Jonathan climbed into the Demon, his eyes glowing gold as he scanned the city and its inhabitants. With a satisfied look, he started the engine, pressing down hard on the accelerator. The Demon came to life with the sound of a wild predator straight from hell. His first stop was a car dealership that sold German brands. It was a couple that ran the shop. The wife was a white witch from Maggie's circle. The man had no real faith. However, he sincerely loved his wife and regularly contributed to the Circle's treasury. They were truly good people. He entered the showroom. The woman he was looking for approached him with a broad, sincere smile. Before she could say anything, he said:
"You must be Emma."
She looked at him strangely for a moment. He continued with a smirk on his face:
"You are a sister of Maggie's, and I need your help for a moment."
Suddenly it dawned on her and she said hastily:
"My Lord, welcome, what can we do for you?"
"My name is Jonathan Emma, let it stay that way or just Jon. I need some of your cars delivered this afternoon. Let's say around six o'clock."
"Please come with me to our office, Jacques is working there at the moment."
He followed her in the office, she said to her husband:
"Jacques, this is Jonathan Drago, the Prince of Light."
"The man looked at him suspiciously for a moment and said rather sternly:
"I hope you are not an impostor, Mister, trying to take advantage of my wife and her friends."
Jon smiled at him and asked:
"Would it reassure you, Jacques, if I proved to you that I really am who I say I am?"
The man continued to look him sternly in the eye. Not really believing him, he said with certainty that absolutely nothing would happen, except perhaps a cheap magic trick:
"That would help, yes."
Jon snapped his fingers and suddenly a rather large gym bag appeared on the desk in front of the man. While the man had to recover for a moment, Jon said:
"I think we can agree that I didn't pull it out of my sleeve, my back pocket or my ass."
Uninvited, he took a seat in one of the chairs in front of the desk. The man muttered:
"It's fucking true, it's all true..."
Smirking, the Antichrist said:
"Jacques, my friend, I recently found out that my grandfather created women so that we cavemen would not be lost in life... if we listened to them, that is. So..."
The man shook his head:
"Emma told me what Maggie told her. I thought they called you by a title like Maggie is called the High Priestess. All my life I thought the rest was gibberish. I really don't know if I should be happy about this revelation that everything is real or damned scared of my final destination."
Jon chuckled:
"Don't worry about it. You and your lovely wife are destined for Heaven, VIP reception and all. I'll let Grandpa know that you'll be his guests in the distant future. He and Grandma like to have afternoon tea with friends of mine. If only to hear the latest gossip about me. Since Emma here is one of Granny's protégés, it will be a double pleasure for her. But let's say sometime in the really distant future."
Both of them had big eyes, if they had opened any wider, they would probably have fallen out. A few seconds later, Emma finally managed to say:
"What can we do for you, Jon?"
"There are four cars in your showroom that I want to be delivered to my house by six o'clock. Beamers, the M5 in blue, the X5 in silver gray, and the 325 convertible in red and yellow. All four with a nice red ribbon, please. In this bag is more than enough for those four and also a generous down payment for other cars in the future, because I think I will need quite a few more. Keep the cash as a sort of deposit in case I need a car urgently and can't pay electronically right away. That way you will always be sure of your money. I'm a bit of a car nut and sometimes buy a new set of wheels on a whim. For the moment I'm kind of partial to that little black monster you have in the showroom. The SLR Black. I think I might have a spot for it in the driveway. Don't worry, it's not Mickey Mouse money, it comes straight from Uncle Sam's own pocket. You think this will work?"
The man nodded:
"I'll get the papers in order right away and put a couple of guys to work making them fully roadworthy."
"You see Emma, Jacques, this is a really nice way to do business."
He got up to leave and shook the man's hand. As he held Emma's hand he said:
"Maggie will probably call again, but I wanted to tell you in person, that there will be a ceremony very soon and it is important that you attend."
With that, he left the showroom whistling. He spent the next two hours arranging a few things around town and then drove home. His appetite was well whetted and he was looking forward to lunch with his Elise and their youngest twins.
Shortly after one, he stepped out into the yard and immediately saw to his delight that Jules and Samantha were making the pool unsafe, which made him smile softly. Elise came over and gave him a soft kiss.
"I'll be putting lunch on the table in a minute honey, why don't you sit down? The rug rats will be out of the water soon."
He looked around for a moment and asked:
"Speaking of rug rats, where is Max now?"
He looked toward the pool and saw the cat/dog:
"For fuck's sake... What now? You bought that mutt a floating pink flamingo?"
With her own sneaky laugh, she said:
"Me, no way…"
"Red, I can clearly see him floating in the middle of the pool on that hideous thing that makes my eyes burn."
"Well, technically, I didn't buy the Flamingo. I took the girls and Max to a nearby store to buy some things for the pool and they picked it out themselves, all three of them together..."
"It's a hell-hound babe, a fire-breathing, dangerous, wild hell-hound, and it's in the pool! Fire and water don't mix, Elise. He should guard the children with his life."
"He is doing that right now, dear."
Defeated, he said:
"He's sleeping and lazing around on his back Red, the girls are guarding him!"
She burst out laughing. He dropped into a chair, manifested a glass of orange juice with a very generous dose of vodka, and muttered:
"And this has become my life...pfff"."
He had barely taken a sip when Zelo appeared behind him in the garden. Elise said:
"Nice to see you again Zelo, why don't you sit down and have lunch with us?"
"You really shouldn't bother with me, My Lady."
"Nonsense, we are happy to have you with us and there is enough for everyone. And please call me Elise, yes."
The Demon nodded and took a seat beside Jon. He looked at the girls in the pool with a twinkle in his eye. Suddenly he squeezed his eyes into slits:
"Jon, is that a Hell-hound in your pool on that pink thing?"
He chuckled:
"I don't know what that thing is, Zelo, but I can absolutely assure you that it's not your average Hell-hound. So let the questions be because I don't feel like thinking of an answer! Dad sent you with some information, I assume?"
He nodded and pulled out a piece of paper that Jon recognized as his father's favorite stationery and elegant handwriting. He took it, folded it open, and read:
" Son,
This is the name and address of the person best suited for your purpose. The young lady in question appeared to be pregnant and just barely escaped death. In fact, her client, Carlo, had intended to kill her after services rendered to avoid leaving traces, but fortunately, before he could carry out his intention, he was shot several times in the head by his friends and then disappeared in small pieces in the Bayou. Unfortunately for her, Carlo's boss is furious with her for allegedly helping him disappear by providing him with new papers. A rather corpulent Mafia gentleman with the poetic and original name of Fat Clemenzo has set out to make a rather bloody example of her. It might help if you told her it was time to change jobs.
Dad."
Jonathan dropped the small letter on the table and muttered:
"What the hell does everyone think I am, Search and Rescue? It's gotten to the point where I have to save criminals from other criminals."
Elise heard him and her interest was piqued:
"What's up, love?"
He handed her the letter from his father as his eyes lit up gold and he scanned the woman in question and her surroundings to see if she was in any danger that would require his immediate intervention. Elise now had a grin on her face as well:
"Your father sure knows how to pick them. What's your plan?"
He looked at her:
"Get the documents I need and come home, after which some prick will shoot her in the head and the baby will inevitably die too."
He shook his head for the umpteenth time that day and dreaded getting a headache.
"Picking up, of course, other than that no idea at the moment. I really need to energize my brain or it's going to melt down again!"
Meanwhile, the girls emerged from the pool, ran with Maximus to the table, and took their seats. They looked at Zelo and Jules asked eagerly:
"Are you really a Demon and a friend of Dad's?"
The Demon nodded. To which Jon immediately said:
"No girls, Zelo is not just my friend. He is my little brother."
Sam said:
"You don't look like a Demon."
This made the three adults smile and Zelo asked:
"What should I look like then, girl?"
"Well, like in the movies, yucky."
"Sorry to disappoint you, hell spawn. But that's how we look in Dis."
It seemed that the girls were already so in tune with each other that they started to act more and more like real twins. Jules asked the next question without pausing:
"What is Dis?"
Zelo looked at Jon for a moment and said:
"Boss, these are Princesses of Hell, you will have to teach them something about Hell and its structure anyway."
He focused on the girls again:
"Dis is the city in Hell where I and others live, and where your grandfather's palace is located. In Dis, we just look like you humans. However, the deeper you descend into Hell through the circles, the more, euch... yucky, the Demons become."
"Circles? How many are there?"
With that, the Demon laughed out loud and manifested a book. It was a copy of Dante's Inferno. Jon immediately slapped his hand on it:
"I hope this is the PG-13 version, friend!"
"Of course!"
Jon let go of the book and Zelo pushed it towards the twins. They looked at it, but before they touched it, Jules asked:
"What is it about?"
"It describes Hell and the circles. It was written by an Italian poet named Dante. Your dad's uncle, Bearus, thought it would be a fun idea to take the author, who was already a little weird in the head anyway, on a tour of Hell. If you want to hear stories about what your dad was like as a kid and what mischief he liked to get into, you should talk to Bearus or your Aunt Rae Rae, because I've heard that your dad got into just as much trouble with her."
The girls got a mischievous look and Elise got a pretty big smile. Jon turned playfully to Zelo:
"I'm trying to give these girls a good education, brother. Now you give them the names of two people they should stay away from. Remember, I was alone back then, there are four of them!"
At two o'clock Zelo had disappeared back to hell, the girls with their noses in the book they had been given. Maggie walked into the garden. A very handsome but very nervous young blond followed her with an equally blond-haired boy. Jon immediately sensed that the boy was walking through life full of optimism and with his head held high, even though he and his mother had it anything but easy. At the table, Maggie said with her eternal smile:
"Hello, girls. Elise, Jon, I want you to meet Liz and her son Brandon."
Jon stood up to shake hands with her new guests. The young woman hesitated to shake his hand, but the boy held out his hand without hesitation and said:
"Pleasure to meet you, sir."
This courtesy made both Elise and Jonathan smile. She remembered exactly how to address him without words and said:
"Hmmm, would boys like that get through your screening, love?"
He answered just as silently:
"Absolutely not, so polite, there's guaranteed to be something behind that kind of brat...straight to hell...Ted Bundy material...."
He heard her hooting in his head. He said to their guests:
"Please sit down and what would you like to drink?"
Elise didn't hesitate for a second and said:
"Definitely a glass of that heavenly Chardonnay Love."
With a grin, he said:
"Hmmm, are you addicted to me and my wine Red?"
"If you only knew babe. You really have to try this wine ladies, just divine."
They nodded and he snapped his fingers and three beautiful crystal glasses appeared and an ice bucket with a bottle at the perfect temperature. For himself, he had another large glass of his favorite mix."
Jon waited a moment for the ladies to take a sip, during which he had seen Liz's eyes widen, obviously, she was already enjoying the wine as much as Elise. He asked:
"Miss Bush, may I call you Liz or Elizabeth?"
"Absolutely, My Lord!"
"Fine, I'll call you Liz if you call me Jon or Jonathan."
She turned a little red in the face as she nodded.
"I take it Maggie has explained everything to you?"
Maggie interrupted for a moment:
"No, not everything. Just that she needed to pack her things right away and be ready because I was coming to pick her up. I thought it would be better coming from you, Jon."
He shook his head:
"Okay Liz, the blunt truth first. You are in deep shit. No or absolutely no stable work, financial problems, debts and you are in danger of losing the roof over your head... again. That will end now. For starters, we're going to give you shelter. A few miles from here, we have a house big enough for both of you. Free living, no expenses, no taxes, nothing. You can decorate the house any way you want, our tab. Say what you want or let Elise take you on a hunt for what you like because we need some stuff too. For now, Brandon and you will stay here for a while until we get the house ready to move into. All your debts will be wiped off the table the moment you have a list of amounts and names. That is already yours anyway, no questions asked, no strings attached. I also want to offer you a job. Effective immediately, I need a personal assistant to take some of the load off my shoulders. Unfortunately, I have too many irons in the fire, so I can't really attend to the more mundane matters. I could use your help in this regard."
He made a small stack of paper appear:
"This is a contract for your employment. Please take your time to read it. Afterward, Red here will show you the way to my office, and then you can tell me if you want to take the job or not and if anything needs to be changed in this contract."
He got up to go to the office:
"If you'll excuse me, ladies, I have a few things to do. Oh yes, Maggie, would you mind playing taxi again? Take our young gentleman here with you. If you bring him and the girls back later and he doesn't have a completely new wardrobe and outfit for the campus, I will not be happy with you, uppity witch. Honey, just in case I lose track of time, will you come and slap me on the head at a quarter to four because I have to pick up our little criminal? And while you are sitting here with three women at the table, it is absolutely forbidden to gossip about this poor Antichrist."
He turned and walked toward the house. He looked back for a moment and called out:
"Hey, half-witted Hell-hound, are you coming with me or are you going to keep making fun of me?"
Max looked at him for a moment, then turned and demonstratively showed his back, giggling like Muttley. Muttering, he stepped into the house:
"Traitor, I should take you back and pick up one of your litter mates, maybe they would be more grateful!"
Jules and Sam sat watching the scene with undisguised glee. Once he was out of sight, Maggie asked:
"What does all that even mean?"
Elise burst out laughing:
"Jon had to go to Hell last night because he needed to see his father. There he had the brilliant idea of bringing along a Hell-hound Pub as extra protection for the girls. Before they are named, they are horrible things, run away from a nightmare. Jon gave him a name, Maximus, and a reason to exist, to protect the girls and all the little ones without exception. The beast did indeed change, but as you can see, he did not turn into a dog, but into a lynx. Max clearly has a mind of his own and together with the girls he seems to enjoy annoying Jon as much as possible. For a moment I thought he was going to have a brain hemorrhage when he saw his Hell-hound floating on a pink flamingo in the middle of the pool with his paws in the air and sunbathing his belly".
With that, Maggie burst out laughing, but Liz remained suspiciously silent. As she read her contract, she had grown paler and paler. Elise asked:
"Is something wrong Liz?"
She tapped her finger on the contract:
"This...this...this..."
She grabbed her glass and drained it in one gulp, grabbed the bottle, filled her glass to the brim, and slammed it down as well. With a sly smile, Elise said:
"From the way you were suddenly thirsty, I take it this was not out of any great disappointment?"
The blond shook her head firmly:
"I have never seen such an amount on paper, let alone as a paycheck. I don't know if I'm dreaming or not, but I'm already afraid that this isn't real."
She tapped the document again:
"With this, I'll never have to worry about Brandon again, about his school lunch..."
At the utterance of these last words a spot went on in her head, she hadn't really been paying attention when Jon had said it and now the full realization came. Amused, Red said:
"In three, two, one..."
"Did he just say Brandon has to go with Maggie to get a whole new wardrobe and school uniforms because he has to go to campus?"
"Yep, welcome to the family, Liz. Get used to it, this little Antichrist of mine only knows one gear and that's full speed ahead!"
Liz sat there stunned. Finally, she managed to get two words out:
"Holy shit..."
Elise had let Liz calm down a bit and then led her into Jon's small office.
"Do you need anything else besides our Liz, love?"
"Yeah, no more surprise guests and no more letters from my dad because who knows what else he's got in that scrambled head of his."
Both women had to chuckle a little.
"Red, join me, I'm playing with an idea and would love to hear what you have to say about it."
They sat down and Jon looked at Liz:
"So are you going to take the job and if so do you want any changes to your contract Liz?"
She shook her head hard and said quickly:
"No Jon, this is so generous. Everything you've done here in such a short time to help Brandon and me, it still doesn't sink in, to be honest."
He said teasingly:
"You'll have to do that trickling through tonight on your own time, I'm not paying for it."
He sat up straight in his chair:
"Liz, have you ever heard of the Deflin House?"
"Yes, it's a very large old plantation house. The yard out front is huge, but you should see the one out back. It's a couple of football fields long and wide, and it's completely surrounded by a large, wooded area."
In front of him was a new laptop with a new cell phone on it. Jon pushed it toward her.
"I need all the information you can find on the estate. It's for sale and I want it. At least I have a strong suspicion that we will absolutely need it."
He took a sip of his drink and said:
"We know that the white witches here in Baton Rouge are under pressure. After doing some research, it seems to be the case everywhere, all over the world. That's your second task, Liz, by the way, I want to get as much information on that as possible, print it out, and throw it on my desk here so I can go through it. I was thinking of starting a pilot project. White witches, like you Liz, who are so deep in the shit that they would be on the streets soon. I want to take them and their families, if they have them, and put them in Deflin House after I renovate it and make it into living units. Unfortunately, the situation seems to be getting so out of control that the house alone will not be enough. That brings us to your third task. I want the name of a company that has a very large inventory of these large luxury trailers. I could build a mini village in the backyard. What do you think?"
The three of them brainstormed until Elise suddenly said:
"Jon, you have to go pick someone up."
He chuckled and stood up:
"Okay, I'll go change and then I'll go get our little criminal."
In the bedroom, he changed his look. From casual jeans to a perfectly tailored Prada suit. He tucked in his cuff-links, put on the jacket, and straightened his pocket square. He looked in the large mirror, satisfied with his appearance, and snapped his fingers. He appeared in a room that looked like a software engineer's workshop. Computers and laptops were everywhere, and two large tables were hidden under monitors. The young woman got the fright of her life when she saw him appear out of nowhere. She pulled a gun from under the table and started shooting. She was quite a marksman, hitting him three times in the heart area and twice in the forehead. Before she knew what was happening, Jon had pulled the gun out of her hands. Wide-eyed, he looked at the three holes in his tailored suit and gasped for a moment:
"What da fuck?"
He looked at her and pointed at his suit:
"Girl, you know this is Prada, or used to be Prada! I'm so not in the mood for this shit..."
He clenched the hand that held the weapon into a fist, and the weapon was reduced to scrap metal. He let the small pieces fall to the ground. The young woman looked at him with blank eyes and kept her hands on her pregnant belly. Jon wasn't done expressing his outrage:
"You know those things are dangerous, before you know it, an innocent gets hurt or worse. Those are really no toys for pregnant girls. Correction for no one!"
She stammered:
"What are you mister, please don't hurt my baby..."
"Man, I'm starting to see why Dad's so pissed off all the time. Girl, I'm not here to eat your baby or claim your soul or whatever da fuck! Do you know a guy named Piedro Clemenzo? Well, he's out with some of his goons, and they've decided to go with sawed-off shotguns. Just try to imagine what would happen to you and your baby if you got shot like that..."
She turned green and looked like she was about to throw up.
"Oh no, fuck no... You've already made three holes in my suit, there's no way you're going to puke all over my Louboutins."
He snapped his fingers a few times in front of her eyes:
"Okay, just focus for a minute. If you had to leave in a very big hurry, but you wanted to keep forging documents, what would you take with you from all this crap?"
Before she could say anything, he said:
"Thank you."
He knew exactly what she was thinking. The material she had in mind immediately disappeared into his storage area for later use. The rest of the electronics were rendered completely useless. He took her by the arm, snapped his fingers, and appeared back at home by the pool. Elise and Liz immediately saw that he was annoyed. He gently pulled the woman over to the lounge and said:
"Red, take a look at this. If I were you, I would check her for hidden weapons. I really don't feel like changing my clothes more than twice in one day. I'm going to go upstairs, take a cold shower, and put on a tracksuit, at least it won't be so bad if it goes to shit. Red, that was a midnight blue Prada, it was fucking new, never been worn, and now it's five thousand dollars in the garbage!"
With that, he turned and disappeared into the house muttering. The woman still stood there, pale, confused and open-mouthed. Elise gently took her arm:
"Domino, welcome to the crazy train. Don't worry, this Antichrist is as gentle as a lamb. He's just a little upset because you seem to have ruined his Prada."
"Antichrist?"
"Yes, how do you think you get from one place to another in an instant?"
"The son of the Devil wears Prada and is mad because I put holes in it?"
"Yes, from what I've been told, his father is also a big fan of Prada. If he had worn one of his Saville Row suits, he would probably have gone into mourning and started crying."
The woman fell into a seat and began to cry:
"My poor baby..."
"What's wrong with your baby, Domino?"
"Something must have happened to me and I'm hallucinating. Who will take care of my baby..."
Elise and Liz hugged her and Red said quietly:
"Domino, you are not hallucinating, you are perfectly healthy, your baby is perfectly healthy. Yes, it is a bit of a madhouse here, but everything is real. You are completely safe here. Jonathan may be the son of Lucifer, but there is not an evil bone in his body. Liz and Brandon, our beautiful daughters, and I have all been saved by him from total misery or worse, much worse. He's just...hmmm.... a little eccentric from time to time."