A Christmas Demon for Clara

by Chloe Alice Balkin

  That black plague of his was a raging goatfuck, though, stretching behind him toward the screams. That was a mess to deal with later. Killian was a trusted friend of Locke, as trusted as any demon could be, but he was also a hair's breadth from supernova. Locke needed to keep him far, far away from Eloise.

  Starlax was there, Locke had no doubt of it. But he was hiding, as was the norm. Not hiding from the fight; the sloth demon was the best archer Locke knew.

  Proven when the light got so close the group below was blinded, only for it to dim considerably when one angel plummeted from the sky, an arrow protruding from his chest.

  It was not the angel Locke had fought before, but the light hadn't been completely doused, either. The angel was soon flanked by six others. There was also a swarm of cherubim at their feet.

  Locke tried to nudge Clara into the door he'd created for her, but she didn't understand how outnumbered they were. Even if only four had arrived, Locke would have been concerned. Few demons were as strong as seraphim.

  A point made obvious when Ramellen took a step forward and froze on a blast of gold dust.

  The angel at the center, the bastard who had been raising Hell for the sisters. Locke recognized him, and Hazel actually bared her teeth at him, as though those dull canines of hers could put fear into an angel's heart.

  Curiously, she was the one the angel addressed. "I have no cause for quarrel with you, little fighter. You have not hurt me so gravely that I would find injustice in it, and I have had time to consider. You have a love for your sister and the drive of a human who recognizes her own mortality. You will be welcomed in Heaven when you pass from this world. Be at peace."

  Hazel chucked a paring knife at him.

  He held up a hand, and the blade froze as Ramellen had.

  The angel actually smiled, that shitass.

  "It is time for everyone to back down. You cannot hope to challenge us. You see here, Chastity is already standing."

  He motioned to the angel who had been hit by Starlax's arrow, a rather large, intimidating angel to have the name Chastity. Angels were fucking weird.

  "Hand over Clara Jubilee, and we will leave in peace."

  "Like Hell we will," Locke retorted. "You want her, you have to go through all of us."

  The angel nodded and unsheathed twin swords that gleamed not in gold, but in pure white. Holiest of Holies.

  This was a whole-ass problem right there.

  The cherubim were set up like chess pawns in front of the seraphim. Good angels, all of them, Mettle thought as they brandished their weapons. After the first few cherubim had failed to collect the Jubilee sister, he'd warned any who went to Earth that they'd likely return on a cloud, as was the way of noncorporeal spirits. They'd lose their cherubim status and have to earn it back again if they were vanquished by Clara's ghosts.

  Two dozen stood before Mettle now, all willing to earn their way out of the clouds again, so devoted they were to Mettle and the cause of releasing the ghosts contained and contaminated by Clara Jubilee.

  The woman did not look like a bad person, even if she stood behind the demon he'd fought previously, and even if the way they absently touched each other as they braced for combat, a quick squeeze of the hands and a lean into each other, indicated a certain intimacy.

  She did not look like a bad person, but good people did not imprison ghosts as their slaves.

  The appearance of her ghosts, rising out of the spread of Christmas nativity camels and sheep, reminded Mettle why they were here, and why he did not acquiesce to the fallen angel Abnegation's request that she be spared. She was so talented a warlock her ghosts were as loyal to her as the cherubim were to Mettle.

  The two flanks of pawns clashed first, but the cherubim were better prepared now. They were armored and carried with them the proper tools to release ghosts to their rightful homes, saving them from the torments of the Earth binds. They fought well and courageously, and although Mettle's forces suffered casualties immediately, he also saved several of Clara's imprisoned ghosts.

  This was a very good deed. No matter the outcome of this battle—although victory was assured—Mettle would be pleased with himself for releasing those unfortunate spirits.

  A rain of Styx-dipped arrows fell upon seraphim and cherubim alike, this time taking out Mettle's youngest protege, Verity.

  Mettle's sword flashed bright with his anger. The other seraphim took it as a sign to charge through the front line.

  He headed straight for Clara's guard, as did Serenity. Chastity took flight, in search of their archer. Restitution clashed with the black fog of a wrath demon about to blow supernova, but Restitution was a strong warrior, capable of handling a wrath in his end game. Verisimilitude went straight for the female demon, that one's aspect cloaked by an aionia bond.

  Mettle already knew Clara's guard was a glut, but hunger no longer seeped from the demon's pores. He, too had bonded since their initial clash. That body language—divine Ruler of Heaven, he'd bonded to Clara. Mettle had wanted to capture Clara, interrogate her and make a decision for himself about her fate, but that may have no longer been an option. Humans didn't bond to demons, and they didn't have adequate lifespans for a bond to be fostered properly. If they were separated, the demon would go insane. Gluts were notoriously unpredictable and dangerous when unhinged.

  His chalk. The glut could walk right into Heaven to get her back. It would tear him apart, cause irreversible damage to his body and psyche, but a bonded demon wouldn't care about that.

  Mettle had to kill them both.

  His swords flashed brightly, their auras shimmering into a radiant spectrum that should have been blinding to human eyes. Through it, he saw Clara shield herself with her forearm.

  To her right, brandishing a butcher's knife aimed at Mettle, Clara's sister stared straight into the light of the swords. Unblinking, unflinching, her glare hotter than anything Mettle could create himself.

  Pulchritude intercepted the butcher's knife, bashing the girl's hand with her shield. She cried out, more so in indignation than pain.

  Mettle leapt forward, not at Clara and her demon, but at Pulchritude and the sister—Hazel, he decided, for the alternative was Eloise, and Eloise was not the name of a warrior—unsure of which was his target. He ended up slamming into Pulchritude, who howled at the insult and pushed him off.

  "Why have you attacked me?" she snapped as she used her shield to protect them from another rain of arrows.

  "The sister, you must not damage her." He pushed the shield up to throw his hand out, spraying the air with gold dust once more. He had a limited supply of the stuff, his body producing and storing it but slowly, the stockpile used too much since he'd been given this task, but he cast the net wide, slowing the melee down to regain control as angels and demons clashed.

  "She possesses Styxian weapons," Pulchritude reminded him. "No human should have control of them, and she's throwing them freely—at you."

  "I am aware. But she is not our enemy. You will not harm her." He scrubbed the back of his head, fully aware of how crazy this sounded. He'd already declared her worthy of Heaven. If she died this night, she'd be awarded a warrior's death. Her path would diverge greatly from most souls.

  For the briefest moment, Mettle thought about what that would be, how his path would cross with hers. Would she be a different fighter then? With more refined weapons, would she become more finessed in her skills? Or would she still fight with blunt, brutal passion, blind to her own safety and ferocious for it? If she died her warrior's death on this Eve of the celebration of the humans' savior's birth, it wouldn't be long, perhaps only another trip around the sun, before Mettle would get to train her if he so chose.

  He would choose that. But not for many years, because his fierce little warrior would not die tonight.

  "You subdue her," he growled at Pulchritude. "You do not harm her."

  Pulchritude glared at him but uttered an angry, "Yes
, commander," before dropping her shield and sword and rushing Hazel.

  Mettle surveyed the battle as it resumed, his gold dust wearing off more quickly for the adrenaline pumping through the veins of every angel, human, and demon before him.

  The archer had been rooted out from his spot amongst the gables of the Jacobean monstrosity the Jubilee sisters lived in. Chastity's sword flashed over and over again as it met with the archer's own blade, and then a well-timed swing sliced into the demon, his weapon and arm tumbling to the snow below, his body falling after. Not dead, but knowing he was lost. The demon—a sloth demon, Mettle recognized now, but there was nothing slow about him—rushed toward the line, winning his race against Charity only because there was a door in the snow, one he jumped through, sealing it behind him.

  Cowardly, but not unwise. An archer without an arm was as helpful as a runner without a leg.

  The wrath demon had pinned Restitution down and was slicing into him over and over again, digging deep, maniacally. Mettle would have taken it as a loss in his earlier days, but after three thousand years of combat, he saw it for what it was: a distraction for the deadliest foe here. Restitution would survive. It might be days before he was roused and months before he was fully healed from the damage of so much Styxian water, but he'd be well again. While the wrath was absorbed in pin cushioning Restitution, the other demons could be laid out by the remaining angels.

  Verisimilitude and the female were deadlocked. A more fearsome female Mettle had rarely seen, and she was laughing through it. Which meant Chastity and Serenity were left with only the demon and the ghosts between them and Clara.

  "Take her alive!" Mettle bellowed as Serenity swiped at an unsuspecting Clara, who was saved only by one of her ghosts taking the blow, pushing the sword off as it pillowed into a cloud on its way to Heaven. There was too much going on for Mettle to be confident with the execution order now.

  Clara’s demon must have realized why Mettle had yelled, because he barked an order to Clara, who ducked just in time for him to produce a handful of those blasted stars of his and pitch them backwards at Chastity, pegging him in at least three spots.

  Clara, whom the fallen angel Abnegation had sworn up and down was an innocent who couldn't harm a fly, let alone a ghost, lunged out from behind Locke and stabbed Serenity right in the boob.

  Chapter 27

  The female angel stumbled back, looking very shocked about the stabbing. Clara had no idea if the shock was over the location or the assailant, but either way, she thought she should apologize. She hadn't been aiming for the chest, but she wasn't very good at this.

  The angel swiped her sword at Clara, who was only saved by a sharp tug on her hem as Locke pulled her away. "Look, aionia," he said as he knocked the angel down with another stab. "Just that guy to go. Let me open a portal for you, and—"

  "I'm not leaving you. I fight beside you."

  Locke smiled at her, but there was a sadness to it.

  "There's only one left!" she shouted at him. "Why are you acting like—"

  "He'll win," Locke said gently as they watched the angel stride toward them. That one hadn't done anything yet except slow time in spots. He'd watched it all with a master's eye. He was their leader, and he had held back for this moment.

  He had those weird swords. Clara didn't know if they were better or worse than the gold stuff he was shooting around. Whatever they did made her shake to even consider.

  He was no more than a couple seconds from reaching them, and Locke used one of those to stroke her cheek and kiss her. "I love you, aionia. This…I do for you."

  He reached into the locker and withdrew the vial he'd confiscated from Killian. He put one thumb on the cork, ready to throw it open, but she noticed he deliberately shielded it from the angel's view with the hilt of his dagger.

  The bottle contained angel death, and the angel had no idea what he was walking into.

  And Clara couldn't care less about the angel's life, but what this would do to Locke, how this would impact their lives…

  He was already being driven insane by the impossibility between them. To then be left to starve for years? To know that even if their relationship continued, he would get no joy from it? To take blood from him to heighten their bond, only to taste heartache?

  Clara couldn't stand it.

  She took that hand, careful to avoid the Styxian-dipped blade, and wrestled for the vial. "You can't! Not that."

  "I will. If you won't leave me, I won't leave you."

  She'd already lost so much tonight. Her sisters were safe, but the ghosts had been halved. Many of them were from around town, casual acquaintances she rarely saw, but they meant no less to her than the ones within her household. She'd lost several of them, too.

  "Draw me a door, Locke." She grabbed a long, damp-looking sword from the locker, hoping the liquid on it was Styxian water and not Satan-knew-what, and waved it at the angel. "Do it now, while I hold him back."

  The angel only laughed. "You cannot harm me with that," he said as one of his swords flared brightly again. It hurt her eyes to look at it, but she wasn't going to look away. She would not look weak.

  "I can, and I will!" She slashed it at him, her technique horrendous, but she only needed to stall one more second.

  The angel hit it with his sword, and it disintegrated. Gone in two seconds.

  She gaped.

  Locke yelled at her to go through the door.

  She backed up, hard. Rammed herself into Locke, pushing him through.

  Planting her feet so she did not follow.

  The angel paused, tilting his head in curiosity. "What are you—"

  "If you let these demons go, the ghosts, too, I surrender."

  The angel dipped his head, all manners. "Your demons will back down? And your sister?"

  Clara nodded, amused and proud of Hazel, who was still fighting against the angel who had straddled her and pinned her arms to the ground. She was also thankful this angel had some sense of mercy, for Hazel would not have survived what Killian was doing.

  Clara didn't know how to stop him, not immediately, but she knew Killian was the reason why Eloise was locked up in the back.

  "The angel who holds Hazel down, send her back to release Eloise. I'm sure that will…" She didn't have to finish the words, the angel never released Hazel, but Killian was already in the air, running so fast his feet didn't seem to touch the ground. His body went to Eloise, but some of the black smoke shot at Clara like an arrow.

  It hit hard, knocking her on her ass. There was so much anger in it that tears poured from her, but she got herself back up to meet the angel eye-to-eye. "There. I've upheld my side. You show the same mercy to my remaining ghosts."

  The angel nodded, but instead of commanding his cherubim to stand down, he sheathed his swords and grabbed the scythe strapped to his back.

  "What are you doing?" Clara cried and lunged forward, only to be held back by a furious Locke, already returned through his doors. The way he grabbed her this time told her he wasn't going to let her free until he was done.

  The dagger in his hand had not the black slime of Styx on it, but a thin coat of crystals that radiated so much heat the air around the dagger rippled.

  The angel, his back turned to her now, didn't notice Locke's return.

  "I'm reaping your ghosts, as you requested. I am letting them go to their rightful homes."

  "That's not what I meant!"

  Locke crouched low, ready to pounce on the angel, but Clara snapped the dagger from his hand. Locke stumbled to the ground as Clara swung at the angel.

  The angel spun around, blasting her with dust. His wings flared behind him, but they were transformed, white-hot fire with angry faces of tortured spirits writhing in the flames.

  Dear God, what was he?

  "Stupid, stupid human!" he seethed. "You dare try to kill me? Have you no idea the penalty for such a crime?"

  The go
ld dust was holding her in place, but already the effects were loosening enough that she could speak. "I would gladly suffer whatever it is to save my aionia and my ghosts. Please don't reap them. And…spare Locke." She couldn't twist her head, but her eyes slid just enough that she could see him in her peripheral. "I love you. Please don't do anything foolish now."

  He was completely frozen, but that look of terror in his eyes…whatever did happen next, she would be haunted by it for the rest of her life, whether it was a second or a hundred years.

  The angel roared and started to argue, only to recoil before he'd gotten anything out. "Are you saying…do these ghosts not want to go to their final places?"

  A tear freed itself from Clara's eyelashes. "Please don't force them to move on."

  He lowered the scythe, setting the blade down in the snow, where it melted down into the Earth. "You're not forcing these ghosts to stay here?"

  Jonathan, the bravest ghost she knew, rose from the ground in front of Clara, putting himself so close to the scythe that would send him to his final home if any part of him touched it. "Begging your pardon, but I believe I speak for all the ghosts here when I say that I have never been more thankful of anything than the anchor Miss Jubilee provides us. We have only to step away to go on, and many of us do. Those of us who choose to stay mean no offense. Even those of us who know Heaven is not where we'll end are not meaning to abuse the gift Miss Jubilee gives us. She is not a monster, and she means no harm. We would gladly give our souls unto you to save her, if that would save her."

  "Jonathan, no!" Clara struggled against the gold dust, able to move now but only to swivel as though glued at her core to an invisible bind. Beside her, Locke was making progress in the form of slithering ever so slowly on the ground, but neither of them could do much. "Your souls are not worth mine! I am just one. Please, angel, leave them behind and take me with you."

  The angel held his hand up for silence, and Clara wasn't going to argue that now. "Let me think on this." He ordered the other angels to stay back, and it seemed everyone was at the mercy of his command now.