You’ve gotten so far. Are you really going to leave it at that?

Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Into the Dark
Current Date: February 29, 2024

Character: Audric Gott
Race: Demon
Age: 36, physically about 26
Current residence: Bowen, Australia
 

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It feels weird to accept that the kid is gone. One minute he’s there, the next, poof. Like he was never there at all. I know that’s just my way of seeing it. I know that’s not really what happened; I think that a small part of me is still brooding over the whole thing. I don’t even have all of the details, all I know is that some major spell from someone that I’m not even sure he was aware of just went horribly wrong. To me, it went horribly wrong, but to them, I guess that it didn’t.

To make a long story short, the kid got in trouble in a really bad way and they—whoever they are, who were looking out for him—decided that putting him into their own version of that thing about protecting witnesses was the best option. Except that their version of that includes a major spell that’ll move him halfway across the globe, it’ll shift his memories to make him believe he’s lived in that new place most of his life and he’ll half fake memories to cover up the real ones.

To make that short story even shorter, it’s like I never existed as far as he’s concerned. How do I know these things? I looked it up. The kid had been talking to me about that issue he’d found himself in and pretty much just literally, one minute he’s talking, gesticulating the way he’s always been good at doing and the next, he’s gone. There are no traces of him in my living room, there’s no scent of him anywhere else and there’s a veil in place because I remember feeling hyper-confused about why I was walking back into my living room with two cups when I was on my own and had been all evening long.

Now that I’ve broken through that veil and remembered what was happening—a feat, but that’s for another time—I remember that he’d been in the middle of explaining what he’d done and how it had all gone back, how he wanted to just back off of that particular case and I know I’d already asked him that considering how far he’d made it, he needed to be sure that he was going to leave it as was.

For the first few months, I was unaware of what was going on, there was this nagging feeling at the back of my mind that something was off—I’m pretty sure that they’re supposed to cast this spell with the person they’re casting it for near them and not in the presence of others—but that’s all there was to it. Then, one night, I must have found something that was somewhat related to him, but it still was enough to trigger a response in me, that I started putting the pieces back together.

So yeah, I know where he’s at. He’s way far off. His life seems peaceful enough from what I’ve found out, but I haven’t reached out to him. I don’t know what that would mean for the spell and I don’t want to shatter whatever life he has going on where he’s at. I don’t know how long they’re going to keep that very spell going. I don’t have all the details of the case he’d been working on, so I don’t know who the people he’s being kept safe from are. He never got to these details before he got swept away. That means I can’t check up on that part of things.

There’s only so much I can do about this now other than just leave it be. Until they bring him back—if they even do, because the spell is meant to be all-encompassing, and I remember him only through a small mistake of theirs—all I can do is just let it go. I mind my own business, I check in on him now and again via a contact I have in the region where he now lives and call it quits.

In a way, I feel as though that makes me the hypocrite in this scenario. I remember how I was telling him that he should still keep going with what he was doing to at least close his case; and yet here I am, not pushing forward with the information I found but the reasoning is different. His safety is at stake and while I do miss the kid, I don’t miss him enough to put his safety in jeopardy. I don’t need him to be thrown right back into danger because I need him to know I existed and that the life he was living now was all a lie.

Maybe this is for the best. I’m not happy with that thought, I’m really not. Maybe he’ll have a better life out there in that little boot with the apartment he has and the neighbourhood he lives in and the rest. I can’t do a single thing about it, and I can’t even go to the people that I know put that spell together because they’d try to fix this little hole in it, and I don’t want that.

So, I’ll just shut my mouth and keep doing things the way I’d been doing them.

Final Word Count: 882

If you want me to like you, hand me the necklace. Then we’ll talk.

 
Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Into the Dark
Characters: Audric Gott
Race: Demon
Age: 34, physically about 26
Current residence: Bowen, Australia
Final Word Count: 753 words
 

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Bribery isn’t solely a human thing. I’ve honestly seen bribery happen between so many different people and species that I know it’s not a human thing. In a way, I wish I could turn back time, dig way, way deep to try and find where it started. Not that I don’t think that bribery shouldn’t exist, I’m sure that there are times when it might honestly be necessary and that it has helped in plenty of situations, but I’d like to understand where it came from.

Recently, mostly through aimless wanderings during the night hours when I find myself currently unable to sleep, I’ve come upon so many happenings that I don’t know what to make of them. Most of the time, they were drug-centred so I know that I shouldn’t even be asking myself why, but I still do. I don’t understand the draw of drugs.

I do understand people being either bullied or pressured into doing things like these, but I suppose that it just isn’t part of the life I’ve led so I can’t really understand it. I’ve always been what people might call a top dog, in that I never had to worry about people trying to pressure me into trying anything I didn’t want. It might just be part of the way I hold myself or the fact that I pretty much have a no-bullshit face going on most of the time, I don’t know.

About a week ago, I came across a couple—that being, a man and a woman somewhere, this doesn’t necessarily mean they are together in that way—that were at the park and while I walked past them, the only tidbit of conversation I caught was about her demanding of him that he hand her the necklace and only then would she like him and talk to him. What kind of weird bribery is that?

On that same note, I can understand that it’s possible that it was something he’d taken from her and there are hundreds of reasons why she would have told him something like that but, just the same, it was strange. I try not to pay attention to what strangers talk about when I cross their paths but every now and again, something a bit out of the ordinary will just crop up and, well, the rest is history, clearly. I’m left to wonder about it for a little while but then I try to put it out of my mind.

Clearly, it hasn’t worked in my best interest as far as this pair is concerned because I’m still confused by her demands. This could have almost been the follow-up to some sort of heist of sorts, but it would have been weird for them to meet up in such a public place. Then again, it was the middle of the night, and I was possibly the only person that walked on by them at that point, but I doubt that’s what it was. She didn’t even bat an eye at my presence and spoke rather loudly while he looked a little jittery.

It’s easy the stuff you can pick up from people even when you’re just passing by. That might partially be a demon thing though, but it is what it is, can you blame me? I am as I am.

The thing I’ve noticed though is that there always seems to be someone sitting at that bench every single night I’ve been there, and it rarely turned out to be the same person twice. They weren’t homeless that I could tell, they were just sitting there, as though waiting for something or someone and it was a little strange but not completely out there. I’m not usually roaming at night this way, so I don’t really know all that goes on after dark.

For a little while, I had to ask myself if I was rooting for potentially the guy or the girl. I don’t even know why that cropped up in my mind other than the fact that it was fitting, I guess. Rooting for the guy meant he was standing up for himself and he had a backbone, he wouldn’t let himself be walked all over. Rooting for the woman meant just about the same but she’d seemed so adamant about getting that necklace that trying to root for her was strange. As though somehow, she’d use that necklace for nefarious purposes. But really, who am I kidding? It doesn’t even matter.

I needed more information, so I may have…gotten it not so legally.

 
Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Into the Dark
Characters: Audric Gott
Race: Demon
Age: 33, physically about 26
Final Word Count: 760 words
 

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I never thought he’d make it very far with the whole private investigator thing he’d been trying for. It might have been cruel of me but the kid had been so flighty for as long as I’d known him that I couldn’t imagine him sticking with it for more than a few months and yet, here we are, four years later and he’s still at it. He’s only asked for my help a handful of times and he actually stayed true and paid me for my help.

To be honest, I’d have done the job for free but if he wanted to pay me, that was fine, it meant he was at least serious enough about it and I couldn’t complain.

A few weeks ago, however, he came to me, looking as sheepish as could be and he told me that he was possibly in trouble because he had needed more information for one particular client and he might have gotten that information in a not-so-legal way. Ugh, that kid, I swear.

I made him sit down, told him to stop fidgeting and to start telling me more about his idiotic move because I was sure that this was exactly what it had been.

It took a few tries before he started telling me the story but, once he was done, I admit that I might have just stared at him, mouth a little ajar until I started laughing. That might not have been the reaction he had expected of me but I couldn’t help it.

His ‘illegal’ means of getting the information? He ended up sleeping with the client’s husband—now her ex-husband. The woman had been in for what feels like a petty request for me. I can understand wanting to know if your husband is cheating on you, but if you get nothing out of the divorce in the long run—and she didn’t, neither was overly rich, all accounts were separated, the house was paid for, there were no true riches to be had—I don’t see why you need to hire a private eye to find out these things.

If you think that your significant other is cheating on you, it usually means one of two things. One, you don’t trust your significant other enough; or two, clearly your significant other doesn’t love you enough to not stray. I’m aware that there are potentially other reasons but these are the two that come to mind at this point. Now, if your significant other is, say, beating you and you run off and now they come to Vescovi for help? He might start to help until he finds out more details and then he’ll lead it all into a very dead end. He’s good about that.

His so-called illegal means, though, it made me smile. It’s not often that he lets himself be swept into things like these; the guy must have been seriously good-looking and damned good in bed. Kiddo looked so flustered when he told me about it though it explains the fidgeting, I think. I doubt he really was all that worried about things being illegal, this felt more like he needed to get this off his chest and he had. I don’t blame him for ‘using’ me for this little mock-therapy session of his.

But I mean, it got the point across, the woman’s ex-husband clearly wasn’t faithful and I doubt Vescovi was the first one he slept with, so there she had what she needed, they’re now separated and, as far as I was told, neither kept the house, it was put back up on the market and it sold within such a quick time frame that you’d have thought they’d almost planned it, in the end.

In the end, it’s possible too. I’ve met a few ‘couples’ that were married out of necessity but eventually sought excuses to free themselves from that marriage and faking a cheating scene is the best way to go at it. The few so-called couples I’d met had done their thing in college, usually. Mostly for the sake of health benefits or the rest. Best friends marrying because one was sick and needed insurance and all.

People will do what they need to do; I don’t think there are any two ways around it, not really.

It still makes me smile to think of just how flustered he was over the whole thing, though. That’s something I’ll be able to tease him about for a long while yet.

Even a monster like me knows better.

 
Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Into the Dark
Characters: Audric Gott
Race: Demon
Age: 32, physically about 26
Final Word Count: 644 words
 

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Some people believe that all demons are monsters. There is no changing their minds. Especially those who claim that the bible is the one truth to the world so demons are monsters, angels are good, God is almighty—don’t get me started—and just, no.

I’ve come across a lot of people who don’t know any better. They can’t see the marks that make me different, so they can’t tell and unless I let them know about how I’m not mortal like them, they don’t know any better and if you were to ask them what they think of me, I’m pretty sure they’d be telling you that I’m a really nice guy. I help others whenever I can. I may be a demon but I don’t do monster-things. Whatever those things might be.

I’m a tracker; it’s easy to track most anyone and everyone one way or another. Be it through their scent or their energy signature. Two years ago, Melchiorre dragged me along into a seriously wild chase but it was for a good cause and we somehow managed to find a young woman who had been kidnapped almost two years prior and well, the rest of that is history but it was for a good cause.

I wanted to maim the man who’d kidnapped her, however. The young woman—a girl, really; she was barely fifteen when she was taken—is still seeing a psychiatrist at this point. I’ve kept a bit of an eye on her because her story was seriously unfair. The man who kidnapped her landed in prison, not even a life sentence, and I want to see him torn to pieces. I’m a monster when I need to be.

The thing is, even a monster like me knows better than to treat life—human or otherwise—so callously. She didn’t deserve to be kidnapped, she didn’t deserve to be abused, she didn’t deserve any of the things he’s done to her and all he’s technically made to face following the horror he’s put her throw is the equivalent of a slap on the wrist. I don’t like their judicial system. It makes no sense to me.

Sure, at times, it does. Someone getting life without parole for the crimes they’ve committed is one thing and that works out well but someone else getting five, ten, fifteen years behind bars when they’ve killed someone? There’s no saying they’ll change while behind bars, most of the time, they certainly don’t. It all ends in tears, trust me.

That might be why I’m keeping an eye on the woman. Not that I’m interested in her in any other way, I just don’t want the efforts that went into finding her to be wasted. That might be callous of me, but I am a demon and hey, you’re the one that said it, I’m a monster.

Are there things I’ve done I’m not proud of? Yes. Are demons the only ones who do things they’re not proud of? Fuck no. I’ve seen plenty of humans, angels, elves and others do shitty things, realize they’d done that shitty thing and have regretted it. Does that make me any worse a monster than them because of my blood? It shouldn’t but in the eyes of many, it does.

What will it take to get people to understand that the blood that flows through the veins of the people they’re surrounded with, does not mean squat? It’s not about your race, species or whatever term you want to use. It’s about what’s inside, figuratively speaking. It’s about who you are as a person. There’s that thing about not judging a book by its cover and a lot more people should heed that one. It’s the one saying from humans that makes the most sense to me.

You don’t know me. Don’t judge me.

Let me get this straight. You want my help in finding someone you don’t even know?

Timeline/World: Main Profile
Characters: Audric Gott
Race: Demon
Age: 30, physically about 26
Final Word Count: 555 words

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“Isn’t that the whole point of PI work?”

“The issue with this is that you’re not a private eye.”

“I’m trying to be and this particular case—”

“Nope, forget it, I’m not helping you. I didn’t sign up for this.”

“You’re my friend; you’re supposed to help me when I ask you to!”

There was a slow sort of blink from Audric before he quirked a brow and tipped his head. His lips quirked somewhat, more to show his teeth than his amusement. “That is not how our friendship works and you know better than that, Vescovi.”

Holding his hands up in surrender, the young man took a few steps away, pouting somewhat to let it be known he was far from happy about the situation as a whole. This wasn’t going to work out well if he couldn’t get the tracker demon to help him with this. He backed out until he was in another room and left in a half-huff.

Audric shook his head in wry amusement as he walked away from where he’d been standing when his friend had walked in, to demand his help. If it had merely been asked, instead of demanded, he was sure he’d have said yes. Using his tracking abilities made finding people easy but that was also somewhat cheating. At least, as far as he cared it was somewhat cheating and easy money made this way didn’t seem right. It didn’t feel as hard-earned as if it had been done any other way.

Though he is more than aware that there are likely other tracking demons who are making a living doing this very thing but he isn’t one of them. Picking the easy path of life had never been on his list of probable things to do.

Closing his eyes, Audric sank down into the plush seat of his armchair, aware that Melchiorre would be back to ask him a second time, perhaps with more humility, eyes on the floor, fidgeting. He’d give it a thought then but he still didn’t think he could do it, not in the long-term. For short-term help, he knew he could manage. Then again, it also depended on the person being sought and the person seeking them out. That had a huge sway on things.

“If this is a genuine missing person’s case, then I might help you, but that’s about it.” He called out, aware that the man was likely just one room over and he grinned faintly when he heard the ‘whoop’ in answer. Rolling his eyes, he sank a little deeper into his armchair, willing his mind to rest for the time being so he could be in tip-top shape to help with whatever he could. The headache would fade before long, he knew it was making him somewhat moody but he couldn’t let it affect whatever work he would be trying to achieve at this point.

Missing people, and more importantly missing children, was just one of the soft spots he had in his heart. He couldn’t stand the thought of children not being with their parents. Runaways were something else entirely, he could understand why on some of them but for the others, it was only a twisted sense of adventure that pulled them to run off. It wasn’t right.