Chapter 5

"So, this is home." Jada said as her and her swamp tag along emerged from the cover of crooked trees to find themselves at the foot of the large house.

"How spacious." Bob complimented.

Awkwardly Jada added. "So, see you later?" Not really though, she thought, she hoped she never saw him again.

Bob looked at her like he did not quite understand the meaning of this 'goodbye' ritual. If he had been more familiar with human lingo he might have understood that the term 'see you later' has a usual meaning of 'it's time for you to leave now so I can stop pretending to be polite.'

"Yes probably." He answered while wondering why someone would wish to point out something so obvious. She was seeing him now after all and if her eyes still worked later...

"Audios..." Jada tried again, realizing it was hopeless when Bob stepped in front of her to walk to the door. He ended up walking straight into the screen and then reeling back, rubbing his head.

"...What is this?" He said in something of a hiss. "Do not be alarmed, there seems to be a mysterious force field protecting this place. Don't worry, I can disarm it!" He raised a clawed hand to 'disarm' Jada's door. She had to quickly run up and stop him.

"No no! I can..uh, disarm it myself." She said before he could cause any more damage to the already dangerously unstable house. She stepped in front of him and opened the door the proper way before remembering that she was, under no circumstances, allowing this thing inside.

"You have to go now." She told him.

Bob stared back with an expression void of thought.

"You can't stay here." She said again.

Bob whimpered slightly.

"Well, don't you have places to go?" Jada demanded.

"I go where The Guide goes." Bob said. "It is bound by law."

"Who's law?"

"The Great Author's."

"Isn't he dead?!"

"The law remains."

Jada could not argue her way out of this. She was beginning to wonder why it was so hard for her to just let the stupid book go. It was probably worth a lot of money. But was that really worth having an attention deprived demon lingering around and attacking inanimate objects? She looked at the guide. She looked at Bob. She tried to weigh the pros and cons of both objects and The Guide won.

"I s'pose you could come on in if you really have to." She said with a sigh and allowed the demon room to pass.

With an instantly cheery expression Bob went up to the door and was about to leap in before he noticed the small white line that separated the outside from the inside. "Salt." He said quietly, for some reason not going any farther.

"Yup." Said Jada. "Some freak broke into my house last night and left it there. Weird huh?"

"Can you make it go away?" Asked Bob.

"Gee, let me just come up with a spell to do that." Jada answered sarcastically while with her foot she swept the small particles aside in much the same way she had done before. "Happy?" She felt a little bad that this demon seemed mentally incapable of handling things on his own. Maybe it was a bad idea to simply set him off on the world. Who knew how many doors he would end up attacking?

Her sympathetic thoughts lasted only until Bob seeped through her door like some kind of parasite and immediately made himself at home. "Got any food?" He asked while sniffing around the place like a poorly trained hound dog. "I haven't had food in decades, I almost forgot what it feels like to eat-ooh!"

Jada helplessly watched him follow his nose toward the kitchen and moments later the sound of a bag of chips exploding, followed by crazed munching. She decided to just stay out.

Instead Jada turned her attention to the book she still held. What could be in it that required it to have a demonic guardian? What caused it to be the most banned book in existence? And more importantly...Could she use it?