Cholera stared at Jonathan. Or at least, he thought she was doing that. It was hard to tell exactly what she was looking at, since she lacked pupils and her eyes didn't move. "You are not a demon."

"Nope, I'm a human. But I was summoned here through a demonic summoning ritual for some reason, and some big demon saddled me with a demon named Ebola, so I can function a lot like a demon."

Cholera frowned. "I have never heard of such a thing."

Jonathan shrugged. "You and everyone else I've ever met in this world. Oh! I forgot one thing: if you physically harm any of the people I'm contracted to, they will also have the right to banish you to the Infernal Abyss without a ritual."

"But as long as it is not causing them harm, I do not need to obey their orders, correct?"

"Right."

"Then I have no objection to that."

"Great!" Jonathan clapped his hands together. "Do you have any terms for me?"

Cholera cocked her head. "You will not interfere with my killing of micro-organisms."

Jonathan nodded. "Unless you're doing something that is unsafe for the rest of us who live here. Anything else?"

"…No."

"Great! Let's finalize this contract then…"

Their contract finalized, Jonathan led Cholera out the back door to introduce her to the children. "Hey kids!" he called as he exited the back door of the orphanage, and they started to convene on his position from various points of the back yard. However, as Cholera stepped through the door, they halted and drew together as a group. "So, I've finally found—someone to help clean up around the orphanage! This is the demon Cholera, and she's contracted with me to clean and maintain the orphanage in exchange for allowing her to kill as many micro-organisms as she wants."

"Kill what?" asked Ethan.

"Living things that are practically everywhere, but are so small you can't see them. I can tell you more about those later, if you want. In any case, part of Cholera's contract is that if she physically harms you guys you can banish her without a ritual, just like with me, but she's not bound to obey orders from you so please come to me if you need anything from her and we can talk about it. Mostly, she'll just be working around the orphanage, and I'll find her a room to stay in on the ground floor."

The kids mostly looked nervous about this, but some of them nodded so Jonathan moved on. "Cholera, these are children who are living in this orphanage, and are also the people I'm contracted with. Well, and Mr. Geiller, but you should stay away from him. He lives in the house over there, and he really doesn't like demons. Anyway, this is Ethan, Bethany, Yanni, Chris, Kylus, Abigail, Sandra, and Jamilah."

"Well met," said Cholera, but immediately turned away from them. "Now, Jonathan, what tasks do you wish from me? I wish to kill these 'micro-organisms' now."

"Ah, right. Do any of you kids need anything right now? No? Okay, come this way, Cholera, I'll show you some of the things I'm hoping you'll do around the orphanage…"

Soap was evidently a revelation, and when Jonathan conjured a small packet of anti-bacterial wipes with the help of a rather confused Abigail, he could almost swear that Cholera started drooling. She certainly snatched them out of his hands quickly enough. After dinner, Jonathan went to wash the dishes out of pure force of habit, and Cholera practically snarled at him when she realized what he was planning to do.

It kind of freaked him out, to be honest, but at the same time having someone around who actually wanted to do the dishes was amazing.

Later in the evening, Jonathan showed Cholera to the docent's room, which he'd decided to let her use since it was the farthest from the kids' bedrooms in the orphanage. Just in case, he warned her not to bother the kids or enter their rooms in the night. Even if she suspected there might be some bacteria in there. She nodded, and then practically shoved him out the door after refusing his offer of bedding or other amenities. Jonathan had a feeling that room was going to be safe for immunocompromised people come morning.

With Cholera sorted out, Jonathan joined the kids in their room before they went to sleep.

"Hey, kids, I wanted to check in with you to see what you think about Cholera."

The children shared a look, and Kylus spoke up. "She's—kind of creepy, Jonathan."

Jonathan grinned ruefully. "Well, yeah. She's a demon."

"You're not creepy, though!" Bethany piped up.

"I'm also not actually a demon."

"She is much less creepy than the—other you," said Yanni, his voice trailing off toward the end of the sentence.

"Ah, yeah, that's good to hear. But aside from looking strange, has she done anything that made you feel unhappy or threatened or anything?"

The kids shook their heads.

"Well, that's good, at least. If Cholera ever makes you uncomfortable in any way, I want you to come and tell me, okay? And if she ever threatens you, don't hesitate to banish her. You are much more important to me than having help with the cleaning and if need be we can always summon her back and renegotiate the contract. Or just go without her help."

The littlest kids looked relieved over that, and several of the older kids looked embarrassed. "Thanks, Jonathan," said Jamilah.

"You're very welcome. It's the truth, after all. Now, did anyone else have anything they wanted to talk about, or any questions?"

"Yeah," said Abigail. "What are these micro-something-or-others again?"

Over the next couple of days, the orphanage started to settle into a new routine. Far from needing to cajole or order her into doing anything, Cholera was extremely territorial about anything related to cleaning, particularly if the task involved soap. Jonathan wasn't entirely sure what had happened to the packet of anti-bacterial wipes he'd conjured; when he asked about it mid-way through the second day Cholera had just stood and stared at him until he uncomfortably dropped the subject.

Although the first day and a half he had to spend quite a lot of time instructing Cholera on appropriate cleaning methods, he only ever had to explain things once, and there weren't that many tasks around the orphanage that needed doing on a daily basis. As a result, once he'd shown her the ropes, she was largely self-sufficient which left Jonathan with much more freedom to spend time with the children. In addition to joining Mr. Geiller's afternoon instruction, Jonathan began spending more time with the children for play, learning, and supervising the chores that he was still trying to get them to perform—although some of the original chores on his list were co-opted by Cholera, things like gathering dirty laundry, drying and folding clean laundry, clearing the table, and similar tasks still needed to be done. Particularly when it came to anything other than brutally scrubbing it down with soap, Cholera was supremely uninterested in the life cycle of laundry.

However, that wasn't to say that getting used to living with a demon in the orphanage wasn't taking some getting used to.

Jonathan just about died of fright when he woke the second morning after summoning her and went to leave his bedroom only to find Cholera standing silently in the doorway.

"Shit!" he exclaimed, falling back a half step. "What are you doing, Cholera?"

"I was waiting for you to wake up so I can properly clean this room," she said, moving past him with obvious unconcern.

"Uh, right. Maybe next time don't loiter in the doorway, though, okay?"

Cholera nodded. "Very well. I will wait by your bedside instead."

"…please don't. If you absolutely have to lie in wait, at least do it down the hall a ways."

Jonathan was trying to explain some of the games he vaguely remembered playing at summer camps when he was younger to Kylus, Sandra, Jamila, and Abigail, when Yanni came out of the orphanage, silently took him by the hand, and led him away.

Jonathan shot a bemused look over his shoulder at the other children. "We'll wait!" Kylus called after him.

"Did you need something, Yanni?" asked Jonathan as the little boy pulled him through the door of the kitchen.

Yanni shook his head but continued to pull Jonathan forward. As they rounded a corner into the hallway near the bathrooms, Cholera came into view. She was crouched on the floor staring intently at the door jam. One hand had what appeared to be one of the anti-bacterial wipes that had disappeared, and she was ever-so-slowly wiping it along the door jam.

"Oh, yeah, I think she's probably just killing some of those micro-organisms. You remember what those are, Yanni?"

The little boy solemnly nodded his head, but didn't let go of Jonathan's hand.

Jonathan looked between Yanni, who was standing silently at his side, to Cholera who was crooning, "Yes, flee before me! Your doom approaches, little specks, and soon you will taste sweet oblivion."

"I know she's kind of strange, but she's not going to harm you. She's restricted to killing bacteria."

Yanni tugged at Jonathan's hand, and Jonathan leaned over. "I need to go to the bathroom," the boy whispered.

"Ah," said Jonathan. "Yeah, I can see how you might not want to interrupt her. Hey Cholera, can you please take a quick break? Yanni needs to use the bathroom, and to be honest you're kind of freaking me out, never mind him."

Cholera made no response, but she lifted the anti-bacterial wipe slowly, almost reverently away from the door jam, leaning closer as she did so to say in a low voice, "Enjoy your stay of execution, little specks. But remember: there is no escape." She stood, and took several steps backwards away from the doorway, but remained facing Jonathan and Yanni.

Yanni clenched Jonathan's hand, and gave him a speaking look of desperation.

Jonathan smiled down at him. "Don't you fret, Yanni. I'll wait for you to be done right here, okay?"

The boy thought that over, nodded, and ran for the bathroom.

"So, uh, I take it that door jam was none too clean?" said Jonathan lamely.

"I have slain millions today," said Cholera, a look of pure rapture crossing her face.

"Um, that's great."

…Yeah, small talk with demons just didn't really work out.

Despite the occasional minor issue, though, he couldn't say he regretted bringing on extra help.