“Malus, your record is atrocious, and I don’t mean it in a good way.  You are forthwith under probation.  I’m sending you back and you had better do your job properly or there will be Hell to pay!”  A boney burnt claw of finger pointed up and in a flash of thunderous fire, my mentor was gone.

I’d really done it this time.  I mean, sure, I turned a young man into a scary looking gang banging, motorcycle riding thug.  I did my job well.  How was I to know that the woman he kidnapped for ransom would be a nun who would turn him into a shining example of goodness on the lecture circuit.  Really.  I did what I was supposed to do, didn’t I?

Now I’m not sure what Yvel meant by Hell to pay, but I’m pretty sure I don’t want to find out.  It took a lot of scaring people and generally nasty hauntings to get me to this point in my career as a demon.  I’ve never been human so what punishment could there be?  Send me back to the ether?  I don’t remember before, I just am.

Regardless, here I am in … downtown Miami?  Really?  Isn’t there enough homegrown evil here?  Guess that’s my challenge, to up the ante so to speak.  I look at my surroundings for a good victim.  Heh heh.

A middle aged woman, borderline senior citizen on a bench catches my eye.  Overweight, tired looking with that certain je-ne-sais-quoi of divorce or abandonment in her demeanor and her eyes.  Yup, she’ll do.  I sit on the bench beside her.  “Nice day,” I say.  She just nods.

“Well, nice to meet you, have a nice day,” I say as I touch her shoulder.  She looks up at me, slightly scared and partly curious and when I look into her eyes, that’s when the transfer starts.  I flood her poor soul with pure evil, and at once she straightens up.  She’s stronger, bristling with anger.  Good.

She shoves my hand away from her shoulder, gets up and walks away only turning once to snarl an epithet at me and spit on the ground near my feet.  I smile.  “Be free, my child,” I think.

Do I need to follow her?  No.  She’ll do just fine.  A lifetime of unhappiness all rolled in to one grumpy middle-aged bundle waiting to unleash on the next available person, what could possibly go wrong?

What indeed.  Not two earth days later Yvel appears before me in my little cave, a flash of bright red and fury.  “Again! Look!” With a wave of clawed hand I see:  Footage of a wild woman being commended for cornering and killing a man who cut her off in traffic. 

What?

Why?

Seems she brutally killed a serial killer.  Oh she’ll be going away for a while but she saved Miami.  Damn.

“That’s it!” Poof, and I’m in … purgatory?

Welcome to Heaven Malus, you’ll do just fine here.