Sub-lets in Hell, chapter 12.

So, who here wants some Hell? I don't know, think I need to work on that line. Anyway, please enjoy:

The teachers were not in the lounge, of course, how could they be? the thing was blocked off with crime scene tape, of all things. That had to be Karen's doing.

Did I need to touch base with them in order to get the languages in line? No. It would help though. I might have enough time to track them down, and the first place to look was unfortunately the cafe.

I mean I got my steps in, so that was fine, but the time spent going there was lost forever. I had to maintain my dignity, so sprinting was out.

Clay was gone from his classroom; I wonder where he was? It didn't really matter, I suppose. I wasn't his keeper.

I could also finish the second glyph. That was also tempting, but I was committed now, and I'd left all my stuff save my notebook behind.

More people were in the hall today, and most of them were silent as I passed. That was fine; overhearing the drama of others was more than a little awkward.

The sun was bright and intense; I didn't let the heat touch me.

The cafe was full, standing room only. That was fine, I could stand.

The two language teachers were in front of the same window as yesterday. This time, however, they were joined by their friends since their friends couldn't really retreat away from me. I squashed the small spike of satisfaction that fostered and parked myself right in the way, taking note of who stared and who didn't.

There were quite a few people staring at me - probably expecting some sort of middle school drama bull; too bad for them.

Instead, I brought out my notebook and flipped it to the page I'd made less than an hour earlier; the page that had all the words I put time into teaching the new blood in my class.

I slapped it down on the table between them. "That's everything I've gotten to so far."

Both the two leaned over, one almost knocking his cup of coffee over to do so. "That is... almost perfect. The grammar is a bit off, here and here. But all in all, I couldn't have done it better myself."

I looked it over, even as the other guy did. Mike? Yeah, Mike. "I don't know. Historically, it makes sense, like slang. Almost every other language tends to shorten things over time, and this looks no different than that. I'd love to know where you got the idea though; some of us suspected at least this one," - he tapped the paper - "but this one? We had no clue."

"I learned from my teacher." I just wouldn't tell them which one; I had the sneaking suspicion they wouldn't take me seriously if I said I learned ancient languages in part from a demon. Even if said demon had met and talked to ancient Romans and Greeks and who knew what else.

I should probably ask Grex about all that, now that I had a little down time. It might prove enlightening. There had been other summoners to try and fill in those history blanks with their demons before, but most had been punked.

After all, demons lie. It's like breathing to them.

"Interesting; I'd have thought professor Harris would have mentioned a theory like this," Mike countered.

"Professor Harris? Was that his name?" I had a vague memory of a man who wore tweed and bow ties - in the desert. He was the guy who was always around the guy who actually taught us what few words in Latin we'd left basic with.

Mike nodded. "The name of the man who taught ancient languages before me, yes. One of the better known scholars in the field."

"Please, you're better than that hack," one of the other teachers from the gallery muttered, just loud enough for everyone to hear.

"That is very kind of you to say," Mike replied to them as if they weren't talking behind someone's back. He even had a smile to give the woman before he turned back to me.

"You got anything else like this?"

Should I? "Yes. But this is what I've taught the recruits so far. How about it? Got any insights or observations? How well does this mesh with that you've gone over with them?"

"You're ahead of both of us in some ways," the other teacher, Zahir, said. "Grammatically we would need to work these into sentences to give meaning, but the words themselves are written flawlessly and translated well. How is your pronunciation?"

I pronounced the word he was looking at, then the sentence Mike had tapped. "You tell me."

"More of an accent than I expected, yet better than average," Zahir returned. He said the same sentence, and of course, it was understandable but different.

Even so, I was willing to bet my way was closer to correct since I'd learned from someone who'd been there.

"Out of curiosity, how fluent are you?" Mike asked.

How fluent indeed... "Second language fluent. I can converse in it if someone wants to. Demons often use the language, so it seemed a good one to learn."

Someone in the peanut gallery piped up before their brain caught their mouth: "Why?"

"Because if a demon is talking to you, most of the time it's something bad, and you want to know what it is before the killing starts." That should be pretty obvious; what the hell were we going to talk about? The weather?

I mean Grex and I did, but that was mainly so I'd know how to spot any hidden messages in conversations before they led to bloodshed.

I was good at chilling conversations; I should probably have been a little better about that one. I guess the peanut gallery weren't the only ones that needed their brain filter adjusted.

Mike muttered something just under his breath that I didn't catch, despite keen hearing, and then got louder: "Well, that makes you a scholar yourself then. You can easily test out and become a professor yourself. Assuming you can read it as well as you speak it, which is pretty obvious to everyone here."

"Something to do once my service is over then." There was no way I'd make it that far, but I wasn't about to bring down the room twice.

Mike smiled, transforming his face; he'd been genial before, but now he looked like a giant kid who'd just been given candy.

"We do need more if we're going to revive these languages," Zahir muttered, mostly to himself. "Maybe with this class we can foster some interest."

They would be extremely lucky if this round of draftees wanted to enter the hallowed halls of academia, but hope sprang eternal and all that. The language wasn't really dead anyway, from what I knew; it just wasn't humans that used it. Even if every human in reality died, the language I knew would continue; it was immortality of a sort - just not the kind we wanted.

"So, back to the subject at hand; you're teaching the kids something like this?"

"Without some of the grammar cues, yes. We're going for rote, not full understanding, though if someone asks, I'll make the time." Knowledge was power, and I was proof that this sort of power was useful in the field.

"Well, we can focus on understanding if you're willing to do some of the heavy lifting on the words themselves. Play it by ear the first two weeks, and see what happens?"

"I don't mind. That understanding might save their lives someday." It had mine, at least twice. Even if I hadn't understood the ward work at first.

They didn't need to know all that, though.

Two weeks wasn't long to see results, but it was a significant amount of three months, and we'd burned most of that already. The clock was ticking. "Sure, that will work. Let me know if there is anything specific you want me to work on? Or better yet, email me your plans, and I'll send over my own. You can find my email on the sheet; I'll leave you to it."

The sheet was a sort of contact list that had all the instructors' names, phone numbers, and emails on it. We'd all gotten a copy; or at least I'd assume we had. Clay and I had after all, and that copy had both our names on it when it reached us.

I didn't want to stay any longer; I hadn't ordered anything, and everyone was still staring, taking in our conversation while trying to appear as if they weren't. More than a little weird; almost like they expected something out of this... encounter? Interaction?

I gave an apologetic wave to the guy manning the place; that line was still long enough that I didn't want to mess with it, and made my exit.

If I hurried... I could make it to the shack I'd been working on earlier, just in time to have to turn around and leave. Or I could take my quest for coffee somewhere else, maybe back in the tower? There were other lounges in the place, and I was technically an officer, so I had a full run of it. Well, everything but the uppermost floors. It would be quicker, and I'd not explored the tower so far. I really should.

I should also fire off a text to Karen, under the CYA clause. It should be fine, but it never hurts to take precautions.

I'd take the stairs because cardio was a thing. I was alone on the staircase, which was interesting; not a single soldier or officer wanted to keep fit here?

A tingle. Right, there were wards here too, hidden in the walls. If I focused on the feeling, I could even point them out; they were that strong. Old, clearly, but strong.

Maybe I'd be able to work on them too. Eventually. No, focus.

The second floor was the most likely target here. I clicked the door open to an empty hallway; that made sense since this was the floor where all the teachers I'd seen in the cafe were. But they should have a perfectly functional teachers' lounge or even an officer's lounge. The map I had of the place said there wasn't, but I had time to explore.

A slightly different but mostly the same grid of hallways, with a series of closed doors, some of which had the names of people on the door, and some of which had the names of departments on the door. Nine out of ten of them were closed, of course, and most of those seemed to have busy people inside.

It was odd there weren't any people in the halls, but maybe that was normal. The first floor only had a few roamers, even during lunch.

I was going to run out of time to find coffee at this point.

Whatever, it was time to cheat. "Grex, veni huc!"

Grex draped hands around me from behind, but I was well used to his shenanigans by now. "You rang?"

"Grex, I need a good coffee."

My demon sighed melodramatically. "But of course you do."

"I don't care where you get it, but the standard rules apply; nothing in it I wouldn't approve of, and you must pay for it."

Grex had a copy of my card at this point; I didn't know where he'd gotten it from, and I honestly didn't care. At least not yet - when he decided to try and buy a Ferrari with my account, then we'd revisit that decision.

He'd either made or put in the paperwork for the card when we got back, at some point, which was a little worrying. When had I given him time to do that? Where had he found that time?

I wanted to ask, but then again I didn't want to ask.

Before I got the chance, Grex vanished in his customary puff of fire. I didn't even need to look to know; the burst of heat and smoke gave it away.

Right. no one had seen my potential breaking of the rules, and it was time to get back to my classroom. Grex would find me there so it was no problem. He'd also be fast enough. Anyone who saw Grex show up probably wouldn't care anyway, it wasn't like they had before. At least on the first floor; here might be a different story.

It might even be good for the students to see. Had I even shown off my demon to the new blood? No, I haven't yet.

There was no time like the present really, and Grex might even help out when the time came to teach these poor fools. Then again, people got a little odd about having a demon out for an extended time because it wasn't something just everyone could do.

That sounded pretty arrogant, even to think. Retracing my steps was easy enough; Karen probably would be getting lost here and checking her phone map.

I made good time, but there were already students trickling in, in various stages of readiness. That was bad, in a way, since the cat would be out of the bag soon.

Why were they hesitating at the door?

The cat was already out of the bag; Grex was here, standing respectfully by my desk and clearly not doing anything weird or demonic. Other than the fact that his wings were out. My coffee was in his hand, and from the looks of things, he'd gone to some hole in the wall place; where the hell was "Richard's Roasts"?

There was also a bag on my desk... from a burger joint in town. The best burger joint in town, in fact. The bag had a note on it, and I could read it from here: "Thought you might be skipping lunch without me, so here you go. If not, just save it for later. love Clay."

Huh. I had skipped lunch; my only concern had been coffee.

Everyone was giving my demon a wide berth, but to their credit, they were walking in and sitting down regardless. No lack of bravery in this bunch.

"I expected you to find me," I told my demon.

"The best way to find someone is to wait where you know they will be," my demon replied with a grin that showed every single tooth he had. Yeah, he knew what he was doing.

"Whatever. Class, this is Grex. He is my demon. He is not a normal demon, but something like him is possible for you all, assuming you pass."

Grex decided to chime in: "Nothing like me is possible for this lot. They lack a certain... everything."

Yeah, I couldn't let that pass. "Don't scare the kids Grex. Anyway class, this is what a demon can look like, and how a demon can behave."

A student shot his hand up in the air. "Yes private?"

"Did you just use your demon as a gopher?"

Oh, they thought that was odd. "Yes, I did, private."

The young man's name was unfortunately Reginald, and he insisted on it rather than a more manageable 'Reg'. Which meant he was going to get one hell of a moniker once he made it out of basic. Probably before.

I took the coffee and sipped. I should probably get into this. "Grex and I have a rather special contract. As a result of the price I paid, he cannot harm me, either directly or indirectly. He could possibly harm me through some form of inaction, but the riders on the standard contract tend to prevent that, or at least most forms of that. The price I paid was rather high, and we will talk about it closer to your own contract deadlines.

The result, however, is I can order my demon to get me coffee, and he will do so according to my desires and with little fear that I will be poisoned or treated to unsavory substances. Which brings me to a good lesson; do not ever trust your demon. This is very much a 'do as I say, not as I do' thing. If you see me doing something with my demon, and you will, do not assume you can do the same; all contracts are different, and most are far less awesome than my own.

The average imp? That demon given the order to grab coffee will sow chaos and discord in their wake even if they are ordered not to. Just assume they will find a way - and if you're lax? That very imp will leave a trail of bodies miles long in order to see you dead and safely in Hell sooner rather than later."

I sipped and sat down. I was a little peckish, thinking about it, and could eat during class. Who would tell me no? "I hope you all have your homework done. Grex, that will be all, go back to hell and wait for me."

Grex bowed low with a flourish and vanished in his customary puff of flame; the wide smile never wavered on his face.

Sometimes I wished I knew what that old evil was thinking. It was better not to know, however. I could ask, but I was never more sure of anything more than that it was better not to know.

My students had settled themselves now that the show was over, and so I got up again to look at their written attempts because it was quite simply easier this way.

I wonder where Clay got the ride from to go off base; did he take the bus? Surely not, right?