The Scryer ✔️

~Parental Units~

John drove the car as fast as legally allowed, since Alexander was in the car with us. He skidded the car to a stop and I unbuckled my seat belt and saw he was already halfway to the porch.

"Wait please!"

"He may have already murdered your mother, Hannah!"

I stopped in my tracks, feeling my son's hand tighten around mine. He's scared too, Mam...

I shook my head. "I don't think so John. I never got that impression. If anything, I think she feels sorry for him," I told him as I finally reached his position. I took my son's one hand in mine and John took the other one and we as a family, continued on, up the porch steps and to the door. I knocked on the door and opened it. "Mam?"

"In the kitchen, Hannah," she called out from the other side of the house.

John picked up Alexander and carried him inside as he and I exchanged glances causing him to raise his brows in a silent apology. He pulled the screen door open for me and I entered the front room of the house and looked around.

I made a beeline for the kitchen to find Purson finishing up a plate of fried chicken and corn pie. "You'll mess up your innards, you know," I said.

Mam stared at the two androids several times and shook her head. She took his plate and offered him a plate of apple pie with ice cream.

Purson shrugged. "So? I'm not going to have them long anyway, right? Consider it my first and last meal."

"Not if I can help it," I replied.

We heard the front door open again.

"Expecting company," John asked.

Mam shook her head, but remained silent.

We all heard the heavy footfalls and Purson seemed to shrink a little more with each step as he moved toward us. And then I saw the shadow of horns on the floor and my insides knotted up...I didn't want a fight in my parents' house. "I don't like the wall paper," he grumbled. "It's frilly and uninspired,"

"And just what should be on the walls instead, Samuel?"

He looked around the room at nothing in particular but finally his gaze rested on her. "Gold," he said bluntly.

She grimaced. "Gold! What use could that be!"

"Your skin would glow...more than it already does."

She reached up and cupped his cheek tenderly. "Pshaw! My skin hasn't glowed in decades, Samuel, you know that," she said warmly. "I think you see what you want to see..."

The huge demon scraped his one horn on the ceiling causing him to flinch again.

"Mam! You knew?"

"Of course I knew. How could I not know! I'm a clairvoyant aren't I?" She turned toward Beelzebub as she placed her hands on her hips. "You're messing up my ceiling there, Red."

"My apologies...wife."

John turned to Purson. "Didn't know that, did ya," he asked with amusement.

"I'm not surprised by it." He scooped a spoonful of ice cream from the little plate and put it in his mouth and looked to Alexander. "Want some? It's really very good. I think it's all homemade..."

Alexander shook his head and sighed, still staring at the confection on the plate.

"Of course he wants some," Beelzebub said. "He's just too polite to say so." He turned his head toward the door. "I believe that I would like some too. I'll be right back."

"MAM!" I breathed inward at hearing David's voice raised in concern. "OH JESUS! MARY AND JOSEPH!"

Beelzebub returned with David and Spot. David couldn't seem to stop staring and the monolithic beastie. He gingerly sidestepped John and pulled Mam into his arms and then, he turned around slowly to face the androids.

"I'm not dreaming," he whispered to himself. "I am not dreaming..."

Beelzebub chuckled as Mam reached through his horns and placed a very large bowl of ice cream, with about a spoonful of pie as a garnish before him. She petted the cat and went about making a plate of desert for Alexander.

"Someone kindly tell me why there are two Johns here along with the Devil in Mam's kitchen please?"

Purson sighed and rolled his eyes, then looked to me. "You wanna tell him, or should I?"

Beelzebub handed a spoon to Alexander who smiled his thanks. "Dig in, it's good," he whispered.

"Go right ahead," I replied to Purson.

"I am not John," he began.

"I know that. John is...well, he is dead." He pointed toward the android standing beside me. "But he is."

"They're Androids, Davie," I said.

"Androids...?"

"Kind of like robots," Alexander offered with a full mouth of apple pie.

David nodded his head. "Uh huh." He closed his eyes and liked his lips. "Alright." He swallowed so hard that I heard him gulp. "And the Devil...?"

Beelzebub chuckled. "You may want to sit down, David."

"How do you know my name, Satan!"

"I am not Satan. Or the Devil, or Lucifer...and I know your name because I named you. Isn't that right, Gail?"

Mam nodded. "Truly."

David's face turned red. "My PAPA NAMED ME!"

I lowered my head. "Please sit down, Davey?"

He spun on his heel and pointed toward the table. "I AM NOT SITTING AT THE SAME TABLE WITH SATAN AND A ROBOT WHO LOOKS LIKE..."

"Fine," I said. I looked to John. "Would you please catch him..."

John nodded. "Yes of course."

David's eyes filled with tears. "What in the name of God is going on here!"

"Are you going to sit down?"

"NO!"

I closed my eyes and swallowed hard. I breathed in deeply and turned to him and took his calloused hands in mind. "Remember that day when John built the house, our house and I saw it for the first time?"

"Yes," he replied quietly.

"We saw something. Both of us. Remember?"

He nodded quickly as he looked away.

"That wasn't a spirit David."

He breathed in very slowly and nodded.

"I think you knew it then, you just didn't want to scare me. That's the way of it, isn't it?"

He nodded. "Yes. It was a demon. I knew it was. I don't know how I knew it, but I knew it."

I nodded and squeezed his hands. "He is a specific kind of demon."

David's brow furrowed.

"He was a demon King. And it wasn't the first time I'd come into contact with him..."

"Oh my God, Hannah...he followed you..."

Purson raised his hand from the table and flitted his fingers and nodded as he smiled sweetly.