The Demon Behind Me

by Christopher Nelson

  The higher ups of both sides sat. I would have bet none of the Seraphic Council had been this close to a High Prince without a sword in hand in millennia, if ever. The Chairmen of both the Consortium and Syndicate floated over Tink’s shoulders. “As the arbiters of the Pact, we remind all parties this is a peaceful summit meeting under a flag of safe conduct.” Both of them spoke together in perfect unison. “Any offense will be dealt with immediately and severely.”

  The angels wouldn’t do anything unless their leaders told them to. I suspected a couple of demons would die before the day was out. Tink looked to both sides for a moment before continuing. “At the unanimous request of the Infernal Host’s High Council, and the consent of the Angelic Choir’s Seraphic Council, we are meeting today to consider amendments to the Pact. The first motion of the Infernal Host is to strike the sections requiring both of your peoples to keep knowledge out of the hands of humanity. As it seems that bird has flown the coop, striking it from the Pact seems reasonable to me.” She smiled slightly, getting a few chuckles from around the amphitheater, even from an angel or two.

  “I request permission to speak on this topic,” said one of the Seraphic Council. Tink nodded to him. “With all due respect to all present, it seems the entirety of the Pact is no longer needed. I would move to nullify it in its entirety. Let us no longer be bound by these strictures of the past.”

  “I would address the Choir’s motion,” Opheran said. The Seraph hesitated before gesturing for him to speak. “While we agree the past should no longer bind our people, there are deeper reasons for the Pact’s existence. The Pact binds our Houses together, and it binds the Consortium and Syndicate as well. Without this Pact, our Host would suffer, so we must decline the motion for nullification.”

  The Seraph nodded. “I hear your concerns, High Prince Opheran of House Asmodeus, and withdraw the motion.”

  I let go of a deep breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. Caleb did the same thing. “They’re being much more polite than I thought,” I said.

  “We can afford politeness,” Caleb said. “It’s better than a brawl right here and now, right?”

  Tink took the reins once again. “Esteemed signatories,” she said, “the Infernal Host has unanimously requested the striking of all sections of the Pact which restrict the conditions under which humans may be given knowledge of your peoples and past. Such an amendment requires a supermajority of those present. Rather than call a vote by roll, I would ask if the Seraphic Council agrees to this motion to so amend the Pact.”

  Bartholomew rose. He was in the center of their set of seven. I wondered if his position meant he was the first among equals, or if they were in order of seniority. “We unanimously agree to the Host’s motion. Let it be stricken.”

  Tink nodded. “The Pact is hereby amended to remove all restrictions on imparting knowledge to humans. Thank you both.” She waited for Bartholomew to sit before continuing. “As their second motion, the Infernal Host has unanimously requested the addition of a clause to the Pact, acknowledging the united heritage of both Choir and Host. Furthermore, the Host explicitly acknowledges without contest the original separation was due to the actions of their people. Does the Seraphic Council agree to this motion to so amend the Pact?”

  The angels sat stock still as if stunned. They probably were. Opheran hadn’t told me what the sequestered High Council had agreed to. It was a simple but meaningful concession to the Choir. No one was old enough to remember the original Schism and no demons actually cared who was to blame, but the angels had always insisted it was our fault. Bartholomew looked back and forth between his people before rising. “The Seraphic Council unanimously agrees to the Host’s motion.”

  “The Pact is hereby amended to include said clause,” Tink announced. “Thank you both, again. As their third motion, the Infernal Host has unanimously requested the addition of a clause to the Pact, calling upon the shared heritage of the Choir and Host, to present a joint, unified front against any external existential threat to both of their peoples. It is the Host’s belief that only a unified front can face such threats. Does the Seraphic Council agree to this motion to so amend the Pact?”

  This time, frowns broke out across the ranks of the angels. Some of the Seraphs whispered between each other. When the whispers reached him, Bartholomew stood. He looked up and down his table before speaking. “What is the supermajority required to pass this motion?”

  “Eleven votes in favor,” Tink replied, followed by nods from both Chairmen. “Currently, seven stand in favor.”

  Bartholomew nodded and gestured down the table. “By consensus, our Seraphs shall vote individually, each according to their own will, answerable only to their own conscience.”

  Caleb stiffened. “Not a good sign,” he said quietly.

  “I thought Bartholomew was going to deliver this to us.” Sweat was breaking out on my forehead. “If the Choir doesn’t vote in favor, what was the point?”

  “He never promised they would vote in favor.”

  “He led us to believe they would. That’s fucked up.” Caleb gave me a shrug and I repressed my anger. It wasn’t his fault angels were assholes. “So what are the odds?”

  “Depends on who speaks first. The rest may fall in line. Right now, it looks like Thaddeus is speaking first. He’s the oldest member of the Council and he hates demons more than most.”

  The angel he referred to stood. He had a thick frame and a long white beard, and unlike most of his people, looked visibly aged. “The demons want us to come to their rescue,” he said. “They cannot fight the humans alone, so they hope we’ll save them. No! A hundred, a thousand times, no! We have not forgotten what you have done to our people, much less forgiven. I reject this motion. May God forgive your people as you flock to meet Him.”

  “Does he know?” I asked Caleb.

  “Of course he knows. It’s for emphasis.”

  “Just checking.”

  The next angel stood. “Demons cannot be trusted. I reject this motion.” The following angel rejected the motion without even voicing a reason. I looked to Tink for some sort of appeal, trying to send some sort of message down our bond, but she wasn’t paying any attention to me.

  Bartholomew rose next. “Long have I despised demons,” he said, and my heart sank. “Today, they sought to tempt us to join with them with a symbolic gesture. While acknowledgement of the truth is appreciated, it cannot move us to stand with you against the humans.”

  I closed my eyes and shook my head. “And here comes the rejection.”

  “I accept this motion.” My eyes snapped open to find Bartholomew staring at me. “What moves me is one of your people. He holds no grudges for the past atrocities visited upon him. He risked his life to save children of our blood. I told him then, even as we honored him, our people could never work together. We would always remember the blight his people had visited on ours.” He didn’t look away. “I was wrong.”

  I opened my mouth, but Caleb stepped on my foot before I could make a fool out of myself. “Forgiveness is a tenet our Choir holds dear,” Bartholomew said without a hint of irony. Caleb had to step on my foot again. “As exemplified by one man, the Host has shown a capacity for forgiveness putting our own to shame, a capacity I cannot help but meet in kind. Again, yes, I accept this motion. It is a step forward for both of our people, a step we have long needed to take.”

  The amphitheater went wild. The normally decorous angels were shouting in the stands while hundreds of demons actually cheered for Bartholomew. I couldn’t believe it myself. “The fuck is going on here?” I asked Caleb.

  “I don’t know if he’s being honest or not,” Caleb replied. “But he certainly moved people.”

  The next member of the Seraphs rose. “I originally planned to reject the motion,” he declared. “But I find myself swayed by the hope of forgiveness and redemption. While our Father no longer lives, I believe this is what He would want. I accept th
is motion.”

  “I also accept this motion.” The next Seraph stood almost before the last one sat. “This war has held our people back for far too long. I have no love for demons, but I will not risk the extinction of our people for an ancient hatred.”

  The last Seraph stood up. I could feel Thaddeus’s fury directed toward him. The entire amphitheater seemed to be holding its breath as he looked around silently. “I find myself at a crossroads,” he finally said. “Every fiber of my being tells me not to trust the demons, yet they have shown themselves to be honorable in both word and deed. Perhaps one thing stands out to me. I watched a demon break a hundred of our blades to save the life of one of our own. I watched him push himself to his limits and beyond. I watched him call upon power he could have used to obliterate the entire Choir, and I watched him beg for our surrender before he was forced to kill us all.” He pointed at me and I felt my cheeks heat up. “In the end, we surrendered, and he returned Heaven to us without hesitation. We fought him, mocked him, tormented him, tricked him, and tried to kill him. He bested us, not just in war, but in virtue. His courage moved me then, and it moves me now. Though it goes against everything I have ever learned, I trust him, and I would stand at his side without hesitation. Today, he asks me to stand at the side of his people. How can I deny him?” He inclined his head to me. “I accept the motion. Let this clause be added to the Pact.”

  A roar of approval flooded the amphitheater. Even the most hostile of angels seemed mollified. Thaddeus’s burning gaze crossed mine and he shook his head, but lowered his eyes. I shuddered.

  “By my count, the voting stands at eleven in favor, three opposed,” Tink announced as the roar died down. “The Pact is so amended.”

  Before the next roar could even start, Azriphel rose. “I request permission to speak,” he called out.

  “You have the floor,” Tink replied.

  He leaned forward on the table. “No more formalities. The Eternal Conclave has sworn to find its way to both our worlds. Their contemptible grandmaster wants all of us dead or enslaved, angel and demon alike. They will find the way to open portals. The ingenuity of humanity cannot be underestimated.” He looked across the expanse of angels facing him. “They held me as a prisoner for years. They tortured me worse than any of you ever would, because even if you hate us, you respect us. They don’t. They call us monsters. They have sworn to hunt us as if we are beasts to be exterminated.” His claws came out and he curled them across the stone table in front of him with a hideous shriek. “Our Host is shaken but not broken. Your Choir is secure but not safe. Every passing day is a victory for the Conclave. Every moment works against us.”

  “And?” Bartholomew asked.

  “The Infernal Host moves to consider the Eternal Conclave an existential threat to both of our people.” Azriphel looked to each of the other Princes, receiving nods from all of them. “Thus, under the terms as amended into the Pact, we move to request two things. First, we request an immediate cessation of all hostilities between the Host and Choir for the duration of the threat. Second, we request the Choir’s assistance in combatting this existential threat to both our people.”

  Bartholomew looked down his side of the table to Thaddeus, who nodded and flicked his hand. “The Choir unanimously agrees to your motion. Let the humans understand we are the most dangerous game to hunt.”

  The rest of the summit was a blur. Tink closed it down as quickly and gracefully as she could. A force of uniformed angels escorted us away from the amphitheater. Cheers and jeers clashed in the air as we left. While most of the Host and Choir seemed open to the idea of peaceful co-existence, there’d always be some die-hards against it. The Consortium and Syndicate would be busy keeping the peace for the next century.

  Instead of being escorted back to a portal to Hell, the escort brought us to what looked like a command center, staffed by a handful of very nervous angels. Before I could ask what the hell was going on, the High Princes were escorted in, followed by Bartholomew and the last member of the Seraphic Council who had voted for us. “This is Seraph Josiah,” Bartholomew introduced him. “We will represent the Choir in coordination with the Host.”

  Josiah walked directly to me and extended a hand. “It is a pleasure to make your formal acquaintance, Marquis Bright,” he said.

  I shook his hand carefully. “No need for formality. I’m going to end up calling you Joe at some point, so don’t be too offended when it happens. I mean, I call him Barty and he deals with it.”

  “It is pointless to argue,” Bartholomew said with a hint of a growl. “Just let the halfblood be himself. Now, there is no time to lose. We understand your Houses are independent of each other. If we are to coordinate a successful joint response to the humans, we must put all of our cards on the table. The disposition of our fighting forces is available on the map.” He gestured to the wall and a huge screen flared to life.

  I sidled away from the center of the room, but Josiah cleared his throat before I could vanish. “Forgive me, Bartholomew, but before we even reach the point of strategic discussion, there is something we must address between both our people.” He looked directly at me for the next question. “What is our goal? Even if we destroy the Conclave, will it be enough? Will a new leader continue to prosecute the war? Though it pains me to ask, should we subjugate them?”

  I winced and shook my head. This sort of question was one of the key points of dissention between our people, maybe even the cause of the Schism. The angels wanted to control the growth of humanity, while the demons wanted to watch over them without intervening. “Subjugation won’t work, even if we all agreed to try. Too many of them, too few of us, and we can’t put the magic genie back in the bottle,” I said.

  Josiah nodded. “I wanted to address the concept from the beginning, to get it out of the way,” he said with a glance toward Bartholomew. “So. Our goal is to defeat them. How?”

  “Kill Nathan Kane,” Tink said. “Kill him and go from there. Without a psychopathic son of a bitch running the Conclave, you might be able to negotiate. There’s never going to be peace, though. You understand, right?”

  Fanatics would plague all three of our races forever. There were always going to be people unhappy with peace. “So how do we kill Nathan Kane?” Josiah asked. “By all reports, he does not stay in one place for long, and rarely gets personally involved in anything. He evades both the Syndicate and Consortium. We have no current location for him. How can we bring him into the open without relying on pure chance?”

  “We will destroy everything of the Conclave we can until we find him,” Azriphel said. He gestured at the map. “Strike their facilities. Strike their leadership. Strike their resources. Strike them down wherever they can be found. Eventually, he will need to intervene or risk losing something he values.”

  “The only thing he truly values is himself,” I said.

  “There has to be something more!”

  I couldn’t say anything. I didn’t know. “Finding something Nathan Kane values in order to draw him out will take time. It will be a long war,” Josiah said.

  “Can we win a long war?”

  That question silenced the room. Azriphel finally growled something and glared at me. “If you hadn’t stopped me then, we wouldn’t have this problem now.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “If we had found the key to Project Purgatory, none of this would have ever happened.”

  I held up my hand as both of the Seraphs tensed. “Whoa, now. Let bygones be bygones, Azzy. You were going about it all wrong. Cooperation is the key. Besides, opening the Gate of Purgatory didn’t give us access to Project Purgatory. We don’t have the power to run it. We don’t even know where we could find the magical power to run it.” I glanced at the angels. “Unless you know something we don’t.”

  “The Thrones,” Bartholomew said. “There cannot be any question about it. Such power would not be accessible from anywhere else.”
/>   I looked to Opheran, who shrugged. “House Intelligence agreed on that a long time ago.”

  Azriphel looked like he was about to shit a brick. “So all my effort was for nothing.”

  “Not for nothing,” I said. My heart started racing. “Shit, I just figured something out. We never opened our Throne Gate. The Choir never succeeded at opening theirs either, right? Obviously, or we wouldn’t be here talking about it.”

  Bartholomew and Josiah both glared at me. “Obviously.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because they are forever closed to our people,” Josiah said. “No angel shall claim the Throne of Heaven, nor demon the Throne of Hell. We have studied the Gate and its protection and it is absolute. None of us could hope to pass it.” Another silence hit the room. I raised my eyebrows. “I hope you are not suggesting what I think you are.”

  “I’m not an angel,” I said. “Neither is Tink.”

  “I’m not doing it,” she snapped. “That’s too much temptation for me.”

  “Look, it’s simple. We put someone on the Throne to use Project Purgatory, we win.”

  Bartholomew crossed his arms. “Why don’t we put one of ours upon the Throne of Hell, then?”

  I pointed at myself. “You both said you trusted me and you’d stand beside me. No angel holds an equal level of respect among my people, except maybe Caleb, and you’d have to get buy-in from each of our Houses. Look, I’ll swear whatever oath before the Consortium and Syndicate you want. I’ll relinquish the power as soon as the war ends. I’ll promise not to use it for any other purpose. Tie my hands as much as you want. Make sure the balance of power is absolutely even. I’ll do whatever you ask for.”