by Amy Lane
“Emma,” Mullins whispered. Leonard had been summoned by a witch, simply for conversation. Mullins had been there—and even though he knew the lie that Leonard had succumbed to cowardice and fear because Leonard had never been cruel to Mullins, Mullins also knew the truth: that Leonard may have lost his soul completely one day, had it beaten and battered, murdered and raped from his person, if he had never engaged in spirited discourse with a golden-haired sorceress who treated him with kindness…
And then fell in love.
“She has forgiven me for the beast I became,” Leonard whispered. “The least I can do is spare you the lash so you need never become that beast.”
“But it’s hurting you!” Mullins’s face, covered in coarse hair, was not meant for any of the human contortions of weeping. They hurt, for hell’s sake! His eyes burned like a human’s would in alcohol, and his nose and cheeks ached.
And still, Leonard’s hand on his cheek made all that go away. “My son, have faith. We shall pull you out—”
“Do not,” Mullins begged. “One more day of Menoch, and then she’ll be ready. We’ve scouted the church, she’s cooking the hex bags….” His voice dropped even further. “She’s enlisted the enemy—”
“Suriel is kind,” Leonard said, his voice dry and mocking.
“He’s agreed to come,” Mullins said stiffly. It was hard enough to remember he had a soul, much less remember that the angel wasn’t his enemy—not really.
“Anybody Emma has faith in will be good to his word,” Leonard said faintly. “And that means you, my boy. We won’t leave you in this dreadful place—please, son. Have hope.”
Leonard fell into a fitful sleep then, and Mullins curled up in a ball next to the hard-slatted bed that he usually slept in. Gah! Leonard had never lost his kindness, no matter what he professed to have been. But Mullins…. Mullins was hanging on by the barest of threads. He’d been told to go lure a young brothel brat into a river, the better to claim his soul now, while it was unformed and still bitter as a child’s could be made, and before it matured and learned forgiveness and self-care.
He couldn’t do it—not with this child.
In his heart, he knew, not with any.
Leonard had seen him, ready to defy Menoch, ready to be beaten from existence, and had stepped forward.
Leonard had learned the art of taking such beatings.
Apparently it was to draw strength from the warmth of his true soul.
EDWARD COULDN’T stop staring.
He and Harry and Francis crouched in the underbrush near the Sacramento River, still shaking from their escape from the Golden Child, the brothel that had been their life and their hell ever since their mothers—in one way or another—had wandered into the pitcher plant of safety that the place offered. Their mothers had passed away, leaving the boys to fend for themselves, and getting the hell out of the brothel seemed to be their best bet.
The plan had been to escape from Bertha and Big Cass, and then to hop on a railcar heading for the Midwest. Harry wasn’t great with plans, but he’d earned tickets for his sisters to go back before his mother died of pox and a broken heart, and he said there was farmland Midwest, and Bertha and Big Cass couldn’t even dream of the boys in their care escaping that far.
That had been the plan, anyway. But Harry had set fire to the trash pile as a diversion and escaped in the smoke, and Edward and Francis had gotten caught in the herd of women screaming as they exited the building.
Big Cass had spotted them in the street, running for the outskirts of the city, and had given chase.
He’d caught Francis from behind and given him a terrible blow to the head. Edward wasn’t sure what happened after that. One minute his heart had been racing in his chest and the next Big Cass was stumbling back, blood rushing from his nose. He’d howled and launched himself at Edward, but Edward took advantage of the moment of shock. He grabbed Francis and hauled him away from the scene, ducking around a corner and waiting until Cass’s bulky figure shambled by. He’d been able to make it to the meeting place, but Francis had grown increasingly less cognizant of his surroundings as they ran. By the time they’d run into Harry, Francis was barely conscious and Edward was exhausted from dragging him.
When Harry heard them thrashing through the bushes, Edward assumed Big Cass had caught them, and his heart shriveled inside his chest. Harry pulled them to safety, and Edward was honestly relieved to see the beast-man and the witch entering the clearing.
They may have eaten children’s souls for breakfast, but at this point anything was better than being a gaping maw at the Golden Child, waiting to be sold to the next filthy miner desperate to dip his wick.
And now, watching as a beautiful woman and a ferocious beast set up hex bags in a pentagram around another beast-man in the center, he was working furiously to realign his world.
His mind—ever logical—saw the pentagram and thought Witchcraft! But that logical mind was not immune to the other things going on. The beautiful woman was kind to the beast, and both of them were intent on saving the thing in the center of the pentagram.
And then the beast shed his own blood to make the magic complete.
Edward had shed enough of his own blood in the brothel—had given himself to Big Cass multiple times to keep the brutal bouncer away from Francis, the youngest of the three of them and the most fragile.
He understood self-sacrifice, and in particular, he understood that peculiar wrenching feeling that happened when the self-sacrifice went against the grain of who you were. It was not logical to hurt yourself or allow pain in order to protect others, but sometimes it was necessary.
In future years, Edward would have the selfishness vs. selflessness debate many times, in salons, with his brothers, with friends and teachers, professors and angels—and in particular, the terrible beast-man he watched disappearing into the shadows on this fateful night.
But in spite of the many years of learning that would come, he would never, ever manage to verbalize the crystal clear understanding of the concept that he experienced watching that hideous, terrifying, vulnerable being limp away to what sounded like a terrible fate.
The only word that would ever come close was love.
His attention on the demon—for that was what he turned out to be—was pulled away when the woman, Emma, summoned the angel Suriel.
The angel.
An angel joined hands with this woman, this obvious sorceress, and together, they stood over the figure lying on the ground before them and…
Made magic.
Edward’s brain forgot reason in that moment and embraced wonder.
A glorious glow surrounded the figures in the clearing, then spread, a nimbus surrounding the area, encompassing Edward, Harry, and Francis, permeating their bodies, before it simply ceased to be.
When it was gone, instead of Harry, a sturdily built, plain boy of fourteen, there sat a growling, spitting fluffy black cat, fur upright in fury. Next to him, eyes crossed, a mostly cream-colored Siamese cat stared bemusedly at his paw.
They both opened their mouths in surprise and meowed.
Edward sat down on haunches covered in orange fur and stared at Harry in utter helplessness.
They were cats?
Harry went rushing out into the clearing in a cloud of righteous indignation and black fur. Edward would eventually follow—and listen as Emma explained what she had done.
“I can give you a home,” she said softly. “I can give you food and clothes. I can teach you to read and give you a purpose. I just ask that you hold my power, be my familiars, use my magic to change your shape and do no harm. I….” Her voice broke. “I just didn’t want to leave him, you see. If I hadn’t stored my power in the three of you, I would have aged and died right here, and he would have awakened in this world to live a long life alone. I’m sorry. I know it was wrong—so wrong—to not ask you. But please… won’t you please forgive me enough to let us care for each other?”
Edw
ard recalled the kindness she’d shown the demon beast, and as he watched, the now-human Leonard sat up, looking plain and gentle. When they all heard the racket of Big Cass thrashing through the woods, it was only logical that Edward allow Leonard to scoop him up and hurry him away from danger.
Harry could run from danger on his own, but Edward appreciated transportation and some caring for.
It was only logical.
NOBODY WAS as surprised as Mullins was, the first time Emma summoned him after Leonard’s redemption.
He’d been facing off with Menoch, lying—because that’s what demons did.
“I have no idea where he is,” Mullins said, as though he hadn’t missed his friend every moment of every tortuous day. “He was summoned—”
“By that woman?” Menoch spat the word. Of course the demon of shame was a misogynist. Mocking women gave him more power than he knew what to do with.
“Yes—you told him to answer her, remember?”
“Yes.” Menoch had beady little human eyes in his fly’s face. It made Mullins want to vomit, even though he spent much of his time in hell as this twisted fusion of man, pig, horse, and goat. “I remember. And then she learned his name and he had no choice.” A horrible buzz-snort then. “Bloody accords.”
There were treaties—old ones—between heaven and hell. Mullins and Leonard had studied them long and hard before they’d risked sending Leonard up to the surface without a summoning and allowing Emma to transform him back into a man.
Mullins had spent enough time memorizing those treaties, word for word, that he’d begun to doubt their necessity.
Essentially, the treaties drew out the rules of hell:
No demon shall break his word, but lying is perfectly acceptable.
Demons must come when called by name.
Hell may compel demonic actions.
Demons cannot be wiped from existence by not complying—but they may be punished.
A demon’s surrender is the only thing that can end his suffering and his soul.
And:
Redemption for the atrocities of hell can only happen with sincere sacrifice.
The. End.
That was it.
Mullins had drawn up enough contracts as one of the 666 scribes of hell to know that everything else was window dressing.
It was like the spell for a demon keeping a small chunk of its soul. There were long, involved passages about needing small mammal’s entrails, complete with several types of microbial activity, to ward off complete damnation in the heart of a demon’s soul.
It had taken two years of intense reading for Mullins and Leonard to realize that the entire passage was about caring for something smaller than one’s self. It didn’t need to be a cat or a rat with a petri dish in its stomach—it needed to be a live animal who had just been cared for.
Once Mullins had deciphered that passage, he and Leonard had looked up the spell for redeeming a demon—which had taken years. But years they took, and they had faith.
Mullins hadn’t been paid for this task. He’d worked long hours after his regular duties.
But he’d done it for the same reason Leonard had risked his life and soul to escape.
Emma—beautiful, kind Emma who had so guilelessly offered Mullins a way out—had loved Leonard enough to redeem him from all the evils he’d performed in hell.
Leonard thought being with Emma was worth the risk.
Mullins thought knowing that Leonard was safe was worth the risk.
Just like the Articles of Hellish Redemption, the solution had been so much simpler than the spell that delineated it.
Mullins had snuck Leonard out, past the catacombs of the scribes. Through sulfur, arsenic, and lakes of blood, they had managed to wend their way to the surface without the magic that would have summoned the other demons and given away their plan. Only the imps of schadenfreude at the entrance to the surface had seen them, and while they’d both been wounded, Emma had been there at the portal to help Mullins and Leonard make their escape.
After Leonard drew his first breath as a free man, Mullins had returned, sneaking around the frenzied imps and teleporting back to his place.
Nobody noticed the magic then. They were too upset about the redemption. While nobody knew which demon had been stripped from their ranks, all of hell knew that somebody had. It was why Mullins hadn’t been able to go with them.
The redemption could only be performed on one of them. If Mullins had stayed, the very fact that he was still a demon would have led the others right to Emma and Leonard, no matter how well they were hidden.
As it was, Mullins was there at Menoch’s beck and call while all of hell tried to figure out which of them had actually managed to escape.
“Well, the accords gave her the power,” Mullins said patiently, breathing through the pain. “But now somebody is summoning me by name, and by the accords, I must go.”
Ah, the blessed accords.
Because Mullins recognized the voice of the summoner—and it was low and sweet and kind. Always, always kind.
Emma.
He allowed the world of hell to fade and embraced the reality of the woman who had stolen Leonard from him—and given them both hope.
The room she summoned him to was plain, a log cabin with running water—an anomaly for this place and time, Mullins knew—and two bedrooms. In the distance, he could hear the giant shush of the ocean.
Emma stood next to Leonard in front of the summoning circle, holding a delicate seal-tipped cat in her arms. Leonard was holding a marmalade tom, and a fluffy black tomcat curled up in the back of the room, letting out a low-level tomcat growl.
Emma smiled as soon as he had completely materialized. “Mullins!” she cried, as though seeing an old and dear friend. “We’re so glad you could come!”
Mullins nodded and kept tears of relief at bay. Tears hurt, and they looked grotesque, and they did nobody any good.
“I’m happy to be here,” he said gruffly. “You have… guests?”
Leonard stepped forward and looked behind him. “Harry, would you like to change form and shake hands like a man?”
There was a mild ring of challenge, and the black cat gave a deep breath and…
Suddenly stood, a midsized compact young man, still in the throes of adolescence. His hair was a black fury around his head, and his black eyes snapped with irritation.
That nonstop feline growl had not yet ceased, and Leonard cocked his head and raised an eyebrow.
Mullins had a moment to register that Leonard, as a human, was a plainly handsome man, with a little bit of gray in his medium brown hair and laugh lines around his hazel eyes, before the boy-who-was-no-longer-a-cat stepped forward, hand extended.
“Harry,” he said, voice still growly. “Emma and Leonard say we can trust you. Pleased to meet you.”
Mullins took his grip around his goat hoof and was faintly warmed by the way the boy squeezed hard, like Mullins was a human, and shook.
“Pleased to meet you, young master,” Mullins said quietly. He let go of Harry’s hand and raised his eyebrows at Emma. “Familiars?”
He could feel it now, the way her once formidable power was spread out not just with Leonard, but among the other three creatures in the room. It was an incredible sacrifice—it would cut her lifespan to a fifth of the time she would normally live as a learned and studied witch—but she and Leonard seemed so content, he couldn’t even bring himself to ask.
“Edward,” Harry said gruffly into Mullins’s realizations, “Francis—c’mon ye lazy bastards and fuckin’ change.”
The marmalade cat leaped solidly to the floor and grew into another midsized boy, not much younger than Harry. This one had red hair, freckles, and stunning green eyes, and for a moment Mullins was…
Beguiled.
His body stilled, his restless heart and worried mind took their ease.
All his fears about facing Menoch again, becoming snared in the lies of hell, grew still
.
This boy was looking at him curiously, head cocked, as though the two of them shared a secret.
“Hullo,” the boy said cheerfully. He stepped forward and extended his hand. “I’m Edward.”
Mullins shook his hand dutifully, but a part of him was lost, back hundreds of years, when he and the smithy’s boy had tussled in the grass one morning and shared heated skin, hot touches, a tender, wonder-filled kiss.
Had the boy possessed green eyes like this? Maybe not… but something about this boy was mesmerizing, like that one had been.
Mullins shook himself, exactly like a beast, and released Edward’s hand. “Master Edward,” he said, bowing slightly.
With a delicate little whirl, the white cat in Emma’s arms became a younger, slighter boy, with white-blond hair and crossed blue eyes. “Francis,” he said, stepping into Edward’s space without any self-consciousness. He grasped Mullins’s hand and Mullins gasped—but kept his composure.
Later he would tell Leonard that their youngest familiar had a drop or two of truly fey blood in his system. Angels, Mullins could touch at will, but the fey—they were beyond anybody’s management.
But the boy—and unlike Edward and Harry, who were on the cusp of manhood, Francis was truly a boy—only gave Mullins the ghost of a smile and practically floated back into his cat form, and into Emma’s arms.
“You have a family,” Mullins said to Leonard, trying to keep the surprise from his own voice. Demons didn’t find redemption and reclaim their humanity—and if they did, they never became foster fathers to a trio of fey and human children.
“Emma’s doing,” Leonard said, tilting his head warmly toward the woman who had saved him in every sense of the word. “She stored her power in them the night she brought me back. It was….” He grimaced.
“It was the only way,” she said simply. “They boys were in the bushes, watching our every move. I needed vessels and I… well, I won’t say I did it shamelessly. But as it turned out, they needed us as much as we needed them.” She smiled fondly and stroked Francis soothingly behind the ears. “It’s worked out very well for all of us, I hope.”