King of Burgers

2. King of Burgers

Malakar stared up at that sign for a long time.

He took a look around. He was sitting in the midst of a great stone-paved lane, lined with buildings of red brick built right on top of each other, with not even a gap between them. Each of them had glowing signs advertising goods. Obviously, he had landed in some sort of merchant's quarter, in a human city. Humans did so love cluttering their streets with opportunities to be looted. At least, he thought the people walking by him were human. Carassiso was nowhere to be seen. Briefly, he wondered what had happened to her, but really, he did not care in the slightest.

All in all, Malakar considered this to have been a stroke of great luck. That annoyance Carassiso was gone (hopefully dead), he could sense no angels, and now all he needed to do was blow up some mortals, take their gold, and start establishing who was boss around here.

He struggled to his feet and, in doing so, immediately realized something was horribly wrong. Instead of clawed talons pushing against the ground, he stared curiously at the nubby pink fingers splayed against the sidewalk instead. He clenched his fist, and the pink fingers curled in on themselves.

That was odd.

And he could not help but notice that he didn't seem to be standing nearly as tall as he should. He was significantly shorter than the humans passing by, when really he ought to have been towering over them. Come to think of it, these humans were reacting pretty calmly to a demon lord manifesting in their midst.

"Oh no," Malakar whispered to himself.

The sign he had awoken beneath hung over a storefront behind a pane of smooth glass. Malakar staggered over and looked at his image, reflected back at him over a display of strange black boxes labeled 'SPEAKERS UNDER $100'. He gaped in disbelief at what he saw, but there was no denying it.

A human stared back at him. A human child. He had been transformed into a human child!

Malakar prodded at his chubby cheeks and poked at his button nose. Too hard. "Ow," he muttered, rubbing it. Yes, it was very real.

The only hints of his demonic true form were that he still had a long mane of bright red hair and a pair of curling gold horns. And he still wore his long, dark robes, too. Much smaller than they ought to be. Well, this was strange, but not a problem. He'd just use magic to change back, and…

…and…

…and nothing. Malakar realized with horror that he couldn't touch his magic. He tried again, and still nothing. With a growl, he closed his eyes and focused. Deep within him, that black part of his soul from which he drew his infernal powers should have yawned like a comforting abyss. But now there was a terrible disc of light stretched over it, burning brightly, flickering with runes in the angelic language.

A seal! His demonic powers had been sealed away! It must have been put in place when Uriel stabbed him. Tentatively, he probed at it. It was not merely a wall; it was a great, terrible mechanism. He could sense rings within rings, locks folded into other locks, some clamped down on his power, others reaching into the very core of his being. What had Uriel done to him?!

Frantically, Malakar tried to break past it, only for a bright lance of very real, physical pain to stab through his chest, exactly where Uriel's spear had pierced him. Gritting his teeth, he tried again. With all the lights around, there must be ambient magic in the air for him to drain mana from and fuel his own magic. If he gathered enough, he might be able to break through the shield. But, shockingly, he found he could barely detect any magic at all around him. None, in fact. Still he tried until the pain burned him so badly that he couldn't stand it anymore.

"Ow!" he cried, sitting down. "Ow, ow, ow, owowow!"

Humiliatingly, tears began to roll down his cheeks. He was stuck in this form, and Malakar, being an experienced demon who had taken on many different guises in his time, knew what that meant. No matter how strong-willed you were, mind and body could not be totally separated. When you took on a new form, you began to think like it, too. Transform into a bird, and you'd find that you couldn't live without flying and you gained a sudden appreciation for the artistic merits of pooping on statues. And human children, Malakar discovered, had a predilection for crying and being cranky.

"Little girl! Are you lost?"

Malakar sniffled and glared up at the couple who had stopped in front of him: a middle-aged man wearing severe dark attire and what appeared to be a silk rope around his neck, and what Malakar assumed was his concubine, or perhaps a priestess of some sort. He had really never paid all that much attention to human hierarchies back on his world. They had kings and queens, horribly vulnerable soft skin, and frequently leaked salt water from their eyes to no apparent purpose. That was the extent of his knowledge.

The woman was smiling down at him, and suddenly Malakar was full of rage. These mortals dared approach him, dared to speak to him?

"I am not a girl," he declared. "And I am not lost. I am Malakar the Irredeemable, scourge of your world! Kneel and beg for mercy, slaves!"

The man squinted down at him. "Come away, Nance," he said to the woman. "I think this child's on drugs."

"Oh, don't be ridiculous, Robert. He's just playing. Look at his costume." The woman reached out and tapped on Malakar's horns. "Where's your mother, sweetie? Did you lose sight of her?"

Malakar, who had been stunned into silence by the sheer gall of the woman touching his horns, went into an apoplectic fit. "I sprang not from mortal loins!" he screeched. "I was called into existence at the very birth of the world! Formless, I dwelt in the void, until the wickedness of man drew me forth! I am your curse and damnation! I am sin! I am death!"

The woman waved away all this and reached into the little bag she was carrying, and retrieved some shiny, rectangular object. "You just wait right there, honey," she said. "I'm going to call the police, and they'll help you, okay?"

"Oh, Nance, don't call 911," said the man as she began to prod at the device. "That's for emergencies only."

"A lost child is an emergency!"

"For all we know his mom is right around the corner. Look, put the phone away. Let's see if we can't find a security guard or something—"

Malakar stopped listening to this conversation. He didn't understand all the words they were using, but he got the gist of things. They were going to summon the town guard. And, in a place like this, with so much obvious magic around (even if he couldn't feel any of it), the town guard would likely have a wizard, one who could figure out who and what he was. Then he'd be in real trouble. The thought of being held captive by mere mortals made his skin crawl.

The woman shouted as he ran, but Malakar darted between the legs of an approaching crowd of humans and disappeared from sight. Her cries quickly faded into the distance.

Malakar found he had to lift the hem of his robes as he ran to stop from tripping over it, and his top speed really was not very impressive at all. It was much easier to sprint on hooves.

All was not lost, he reasoned. All he had to do was get some mana and he could start testing the strength of the block on his magic. Mana could be found anywhere; most of the time, he simply drained it from the environment, but perhaps Uriel's seal was interfering with that. But there were other sources.

His stomach growled. Malakar realized he was famished. That was one source, of course. Food could replenish mana as well.

His human nose was pathetic, but eventually it caught wind of the scent of cooking meat. Malakar followed it until he was standing before another store, one with a large, glowing sign.

BURGER KING, it read.

Malakar burst through the doors. "Bring me your pathetic burger king!" he shouted. "He will grovel at my feet, or I will have his head!"

He paused. The interior of the shop didn't look like much of a kingdom. In fact, it didn't look like much of anything at all. There were about a dozen tables, each of which stood empty. From behind a counter a human adolescent stared dully at him.

Malakar approached. "You there, boy," he snapped. "Bring me your finest mana-restoring foodstuffs. Quickly, if you wish to keep your hide!"

The pale boy just continued to stare at him. By the abyss, humans were ugly. "What," it said.

Oh, if only he had his magic. Malakar breathed in deeply, closing his eyes, and for a moment indulged in a fantasy of dismembering this peasant limb from limb. "I am hungry," he said slowly. "I can smell that you have food. Bring it to me, or—"

"Oh, look at you!"

Another young human bounced over to the counter. She had long dark hair with a bright blue streak in it, and wore the same strange uniform her fellow burger-slave did, though hers was a good deal cleaner and less wrinkled. She looked down on Malakar with a sort of wide-eyed innocence that very nearly made him sick.

"What a cute little outfit!" she cooed. "I hadn't heard there was a convention! Now what are you supposed to be? Are you a witch? Or maybe a dark princess?" She spoke with a twangy sort of accent, pronouncing you as ya. It reminded Malakar of the humans from his world, or at least the ones he had spent most of his time torturing. She squinted at him. "Let me guess. I don't know if I recognize…are you from a game, or a manga, or…"

"I…am not a witch, or a princess…," Malakar said, gritting his teeth, "and…I am…not from any of those things…" twitching, he reached up towards the counter, and began trying to climb over it. "I am…Malakar…the author of your torment, and I…I…"

He slipped off the counter and fell.

"Oh dear, are you alright?" the young woman asked.

Malakar lay on the floor for a moment, looking up at the flickering lights in the ceiling. As enraging as it was to have mere humans talking to him, threats were clearly getting him nowhere. Not so long as he didn't have magic to back them up.

He stood and dusted himself off. Swallowing his disgust, he tried his best to speak calmly. "I…I am very hungry," he said. "Give me food."

"Where are your parents?" asked the boy behind the counter.

"I…don't know."

"Oh no! Where did you last see them?"

"I don't know," Malakar sniffled. This child's body was getting to him again. He really was quite hungry, and the smell of food was making it worse. He was becoming very upset. "I don't know, I don't know, I'm just hungry, and…and…and…"

"Oh, don't cry, darlin', it's alright," said the young woman, rushing around the counter. "We'll get you some food, don't worry. Leo, bring him out a whopper and some fries, would you?"

"What? Who's going to pay?" the boy asked, but she ignored him.

The young woman ushered Malakar over to a table and sat down with him. She pulled out a shiny rectangular device, much like the one he had seen the older woman carry before. From here, Malakar could see a number of dancing runes floating over its face. Greedily, he reached out and tried to drain mana from the device, but no. Nothing. It was as if it wasn't magical at all.

"My name's Mary," the young woman said. Her smile was meant to be comforting, but Malakar, unfamiliar with the concept, thought it looked slightly sinister. "What did you say your name was?"

"Malakar."

Mary paused over her device. "Is that your real name, honey…? Or is that the name of the person you're dressed up as?"

"Are you going to summon the guard?" Malakar asked. "The, uh…the police?"

"Well, they can help you find your mommy…"

The next word was a real struggle to get out. He had only rarely said it before, and certainly never to a human. "Please…" Malakar almost choked. "...don't."

Mary's finger was hovering over the device. She gave him a strange look. "Why not?"

"I…I'm scared of them," said Malakar, further injuring his bleeding pride. It's okay. Once you get your magic, you can kill her. Kill the boy, too. No one needs to know you ever said those words.

"Well…alright," Mary said, putting the device down. "I won't, call them right now, sweetie. Let's just get some food in you for now, right? We can figure out where your parents are after."

The boy, Leo—Malakar was annoyed to find that he had remembered the peasant's name, insulted by it taking up space in his memory—brought out his meal. Cooked meat slathered with some mysterious sauce between two buns, thin strips of potato fried in oil, and…

"What's this?" he asked, as a cup was placed before him.

"Your drink," Leo answered. "Coke."

Malakar pried the curious cover off the cup and gasped. That brown liquid that looked like sewer water sloshed within. By the Heart of Darkness, it was even fizzing! He had indulged these humans, but this was too far. "You are trying to poison me," he hissed.

Leo rolled his eyes. "Sheesh, kid, if you wanted something else, you could have told me."

Malakar decided how Leo was going to die.

"Just bring him out some water, then," said Mary. "No, no, leave it, I'll drink it." Malakar watched, horrified, as she drank the horrible concoction.

He grimaced and set into his food before he lost his appetite. He took a single tentative bite of the meat and bread, and then his eyes widened and he practically inhaled the rest. "Delicious!" he cried. "What do you call this?!"

"A whopper…?" Leo wrinkled his nose. "Kid, do you really think this stuff is delicious…?"

"Do you mock me, mortal? Do you dare?" Malakar hammered his fists on the table. "Bring me more!"

"Oh, just bring more, would you?" Mary laughed. "Look at him, poor thing must be starving."

So Leo brought out a second whopper, then a third, then a fourth. The fries, Malakar found, were also delicious, though not nearly so much as the burgers, as they were called. They so lifted his spirits that he was even persuaded to try one of those fizzy drinks they had, the sodas. Not the brown stuff Mary drank, never that sludge, but they brought him an orange one, and Malakar was delighted to find that it was sweet unlike anything he had ever tasted before. Of course, he usually preferred his meat bleeding (or still screaming, if he could get it), but the sheer novelty of the flavors they presented him with had an appeal all its own. Had the humans in his world eaten so well? Somehow he doubted it.

There was only one problem. No matter how much he ate, he gained very little mana. Oh, he could feel a very small trickle of it, but not nearly the amount so much food should have generated. Not even the soda provided very much, and that stuff had to be magical.

Could it be Uriel's seal, blocking him from getting mana from food, much like it was blocking him from absorbing it from the environment? But then why would some still trickle through…?

"Let me see that," Malakar snapped, snatching Mary's peculiar device away from her. It was currently displaying a series of falling blocks. "What is this?"

"You mean my phone?"

"Who is the wizard that enchanted this for you? He must be skilled indeed." Perhaps, Malakar thought, he could seek out one of these mortals for help with undoing the seal. It would be risky, a last resort, but—

"A wizard?" Leo snorted. "There's no magic here, kid, just electronics."

"Do you think I am a fool?!" Malakar shouted. He waved his hand at the 'phone'. "How could this not be magic?!"

"That's right," Mary said soothingly. "It's magic." She glared at her fellow peasant. "He's just a kid, Leo, let him have some fun."

Malakar stared at her for a moment, then returned the phone to her. Somehow, he got the impression that despite his ridiculous claims, Leo was the one telling the truth about this.

Greedy for whatever little mana he was getting from it, he ordered another whopper, and began to ask more questions about this world.

Mary and Leo watched the little boy eat whopper after whopper, until, as Mary thought he might, he began to display the signs of drowsiness. Malakar blinked heavily, his head drooping forward more and more, until finally he fell face-first onto the table and began to snore.

That was when Mary called the police.

"He's right in here," she said when the officers arrived. Then she realized she knew one of them. "Oh, Mr. Denton, how are you?"

Sasha Denton was a friend of Mary's, though her father often wasn't home when Mary was over, working late hours at the station. Mary had seen him only a few times. He always looked exhausted, and Mary had thought he must have had a hard day at work, but he looked just as tired right now, in the middle of his shift. Maybe that was simply the way he was.

"Hello, Mary," said Mr. Denton, having no problem recalling her name. "I understand this little boy has lost his mother? That's what he told you."

"That's right. I was going to call you guys earlier, but he said he was scared of police. Oh, be careful…"

"I think we can handle him, miss," chuckled the officer who was not Mr. Denton as he lifted the small boy up. Malakar didn't even wake; he muttered something under his breath and then began snoring again.

Mr. Denton himself remained behind, asking some questions; when exactly the child had come in, what he had said, if they had seen anyone with him, etc. "You think you'll find his parents?" Mary asked when he was done. "Is anyone looking for him? He's such a little character."

"I wouldn't worry about it too much," Mr. Denton said, pocketing his notepad. "You'd be surprised how often this happens. Kids go wandering off from their parents more than you'd think."

"Can you leave us a note telling our boss we were feeding a starving child?" Leo asked nervously. "I don't want the missing inventory to bite us in the ass."

Mr. Denton could. Mary watched as they drove off. "Oh, I really do hope they'll be able to help him," she murmured.

"I'm sure they will," Leo muttered, pinning the note to the register. Their shift replacements had come in, but Leo didn't really trust them to relay the story.

Mary wasn't so sure. She had a sneaking suspicion that more might have been going on with Malakar than just a little boy who had gotten separated from his parents. "C'mon, Leo," she said. "Walk me home."

"You only want me to walk you home when you're worried."

"Well, I am," she replied. "About Malakar."

"That's not his real name," scoffed Leo.

"You don't know that! Maybe he's foreign."

"I don't care if you're foreign, no one names their kid 'Malakar'. Sounds like a video game boss."

"Maybe it is," said Mary. "Maybe that's what he's dressed up as. I tried looking it up and couldn't find anything, though. But that's not what I'm worried about. Why was he starving when he came in?"

"Didn't look starving to me," said Leo. "Looked a bit chubby, in fact. I think we got scammed out of five whoppers." He paused, chewing on his lower lip. "But he was weird, wasn't he? Asked so many strange questions. It was like he didn't know anything. He didn't even know what a car was. He didn't even know he was in the states. Maybe…he's a spy."

Mary snorted. "A spy? Come on. He was just a kid!"

"Maybe he was, sure. And maybe he was just really short. Why was he so afraid of cops? Though, to be fair, cops are scary. I'm afraid of cops."

"Leo! That officer was Mr. Denton. You know, Sasha's dad. And if he was a spy, why would he know so little? Wouldn't other countries teach him about the States if they sent him to spy?"

"Maybe he wasn't sent by other countries," said Leo darkly. "There's other things out there, you know…"

"What are you saying? That he's not human?"

"Did you see how he put away those whoppers? I couldn't eat that many."

"Oh, please! He was just a lost little kid."

Leo shrugged his backpack over his shoulders. "Yeah, you're probably right. Come on, if I'm walking you home then I'm finishing my homework at your place."

"Oh yeah, homework. You want a rematch, don't you." Mary wasn't even sure what rematch she was talking about. It might have been in video games, basketball, checkers. Probably video games.

"We can do that too," Leo said mildly. "Let's go."

Officer Ramirez kept his eyes on the road, but he couldn't help but notice his partner kept stealing glances at the kid in the backseat.

"What's up, Denton?" he asked. "Something wrong?"

Denton sighed and settled back in his seat. "Nothing," he said.

"Just a lost kid, right? Strange costume, though."

"Yeah."

There was a moment of silence between them.

"Sure is weird that we picked up two kids like that in one day, though," said Denton.

Ramirez shuddered as he remembered the creepy little girl that had been brought into the station earlier. "Well, look at the bright side," he said. "Maybe they know each other."