by Krista Walsh
I lurked in the shadows across from his building, out of sight of most passers-by, and waited a good two hours. The church bells marked eight o’clock mass as he finally appeared.
He got out of a cab — alone, I was pleased to see — and went inside. I slipped out of my alley and made it to the elevator just as the cage door closed.
“You’re Jermaine?” I asked, although I knew the answer.
His finger hovered over the button for his floor, but he didn’t press it, eying me warily. His reaction didn’t surprise me. I knew I was quite a sight to behold, and tried to see myself how he must see me. I loomed over him by a good six inches, and although he wasn’t a scrawny man by any definition, my broad frame stretched the corners of my trench coat to nearly twice his width. The red scars on my face tugged down the corner of my right eye, which only chance had kept me from losing. Along with the way my hands dangled by my sides, I imagined I looked very much like some hulking ogre.
In spite of my sinister appearance, Jermaine showed more curiosity than fear.
“Who wants to know?”
“Someone looking to have a job done that requires your particular…skills.”
Another moment’s hesitation, then a spark of interest as he assessed me. I forced myself not to look away or bow my head to avoid his gaze. After he finished scanning me over, he slid the cage door open and jerked his head.
“Come on upstairs and tell Doctor Jermaine your troubles.”
I said nothing as we traveled to the top floor and trailed behind him after he stepped out. The hallway was brighter than I expected it to be, and cleaner than anywhere I expected Jermaine to live. While the old carpet smelled of cigarette smoke and stale cooking, the walls had been painted within the last year by my guess, suggesting some consistent maintenance. The only exit other than the elevator behind me were the stairs at the end of the hall. I made sure to keep out of his reach and watched for any sudden moves while he unlocked the door to his apartment.
Meeting somewhere outside would have made me more comfortable, but I didn’t want anyone overhearing our conversation.
Not that they would believe anything they heard.
I stepped inside and stayed near the door with my arms crossed while he passed the open kitchen to the fridge. Across from me, the open-concept living room was divided into the living area to the left and a cluttered laboratory-like station to the right, with what I assumed was the bedroom door behind the lab. The easiest escape route was the door behind me, but another door — glass, fitted into the large, domed window beyond the dining table to my left — led to a fire escape.
“You can stay by the door if you want,” Jermaine said, “but I’m going to make myself comfortable on the couch. You’re welcome to join me.” He stepped away from the fridge with a beer in his hand, and I noticed he didn’t offer one to me.
He crossed over the rug and dropped down on the white leather couch. He reached for the television remote on the end table and tapped his finger on the power button, but didn’t turn it on. In the empty reflection of the screen, I watched him take a swig of beer, which he followed with an audible sigh of satisfaction.
I followed the wall closest to the window and remained standing in pained silence until Jermaine glanced at me over the lip of his bottle. I realized how absurd I looked. With an awkward shuffle, my large frame not made for small movements, I dropped onto the far end of the couch, the cushions sinking deeper under my weight than I had anticipated. I tried to shift myself out of the groove, but each redistribution of my weight only lowered me farther, so I froze.
“Good, that’s better,” said Jermaine. “I never enjoy looking up at a man when I talk, and with you I imagine I’d get a crick in my neck. So tell me your story. Let’s start easy. What’s your name?”
“Zachariel.”
“All right, Zach, so what do you need, and what are you willing to offer me in return?”
Some people might have been put off by his bluntness, but I appreciated it. I always preferred knowing where I stood.
When I remained silent, wanting to collect my thoughts before I began, he said, “You remind me of a cat, you know that? Big as you are, you’re jumpy. But you came to me, so if we could move things along, I do have things I need to do.”
I forgot about my precarious cushion balance and shifted again, my hand slipping between the cushion and the armrest before I tensed and slowly righted myself.
“Why don’t I kick things off,” Jermaine said. He set his beer down on the table and clapped his hands, rubbing them together before tilting his fingers toward me. “You’re a demon.”
“Half,” I corrected.
“Okay, we’re getting somewhere. What’s the other half?”
I mumbled the answer under my breath, and when Jermaine stared at me with impatience, I repeated more strongly, “Angel.”
His eyebrows shot up with interest. He grabbed his beer from the end table and settled back into the couch, his gaze never leaving my face. “Tell me more.”
I skipped over most of the tale, reluctant to dive into the sordid family history of my demon mother, with her hot temper and overwhelming bloodlust, and my angel father, his cold purity so sharp it cut through the world like a fine blade. My mother had been the one to tell me their story, how in spite of their differences they’d shared a passion hotter than the fires of either family. The white hot inferno had lasted until my father fell. Cast out of the heavens with no recourse, he had chosen to live homeless on the streets of a heartless city in an alcoholic haze, while my mother had raised me and tried to make the most of living on Earth.
Avoiding as many personal details as possible, I stuck with the basic facts of my divided bloodlines, and concluded with, “I hear you can help me pick a side.”
Jermaine’s lips twitched in a smirk. “Tired of batting for both teams, are you?”
I stared at him vacantly, happy to let him believe I didn’t understand his meaning. I hadn’t come for jokes or small talk.
The smirk disappeared from his face, replaced by a confused frown. “Why, man? You have the best of both worlds right now. Why would you want to choose?”
I swallowed the anger burning the back of my throat and squeezed a fist against my thigh. “Because it’s not the best of both worlds. It’s having no world. I’m denied by my father’s side and attacked by my mother’s.”
A decade ago, I’d sought out the angels, and when they cast me out for my impurities, I’d gone the other way to unite with my mother’s family. The scars on the right side of my face still prickled with the memory of my encounter with the Korvack demons. The demons had mocked me as they burned me alive and tried to tear me apart. Then they, too, had cast me out — a cruel joke to leave me beaten and scarred in a world that would have its own difficulties accepting me.
“I see. So you’re feeling sorry for yourself.”
“I am not,” I growled, and my anger slipped. “I’m just looking for a place to go. Where I can be at peace.”
“Why not take advantage of what you have and what you can do? Man like you, I’m sure you could create your own peace.”
“That’s not the life I choose to live.”
Jermaine eyed me over his beer. “Very interesting. So which do you choose? The way of fire and rage, or ice and hard purity? Both sides turned their backs on you — who do you want to crawl back to and beg for more?”
I dug my nails into my palm to hold myself back from punching him in the throat. In spite of his arrogance and rudeness, I had to remember he was my best chance.
“I wish to rid myself of the demon. If I must survive in the world in the guise of a human, I would prefer not to be overwhelmed by my desire to destroy it. This anger is constant and restraining it is exhausting.”
“And you think the angel side would be better? From my experience, those warriors are not all fluffy kittens, either.”
I glowered at him. “Their justice for impurity is swift, but their an
ger is cold and detached. I might not think better of the humans who surround me, but I’ll be better suited to living a solitary existence, which is what I want. Will you help me?”
“Sure,” he replied without hesitation.
His certainty took me aback, and I needed a moment to form my reply.
“Thank you. I am able to pay you.”
I shifted to reach my wallet, losing balance again on the couch cushion, but he held up a hand to stop me.
“You can pay me, but I don’t want money.”
Warily, I asked, “Then what is it you want?”
He grinned and swung himself to his feet. Heading over to his desk, he set down his beer, struck a few keys on the keyboard, and crossed his arms.
“Your demon.”
“What?” I scrunched my brow, felt the tightness of my scars as the skin moved.
“In case you don’t know, I’m a warlock. It’s why I’m able to help you. You’re looking to better yourself, and so am I. I’m on a constant search for improvement. And you’ve got power, my friend. A real, raw strength. On both sides. You’re looking to get rid of half of it to improve your life, and I could improve mine by taking it on. What do you say?”
I had known the man for all of half an hour and didn’t like him. I didn’t trust what he would do with the extra power — he was too ambitious for his own good. But at the same time, I couldn’t afford to care. I had my own ambitions, and I needed to take that one step toward normalcy before I could turn my back on the poorly named New Haven forever. What did it matter what this man did with his city after I left?
“I agree.”
Jermaine’s grin widened, and he extended a hand toward the long, reclined leather chair. “Then step right up.”
I eyed the distance from the fire escape to the chair. I didn’t like the thought of being so far from my exit route. But if Jermaine remained between the chair and his desk, I could get out if I needed to.
With a deep breath, I rose from the couch and followed him toward his make-shift laboratory. I settled in the chair and gripped the armrests, making Jermaine laugh.
“Just relax,” he said. “This won’t hurt a bit.”
Such words rarely instilled confidence in the person who heard them, but at first, he was right. As he began to chant over my head, reading the text off his computer screen, I felt merely lightheaded, my limbs attached to my body only in a purely physical sense. My nose tingled, and a sharp burn ran down my throat. Then I moved from lightheaded to numb. With a passing thought, I noted that if this were the extent of the process, I would be just fine.
But the longer the spell went on, the sharper the pain in my throat became. Jermaine’s monotonous cadence melted into a hum deep in my ears that traveled into my head until I vibrated with it. Stabs of agony burst behind my knuckles, something sharp tearing at me from the inside. My skin began to itch and, through the haze of pain and dizziness, I watched my arms turn red, like embers against a charred log, the pores replaced by scales.
“No,” I said, and the word came out raspy, as if my entire mouth were also covered in rough shell-like scales. “Stop!”
The chant only intensified, but in my mind, I heard Jermaine’s voice as clearly as if he spoke in my ear.
“It was your choice to waste your power, Zachariel. I’m just trying to put it to good use. You agreed to let me have your demon. Trouble is, the demon is attached to you. So relax, sit tight, and in another few minutes, you won’t remember anything except that you are my loyal slave.”
He laughed, and I struggled to break free, but my arms and legs felt too heavy to move, bound by the weight of the spell. Another loud hum overtook the din of the chant, and it wasn’t until my mouth went dry that I realized it was my screams. My lungs ached with the exertion, and my mind slipped farther away, nothing but anger remaining. Anger and a desire to bend my knee to Jermaine’s will. The harder I fought against it, the sharper the pain in my head became.
Despite my fears of what Jermaine would do with me, I thought about how easy it would be to give in, to slip away and never again worry about having nowhere to go. I’d made a deal with the devil, and I had lost.
The sound of shattering glass yanked me out of my defeatist thoughts, and Jermaine stumbled in his spell, interrupting the flow of magic between us. Then a terrible crashing noise echoed in my right ear, and a puff of smoke rose in a cloud above the computer, accompanied by waves of shooting sparks.
Jermaine cursed and jumped away from his desk, then reached for his papers. He jerked back when the sparks got too close to his fingers.
The shaft of an arrow protruded from the remains of the computer screen.
I looked toward the domed window to find the large pane had shattered. Another arrow lay in the broken glass scattered across the floor and rug.
Taking advantage of the distraction, I swung my fist — still swollen, red, and scaled from the spell — toward Jermaine’s head. The force of the blow sent him crashing to the ground in a daze, and the momentum of my swing pulled me out of my seat. I rose to my feet on shaking legs and bolted to the fire escape. On my way out the window, I stooped and grabbed the arrow from the glass, not wanting to be unarmed while I was so vulnerable.
As I fled down the stairs my skin tingled with the effects of the spell wearing off. The strength in my legs evaporated halfway down and I took the last of the steep steps in a roll, landing in a heap at the bottom.
Head spinning and mouth still dry, I crawled to the shadows across the alley. I wanted to find a safe place to recover, but as I turned around, I saw a small figure with wild blond hair and a bow over her shoulder sprint across the street from a tall condo building to Jermaine’s loft.
My heartbeat slowed, and although drums were beating an unpleasant, unsteady rhythm behind my left eye, my thoughts settled as my mind returned, the desire to go to Jermaine and ensure his safety fading away.
Jermaine’s figure appeared in the middle of his broken window, and I pressed myself against the wall to avoid his notice. I wouldn’t put it past him to track me down, but couldn’t bring myself to leave yet, too curious about the figure with the bow.
Then I saw Jermaine twist his head toward the door.
~ ~ ~
“I can tell you nothing about what came next,” Zachariel said, and sneaked a glance at the girl beside him.
“So…a daemelus is a demon-angel mix?” the girl asked.
“That is correct,” he said.
Daphne quirked an eyebrow. “I don’t know about that. In all my years rubbing elbows with some shady species, I’ve never heard the term before.”
“Nor I,” said Allegra.
Zachariel growled. “It was Jermaine’s word, not mine.”
His fingers tapped on the back of his hand and the knuckles strained when everyone else at the table shifted their attention to the human in silent anticipation.
As though she sensed their gazes on her, the girl nodded, and a deep crevice appeared between her eyebrows. “I suppose this is where I take over, then. Yippee.”
9
*****************
Molly Harris
I never set out to be any kind of vigilante, so what happened that evening came as much of a surprise to me as I imagine it did to everyone else involved.
Then again, I’m used to people underestimating me. Fifteen years old, blind, severely hard of hearing, I sometimes impress people by being able to make myself dinner.
My entire life has been an adventure, especially back when I was learning to communicate and become independent. Not that all kids don’t face challenges — I just had the privilege of being extra fun for my parents.
They coped well, in my opinion. Making the decision for cochlear implants before I was old enough to decide for myself had opened up one avenue of communication. Growing up, I trained myself to focus on sounds, to pick up cues my eyes couldn’t catch. As a kid, I called it my super power. After a while, I outgrew the idea and accepte
d it was a self-taught skill. Now? I’m not so sure.
At ten years old I developed an interest in archery, and my parents, being the amazing people they are, offered all the support I needed to get started. The sharp whistle of wind around the arrow shaft became my favorite song, and the softness of fletching under my fingers was better than any teddy bear. Between my parents, my coach, and the help of a tactile sighting device, I reached the level of national champion for my age group when I was fourteen.
Last year I agreed to upgrade to the latest model of implant, giving me access to frequencies that were previously cut off. With the change, I felt like I could hear everything, from distances much farther than I would have expected. The sounds added new dimensions to my life, and everything I’d learned and trained myself to pay attention to came more easily, increasing my skills at the archery range.
Nothing compared to the feeling of a bow in my hand, my fingers sliding over the arrow shaft until it fit snugly. With the sighting at my elbow, I could judge my position, and I used the sounds around me to tell me everything else I needed to know. My accuracy earned me something of a reputation in my circles, but I never let it go to my head — or I tried not to, anyway. I spent four to six hours a day practicing, and it felt good to know that the hard work paid off.
Usually.
The day my life changed, I’d come in second in an important competition. I had tuned out the hum of the crowd as usual, but then flocks of migrating birds had passed through the area. The wind also picked up something fierce, and between the overwhelming noise and constant need to correct against the air currents, I kept losing my place. Damn birds were lucky I didn’t take them down one by one.
It had taken me a few rounds to wade my way through the distractions, but in the end I was firmly in second place.