The Demon Beside Me

by Nelson, Christopher

  “We have enough examples of central authority that went terribly wrong,” she protested. “We fear that level of power. We aren’t like you!”

  Famine cleared her throat. “You’d be surprised at how much humanity resembles our past incarnations.” Before Tink could continue, the Horseman plucked her knife from the table and handed it back to her. “I have already said too much. Gatekeepers, your decision remains. Where shall I strike?”

  “What will the effects of your actions be?” I asked.

  “Within days, you will hear of massive crop failures and similar disasters. Don’t take it as a literal famine. The damage is mostly economic in nature.”

  I looked across the table at Tink, then over at Caleb. “What do you think?”

  “Based on what we have heard here,” Caleb said slowly, “I wonder if we should take action against a well-off country or region, so that we can attempt to convince the Host and Choir to act.”

  “Acting against some sort of major power would also create some sort of power vacuum,” I said.

  “We don’t want to do anything that would destabilize a region, let alone the whole world,” Tink said. “What we need to do is act against a region that everyone will want to help. If we can get the world to buy into the idea, maybe we can get your people to do so as well.”

  I leaned forward and grinned. “It’ll be easy to get the Host to buy in. All I have to do is point out that if we’re going to lose everything to the Choir anyways, we might as well spend all of our resources trying to help. Maybe it’ll even shame the Choir into acting as well. That is, if you think the Seraphim are capable of feeling shame, Caleb.”

  He snorted. “That’s a good question, but I believe I can at least force it into the general consciousness of the Choir. It might shake them up a bit.”

  “So that brings us again to the central point. Where?” I asked. “Famine, any advice?” The Horseman had her head down on the table, either sleeping or pretending to be asleep. For a moment, she looked cute again.

  Caleb shook his head. I looked across at Tink and she scowled, but I could tell she had something on her mind. “It’s nothing,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Well, I was thinking about a place that most of the world would love to help if something went terribly wrong. It’s sort of dangerous though, because they’re almost certifiably insane, but I think it’s worth the risk.”

  “So tell us already.”

  She glared at me. “North Korea.”

  I considered it. They were dangerous, yes, but their economy was already in shambles. Pushing them over the edge could very well result in an uprising, one that the world couldn’t ignore. Western governments would jump at the chance to step in and neutralize the threat of what they considered a rogue state. South Korea would consider it a chance for reunification. China wouldn’t be happy at the possibility of a new threat, but it would also neutralize the cancerous growth on their border.

  “It sounds acceptable to me,” Caleb said. “You’re right, it’s dangerous, but I don’t see any other place we could affect that would have the impact we need.”

  “I don’t like thinking about what it’s going to do to their people,” I said.

  “They’re already living on the verge of starvation under a totalitarian regime,” Tink said. “They practically worship their Great Leader, who I’m pretty sure is just plain nuts. I don’t think we can make it much worse than that.”

  “All right. So I can influence the Host. Caleb can attempt to shame the Choir into following suit. Tink, do you think that you can pass a message up to the Northeastern Regional Conclave? I assume there’s a higher level that they can pass the word along to. We’ll mobilize everything we can. Maybe we should even consider going there ourselves.”

  “Not on your life,” Caleb said. “That’s a security nightmare. Imagine what would happen if Victor found out what ship or plane you were on.”

  “Oh, please. We could use part of the portal network to cross to South Korea or Japan.”

  “So imagine what would happen if he found you in Purgatory.”

  “What, do you think he could find me in the few minutes it takes to cross from one portal to another?”

  “Do you really think it would be worth the risk?”

  I sighed. “I don’t feel right about doing it and then staying here. I think we at least have the responsibility of seeing this happen.”

  “We have a higher responsibility than that,” Tink said. “Demon, far be it from me to encourage your cowardice, but this time you do need to think about staying alive. The best thing for you to do is to find a hole to hide in for the next two months.”

  “I agree with Anna,” Caleb said. “If that wasn’t obvious already.”

  “I still don’t like it, but you’re right. Damn you both. Famine. Wake up.”

  Her head popped up as I shook her. “So, North Korea?”

  “You were only pretending to sleep.”

  “Do you really think I need to?”

  I smiled and she smiled back. “Thanks for the help, Famine.”

  She winked at me. “My brothers are going to be pissed off at me. So, Gatekeeper, shall I exercise my power?”

  “Go to it,” I said.

  Famine stood up. With a resounding crash, a black horse smashed through the main entrance of the cafe, the glass melting away in midair. The little girl turned into an armored knight between one second and the next, vaulting up onto the back of her horse and seizing the reins in one hand. In the other, she held a pair of balances high. The visor pointed toward me, and I nodded.

  “Gatekeeper,” she said. “One more thing. You have a dangerous spell upon you. It lingers.” Before I could respond, her horse kicked and bore her away through the ceiling, leaving a blazing afterimage in its wake.

  I blinked and the image faded. The entrance was back in one piece, as if it had never been shattered, and not one person in the cafe had even reacted. “I guess that was meant just for us,” I said.

  “They do enjoy their dramatic exits,” Caleb said.

  “Well, let’s get on with this,” I said, pushing my chair back and standing up. “We’ve got a lot of fast talking to do in the next couple of weeks.” I had more than that on my mind, though. Some sort of lingering magical effect? It had to do something with my inability to convert ichor. Only two mages had access to me during the past two months, as far as I knew. I suspected I knew which one had left me a parting gift.

  Chapter Thirteen

  * * *

  The results of the famine were beyond my wildest hopes and fears. Two days after we met with Famine, news reports showed major crop failures sweeping the nation. A simple bug ate through their food, something that was resistant to their primitive pesticides. The next day, thousands flooded the capital, begging their Great Leader for help, food, relief from the hunger gnawing at them.

  The reaction of the Great Leader was obvious to everyone outside of that country. Troops marched in. Safeties came off. Unlike Tiananmen Square, there was no man who stood in front of a line of tanks. No one took pictures. The military simply faced off with thousands of starving civilians.

  They followed orders.

  Even North Korea couldn’t hide what had happened. Rumors had it that in the days following the Pyongyang Massacre, several of their officers defected. Other rumors said that several South Korean intelligence agents had broken cover to report what had happened. Even more rumors said that the US had watched it live, with satellite cameras focused on the city as the first shots rang out.

  I assumed all of the rumors were true. I watched the news along with millions of other people, the eyes of the world focused upon the mysterious rogue state. News pundits wondered if this was going to be the event that overthrew the government. I suspected it would be, but I had rather specialized information.

  The turning point arrived two weeks later when the DMZ suddenly came alive with civilians. The North Korean military
was always prepared to deal with would-be defectors, but even the most heavily militarized border in the world couldn’t deal with the number of civilians heading for them. In some places, the civilians were turned back. In others, they were forced back. Those who survived kept returning. Rumors had it that the Chinese border was equally flooded.

  Twenty-eight days after I had authorized the famine, they finally reached the breaking point. The DMZ was once again flooded with refugees, but this time, they refused to leave. The military was hesitant to open fire on their own people a third time. They may have been starting to feel the effects of the famine themselves. In several places along the border, the People’s Army broke down and allowed people to flee south. Some of them may even have followed. Some of them may even have survived their flight.

  At the Joint Security Area in Panmunjeom, the pressure built too far, too fast. Several North Koreans opened fire at the civilians trying to flee. Seeing this, the South Koreans fired upon their counterparts. A riot quickly broke out and before either side could quell it, there were thousands of refugees streaming south. Over forty thousand people crossed the border in that first day.

  Days later, the refugee count was nearly three hundred thousand as the DMZ collapsed. No one paid attention to the increasingly histrionic broadcasts of the Great Leader, which abruptly ended with his unexpected death two days after the collapse of the DMZ. News organizations flooded South Korea, showing the miserable condition of the refugees. The South Korean government had been caught flatfooted. No one had expected reunification under these conditions.

  Luckily, I knew who could help relieve those conditions. It hadn’t taken much convincing. I simply pointed out that the time limit the Choir had imposed was about to expire and they would seize all of our economic assets. If we spent them on aid to the Korean people, it would deny those assets to the Choir. I also suggested that we tell the Choir what we were doing, in order to shame them into matching our contributions. The High Council accepted the idea with barely a moment of deliberation. A terse message went out to the Choir. There was no response from the angels.

  And so, with only days left before the putative opening of hostilities, I found myself surprised while watching television in my hotel room. The Host had put together an aid package that weighed in at several hundred million dollars. Each House had several shell corporations to deal with our worldly wealth, and they were all working together to feed that money to Korea. There was no mention of it on the news. Instead, a reporter was holding forth about some other multi-national consortium that had just announced an aid package for the Korean government that weighed in at over twenty billion dollars. I picked up my new phone and dialed Opheran. “My Prince, are you watching the news?”

  “I’ve heard. It’s not the Choir.”

  “It’s not?”

  “It’s nothing we’ve ever heard of.” Opheran sounded exhausted. He had been running all over the world, organizing much of the House’s assets into our portion of the aid package. “As far as we can tell, this organization didn’t exist a week ago. They’re covering their tracks rapidly and the human news organizations haven’t seemed to notice yet, but we have resources they don’t.”

  “Any ideas?”

  “I was hoping you might.”

  I frowned. “Why would I know?”

  “There are signs that the organization is backed by human magic users.”

  “I’ll look into it and get back to you,” I said.

  “Thanks.” Opheran clicked off and I flipped through my contact list, sending text messages to both Hikari and Tink, asking if they could drop by as soon as possible. Much to my dismay, both responded immediately that they were coming to the hotel right away. I tapped my fingers on my thigh, then growled a few words in demonic.

  “You called?” Kibs fluttered through the wall no more than a minute later. “Getting stir-crazy in here, Zay? Need me to find an escort for you?”

  I shook my head. “No, I have Tink and Hikari on the way here.”

  “Even better. Can I watch?”

  “Actually, that’s exactly what I want you to do.”

  The imp’s eyes grew huge. “Zay, you have just totally made my day.”

  “Not exactly, Kibs. I want you to witness whatever they have to say. I need to talk to them about the mysterious organization dumping aid into Korea, and I may need some backup. You’re it.”

  “Damn, you’re boring. I was hoping for some excitement.”

  I laughed. “I hope this meeting is boring, to be honest. If it gets exciting, that’s probably a bad thing.”

  “What do you mean? You don’t want to get both their clothes off at the same time?”

  “No, Kibs. I mean, yes, maybe, but not now. Look, I’ve been helping coordinate Opheran’s work from the rear lines here for the past two weeks. I don’t have the energy. The point of getting them here is to get some questions answered. First, what do they know of this new mysterious multi-national whatever that’s backed by mages? Second, which one of them left a lingering spell on me?”

  “Hikari, of course.”

  “Do you know that or just suspect it?”

  Kibs snorted. “Zay, you’re a dumbass of the highest level. Don’t you think we had observers watching over you while they were throwing magic at your corpse?”

  “My what?”

  “Shit. I need a drink.”

  “Kibs, that’s not funny.”

  “No, it fucking well wasn’t.” The snap to the imp’s voice made me take a step back. He flapped his wings and landed on my bed. “Look, Zay, you died, more than once. Do you really think anyone here wants to fucking talk about it?”

  “No, but it would have been nice to know!”

  “Why?” Kibs snapped his fingers. “Oh, so that you could feel better about what you went through? Or worse? Why the hell would it matter to you?”

  “It matters, dammit!”

  “Don’t you get it? You’re alive now and that’s all that-“

  “Kibs! Stop it! Just tell me!”

  He sighed and sprawled backwards on the bed. “I lost track of how many times your heart gave out. Each time, those two chicks brought you back. They started having to take turns doing it because they would use up so much of their own blood, they’d pass out. Sweetcheeks there, she wouldn’t let you go. She nearly killed herself a couple of times. You know what they ended up doing, Zay? They were in a hospital, right? They got blood transfusions. Every day. Every single fucking day. That’s how often you were blowing out.”

  I sat on the edge of the bed. My head was spinning. I had no idea that I had come that close. No one had told me. “I owe them my life.”

  “Forget that shit, Zay. You already saved both of their lives time and time again, especially Sweetcheeks. They owed it to you. Besides, you dumbass, they actually like you. Humans will go to all ends to save the lives of people they like.”

  I shook my head. There were some things I just didn’t understand. Being a halfblood didn’t mean I was wired like a human, or like a demon. I fully intellectually understood the concept Kibs was talking about. I just didn’t understand how it applied to me. I understood why Hikari and Tink felt they might need to go to such lengths. It all made sense on some level.

  “Hell to Zay, come in Zay.”

  “Sorry. I was just thinking.”

  “Yeah, I figured. I saw the smoke.”

  “Thanks for letting me know.”

  “Don’t thank me. I still don’t think you need to know, but too fucking late now.” He sighed and sat up. “Just don’t make a big deal out of it.”

  “I’ll try not to. Back to the original subject. Do you have any proof that it was Hikari? I didn’t know that you could recognize specific spells.”

  Kibs slapped his forehead. “You are such a dumbass, Zay. We were watching over you, dipshit. We saw the healing spells they cast on you. One night, after Sweetcheeks passed out, Hikari cast a different type of spell. She didn’t say anything
about it. We thought about telling Opheran about it, but there didn’t seem to be anything wrong with you. In fact, that was right around the turning point.”

  “So you thought she did it to help me?”

  “Maybe, but if it’s still lingering after all these weeks, I’m suspicious.”

  “Maybe she just forgot to lift it? Or hasn’t had a chance to lift it?”

  “Bullshit, Zay. She’s been avoiding you.”

  “She has?”

  Kibs slapped his forehead again. “How many times has she come to see you in the past month since you woke up? Five? Six? Some girlfriend. She’s not even living with you here. Where do you think she’s been?”

  I turned my head to look at him. “You tell me.”

  “She’s been at a different hotel, back near your old place. I think she’s been taking all sorts of extra hours at work. Almost lost her job while you were out, but I think she used some magic to convince them to let her stay on.”

  “Seems risky to be so far away from the House protection here,” I said.

  “Opheran thought the same thing. He offered to get her work here. She turned him down, even though it’d pay better than what she’s doing now.”

  I tapped my fingers on my thigh. “I’d think that she’d be looking for money in order to get a new apartment.”

  “Something’s weird about that girl, Zay.” Kibs got to his feet and launched off the bed. “Speaking of which, she’s on the way up now. Sweetcheeks is with her. They were both smiling when they got here, and then they caught sight of each other, and the smiles vanished. Neither one has said a word to the other. Oh, that elevator must be very uncomfortable.”

  I sighed. “This is going to be an unpleasant little meeting, isn’t it?”

  “You called it. Good luck.” Kibs faded into transparency and vanished.