Tom supposed that if he were to be objective in fact, preferring this demon form wasn’t necessarily totally crazy. So far, he’d been upset about his seeming brainwashed preference for his demon form over his old human body, but what if it was just his common sense? After all, if he really thought about it, why shouldn’t he prefer the demon form?
True it was rather frightening and turned people away and caused them to faint. That hurt, that hurt a lot, but was it always his problem? How much of it was people’s irrational (OK, so maybe rational, given history) biases against demons. If people gave him a chance they’d like him, he was sure. Look at Rupert; well maybe he was a weird case. Look at Jenn, she didn’t trust him completely, but she was at least starting to deal with him as a person, not an object. He also had Tizzy and Bogsworth as friends. Gastropé was still a problem, but he wasn’t sure he wanted that guy as a friend anyway. Yeah, he felt lonely, but no lonelier than he’d been in Harding, and things were getting better.
Now true, the demon form was also symbolic of the slave state he was in, although since Jehenna had summoned him last, and then cut and run, he hadn’t had to worry about his slavery too much. He wondered what those guys were up to? In the end, it was also true that he was stuck in this form for a long time. Well not completely stuck, he now knew he could pretend to look human. If he really wanted to. The scary thing was, he was no longer sure he wanted to. Ever.
After all, if he looked at the positive side, there was a lot to be said. One, he was stronger and tougher than anybody he’d met, at least physically. He could fly, that was fun and handy. He hadn’t really worked much with it, but apparently he could shoot some form of energy bolts and things like that. Or at least his Tae-Kwon-Do was translating a little too literally around here. All of his senses were keener than the wildest animal’s. He had telescopic vision, some form of infrared vision, and who knew what other similar things. No normal weapons could hurt him, even if they did, it was nearly impossible to kill him. At worst any wounds would send him back to the Abyss, where he could regenerate. He could shape change! Crap, he was damn near a superhero!
He didn’t get hungry or thirsty. He wasn’t like one of the little humans so dependent on shelter and weapons to protect themselves from nature. Humans got hungry, humans got sick and came down with diseases. As far as he could determine from what Boggy and Tizzy had said, he wouldn’t age either. He was immortal! He could live for thousands of years.
If he was going to toil his life away in slavery, that could be a problem; but if he went out and did something with his life... Talk about a chance to overcome existential dread! Given all that, who would want to be a scrawny teenaged boy? Who would want to go back into the tiny little alabaster pimple of a body that humans got stuck with.
Face it Tom, he told himself, what are you bitching about? It was every guy’s dream come true. Superhuman powers, flight, super strength, invulnerability, telescopic vision, trans-dimensional hearing, energy bolts, shape changing, dimension hopping. What comic book hero could ever do all that? If this were a video game, he’d kill to have a character like himself! He was almost a minor god! Well maybe not a god, let’s not get carried away here, he was not that powerful. Most the wizards he met could bend him to their thumb. Something close to godlike but not so powerful, and with more limitations. What he was, Tom suddenly realized, was a demon!
Chapter 49
A demon! Well, it had literally been staring him in the face for some time. He’d even kind of pretended at it for a while. It had simply never hit him like that before. It was kind of a, what was the word? an epiphany, that was the word. So what kid wouldn’t be thrilled to be a demon? ‘I Was a Teenage Demon!’ was a perfect name for a grade B horror movie Tom thought. A TV show would be ‘Teen Demon’ or better yet, the ‘Demon Diaries’. Who wouldn’t be thrilled? Well apparently he wasn’t.
Not to take away from his moment of revelation, but Tom had to admit to himself that he hadn’t been having the greatest time of his life. Subjectively, at least. Of course, it seemed to Tom that that was one of the rules of having an adventure. ‘Never enjoy an adventure while you’re on it. Wait until it’s over and look back on it with longing.’ That’s always the way it seemed to work. He just didn’t have the necessary objectivity to view the whole thing like he was reading a book, or remembering it from a long time past. How was one supposed to get that level of objectivity? Tom certainly didn’t know. At the moment this ‘adventure’ was just a pain. Tom halted himself in mid-thought. To be fair, he had to admit that cruising around Astlan was a lot more fun than sitting in an empty cave waiting to be called by his ‘master.’
On the other hand, compared to just getting up in the morning in his own home where his mom was, and going to high school every day, caused both cave and Astlan to pale. At the time, he hadn’t really realized what he had in Harding. Things always seemed better in hindsight. So great, Tom thought, I now know how stupid I was not appreciating Harding. So I guess this is the part where I click my Red Hooves together three times and say ‘There’s no place like home, There’s no place like home, There’s NO place like home!’
As was to be expected, not much happened. He still wasn’t in Kansas, or in Tom’s case, New Jersey. Actually, Tom had to admit, a lot of Jersey was more like the Abyss than Kansas anyway. Tom sighed. He was just standing there looking down at Edwyrd’s clothes. He tried to walk around a bit, softly, so as not to scare the priest. He’d love to go out and stretch his wings a bit. The little Edwyrd body had made him feel claustrophobic and the fact that he kept gouging the ceiling beams with his horns didn’t help. He leaned against the wall so he could stick his legs out and stretch them. His knees in each leg were starting to get a bit stiff, or so he imagined. He was sure it was just being cooped up that made him feel that way.
How long had it been? How long had he stood there wrestling with the horns of his dilemma, or more precisely with the lack of horns of his dilemma, thought Tom looking at Edwyrd’s clothes. The others might return soon. While they couldn’t walk in and surprise him due to the bars on the door, if Edwyrd wasn’t already back by the time they knocked, it might get tricky. He doubted he could change back and dress quickly enough not to arouse suspicion.
Of course, Tom thought, still looking at the clothes, I could stay in this form; point to the clothes and say I’d gotten hungry and eaten Edwyrd. Tom smiled, it wasn’t completely wrong, Edwyrd was inside him. He suspected, however, that it wouldn’t make Jenn trust him any more than she already didn’t. But... he reminded himself, he could see Gastropé faint again, especially if he could manage to make his stomach growl while he was looking at the wizard. “Tom, you’re just evil,” he said to himself softly with a smile.
Edwyrd wandered out of the kitchen. It really was rather dark in this place since the candles went out. The light seeping around the doorway didn’t do much. In his Tom form he didn’t notice the darkness, but Edwyrd’s feeble human eyes had trouble seeing. Tom supposed that if he ever got good enough, he could probably make improvements on Edwyrd’s body. Strength, eyesight, little things so that Edwyrd still looked human, but had some of the advantages of being a demon. Unfortunately, for the moment, it was all Tom could do to keep control just being Edwyrd.