Rocket's Red
Glaring
By
Even the three demons could tell that it was a nice
night. The twilight had that
rush-of-Essence feel to it, the pleasant breeze carried with it a certain
spice, the temperature quite acceptable for the month and location... all quite
attractive. Even the fact that there
were no talking monkeys to slap around wasn't an issue; the business they had
would have made an audience a problem.
An easily fixed and buried problem, to be sure, but none of the three
felt like digging more than one grave tonight.
The leader swatted at a firefly as he poked a head around the corner of
the restaurant. There, on the patio,
just as expected...
Their victim was both facing and obviously waiting
for them: knobbed hands resting easily on the knees of his striped pants;
antique blue coat neatly slung over a chair; top hat already knocked askew on a
lined, but vigorous face. He didn't look
amused to see them, either. Not
unexpected, and neither was the lack of fear in his cold, blue eyes.
The three demons stopped well short of the old
man. The leader formally cleared his
throat; there were formalities, after
all.
"Uncle,"
- not an honorific, and the old man
decidedly did not take it as such - "you know you're not to run off like
this."
In response, the very slightest narrowing of eyes,
yoked to a voice colder than the eyes: "One chance. Turn around, walk away, start coming up with
an excuse."
"The Boss has heard them all already. We can do this easy,
or hard..." A bark of laughter interrupted the demon.
"Tain't
up to you whether this is easy or hard." The old man seemed flushed with anger, to the
mild surprise of the leader (although that might have been from the glow of the
insects). "Tain't up to you to say who I belong to, either. I was here when your 'Boss' was just another
leech humping cathode rays, and I'll be here to see him canceled, too. I say this with no personal reflection on
you, of course: you didn't ask to end up yoked to the shiftless
peckerwood. I am surprised that you haven't gotten shut of him by now, but then I
guess that being yellow's what they call a survival tactic among your kind."
The leader readjusted the grip on the collar of his
more excitable colleague, who had been ready to start swinging right about the
"cathode rays" portion.
"Wait." A quick cuff.
"And don't glare at me.
He'll eat every word of that. If he's lucky." An even quicker look
at the third demon. "Hit the
switch!"
The third demon theatrically brandished a box with a
large red button, then even more theatrically pushed
it. A faint green glow suffused the
patio as eldritch energies formed a translucent dome overhead. The old man's only reaction was to raise a
bushy eyebrow.
"I'm sure that you'll tell me why I'm supposed
to be scared now."
"I can't wait, Uncle. That's a new toy we
borrowed from the Genius Prince. It's
shutting you off completely from the juice you're - what's the word? Right: 'leeching' - from the talking
monkeys. You're going to have to fight
us on whatever you brought in you already, and you know something? I don't think that you've got enough to take
us all down." The three all started
flexing a little. "Fun to watch you
try, though."
The old man stood up. "I won't bother to try to explain to you
the difference between taking and receiving; if you
knew it you wouldn't be here. Nybbas
does this every year, and it's getting old.
It's my birthday, dammit. I have
better things to do with my time than school ignorant demons that he's too busy
to chastise himself.
"Let me mention two things that you mamzers might
have missed. One, this is my Day. I don't get more powerful than this. I've got hundreds of millions of people
celebrating and watching the fireworks and going 'ooh.' That's oomph.
That's enough oomph to give the fireworks
some juice, ya, you betcha. People believe in 'em,
at least a little, you know? Not enough
to let the spirits in them last too long, but enough. It works out, though: they sorta know to come look for me,
and I find something for them to do.
Blaze of glory, you know. That's
the first thing. The
second?"
Every "firefly" trapped in the patio
suddenly stopped in midair, and hovered.
The demons blinked. Their leader
blanched as he remembered that pleasant breezes on Earth generally didn’t
involve sulfur.
"The second thing that you missed is that fireflies don't glow red."
Uncle Sam smiled.
"Which means that I'm not
trapped in here with you, boys: all y'all are trapped in here with us.
Guess you should've run when I told you to." He looked at the "fireflies." "You dudes ready? Yeah? Well, all right,
then.
"Fire in the
hole."