A Line in the Sand

by K. A. Stewart

  That startled a laugh out of me. “You’re asking me if I’m okay?” He nodded like a bobblehead, his ears flapping. “I’m…as okay as I’m gonna get, for right now.”

  “Does need anything more?”

  “No, not at the moment. I’ll call for you if I think of anything.” I turned to go inside, then paused. “Hey, Henry?”

  “Yes?”

  “You wouldn’t happen to know how to kill an angel, would you?” He pondered for a few seconds, then shook his head, slow and solemn. “Didn’t figure you did. I’ll see you later.”

  Part of my diabolical master plan to stop this demon war was going to center heavily on being able to kill Reina. Demons I could handle, no problem, but that wasn’t what she actually was. I had a feeling that holy water and fast sword work wasn’t going to cut it. Heh. “Cut it.” My pun-fu was still strong.

  I only had one person to go to, and I was truly dreading that conversation. He owed me explanations. He’d said that much, and I intended to hold him to it. But I didn’t figure that angel murder was going to be something he was going to give up out of guilt. I mean, he kinda had a vested interest in people not knowing how to make him dead.

  I went back to work, technically on light duty because of my arm. I called and talked to the kids every single night, while Mira and I awkwardly tried to figure out if we were actually separated or what. I joined up with the D&D game that Will ran on Wednesday nights. I met up with Estéban twice a week to spar, increasing in intensity after I got the cast off my arm. Most of all, I waited.

  Axel came looking for me sometime before Thanksgiving. I was taking the trash out to the Dumpster behind work, leaving tracks in the faint dusting of snow that had fallen since sundown. I slammed the lid down, and turned to find the blond demon leaning on the corner of the building, still in only a t-shirt and jeans. We watched each other for a few moments, before I shrugged and crossed the distance between us.

  “Was wondering when you’d turn up.”

  “I was…finishing some things.” He wouldn’t meet my eyes, his own trained firmly on the tips of his black boots. “Your arm has healed.”

  “Yup.” I wiggled my fingers to demonstrate. “Almost back to a hundred percent.”

  “That’s good.” He fell silent, scuffing a pattern in the snow at his feet.

  “Look, man. I appreciate the ‘wracked with guilt’ thing you’ve got going on here, but I’m freezing my balls off. Can we do this somewhere warmer?”

  “I…” He frowned, changed what he’d been about to say. “Yes, we can. The coffee shop on the corner is open until midnight. Meet me there after you have finished?”

  “Uh…sure.” So, mark ‘coffee date with a demon’ off my bucket list.

  No one was shopping, this time of night, not this close to Black Friday. Closing the store was quick and easy, and I shooed the pair of teenaged work minions toward the parking lot as I locked up, then turned my steps toward the warm glow from the coffee place down the block.

  There were more customers there than I expected, one whole section taken up by what looked like a college study group, books and laptops scattered over every available surface. The barista served me a hot chocolate, ’cause that sounded like the best thing in the entire world at that moment, and I made my way into the farthest corner, where Axel was waiting at a secluded two-person table.

  I nodded at his empty hands as I slid into the seat opposite. “You should have ordered something. It’s rude to take up a table and not buy anything.”

  He still wouldn’t meet my gaze, keeping his eyes on his clasped hands on the tabletop. “I…was unaware. I will remember that next time.”

  “You’re kinda creeping me out.” That made him look up at least, surprised. “This whole meek and cowed thing… This isn’t you. What gives?”

  “Perhaps I have simply been doing some thinking, these past weeks.”

  “Yeah, haven’t we all.” I sipped at my hot chocolate, letting the heat seep into my fingers. I hadn’t been able to get warm, since Rome. I’d become too accustomed to the extra life force, and now my body seemed reluctant to return to normal. I caught myself hesitating as I stepped through doorways, waiting for the familiar ripple in the souls as they warned me of lingering magic. My vision seemed dull now, and I’d debated whether or not I needed to go get my eyes checked. And it remained to be seen if my inherent danger sense would return, now that my extra guardians were gone.

  “You have questions.”

  “No doubt.”

  “I will answer them.” I quirked a brow at him and he nodded. “All of them. If they are answers that are in my possession.”

  I drank a little more, trying to put things into the right order in my head before I started. “First, what are you?”

  “I am a demon,” was the immediate answer.

  “You’re not. I saw you. I saw the real you, and you’re not like them. You’re not like her, either. You’re not fallen.”

  He made a face. “It is slightly more complicated than mere appearances.”

  “Then give me the ‘Angels for Dummies’ course.”

  Axel sighed. “She is a fallen angel. You are correct. You have seen an angel in its pure form. You recognized how hers has become twisted and corrupt.”

  I nodded, motioning for him to go on.

  “I…was an angel. Originally. Exactly like her. Exactly like the rest of the Host.” He fidgeted with his hands, something I hadn’t seen him do before. The conversation was truly uncomfortable for him. “I am a demon now. This is fact.”

  “Then why are you different?”

  “Because…I was asked to become a demon. I did not fall. I did not rebel. I am following orders, and therefore despite being a demon, I still appear as an angel.”

  “Whose orders?” He gave me a flat look. “Seriously? God-with-the-big-G said ‘hey, go be a bad guy’?”

  “In so many words.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “Because free will without choice is nothing.” A glimmer of red flared behind his eyes, but in deference to our surroundings, he kept it low key. “Humans cannot choose to be good if there is no other choice available. I do my duty, providing that choice.”

  “Are you the devil, Axel?”

  He snorted. “Your devil. Your Satan, your Lucifer. There is no such creature. It is a human fancy, created so that you can pretend that your acts of evil were not all your own.” He shook his head. “I am only myself.”

  “The Architect.”

  “Hm.” He pressed his palms flat against the table to stop his fidgeting. “What else do you wish to ask?”

  “More like I have a few observations to make.”

  “As you wish.”

  I leaned back in the chair, stretching my legs out. “So if you’re doing the big G’s bidding, following all of the rules that he set out for this little ant farm down here, then she is one who has said ‘take this job and shove it.’” He’d avoided saying her name, even just the name she’d given herself, so I’d do the same. I didn’t need another guest at this party.

  “Essentially.”

  “You will fight her, along with whoever else is on your side, because if she gets her way, she’ll turn the world into a smoking crater and destroy life as we know it.”

  “More or less.”

  “And in the process, that war will probably turn the world into a smoking crater and destroy life as we know it.”

  Axel grimaced, but nodded. “It is likely.”

  “So, here are my thoughts. Your arch-nemesis needs to die. And I don’t mean get banished back to wherever it is you guys hang your hats, but truly and actually dead. I get the idea that her lackeys aren’t the smartest of the bunch, so they’ll likely fall apart without her.” He watched me, an expectant gleam somewhere deep in his eyes. “How do you kill an angel, Axel?”

  “You cannot do it.”

  “Can you?”

  He paused for a long time, then finally shook h
is head. “No. We cannot harm our own kind.”

  “But you know how.”

  “I….” Again, he hesitated, and frustration flashed across his lean features. “No. I have suspicions. I have seen hints. Rumors. But this is one secret that even I was not entrusted with. But I have seen it happen. I have seen one of the Host destroyed before my very eyes. It can be done.”

  “So, someone knows. Be it demon, or angel, or maybe even human, somebody knows.”

  “Yes.”

  I nodded, draining the last of the chocolate from my cup. “Then point me in the right direction. We need to know.”

  “I can…give you a few places to start. Perhaps you can see something there that I cannot.”

  He gave me a list of names and texts that I could start my search on, and we parted ways, me walking to my truck in the snow and he just poofing into nothingness.

  Back at Will’s place, I lay on the couch in the darkness for a long time, pondering. My arm was healed. I had a general path now, if not an actual map to my destination. It was time to stop hesitating.

  I logged into the Grapevine app for the first time since I’d returned from Rome. It loaded instantly, but the link to chat with Viljo in person was grayed out. He wasn’t online, then. Before I could close out of the program, the link turned green, and I pressed on it instantly. The little window buffered for a moment, and then the hacker’s bespectacled face appeared.

  His dyed black hair was mussed, and I could tell he didn’t have a shirt on as he adjusted his glasses. “Jesse? I thought that might be you. Is everything all right?”

  “I’m fine, Viljo. Sorry I haven’t been checking in.”

  “It is all right. Estéban did your check-ins for you.” Of course he did. Viljo settled in his chair, reaching off screen and coming back with a can of energy drink. “What can I do for you tonight?”

  “I need a list.”

  “Of?” Already his fingers were flying over his keyboard.

  “I need a list of all the champions we have. I want it filtered down to the only the ones who have no family, or children.”

  The hacker’s hands paused, and he peered at the screen. “Why?”

  “Because I asked for it, and I’m the boss now.”

  After a moment, he sighed and nodded. “That is still most of you. Families are the rarity, rather than the rule.”

  “Good.” I was going to ask them to put their lives on the line in a way they’d never foreseen. If I could avoid destroying another family while I was at it, so much the better.

  In the middle of his furious typing, Viljo glanced to his left, at something I couldn’t see. There was no mistaking the faint blush that crept over his cheeks, though. “Um, can I get this to you in the morning?”

  I grinned. “Do you have someone there, Viljo?”

  “Um…I… Well, yes, but…”

  A woman’s bare arm reached into view, taking control of his mouse, and I heard a low voice say “Say goodnight, Viljo.”

  The hacker gave me an apologetic shrug and a totally unrepentant grin. “Goodnight, Viljo.” The screen went black.

  I stared at my dark phone for a few moments, then chuckled and dropped my head back on my pillow. Good on you, man. See, I’d recognized the unique pattern of scars on that woman’s arm, and I would know that distinctive accent anywhere. Good on you too, Sveta.

  Rolling up in Will’s second best comforter like a burrito, I closed my eyes to sleep. Tomorrow, I’d start kicking over hornets’ nests.

  Also from K.A. Stewart:

  The Music Box Girl

  Coming Soon from Pirate Ninja Press!

  Chapter 1

  The automaton was obviously malfunctioning. There was a lurching hitch in its gait as it moved, and even an untrained ear could hear the distinct click where the teeth on several gears had either broken or been ground off. The faint charred odor of long-stale grease followed the construction wherever it moved, and when something snapped like a gunshot, no one in the vicinity was surprised.

  Well, no one save the draft horse attached to the coal cart, and that monstrous creature shied with a startled bellow, dragging the wagon halfway down the block and scattering pedestrians before it like a flock of pigeons. It barreled toward the busy cross-street, which would most surely cause a disaster, but a well-meaning passerby managed to snag its harness and bring the beast to a stop. Its dappled flanks heaved with the efforts of its sudden, if brief, flight.

  The automaton staggered to an abrupt halt, frozen forever holding its load of coal, as its gears seized up and the snapping cables within its chest sent pulleys pinging around inside like bullets. Only the strong steel construction kept the mechanical parts from escaping and flying into the nearby pedestrians like shrapnel. A sad plume of smoke trickled from its auditory receivers, accompanied by the last plaintive whine of its mechanical voice box.

  “Goddamn piece of tin-snip rubbish!” The coal master appeared, his bristling mustache broadcasting his irritation even if the stream of profanity had not been a clue. “Piece of scrapyard junk!” He kicked the automaton in the leg, eliciting no response at all from the metal creature – it was well and truly broken – but causing no small amount of damage to his own booted foot.

  A small crowd gathered, drawn by the impending disaster with the cart horse, and entertained by the antics of the livid coal master. Chuckles passed amongst them as they watched him hop in circles on his uninjured foot, cursing fit to turn the air blue.

  “You there!” The coal master pointed at another automaton, identical in all ways to the first except that the second was still functioning. “Take this coal to the cart, then haul this thing off to the shop. We’ll break it down for spare parts.”

  A mechanical voice answered, “Yes sir” with a faint crackle of damaged wiring behind it. The second construct was not in much better condition than the first, and one could hear a slight ping with every step as an internal cable vibrated just a bit too hard. If one knew what to listen for, of course. That second machine would be inoperable within a month, in all likelihood. That was what became of poor maintenance practices.

  The crowd dispersed after a few moments, everyone returning to wherever their lives were taking them. No doubt home to an evening meal, to stoke a nighttime fire to ward off the early autumn chill. Perhaps to curl up beneath a lantern and read to one’s children, or beloved.

  No one noticed the figure in the dark cloak, standing safely to the side of the hurried pedestrian traffic. She took refuge deep inside her hood, lest someone see, and stood so still that not one glance darted in her direction. Such was their way, the way of the humans. Always so frantic, always so preoccupied within themselves. It worked to her advantage.

  When the throng had cleared somewhat, she stepped from the growing shadows, gliding along in a rustle of skirts just like anyone else around her. Certainly, under the cloak her gown was much too fine for this area of the city, but it was also decades behind the fashion with a faded band around the hem where the coal dust had been washed from it many, many times. It would not attract attention, not here. Just as she wanted it.

  By the time she had walked eight blocks, there was a distinct change in atmosphere as she left behind the coalworks of the city and ventured into higher class districts. The clothing here was of better quality, more recent acquisition. With the cooler weather coming on, velvets were making their return, along with collared coats and heavier gloves, and fur wraps would soon replace summery parasols. These things she noted, making a mental note to adjust her own wardrobe accordingly.

  Most went about in carriages, or the new horseless conveyances, the steam pistons hissing and popping as they sped down the street, scattering those still on foot from their path. Shopkeepers were shuttering their windows for the evening, dousing their lanterns, calling out farewells to their neighbors in commerce.

  Here, she crossed the street quickly, vanishing into the alleys before anyone could question why a woman would be doing su
ch. This was not the area for doxies, and her presence would be noted and wondered at if she lingered too long.

  In the alleys, with no eyes to see save vermin and inebriates, she moved faster, realizing that she would be late if she did not make up some time. The incident with the coalworks automaton had distracted her longer than she had intended, and she was behind schedule.

  Four blocks north, and two east, and she found the grate just as she’d left it. The bolts into the sandstone colored brick had long since stripped smooth, and it took nothing for her to lift it away and duck into the passage within, replacing the barrier behind her with no sound at all of dragging metal. A human would never be able to lift that grate, she knew, stripped bolts or no. Only she used this entrance, even the city vagrants having long since given up the effort of moving the grate as futile.

  Once inside, she only had to crouch for a few paces before the tunnel opened up into a t-shaped junction. A sewer once, long forgotten and paved over, the building atop it constructed decades after the tunnel’s function was abandoned. A small trickle of water still meandered down the center of the paving stone floor, never deep enough to dampen her skirts, but enough to create an almost musical melody as it wended through the uneven stones.

  Sometimes, when time permitted, she would pause here, locating a particular tone or note that was out of place, and then she would shift the stones in their beds, altering the water flow until it suited her. Tonight, there would be no such indulgence.

  Taking care not to slip on the moss-covered stones beneath her boots, she traversed her own well-known path, taking her deep into the bowels of the building.

  Already, she could feel the thrum at the back of her skull, the deep vibration caused by the sheer number of living beings above her. Hundreds and hundreds of voices, murmuring amongst themselves. Singly, they were nearly silent, but in multitudes, they roared at a frequency just below human hearing. Their feet, encased in polished shoes or high-buttoned boots, shifted restlessly on the wooden floor far above. In their hands, the paper of the programs rustled, crackled.