"Patroclus, not again." I sighed, entering the broken-in door, and tossing my bag onto the entry table, the small living room already filled with late summer flies the size of my thumbnail.

"I tried knocking, no one answered, I let myself in." Patroclus - Pat - shrugged and scratched at his sparsely bristled chin. He looked up at me, overlarge watery eyes seeming to gleam with the right of his powerful lineage. But I knew better. Pat, for all his gleaming eyes, had about as much mana running in his blood as the cockroaches that lived in my kitchen.

Imps usually didn't last long in the human realms, despite their (usually immense) mana reserves, but Pat was an imp of some resilience. Years of drinking human whiskey have him an edge most Impish were profoundly lacking, or so he liked to say. I figured it had something to do with his tendency to push through things that were bad for him.

Pat was as craggy and rough as an inner city dumpster. I'd never met another Imp, and I was fine with that.

"You can't keep breaking in here. My landlord is gonna be pissed when he sees I've changed the locks for the fourth time this year. He thinks I have a stalker. He asked me if I wanted to install security cameras around the house."

"So sorry to inconvenience you, toots. You know I have my orders."

"And I need another moon. I told you last moon I needed two."

"Yeah and I figured you was fibbing. Humans are resourceful, I figured you'd be fine. Plus, the Colony's not accepting that you need another moon, they need the goods now. People are getting antsy. You should see the gruel lines."

I moaned and sank into the moldy smelling couch, which was missing it's left cushion. Springs poked into my back.

Pat looked up at me from where he was standing on the floor. His oversized feet shuffled, curling talons and hairy tops reminding me of Hobbit feet, if Hobbits were smaller and demented.

"You can moan and sigh all you like, toots, but I have my orders. They need the stuff today, not next moon."

"You make me sound like a drug dealer. You had to break into my house to tell me this?"

"Yup."

"Get a phone."

"You know they break around me, toots. Too much magical interference."

"You don't have magic."

Pat chuckled, the sound like multiple soft rocks gridning together and creating rocky dust that gets all over everything.

"I'm still more magical than anything you've got going on in this realm, toots. Anyways, I just came by to let you know we need the stuff by tomorrow night. I'll leave you alone until then."

He grunted and leaped onto the air, his small wings carrying him out the swinging door.

A fly landed on the tip my nose.

I screamed, leaping into the air and flailing my arms around me to get it off of me.

"FUCK!"