by Leo Hunt
“I know the Fury was the spirit that hurt Ilana,” I say.
“It cut part of her soul away and ate it,” Ash says. Her face is creased, and I know she’s remembering that night again.
“Sorry,” Elza says.
“What happens to spirits who’ve been eaten by a demon?” Ash asks us.
I look at the dark garden, the house, the stars. I still have trouble believing what’s happening to me sometimes. What happens to spirits who’ve been eaten by a demon? It’s like someone coming up to you and asking what flavor of sky is your favorite. The question makes no sense.
“I don’t know,” I say, but my mind runs backward through time to the night when I stood on a distant gray shore and spoke to the Devil and my father. I remember the Vassal vanishing into the Fury’s white-hot gullet. I remember asking the Devil about the Vassal, my only loyal servant, and what the Devil told me in response. He compared the Vassal to clay being baked into a pot. The process of being fired, in the kiln, has changed it forever.
“They become something else,” I say. “The demon . . . it doesn’t just look like a furnace. It is one. They turn spirits into something different.”
“Yes,” Ash says.
“So the demon eats them,” Elza says, “and then what?”
“It consumes them. They become part of the demon’s spirit flesh. All the sin and greed and guilt, the lust and anger and envy of the spirit, it all becomes part of the demon. Makes it bigger.”
“So they’re gone?” I ask.
“Not quite,” Ash says. “Not entirely. See, everyone — every human being — has a part of them that’s good. That’s worth something. Some have a small part. In some people it’s nearly invisible, the size of a grain of sand. But everyone has it, and demons can’t feed on that part of a ghost. They can’t digest it. So it sits inside them. It collects. The goodness, the virtue of these spirits, it just sits there and builds up over the centuries.”
“Like a pearl,” Elza says.
“Just like a pearl,” Ash says, nodding. “It’s a kind of spirit pearl, I suppose, made up of the best parts of every person the demon ever ate. It’s more than a pearl. It’s the most fantastic object in creation, according to people who’ve seen one. It’s called the nonpareil.”
“The none-parry-what?” I ask.
“Nonpareil,” Elza says. “It’s a French word. It means ‘without equal.’”
“Sorry I spoke,” I mutter. How does she always know this stuff?
“And if we get this nonpareil,” Elza continues, “you can fix your sister? Ilana?”
“Yes,” Ash says. “The Widow and I have suspected for years that this would be the method. And now I know for certain. I know the rituals and incantations that will make it possible. But I need your help.”
“To do what?” Elza asks.
Ash swallows. “To resurrect my sister, it is not enough that we obtain a nonpareil, and trust me when I say that would be hard enough. We need the exact nonpareil that her spirit has become part of. We must hunt down your father’s demon, the Fury, and remove the nonpareil from its body.”
I somehow knew this was coming. I knew and didn’t know. I close my eyes, remember the Fury: the eighth and greatest of my father’s servants, a towering black shadow with infernal hollows for eyes. A mouth like a volcanic rift. Hands like tormented roots dipped in tar. I can’t imagine a more dangerous spirit to pit ourselves against.
“How?” I ask.
“The Fury was yours,” Ash says in a low voice. “It was part of your Host, Luke. The Fury was bound to you, and although you broke the binding, a trace of the bond remains still.”
Ham is rooting in the compost heap. He’s a dim gray shape in the darkness.
“There is a rite,” Ash continues, “the Rite of Return. If you perform this rite at a passing place, you may summon any of your freed servants. It is your privilege as their old master. They must attend to you, if they are able. The demon will answer to you. We can call it up from the darkness where it lives and bind it, and then we can kill it.”
“No,” Elza says.
“Elza —” I begin.
“No,” she says louder, turning to Ash. “Are you crazy? No. Absolutely not. Luke said you could read the Book of Eight, and you have. You know what you need to know. We’re done.”
“I was afraid you might feel this way,” Ash says.
“That thing nearly killed both of us,” Elza snaps. “It nearly killed me twice. It did kill Luke. It went inside his mother and made her stab him to death. It’s a monster. It’s a living black cloud of misery and rage. You have no idea what the two of us went through, what Luke had to do to get rid of this thing. You want to invite it back to Dunbarrow? Give it a one-way ticket into Liveside? Are you serious?”
“Yes,” Ash says coldly. “I’m serious.”
“Do you understand what that demon is capable of? Do you —”
“Yes!” Ash screams. “Yes! I do! I was six years old! It ate my family! It ate my sister! It’s a monster! I feel sick just thinking about it, and I’m still prepared to face it again!”
The girls are face-to-face. Ash, a head shorter than Elza, still looks ready to tear her apart. Ham is hiding behind the shed, peering around the corner at us. I see that the Widow has her hand on the shaft of her spear, although what she intends to do with it, I don’t know. Ash is trembling.
“I know what I’m asking,” she hisses, staring Elza right in the eye. “I know.”
“Then you’ll know why we can’t possibly help you,” Elza snaps.
“You have to.”
“Why?” I ask. “I’m with Elza. I don’t want to see that thing ever again. If you want to kill it, you summon it. I don’t see why I have to help you.”
Ash’s face is tense, unhappy. I look her in the eye.
“I’m sorry,” I say gently, “but what you’re asking is too much. I can’t do this.”
“I see,” she says, looking from Elza to me and back again. “I see.”
“Summon it, cut it open, do whatever you want,” Elza says. “Just not here. Not around us.”
“How many demons do you imagine there are?” Ash asks me.
“I don’t know,” I reply.
“There is one for every page in the Book of Eight, or so they say. There’s an infinite number of demons. How easily do you think I would find the demon that carries Ilana’s spirit in its belly?”
“I don’t see how —”
“It could take more years than our universe has existed for,” Ash says to me. “If you perform the Rite of Return at a passing place, your demon will return to you. The demon bound as Horatio’s Fury. The one we want. It will take you moments. You’ll save Ilana’s life, and mine. And you won’t help me?”
“The risk —” Elza begins.
“My sister will die. There’s nothing I wouldn’t risk to save her. Nothing.” Ash seems close to tears. She composes herself. “Still, I see you won’t help me without there being something in it for you.”
“That’s not what we’re saying,” I tell her.
“No, no, no,” Ash says. “You clearly want something out of this for yourself, so . . . how does a hundred thousand pounds sound? Each.”
“Well . . .” I say.
“No,” Elza says.
“Hey,” I say to her, “can’t we talk about this? A hundred grand each —”
“No, Luke. I’m not letting that thing back into Liveside. No way. Not for a hundred million.”
“All right,” I say, seeing the look in Elza’s eyes. “No deal, Ash. Sorry.”
Ash sighs. She shakes her head slowly, like she’s embarrassed it came to this.
“You’ve been having dreams, haven’t you?” she asks me. “Sigils, stars, magic circles? I saw you writing on the board the first day we met. The same thing happened to my great-aunt. Before she died.”
“What are you saying?” I ask.
“Your mind is going,” Ash says. Her gray ey
es bore into me. “Day by day. Hour by hour. The Book of Eight is inside you, and it’s eating you alive. You’re going to go mad and die, Luke Manchett. I know this for sure.”
“What . . . ?” Elza says.
I look up at the sky. Try to breathe. My legs are shaking.
“Of course, it doesn’t have to happen like that,” Ash says.
“You can help me?” I ask.
“Oh, so now we’re talking about helping people?” she sneers.
“How can you help him?” Elza asks her.
Ash doesn’t reply. Instead she turns to the Widow and makes a motion with her left hand. The ghost reaches inside her white robe and draws out a dim object. She holds it out for us to see. I lean over the wall, squint in the darkness. The Widow is holding a cup made from gray stone. It’s an old cup, the kind of thing you’d probably call a goblet or chalice.
“Water from the River Lethe,” the Widow pronounces.
“The what, now?” I ask.
“It’s one of the rivers that flow through the underworld,” Ash says. “The River of Oblivion. The waters help the dead who drink there forget their lives.”
“So how does that help us?” Elza asks her.
“When used on living beings, the water can have milder effects,” Ash says. “How do you think I could just move into Holiday’s house?”
“Their memories,” I say. “They remember inviting you . . . but it never happened.”
“As I said,” Ash replies, “I have my ways.”
“And this helps Luke how?” Elza asks.
“If Luke summons his Fury back into the living world, I’ll give him a drink from the chalice. With the Widow’s guidance and the Lethe’s water combined, I know that the Book of Eight’s pages can be forgotten. He’ll have his mind back.” Ash fiddles with her nose ring again. “I was going to do this for you anyway, once we’d gotten hold of the nonpareil, but since you won’t help me willingly, I’m making this my price.”
“So you —” I begin.
“Your life for my sister’s life,” Ash says. “That’s the deal. Take it or leave it.”
I look up at the stars, the bright sliver of moon. I close my eyes, and maybe it’s just because Ash was scaring me, but I find I can see the contents of the Book crawling over the insides of my eyelids: thin jagged lines, crescent moons and eight-pointed stars, magic circles and sigils and diagrams of stranger shapes I can’t even name. I try to will them away, but they flare even brighter. I imagine them like locusts, swarming through my synapses, devouring the words and images and the memories I keep there. I want them out of me.
I open my eyes. I can still see the symbols, faintly, swimming in the darkness. They blend with the night sky, monstrous constellations, flaring and dancing in the spaces between the stars. The moon itself seems branded with a vast sigil, a symbol of power, blaring out across the universe. I shake my head and they’re gone.
“I’ll do it,” I say.
Elza doesn’t say anything.
“I need both of you,” Ash says.
“Why?” Elza snaps. “What could I possibly do to help you?”
“I need you to kill the demon,” Ash says to her.
“What on earth are you talking about?”
Ash slowly reaches into her white jacket and takes out a knife. Clearly she was never as defenseless as she made out to be. I should have patted her down or something before I invited her inside. She lets the weapon balance on her right hand, holds it out so we can see it. I move closer.
The knife isn’t made of metal. The blade is only a few inches long, made from strange white stone, and the hilt is silver. I can see symbols, runes of some kind, cut into the pommel. I rest my hand on the knife’s blade. It’s smooth and cool.
“What is this?” I ask Ash.
“An heirloom,” she replies. “It’s an old witch blade. It’s made from one of my ancestors.”
“Why are you showing us this?” Elza asks.
“The knife was carved from a necromancer’s thigh bone. It was made by the Daughters of Lilith to destroy demons. In the hands of someone with Lilith’s blood, it will kill the Fury and cut out the nonpareil.”
“What are you talking about now?” Elza asks her. She sounds almost panicked.
“You have her blood,” the Widow says.
“Who? Lilith? She’s a myth,” Elza says.
“She lived and breathed,” the Widow says. “Her blood is in your veins.”
“Did I just miss something?” I ask them.
“Lilith was the first witch,” Ash says. “Adam’s first wife as well, if you believe that part of the story. Which I don’t.”
“You said yourself,” I remind Elza, “when we first met. You said there might be witch blood in your family.”
“I said there might be,” she says, voice trembling. “I wasn’t sure. Besides . . . Lilith. It’s like saying you’re descended from King Arthur or something.” She takes a final drag on her cigarette and drops the butt into the long grass, grinding it out with her boot. “You’re absolutely certain about this?” she asks Ash.
“The Widow is,” Ash says. “She felt it in you.”
“The line is weak,” the Widow says. “Her blood is thin within you. Such is the way now. But Lilith’s daughter you remain. This knife will know your touch.”
I’m remembering other things about Elza, too. The way the Shepherd called her witchlet. I never asked him exactly what he meant by it.
“And she was real?” Elza’s asking them.
“Real as you or me,” Ash replies. “So. Will you help us, Lilith’s daughter?”
“If you’ll save Luke,” Elza says, “I’ll do it.”
“When we have the nonpareil, I will give Luke a draft of the Lethe’s waters. The pages of the Book will be forgotten. I swear.”
“I swear it, too” comes the Widow’s cold voice.
“And we can trust you?” Elza asks them.
Ash holds out the knife to her, hilt first. Elza reaches out and takes the silver handle. She raises the witch blade up to her face, turning it over in the moonlight, frowning down at the markings carved into the bone.
“I’m defenseless,” Ash says in a whisper. She tilts her head up to the night sky, exposing her neck. “I left my guard outside this house. I’ve given you my only weapon. Either you trust me, or you can open my throat right now.”
Elza snorts.
“Kill me, then,” Ash suddenly screams. “Do it! Either help me or kill me!”
We both take a step back, scared, even though Elza has the knife. Ham starts barking.
“Ash, my mum’ll hear us —” I say.
“I’m not going to murder someone in Luke’s yard,” Elza says.
Ash’s face is horrible.
“We want to help you,” I say. “We really do.”
Elza, still pointing the knife at Ash, gives me a look.
Ash calms as quickly as she did last night when I was trapped in the mirror, but what I saw in her face was real desperation and terror. This seems like her last chance.
Ham butts at my thigh.
“It’s all right,” I tell him.
I notice that Mum is still looking at us through the kitchen window. I don’t think she can see the knife, but it’s probably worth playing it safe.
“Let’s go inside,” I say. “And keep calm.”
We work out the rest of the details back up in my room. The Rite of Return isn’t linked to any particular day or lunar phase, so we agree to perform it tomorrow night. We end up agreeing that we’ll keep the witch blade, and Ash can keep the Book of Eight — which Elza had already packed up inside the reading machine, folded away into a compartment within the wooden case — until tomorrow night, as a gesture of mutual trust. I’m hesitant, but Elza seems remarkably relaxed about the exchange. Maybe she’s hoping Ash really will steal the Book, so there’ll be no chance of me using it again.
It’s past ten o’clock when Ash finally leaves. Mum’s
gone to bed. I watch from the end of our driveway as Ash recedes into the darkened street, a small white figure, walking silently into the shadows beneath the trees. Wind rustles their branches. A cloud covers the moon.
After Ash is gone, I lie with Elza on the beanbag chair in my bedroom. There’s a DVD playing, but we’re barely watching it. Ham lies at our feet. It’s harder to feel angry with each other now that we know what we have to do. Elza’s head rests on my shoulder. Her finger traces infinity signs on the back of my hand. The witch blade lies on the floor beside me.
“Are you afraid?” Elza asks.
“Now, is that any way for a Daughter of Lilith to be talking?”
“Don’t call me that,” she says, with the first smile I’ve seen out of her in a while. I press on with the joke, trying to feed my anxiety into it.
“I’m not sure if I can keep dating you now. You’ve got distinguished blood.”
“Yeah, you’re right. You’re only a necromancer, Luke? I don’t think so.”
“Maybe I need to date someone from my world. A lady necromancer. A beautiful lady necromancer, with beautiful white hair —”
“Oh, just stop it!” Elza’s laughing now. “She’s not even that good-looking! Her face is, like, completely flat, and those gray eyes are just spooky.”
“I don’t think jealousy is very becoming to a Daughter of Lilith.”
“Luke, I will slap you! I’m serious! Stop calling me that!”
“A million apologies, my dark lady —”
“I hate you,” she says, still grinning. “Honestly. It’s so embarrassing. Daughter of Lilith . . . It’s, like, a great name for an all-girl metal band or something. I can just imagine it embroidered on a denim vest. . . . But OK, seriously, are you afraid?”
“Of the Fury?”
“Of Ash.”
“I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t think she wants to hurt us.”
“No,” Elza says. “But I think she would if she had to.”
I think back to Ilana’s bedside. The way Ash’s face looked when she sat there with her sister. I remember Ash breathing out white light, her twin drinking it into herself.
“She’s got her reasons,” I say.
“People die,” Elza says. “You need to let go of them. They move on to other places.”