities today."

I wanted to laugh, I really did, but my ribs pained me so to the point that I could barely breathe and it was difficult at best.

I reached up to scratch at Spot's chin, feeling it's ferocious purr.  It laid on its back, pulling me into its little demonic-kitty spell, then grabbed my hand with its taloned turkey-paws and bit me. I heard a low, guttural chuckle. "He likes you." He removed my finger from Spot's mouth.

"That was him being nice?"

He nodded his great horned head only once. "Yes."

"How do you know?"

"Why Daughter, he'd have eaten half of your arm!" He grinned at me.

"Eww..."

He laughed hard, causing Spot to hiss and spit and then settle into the crook of the demon's neck again.

"Can we...go somewhere...where we..."

He looked into my eyes and gazed at me in that all too familiar Papa way. "Yes child?"

Can we go and talk somewhere please?

Beelzebub grinned and nodded and waved his mighty arm, clearing a space around us. "Speak your mind, Daughter." I remembered the fox in the hen house, how he had shared the brutal vision with me to remind him how we used to sit on the porch in his weathered rocking chair. "Ahhhh," he growled. "Forgive me. Come."