The Fire Demon grew up in the Southlands, where roaches are a part of the landscape, but there came a time when he was living in a house whose roach population was beyond anything he'd ever seen. This was in the time when the Fire Demon was young and poor, and the roaches were considered competition for the food supply.
He declared chemical warfare. Three times he set off the bombs of roach-killing. Each time the roaches returned. Eventually, the Fire Demon went to the pet store and bought a gekko.
He immediately set it loose in the house, and within a week the only roach signs he saw were little chitinous gekko droppings. The gekko was seen only occasionally, usually on the inside of the cupboard door at 2 AM. Each time he saw the roach catcher, it was larger by centimeters than the last time he had seen it. The Fire Demon also learned where gekkos got their name -- when the critter got lonely, it sent up its mating call of "Gek-KOoo" to reverberate from inside the walls.
There came a night when the Fire Demon decided to leave this house. He could not simply abandon it, because for arcane reasons could not leave the house uninhabited. The Girl and the Misnamed (with whom he shared the house) argued that the roaches and the gekko might count as tenants The Fire Demon disagreed, and insisted on finding other bipeds. The next day a tired-looking couple, as if in answer to his thoughts, knocked on his door and asked if he would let them have his house. "You may have it," he told them, "if you will give to me a token to replace the token that I had to give to the owner of this house." The couple agreed, gave him a token, and went away for a while, so that the denizens of the house could pack and leave.
The next night, during one of the rains for which the Southland is famous, the Fire Demon answered a knock at the door to find himself staring down the barrel of a gun. The gun was held by the woman of the tired-looking couple, who had convinced herself that the Fire Demon was going to abscond with the token. (If you are clever, as the tired woman was not, you will realize that was just what she wanted the Fire Demon to do.)
The Fire Demon managed to talk the gun down, mostly by convincing the tired-looking woman that her token was truly insufficient to transport him to Bermuda. Although she accepted this, the tired couple sat in the rain for several house to block the Fire Demon and the other denizens of the house from leaving.
The next day, the soon-to-be-new-tenants came over to apologize, bringing as an offering a case of cheap beer. The Fire Demon nursed one can as he watched them drink the other 23, and listened to them tell the sad story of their lives. Through this duologue it became clear that (among other things) they were that sort of Christian which isn't really a Santaria, but uses many of the accoutrements (Devil repellant floor wax, and the like).
The Fire Demon was somewhat bored and somewhat fascinated by the entire disply, but still deeply annoyed at having had a gun waved in his face. After they left he set his mind to working some revenge. This house had been the gathering place of a Pagan/Occult group, so his first thought was to leave some visible chalk marks around to spook them, and maybe leave *something* more, as well. He considered his options.
Later that night, when the roach catcher got lonely and sent up its call, he realized the best and easiest thing to do:
He didn't tell them about the gekko.
