The building gave a whole new meaning to the term ‘government housing’.

Even with the sun set, I could see my ‘house’ crystal clear with the help of the street lanterns. I used the term ‘house’ lightly.

Its exterior was literally just a significantly smaller version of the king’s castle. It was the equivalent of having all U.S. government employees live in miniature white houses. To say it stood out in the neighborhood was a huge understatement.

“Wow.” Violetta put her hand above her eyes and looked up at the monstrosity we would be calling home. “It’s beautiful!” I know people said that beauty was in the eye of the beholder, but this was one of the exceptions.

Well, I didn’t have much of a choice. I reached out for the door handle, the key Brad gave me in hand. I only hoped that the interior wasn’t miniature too. With a click, the door creaked open. It was pitch black inside. Horror movie dark. Like, audience screaming for me not to go inside, dark.

It was dark. You get the idea.

“I’m so excited.” Violetta went ahead of me, completely unfazed. She flipped a light switch on the wall by the entrance. The lights came on, and the horrors of the house came into full view.

Okay, so maybe it wasn’t that horrible. It was… actually kind of nice.

I came inside and closed the door behind me. The inside of the house was completely normal, even by human standards. In fact, it reminded me of a high-class apartment. The floors were hardwood and it was fully equipped with brand new furniture and sparkling kitchen utensils. It was… beautiful.

There had to be something wrong with it.

“Isn’t this amazing?” Violetta asked, opening up the pantries. “Wow, they even have Captain Bone Crusher cereal!” I assumed that tasted as delicious as it sounded.

“Better check the expiration date.”

I stomped through the living room, looking around for the reason the king would give us such a nice place. Did the furniture stink? No, it smelled like roses. Was the floor ready to collapse? It seemed pretty sturdy to me. Had the king personally licked everything? That remained to be seen.

When I was content with the living room and kitchen, I hurried up the stairs. I opened the first door I came to. It was a bedroom, and by the look of it, it was Violetta’s. The bed had a curtain around it, but it was pulled back. The bed was pink and looked so soft that you could probably sink into it and never return. On the wall, there was a huge poster of Minzfel smiling like an idiot. I ripped it off and crumpled it up as I moved on to the next door.

Yeah, fuck Minzfel.

This had to be it. This would be the problem. If this was my room, there was no way it was going to be as nice as Violetta’s. I opened up the door with the confidence of a mother that never knocked before entering her son’s room.

“Ah-hah!” I yelled as if I expected the room to be a swirling vortex of garage.

Except… the room was great. In fact, it might have been even nicer than Violetta’s. The bed was modern, styled in black and silver. It gave off an ‘I have my own personal home bar’ kind of vibe. There was a desk with ample space for writing and a place to put books. No dust. Not even a speck.

What the hell? Was I so jaded that I wanted there to be something wrong with it? I had to swallow my pride. Assuming the king hadn’t actually licked everything, this place was perfect.

And then I saw the jar of centipedes.

It was filled to the brim with them, and they wriggled around like some kind of… jar of centipedes. There really wasn’t any other way to put it.

“Ah-hah!” I grabbed the jar and hurried down the stairs. “Violetta! Look, we have a centipede infestation and they’re trying to hide it from us!”

“Hmm?” Violetta poked her horned head out from behind the open fridge door. “Oh my goodness! So many centipedes!”

“That’s right.” I put the jar down on the marble countertop. “They tried to make the place look presentable, but it looks like they forgot to take these with them.”

Violetta tilted her head. “What are you talking about, Ryley? They left those for you.”

“Wow.” Was this some kind of ‘fuck you’ from Minzfel or something? I didn’t regret ripping his poster down in the least.

Violetta picked up the jar and held it up to her face. “I can’t believe they gave you so many. We’re going to be able to buy a lot of food with this!”

“Wait, what?”

“Hmm? I said that we’re going to be able…”

“I heard what you said.” I paused before continuing on with a sentence I never thought I would say. “Are centipedes… money?”

“Of course they are, silly!” Violetta said. “What else would you use centipedes for?”

“I mean… you don’t really use centipedes…”

Violetta giggled. “Here look. There’s so many, I can’t even count them!” She held out the jar, which immediately slipped out of her hands and broke all over the floor.

“My centipedes!” I screamed. “I mean, uh, my money!”

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” Violetta’s mouth was running a mile a minute.

“J-Just grab them,” I said. Oh god, this was disgusting. “Do we have another jar?”

“Here’s one!” Violetta grabbed a similarly sized jar off the counter and held it up to me like she was throwing something underhand. It slipped through her fingers, hitting me directly in the face, then fell to the floor and smashed into what I assumed was a thousand pieces. I wouldn’t know. I was too busy falling backward after getting hit in the fucking face.

Violetta rushed to my side. “I-I’m sorry, Ryley!”

Before I could say anything, I realized I was in the pile of centipedes, because of course I was. What the hell had I done, deciding to let this girl live with me?

I got back up, dancing around while I made sure there weren’t any on me. Somehow, I had managed to avoid getting pierced by shards of glass. Lucky me. “Pick them up!” I yelled.

“O-Okay!” Violetta got down on her knees and started scooping the insects up. A few moments later, she had all the ones we could see packed into a new jar. A jar I was never letting her touch again.

We found some brooms in a closet and started sweeping up. The only sound was the broken glass clinking together as it went into the dustpan.

“I’m sorry,” Violetta spoke up, tears in the corners of her eyes. “I… didn’t mean to…”

“Violetta…” I stopped sweeping. “I… don’t really know if this ‘assistant’ thing is going to work out.”

“R-Ryley! Please… It won’t happen again!” The tears were officially flowing. “Give me a chance to make it up to you!”

“Okay, but…”

“Please, this job is all I have now.” Violetta stroked her horns, huge tears rolling down her cheeks. “I want to help others like you helped me!”

God damn it. I wasn’t very good at this, especially when she was basically saying I was her role model. Not something I would recommend, but I still felt responsible.

No. I felt bad, but I was technically her boss. If I was going to investigate crimes, I couldn’t have stuff like this happening. I needed to put my foot down.

“Violetta…” I cleared my throat, looking into her tear soaked eyes. “You…” You’re fired. Come on, I had to say it.

Violetta sniffed, her nose starting to run. “P-Please…”

And then, for just a moment, I saw myself in her eyes. Not just my reflection, I remembered being in her place. I remembered what it was like to want to impress someone I respected, but then completely fucking everything up. Damn it. I didn’t want to think about this right now.

I starting sweeping again, looking down at the floor. “Don’t worry about it,” I said.

“Y-You mean it?”

I didn’t look up. “Yeah, it’s fine. Just don’t let it happen again.”

“Oh, thank you!” Violetta jumped onto me, burying her face into my chest.

“S-Snot!” I said before suddenly realizing that one of her horns was just inches away from my eyeball. “H-Horns, Violetta! Horns!”

“Sorry…” She pulled away. She wiped her face with her arm and looked back up at me. “I promise! I’ll be a great assistant. You’ll see!”

Yeah, I wasn’t going to hold my breath.

“And I’ll make up for the centipede thing too…” she continued, perking up. “Oh, I know! We should go see the World Series tomorrow. I can get us really good tickets!”

“World Series?” I asked. The demon world really wasn’t all that different from ours. I glanced over at the jar of centipedes on the counter. Okay. It was kind of different.

A day at the ballpark actually sounded kind of fun. It didn’t exactly seem relevant to my job, but I hadn’t exactly been given any orders by the king either. There was that thief, but I wasn’t going to go out of my way to track him down. Why not take a little break?

“Sure,” I said. “But let’s worry about dinner first, alright?”

“Oh! You haven’t tried Captain Bone Crusher yet, have you?” Violetta asked. “I’ll get you a bowl.”

“Cool.” I finished sweeping up the last of the glass. “Just uh…. wash your hands first, alright?”

Violetta held up her snot covered hands. “O-Of course. I was just about to do that.”

I sighed. “On second thought, I’ll get it myself.”