Lily's Demonic Tales - Ch.11 - Jim, part 2 (Patreon)

*** Content warning: mention of identity alteration; hospital / medical content; injuries; death ***

*** This chapter is available to all patrons since there was unexpected plot & character development, and it's not an NSFW chapter. The events of Part 1 are summed-up in Lily's narration, so everyone should get the gist of what's going on. In terms of timeline, this chapter falls between Demon Mom chapter 22 and Demon Mom chapter 23. It is not required reading, but it will explain some minor details that come up in future chapters.  ***

=::= Lily's PoV =::=

I let out another long, deep sigh as I sat back in my big leather chair.

After a furtive glance towards my larder door at the top of the spiral staircase I muttered to myself, "Come on Lilith. Quit your stalling."

My attempt at self-encouragement didn't work, and I found myself procrastinating yet again.

A full week had passed since I took that soul. In retrospect I should have consumed it immediately. Instead I thought to keep it for a few days, since I was still sated from the other one at the time.

Worse than keeping it, I decided to play with it. I decided to torment it.

I thought to give it a taste of what hell might be like, if there really was such a place. It seemed like a just fate. So I reached inside the transmisic soul known as Jim and changed him into that which he hated most. I made her a trans girl. Then I went on to torment her much like she'd attempted to do to Amber and Mara.

The problem was that very quickly stopped being entertainment for me. It was obvious in hindsight, but in making her a trans girl I made her too much like the humans under my protection. On some level I stopped seeing her as an enemy, as food, and started seeing all the ways she was similar to the humans I cared about.

After that, tormenting her only served to make both of us feel worse.

Now I'd reached the point where I actually regretted my decisions. I felt guilt and remorse. I recognized that what I was doing to her wasn't punishment or justice, I was only playing out the same abuse she once sought to deliver upon my human companions.

My mistake was obvious in hindsight. I should have consumed her immediately. Had I done that, all would have been well and good. I wouldn't be stuck dealing with these...emotions.

I often accused Mara of projecting her human feelings on me, but now I couldn't deny the truth. She wasn't projecting them so much as they were rubbing off on me. And thanks to those emotions, I now felt sorry for the soul I had locked away in my larder. 

She'd clearly learned her lesson. She exhibited remorse, regret, and guilt for her past actions. She never even asked me to stop what I was doing to her, she seemed to believe she deserved it because of how she'd behaved in the past towards those she didn't understand at the time.

The whole situation left me with a conundrum. 

I had a soul and I didn't know what to do with it. I knew what I should do, but I didn't want to do that anymore. As for what I wanted to do, all I knew for sure was it was something I probably shouldn't do.

And finally I knew that whatever I did, I had to do it soon. I couldn't keep her in my larder indefinitely, she was already starting to fade. If I left it much longer, it'd actually start costing me energy to keep her intact.

After wasting a full week, I had to act tonight. There were three options that I could see before me. 

The one I knew intellectually to be the correct choice was to consume her. I should have done that right from the start. After leaving it a week I'd barely get any sustenance from her, but it would resolve my quandary immediately. 

Yet if I consumed her, the lessons she'd learned would be lost. That somehow felt wrong to me, but I couldn't quite put into words why. And beyond that, I didn't think I could bring myself to end her now. Feeling guilt was a new experience for me, but I already knew I didn't like it and didn't want to go on experiencing it.

The middling option was to simply release her, let her pass on to whatever awaited her in the beyond. Reincarnation, afterlife, heaven, hell, whatever fate had in store for her wasn't any of my business.

The last choice, the merciful one, was something I'd never done before. The very idea would have been alien to me mere months ago, but now it was what my heart, my emotions were pulling towards. Attempt to restore her, revive her. Put her soul back into a living body. This felt like the right choice, even if it wasn't the correct one.

Give her another chance at life, a chance to put her newly-learned lessons into practice. A chance to make amends for her past misdeeds. Not to mention, it would let me escape the guilt and regret I felt every time I thought about what I'd been doing to her for the past seven days.

One thing was certain, whatever I did tonight I'd never again allow myself get involved with a meal. That left me feeling foolish. People like her were supposed to be food. They were prey, not pets. 

No more playing with your food, Lilith!

The whole thing reminded me too much of my progeny and her reluctance to kill. I always said she was too soft, too compassionate. Now here I was coming up with excuses and trying to rationalize sparing the soul of someone who'd caused legitimate harm to humans under my protection.

It also left me with some new conflicts. Humans in general were my prey, my food. But not all of them. I had a small but growing number of them who were under my protection, under my care. Not just Mara and her girlfriends, but all the humans important to the four of them were also important to me.

The line between friend and food was growing more blurry, and I wasn't sure if that should worry me or not. 

I took another deep breath then let out a long sigh, and finally made my mind up. I'd spare the trans girl in my larder. I'd restore her, give her a second chance.

Having made the decision, the next challenge facing me was how to actually do it. Her own body was long gone, dead and buried. While I could conjure a new one from nothing, that took a lot of energy and it wasn't permanent. And I couldn't sign a pact with her since I was already pacted with Mara. Not that I'd sign a pact with her regardless.

The obvious answer was I needed to find another body that I could put her in, except that had its own issues. Namely, most living bodies tended to have a soul already attached to them.

Fortunately it didn't take long to hit upon a possible solution to that. There were places where both bodies and souls tended to come and go fairly regularly. I could simply visit one of those locations, and with some luck I'd find a shell that had been recently vacated but was still alive enough for me to use.

A little application of my magic ensured Mara wouldn't wake while I was busy, then I slipped out into our body. I carefully extricated ourself from in between the other two sleeping girls, and expended some energy on a teleport spell.

A few moments later I found myself walking silently through the emergency ward of our nearest hospital. We were naked, Mara's horns and tail were out, but we were invisible, unseen.

Or so I assumed.

I looked in each room as I walked past, until I found myself in an empty room at the end of the hall. I hadn't found anything suitable yet, and I was second-guessing myself again. It was a long-shot, a silly idea. I should just accept that my emotions were leading me astray and either consume her or let her move on. 

I spent a few moments temporarily lost in thoughts and doubts, and didn't realize I wasn't alone until a voice startled me from my contemplations.

"What are you? What are you doing here?"

I spun around and found myself face to face with an older woman wearing the uniform of a hospital volunteer. She looked to be in her late fifties or early sixties, with short greying brown hair and laugh lines around her sharp blue eyes. The name-tag pinned to her blue vest identified her as Joanne.

For a few moments I was at a loss for words. Our body was still invisible, yet this woman could obviously see me. Or at least sense me.

I tried to read her, but got nothing. I knew she was there, she was solid and not an illusion or spirit, yet her mind was opaque to me.

"Well?" she asked. "I know you're there, you may as well speak up."

Her tone was wary, but not angry.

I finally found my voice and asked "Are you a seer?"

The woman shook her head, "I'm a reaper. Now who are you and what are you doing on my turf?"

A reaper. I'd heard of them, but as far as I knew I'd never encountered one in my eight thousand years. Though in retrospect, finding one at a hospital wasn't a surprise. 

"My name is Lily," I replied. "I'm carrying a human soul in need of a new body, I thought I might find a suitable vessel here."

Her eyes narrowed, and she almost seemed to sniff the air. "One body, three souls. And you smell of both demons and humans. Interesting."

I didn't know her kind could do that, but then I'd never had reason to learn about them. 

"I'm not here to hunt," I told her. "I just want to help one of the souls I'm carrying. If you're not comfortable with that I'll go someplace else."

Joanne stared at me for a few seconds then said, "I may have something for you. Come with me."

Without waiting she turned on her heel and walked away while I hurried after her. She led me back out the way I came. We passed the emergency waiting area, even at this hour on a weeknight there was over a dozen people there waiting their turn for help. 

One of them caught my eye and if I was hunting, he'd be my next meal. He was a middle-aged man with some cuts and bruises on his face, and a pair of handcuffs on his wrists. Waiting with him were two grumpy-looking cops. As we passed the waiting room I took a moment to memorize the scent of the man's soul, with a plan to visit him again later.

I followed Joanne down another corridor, and finally into one of the rooms. The lights were dimmed and there was a figure laying motionless in the bed. The only sounds came from the machines she was connected to. I didn't know how to read the information on them, but I didn't need to. 

Joanne addressed me in a quiet voice as she gestured to the body that lay before us. "Katherine Conway, age seventeen, killed by a drunk driver. The machines are keeping her body alive for now, but I've already helped her soul on its way. Her parents will be here soon, to say goodbye before the machines are turned off. If you can repair the damage then this might meet your needs?"

"Yes," I responded as I inspected the body, "Thank you." 

There were some superficial injuries, a few broken bones, cuts and bruises. The wound that killed her was a fatal head injury resulting in significant brain damage. The body was still alive for now, thanks in part to the machines.

The reaper took a step back and watched as I used my magic to heal the body. It was something of a loophole that usually had little practical use to me. Normally I couldn't effect permanent magic on people unless they signed a contract, but this was an empty shell rather than a person. 

I didn't completely heal her, that would have been much too blatant. Instead I merely reduced the severity of the head injury such that it still looked impressive but wasn't much worse than a bad concussion. I also ensured none of her other injuries would have permanent consequences. There would be a bit of a stir over her 'miracle recovery' but that couldn't be helped.

It only took me a few seconds and the body was ready. All it needed was a soul to animate it. 

I slipped inside and summoned her from the larder. The trans girl who was once known as Jim fell to her knees and closed her eyes. 

"It's time, isn't it?" she asked in a whisper. "Please tell Amber and Mara I'm sorry, I didn't understand before."

I kept my voice level and calm as I told her, "I've decided to give you a second chance at life. It's not going to be easy, but you'll have the opportunity to be a better person this time around."

She looked up at me, her expression a mixture of confusion, hope, and gratitude.

I couldn't think of anything else to say to her, the whole thing felt awkward and strange to me. I was still having second-thoughts and questioning whether or not I was doing the right thing, so I decided to just get it over with.

Back out in our body I moved closer to the injured girl on the hospital bed. I pulled the blankets back and placed my hand on her chest over her heart, then focused. I'd never done this before but I knew how to do it. With concentration and effort, I forced my last meal back out and pushed her soul into the unconscious body before me.

The machines monitoring her beeped once as her heart rate stuttered, then everything was quiet again. 

Katherine would regain consciousness in the next half hour or so. Instead of saying goodbye to their daughter, her parents would be overcome with relief at her unexpected recovery. Doctors would scratch their heads and wonder. And with luck, I'd be able to forget this whole uncomfortable situation ever happened.

I straightened the blankets over the sleeping girl then turned away. 

Joanne was still there watching. She commented, "I know you said you weren't here to hunt but if you're interested, the drunk driver who killed her is out in the waiting area with a couple cops."

"I saw him," I replied as my lips curled into a slight smile. "And I will pay him a visit later." 

"Good," the reaper smiled as well. 

With that, she turned and left to return to her regular business here. And I waited until my next meal was alone, then made short work of him. And this time I didn't play with my food.

By morning there was a bit of a stir among the hospital staff. Some were talking about the miraculous recovery of a teenage girl, others about the mysterious death of the drunk driver who nearly killed her. Nobody was unhappy with the way things worked out, and many of the conversations had to do with karma. Most agreed that if anything supernatural happened, at least it was a worthwhile trade-off.

A few people attributed my actions to their god or one of his angels, but that wasn't new. I'd heard that sort of thing before and it always amused me to think of humans praying to their god to give thanks for the work of a demon.

As for Katherine, she would retain the memories of her life as a man named Jim, including the lessons she learned at the end. She would also have access to some of the original Katherine's memories as well, but those were incomplete. Unfortunately many of them were lost due to the damage received in the accident. 

She would likely spend the next few weeks in casts and bandages, and perhaps some time in rehab or therapy. Physically she should make a complete recovery. How she did mentally was up to her, but I had a feeling she'd take my words to heart. She'd make the most of her second chance and be a better person going forward.

Finally, I made myself a promise that I'd never again let myself get into a position where I felt sorry for my food. Never again would I take it upon myself to torment or punish them for their misdeeds. I'd make it as quick, painless, and merciful as I could. It even crossed my mind that perhaps my progeny was right all along. Maybe we didn't need to kill humans after all, if we could gain sustenance in other ways.

I also promised myself to keep this whole mess secret. I knew I'd never hear the end of it, if Mara ever found out what I'd done tonight.