by Jon Skovron
“What is that?!”
“That is your uncle Dagon,” says her father. “On your mother’s side.”
BIRTH 8
Paul thompson had seen a lot in his thirty-five years of life. He had been to nearly every country in the mortal world, and quite a few in Hell as well. He had seen wonders most people thought impossible, and he had seen horrors born from the collective nightmares of humanity. He had felt searing hatred, crushing despair, and all-consuming love. But none of it prepared him for the first time he held his daughter.
They had been holed up in a cave in Siberia while Astarte gave birth. The labor took two days. A blizzard howled outside, but it was a whisper compared to her screams. They were so loud and had been going on for so long that Paul was forced to stuff his ears with cotton to keep from going deaf. But finally, the first tiny cries of a baby rang out in the dark cave. Hell’s physician, Uphir, wordlessly held out Paul’s daughter to him.
She looked so small and pink in the demon’s long gray hands.
Paul’s hands shook a little as he picked her up and cradled her awkwardly in his arms. Her bright green eyes, just like her mother’s, gazed up at him in wonder as her hands opened and closed. He stroked the sparse, plastered-down black curls on her head.
“Paul,” said Astarte, her voice heavy with exhaustion. “Is it? . . .”
“She,” said Paul, “is perfect.” Then he laid the baby gently on her chest. The baby immediately began to nurse, and a look of contentment spread across Astarte’s face.
Uphir stood up, his large yellow eyes gazing at them coldly under his wrinkled forehead.
“As your physician, I recommend that you remain here for at least eight hours,” he said in a dry voice. “But if you don’t leave within the next hour, Belial will find you and kill you.”
“Thank you, Uphir,” Astarte said. “I know you have put yourself in danger by helping us.”
“I have repaid my debt to you,” he said. “Now I wash my hands of the entire tragedy.” He turned and walked out of the cave into the howling winds, then dissipated like the blinding snow that swirled through the night air.
“Ah, screw that guy,” said Dagon from his spot in the corner.
“Don’t let him get you down, sis.”
“Of course not,” she said, gazing with absolute peace at her baby.
“Kinda fragile-looking,” remarked Dagon as he heaved his large scaly frame up and walked over to where she lay.
“Do you have to get so close?” snapped Paul.
“Hey, just trying to get a look at my niece,” said Dagon.
“I don’t think—” “Paul,” said Astarte. “You promised.”
Paul looked at his wife for a moment, his face tense. Then he sighed. “Yes. I did.” He gently kissed his little family, then stood up so that Dagon could sit down next to them.
“Wow!” said Dagon as he sat down. “No teeth!”
“They grow those later,” said Astarte.
“Or claws,” he said.
“Now you’re just being silly. What halfbreed ever has claws?”
“I don’t know,” he said with a shrug. “Haven’t met very many. Not exactly like there’s a lot of them.”
She looked down at her baby. “No,” she said. “There’s not.
Belial has made certain of that.”
There was silence except for the wind, which still howled outside the cave, hissing and spitting ice.
“Do you think you can move soon?” Paul asked.
“I don’t have a choice,” Astarte said. “Let’s wait until she finishes eating, though.”
Paul nodded tersely and began to pack their few belongings.
“So, what’s the kid’s name?” asked Dagon.
“Jael,” said Astarte. “Jael Thompson.”
Dagon’s mouth opened wide in a glittering fanged grin.
“Seriously?”
“Do you like it?” she asked.
“I love it,” he said. And then he laughed, a rumble that reverberated so loudly in the small, icy cave that Paul winced, even with the cotton in his ears.
But Baby Jael stared up at her uncle in wonder. Then she smiled and let out her own little hiccup of laughter.
Paul sat with his baby in the suffocating heat of the tent because at least it was out of the stinging sands that blew in all directions. The baby cried, her shrill wail like needles in his ears. He whispered soothingly to her, rocked her, put her down, picked her up again, but she continued to scream. He fed her, changed her diaper, burped her. It didn’t help. So eventually, he just gave up. He sat on one of the rugs and leaned against the tent pole, placed her on his lap, and let her screams drown out all thought.
Dagon slipped into the tent and winced at the sound. “I could hear her miles away.”
“Sound carries in the desert,” Paul said numbly.
“What’s wrong with her?”
“You mean other than the fact that it’s a hundred and twenty degrees out?”
“That makes no difference to her,” said Dagon.
Paul sighed. “Astarte can get her to stop, but I can’t. Not when she gets like this.”
“Where is she anyway?”
“Somewhere out in the dunes,” said Paul. “She said she needed some solitude to think about what we do next.”
“Yeah, I agree that we need a better plan than ‘keep running.’
But Belial is almost here. We have to move soon.”
Paul nodded and stroked Jael’s curly black hair. They sat there without speaking for a while. The tent walls flapped rapidly in the high desert winds. After a while, Baby Jael fell into a fitful sleep. Paul gazed down at his angelic half-demon daughter.
She was so vulnerable, so helpless. When he allowed himself to think about exactly what was after her, he felt a deep ache in his chest. The threat came not from some petulant imp or even a low-ranking earl like Philotanus. No, it was one of Lucifer’s favorites. Belial, Grand Duke of the Northern Reaches of Hell.
A demon so powerful, he was almost an elemental force—like cold, hard winter itself. A creature so obsessed with purity and perfection that he would stop at nothing to destroy Jael simply because she was a halfbreed. So they ran, and he followed. How much longer could they last?
Evening had started to settle into the desert when Astarte reappeared at the tent flap entrance.
Dagon stood up immediately. “We have to go,” he said.
“I know,” she said, looking strangely at peace. “But it’s going to have to wait a little bit longer.”
“Cutting it really close,” he muttered, but sat back down.
She kissed Paul gently, then took the baby into her arms, whispering in a voice so soft that Paul’s mortal ears couldn’t pick it up. But Jael squirmed slightly, opened her jade green eyes, and smiled and cooed. Astarte smiled back, and a single tear dropped onto Jael’s forehead.
“You okay?” asked Paul.
“I think I have a plan that will keep her safe,” she said. “At least for a while.”
“Oh?” said Dagon, a strangely suspicious tone in his voice.
“If I draw the demon aspect out of her, Belial won’t be able to locate her directly,” she said.
“But . . . ,” began Dagon, but he stopped while some nonverbal exchange took place between the siblings.
“But what?” demanded Paul.
“But . . . she’ll be just like a mortal.”
“Will it work?” asked Paul.
Dagon simply shrugged.
“Will Belial still be able to track us?” asked Paul.
Another strange look between Astarte and Dagon. Then she said, “For now, it will just make it harder.”
“But you think it’s worth it?” asked Paul. He felt helpless, not even sure if he knew what they were talking about.
“I do think it’s worth it,” she said quietly. She looked down at Jael and smiled as tears suddenly sprang back up into her eyes. “My sweetest joy.” She carefully
laid her down on one of the rugs. From her deep desert robe pockets, she pulled a small wooden jewelry box lined with silver, and a silver chain with an empty pendant setting.
“Did Vulcan make that for you just now?” asked Dagon.
She nodded.
“He must have owed you pretty big.”
She smiled bitterly. “Everyone in Hell either owes me or hates me.”
“Or both,” agreed Dagon.
She laid the silver jewelry box and chain on the rug next to Jael. Then she opened the snaps of Jael’s onesie so that her tiny chest was exposed. Astarte gazed at her for a long time and tears started to fall again.
“Sis,” said Dagon quietly, “if you’re going to do it, you gotta do it now.”
She nodded and, tears still sliding down her face, she plunged her hand into the baby’s chest. It passed through as if it were water, but Jael let out a scream so piercing that Paul had to cover his ears. Then Astarte slowly pulled out a brilliant, burgundy thread of light. There was a little resistance at the end and Jael cried even louder. But a quick tug and the thread of light was free. Jael’s cry slowly trailed away to a shivering whine.
“Paul,” said Astarte as she wrestled with the thread of light.
“Please . . . I can’t stop what I’m doing. Comfort her.”
Paul jolted as if coming out of a trance, then swooped up his baby. Jael nuzzled her face into his arm and whimpered quietly.
Astarte gathered the thread into the palm of one hand, then pressed her hands together. Her face tensed up with effort and her green eyes blazed. Harsh grunts escaped from her lips and her arms shook. As last she let out a sigh and held out a fist-sized rough-cut burgundy gem to Dagon. As soon as he took it, she sank back into Paul. He shuffled his loads so that he had Jael in the crook of one arm and Astarte nestled into the other.
Dagon picked up the silver chain and fixed the gem inside the pendant setting. Then he placed the necklace into the jewelry box and closed the lid. He looked at Paul, his black shark eyes unreadable.
“We have to go,” he said. “Now.”
Extracting Jael’s demon aspect did seem to slow Belial down somewhat. But it also slowed the family down. Jael didn’t have the same resistance to weather that she’d had before. She required more food, more sleep. In fact, she regressed completely into mortal baby development. She no longer babbled or laughed, and she couldn’t hold up her head. Paul had to assure Astarte several times that this was normal for a two-month-old mortal baby. So while the chase slowed, they gained no lead.
But Astarte seemed less and less concerned about it. In fact, she seemed calm almost to the point of disconnected. It was so unlike her that Paul began to get suspicious. Finally, one night while they were camped in the Highlands of Scotland, nestled up in the mountains, miles from the nearest town, he decided to force the issue. Dagon was out scouting, so it was just the two of them and Baby Jael, sitting by a campfire that burned the rich peat that was so plentiful in that area.
“Okay, what’s going on?” Paul said.
“What do you mean?” Astarte asked as she gently rocked Jael in her arms.
“You’re keeping something from me.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. And Dagon’s in on it. That why he hasn’t been around as much. We all know he’s a terrible liar.”
“He is a terrible liar,” she agreed.
“But you’re not,” he said.
She said nothing, but continued to rock Jael.
“Why won’t you tell me?” he asked. “You think I won’t be able to handle it?”
“Yes,” she said. “That’s exactly what I think.”
“How can you possibly say that after everything we’ve been through together?”
“Because this is something very different.”
“I don’t understand,” he said, fighting to keep the quaver out of his voice. “We have never kept things from each other before.”
“I will tell you. Very soon, I think,” she said. “But I fear it will take a lot longer for you to accept.”
Later that evening, after the fire had burned down and they were settling into sleeping bags, Dagon appeared in the tent opening, his bulky silhouette shimmering in the moonlight.
“He’s here,” he said with quiet tension.
“What?” Paul jumped to his feet, startling Jael awake.
“How did he gain that much?”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Astarte calmly. She handed Jael over to Dagon, who cupped the baby awkwardly in his massive, clawed hands. Then she turned to Paul and held his face in her hands.
“My love,” she said. “You must promise me something.”
“What are you talking about?” he demanded.
“Promise me that you will give her the necklace on her sixteenth birthday.”
“Why are you talking like this?” he said, panic edging into his voice.
“When she is old enough, you must allow Dagon to help her understand her demon aspect.”
“Astarte! Stop this! Stop—”
“Please,” she said. Tears streamed down her cheeks. “Please don’t make this any harder.”
“But why?” he asked, his voice strangled.
“This is larger than you, or me, or even our baby,” she said.
“She has a destiny to fulfill. Now promise me. Please, Paul. Let me face him knowing that my sacrifice is worthwhile. Promise.”
“I promise,” he said, his voice ragged with misery.
“Thank you,” she said. “My dear own love. You are like no other in this world.” Then she kissed him long and hard. He tried to hold on to her, but of course she was stronger than him and she pushed him away at last.
“Dagon,” she said hoarsely. “Take them now. Please.”
Dagon cradled Jael carefully against his chest, then grabbed Paul with his free hand. Paul struggled, but the scaled arm clamped down on him like steel.
Paul had one last glimpse at the love of his life as she stood at the entrance to their tent. There was a look of hard resignation on her tear-streaked face.
Then everything was a howling, wind-lashing blur.
Asmodeus, the broken halfbreed that Astarte had spared the year before in Brooklyn, was the only witness to what happened next. His natural form was a three-headed creature—ram, bull, and man. But since he sacrificed his mortal half, he was far too weak to appear in that form on Gaia. What’s more, he had sworn to the priest that he would never possess another human again. So he stood on a nearby hilltop in the body of a ram as he watched Dagon streak off with the priest in one arm and the baby halfbreed in the other. He watched Astarte walk out into the clearing near the smoldering campfire. She simply stood, waiting. She didn’t have to wait long.
Belial landed in a bolt of white lightning. He was twice her height, glinting in the moonlight like a creature made of ice and razor blades. The moment he touched down, Astarte sent him reeling with a blast of fire. He recovered quickly, then hurled a blast of sleet that tore into her flesh and left her bloody and fighting to stay on her feet. They fought for some time, fire against ice. The skies flickered and rumbled as they grappled.
But the last few centuries had given Belial a strength and stamina few could match. Finally, he broke through a wall of fire and grabbed her by the neck. Then he began to slowly tear her apart and consume her, limb by limb. The last piece was her left arm. He started from the shoulder, cramming it down his throat. But when he had almost reached the elbow, she still somehow had enough presence to bend her arm, reach around his head, and tear off his ear just as he swallowed the last of her, and the ear with her.
He bellowed in pain and rage, clutching at the wound in the side of his head. Then he tore apart the tent, looking for the halfbreed. When he didn’t find her, his roar shook the mountains like an earthquake.
Asmodeus watched it all. He marveled at what Astarte had done that night. It was not just a battle that had taken place, but a complex and powerful ritual wit
h herself as the sacrifice. This is what she had meant when she had spoken to him, agreeing to spare him. That a time would come when he would be able to repay his debt and find renewed purpose.
First, he would spread the word of what he had seen this night, quietly, carefully, to sympathetic persons. The Grand Duke of the Northern Reaches had been outwitted. And what was more, his precious own perfection had been marred.
Change, real and inescapable, had been wrought this night.
Asmodeus had experienced much in his long existence. He knew the beginning of an epoch when he saw it. The fall of the Grand Dukes of Hell was at hand, and the infant halfbreed would be the catalyst. It seemed impossible that such a creature could survive long enough to reach maturity. But on that night, Asmodeus swore that he would do whatever he could to make sure that she lived long enough to come into her own power and fight for herself.
REBIRTH 9
Jael lets the necklace drop back to hang from her neck. She looks first at her father, then at Dagon.
“Why did she do it?” she asks. “Why did she stay behind to die?”
Her father stares at the necklace, his expression unreadable.
“I don’t know,” he says.
“She had to,” says Dagon. “Belial couldn’t trace you anymore, but he could still trace her.”
“There had to be another way,” says her father.
“There was also something about what she did, ripping off his ear, and the way she did it,” says Dagon. “I don’t really understand it myself, but I know it was something that had to happen.”
“But why did that demon want to kill me so badly?” says Jael. “I was just a baby.”
“Because you’re half mortal, half demon,” says Dagon. “You knew that, right?”
“Why is it so bad to be a halfbreed?”
“It’s not bad!” says Dagon. “But it’s unusual. The only time one is created is when a mortal and demon truly love each other. You can guess how often that happens. In the past, some of those halfbreeds became really powerful and caused a lot of trouble for the established order. Basically, you’re a wild card.
Belial and the other Grand Dukes have plans in motion, and you’re just the kind of person who could screw them up.”