The Devil's Secret

by Joshua Ingle

  After five days, Flying Owl had caught no rabbits—the Spaniards had eradicated most of the game in this part of the forest. Thilial whispered for him to stop chanting, and to her delight, he did. Without the chanting, Flying Owl would not be able to attribute any hunting success to the spirits. He was learning. Thorn didn’t seem to notice.

  By night, Flying Owl sharpened his arrows, ate, and slept; by day, he walked ever farther south. He drank much and often due to the heat, for the season was currently gogi, the female months, the warm part of the year.

  And then, on the eighth day of the hunt, something bizarre occurred. Flying Owl pushed through a dense copse of trees and found a breathtaking clearing in the valley below. Red and blue flowers dotted a field next to a river where a waterfall caught the sunlight and fractured it into colorful fragments on the ground beneath. The cliff face behind the waterfall jutted upward to an immense height. An eagle circled above it.

  Flying Owl smiled at the sight. Even Thorn seemed impressed by the scenery. He kept pace with the boy as he dashed down and across the field, dropped his bow and arrows, then splashed about in the river by the waterfall, laughing to himself. He swam toward the cliff face, and schools of fish darted out of his way. He tried to grasp at one, but it slipped through his hand, so he made a whooping noise and splashed at it, chuckling all the while. Thilial enjoyed Flying Owl’s celebration from above.

  After the initial burst of excitement, Flying Owl settled onto his back and let himself drift downriver a ways. Thorn hovered above him, and when Thilial drew closer, she saw curiosity on the demon’s face. His eyes examined the warm sunlight on Flying Owl’s skin, the crisp water lapping at his side, the contented grin on his face. Several moments of calm passed. The shallow river gently flowed, the eagle screeched its majestic call, and wispy clouds swept up off the tops of the mountains. And then Thorn spoke four words that changed everything.

  “What is it like?”

  Thilial saw that Thorn spoke not to her, nor to himself, but to Flying Owl. Thilial turned his words around in her head. What is what like? What does he mean by that?

  Flying Owl ducked underwater, and Thorn dropped beneath the surface too. When the splashing subsided, Thilial saw Thorn’s spiritual body intertwining with Flying Owl’s physical body. When Flying Owl surfaced, he breathed in forcefully, and Thilial froze as she saw that human and spirit appeared as one and the same.

  Thorn had possessed Flying Owl!

  Thilial was awestricken. Despite never having visited Europe, she knew all about the Second Rule, and knew that Thorn would be executed if another demon were to learn he’d practically broken it. So far Thorn’s possession remained passive—he avoided control over Flying Owl’s movements, and Flying Owl likely didn’t even realize that he’d been possessed—but that could change at any moment.

  Thilial had to exert tremendous force of will to keep herself from entering the demonic realm and ripping Thorn out of her beloved charge. But she stayed herself. Flying Owl’s movements flowed naturally as he leaned to cup his hands in the river, with none of the telltale twitchiness she’d been told came with possession. He splashed the water onto his face and rubbed some of the sweat off. Then he cupped his hands again and drank deeply.

  “To taste,” Thorn said from behind the veil of Flying Owl’s mind. “To smell.”

  Flying Owl cupped his hands a third time, but this time he paused, then let the water fall back through his fingers.

  “To feel,” Thorn said. “What is it like?”

  If Flying Owl heard Thorn’s questions, he gave no indication. His eyes were focused on something else now. Something on the bank…

  Rabbits! Thorn’s actions had frightened Thilial so much that Flying Owl had noticed the little creatures before she had. He left the water and ran back for his bow. Thorn remained in his mind, but seemed not to interfere with his actions. Does he want to see the world through human eyes? Thilial wondered.

  She was still contemplating Thorn when Flying Owl loosed an arrow, striking one rabbit and sending the rest scampering for safety. Flying Owl ran to the rabbit and started to clean out the blood.

  He did not apologize to its spirit.

  •

  That night, Flying Owl sat on a mountain pass overlooking a Mvskoke town. Thorn lingered inside him. Together, they ate a fish that Flying Owl had caught using a trap in the river then cooked later in the afternoon.

  If only I can communicate to another demon what Thorn has done, they’ll kill him, and I’ll be rid of this nuisance for good. But as the night wore on, Thilial found herself thinking not about how she could stop Thorn, but instead about how she could save him. Something more was going on here than demonic insanity. Thorn had risked hope, had grasped at something greater than typical demon life. I can’t simply ignore that, can I?

  The Mvskoke were holding their own ceremony in the town below. They would certainly take Flying Owl prisoner if they knew he was up here, but he’d been careful to hide himself. He watched their dances with curious eyes.

  Thilial wanted to whisper: Notice how different their ceremonies are from yours. How can all these people know that their dances and chants will keep the world from ending, yet the Real People also know that their own dances and chants will keep the world from ending? Can both tribes be equally right? Or equally wrong?

  But she wouldn’t risk whispering to him tonight, not with Thorn in his mind. She wouldn’t make Thorn aware of her presence. At least, not yet.

  •

  “Today, in celebration of the joining of Weaver and Flying Owl, we have prepared an especially strong mixture of the white drink,” Feasting Wolf announced to the crowd of Real People gathered at the sacred dance ground near the heart of Tugaloo. “Let us cleanse ourselves for their sake.”

  Is the white drink usually used at weddings? Thilial could not remember, but she saw the puzzled glances of the townspeople as vases were passed around and people began to drink. Flying Owl and Weaver stood in the center of the dance ground in front of the sacred fire. He wore moccasins, a beaded breechcloth with leggings, and a deerskin shirt; she wore a formal dress. Each wore a blue blanket draped over their shoulders. Feasting Wolf offered them their own vase from which to drink, and they did so, hesitantly.

  “What is this now?” asked Gleannor. “Should we intervene somehow?”

  “No,” Thilial said. “The priests just like to change their rituals sometimes so the people know they still have control.” At least Thilial hoped that was the reason for invoking the white drink. The priests were known for their outlandish greed, but they had no reason to poison their own people. Did they?

  “The white drink makes them vomit,” Thilial explained. “They think it cleanses them.”

  “Why is it called ‘white’? It’s black as pitch.”

  “I don’t know.”

  Thilial caught a glimpse of Thorn in the crowd, just behind Flying Owl. The eccentric demon was actually smiling at his charge, who himself beamed at the woman he loved. No other demons were present to see Thorn’s authentic smile: he’d ordered them all away before the marriage ceremony had started. To allow a peaceful wedding for Flying Owl?

  Thilial had never seen behavior like this in a demon. The angels’ condescending talk of demonkind had led her to believe they were all heinous, recidivous creatures, yet here was one bonding with a human boy. God did have the Sanctuary system in place to lure fallen angels back, to test whether they’d changed enough to be accepted back into His fold… but what was the likelihood that Thorn would enter a Sanctuary anytime soon? As she looked at him, at the smile breaking through his hardened face, she felt pity for this demon. All the war and pain and loss he must have endured, and yet there is still a kernel of goodness in him. Maybe there was another way to save him…

  Commotion at the back of the crowd interrupted Thilial’s thoughts. Panicked shouting and sobbing. She rose up with Gleannor to see what it was, and found some townspeople gathered around Strong De
er, who lay in the dirt, clutching at his chest. His lips were black with the white drink. Then another bout of yelling rose from the other side of the crowd. Then a third nearby.

  “Poison!” yelled an angel. “Warn the others not to drink!”

  Gleannor sped to her charges, and Thilial almost did the same, but she noticed that most of those who’d drunk the liquid seemed healthful. Only five or six were clutching their chests, or were entirely unconscious… and those were all the eldest citizens of Tugaloo.

  “It’s not poison!” Thilial called. “It’s exactly what he said it was. A strong batch of the white drink. But too strong for the old ones.”

  A resonant cackle boomed across the dance ground, and Thilial turned to see Xeres himself rising from beneath the sacred fire like a creature escaped from Hell. Thorn recoiled from the startling entrance, and his smile died a quick death.

  “Happy wedding day to the young lovers,” Xeres said, laughing. “That’s how it’s done, Thorn.”

  Thorn said something back, but Thilial was too far away to hear. Xeres’s response carried well over the ruckus, though. “You sent my followers away, so I surmised you had something special planned. You can’t blame me for wanting to outdo you.”

  Thorn spoke again, patted Xeres on his back, then turned back to the carnage. Thorn’s annoyance was plain to Thilial even from across the dance ground, although Xeres seemed not to sense it.

  Beneath her, Strong Deer was dead. Five others also lay dead or dying, all from among the very aged. Angels rushed through the crowd, trying to comfort the humans as best they could.

  Feasting Wolf fell to his knees, making a show of tears and wailing, but Thilial saw through him. He’d purged the town of its elderly: the most vocal objectors to the rule of the priesthood. They’d remembered better days when the priests were kinder, with less power, and now those memories were gone, just two days before the Ripe Corn Ceremony.

  Had that been planned? The Ripe Corn Ceremony was the Real People’s celebration of a new year, and after the festival, all transgressions and crimes from the past year were said to be forgiven. The people would be mandated to forgive the priests who had “accidentally” murdered their grandparents.

  And poor Flying Owl! He and Weaver were knelt next to an old woman who was still holding on to life. Weaver chanted a song of healing while Flying Owl held a bowl of water to the woman’s lips. Their wedding would have to wait for another day. The priests had known that death would be taken as an omen of doom on the day of a ceremony, but less so at a wedding, so they’d chosen Flying Owl and Weaver as their unwitting accomplices, using their wedding as a pretense to feed their concoction to the townspeople.

  As the Real People wept and the angels mourned with them, Xeres laughed and laughed and laughed.

  •

  Soon after the Ripe Corn Ceremony, visitors arrived from Kituwa, a northern city of the Real People, and the pox returned with them. The gathering of corn and the hunting of game were largely ended, as the few who weren’t sick were needed to care for the many who were. Flying Owl, whose father had perished during the previous spread of plague, ran to the forest with his bow and arrows to hunt, and to flee the calamitous disease.

  As much as Thilial was needed in Tugaloo, she trusted the other angels to assist the town as best they could. She was glad to escape the death and misery and retreat with her charge deep into the woods.

  Thorn came as well. His nature was proving to be more solitary than Thilial had first thought. It was perfectly natural, she supposed. Since demons have no need for food or shelter like humans, they aren’t forced to live in communities like humans. Since they have no natural leader as we angels do, they may wander aimlessly, alone, for as long as they want. She suspected that demons needed emotional support just as much as humans or angels, though. And Thorn, like his peers, had no one from whom to get it.

  The three of them trekked across the terrain for days, until they came to a small cave in a mountainside. There Flying Owl made his camp. Each day he would hunt, and each night, by moonlight, he would clean and store his day’s quarry beneath the cave’s jagged limestone roof.

  On one of these nights, Flying Owl collapsed by the fire, weeping. “Spirits of the woods,” he called. “Otter spirits, deer spirits, bird spirits, please. Great Spirit. Spirits of the trees. Any spirit who will listen. Help me. I am in great need.”

  Thorn drifted closer. He moved a gentle hand toward the boy’s shoulder in what looked like a gesture meant to comfort, but the hand could not touch the shoulder. It passed straight through.

  “I am so lonely,” Flying Owl continued. “My people are dying of a deadly illness, suffering under the cruel authority of the priests, and I am powerless to help my family, my clan, my town. Spirits, please, stop your bickering with one another and see that I am hurting. That all of us on the earth are hurting and would live better lives if you would only help us.”

  Thilial watched as Thorn reached down and tried unsuccessfully to touch the boy’s chin. Just then, Flying Owl raised his head off the ground and looked heavenward, almost directly at the place where Thorn was floating.

  “I’m lost,” Flying Owl said. “I feel like a failure. Even Weaver is distant from me after the wedding. Please. I need an ally. I need a friend. I need to know that I am loved.”

  Thilial aimed to descend and whisper some comforting words to Flying Owl, but Thorn spoke first, and his shocking words silenced any that Thilial might have said.

  “You are loved,” Thorn said to Flying Owl. “Your mother is still alive, and she cares deeply for you. Weaver is distant now, but she will return to her normal self, given enough time. And the spirits…” Thorn’s eyes sank. His mouth moved but said nothing, as if rehearsing his next words carefully. Then he shook his head as if dismissing those words. “You have friends in abundance, and a whole town that looks up to you,” Thorn said instead. “The disease will leave Tugaloo soon enough. Your future is radiant, young one. Pull yourself up out of the dirt. Stand up tall. You have much prosperity to anticipate.”

  Something truly remarkable occurred then: Flying Owl did exactly as Thorn had requested. He pulled himself up out of the dirt. He stood up tall, the firelight gleaming off his long hair. His tears had subsided. He breathed in deeply, then exhaled strongly.

  Flying Owl had heard Thorn’s words in the back of his mind. Thorn’s hopeful, helpful words. Words that a true demon would never speak.

  Thilial found herself drawn to Thorn in much the same way Thorn must have been drawn to Flying Owl. Here was a lost soul in dire need of saving, and Thilial alone knew that he was ready to change. Would the other angels believe her if she told them what Thorn had done? She wished she’d been alive at the beginning of time, had known Thorn back when he’d been an angel. What had he been like? And could he become like that again?

  Thorn had just wielded profound influence over Thilial’s own charge, but Thilial couldn’t bring herself to be envious. She could not have cheered up Flying Owl any better.

  “Smile,” she said to him, and the boy beamed. Flying Owl’s smile seemed to cheer Thorn up, too.

  •

  When Thilial returned to Tugaloo, she found that several of the town’s women had taken it upon themselves to dance through the night at the dance ground, rotating around the altar in the sacred direction, shaking gourd rattles, chanting pleas for the healing of their people. Pine spit and crackled on the altar, sending a column of smoke spiraling up into the night. Demons, both foreign and local, swirled around the humans, taunting them with past tragedies and future worries.

  Flying Owl tramped toward the storehouse with his game slung in a bearskin sack. Thilial started to follow him, but then she saw Thorn reporting to Xeres over by the edge of the forest. Curious, she left Flying Owl and crept closer to the demons, catching Xeres mid-sentence:

  “—have been idle during our stay in these lands. Is something troubling you, Thorn?”

  “Nothing of which
I’ve not already spoken.”

  “How goes your work with that Indian boy you follow around?”

  “Well. He broke down in a cave while on the hunt, and I—I, uh, crushed his hopes even further.”

  “Excellent. I would like to see you exercise more power, though. It won’t do for my right hand to spend all his time whispering to one measly human. We must begin a campaign against the whole tribe.”

  “As you wish.”

  “Indeed. You must show the local demons your own cunning and cruelty while I am gone.”

  “Gone? Where are you going?”

  “To a Sanctuary. Alone.”

  Sanctuary. The word cut through the air, sharp as a dagger and porous as a sponge, absorbing the chanting, the crackling of the fire, the night wind, and Thilial’s thoughts. All else drowned out in light of this new revelation.

  Thilial swooped in to Xeres and whispered to him. “Take Thorn with you. Take Thorn with you! Send him to another Sanctuary so you both can be tested separately! He is ready for the challenge.” He is ready to change.

  “You will rule my territory for the day that I am absent,” Xeres said to Thorn, dashing Thilial’s hopes. “Every demon in Tugaloo will witness my departure tonight, and when I return unscathed, no demon in the New World will question my might. My authority will be absolute.”

  “As you say,” Thorn said. His fingers brushed frantically against each other and his jaw shook ever so slightly.

  “Then together, Thorn, we will bring humanity to its knees. The war we start between West and Far West will be the last war. We will spill enough blood to fill the oceans, to make mothers weep for their slaughtered sons and daughters until the end of time. I will be the greatest demon, and you will be by my side.”

  “Our dreams will finally come to fruition.”

  “They will.”

  With that, Xeres turned and drifted into the forest, likely toward whatever doorway into the Sanctuary system he’d found. Some demons in the town noticed his departure and motioned to their peers to follow.