Darlings of New Midnight

by Andrea Speed

  “Was it the same old shit?”

  “Pretty much. Except… hey, if I was half-angel, wouldn’t you know?”

  Ceri studied him with a raised eyebrow. Since his glamour was off and he looked like his usual bisected self, it seemed like only his human side was interested in the conversation. “I’d think so. Why, did she say that?”

  “Yeah. She said our dad wasn’t human but an angel, and we basically came along as an answer to you.”

  “Huh. But if that were true, wouldn’t you be manifesting angel powers?”

  “That’s what I thought. But she said it was latent until we came back as angels.”

  “Oh.” Ceri leaned his head against him as he thought about it, and Logan liked the comfort of it. To think, a little over a year ago, they didn’t know each other at all except as rumors. Now they were staring down the end of the world together. Life was fucking strange. “Well, if that’s true, then I suppose it’s possible you’re a Nephilim and I wouldn’t know it.”

  “Nephilim. That’s the actual term, huh?”

  “Yep.”

  “Sounds kidney related.”

  “I don’t think it is.”

  Logan started biting his cuticle, caught himself, and stopped. He hadn’t done that for years. But with the end of the world looming, it seemed like all his nervous tics were coming back. “Probably not. It can’t be true, though, can it? I mean, the angels wouldn’t plant an angel pretending to be a person on Earth, simply for the purpose of popping out a couple of kids, would they?”

  He saw the way Ceri grimaced, and Logan’s heart skipped. Oh no. “Yes, they might. I remember my father talking about hunting down an angel hiding on Earth. I wonder if that’s related.”

  Logan pondered whether that meant Satan had killed their dad. Well, it would make sense. And wasn’t that technically rape? Him pretending to be human, getting a woman to fall in love with him, all so she’d have a couple of kids? Sure seemed a little rape-y, and he didn’t like it at all. “Did they find the angel?”

  “Oh yeah. Dad was bragging about killing it for years.”

  Logan wondered if he should be relieved or sorry. He was kind of relieved, to be honest. It might not have been their dad—he had no reason to think that the angels were telling the truth—but he still felt better about it.

  There was an odd noise, and Logan looked around for the menace before realizing it was the sound of the phone in its charger, vibrating across the table. Boy, they made weird sounds on glass. He picked it up, and as soon as he saw who was calling, he was slightly alarmed. “Esme? Everything okay?”

  “Uh, yeah, I guess. Um, you guys aren’t sleeping now, are you?”

  “No. Too charged from the day. Why?”

  “Uh, well, there’s been a pretty dramatic development here. I think we may actually have a way to win this thing.”

  Logan immediately felt a thousand times better. “Did you find a spell in the codex?”

  “No, Ahmed hasn’t given that up yet. This is… someone wants to join us in our fight. Someone incredibly powerful.”

  “Who?” He was slightly unnerved by this.

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. You guys should come over. It’ll be easier.”

  “Okay. We’ll be right there.”

  “What’s going on?” Ceri asked as soon as he hung up.

  He repeated what little Esme had given him and asked, “Do you think a major player in Heaven or Hell has switched sides?”

  “Besides Lucifer or God, I don’t know if there’s anyone strong enough to make that much of a difference.”

  “That’s what I was afraid of.” But who did that leave, then? And why couldn’t Esme simply tell him over the phone?

  Logan returned to their bedroom to get dressed. He’d slept in boxer shorts, because he never knew when he’d have to get up and fight, and fighting naked left some obvious weak spots on display. He dressed casually in jeans, a T-shirt, and steel-toed boots in case fighting broke out. For that reason, he also slipped on his leather jacket, which was already loaded with weapons. Possibly not ones he needed, but even inappropriate ones were better than none.

  Ceri was already dressed, since he never got to sleep, but he reinstated his glamour so he was back to fully human-looking sexpot again. Sometimes it staggered Logan, realizing how intimate it was that Ceri showed him, and only him, his true self. And of course the trust in it as well. If he didn’t stop thinking about it, he was going to get choked up.

  Logan called Ahmed, hoping he’d have his phone with him this time—Logan had asked him to do so before he disappeared with the codex—and it went straight to voicemail, which was typical. He told Ahmed they might actually have a win, and he needed to show up at Esme’s ASAP. Logan also told him to bring the codex, although he had no idea if he would or wouldn’t.

  As soon as he put the phone away, Ceri gave him an intense look, a tacit “You ready?” Logan nodded, and Ceri grabbed his arm and folded space.

  For Logan, it was simply a blink. He was in his living room, and then, blink, he was in Esme and Lyn’s living room.

  Their house was something else. Where Esme didn’t have Ceri’s innate ability to compel people, she could do it with a spell, although she only did it to assholes. Which is how she got this lovely waterfront home—a multimillion-dollar one previously owned by a misogynistic senator Esme compelled to sell the home to her for a fragment of its actual worth. And then she cursed him to never have an erection again, not even with the help of drugs. Permanent limp dick seemed excessively mean until you read up on the guy, and then, frankly, she should have ripped it off of him. He was a real garbage person.

  But whereas Esme compelled the sale as a punishment, Lyn actually bought the property because Lyn was as rich as hell. Being alive longer than anyone else—save for Ahmed—and basically working as a mercenary for many years had led to her having a good bit of scratch. Much like her age, she was reluctant to talk about it.

  But the look the house generally went for was, according to Esme, goth fortune-teller’s place, and that was basically achieved. They had couches and chairs in dark blue velvet, a lavender carpet, and pale yellow walls that looked gilded in certain lights. There were a couple of paintings on the wall: a framed abstract of slashes of color that Lyn claimed was from a reasonably famous artist—although Logan couldn’t remember who it was, and didn’t care to ask again—and a large rendering of the Tarot card Strength, which had a woman opening a lion’s jaws. Or maybe holding its jaws. It really wasn’t clear.

  The thing was, Esme could change anything in the room whenever she wanted. Much like she did when she changed the sigiled wooden stairs to plastic, she could transmogrify anything in the room when she felt like it. Undoubtedly that saved on both furniture costs and moving stress.

  Esme was standing in the archway between the living room and the kitchen, and just beyond her, Logan could see a sleepy Lyn with her head over a mug of coffee.

  There was a stranger sitting on their blue velvet sofa, though. It was either a slightly effeminate man or a slightly butch woman, attractive either way, in spite of the nose ring. They had dreadlocks held back in what looked like a ponytail and awesome yellow boots. The person looked at them with a sunny, guileless smile, and Logan wasn’t sure if they were in their late teens or early twenties.

  Logan had opened his mouth to say something when Ceri jerked his head back as if someone had taken a swing at him and gawked at the person on the couch. “You’re giving off chthonic energy. How…?”

  The person looked at Ceri, still smiling. “You’re the Destroyer, yes? Nice to meet you.”

  “Chthonic?” Logan asked. He felt like he should know the word, but he didn’t.

  “Underworld. Specifically underworld deities.”

  “Like Satan?”

  “No,” Esme said, entering the living room. “Logan Fox, Cerberus Morningstar, meet Alex Rayasi, the spokesperson for Cthylor.”

  “Hi,” Al
ex said, making an odd hand gesture. Wait, was that sign language?

  “Who’s Cthylor?” Ceri asked, signing his words as well.

  Logan looked at him, surprised. “You know sign language?”

  Ceri shrugged. “Satan knows every language, and apparently so do I.”

  “Really?” That was a weird detail. Still, why not? If you were a god, it probably behooved you to speak everything imaginable.

  “Daughter of Cthulhu,” Alex replied, also signing.

  “Wait, what?” Logan asked, looking to Esme for confirmation.

  She shrugged. “See, I told you you wouldn’t believe me.”

  “Cthulhu is a real thing? I thought that was made up.”

  “The mythos is realish,” Ceri told him. “But most of them exist on another plane of reality. Save for Cthulhu, who sleeps at the bottom of the sea.”

  “And his daughter, who watches,” Alex both said and signed. “She’s become aware of the impending apocalypse and would like to stop it, since the apocalypse is her father’s to bring, not Heaven’s or Hell’s.”

  Was that supposed to be comforting? Esme said, “Supposedly that’s a few billion years off.”

  “Oh. In that case, who gives a fuck?” Logan asked.

  “Would you like a memory stone?” Alex asked.

  “Say no,” Esme said.

  “I know you’re telling the truth,” Ceri said and signed. “Just like you know I’m Lucifer’s son. I can see your energy.”

  “And I see yours,” Alex said. “So I guess we’re even.”

  “Wait. Cthylor levels the playing field? Cthylor is strong enough to face off with Heaven and Hell?” Logan wondered.

  Ceri scoffed. “Yes. Technically, both Cthylor and Cthulhu are immortal. They’re tied into the universe at such a fundamental level that to kill them would destroy the universe as a whole.”

  “How is that different from the apocalypse?” Logan asked.

  “Scale, dummy,” Lyn snapped from the kitchen. “The apocalypse wipes out the human population on Earth. Destruction of the universe takes out Heaven and Hell too.”

  “Holy shit.” That was incredible. Something that could take out Heaven and Hell both? “How have we not instantly won this fight? If we can take them with us, what is there to discuss?”

  Esme gestured to the kitchen and said, “Can I have a word with you in private, Sherlock?”

  First dummy, now Sherlock. He gave her an evil scowl for the insults but went into the kitchen, Ceri following. Alex remained smiling on the couch.

  They gathered around the large piece of slate that made up their kitchen table. Logan would have sworn last time he saw it, it was wood, but all that meant was Esme had done some minor redecorating. Lyn had her eyes closed, head still bent over her cup of coffee, but she was definitely listening.

  “Look, I’m not denying this is great news,” Esme said. “Whether the spells and amulet pay off, we know we have something that works against both sides. But it could work against us too.”

  Before Logan could ask, Ceri nodded. “It’s another variation of a deal with the devil. Clearly Cthylor is working out of self-interest here, but how do we know they won’t extract a price for that?”

  “Admittedly it’s fiction, but I’ve never read anything that said entering a pact with Cthulhu was a good thing,” Lyn said, eyes still closed.

  “Do we have a choice?” Logan said. “I mean, can we even say no to this? If Cthylor is as powerful as you say, can’t she just swing her big dick around?”

  “I think you’re mixing your metaphors, champ, but I get what you’re saying,” Esme said, rubbing her eyes. “And you’re probably right. You can’t exactly say no to Cthulhu—or his daughter—when he approaches you in the spirit of cooperation. ’Cause I got a feeling Deathless God of Insanity doesn’t take rejection well.”

  “No god takes rejection well,” Ceri said, with the kind of gravitas that felt like experience. “In fact, they rarely if ever give you that chance.”

  A small dust devil blew across the marble floor and re-formed into Ahmed, wearing a dark blue faux sharkskin suit with a faux snakeskin patterned shirt, a leather messenger bag slung over his shoulder. “Are you aware there’s an emissary of a dark lord in your living room?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Lyn answered, finally opening her eyes to give him an evil look. “That’s Alex, nonbinary representative of Cthylor, daughter of Cthulhu, and they want to stop the apocalypse now, so Daddy dearest can do it later.”

  “Ah. So do we need this anymore?” Ahmed responded, lifting the flap of the bag. Inside was the dark leathery cover of the codex.

  “Depends,” Esme replied. “Find anything good in it?”

  He raised a neatly arched eyebrow. Despite technically being a pile of sand, everything about him was always so neat, Logan felt like a slobbering wreck by comparison. He probably was. “Depends on your definition of good.”

  “Something we can use to fight angels and demons, smartass,” Esme replied.

  “In that case, maybe. I know you’re a strong enough witch to pull them off, but the prices on these might be too steep to pay.”

  “I can look at them.”

  Ahmed took the book out of the bag and put it on the table. Everyone stared at it like it was a grenade with its pin pulled.

  “Is there a warding spell on it?” Esme asked.

  Ahmed nodded. “Minor insanity spell. You can probably get rid of it with a simple cleansing or purity spell.”

  “Okay, nobody touch it before I cast at it,” Esme said. Unnecessarily, really. No one was in a hurry to get near it.

  “So what’s our move here?” Logan asked.

  Lyn sat back in her chair with a heavy sigh. “We don’t really have a choice. We have to let Alex and Cthylor into our little kamikaze clubhouse.”

  “Hurting Cthulhu is next to impossible, and that probably goes for Cthylor as well, but we can look at possible containment,” Ceri said. “I know Hell has a lot of contingency plans for containing gods if they have to. Cthulhu was never one of them, but if we put our heads together, we might think of something.”

  There was an idea. Esme nodded, but Ahmed frowned like he thought the idea alone was ridiculous, and maybe it was. But sometimes when you were at the bottom, you had to grasp whatever straws of hope you could.

  They went back to the living room, sleepy Lyn joining them this time, and found Alex where they last left them, sitting on the couch and staring at the wall rather than the muted sports channel coming from the television. Yeah, that was creepy.

  “Mind translating for me?” Esme asked Ceri. “I’m still not sure if they’re deaf or simply hard of hearing, and I don’t want to be a complete asshole.” Ceri shook his head and came to stand right beside her. “Okay, we’re in,” Esme said. Ceri dutifully signed the words. “But we can’t have some damn double cross, okay? If we work with you, everything has to be aboveboard.”

  Alex looked at her, still grinning. “Is that your variation of don’t start none, won’t be none?”

  “Basically,” Esme agreed.

  Alex stood up, and their smile never broke. Right now, it was taking on an eerie quality, like they knew something no one else did. And that could very well be the case. Logan had no idea how tied to Cthylor Alex was, but if Ceri could see it, it must be substantial. “Agreed. So what’s our next move?”

  They exchanged searching glances before Esme admitted, “We’re not sure yet.”

  Alex cocked their head, looking at them curiously. “Do you not know that Hell has a plan to attack the Wantanabe building in downtown Seattle?”

  They were all surprised by this. “Why?” Ceri asked.

  “Because some unwitting bastard bought what they thought was a harmless decoration from an antique store, unaware it was actually the Scourge encased in amethyst.”

  Ceri gasped. “The Scourge? How was that not contained?”

  “What’s the Scourge?” Logan asked.

&n
bsp; “The mother of all hellbeasts,” Ceri said. “It was captured by witches when it first came to Earth, and then it was lost, deliberately. No one but witches or someone with Hell magic could free the Scourge, but they clearly have the ability to do it.”

  “So we retrieve the Scourge first and use it ourselves,” Alex said. Still smiling, always smiling. It now seemed less friendly than ever, like a polite way of baring your teeth. Which is what it was, basically.

  “Uh, what?” Lyn asked.

  “I can command the Scourge like I commanded the hellhound today,” Ceri admitted.

  “But isn’t that just a variation on hellhound?” Logan asked.

  Alex’s smile somehow got wider, and Ceri scratched his cheek nervously before admitting, “No, not at all. The Scourge is… basically a dragon.”

  Logan stared at Ceri and assumed everyone else was doing the same. “There’s a helldragon? How big is this fucking piece of amethyst?”

  “It’s not large,” Ceri explained. “It’s probably about paperweight size. The Scourge is only physically manifest when it wants or needs to be, much like a hellhound. It’s more energy and intent than anything else.”

  “Okay, for one, freaky,” Logan said. “For two, how much damage can it do? Can it hurt an angel or a high-level demon?”

  Ceri considered that a moment before answering, “Within limits, yes.”

  “Okay, so that’s another piece in our ‘make Heaven and Hell cry’ puzzle,” Lyn said, running a hand through her hair. Whenever she was newly awake, she didn’t get bedhead more than she got ruffled birdhead, but Logan never told her that because he didn’t really have a death wish. Well, most of the time. “When is this attack happening?”

  Ceri translated, and Alex said, “About now, I suspect.”

  “Now?” Esme demanded. “You couldn’t lead with that?”

  “You didn’t ask.”

  “Goddamn it. Give me a second to get dressed,” Lyn said, leaving the room.

  Esme looked to Ceri. “Can you get us all there?”