“That would indeed surprise me. And even if he planned to, I can still order him to like, eat his own tongue instead.”

“He can twist your silly orders around however he wants to! You are coming with me, young lady. We are going to see your father. Kids, you are free to go. Study about what I told you earlier, you hear me?”

The children looked at the demon and whispered excitedly.

Everything in me screamed in protest when she grabbed my hand like a child´s and pulled me into one of the wooden doors. Or tried to pull me. It took a heartbeat and my demon was suddenly next to me, took her hand as if it was a annoying insect and shoved it away.

“Excuse me.”, he growls,

“For standing up. Nobody can force you, to go in there.”

His eyes said “take me and let´s leave this place”.

Pretty tempting. But way too risky for the moment. I wanted to know more about him first. His abilities, his body and his personality. Until I knew what I actually dealt with.

That´s when I would leave this place, of course.

Appledorn tried to stand her ground in the meanwhile, while her face spoke about how tempting it would be to drop the argument and call for help. She was sweating.

She had no demon, will probably never have one. People like that exist.

“Well, that might be true and I know that.”,

I finally answered him,

“But I never ordered you to stop me from doing what I am obviously doing, right?”

“I plead your forgiveness a thousand times.”

He looked at me as if he was being sarcastic. I never thought that was even possible for an animal.

“A thousand times? Well, I want to hear that.”

He didn´t even flinch this time.

“Excuse me, excuse me, excuse me,...”

And he didn´t stop doing this for the rest of the way inside. Appledorn lead the way, but never turned around. She had obviously had enough.

“Excuse me, excuse me, will never happen again, excuse me,...”

After a few alleys of hasty walking, we finally entered a big and somehow cold room with stairs leading to a simple throne at the end of it.

A few gray shapes turned around when we entered the room and some demons inspected us newcomers.

“Excuse me, Never again like this, excuse me, excuse me,...”

I had no idea how he did it, but his voice echoing through the room suddenly sounded threatening.

Appledorn glanced over at us, then faced the throne again and began to speak nervously:

“Father, as you can see – will you please shut your dammed demon up, Kara?”,

She turned around shrieking at me, probably trying to release some of her anxiousness. Well, Sarazeel didn´t seem impressed. He just continued in the same, monotonous voice.

“I will have to ask you to forgive me, forgive me, Mistress, Excuse my wrongdoing, I implore your forgiveness, excuse me,...”

I looked at him, slowly raising my eyebrows.

He finally stopped and smiled at me coldly.

“How many times was that?”, I asked out of curiosity.

“Kara!”

Appledorn was indignant about my infamous behaviour.

“374 times.”

“Well, that´s a lo - “

“Kara, shut the hell up!”

“What is all this fussing about? What is wrong, Appledorn?”

His voice sent shivers down my spine.

It was father.

The leader of the sect. The one we were taught to fear and obey all our lives.