by Nazri Noor
“Hey. I wish we had the time, buddy, but we don’t. We need your help to check on Belphegor. It’s been days, and there’s been no news about the sword we need. Do we have to go all the way back to the Philippines just to find her?”
I rubbed the back of my neck, already internally groaning at the idea of running off on another fetch quest. And the pay-off for it was dying, too, or at least going into some weird kind of suspended animation, if Hecate’s vague explanation was to be believed. Kind of a rip-off.
Scrimshaw burped, then scratched his belly, leaving little streaks of softened marshmallow. “Won’t be necessary, and would be useless too, in fact. Like I said, Belphegor doesn’t like to keep a tether. There’s a good chance she isn’t there anymore.”
Asher nodded. “She did say that she was on vacation, whatever that means to a demon prince.”
Scrimshaw cocked his finger at Asher. “Exactly. So it’s really more a question of tracking Belphegor down. Which – you’re in luck – I’m happy to do for you boys, because your offerings have been absolutely top notch, lately. Just the best.” He kissed his fingers, the world’s tiniest, nakedest chef.
He waddled out of the campfire, his tiny feet burning the grass where he stepped, then flapped his arms at us.
“Shoo,” he added for emphasis. I wasn’t sure what we were clearing the way for, exactly, but the distance Scrimshaw was trying to put between us and the fire got me more than a little worried. Was it supposed to be a blast area?
I nudged Asher. “Get ready,” I muttered. “And pass it along. Like, just in case.” He nodded at me, as did Gil. Sterling lit another cigarette, and Mason carried on moping, though I did notice that he’d come a little closer to the fire, his curiosity getting the best of him.
“Oh, great prince Belphegor,” Scrimshaw called out, his voice deeper, larger, like he was speaking through a different mouth. “Heed the call of your most worthless servant. Almighty laziest, the most slothful among us, monarch of couch potatoes, arbiter of hell’s most comfortable king-sized bed. Hear me!”
Asher elbowed me. “Is that for real? There’s a perfect bed in one of the hells? Huh. Maybe downstairs isn’t so bad after all.”
“Shush,” I said, as the campfires ran the gamut of the visible spectrum, shifting into impossible colors. They rose higher, and higher, until the flames were as tall as a man. And out of the flames, that was exactly what appeared: a man.
I scratched my head again, blinking the blinding flash of the fire out of my eyes as I tried to refocus on the stranger’s face. He had to have been about Asher’s age, no older than twenty, and though his face bore similarities to the Belphegor we saw on Calaguas Island, this was clearly a different person.
Scrimshaw threw himself to the ground, his palms pressing into the grass. “My prince,” he said, his voice quavering with mock reverence. “Welcome. Thank you for hearing my plea.”
The man grunted, sticking his hands into the pockets of his jacket, which had its hood pulled up and its elbows patched over with mismatched fabric. There were rips in his skinny jeans, too, and his canvas shoes had clearly seen better days.
“Uh, Scrimshaw,” I whispered. “We were hoping for an audience with Belphegor, not her skater boy assistant.”
But the boy heard me, loud and clear. He rounded on me, eyes flashing with malice and the deep, venomous annoyance of a mall teenager. “Where have you been, buddy? How many entities have you communed with all this time? We can assume any form we want, and you’re crazy if you think I’m wearing that bikini body out on a chilly night like this. Don’t be so stupid.”
I lifted my hands up, a quiet, wordless attempt at pacification. “Okay, man. I’m sorry.”
The boy pulled down the hood of his jacket, flipped his messy hair to the side, then pointedly rolled his eyes away from me.
“Ugh. So annoying.”
Okay, so that was Belphegor. That was definitely Belphegor.
Chapter 24
“Sorry,” I mumbled, scratching my head for the umpteenth time that night. “I guess I didn’t recognize you.”
“Just as well,” Belphegor said, his lip turned up. “I put a lot of effort into crafting each and every one of my incarnations. You should see the one I use to drive people insane.”
From somewhere near my feet, Scrimshaw shuddered.
Belphegor tossed his hair again, reaching inside one of his pockets for a smartphone, bathing his face in its soft, blue light. The demon prince-boy was every bit the picture of a brat, and I thought back again to how sloth could have so very many manifestations, just like the other deadly sins. In this skin, Belphegor was basically the consummate college slacker. I searched his clothes with my gaze, looking for the telltale bulge of a glass bong, or at least a baggie of marijuana.
“So,” Belphegor grumbled, still scrolling through his phone. “What do you want?”
I wasn’t sure who he was addressing until Scrimshaw tugged on my pant leg. I cleared my throat, slipping my body into the array of facial and physical expressions that generally worked best when sucking up to entities. Of course, body language only ever works when the other person is looking at you. Belphegor was being rude as hell, and wouldn’t even give me so much as a glance.
“We had a bargain,” I said. “Remember, when we visited you on Calaguas Island the other day?”
Still staring into his phone, Belphegor scoffed. “I mean, I remember when you interrupted my me time, my little vacay. But sure, why not. A bargain.”
I twiddled my thumbs, waiting for him to say something, and growing steadily more impatient and frustrated by the second. It didn’t help that this body Belphegor was wearing had perfected the carefree slouch of an impetuous teenager. It also had an eminently punchable face.
To my surprise, Mason stepped in, his face and demeanor similarly poised in a facsimile of my own “let’s be nice to entities” body language. “We asked to borrow a sword, Belphegor,” he said, firmly, but politely. “And the deal was that I would owe you a favor. Me. The nephilim.”
Belphegor’s thumb froze mid-swipe as his eyes slowly swiveled up to meet Mason’s. His lips broke into a lazy smile. “Oh, yeah. Now I remember. Duskfang, wasn’t it? Sure. Why didn’t you say so?”
Mason looked over his shoulder at me, and despite being mad, he threw me the kind of befuddled, annoyed look you might see flying between two people in a sitcom. Like, “What the hell is this guy smoking?”
Weed, it turned out, because the wind shifted just then, and I caught a whiff of the scent clinging to Belphegor’s body. I was totally right.
“That should be on my to-do list,” Belphegor said, scrolling through his phone. “I could have sworn I checked that thing off days ago.”
I bit hard on the inside of my cheek. “Are you serious? Days ago? And we had to chase you down for this?”
Belphegor said nothing, but he didn’t have to. The way his eyes flitted towards me with thick displeasure said plenty. I backpedaled without meaning to under the force of his glower, stumbling in the uneven earth of the hilltop.
“I don’t exactly have access to two-day delivery, Dustin Graves,” Belphegor said, his voice dripping with derision. “Maybe you’ve forgotten, being so far removed from your original role in the arcane underground, but the acquisition of magical artifacts takes time, and effort.”
“Acquisition?” I said. I turned to Asher and Gil, just to clarify. “Refresh my memory,” I said, softly so Belphegor couldn’t hear. “When we went to meet the prince of sloth in the Philippines, wasn’t there talk about just retrieving the sword?”
Gil’s eyes darkened as he chewed over the meaning of what Belphegor had said. “That’s what I thought, at least. It sounded like she – like he was going to just pop into his apartment and take it out of some dusty closet.”
Belphegor patted at his body, like he was confused at how he could have misplaced an entire goddamn sword on his person. “Oh, that’s right,” he muttered, mainly to himsel
f. Belphegor opened his mouth, unhinging his jaw like a python. I cringed as he reached into his own throat, grasping the pommel of something glistening and wet. Within moments he had pulled out a jet black sword: Duskfang.
I approached to take it, but I didn’t have to. Belphegor spread his fingers, and Duskfang hovered towards me, obedient and docile, the way that Laevateinn had after Loki handed it over. I accepted, managing to hide most of my grimace as my fingers closed around the sword’s spit-slick hilt.
“Sorry about that,” Belphegor said, not sounding very sorry at all. “Can’t help it. You keep something in your throat, of course there’s going to be some saliva. You can just wipe that stuff off.”
I placed Duskfang into my backpack, resting it alongside the others. We only needed a celestial sword to complete the ritual now. I wiped my hand off on the back of my jacket, raising an eyebrow at Belphegor.
“Thanks a lot,” I grumbled. “I mean, you could have stored it somewhere else, right?”
“Meh,” he said. “It’s rough when you’re in a hurry and don’t want to be discovered, you know? Gotta stash it somewhere quick, and safe. It’s like how prisoners smuggle stuff up their butts.”
My eyes flitted wildly, like they were searching the hilltop for answers. “Wait, wait. Why did you have to stuff the sword up your butt – shit, I meant down your throat? Who was chasing you?”
Belphegor’s eyes looked straight into my face, focusing as if seeing me for the first time that night. It chilled me to the bone, how his gaze lingered there. “Oh, did I not mention? I don’t exactly have a bunch of magical demon-forged swords lying around, you know. Like I said, I had to acquire it.”
Asher’s gasp almost made me jump out of my skin. I’d almost forgotten he was even there. “Wait. You mean you stole Duskfang?”
Belphegor rolled his eyes. “I wouldn’t say ‘steal,’ but yeah, sure, the principle is the same. Going by the definition that I took it from someone else, and that the sword doesn’t technically belong to me, then I suppose you could say that I ‘stole’ it.”
He wiggled his fingers in the air, making air quotes around the word each time. And each time, cold blood ran just under my skin. “And who exactly did you steal Duskfang from?”
Belphegor blinked at me with all the innocence of someone who was building up to a dramatic mic drop. “Why, another demon prince, of course.”
Gil, Asher, Mason, Sterling, all five of us groaned practically at the same time. Hell, I was pretty sure I heard Vanitas groaning from inside my backpack, too. Scrimshaw, to my surprise, didn’t make a sound, but he was clearly eating his s’mores a lot faster, like a dog that’d been caught sneaking in the larder.
“Oops,” Belphegor said, a boyish grin spreading across his lips, his eyes twinkling with cunning, with fiendish delight.
I cringed, stiffening my muscles and curling my fists, as if that could prepare me for what was coming. Deals with demons never went exactly as expected, especially the bargains we’d made with demon princes.
Always read the fine print, I told myself. Make sure everything is worded correctly, precisely. I shook my head, then stopped when the world started spinning. And I was certain that it wasn’t my vision playing tricks on me, not some sudden bout of vertigo. The world really was spinning.
Shaking, actually. The earth was trembling beneath our very feet, the campfire sputtering and burning harder, brighter, throwing out huge, angry sparks.
“Well, great,” I shouted. “Just great. What the hell could it be this time?”
Sterling grabbed me by the forearm, staring hard into my eyes, his words accusing. “Oh, I think you know exactly what’s happening.”
I tore my arm away, scowling at Sterling, yet fearing for all the world that he was absolutely right.
“Oh, hells, no,” Scrimshaw said, gathering up as many of the s’mores ingredients as he could fit into his stubby little arms. “This is way, way above my pay grade. Sorry, boys, but I’m out.”
I gawped like a fish as he spun in place and vanished into a puff of farts, but could I really blame him? Scrimshaw had risked life and limb, contacting an actual demon prince for our sake. This kind of bravery wasn’t typical of most imps, nor expected. Herald told me so, and he knew his demons. Scrimshaw had done more than enough.
The peals of Belphegor’s easy laughter filled the air, his eyes gone bright crimson, his expression no longer set to its default boredom or languor, his lips pulled back to expose sharp, wicked teeth.
“You should always be careful what you wish for, boys. Maybe next time you’ll be a little more specific.” He flipped his hair again, revealing a third, burning red eye in the middle of his forehead. He stuck his hands in his hoodie’s pockets, winked at me with his third eye – the creepiest fucking thing – then vanished in a plume of scarlet fire.
“Fuck,” I yelled. “Mason, you owe that asshole a favor, too.”
He threw his hands up, his eyes wild as he answered me. “Don’t you think I know that? Thanks for the reminder, Dad!”
I deserved that one. I wasn’t even going to argue the fact that he was bringing back that cringe-worthy nickname again, because we had much bigger fish to fry.
The new intruder, for example. The campfire had turned a bright, familiar shade of green, very much the color of light striking an emerald.
“Fuck,” I shouted. “Run away.”
Too late. The flames burst outward from the campfire, erupting in lines towards the base of the hill, like the spokes of a great wheel. Then more columns of fire filled the spaces between, arcs drawn in flame to complete a larger circle to entrap us.
Normally I’d tap on the Dark Room’s door to test its power, or at least its responsiveness. This time I barged my shoulder into it out of desperation, but it wouldn’t budge. The emerald fire had fenced us in. I couldn’t shadowstep us out.
From where the campfire once burned, a pillar of green flame reached hungry fingers for the sky, the nexus for the great burning wheel that was keeping us locked firmly in place. From within its depths emerged a familiar barefoot figure, clothed in a suit that could have been sculpted out of rubies.
Shit. Oh, shit.
“Thing of shadows,” the entity called out from among the flames. “Mammon is most pleased to see you again.”
Chapter 25
I held my hands up for Mammon to see, backing away from the flames slowly, and then realizing that we were bordered on all sides by green fire, anyway. No escape.
“Listen,” I said. “We had no idea that Belphegor was going to steal from you to help us.”
“How pitiful it is,” Mammon said, walking forward, leaving a little puddle of gold with every step. “How very upsetting. You were friends with Mammon, once. A colleague, even, when business was good and thriving. Yet here you are, seeing fit not only to steal from the treasuries of greed, but to conspire with another of the demon princes to do so.”
“We swear, Mammon,” Mason said. “Belphegor tricked us. We thought the sword belonged to him and he was only going to retrieve it. We didn’t know it would be – ”
“Silence, nephilim.”
Mammon’s voice boomed across the hilltop, the flames licking at the sky. Please, I thought. Let someone from the Lorica, anyone detect that something was super, extremely, very wrong, just on the outskirts of town. If I was fast enough, I could yank out my phone and text a quick S.O.S. to Carver or someone else on Team Borica before Mammon singed me to a blackened crisp with one of their emerald fireballs.
“Once, you could have been Mammon’s friend,” the demon prince said, directly addressing Mason. “Someone who would have flourished as an employee, even a colleague. The same can be said of your foster father, the thing of shadows. Yet it all happens in the end, does it not? Betrayal.” Mammon brought one clawed hand to its face, cupping its chin with fingers tipped in wicked golden nails. “Who would have imagined that humankind could be so much more traitorous than the demon princes themselves?�
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This is over, I thought. We were trapped. All it would take would be for Agatha Black to find us there, and then what? We’d be fenced in, then annihilated. Then the world would be doomed. So close, too – just one final sword away from my ascension.
“You gaze upon Mammon with such fear, tiny human worms. Yet there is no cause for trepidation. Mammon is only here for a brief discussion. Yes. A conference, if you will.”
“There’s only one thing to discuss,” I said. “Look at the sky. Those crimson stars represent the end of all things.”
“Yes,” the demon prince said. “Mammon knows.”
I gawked at Mammon, aghast. “Then why won’t you do anything to help stop it? Without a world to corrupt, you demons don’t get what you want. Your riches will be destroyed. There will be nothing left. You yourself will cease to exist.”
“Well and good,” Mammon said. “Then Mammon shall retreat to do what Mammon does best. To covet treasures, to keep them safe. If the universe is to end, then let it crumble in a panoply of emeralds and diamonds and gold.”
“You won’t help us?” I didn’t know when I’d started screaming. “Even with everything you care for threatened? Your stupid collections and libraries, your pointless menagerie.”
Mammon’s eyes flashed bright green. “The privilege of the wealthy, thing of shadows, is to watch from ivory towers while the world burns to ashes. This has been true for centuries, and so it will remain true as the very cosmos itself withers into dust. No. Mammon will not lift a finger. You rest your belief upon humankind so readily. Pray that your confidence has been well placed.”
“Then you’re working with them,” I said, my voice trembling. “With the Old Ones, with Agatha Black. And with Loki, all this time, all these well laid plans.”
Mammon’s grin shone with the glint of precious gold, and it shook one finger at me. “That is incorrect. These are all merely events that have fed into each other, sequences in the pattern of the universe that could have been, that could not have been, had you stopped them from occurring. Mammon had no interest in stirring the pot, as it were. To what end, to what purpose?”
