What Demons Want 

A lot of urban fantasy treats demons like vending machines.  

Summon one, make a deal, sign a contract. The mortal is gets outsmarted because demons are clever and contracts have loopholes. It’s a good narrative structure - the seeds of destruction are planted in the protagonist’s hubris. 

It felt contrived to me. Contracts are a human invention for arbitrating commerce. Why would creatures of enormous power from another dimension care about human legal structures? 

So I went in a different direction in Past Mistakes. 

Demons with agency 

In Emily’s world, demons come here not because they’re summoned. The come because they want to be here. 

Why? Because it’s nicer than where they’re from. 

There’s an exchange late in the book where one character explains it to another: 

“…each world, each plane of existence, exists because it feeds off the energy of adjoining planes. The plane that you can think of as beneath ours, the one demons come from, they look to ours with envy because, frankly, it’s nicer.” 

“What about the one above ours?” asked Father Redmond. 

“You know the names we’ve given it over time. The Elysian Fields, Heaven, Nirvana, Aaru, Shamayim. Unlike demons, instead of aspiring to the next plane of existence, we practice dragging creatures from the one beneath us into ours.” 

This creates a different kind of problem. Demons aren't bound by contracts - they're motivated by self-interest. A summoning isn't a binding; it's an opportunity. The "deal" lasts only as long as both parties benefit.  

It’s less formulaic, less structured, more visceral and self-interested.  

Which brings us to Ahazu 

Ahazu is the greater demon accidentally bound to Emily. He’s not “evil” in any conventional sense. He’s operating from a completely different moral framework.  

He needs, for reasons of his own, to exist in our world. Emily's accidentally trapped him inside her instead. Now they're stuck with each other, and neither can get what they want without the other. 

Every decision Ahazu makes has a purpose that makes sense from his perspective. The problem for Emily - and for readers - is figuring out what that perspective actually is, whether they can trust him when their interests temporarily align, and what will happen when they once again diverge. 

No contracts. No loopholes. Just two entities with incompatible goals forced into an impossible partnership. 

That’s why what demons want matters, and why it creates problems Emily can’t solve with an exorcism or a well-worded contract.

Nick. 

PS. Next time: A character study on Emily herself. What makes her a competent protagonist rather than a “Chosen One”. Why does she make the decisions she does instead of taking the good decisions that are right in front of her?