The Demon’s Bride

The woman looked at him in fear like the rest of the days since they first met. Beelzebub walked over her, tilting his head, "It still smells like blood."

"The wounds I took will take a month or more to heal," the woman replied and Beelzebub hummed.

"Seemed like that is one of the drawbacks of being a human. For now you will be safe if you decide to not become stupid and left this greenhouse. It is the only place that could take you in and I am certain for you it is your safest place, don't you?" Beelzebub asked and the woman clenched her hands. 

"You are not the head of this house aren't you? If you are, you would have let me inside the house. Won't your father or mother turn livid if they knew you keep me here?"

"No don't do this, human. I know what you are doing and I dare you to stop the idea in your mind by thinking your can threaten me and turn the table around because it won't happen," Beelzebub narrowed his eyes in threat, "Who do you think my parents would sided with? You or me? If they knew you are here there would be one thing that I am definitely certain they would do before anything and that is to kill you."

The woman pursed her lips, "There are people chasing after me and if they know you kept me here, you would regret it—"

"Death angels," Beelzebub interrupted, causing the woman to look at him with wide eyes and shock. "Those are the ones who are chasing after you, am I wrong?"

"How do you know?" The woman gasped as she thought her identity was hidden well.

Beelzebub rolled his eyes. "It would be stupid if I don't. The death angels are at ill rest because of a certain someone who had stolen their precious key. They came searching for that soul but wasn't able to and here you are, appearing before me while drenched with blood. Perfect coincidence? I think not."

"I thought demons are supposed to be scared of death angels," yet Beelzebub spoke about the death angels as if they were nothing that confused the woman. 

"You mean lesser demons but I'm not," Beelzebub spoke with his shoulders raised. "Why did you do it?" 

The woman didn't see the chance for her to refuse to answer and with pursed lips she said, "I wanted to leave the abyss."

"Are you that sure you are going to face your punishments in Hell?" Beelzebub questioned. The only reason for human to ran away from Beelzebub is because they fear they would be sent to Hell, more specific the torture side of Hell.

"I killed people when I was still alive. Many people," the woman confessed. 

Beelzebub kicked his legs around and made his way to sit on the edge of the bench. "But if you wanted to run, you could have just left without taking the key. That key in your hands are only a burden to your escape plan. There's only two reason for you to decided and steal the key from what I can see. First; you want to avenge your anger to the death angels out of spite or two: you wanted to take the resurrection book but only got they key. I bet on the second one. Am I right?"

The woman continue to stare at his red eyes and after a while she finally sighed, resting her back that once was tense to the back if the tree which she had been leaning at. "You are far from being a child. Are you really a child or did you shape shift?"

"I haven't learn how to shape shift and I am a child, at least by the demons' term but in term of humans, I am much older than you, human," said Beelzebub with a grin. "Why do you want to steal the resurrection book? To write your name there?"

He saw the woman shaking her head in response. "I honestly have no concern of my own resurrection. I deserve death and I don't plan to live a hellish life again as a human."

"Then?" Beelzebub was intrigued. His mother had said to him of how humans prioritize themselves above anything yet this woman had stolen the resurrection key not for herself? He was curious to know whom she had stolen the key for.

"My son," the woman answered after a while. "I wanted him to come back to life again. No matter what price I have to pay. If I have to die on the death angel's hands, so be it. I wanted to meet him again and for him to have a second chance in life with a different mother. Someone who is a realm apart compared to me. A warm, a kind, and a loving mother."

Beelzebub who heard this had his eyes glimmered. He didn't know what feeling came onto him and if asked now, he would say he didn't know. Maybe it was sympathy. When he was younger, Beelzebub believed himself to be more mature than his peers, someone with a good head and look on his shoulders; but in the end, he was still naive. 

However, he reminded himself that he was a demon. The emotion called sympathizing to human was hard to believe to be true. Perhaps it was that his interest was caught by the human woman's story that he created a soft spot for her.

Since that day, Beelzebub visited the greenhouse every day he could. He would spent his time listening to the description of the mortal world from her. 

He learned how trees were green, how the rivers were blue and filled with glistening water, and how the sky would be divided into two section called night and morning where in the morning there will be an object called sun flying above the sky to shed bright light toward the world.

Through her discussion, he learned that humans tried to help each other but not most of the time. "That's similar to us demons," he said and the woman raised her brows. Her wound had been healed and she appeared like a sister who decided to express a story to her younger brother. 

"What do you mean similar?" 

"That humans helped each other but not most of the time. Demons do helped each other in contradictory to many beliefs humans held against us. We care about people, we can love them, and we can also give care to them. But we can also remain still over someone's death who doesn't matter to us. Humans, aren't they the same?"

The woman went silent. "Yes, perhaps, humans and demons are the same creature with one bearing horns and wings while the other not."

Beelzebub then stood after their session end. The woman looked to see the rain dripping down the side of the green house glass. 

"Then I will leave-" a soft cover then settled over his head when Beelzebub spoken and he pulled what had covered him to say that it was a piece of blanket which he had previously given toward the woman. "What's this for."

"It's raining, this should give you more coverage from the rain."

"You do know I am a demon and rain will not make me catch a cold or illness like you said humans would, do you?" Beelzebub felt somewhat insulted that the woman thought he had a weak body but she chuckled, shaking her head.

"It's just that I remember I always did the same to my son, and to see you leaving the greenhouse without any cover over your head put me at concern," the woman confessed. Beelzebub found the woman's brown eyes softening. The fear she had at the beginning to him had disappeared and now they felt more like friends rather than a captor and a captive.

Beelzebub honestly didn't know what he felt about the relationship improving. Should he be angered that the woman could think that in their position she was at the same level of him? Or should he be happy that now he had found a friend?

"I'm not sure how I will be happy to know that I have been compared to a human child," Beelzebub made his way quickly toward the door with his cheeks still puffed with air, "But I will take this back and once you have given this to me, you cannot ask it back." And he waited for the woman to regret loosing her precious blanket to add more layer to warm herself in the night inside the greenhouse but she didn't that only had him frown. 

Beelzebub hummed, wondering about his interaction with the human. Strangely enough, even though it had been four weeks since her appearance in the garden, Beelzebub felt somewhat close to the woman now and likewise. 

But he wasn't sure if a friendship with a human was a good thing or a bad one. 

"I have been waiting for you. Where have you gone for five hours?" A strict voice that never failed to send chill to Beelzebub's body rang from behind him. 

Slowly, Beelzebub turned his head to meet his father's darker red eyes, somewhere hearing the tolling bell next to his ears as he did so.