Upbeat Hyena 8 (Patreon)

Upbeat Hyena
Chapter 8

-VB-

Technically speaking, I was a god.

A god of demons.

While I ruled over my newly turned demons, I also didn’t pay each and every single one of them the attention I gave to Viviane or Angelina. Hell, I didn’t know half of the names of the demons whose intelligence wasn’t up to par with regular humans, even though they used to be human.

So.

I really should have expected this.

I stared down at the barely breathing humans in front of me. They laid in front of me, struggling in the ropes that tied their wrists and ankles down to the altar made out of scrap metal and plastic and bleeding from stab wounds in their legs and arms.

On the other side of the altar that a small portion of my true self had been summoned to was a demon that I had created and six hooded cultists.

I smiled.

“Is thissss a meal you are offering?” I asked them as I assumed the form of a shadow serpent. No detail about me could be discerned about me, not even distance beyond what one could “calculate” from my size they observed. Even so, I saw in their eyes a giant serpent made out of nothingness, absorbing light like a black hole and taking up nearly a third of the nearly torn down church that they had gathered for the summoning.

“Yes, father~,” the young demon in front of me crooned as he kowtowed in front of me. “This Bagaram only wish to please the God of Demons.”

So I became a god without even thinking about it.

“... Do you sssseek a boon, my child?” I hissed as I brought my head close to the sacrifices. I could smell their fear and … innocence. Bah. That wasn’t tasty, not as much as sins were. I glanced down at them and noticed how young they were. Not children but also not adults. Teenagers?

“Yes-!”

“Then you have brought me very poor sacrificessss,” I hissed irritably.

Bagaram slammed his head into the cracked concrete floor. “Please forgive me, father! I did not know!”

The cultists bowed with it. “FORGIVE US!”

I crinkled my eyes into eye smiles. “You lot are all willing to learn. That’sss good…” I hummed, intentionally playing up my reptilian appearance by dragging out the s. “A suitable gift must be one filled with sinsss,” I hissed. “An innocent child tastesss like dresssssingless vegan stiff and bitter lettuce salad sprinkled with ground-up tree rootsss.”

I flickered a fake snake tongue at the innocents in front of me. They smelled pure and healthy.

“Do not call me again without a proper meal, Bagaram…” I hissed and allowed myself to dissipate from the mortal plane.

… Well, that happened! I wanted to know if other demons were doing this.

-VB-

Bagaram kept up his kowtow, unwilling to look up lest he showed his followers just how embarrassed he felt.

It took a minute to control himself and he stood back up.

He was no longer little Eric. He wasn’t the Lodge gang’s little bitch boy. He wasn’t weak. He was strong. He just made a mistake here, that’s all. Like his father said, if he could learn, then that was good.

He would learn here. No biggie. No problem.

“It seems…” he spoke up with a gruff as he turned to face his men. “We are better off improving our society than tearing it down.” With a flicker of his finger, the ropes binding the two teenagers dissolved and they hurriedly got off the alter. “Be happy with your luck, humans,” he sneered. “Father is generous today. I’ve seen him devour innocents and sinners alike before in a feast involving dozens. Leave before I devour you.”

And they ran.

“It seems that we have been operating under a misconception.”

Bagaram huffed when his most devout follower spoke up. “Yes, Acolyte Elissa, but we have learned from this mistake, have we not?”

The black-haired Irish girl nodded. “We have, Baron Bagaram. Still, his majesty was …” she shivered towards the end.

Bagaram, too, shivered, though probably for a different reason. Merely being in the presence of the [Prince of Demons] had made him shiver with fear and awe at the sheer power that leaked out of him.

It was a height he could never reach. He wasn’t stupid enough to think that he could. After all, the [Prince of Demons] drew power from the demons themselves. He knew this instinctively. His majesty was as strong as the whole of demonkind on top of his own personal power.

What was that if not a god?

“There are many villains,” he added with a growl. “Many drug dealers. Many rapists and murderers and loan sharks. They are everywhere humans are.”

“Hey, could we go on a field trip then? Just visit somewhere like Lake Tahoe, sacrifice a few gangsters, enjoy the scenery?”

That wasn’t a bad idea.

“Yes, that sounds like a great idea…” Once he learned to shapeshift like Countess Viviane did, he could enjoy both the fruits of demonkind and the entertainment of the humans. How wonderful.

And then he had an epiphany.

“What if…” he grinned. “There are other demons being born every day. Why don’t we … become an agency?”

“Huh?”

“We gather the newborns. We teach how to worship our father properly so that they do not needlessly incur his wrath. Then we provide information on sinners that we have little intention of taking for ourselves. It will be a network of demonkind benefitting ourselves, our followers, and our future clients.”

His mind chugged and clunked as his imagination took over, and from the way others were reacting, they liked the idea of being the shot callers, too.

“Let’s do it, my lord!” Elissa pumped her fist. “You said it yourself before, did you not? An opportunity exists! All we need to do is take it!”

He grinned. “Yes! This is the day the world will come to know as the day the Sin Hunter Corporation was born!”

That name got some mixed responses. Whatever! He had an idea, and he was going to make a business out of it!

“... Before we do that, sir, shouldn’t we actually make a sacrifice? Your father might be waiting.”

Bagaram paused before nodding. “That is a good idea.”