The next morning was quite similar to the morning before it. Someone woke me up. The difference was that there was only one annoying child there instead of three. Specifically, the girl was there, bouncy and far too happy for the early hour. She didn't seem ready to let me sleep either.

"Uncle Saka, wake up!" she exclaimed as she burst into the room. I barely heard those words, since they were what brought my out of my sleep. I considered ignoring the girl for a few moments, before I had given any indication that I was awake, and decided that that would be the best way to go. So, instead of getting up, I let myself slip back into sleep, or rather, I would have.

Instead, the girl jumped into the air and landed right on top of me. She used a tiny amount of magic as she did it, to avoid landing too hard, and I found myself quite awake, with a little girl on top of me. My first reaction was to snap my eyes open and get the girl off of me, which indicated to the girl that I was definitely awake.

"Come on, Uncle Saka, it's time to get up!" she bubbled happily as I picked her up with a flow of power and dropped her back on the ground. "Daddy told me to get you!"

"I'm awake," I grumbled. "Just get out of here and tell him I'll be there as soon as I'm ready."

"He told me to make sure you got out of bed," she said, not leaving. "He said that if I don't do that you'll probably go back to bed and miss the whole day."

"Fine!" I said, climbing out of bed. "Are you happy now?"

"I'll go tell Daddy you're up!" she exclaimed, bouncing out of the room. I groaned. That girl was far too hyper for any time before noon.

She returned while I was brushing my hair. I was struggling with a particularly obstinate knot that had decided to take up residence in my hair when she came bounding into the room. I was growling at the brush, wincing with each pull through my hair. It wasn't that I couldn't brush my own hair; I did fine when I was on my own. I had just gotten used to having it brushed for me in the past years, because Thanus was fond of brushing my hair.

She didn't even ask me about it. She just bounced over to the table where I was sitting and took the brush from my hand. She started to work at the knot in my hair calmly, seeming a completely different child than she had been just a moment before. "Mommy says that it always feels better when someone else brushes your hair," she said with the tone of wisdom that I'd never heard from any person but a child before.

I let her brush my hair. I don't know why I did it, except that I didn't want to try and fight her off at the moment. Normally I would have pushed her away the moment she tried to touch my hair. I only let people who were close to me touch me, and that included my hair. Actually, I especially avoided letting strangers touch my hair. But that morning I let the little girl who was my niece brush my hair, and she had a much easier time of it than I had been having.

Just as she was finishing up Jerrol came wandering into the room. "Lia, are you still in there?" he asked as he walked into the room. Then, as soon as he actually looked at what was inside, he stopped in the doorway and stared. He stood there, seeing the girl standing behind me, brush in hand. It was obvious what she had just finished doing, and I could feel Jerrol's disbelief.

"Don't say it," I said, standing up from the table. I walked over to stand in front of Jerrol and glare at him. He swallowed what he had been about to say, and I nodded approvingly.

"You're up, good," he said instead. The girl put the brush down on the table and bounced over to her father.

"See?" she bubbled. "I told you I got him up!"

"I see that," he said. "Now go help your mother with breakfast. I need to talk to Uncle Saka." She nodded and ran off, leaving Jerrol and I alone in the room. He looked down at me.

"Do you have to call me that?" I asked him.

"The children would be confused if I didn't," he said.

"So?" I asked. Then I stalked back into the room and sat on the bed. He followed me, but sat on the chair at the table that I had just been sitting at. "They don't deserve to be talking about me at all if they can't understand something that simple."

"They're just children, Saka," he said.

"I hate children," I said.

"Well, they aren't your children, now are they?" he said angrily. "And since they aren't yours, I'll thank you to stop telling me how to raise them. Now, are you ready for today?"

"Of course I am," I said. "I'll give myself up to this demon of yours and kill him, and then I won't have to deal with you, or your children, anymore. It's not like this will be hard, just annoying. Unless you've been lying to me about how weak this demon is, that is..."

I lowered my eyes and stared at him, and he almost panicked. A little more panic from him would have made me think that I had just hit the truth. But, Jerrol did hate me like some of my half-human brothers and sisters had in the past, so I gave him the benefit of the doubt. I didn't let his panic convince me that he was lying to me. Instead, I suspected, rightly, that he was just nervous at having me be suspicious of him.

"No, I'm telling the truth!" he exclaimed. "He's barely more powerful than a lesser demon. You won't even break a sweat defeating him."

"If he's that weak, why aren't you taking him on yourself?" I asked. Jerrol, I remembered, was more than a match for lesser demons. It was impressive for a half human, but not quite enough to stand up to the average demon. This weak demon who was harassing Burnlord should have been no match for him. "You're more than powerful enough to take on that weak a demon. You should be able to defeat him without my help."

He looked down at the floor, unwilling to meet my eyes. I glared at him, but he just stayed silent and continued to avoid looking at me. Finally, I growled in frustration and shoved my way past his shields and inside his mind. It was easy, far too easy, because all of his defenses parted in front of me like tissue paper. I could have forced my way in anyway, but it shouldn't have been that simple. He was weaker than he had been, and I couldn't think of a single reason for why that would happen. From what I saw and the resistance that had been put against my intrusion, he was below the level of all but the weakest lesser demons. Thanus, while completely mundane in his talents, was now almost as powerful as he was.

"What the hell?" I asked. "What happened to your power?"

"I'm not sure," he replied. "I never even noticed when it disappeared either. I don't use my magic all that often. I just know that when I tried to face up against this demon before he made his demand, I was beaten so badly that I was bedridden for a week, and that was with Keth distracting him long enough for me to get away before he could finish the job."

"You're damned lucky I agreed to come help you," I said. Then I stepped to the side and went around Jerrol to make my way to the kitchen. His wife had breakfast waiting for me. It was good food, and the only thing that spoiled my meal was the girl watching my every move with completely unhidden wonder. What she found so fascinating about me eating, I couldn't quite figure out.

After the meal, Jerrol took me to the town square, the place where the demon would be waiting for us. We walked in silence, because Jerrol was ashamed of his great drop in power, and because I just wasn't in the mood to talk. It was still morning, and being awake before noon was not a good thing in my book. Going to fight and kill a demon before noon was even worse, even though I always enjoyed fighting and the demon was a weak one that I would have no trouble defeating.

There wasn't a single human, other than Jerrol, in sight when we reached the square. The men and women of Burnlord had done the intelligent thing and hidden as far away from the town square as they could get. I wouldn't have cared one bit if one of the humans had gotten hurt, or even killed, while I was killing this demon. I probably would have been happy. But I was still glad that they were far away, because I would have heard and felt their thoughts, their terror and excitement, had they been nearby. As much as it would be enjoyable, it would also be a nuisance, one that could distract me and get me into trouble.

Though there weren't any humans around, there were more than a few demons. A gang of extremely weak (weak enough that they were less powerful than Jerrol) lesser demons stood in a square that was almost a formation, surrounding the most powerful demon in the square, excluding myself. I didn't even pay attention to the small fry, since they would die in the blast that took out their leader. I just focused on the one in the middle.

"Where is the son of the Demon Lord?" the thing demanded. As one of the weakest of demons, just barely better than a completely monstrous lesser demon, it had nothing even close to a human form. Instead, it looked more like a cross between a toad and bear, with warty brownish green skin and a long tongue. I knew that it was a male demon, since I could tell those kind of things without even trying, but I still could not bring myself to think of it as a he after looking at it. Males to me did not look quite so animalistic, even after spending a good part of my lifetime surrounded by demons in general.

"I'm right here," I called. It hadn't been paying attention to me until that moment. It had written me off as one of Jerrol's children, rather than its target. Instead, it had been focused on Jerrol, because he was the older looking one of the two of us. This caused the anger inside of me that never quite went away to start burning a little hotter.

"I did not expect a boy," it said, and my anger turned up another notch. I achieved the third notch out of irritation when I pushed forward with my mind and found that the demon standing in front of me didn't even have enough skill with its magic to notice that I was a demon, and a much more powerful one than it. It couldn't even tell that there was a difference in power level between Jerrol and me. I started growling.

"I'm not a boy," I said quietly. I let the anger burn hotter, though I kept it controlled, unlike most of the time when it just exploded. Times when I got angry, but not completely pissed off, were rare, and I always fought to keep control when I had the opportunity to do so. Still, I let the magic power leak out the way it always did, so that my hair started to float and my eyes to glow, just to show the demon in front of me that I wasn't someone to be trifled with.

"You certainly look like a boy to me," it said, laughing, a rude croaking noise that offended my ears.

"Perhaps you should learn more about your kind, then," I said. "If you knew anything at all you would recognize me and start pleading for your life. Or do you not even know that much?"

"I just see an insolent little brat who thinks he can talk back to me even though he is about to get hurt very badly," it said. "Though you do seem to have a nice little trick there, with the hair and the eyes." I laughed.

"It's no trick," I said, so softly that it was forced to step forward to hear what I said. Then I turned to Jerrol. "I can leave the lesser ones to you if you want a chance to play as well. You should be able to handle them."

"No, thank you, Saka," he said.

"Suit yourself." Then I turned back to the formation of demons, and noticed that the idiotic one wasn't quite as foolish and stupid as I thought it was. It had heard Jerrol call me by name, and it recognized my name. It may not have been intelligent enough to recognize me by description, despite my rather distinctive appearance, for a demon, but it knew who Saka was. After all, no humans were foolish enough to name their children after the Demon Lord's son, and the same went even more for all demons.

"Now do you realize how much of an idiot you are?" I asked it. It had gone pale, which really did not do much for its appearance at all, but after I continued to stare at it for a while, I noticed it swallow, and then "stand" up straighter. From the expression on its face, it actually thought it could take me without much trouble, even though it knew who and what I was. Like so many others before it, it had decided that my power was more in line with my appearance than the rumors said it was.

"My original plan was to kill the half human son of the Demon Lord," it said with a chuckle. "That would give me a reputation for being powerful."

"Even though you aren't," I commented.

It glared at me. "But if I kill the infamous Saka my reputation will be even better!" it exclaimed, with a voice full of wicked glee. "I don't see why everyone is so scared of you. After all, you're just a little kid."

I hadn't had much of a plan before going to the square to meet up with this demon. All I was really thinking of doing was beating the shit out of the thing using my magic, possibly killing it. But, even if I had had a plan that involved something other than violence, I would have discarded it then and there. Plans did not hold up when I got angry, and its last words had pushed me beyond angry into a mad rage. In other words, I lost my temper at that moment.

Usually when I lose my temper something dies. Not always, since sometimes the focus of my anger is someone I can't kill or someone I don't want to kill. This demon was not either of those things, but I had already decided before I lost my temper that it wasn't going to die. This was because I was supposed to be protecting the city. Jerrol hadn't actually come out and said that, but the unspoken rule was that I wasn't allowed to blow the city up, and if I broke the unspoken rule, Thanus would get mad at me. Jerrol would too, but I didn't care whether he was angry or not. So, I wasn't going to kill the demon because if I did I would probably take out some of the city with it, and I somehow managed to remember that with the red hot anger running through my head.

Just as the word "kid" left the demon's mouth, I struck. I didn't actually do anything physically, just flexed part of my mind, tweaking a flow of power to do this instead of what it normally did. It didn't look like much for me to do, but the results were more than noticeable, as a ring of fire erupted around the formation of demon and lesser demons and then contracted, not coming to a stop until it had burned off the first layer of the demon's warty skin. At the same time, it more or less vaporized the lesser demons, which filled the square with an awful stench that reminded me why I usually don't burn demons to a crisp. The smell is about as bad as burning hair.

It took the demon a few moments to realize exactly what had happened. Like most of the human world, it had actually believed me to be as weak as I looked, its mistake, and because of that, it didn't quite grasp the idea that I had caused the pain it was feeling. Also, it didn't quite realize that I had obliterated its lesser demon minions with less than a thought. It was charred and exposed, without anything to shield it from my next attack, but all it could do was stand there and look around at the empty space surrounding it. The look on its face reminded me of Jerrol's face when he actually accepted the fact that two of his children were demons, a look of pure human weakness and inability to cope that shouldn't have ever been found on a demon's face, even such a weak demon as the one I was facing.

"I will give you one more chance to give up this idiocy and leave before I kill you," I said through tightly clenched teeth. I was trying to stick to the unspoken "no destroying Burnlord" rule, but it wasn't going very well. If that demon didn't hurry up and leave I was going to blast it to hell and back, which would take out at least a little bit of Burnlord at the same time.

Luckily (for it and for the god of Burnlord, not for my temper), it got the point. With speed that I would have thought was impossible for something of its size, it fled the scene. This left alone in the square, since Jerrol had decided it was a good idea to fall back a bit when I started with the pyrotechnics. It also left me with nothing to take out the rest of my anger on, which was more than a little annoying and only served to anger me even more.

With that, I took to the air, intent on heading for the woods again. I wanted to work off some of the anger by engaging in more random slaughter of small animals, before I started getting the urge to kill every living being I saw, starting with a certain two demonic children of Jerrol's , who at least hadn't seen what I had just done. Unfortunately, before I could get far enough away, Jerrol called out to me.

"Where are you going?" he asked me.

"What does it matter?" I called back. "It's gone."

"What if he comes back?" he asked.

I laughed. "Not even that demon is idiotic enough to come back after that," I said. "You stupid city is fine, and I have some rage to work off. Unless you'd like to help me?"

He turned an interesting, but quite unnatural, shade of pale grayish green at that idea, which I took as a "no." Still, I didn't give him the chance to recover from the idea and took off before he could try to convince me to stay again. Besides, I would be back at his house later, as I wanted to have a nice, uninterrupted night of sleep before I left for home. I was just going out to kill some animals at the moment, and nothing my brother did was going to stop me.