Don't Date Demons

by Sophie Stern

  Is he going to take down the Vampire King?

  Is he going to do something more sinister?

  I’m silent as we walk.

  Our feet crunch on the ground, but the only other sound is our hearts pounding out of our chests. I shiver even though it’s not cold. It's dark, but that's normal for City 3140. I can't remember the last time there was a day when the sunshine felt normal. Or welcome. The vampires prefer the dark, but so do the magic users, the angels, the demons. When it's dark, humans can't see very well and at the end of the day, we're bottom of the barrel.

  Daisy steps quickly. Her stride is even but determined. She's nervous. I've never seen her like this before, but I don't blame her. What we're doing tonight is huge. It's unheard of, really. Thieves in this city get paid well, but millions of dollars? No.

  It almost seems too good to be true, but we've worked with this buyer before. He's paid us on time, albeit always through a proxy. Tonight’s situation is a little more serious. Tonight, he's going to meet us himself.

  Something shifts in the air.

  Magic?

  I can't tell.

  There's a sort of ominous feeling that overtakes me, though, as we near the meeting point. Daisy and I chose to take back alleys and unused roads to make it to the docks on the north end of the city. It's a strange place to meet, but it's isolated. For what we're about to do, that's a good thing, but somehow, it also seems more dangerous than our meetings in the past have seemed. Now we’re practically there. Just a few more feet. We’ll round the corner

  "Daisy," I murmur, matching her pace. She looks over at me, but then turns back to the front. "Are you sure this is a good idea? It feels..."

  "I know," she says, turning to me. She stops walking then, and for the first time I see fear on Daisy's face.

  Fear.

  I’ve seen a lot of things on Daisy’s face: disgust, amusement, disbelief, but fear is the one thing I’ve never seen. It doesn’t suit her. It makes me feel even more uneasy.

  "Something doesn't feel right," she says, hesitantly. On paper, the situation looks good. Easy. Clean.

  So why do we both have the feeling that we’re walking into a trap?

  "Then we need to go back," I tell her. "Back to the apartment. We can figure this thing out later." I glance around. The area is empty. There’s no one here. There are no villains lurking in the shadows tonight.

  "No, it's too late for that," Daisy says. "He's here."

  She points ahead.

  Sure enough, he stands on the dock ahead of us. To one side are large warehouses that have been empty for years. This is the place where angels come to fight. Sometimes demons do, too. They're both completely outnumbered by vampires in the city, so the rival groups come for underground fighting. It’s a way to get the hatred and the anger out of their systems. It feels risky to me, but what do I know?

  I'm just a human.

  But then I realize why I’m nervous.

  “Daisy,” I murmur before we go any closer. “He’s not showing up on the cameras.”

  “Fuck,” she whispers, but by now he’s walking toward us. Sure enough, both of our video feeds show that there isn’t anyone on the docks, including us. Including him. That means somewhere, someone looped the feed so we wouldn’t see what they had planned for us. This guy could now have dozens of people waiting in the shadows to come kill us.

  We’ll have no way of knowing.

  But we also have no escape.

  He’s only feet ahead of us now. There’s a streetlight just in front of us and he steps out of the shadows and into the soft glow. I don’t recognize the man’s face, which is completely visible.

  But Daisy does.

  She stills beside me and reaches for my hand.

  Fuck.

  That’s not good.

  Holding hands? That’s not something Daisy and I have ever done before. No, if Daisy is about to reach for my hand, it means that everything is about to go very, very wrong.

  “Zax?” She says, confused. She looks around. “What are you doing here?”

  “I believe I made that clear when I spoke to you online, my dear.”

  “You’re...the buyer?” She seems confused. Why? How does she know this person? And why does she know his first name?

  “What? Can’t a husband have a few secrets from his wife? Heaven knows I was surprised to discover some of yours, my love.”

  Daisy gulps loudly. Husband? Daisy is married to this guy?

  “I thought you were home with the baby tonight,” Daisy says, confused. “Where’s the baby?

  Is she stalling or looking for answers? If her husband is here and he’s revealing his identity to us, then it means he’s not scared of us knowing who he is. If he’s not worried about his identity, then he’s going to kill us as soon as he gets his hands on the sword. I’m only three feet from the edge of the dock. I can run and jump into the water. There are sewers beneath the dock I can swim into: little coves I can lurk in until the coast is clear.

  Or I can swim out, out, out.

  I’m an expert at holding my breath, but Daisy isn’t, and she doesn’t know about the sewers. She’s not from City 3140. She’s from a different place. A different time.

  The man considers us before he answers Daisy’s question.

  “The baby is...fine,” Zax says slowly. His voice is clipped. Daisy notices and starts to cry quietly.

  “What did you do to her?” She manages to ask, and my stomach feels knotted and sick.

  “Oh, don’t worry, Daisy. You’ll be joining her soon enough.”

  My gut threatens to go crazy. I fight back the urge to vomit, and I squeeze Daisy’s hand. She looks at me and I try to motion to the water with my eyes, letting her know we can jump, but she shakes her head slowly. I’m not surprised. This asshole killed her daughter. He’s going to try to kill us, too. Of course, Daisy is going to want revenge. She’s going to want to make him pay.

  “Why do you need the blade?” I ask, boldly. If I can keep him talking, maybe I can find an opening to attack him. Right? There’s got to be an opening.

  He just shakes his head and snaps his fingers. Instantly, bodies begin to come from the darkness. They aren’t human. They’re all angels. It’s obvious because of how tall they are. Angels tend to have that advantage over humans. It means they stick out like sore thumbs wherever they go. If they’re here, they don’t have any power. Their wings are cut off. But they’re still massive.

  Zax is big, too.

  “A man can raise an army, but without a weapon, he is nothing. I have to thank you for doing all the hard work for me, darling,” he says. “Without you and your companion, here, I never would have gotten my hands on the Sword of Edith. Then how could I have taken down the Mountain?”

  I laugh haughtily, and he glares at me.

  “You’re going to take down the Mountain? A human? Get real.”

  “Oh, but I’m hardly human,” the man says.

  “What?” Daisy squeaks out.

  “You didn’t know?” I ask. She shakes her head.

  “We always...he always wanted the lights off when we...”

  So, she didn’t see the scars on his back. She didn’t see that his wings were gone. How could she have? It’s a simple enough thing to miss, especially if you’re in the midst of lovemaking. Besides, it’s not like people go swimming around here.

  He scoffs. “Stupid human,” he shakes his head at Daisy. “Three years of marriage and you never suspected. Pathetic.”

  “But how?” She shakes her head. “We had a baby!” Daisy seems both angry and confused now. The crowd of angels has gathered closer. I keep trying to count them, but it’s impossible. There are at least twenty, but there might be more. We aren’t fighting our way out of this one. Even with the weapon, I don’t think there’s any way we can escape through the crowd.

  “Oh, you’re wondering how we could have had a child even though I’m obviously incapable of procreation?”

 
She nods, obviously sad, obviously devastated. This is bad. Really bad. Daisy is the brains of our operation. If she gets upset, she’s not going to be thinking straight. That means she’s not going to be able to see opportunities for fighting clearly. She’s not going to be able to find moments when we might be able to escape.

  “Angels can’t have babies,” she says. “How did I get a baby?” She shakes her head, and my heart breaks as I see her emotionally collapse. Daisy has always been tough, strong. She never could have imagined something like this happening.

  To be honest, neither could I.

  “It’s easy to trick someone when you only make love in the dark,” Zax says. “And human seed is quite easy to come by.”

  “You let me get raped?” She screeches, but Zax only laughs.

  “Of course not, my dear, but a well-placed bribe and a vial of, well, of slush, really, seemed to do the trick.”

  The realization of how her pregnancy occurred shocks Daisy to her core. She screams and starts to run toward him, but Zax motions for one of the angels to grab her, and it does.

  I stay perfectly still, hoping they won’t see me as a threat.

  “But why?” She cries out. “Why give me a baby?”

  “To ensure you were busy, my dear,” Zax says. “It wouldn’t do for me to be without a wife. How would that look? But I also couldn’t have you asking questions.”

  It makes sense. Daisy’s pregnancy was hard. She puked a lot. I remember the way she walked into the studio after she’d given birth: tired, exhausted. She’d been completely worn out and to be honest, work had been a struggle for her for months.

  Of course, she didn’t notice her husband was a fucking psycho.

  “Now, then,” Zax rubs his hands together. “There’s the matter of the weapon. I believe you procured it for me just earlier this evening, no?” He looks around, as if waiting for it to appear, and Daisy catches my eye.

  “Do you remember the story I told you about finding out I was pregnant?” She asks me.

  “Yes,” I whisper. She had been so excited. Daisy has always been notoriously private. Then again, so have I. But she shared one personal story with me during all of the time we were together. She told me that the moment she found out she was going to be a mom for the very first time – and that was her wording, so I kind of assumed she had other children – she knew that she would do anything to protect that child.

  That if anything ever happened to it, she would die.

  Now I know what she’s saying.

  There’s part of me that wants to fight Daisy’s decision in this moment.

  I know exactly what she’s doing.

  She’s telling me that she’s not leaving here tonight. We might both be killed, but Daisy is making it clear that she’s going to sacrifice herself if it comes down to one of us living. Daisy has lost her child. She’s lost her reason for breathing.

  But we both know we’re not leaving here without a good fucking fight.

  “I have the sword,” she says. “Let go of me,” she says to the angel. The warrior looks up at Zax for confirmation. Zax frowns, but nods slightly, giving the angel the go-ahead to release her. He does and Daisy rubs her arm dramatically, overexaggerating the way he was touching her.

  “Give it to me,” Zax says.

  “Hold on,” Daisy says. “It’s not like we don’t have all day,” she looks over at me, catching my eye, and nods. Her eyes hold a deep sadness, but a weird sort of peace, and I realize what she’s doing.

  There’s nothing I can do now.

  I can’t stop what’s going to happen next.

  But I can make sure this fucker regrets ever hurting my friend.

  Obviously, Daisy wants to distract him, so I’ll go running and jump into the water. We both know I’m a strong swimmer. She knows I grew up around here, so there’s a chance I know about secret sewers. In fact, I totally do.

  But I’m not ready to say goodbye.

  And I’m not ready to admit that I can’t save my friend.

  “Where is it, bitch?” Zax storms toward her. She’s squatting down and she catches my eye again.

  Go, she quietly mouths, and I nod.

  But I’m not about to run away without getting one last jab in. All eyes are glued to Daisy and her bag. No one notices me silently palming the sword, which was tucked neatly under my jacket. I move carefully, slowly, until I’m beside them both, and then I whisper to Zax.

  “Fuck you,” I say, and I stab him hard in the back. Instantly, he screams and falls to the ground. The angels move, but I knew what was going to happen just a second before they did. I grab Daisy’s hand and yank her toward the edge of the dock, throwing us both over. We fall into the water amidst screams and cries of confusion among the angels.

  Their leader is dead.

  It’ll take them a little while to figure out what to do next. I’ve got the sword in one hand and Daisy’s palm in my other. I swim awkwardly, but assuredly, toward the first sewer directly under the docks. As soon as our heads are out of the water, I motion for Daisy to stay silent. We’re almost directly under the angels, but they can’t see us down here. They won’t know to look for us unless they’ve swam down here before.

  The tunnel opening is completely under water and you have to swim for a few feet into the tunnel before it opens into a little clearing. We’re standing in waist-high water, and Daisy looks shocked and a little scared.

  “You should have gone without me,” she whispers. “I thought you were going to.”

  “We’re partners, Daisy. I never leave a woman behind.”

  She smiles and reaches for my hand again, but her eyes are full of horror. I know that soon the shock of what’s happened is going to set in and Daisy and I are going to be in a world of trouble.

  Not only do we not have the money, but now we’ve got both the vampires and the angels after us.

  Fuck.

  Chapter Five

  Amy

  We wait for what feels like forever before the angels finally come up with a plan. It’s a stupid one. They’re going to go to Zax’s home and look for Daisy. Apparently, they all knew he was married to a human, but none of them bothered to tell her who – or what- her husband really was. It makes sense in a weird, twisted way, but why would she go back there? There’s nothing for her anymore. We probably should have started running as soon as we reached the opening in the sewer, but Daisy and I both like to be prepared. What better way to know what we’re up against than to eavesdrop?

  We still have our security cams in place, but my shades are totally destroyed. Thanks, nasty sewer water. Daisy still has her wrist unit, so we peer and watch for the moment when their camera loop stops working. Surely, they didn’t set it on an infinite loop. After an hour, the cameras start working like normal and we’re able to see how many angels are left.

  It’s not many. There are only five or six still up there.

  “We should wait for them to leave,” Daisy says. “Then we can take the streets home.”

  “That’s not going to work. We’re soaked. We’re better off staying in the sewers,” I tell her. “Now that we know what their next moves are, we can be careful to avoid them.”

  We’re both smart enough to know that two girls against an army of angels is no match at all. Even with the Sword of Edith, which I still have, the angels could overpower us completely. The fact that we got away from them once was basically sheer luck.

  Or instinct.

  Either way, I’m not expecting miracles a second time.

  Finally, Daisy agrees and I motion for us to walk straight ahead.

  “Can you find our way home from here?” She asks.

  “I can find anything down here,” I tell her.

  “How?”

  I shoot her a sideways glance.

  “What happened to us being colleagues only? No personal talk?” It had been her rule in the first place.

  “I think we said goodbye to that rule about an hour ago,” she
says. “When you murdered my husband.”

  I smirk. “I think he was about to be your ex-husband, anyway. Trust me, girl, I did you a solid.”

  She laughs for the first time since it happened, but then she falls silent and we start walking. I wonder what’s running through Daisy’s head. She lost so much today: more than anyone should ever have to lose. It’s bad enough that she found out her husband had totally betrayed her, but to discover that everything she believed about their relationship was a lie?

  That’s got to be rough.

  I’m not even going to pretend to understand.

  I will, however, do everything I can to keep Daisy going. The next few days are going to be rough, but the next few hours will be critical. I know better than most exactly how survivor’s guilt feels and I’m not about to let her feel that alone.

  “The reason I know my way around the sewers is that I lived down here with my sisters,” I tell her.

  “What?” She says. “I didn’t know you had sisters.”

  “I don’t. Not anymore.”

  We walk for a few minutes as I try to figure out how I’m going to phrase what happened. It’s not easy or pretty or simple. In fact, everything I say is going to sound rushed or rough or wrong.

  And I don’t know if I can do that.

  But when I look over at Daisy, she’s shaking, and I know it’s because of everything that happened. Right now, Daisy is reeling. She’s lost everything she’s ever known. Her husband, whom she thought she knew, is secretly a fallen angel. Her daughter, her pride and joy, is dead. Oh, and her husband also wasn’t the father.

  Yeah, it’s a lot to handle.

  He was a fucking bastard.

  But if I can share a little bit of my story with Daisy, then maybe she won’t be so sad. Maybe she won’t be hurting quite so deeply.

  “The three of us were orphaned at a young age,” I tell her. “I honestly never knew my parents. Not really. My oldest sister was ten years older than me, so people always assumed she was my mother. She let them think that for a long time, too. Even I thought she was my mom. I called her ‘Mommy’ until I was like, I don’t know, ten.”