Fire: Demons, Dragons & Djinns

by Rhonda Parrish

Mike had no more right to this place than he did; neither of them were from this world. And if a demon’s only crime was existing, an avenging angel was nothing more than an asshole.

  He was a demon and a scientist, and he could be both, he decided. He allowed himself to feel the prickle of fire in his chest and feel calm in his bones. And he breathed.

  The scourge flared to life under his hands, casting the room into a riot of crimson, deep shadows writhing in the dancing light.

  “Welcome back,” he murmured, smiling.

  He’d lost one home, his kingdom forged of brimstone and passion. He wasn’t prepared to lose another for simply existing.

  THE WHOLE ACT of leaving notes felt juvenile, but he wasn’t prepared to have his final showdown anywhere near the women. Not because they were women, but because they wouldn’t understand, and it wasn’t up to them to clean up his body. He didn’t want to give Ari anything to report to HQ that was going to put her credibility or reputation at stake, and if she described a middle-aged man combusting into dust and gone without a trace, she’d have more than botched research to worry about.

  The note for Gita and Ari was simple. It absolved them from liability, explained his disappearance as a voluntary one, and promised he’d write from Hawaii.

  The one for Mike made him giddy the second he’d began to write. It felt so childish, but he’d smirked while scribing the whole thing in sharpie. It was the adult equivalent of “meet me at the bike racks after lunch.” Except it was a cave in Iceland, and he’d have to trudge through the storm to get there.

  Alastair waited, perched on a rock in a suit. His parka was in his backpack, along with his boots, but that was only to negate any suspicion about his disappearance. He’d actually enjoyed rushing through the storm, gliding over the ice, feeling the prickle of snow on his skin. Brushing back his hair, he smiled, his scourge clutched in his hand.

  If he had to make a last stand, he was satisfied with the location at least. The jagged black rocks stuck out like fangs in the mouth of the cave, and the ice that coated the walls and ceiling was the same colours as the waters of Hawaii, frozen turquoise and silver.

  It didn’t take long for Mike to arrive, similarly snubbing the weather in a t-shirt and jeans. There was a snap of cold that shot through the cave when he skidded in. He’d also brought his parka and boots, but tossed them into a corner of the cave. His features were icy, and his sword drawn.

  Alastair grinned, looking at Heaven’s weapon, remembering the pristine blue metal of their blades and the gold inlay at the hilt. Works of art: he’d always admired their artisans for their craftsmanship.

  “Now you look like the fiend I knew you were,” Mike chuckled, his deep baritone echoing off the ice. He took a step forward, moving from the mouth of the cave into the shadowy darkness.

  Alastair scoffed. Maybe it was his posture, or his scourge. Maybe his smile had been more malevolent than he’d intended, or maybe Mike just didn’t like Armani. He stood, rolling his neck. He was cool, as though the winter had burrowed into his veins, settling a glacier next to his fiery heart. It was like he finally belonged in this land of fire and ice.

  Mike jittered, taking another big step towards him. “Let’s do this, hellspawn.”

  Spreading his hands, Alastair gave the angel a slight bow of his head. “It’s what you’re good at, after all.”

  The wind blasted across the mouth of the cave, creating a mournful wail, some ice dropping from the wall into the shadows.

  Alastair let his heart burst to life, the complacency of mortal existence giving way to the passion and fervour of the Hells. Cracking his scourge over his head in an arc, the old weapon exploded into roaring flame, suddenly heavy in his hand, like he remembered.

  Mike jumped back, his shimmering blue eyes transfixed on the weapon. His sword was drawn but remained lowered, glistening in the reflection of the blazing scourge.

  Alastair bowed again. “At your leave, saint.”

  Shaking his head, Mike tensed his arm, raising his sword high over his head and lunged towards him, bellowing an angelic war cry.

  The scourge cracked, throwing white sparks back in his face, and Alastair dodged out of reach of the blade.

  “You sonofabitch,” Alastair hissed, losing his earlier composure. He stabbed a finger at Mike, insult boiling in his stomach. “You treat me like a feeble old man now? You didn’t hesitate in punching my face in before.”

  Mike blinked, already on his feet with his sword again raised in front of him. He shook his head, charred sections of his blond hair flashing. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “Light it!” Alastair bellowed, pointing at the sword. “Light your damn blade and fight me like a man!” His eyes were burning now, filled with fury.

  Clenching his jaw, Mike lunged again, this time getting hit with the full wall of hellfire and crashing into the dirt.

  “We’re not men!” Mike spat.

  Alastair stared at his opponent’s back; Mike was vulnerable as he got to his feet, but there was no glory in fighting a handicapped adversary. He would fight the angel at full strength and die valiantly, or not at all. “Light. The. Sword,” he hissed.

  The blade was high again, and Mike glared at him, his eyes icy.

  “Fight me!” Mike demanded. “Like a demon. Come on!”

  “Light the fucking sword! I’m not coming at you without your blade burning, so just light the damned thing!”

  “I can’t!” Mike snarled, his face twisting in a grimace, and he lunged again.

  Alastair easily dodged the attack, but did not crack the scourge again. “You what?”

  “I can’t light it,” Mike repeated, not meeting Alastair’s eyes, his jaw flexing. “But we can still do this. I have the sword and I’m here to vanquish you! So fight me, fiend.”

  And for the first time, Alastair truly saw him. Someone, not so unlike himself, spending countless hours shaking his weapon, trying to light it to no avail. Desperation and hopelessness settling in, then determination to see the act through to the end when challenged.

  If he hadn’t challenged Mike, would the battle have happened at all? Or would the angel have turned tail and left, unable to light his holy weapon, and too ashamed to admit it. Alastair had considered it himself.

  The scourge dimmed, turning dark and lax at Alastair’s side.

  “Come on!” Mike goaded.

  “There’s not much difference between you and I,” Alastair said at last.

  The angel scoffed, rolling his eyes.

  “We’re both making our way in a world that isn’t our home. Doing the best we can. I’ll say you’re doing marginally better than myself, but that could be due to the broadness of your shoulders.”

  Mike’s sword came to rest at his side, the tip zinging over the stone, and he gave Alastair a curious look.

  The demon raised an eyebrow. “Do we want to do this?”

  Mike nodded, too quickly. “Yeah, of course we do.” The cave was silent a few moments, before he continued. “I . . . think so, anyway.”

  “We’re biologically predisposed to be adversaries,” Alastair countered. “There’s a difference. It makes sense why we were at each other’s throats. It felt right.” He lifted his free hand in a shrug. “But do we have to?”

  A series of expressions flashed over Mike’s face, though the underlying confusion remained. As did the conflict. He was silent for a long moment before he spoke. “No,” he said, “I don’t think so. Not anymore, anyway.”

  Alastair nodded, tucking his scourge into his belt. He found himself smiling. “Agreed.” He walked over to his backpack, pulling out his winter clothes. “I like tea.”

  “What?”

  Alastair shrugged into his parka, dressing for the cold. “We didn’t have tea in Hell. Could never get the hang of it. So now, I like tea.”

  Mike laughed. “Football. And butter chicken.” He stuck out his hand. “I’m─”

  Putting up his hands, Alastair sho
ok his head. “As far as we need to be concerned I’m Doctor Alastair Duke, and you’re Doctor Michael Archer. And that’s all that matters so long as the armistice exists.” He zipped up his parka thoughtfully. “Or unless the antichrist is born.”

  Mike tucked his sword into his sheath and glancing over as he reclaimed his discarded parka and boots. “Is that really a thing? The antichrist, I mean.”

  Alastair shrugged, walking towards the mouth of the cave. “We’ve got a betting pool. But that’s about it.”

  The winter wind whipped at them but neither found the cold uncomfortable company as they began the trek back to the research station together.

  HIGH ABOVE THE cave, braced against the gusting snow, the two women stood in silence and shadow, hidden by the blizzard.

  The silhouettes of Alastair and Mike were growing smaller in the distance.

  Gita released her grip on Ari’s shoulder. “See? I told you we could wait.”

  Shaking her head, Ari compressed the long scimitar blade into its hilt and tucked the weapon into her belt. “You intervened.”

  “Prove it,” she replied with a sly grin. “You just need a little faith.”

  Ari chuckled, tightened the hood of her parka. “I suppose not having to dispose of two bodies makes today a win?”

  “It does indeed,” Gita agreed, capering down the hill. “Now, let’s go crunch some numbers and play scientist. I like it better when you’re the boss.”

  The Hatchling

  K.T. Ivanrest

  THE DRAGONS WERE polite and came in through the front gate.

  It wasn’t unusual behaviour for dragons, of course. Gryphons were the ones to watch out for, sailing like kites over the orchard’s hedges, making spectacular dives and loop-de-loops and landing wherever they pleased. And though unicorns had no choice but to walk in, they made every effort to be snobs about it. All in all, Sajar preferred his dragon clients—not that he would have told any of the other creatures that.

  Tucking his pruning shears into his apron, he watched his customers ruffle snow from their wings and survey the rows of egg-laden summer trees, as green and vibrant as the grass beneath their claws. No trace of winter’s knee-deep drifts could be found within the Cradle’s walls, where the trees produced their own ideal growing conditions—useful, though alarming whenever Sajar left the orchard and had to face the temperature difference.

  “Good afternoon!”

  He wove his way toward them, pausing to give the nearest egg a gentle pat and earning himself a swat from one of the overprotective tree’s tendrils in return. The fiery sting, and his accompanying eye-roll, cleared away the last of the lingering melancholy he always felt when working with the eggs. A privilege and a curse, helping others attain what he could never have.

  “My lady. My lord. It’s a pleasure to see you again.” Try as he might, he could not remember their names.

  “And you, Master Sajar.”

  In graceful unison they returned the bow he offered them, curving their necks until the ridges along the backs of their heads aimed skyward, and then the dragoness extended a claw and presented him with two thin, shimmering scales, one the dark grey of a threatening storm, the other tinted like the promise of spring amidst the snow.

  “We are hoping to grow our family, if you have trees available.”

  Grow our family. It was a phrase so common here that he’d almost succeeded in ignoring the guilty twist in his stomach whenever he heard it.

  “Of course.” He collected the featherlight scales, each larger than his human hand even with his fingers spread wide, and surveyed them for imperfections as he prepared to ask an often uncomfortable question. “Before I draw up a contract for you, might I ask if you have any interest in adopting a child?” He gestured toward the hedge to his right. “There is a dragonet at the orphanage, hatched here recently, who is in need of a home.”

  Their expressions softened, and the female’s wrinkled with curiosity. “For what reason?”

  He brushed a calloused finger over her green scale. “Given that you have two children, I’m sure you are aware that this is an imprecise process, no matter how we try to guide it. In this case, her parents were gryphons.”

  The magic of the summer trees at work—there was no other explanation for how a perfect graft of two gryphon feathers had instead produced a creature more dragon than gryphon. Already she was bigger than her parents and liable to burn down their nest throwing the mildest of tantrums, but Sajar’s heart had broken when they’d refused to take her. It always did.

  Always a reminder of Kaj.

  As if on cue, the gate in the hedge clanged and the object of their conversation came clambering over the ironwork, trilling excitedly, too young to put her euphoria into words or care that the keeper of the orphanage was shouting after her. Clearing the gate, the sunset-red dragonet toppled onto the grass in a tangle of feathered wings and flailing limbs and a little blast of fire from her aquiline nostrils. At last she scrambled to her feet and half bounded, half flew straight at the dragons.

  “Oh dear, I’m so sorry!” A rumpled phoenix alighted in front of Sajar, head twitching between him and his customers, her graceful crest swaying with the motion. “We tried to stop her, but . . .”

  But no one was listening. Already the dragonet was sprawled on her back, pinned beneath the grey dragon’s snout. Her little talons clutched his muzzle as he rolled her back and forth, growling with comic exaggeration; with each rocking motion her broad tail slapped the grass and she yipped in delight.

  The familiar combination of relief and envy struck Sajar, and he settled the dragon scales against one of the rocks lining the pathway. At this rate, they wouldn’t be needed.

  “It’s fine, Tsiet. Seems it was for the best, anyway.” He hoped his smile didn’t look as sad as it felt. Another happy family. Another child grown at the Cradle, off to start a new life while Sajar watched from between the rows of trees, alone as always.

  The orphanage keeper flapped her copper wings as though applauding. “Yes. And speaking of adoption . . .”

  She peered back toward the hedge, and as Sajar followed her gaze his stomach churned again. A young man hovered on the other side of the gate, a pattern of sunlight and shadow scattered across a body that looked equally patched together. He balanced on two dragon-like legs, clutching at the bars with mismatched hands—one human, the other a claw at the end of a scale-covered forearm. A pair of folded wings rustled behind him, and his eyes were fixed on the dragonet romping around her almost-parents.

  Sajar wanted to look away but couldn’t, not until Kaj shifted and glanced toward him, and then it was all too easy to turn away and settle his attention safely back on Tsiet. But though he blinked several times, the image of that misshapen silhouette remained, stinging his conscience like a snap from one of his trees.

  “He will come of age this spring,” Tsiet said, voice quieter though the dragons were making too much noise for anyone to hear.

  “I know.” Kaj’s hatching was so seared into his memory that he might mark time by it forever.

  “I’m afraid he won’t be able to stay with us any longer, as much as I would like it to be otherwise.” She glanced up at him, her golden eyes round, earnest, hopeful. “You’ve always expressed an interest in his well-being. Might you wish to—”

  “No.” The word spilled from his mouth on something that was almost fear, even as his heart and mind suggested a different answer. “No, Tsiet, I’m sorry, but . . . I can’t.” Won’t. Shouldn’t.

  Another feather-fluff, what Sajar had come to think of as a phoenix-shrug. “I understand. Just thought I’d give him one last try at a family.”

  He winced as the word prodded his thoughts into the past. The day Ensa had left . . . the day the egg had hatched . . . taking little Kaj to Tsiet . . . Clenching his hands, he shook his head. It was better this way. Kaj would be fine.

  “I can’t,” he repeated, but even so his eyes drifted back to the gate, just lo
ng enough to see that Kaj was gone.

  KAJ WAITED UNTIL the second moon had risen before shuffling through the snow and slipping over the hedge into the warmth of the Cradle, praying that his plan had any chance of success. It was a stupid plan, but it was the only one he had, his only hope of ever having a family, so he was going to do it anyway.

  He’d left the gate—it had been foolish to stand there so openly after he’d failed to stop the dragonet from climbing over—and spent the rest of the afternoon watching the new family through a thin spot in the hedge, the place he visited whenever he wanted a look into the orchard, into a life he’d never know. Balls of gold and teal and silver graced the branches, eggs pale like water and others bright as dragonfire, some swirled with colour, others glistening with a single, perfect sheen. Dragons and gryphons, phoenixes and more, all little hatchlings waiting to break into the world and meet their families.

  But tonight, rather than looking at the eggs, his dragon eyes instead scanned the pathway as he crept forward. They must be here. He’d seen Master Sajar set them against one of the rocks somewhere nearby . . . Somewhere—

  His heart leapt as the moons’ light gleamed off his quarry: two dragon scales, one grey and one green, nestled in the grass just ahead.

  He stooped and nearly collapsed under the bulk of his wings, which had doubled in size over the last few months. What else his body might have in store for him, he couldn’t imagine, but if it had decided whether to be human or dragon before he’d hatched, he wouldn’t be falling over every time his wings caught a draft. More importantly, he’d have a family by now for sure, one who wouldn’t return him a week later with some excuse for why “it simply isn’t going to work.”

  It never worked, and after fifteen years, there was no more time to wait for the day it would.

  He paused only long enough to gather grafting supplies from Master Sajar’s workshop before creeping to the far end of the orchard, clutching the scales like armour over his pounding heart. A single row of trees stood apart from all the others and always seemed to be bare. It was far enough from the house that he didn’t fear the orchard keeper hearing him, but even so he moved slowly, glanced across the yard again and again, and paused once or twice to check for movement.