by Emma Scott
This is a dream. I’m going to wake up. Any second now…
I took a long pull of cold water. “Are there many demons on This Side?”
“Not many. Perhaps a few thousand at any given moment.”
“Thousand?”
“We are legion,” he said. “And you’re out of cornflakes.”
“I’ll put it on my list,” I murmured as Casziel wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve and slipped off the stool to wander my living area.
He tapped his long fingers on my window. “Does this unlock?”
“Yes, but…”
He pushed it open.
“I only leave it cracked in the summer,” I said, reaching to shut it again. “It’s not safe—”
“None dare hurt you. Not while I’m here.”
The casual menace in his voice sent another tingle down my spine. I’d never had a man—or reasonable facsimile thereof—vow to protect me like that. As if, under his watch, my safety was a forgone conclusion.
It felt good.
Casziel carried his inspection of my tiny studio into the sleeping area, leaning to peer at the photo on my nightstand. My dad and me at Coney Island when I was ten.
“Ah, so he smiles,” Casziel muttered. “I was beginning to wonder if he were only capable of disapproving grimaces.”
“Dad’s here right now?”
“Yes and no. Here is a relative term.”
“I thought you said—”
Casziel flapped a hand irritably as he perused my bookshelf that was crammed full. “He’s always here and he’s also somewhere else. Everywhere and nowhere.” He cocked his head, listening, then scoffed. “I beg to differ.”
“He’s talking to you now?”
“He says I’m being vague on purpose. As if it were that easy to explain the nature of the cosmos to a puny human brain for which ‘truth’ is only that which the senses perceive.”
“That’s a little harsh,” I said. “Plenty of people have faith.”
Casziel snorted. “On the surface. On their knees once a week, if that.”
“You have a dim view of humanity.” I crossed my arms. “It’s hardly fair to incite humans to war and hate, to whisper in our ears that we’re not good enough or drive us to temptation and then get all judgy about it.”
Casziel shrugged. “I’m a demon. I never professed to be fair.”
I rolled my eyes and picked up the photo of my father and me. Both of us grinning. Both of us carefree and full of joy. No demons there.
“He’s an angel now,” I murmured, tracing his face.
“Playing a harp whilst gliding past pearly gates on a fluffy white cloud?” Casziel mused. He ran a finger along a row of romance novels on my shelf. “Heaven’s gates or the fires of hell. Divine or infernal. Angel or demon. Everything is black and white for you humans when there are a thousand shades of gray.” He pulled a book off the shelf, an eyebrow arched. “More than fifty.”
“Okay, then what’s it like?”
“The Other Side?” He shrugged and dropped the book on the floor and moved on with his inspection of my place. “You can’t comprehend it and I’d rather not drive you to insanity trying to explain.”
“Gee, thanks,” I muttered and returned the book to its home on the shelf as Casziel poked his head into my tiny bathroom.
“I’ve known monks with more worldly possessions than you, Lucy Dennings.”
I lifted one shoulder. “It’s all I need.”
He gestured at my shelves. “You need all those books? Mostly romantic fiction, I notice.”
“And poetry. I love poetry and romance.” I smiled self-consciously. “I’m a sucker for beautiful words.”
Casziel sniffed. “Those beautiful words are your substitute for the real thing.”
“I…that isn’t true.”
“Is it not true?” He stretched his long body out on my too-small couch. “One stool at the counter. One chair at the desk. I’m shocked that your bed is large enough for two.”
I tugged at the collar of my sweater, my face growing hot. “This place doesn’t have room for more furniture. And not that it’s any of your business, but I don’t have company over all that often.”
Or ever, Silly Lucy.
Casziel shrugged and reached for the TV remote on the coffee table and started flipping through channels. “Can we get pizza?”
I snatched the remote out of his hands and shut off the TV.
“Oh sure, let’s get pizza. As soon as you tell me what I’m supposed to do. Help you not be a demon?”
He fixed his eyes on me. “My redemption lies with you, Lucy Dennings. You’re the expert on living for others, always bending over backwards, often at your own expense.”
“I don’t do that,” I said in a small voice.
“You’d give the shirt off your back, as the saying goes, even if you only had one shirt.”
“That’s…not true.”
“Agree to disagree.”
I hunched deeper into my sweater, an ugly, nervous feeling coiling in my guts like a snake. The enormity of what I was being asked to do and believe was too much. Demons or not, the voices in my head were right—I was gullible and silly and always willing to see the best in people, even when they were obviously toying with me.
“This conversation is making me ill,” I said. “I was crazy to let you in. For all I know this is a lie, and you’re here to…hurt me.”
Casziel’s lazy smirk vanished. “I told you, I would never hurt you.”
“You told me but what is the word of a demon? And how am I supposed to help you? You’ve committed God knows how many atrocities—”
“God knows,” Casziel said, his voice low. “To the last drop of blood spilled, God knows.”
I shivered. “This was a mistake. I think you should leave.”
The demon sat up, head bowed, his hands hanging off his knees. “Forgive me, Lucy born of light. It’s been nearly four thousand years since I last put myself at the mercy of a human’s generosity.” He looked up at me, his expression strangely soft. “I vowed to never…”
“What?”
He looked away. “Nothing.”
Pain hung over him, weighing him down like a second coat. Or a suit of armor grown too heavy. Against my will, my heart softened toward him, but he was right. I did bend over backwards for others, and sometimes—most times, if I were being honest—it left me feeling as though I’d been taken advantage of.
I crossed my arms. “How can I trust you?”
“Your own father assured you that you can.”
“And if you’re lying about him too?”
“You asked earlier if he were here, and my answer was…inadequate.” Casziel winced, annoyed. “Fine. It was rude and dismissive. Better?”
Despite everything, I smiled. I could almost see Dad standing over Casziel, hands on his hips, scolding him. Almost. As much as I wanted to believe, there was no one there.
“The hardest part of losing someone is thinking they’re gone forever,” I said. “You know in your heart that’s not true but the little voices of doubt whisper what if it is?”
Casziel nodded, then cocked his head, listening. When he spoke, his tone was gentler than I’d ever heard it.
“He asks me to remind you of your youth. How you would do your homework at the dining room table while he cooked dinner in the kitchen in your house in Milfred.”
“Milford.” Tears filled my eyes. “I remember.”
I could see it as if it were yesterday. Dad banging around in the kitchen of our cozy house, the scent of pot roast or spaghetti sauce in the air. Me in pigtails at the table, my papers strewn all over but organized. I was an A student, always striving to do my best. To make Dad proud, even if he never demanded more of me than I could give.
“If you needed help with an equation or had a question,” Casziel said, “he’d come in from the kitchen to help, then go back when you didn’t need help anymore.”
I n
odded, my voice a whisper. “Yes. That’s what he did.”
“It is so now. He’s always here, Lucy. He’s just in the next room. And if you need him, he will come.”
The tears spilled over now. I smiled through them, feeling as if a weight had been lightened. It wasn’t gone; it would never lift completely, but for the first time in six months, I felt like I could breathe again.
“Thank you, Casziel.”
I hadn’t said his name before. Probably my imagination, but it felt as if the air between us had shifted. A shimmer, like the blurred air above a fire, wavered between us, then vanished.
“And I’ll help you,” I said. “I don’t know how or where to even start. But…I’ll try.”
Casziel’s eyes widened as they met mine. “My thanks, Lucy Dennings,” he said softly. Then his irritated scowl returned, as if he’d remembered to put it back on. “Now can we get pizza?”
I ordered pizza for my demon and curled on my bed while he watched television from the couch. Eventually, my eyes grew heavy; the events of the day and every wild emotion in it had left me drained. I began to doze, listening to Casziel’s running commentary on whatever he was watching—he laughed derisively or muttered in that strange language of his. A language that sounded unearthed from a tomb—dusty and guttural and not heard by living ears in centuries.
I drifted to sleep and dreamed of a woman
standing in the field, her back to me, her black hair braided in a thick rope down to her waist. She wears a shapeless wool dress, belted above the hip. Her skin is bronzed, and silver bracelets with blue stones slide down her arm as she shields her eyes from the setting sun. In the distance, a city of low mud-brick buildings sits against the banks of a river.
I follow her line of sight and can just make out a procession of soldiers marching into the city. The faint sounds of cheering crowds emanate from under horns bleating in triumph.
The woman lets out a little cry of joy, and my heart jumps too. She hikes up her skirts and runs toward the city…
Four
A demon in the guise of a human bouncer lounges at the entrance of Idle Hands. The tavern, tucked in a dark alley, is full, judging by the dark laughter, cursing, and noxious odors seeping from behind the heavy oaken door.
The bouncer watches me approach with flat eyes. “I fell to Earth and here I lie…”
“Who will help me up again?” I finish.
He nods. “You may enter.”
I glance around the alley. It’s empty, but New York City breathes around us, electric and alive. Even in the deepest part of the night, it teems with life. Light.
Satisfied there are no watching eyes, I transform into my demonic form and nearly sigh with relief to feel it envelop me in strength and power, like putting on a suit of armor. I’m no longer weak from Crossing Over; the black clothes and greatsword I wear on the Other Side reform with me.
The bouncer falls back, averting his eyes. “My Lord Casziel, I had no idea. Please forgive me.”
Not long ago, I would’ve exulted in the terror my presence creates. Now it reminds me of all I’ve done to earn it.
“Step aside,” I snarl.
He does so with another bow, and I enter Idle Hands. The dark, windowless tavern reeks of a dozen foul odors—vile fumes emanate off the twenty or so demons that are congregated here. Each wears his or her demonic body. Idle Hands is a safe haven, invisible to human eyes.
Few take notice of my arrival, but behind the bar, Eistibus is staring. The djinn seems pleased to see me but not surprised.
“Lord Casziel.” Eistibus clasps my arm. “How long’s it been?”
“Fifty years by human reckoning.”
“Too long and yet it seems like yesterday.” The djinn glances at a door at the rear of the common room. “Lord Ashtaroth is waiting…”
“I’m aware.”
Let him wait.
“If you think it’s best,” Eistibus says slowly. “What’s your poison?”
It’s not a figure of speech; skulls and crossbones mark more than one bottle on the shelves.
“Wine, please. Red.”
Eistibus sets a glass of wine the color of old blood in front of me. From the waist up, the djinn appears as a rotund, richly dressed human with ropes of jewels around his thick neck and gems glinting on every finger. Below the cloth-of-gold sash at his waist, he’s made of mist. It tethers him to a lamp buried somewhere in the foundations of the tavern. Rumor has it, he lost a bet with Aclahayr.
“How long are you on This Side?”
“Not long,” I answer and sip my wine. “A few days.”
And then there will be an end, one way or another.
“What of you?” I ask. “How’s business?”
“T’is crowded these days. Strange, that. Most times, it’s just me and that wormy bastard.”
He jerks his jowly chin at the demon at the end of the bar, his head resting on the polished mahogany, one scrawny arm curling around a ring of empty shot glasses.
Eistibus pounds a fist. “Oi! Ba-Maguje! Get yer bloody ugly mug off my bar.”
“Piss off,” Ba-Maguje slurs. “I’m working.”
Eistibus chuckles but it fades fast. His gold gaze flickers toward the back door and then to me. “Not to be pressing the point, but Lord Ashtaroth was adamant that you see him immediately.”
“Trying to get rid of me already?” I smile. “I thought we were friends.”
“We are friends,” Eistibus says. “Hence the warning. And you’d be a truer friend to go quick and not let’em cut off my balls for not passing on his message.”
“You don’t have any balls, Eistibus,” I say with a grin, then flap my hand. “I’m going, I’m going.”
I drain my wine and now dozens of eyes—or what serve as eyes—follow me as I cross the room. I step over tails and around puddles of vileness. At the door, I square my shoulders and knock once.
“Enter.”
The room is dark but for a single black candle burning on an ornate table. Lush furniture in fraying velvet and antiques give it the appearance of a parlor in an old mansion. By the meager light, I make out my liege lord, Ashtaroth, Head of the Eighth Order, Prince of Accusers. He lounges on a settee, his black, webbed wings folded tight to him, the hooked tips gleaming behind his head of damp, tangled hair. He looks—and smells—like a corpse dragged out of a bog. It’s all I can do not to recoil at his breath that has filled the room like a vapor.
He strokes the head of his immense white serpent that coils around the settee, watching me with black eyes. Lesser servitors scuttle and whimper at the edges of the light like rats.
“Kneel.”
I obey and drop to my knees in the middle of the room.
“My demon prince,” Ashtaroth drawls, danger suffusing every syllable. “You are so beautiful and perfect in your malevolence…except when it comes to her.”
She is called Lucy this time…
I bury the tiny flicker of light that burns in my blackened heart. Even after centuries of ravaging the earth with my rage, that flame hasn’t yet guttered out. Lucy is just as bright and beautiful in this lifetime as she is in every other, but she’s alone. Always so alone. I dare wonder—hope—if somewhere in her soul she mourns me…
“She does not,” Ashtaroth snaps, crawling around in my thoughts. “No matter how many of her lifetimes you skulk about her like a mongrel, you are dead to her. Not even a memory. You know this is true.”
I know this is true. But I can’t leave her to that loneliness. I need to know she has found happiness at last.
Then I can say goodbye…
Ashtaroth sneers, his wings flaring wide, wafting his stench over me in fresh waves. “I see into your heart. I taste your pathetic hope. The lie you’ve laid at her feet about your redemption would amuse me if it weren’t so pitiful.”
“This time is mine,” I say, defiance in the tilt of my chin. “Eleven days. You swore to me…”
What is the word of a de
mon worth? Lucy asked. The answer, of course, is nothing.
Ashtaroth’s black lip curls. “What of your word? Your duty? While you waste time on This Side, your legions go without a commander on the Other.”
I say nothing. My course is clear, and I will not waver. A commander does not veer from his mission until victory is achieved.
Or until he’s dead.
Quickly, I banish the thought from my mind before he knows my intentions. I must’ve succeeded because Ashtaroth sighs with disappointment and unsheathes the huge sword strapped to his waist. It gleams dully in the flickering light of the candle.
“Come, then.”
I know what he expects—I alter myself into my frail human form, the body that had been scarred and broken so many years ago. Ashtaroth will scar me again to remind me of that frailty—remind me that while I wear the human skin, he can destroy me.
I’m counting on it…but not yet.
I approach, my head held high, unflinching. At either side of Ashtaroth, lesser servitors watch me, waiting for me to show weakness. Starved for a scrap of my fear. I show none. I could destroy the imps with a word or one swipe of my sword.
I bare my arm, offering it to Ashtaroth like a piece of sacrificial meat.
“You have spent one day. Ten remain. My gift to you.”
He draws his sword across the flesh above my wrist, and I hold my breath, wondering if he’ll hack my hand off. But he keeps the wound shallow. Red blood flows, black in the meager light. The pain is bright, but it’s nothing compared to the wounds I suffered in life centuries ago, when I was dragged to the bowels of the ziggurat and destroyed, body and soul…
My thoughts are wrenched from the bloodstained memories as Ashtaroth turns the flat of his blade onto the bleeding gash. Flesh sizzles; smoke curls up in tendrils. The pain sinks in deep. Layers of burning agony. The imps slaver and whine. Still, I don’t flinch. I hold steady and let Ashtaroth extract his payment.