“Why are you helping me?” I demand.
“Who said we’re helping?”
And they shove me backward, off the fire escape.
I scrabble for a grip on the metal railing, but it’s freezing wet and my hand slips. I spend such a short time falling that I can’t even yell before I land face-first in a snowbank that’s not quite deep enough to cushion the hurt. I cough old dirty snow out of my mouth, my eyes stinging.
“Better get to work, witch,” Beelzebub’s lawyer calls from above, flashing teeth. “Who knows what’ll come for you next?” They slip back through the window of the precinct, and the last I see of them is a smooth, stockinged calf.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Tennis Shoes
I need to talk to Lilith. I need to. I know she doesn’t want to see me, but that’s why I need to talk to her, because she’s the only one I can truly trust not to be involved in this shit. How do I call her? I try yelling her name from a street corner, but no one really thinks much of it because, hey, it’s New York. But I don’t think she’s following me around like she used to, so either she can’t hear me, or she’s ignoring me on purpose. The only surefire way to get her attention is to almost die so that my sigil will alert her to my location—but that’s tricky. Should I walk into traffic? Hang off a balcony railing? The problem is, if I endanger myself and actually die before Lilith gets here, I count as a suicide, and then I go to Hell.
Which is exactly what I’m trying to avoid in the first place.
There’s one more thing I could do. The one thing that would actually threaten her, that she might need to intervene in.
I settle into a dim alley, next to a dumpster. I rub my numb hands to get some feeling back in them, cringing at the cold air on my skin when I roll up the hem of my sweater. My sigil scar has healed beautifully since Lilith gave it to me just over a month ago; the lines are as crisp as if they had been cut into me with a scalpel and not a demon’s claw. Tracing the curve of the circle that goes around my bellybutton, I feel a bit sad about having to do this.
First, I pick at the scar with my nails. I get a queasy feeling in my gut, this not-quite-pain, but a feeling of wrongness, like I’m trying to pick off my bellybutton. I get my penknife out of my coat and keep going, just… prying at the place where scar tissue meets soft belly, hurting myself a little. I let out a shaky breath as a sliver of red blood shows. The scar—it usually glows white when I’m in danger, but right now it’s hissing like a stovetop, getting hot like one too. The sizzling heat transfers through the knife, but the cold bite in the air is just enough to keep me from letting go, to keep me cutting—my actions are deliberate but my heart is roaring in my ears, a warning drum, my own body telling me to stop—
I’ve been at it for a good ten minutes when a shadow shifts on the ground. I look up, and a figure is at the end of the alleyway, silhouetted in the cold white light. I scramble to my feet, flicking my penknife shut.
“Hey!”
The figure takes off. I give chase, fumbling to roll down my sweater—I know it was her, I just know—I make it halfway across the street before I lose her. I look left and right, trying to spot movement, but everyone’s moving, everyone’s shrouded in fabric. I can’t find—the flash of golden eyes, the coils of black hair—
I swing around just in time to see a massive semi hurtling toward my face.
It doesn’t hit me. My feet haven’t moved but I’m being dragged backward, the truck blasting wind across the side of my face. A horn blares belatedly as my heels trip over the curb; I stumble, and fall over, my back hitting the brick wall outside a shop.
A face stoops to meet mine, with hair obscured by a faded travel scarf and eyes invisible behind dark, oversized shades that look like giant eyes themselves. Then Lilith whips off the shades, and the gold of her irises hits me like the sun as she pants, wild-eyed.
“What are you doing? You almost died!”
It takes me a moment to find my voice. The world is moving, spinning, flowing like rapids; the only thing that stays still is her, Lilith. I cling to the familiar sight of her face.
“I—I was trying to talk to you.”
Her face crumples. “What? No! That’s shitty!”
She turns to storm off, just like last time. I push off from the wall, half-rising, trying to grab her arm. “Lilith, Lilith please—I need answers—”
She shakes me off and points her sunglasses at me. “No, you owe me answers!” People are following me, Harry! No one’s even supposed to know I exist!”
My throat stops up. “Demons? Demons are following you?”
“What? No, people, Harry. Humans. I swear, if this is happening because you tipped off your precious Lord of the Flies to my existence—”
“I didn’t! You’re acting like I’m his sleeper or something, not like he just killed and ate five people in front of me!”
Lilith’s face turns sickly. “He did what?”
“He—in the hospital, there was a girl—pregnant, she—she gave birth to it—him—and he shredded everyone in that room, everyone but me and her—”
She backs me up against the wall again, this time tucking us around a corner into the alcove of a shop’s doorway. Her voice is doing that thing it does, that dual-tone of a smooth violin layering over a thumping, grounding, lung-shaking bass. “You better explain that to me again, because it sounds like you just told me that Beelzebub murdered and ate five living people.”
I know the transformation that potentially comes with that voice: the six-, seven-foot-tall figure, a second pair of arms pushing out from her sides, black sclera, black horns ridged like a goat’s, and a fanged grin that rips open her cheeks all the way back to her ears. I’m not afraid of it, not the way she wants me to be right now.
“He did, okay? I saw it, I even got arrested for being there. No contract, no retaliation, no nothing—it was like a fucking horror movie, like Aliens meets Rosemary’s Baby shit.”
Lilith is still holding me by the arms, her sunglasses digging painfully into my inner elbow. Her grip tightens, enough for me to feel the tips of her claws through both my coat and sweater. “There’s no way. No fucking way.”
I step forward. She lets go of me too late—this time I’m the one in her face, shadowing her easily as long as she retains her human height. “You of all people don’t get to say that. Whatever he did, getting around the laws like that—you do it too. You do it easily. You did it to save me, to kill Samael. There must be a—a trick, or something—”
She shoves me away, a snarl building behind her teeth. “There’s no trick, okay? It’s just how I am!”
“Then what the fuck are you?”
“I’m not telling you!”
We stand in opposite sides of the alcove, gritting our teeth, our breath clouding in the cold air.
The glass door next to me opens, lightly hitting my shoulder. A face peeks through.
“Hi, um. If you could take this somewhere else, that would be great. You’re being very loud.”
Lilith and I both turn to look into what we thought was a shop, but is actually a small music academy. Through the window, a little kid in pigtails with a ukulele is blinking at me.
Lilith murmurs an apology and tugs me away. As the door closes behind us, I lean to whisper in her ear, “Can we talk? Please?”
“What is there to talk about, Harry?” She’s almost whispering too, but her voice cracks. “What could you possibly say to me that could make any of this okay?”
I look into her face, and I have all these reasons and justifications, but they all just… ring hollow. Like I really thought she was going to save me, again, just because I needed to be saved. Like she hasn’t saved me enough already.
“…Forget my stuff. Tell me about the people following you.”
Lilith doesn’t look all that relieved, but she does grab my wrist and tug me into step behind her, having m
e walk with her around the block. “They’re not demons, definitely, not even the ones that aren’t human. But they’re mostly human, and the ones that aren’t—they smell like blood, and like magic.”
“Are they wearing facegear, headgear, stuff that covers their eyes and makes it impossible to remember what their faces look like?”
She looks at me strangely. “What? No, nothing like that. They’re like—delinquents, randoms. Leather jacket punks, hippies, homeless people. I’ve seen at least one a day, and some of them, most of them, stand out—like this woman in long black skirts, with these wooden anklets that rattle when she walks, and this guy in a fishing cap with deer antlers coming out the top.”
“Oh!” I tug on Lilith's arm to get her attention, but she won’t stop moving; I force the issue by planting my heels, making us both skid to a halt on the sidewalk. “Lilith, Lilith! That’s normal.”
She looks back like she wants to kill me. “Normal?”
“Yeah, super normal. It’s what happens when you make your debut.”
She screws up her face and squints at me. “Harry—you are not making sense right now.”
“Look, the main point is: you’re not in danger. Everything’s going to be okay, you just need some stuff explained to you. I’d be happy to, over lunch.”
She’s quiet, hugging her arms around herself even though she’s not shivering.
“My treat,” I add.
She still looks like she’s on the verge of leaving. But then she drops her shoulders, and straightens up.
“I want sushi.”
***
We find boxed sushi in the nearest supermarket and wait in line to pay for it. Lilith opens up her off-white parka and slips her sunglasses into a pocket, pulling her travel scarf back from her face so that her springy hair falls around her temples.
“You’re wearing shoes,” I comment. “Tennis shoes.”
“Ugh, yes, I know I’m wearing shoes,” she groans, scuffing her pale pink Nikes on the floor. “I’ve got like fifty insoles in here, and I think I’m still getting an ingrown claw.”
The line moves forward, I pay the cashier, and we take our drinks and the plastic bag with our food toward the elevators across the market. I peer at the seat of Lilith’s jeans; I’m not trying to be gross, it’s just that this is the first time I’ve seen her in pants. “You don’t have your tail right now, either.”
Mentioning that makes Lilith wince. “I do have my tail, it’s just—hidden. It’s annoying, like keeping a shirt tucked in. I have to keep—” she twists around, anxiously patting her back pocket, “—checking.” She jams the elevator button aggressively, like it’s responsible for her paranoia. “Harry, I will really, actually kill you if my whole stalking situation turns out to be your fault. I hate being in disguise.”
“Good news, you don’t have to kill me.” We get into the elevator; we’re the only ones inside, so we can keep talking. “This is actually about you killing Samael.”
Lilith pauses. “…Him?”
“Yeah, him. He was a local, and he wasn’t exactly invisible. Killing him means you flexed in public, hard. I know it was my fault, and I’ll take the blame for that—” The elevator stops, and we step out. “—but all anyone else knows is that you topped a guy with serious juice. Thankfully, they also know he had it coming.”
Lilith shakes her head, vigorously, zipping up her parka again as we walk across the rooftop parking lot. “How would anyone even know I was there? You didn’t tell your Council about me, did you?”
“Of course not. The official report says I took a potion with a delayed effect, hulked out, killed the guy, and found Joy dying. The end. The Council shouldn’t even know you exist.” The parking lot is pretty much empty on the roof. We find a spot at the edge to sit, with a barrier low enough that we can lean over and look down at the street below. I use the plastic bag as a makeshift picnic blanket, and we settle down with our food. “But these people are underground folks, the kind that network in Café Amara and don’t believe Council reports. Lone werewolves, registered vampires, banshees, curse-bearers, talisman vendors, and small-time mages—like me. They keep tabs on their own community, defend it, because they know the Council won’t.”
Lilith snaps her chopsticks apart. “Okay, so I understand why they’re following me. But what happens now? What’s the point?”
“They’re trying to suss you out. See what role you’re going to play, now that it seems you’re confident enough to act in public.” The wind chills me, and I pop my collar as my hair blows around my face. Sushi’s not exactly great for maintaining warmth, so I take sips of steaming miso soup like it’s hot chocolate. “They did it to me too, after my first real job—people and monsters started tailing me when I was out and about. Eventually, I bought one of them a coffee, and they explained to me what I’m explaining to you. I was polite enough that they cozied up, started referring me to people, referring people to me—that’s how I first met Joy. And my tailor, Ed. Hell, it’s the only reason I can make rent doing what I do.”
Lilith chews her food, thoughtfully. When she speaks, her voice is muffled by sticky rice. “If I ignore them, will they go away?”
“Maybe? If you’re boring enough for long enough, they’ll have no reason to stick around.”
She thinks and eats some more while I finish my miso soup. She dips her sushi in soy sauce fish-first, the way you’re supposed to, not rice-first the way I do it.
“Do you think… they know I’m a demon?”
I pause, wiping soup off the corner of my mouth.. “…Not sure about that one. They might think Samael bailed on a contract, giving you license to kill him. Or that he attacked you first. Or that you’re not a demon at all, just a kind of monster there are no records about. But…” I scratch my head. “I don’t think it’ll matter? Remember, these are the types who used to consult with Samael, and he was way scummier than you. I think if you’re cool, they’ll be cool to you, even if they can’t recognize what you are.”
“I thought your people didn’t like demons.”
I shrug. “We don’t. But it’s not so hard to tell that you’re different.” I think about Archie, his cute newsboy shit, the perfect scam. Dolly, her tits bursting out of a latex nurse uniform. Beelzebub in his dirty white shirt and unkempt hair, his yellow teeth and nails… tearing. Eating. Taunting. “All the other demons I’ve met treat humanity like a cheap Halloween costume. They pick some kind of caricature and stick with it, whatever helps them advance their agenda. There’s no depth to it, nothing beneath the surface. You… you act like a person, not an actor playing pretend.”
She flicks a grain of rice at my face. “Gee, thanks.”
I take the tiny projectile hit with grace. “Yeah, I deserved that. Sorry.” I pick the rice off my cheek. “Sorry, I don’t want to sound like I’m pulling some ‘you’re not like other girls’ bullshit. But… you actually are not like those other girls. I thought you were, at first, with the way you presented yourself—pretty, wild demon in a nightgown, teasing me into gambling my soul. It was cool, it was exciting, I bought it. We had fun.”
Lilith looks over the edge of the barrier, into the city. Her scarf has slipped down so that it’s just around her neck now. The wind whips her hair. “…You let me be that girl,” she says, quietly. “I don’t really… get out much. Not like, physically, I mean… playing witches, spinning contracts. That’s not my everyday existence.” She sighs, putting down her chopsticks. “Buer. He was my—” she wrinkles her nose, “—sire. I never got to know him, because right after I was born, he was swarmed by all of Hell. Most of his Earthborn were slaughtered. Including me. And when I came back… no one was looking for me. I didn’t matter. My origins are kind of obvious; what other demon’s a lion-goat hybrid with extra limbs? So I try to stay out of sight.”
I nod, mulling it over. “That… explains a lot. Not everything, but a lot. That’s why you�
�re a free agent?”
“On a technicality, yeah. As long as Buer’s not around to give me orders, I’ve got nothing to obey. The thing about Earthborns is, they’re bound to their sire’s will, yeah? It’s like getting born into a blood contract, and it sucks.”
A question occurs to me while I’m stuffing my face. “What happens if an Earthborn disobeys a sire’s orders?”
Lilith looks at me, blankly. “Well, like, they can’t.”
“Yeah, but what if they did? Accidentally or something?”
“Well, then…” She furrows her brow, frowning. “They would die, I guess? I don’t know, there’s not a whole lot of precedent.”
“I survived demon blood. Not a lot of precedent for that.”
She clicks her chopsticks twice, then points them at me. “No known precedent, you mean. You’re proof that it’s not a complete impossibility, and in the whole course of human history, there’s no way there hasn’t been enough time and variables for you to be the only one.”
I tilt my head. “…Huh. Fuck. You’re right.”
She shrugs. “About your first question—obey, don’t obey, none of that really matters to me. Buer, he’s not dead anymore, but he’s not very… cognizant. Even after he was resurrected, the other demons buried him alive in Hell just to keep him down. He’s been there ever since. I know because I talk to him sometimes.”
“That’s… harsh? Sad? I don’t even know what word to use. What did Buer do that was so bad the entirety of Hell turned on him?”
Lilith scoffs. “Fuck if I know. I was a baby, remember? And I died. Dying is bad for long-term memory.”
“You never asked around?”
“You think I talk to any other demons?” She stabs a piece of ginger and brings it to her mouth. “I’d get the same result from eating the funny end of a shotgun. Demons don’t like other demons that are free agents. They’ll try to conscript you to whatever cause or boss they want to score points with, and if you refuse, they’ll either torture you or kill you and hope you come back in a more pliable form. No fucking thanks.”
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