“I’ll try.”
“You’ll learn quickly or you’ll die,” Mann said. “Come. On the good days, you’ll be an errand boy. This is a good day.”
The new employee hurried to keep up.
“The primary work we do is to help write contracts, and to handle certain summonings or arrangements. You’re not going to do either for the first few hundred years. The goal is to achieve these things safely, with minimal risk. You can’t do safe, not yet.”
“I learned my lesson.”
“In a few centuries, you should look back on today, and you’ll realize how very little you’ve learned.”
“Yes sir.”
Mann frowned. “Don’t think I didn’t see that in your eyes. You think I’m an asshole?”
“No, sir.”
“I have been around for a very long time. I’m aware of much more than you might think.”
“Yes sir.”
Mann shook his head a little. “As you do good work, you’ll have less in the way of good days, but more opportunity. You don’t need to eat or sleep anymore, we removed that need. You would be well advised to study. If you were to get an opportunity, you wouldn’t want to squander it, because it may be decades before you got another chance.”
“When you say opportunity, sir?”
“Early exit,” a woman spoke up.
The woman wore a suit, though with a short dress rather than pants, and her blonde hair was in a ponytail, a lock draped over one eyebrow with a strategic sort of care.
“Early exit is one opportunity that you’re competing for,” Mann said. “You may not need to indulge in normal eating and sleeping, but if you ever think you might want to slack off in your duties, keep in mind that we have a number of other employees who don’t need to indulge either, and many are hungrier to get out than you are.”
“You’ll find that hunger,” the blonde woman said. “After enough bad days, you’ll find it.”
The new employee glanced over his shoulder. “You heard-”
“I’ve heard others get the same speech more times than you’d like to think,” the woman said. “I’ve even heard a number ask the question you just asked.”
“She leads the pack, in terms of the next employee to take a name and a position at the head of the firm,” Mann explained. “Like myself. You would do well to listen to her.”
“Yes sir,” he replied.
“Look after him,” Mann ordered. “I have things to do.”
With that, he was gone.
The blonde woman gestured, and they fell in step, side by side, walking down the street.
“Scared?” the woman asked.
“Slightly?”
“If you’re not terrified, you haven’t realized what you’re in for,” the woman said.
“I have a sense of it.”
“You did this to get out of a bad situation?” she asked.
“Yeah. Yes.”
“How bad?”
“Noble demon.”
“Which?”
“Mahoun. Mr. Mann said it went easy on me, but it really didn’t.”
She nodded. “It didn’t.”
“I-”
“It didn’t,” she said, placing a hand on his arm.
“Okay,” he said, frowning.
“You escaped a noble demon. The worst sort of end. Now that it’s too late for you to realize, I’m free to tell you, you’ve jumped from the frying pan to the fire.”
“The fire.”
“How long do you have?”
“Five hundred and seventy-some years.”
She raised her eyebrows.
“I know.”
“Not much time at all. You could have paid off that karmic debt in a lifetime.”
“Not if I died.”
She shook her head. “I have a lot to teach you. How many demonic nobles do you think you’ll run into in the next five hundred and seventy-ish years?”
His eyes went wide. “What?”
“I’m asking you to guess. Because you will be crossing paths with them.”
He couldn’t speak. Horror had stolen his words.
“Well, stay quiet like that while we’re here, and you’ll be in good shape.”
They reached the gate. The blonde woman opened it. She led the way up the winding driveway.
An old woman was already standing on the porch. Rose bushes grew across the property, and trees hung over the older house. She looked so normal.
It sent his perceptions and expectations in the complete other direction from the horror he’d experienced prior. He found his words slipping from his mouth. “I- You told me to be quiet, but is she…”
“A diabolist? Yes. She’s a respected diabolist, in many circles,” the blonde woman said. “We would very much like to recruit her. If you were to cost us the chance, you could give up hope of ever having a good day with us again. I’m sorry, I have to warn you, so you aren’t surprised.”
The woman on the porch suddenly seemed a hundred times more ominous.
“She has five lifetimes worth of karmic debt,” the blonde woman said, “To put things into perspective.”
“So, at five hundred and seventy-five years per…”
“More than that,” the woman said. “Much, much more. But she wouldn’t ever join us. Too canny, to ever think it was a good deal, or to put herself in a situation where she would need to ask for the help. With luck, however, we could reach out to her grandchildren. Now hush.”
They’d reached the porch.
“New one,” the old woman said.
“I’m consistently surprised by how much attention you pay to us, for someone who is so set against joining,” the blonde woman said.
“No secret knowledge here,” the old woman said. “He has that look about him.”
“He does.”
“Scared, but not scared enough.”
“I’m trying to go easy on him,” the blonde woman said.
“Oh? That isn’t necessarily doing him a favor.”
It felt so strange to be talked about.
“Mann is going to send him into the deep end soon, I imagine.”
“I imagine,” the old woman agreed. “Can I offer you two anything?”
“No thank you,” the blonde woman said.
“Come in. You brought the book?”
The blonde woman produced a tome with a black leather cover, but no markings on the front or side.
“Good workmanship. Would you place it in the library? The door is open.”
“I’d have to bring him.”
“You would not,” the old woman sounded indignant. “I intend to grill him for information while you’re gone.”
The newcomer opened his mouth, then closed it, a little surprised.
“I think that would be frowned upon.”
“It would,” the old woman said. “But you’re going to let me do it all the same. If I’m ever going to join-”
“Which you won’t.”
“Which I most likely won’t, I would do it with my eyes wide open, and all available information at my fingertips. You’re going to do it because it means there is a chance.”
The blonde woman frowned. “You have a few minutes. I’ll take a moment to peruse your library, if I may?”