There was a standing closet, too, and its door was open, revealing dozens of Babriel’s uniforms, of every cut and description, some with medals, and many with exaggerated collars and huge cuffs. Babriel had changed into one such. It was white and silver, and came with a peaked cap. Azzie thought he looked so ludicrous as to appear sinister.
“Glad to see you’re making yourself to home,” Azzie said.
“I took the liberty of fixing the place up a little. I’ll gladly restore it to original condition when I leave.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Azzie said. “If I’d known you wanted fancy, you’d have gotten fancy. What’s that?”
He pointed to a rectangular blob of nacre and ormolu that swung from Babriel’s waist.
“Oh, that’s my telephone,” Babriel said. “So I can stay in touch with headquarters.”
Azzie glared at the handset. “They haven’t even issued ours yet!”
“You’ll love them when you get them,” Babriel said.
Chapter 7
It was fine September weather. Azzie became more accustomed to having Babriel living in his house. His room continued to expand, and Azzie had to ask the angel to do some shoring up because it was threatening to capsize the house with its weight and top-heavy leverage. And the training of Prince Charming went on. The young man seemed to be gaining confidence. Azzie had been feeding him a variety of herbal extracts, as well as other exotic ingredients such as powdered unicorn horn, dried banshee shit, and distilled corpse sweat. Charming was now able to hold his own against Frike with the wooden swords, even though Frike fenced with his lame left arm to make the contest more equal. There was definite progress, though it was difficult to say when the young Prince would be ready to face a real foe.
These were quiet days and nights. Azzie regretted only that Ylith was not present. It had been necessary to leave her in the enchanted castle to look after Princess Scarlet, whose rebellious ways were still something of a problem.
One evening, as Azzie was sitting in the living room smoking his pipe and feasting on a small plate of wolverine hearts with teriyaki sauce, there was a great commotion overhead. Babriel, who was reading one of his interminable books on how to be good, looked up startled as he heard the sound of hooves on the roof. Then there came a scraping sound mixed with swearing. They advanced to the chimney. Azzie could hear a loud grunting and moaning now, and at last something large worked its way down.
It was lucky that, it being a mild September night, no fire was going. Santa Claus emerged, some dark stains on his red suit, tasseled cap askew, a scowling expression on his smudged face.
“Why,” Santa Claus demanded, “did you close the flues? It makes it very difficult getting through. And your chimney hasn’t been cleaned in ages.”
“Sorry, Santa,” Azzie said. “I wasn’t expecting you this time of year. Not that you come often to us demons, anyhow.”
“That’s because our charter says we are to bring presents first to humans. And there are more of them every day.”
“I quite understand,” Azzie responded. “In any event, we demons have our own ways of giving and receiving. But why have you come? If it’s a social visit, you could have come in by the front door.”
“It’s business, not social,” Santa Claus said. “I have a rush order here for a young lady witch who gave this as her address. Ylith is her name. Is she around?”
“She’s off at my other place,” Azzie said. “Can I be of help?”
“You can accept this delivery for her.” Santa took a large, gaily wrapped package out of his pack.
“Sure. Glad to.”
“You’ll make sure she gets it?” Santa said. “It’s for a little girl, Brigitte is her name, to whom Ylith promised it.”
“I’ll see that she gets it.”
“Thank you,” Santa said. “I mentioned to Ylith how lonely it gets at the North Pole. She said she’d send some witches my way and I’d give them presents and a good time.”
“Witches are overrated. You won’t like them.”
“You think not? Try a steady diet of elves before you knock witches. Well, must be off.”