by Nazri Noor
“And all the water you can drink, over there.”
“Thank you,” I said, as firmly and politely as I could manage. “You’re very generous.”
“Sure, sure,” she said, waving her hand. “The least you could do in return is be generous about answering my questions, right?”
“Fine,” I said, sighing, leaning against the counter as I peered into my own can of pork and beans. “What did you want to know?”
“More about you as a mage, for starters.”
I shrugged, stirring the beans, watching them spin in the can in a wet, thick slurry. “I don’t know. I suppose you could call me a sorcerer. I like to think of myself as a magus.”
“One of them dudes who specializes in books? Eldritch knowledge and all that shit? Sure, sure. I get that.”
I took my first ever mouthful of room temperature canned goods, the tang of tomato sauce spreading across my tongue as I bit into a mushy cluster of beans. My eyes widened in amazement. How could something taste so repulsive, so pedestrian, and yet be so delicious at the same time? I chewed quickly before my brain could catch up, before my stomach decided it couldn’t tolerate food that had lived on the inside of a metal coffin, possibly for several years.
“The whole notion of magical education, you know?” I called out. “I mean, I know it sounds tedious and boring, but studying magic, absorbing it bit by bit, building your arsenal of spells? It’s a surefire way to get better at it.” I was technically telling her the complete truth, even with regards to the Inscription.
“Oh, I’m with you, buddy. I never went to school or anything, self-taught. What about you?”
I swallowed some more beans, having decided that they were, in fact, more delicious than disgusting. I licked my spoon, smiling with remembrance. “Madame Grayhaven’s School for Gifted Boys.”
Pierce groaned out loud, then spoke through a mouthful of beans. “Don’t get him started. He jizzes his pants every time he talks about his stupid academy.”
I pointed my spoon at him like it was a wand. “I will not have you slander Madame Catherine Grayhaven’s teachings. That place made me the magus I am today.” I took some pleasure in leaving Dantaleon out of the equation completely. In fact, I hoped that he was listening. “Their library alone was magnificent. The most comprehensive collection I’ve ever seen.”
“Very interesting,” the witch said. “But if you’re some big mucky-muck magus, how come this is the only book you have?”
“No!”
The can of beans and plastic spoon would have left my hands faster if I hadn’t bothered to set them down on the counter first. I knew I still wanted to eat when I was finished wringing the witch’s neck. She was holding Dantaleon. Touching him! I sprinted towards her, wondering whether I’d have the opportunity to rip the tome out of her hands before Dantaleon burned the skin right off her fingers.
Too late.
A torrent of hellish light poured from Dantaleon’s pages as an unearthly shriek and a hideous wind ripped through the building. He spun in an ominous orbit, pages rustling and flapping as he levitated above the witch, above us all, his voice booming.
“Foolish human. Filthy guttersnipe. Mortal wench. You dare lay your hands upon a servant of the great and terrible Asmodeus?”
The cement squeaked against the soles of my shoes as I ground to a halt. Pierce kept shoveling beans in his face, his eyes huge as he took in the spectacle. The witch’s eyes were huge, too, but not in fear. It looked like awe. No. Delight?
“Whoa,” she cooed. “Asmodeus?”
“Asmodeus,” Dantaleon thundered back. “Unholiest of Wombs. Mother Harlot. Demon Prince of Lust.”
“Demon – hold up.” The witch’s eyes narrowed with suspicion as she glanced from Dantaleon, to Pierce, then me. “Wait. You guys are demons?”
Oh, shit.
17
Night had fully fallen. The air by the river was cooler, a soothing shroud. More important, though, was the fact that Dantaleon and I could have a little privacy there while I harangued the living daylights out of him. Emphasis on a little, though – both Pierce and the witch were still hovering nosily at the doorway, itching to eavesdrop on our argument.
“Just what the hell were you trying to prove in there?” I hissed. “Why would you go and reveal something so damning about us?”
“I may not have a body, Quilliam, but I am still a master of seduction. Perhaps if you’d paid greater attention to our lessons, you would have grasped what I’ve done. Well and good that you spent all those years at that precious academy your mother sent you to, but to what end?”
“Don’t be disgusting about this,” I said, thrusting my finger at where I guessed his face would be. “And don’t you dare slander Madame Catherine Grayhaven. Half of what I know, I learned at the academy.”
Dantaleon sniffed. “Clearly she didn’t teach you enough about observation and manipulation.” He hovered closer to my face, dropping his voice to a theatrical whisper. “The girl-child is a witch, and one hungry for more power. See how she questions you about your wrinkly vermin-cat, asking if it is your familiar. How brazenly did she pick me up when she assumed I was your book of shadows?”
It clicked for me. I gritted my teeth, hating that Dantaleon was right. “So what you’re saying is that we should string her along.”
“I said no such thing. I am merely suggesting that out here, alone in the wilderness of the filthy terrestrial world, we are without defenses, or a home. The witch woman can prove helpful, very helpful indeed, and she might be even more willing to offer assistance if, as an example, she is led to believe that there is arcane knowledge to glean from her new demon friends.”
Again, he was right. I narrowed my eyes at him. “But we aren’t actually giving her anything in the end, are we?”
“Perish the thought. No. Never. Allow her to fill in the blanks and believe that she will be rewarded for her efforts. We make no promises and allow her to come to her own conclusions. Again, it is a simple, classic matter of seduction – something that you, as the heir of Lust, should know plenty about. But alas.”
The thought of Dantaleon seducing anyone – anything – made my stomach gurgle in the worst possible way. “Please, stop. I can feel the beans coming back up. Fine. We’ll play along. But maybe run things by me first next time you plan something like this.”
I could just feel him rolling his eyes at me. We turned back towards the abandoned building – what I would have to come to acknowledge as home, I suppose. The witch leaned against the doorframe with her arms folded. Pierce, on the other hand, was eating his way through a second can of beans. Wait.
“Are those my beans?”
He furrowed his eyebrows, giving me puppy dog eyes. “I’m so hungry,” he said. “And anyway, I’m bigger than you. I need the nutrients.”
I shook my head, sighing. The witch did the same.
“See, I told him he would crap his brains out, but he wouldn’t listen. And speaking of crap, your boy needs a bath. Now.”
“Who, me?” Pierce puffed his chest out and broadened his shoulders. “That’s just how a man smells. Get used to it, sister.”
She snapped her fingers, a flicker of purple flashing in her palm, where a bar of soap appeared. “River. Now.” She threw the soap at Pierce’s head. He yelped as he caught it, then stared at her aghast. “You don’t smell like a man, ‘bro.’ You smell like a dumpster.”
With some soap and half a can of beans in hand, Pierce headed to the river, muttering under his breath the whole while. Dantaleon and I waited at the threshold, the witch standing between us like the stone guardian of her own fortress. She nodded at Dantaleon, one eyebrow cocked.
“So, book guy. If you’re the prince’s servant, then these two must be your toadies.”
I began sputtering. Me, one of Dantaleon’s minions? The witch’s glance flitted between us, like she was searching for the truth. I bit my tongue. We needed to stick to the plan.
“I
ndeed,” Dantaleon said, adopting a dignified – well, in my opinion, even more pretentious tone. “Our prince has sent us out into the world to see the lay of the land, but we have encountered some complications with regards to our, ah, accommodations. She has plans, you see – ”
“She?” The witch’s eyes went wide with excitement. “A she-prince? Awesome.”
I could tell from her starry gaze that she was already running through infinite realities and possibilities in her head, including one where she, herself, ascended to the status of a prince of hell. Dantaleon had read her like an open book.
“Correct. She. Asmodeus’s powers and plans are more subtle and insidious than others, but she is not one to be trifled with. She is a harsh mistress, but she rewards her servants well, be they demon, or otherwise.”
The witch’s eyebrow was hitched so high up her forehead that I was worried her face would split at the seams. “Otherwise, you say?” She sucked on her teeth, looking around the field surrounding her home, then whistled. “I guess it couldn’t hurt to let you boys stay here a couple of nights.”
My right fist shook as I clenched it. Damn it, but I hated when Dantaleon was right.
We each found somewhere to turn down for the evening, in all not the worst way to spend my first night as an exile from Lust’s prime hell. Pierce picked the couch, after washing up in the river as commanded, of course. He could easily gut our witchy new friend in a matter of seconds, but the girl radiated authority, as well as an ever-present aura of intimidation.
She slept somewhere upstairs, presumably somewhere that resembled human bedchambers as much as the ground floor resembled a living room. I found a pile of blankets to settle into, thick enough to insulate me from both the cold and the hardness of the floor beneath. Mr. Wrinkles slept on my chest. Dantaleon picked the bookcase.
Come morning, I woke up grumpily to the tune of Pierce’s snoring. I found my body riddled with kinks and aches for the first time in a long time. I pulled myself up, sitting on the covers, scratching my stomach, staring off into nothing. One night away from home and already I was missing the comforts of my bedchambers and the massive four-poster bed that dwelled in it. But this was Mother’s punishment. She would see me crawling back to her on my hands and knees. I refused to give her the satisfaction.
The witch appeared on the ground floor not long after I awoke, no doubt summoned herself by the grating buzzsaw of Pierce sleeping with his mouth open and his hand shoved down his pants. She nodded at me in greeting, made a wordless noise of complaint, then trudged into the kitchen. Moments later, the smell of coffee drifted through the building. I peeled myself away from the covers and a sulky Mr. Wrinkles, attracted by the aroma.
“It’s just instant,” the witch said, her hair in disarray as she handed me a mug.
My forehead wrinkled, and my nose did as well. “Instant?”
Her eyes narrowed. “You know, made from powder. Dehydrated coffee? Crystals? Just add water. Like the cocoa we had yesterday?”
I gasped and looked into my mug, somehow more apprehensive about drinking this strange concoction than of being poisoned. “But I thought this was made from beans.”
“So was the cocoa,” she hissed. “Just chug it. You demons really do know so little, don’t you? When Snore, God of Thunder over there wakes up, we’re going to go on a little field trip into town.”
I swallowed a mouthful of bitter, dirty water, grimacing. I suddenly started to miss Hornbellow very much. “It’s just, isn’t it supposed to be made from beans?”
Her glare turned into a glower. “And I can’t afford to feed you two and your cat for however long you’re staying here. If you and your book boss are planning to put up for a while, then you’re gonna have to think about contributing. Money.”
That was still a sore subject for me. I frowned. “Money.”
“Yes. One, or both of you, will need to get what’s called a job.”
I gasped again. “But I’ve never worked a day in my life.”
Her knuckles went white as her grasp tightened over her own mug of dirty water. “Listen here – wait, what the hell was your name again?”
“Quill,” I said, leaving out the rest of my name, despite the fact that there was no way for her to link it to Asmodeus. I’d spent very little time in the human world, or California, for that matter, but apparently my antics had gained me a fair bit of notoriety. You throw a fireball and set off a catastrophic dimensional implosion once, and suddenly you’re the bad guy. Where’s the justice?
“Listen here, Quill. I’m not sure what kind of life you were living before you were forced into my hovel, but we can both tell that you’re going to have to make some adjustments. Scratch that, a lot of adjustments.”
“Do you at least have some sugar for this?”
She sighed and shook her head. “Cupboard above the stove.”
I nodded. “For what it’s worth, I do appreciate your offerings. Thank you, uh – you know, it’s only fair that you give me a name to call you, too.”
The witch stiffened, then waved a hand. “Fine, whatever. Just call me Crystal.”
“Thanks, Crystal.”
I headed to the cupboard, desperate for some sugar. A single beam of sunlight pierced the gloom of the makeshift kitchen’s windows. It was a poetic, and truthfully, somewhat mocking accompaniment to this small, new revelation. I thought back to when I first saw the strange amethyst of Crystal’s eyes, the supernatural clarity in them. Despite finally finding some help out in the human world, my future seemed murkier than ever.
I mean, would I really have to find a job?
18
I didn’t have the heart to wake Pierce up. The events between morning and being kicked out of hell must have worn him out as much as me. Crystal, however, didn’t feel the same way, poking him in the ribs.
“You shouldn’t do that,” I said, recalling how Pierce liked to sleep with his daggers under his pillow. “He’s cranky when he wakes up.”
“Well, he’s going to have to wake up at some point. Sun’s up. He can’t stay in bed forever.” She stabbed at his stomach again, calling his name insistently until he stopped snoring, groaned, then rubbed his face in irritation.
“What’s the damn rush?” he grumbled, pulling himself into a seated position, dragging his forearm across the drool-stained corner of his mouth. “It’s not like we’re going anywhere.”
Crystal stood over him with her arms folded, her expression darkening like a cloudy day. “That’s what you think, buster. I was just telling your friend over here that we’re going to have to figure out the money situation.” She turned to me, still frowning. “Speaking of which, doesn’t that book of yours have an in with your prince? I mean, she’s a prince. Doesn’t nobility come with money?”
“Not how it works,” I said, shaking my head and lying through my teeth. “She’s not exactly pleased with us, and asking her for a favor at this point is a lot like asking to be set on fire.”
She rolled her eyes. “Then I don’t know why I’m doing this, helping you out, when there’s bound to be nothing in it for me.”
“Prince Asmodeus will surely reward you in time,” Dantaleon said soothingly, drifting into the conversation from his perch over on the bookcase. “Patience, young witch.”
Reward her? Yeah, with a fireball to the face, probably. There had to be a way for me to make it right with Crystal at some point, but I had to take care of me first. Well, me, and Pierce, and Mr. Wrinkles, that is. Dantaleon could jump in a lake, for all I cared.
Crystal’s glare did a cycle around the room, settling on Pierce, then me, then Dantaleon. “Fine,” she declared with a huff. “But no one eats for free. Well, the cat does. I’m a witch, but I’m not heartless. Can’t let the little guy starve.”
Pierce groaned, pressing his forearms against his stomach. “What about this little guy? I’m starving already.”
“But you ate so much last night,” I said, at exactly the same time as Crys
tal, and with about the same amount of exasperation.
Not fifteen minutes later, we were sat around a makeshift dining table in Crystal’s makeshift kitchen. I say makeshift, because before Pierce and I came around, it was clear that she was used to living all on her own. Perfectly happy to do so, too, I suspected, based on the resentful glances she threw at us. She’d thrown together a breakfast of toast and fried eggs, no small miracle, considering the complete lack of electricity in the building. Even Mr. Wrinkles was benefiting, tucking into his own little dish of eggs. I had no doubt that the sudden improvement in rations had everything to do with Dantaleon’s promise of a reward.
“So, all on your own out here, huh?” Pierce said through a mouthful of eggs, trying to make conversation.
“Ugh,” she said. “I don’t have to answer that. You two buttholes better know I’m only tolerating you because of the potential reward.”
“Thank you for tolerating my butthole,” Pierce said earnestly.
Crystal scoffed. “Whatever. Besides, I’ve got questions of my own.”
I blinked, raising an eyebrow as I chewed on a piece of toast. “Such as?”
“Why is there a large pile of empty suitcases on my front lawn?”
“Ah,” I said. “That.”
“Quill’s books,” Pierce said, slurping noisily on his orange juice. I could have kicked him in the shins. What was up with both Pierce and Dantaleon spilling all of our secrets? Next thing I knew, Mr. Wrinkles was going to start yammering, too.
Crystal leaned her elbows on the table, mockingly cupping her chin in her hands. “Your books, eh? Tell me more.”
Pierce gave an apologetic shrug when I fixed him with a death glare, but what the hell was I supposed to say? That we were traveling encyclopedia salesmen? I rolled my eyes. I groaned.
“Yeah, my books. Magus, remember? Those suitcases and trunks were supposed to have my collection in them, but there was a problem with – let’s say, transportation.”
She gazed past my shoulder out into the field. “Yeah, I dunno about all that. But if you’re willing to part with those suitcases, they should be worth at least something second hand.”