On the Verge

by Garen Glazier

  “Some part of you still loves me. I know it’s true.”

  “Listen, you wretched thing. If I ever had feelings for you they were nullified more than a century ago when you saddled me with that godforsaken painting. We demons of the Verge aren’t meant to be chained up. Our stories need freedom to grow, Ophidia. Ligature can only end in suffering.”

  “Yes, about that,” said Ophidia. “There’s something you should know. I didn’t want to tell you. I thought I could fix it myself, but time is running out.”

  Improbably Ophidia seemed fearful. In other circumstances Freya would have found her new attitude in the presence of her old flame highly amusing. As it was, she shuddered to think what might upset a powerful demon like Ophidia.

  “I need the girl. I need Freya. I’ve been looking for her. Searching this godforsaken city for her and the colors. Just give me the girl and everything will be fine.”

  Dakryma stepped closer to Ophidia so that he was nearly touching her. He reached out a hand to caress her face, running the backs of his fingers down her smooth cheek. The gesture was almost tender until he grabbed her chin forcefully and yanked her head over to one side. He tore back her hair with his other hand and whispered violently into her ear.

  “What. The. Fuck. Is. Going. On.” He punctuated each word by digging his fingers deeper and deeper into her chin.

  “She knows,” Ophidia uttered. “Beldame. She knows, Lior. She knows about the paintings. About us. About how we’re bound and how it happened.”

  Freya watched as the incubus’s eyes instantly lit up.

  “She knows?” he hissed, and it sounded primal. There was more than a hint of the ancient and eldritch there in the rumble of his words.

  “Yes,” Ophidia replied. She closed her eyes and seemed to steel herself. “And there’s one other thing.”

  “Say it,” Dakryma said, his voice losing all trace of its humanity.

  “I’m the—the Morrigan, here, in Seattle,” she stammered.

  For a moment it seemed as though the inferno in Lior Dakryma’s eyes would catch hold and ignite his whole body, taking Ophidia with it. There was no passion in that ocular conflagration though, only agony, misery, hopelessness. It burned cold and seemed all the worse for it.

  “You’re Seattle’s demon queen!” he exclaimed. It was half question, half renunciation. His face darkened as his eyes grew implausibly brighter.

  “Please, Lior, you’re making a spectacle of yourself,” Ophidia said unable to control the tremble in her voice any longer. “Freya’s been collecting the colors. We can figure this out, Lior, I know we can.”

  The pleading in Ophidia’s voice was beyond desperation. It bordered on the tragic and it made Freya’s skin crawl to see a creature as powerful as Ophidia abase herself so openly.

  “Let’s go to Freya’s and make a plan,” she continued. “Please, I beg you. Don’t exact your revenge now. You can’t rid the local Verge community of their queen so close to Halloween. You know that’s even more dangerous than me being subject to Beldame’s order.”

  “Is it?” hissed Dakryma.

  “Either way there will be chaos. The Verge of Seattle will run rampant without a Morrigan to mitigate their energy, or they will be vulnerable to whatever machinations Beldame has in store. There must be a way to stop her. Let’s go and figure this out together.”

  “There is absolutely no way you two are coming to my home,” Freya said adamantly. “That is simply not happening.”

  Freya’s voice was getting tighter and higher, but she couldn’t help it. Tears sprung into her eyes and the harder she fought them the faster they came. The stress of the last few days was getting to her.

  “I don’t know what kind of fucked up situation you’ve gotten yourselves into but it has nothing to do with me,” Freya said. “The colors are going to Beldame and you guys can all go back to whatever nightmare world you came from in the first place. I’m done with this ridiculousness.”

  Dakryma dislodged his hand from Ophidia’s jaw and she stumbled backward. The professor approached Freya, his eyes still on fire. She hoped to god that the dream catcher had actually put her in control because those eyes of his made her feel very small and very exposed.

  “So you’re just going to hand these colors over to Beldame, no questions asked,” Dakryma said. His voice had regained some semblance of its normal tenor, but the deathliness around its edges still frightened Freya.

  “I don’t see that I have much choice,” she replied, breathing deep to steady herself. “She threatened my life, Dakryma. I get that these colors are important, but honestly I don’t know what else to do.”

  “Oh, my dear, sweet, little dolt,” Dakryma said, condescension dripping from his voice. “You have no idea how powerful these colors are. In the wrong hands they can wreck some serious havoc.”

  “From what I’ve seen, you Verge creatures know how to take care of yourselves,” Freya replied. “Plus, shouldn’t, you know, the prince of darkness be immune to this kind of thing? I mean, you’re the devil, for god sakes, aren’t you? Can’t you just condemn Beldame to Hell or something?”

  “Ah, simple ideas from a simple girl,” he cooed. “No, child. It isn’t that easy, and when you hand over those colors to that psychopath, you’ll be trading your life for the freedom of countless creatures of the Verge and the lives of those that Beldame uses the Verge to take. We need another plan.”

  Freya sighed and looked down. The cracks in the sidewalk created a spider’s web of fractured concrete below her feet. She glanced over at Rusty. He stood there like a barely restrained animal chafing under the chains of social norms. He locked eyes with her and gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head. He didn’t want to give in to the needs of Dakryma and Ophidia anymore than she did. Never trust the devil, right? But what was the alternative? Another evil masquerading in codgerly clothing? Freya didn’t know who to trust. She didn’t believe in much, but she believed in her gut. Right now, as much as her insides were screaming at her to run away, there was something else, something even deeper, that told her it was worth listening to what these fantasies-come-to-life had to say.

  “Fine,” Freya said. “Let’s go to my place.”

  “Freya, you can’t be serious,” Rusty said, his voice hard. “You’re actually going to help them? Look what she did to me. You can’t trust these monstrosities.”

  Freya looked at Rusty. His stare was piercing. The indignities he’d suffered at the hands of Ophidia were plain to see. His ravaged face was proof of her depravity. She, like the others they had met, was clearly dangerous. Why should Freya degrade him further by helping the harridan and the unknowable, mercurial Dakryma, when they were capable of such harm?

  The answer, it seemed, was in the question. What other unspeakable acts would happen if Beldame could somehow control the creatures of the Verge, if she had demons just like Ophidia and Dakryma at her beck and call?

  “Look, I didn’t say I would help, but I will listen to what they have to say,” she said.

  “You’re crazy to get involved,” Rusty replied.

  He looked wounded, and Freya knew he felt like she’d broken whatever fragile trust had formed between them.

  “We’re already involved, Rusty,” Freya replied. Then, turning to the demons she said, “You have the fifteen minute drive back to my place to convince me to give you the colors. Otherwise they’re going to Beldame. Got it?”

  “Do you know who you are trying to negotiate with, honey?” Ophidia said apparently having regained some semblance of her usual superiority.

  “I’m not negotiating, Ophidia,” said Freya. “That’s just a straight up statement of fact because your big scary lover boy here kinda has to do what I say.”

  “Do what you say?” Ophidia said with disbelief. “Some insignificant human? Lior, are you going to let her talk to you like that?”

  “It’s actually true,” Dakryma said.

  Freya was surprised to see a misch
ievous twinkle dancing in his once-more ice blue eyes, their fire having slowly extinguished over the last several minutes. He seemed to be taking a little delight in making Ophidia look the fool, even if it was at his expense.

  “She had a dream catcher.”

  Ophidia’s mouth opened into a little round O and then quickly shut again, her lips tight, and her brows drawn together in consternation. She regarded Freya with renewed loathing.

  Freya, feeling braver, met her contempt with a look of equal scorn.

  “I bet you wish you could have used a dream catcher on the professor all those years ago,” she said. “It would have made things a lot easier for you to have Lior here at your command.”

  “Don’t you dare call him by his first name you insolent bitch,” Ophidia growled. She crossed the space between them in the blink of an eye and grabbed Freya’s collar. “You’re overstepping your pathetic mortal bounds,” she hissed into her ear.

  “That’s enough, Ophidia,” Dakryma said.

  Ophidia looked over at the incubus, her eyes animated by rage. He held her gaze for a moment and then she let go of Freya’s collar and backed off a few steps. Freya adjusted her jacket and ran a hand through her hair.

  Whether by love or legerdemain, they were all bound together in this bizarre undertaking. Of the Verge or human, now was the time that decisions had to be made. Freya sighed deeply as brown leaves crunched beneath her sneakered feet. The wind shifted, tugging at her hair, and she shivered.

  “Right. So I think we should go,” Freya said, and she started off toward the spot a few blocks away where she’d parked the Caddy. She didn’t look back, but she knew they would follow.

  Freya looked in the rearview mirror as she drove along Northlake Way toward the U District and the Montlake Bridge that would take them across the water and back up the hill to her place. She couldn’t help but smile at the motley crew in her car. It had been a bit of a challenge getting them seated, given the logistics of loathing that existed among the passengers. Rusty claimed the front seat, ostensibly for his size, but mostly because he required as much of a barrier between him and Ophidia as was physically possible given the limitations of the Cadillac’s interior. He wouldn’t even let Ophidia sit behind him so Dakryma took that spot, lowering the wide armrest built into the middle of the backseat to mark a symbolic boundary between him and his former lover. Ophidia sat behind Freya and she could feel her shooting daggers into her back the whole way. It was uncomfortable to say the least, an awkward atmosphere punctuated by deadly silence.

  “Well, you’re down to about twelve minutes so somebody better start talking,” Freya said as the car sped along the curves hugging the shoreline close to Lake Union.

  “We need those colors,” Ophidia hissed. “You have no idea what would happen if you fools passed them on to some power-hungry mortal.”

  “Enlighten us,” Freya replied.

  “You don’t require enlightening,” Ophidia said. “You just need to give us the colors and get on with your pitiful, pointless life with Quasimodo over there.”

  Rusty turned quickly and swung his arm over the seat in an attempt to wrap his thick fingers around Ophidia’s graceful neck. He might have accomplished his goal, too, had Dakryma not caught his arm in midflight, stopping its forward momentum effortlessly.

  “Forgive my tactless counterpart, Rusty,” Dakryma said. “She might be beautiful, but, as you know, she’s a bit of a ruthless, narcissistic bitch to put it mildly.”

  Rusty tore his arm away from Dakryma’s grip and glowered in his seat while Ophidia threw Dakryma an equally withering glance.

  “There, now that we’re all friends again,” Dakryma continued, “let me elucidate the situation for everyone.

  He cleared his throat and began.

  “Once, a long, long time ago, Ophidia and I were lovers. It was exciting for a time. Incubi and succubi are notoriously passionate demons, but there is a strict code of conduct between the two groups that forbids them from carrying on affairs. At the time, as a young, roguish incubus, I thought it was just a useless bit of tradition and an entertaining rule to flout, as it seemed to come with few consequences and copious amounts of copulation. However, I soon realized the error of my ways when it became obvious that Ophidia had grown inordinately attached to me. Normally incubi and succubi are impervious to romantic feelings. Such useless emotional investment would stand in the way of our means of feeding ourselves and the lifestyle to which we’ve become accustomed.”

  “You mean you might suddenly start to feel bad about fucking everything in sight,” Ophidia said with acrimony.

  “To put it bluntly, yes,” said Dakryma. “So the rule hadn’t stood for nothing after all. Our kinds weren’t meant to mix because it made us behave strangely. It made us more human, and nothing is more dangerous. That’s what happened to Ophidia here. She fell in love with me. I didn’t think it was possible for a succubus to love, but there it was, and I knew I had to act quickly. I cut off all ties with her as soon as I found out, but it was no use. She had already dreamed up a way for us to be together. She got a hold of the colors you two have just collected and forced a talented artist to paint her and then got him to make my portrait as well. The act bound us to the objects, our paintings, forever. She thought Stuck would keep his masterworks, tying us together for eternity. The painter, however, was anxious to be rid of his demonic totems and shortly our portraits parted ways.”

  Freya stopped at a red light and turned slightly in her seat so that she could see Dakryma.

  “That’s all very interesting,” she said, “but what does it have to do with Beldame and the situation we’re in now.”

  “It has everything to do with it because Beldame has figured out our curse,” Dakryma said. “She’s brought our portraits together for the first time in more than a century and she’s timed it for Halloween, the time when the boundary between this world and the Verge is at its most precarious. I don’t feel her pull on me yet, but I doubt it will be long before she finds a way to divest the Bulgarians of their art. And she already has Ophidia. She knows that we are powerful players in the world of the Verge. And if she also controls the colors she can use us to recruit other Verge to be painted into portraits. With those pictures in her possession she could start to form a collection, an army of subjugated Verge forced to do whatever deviant bidding she desired.”

  The light changed and Freya started up the steep side of Capitol Hill. The Caddy’s powerful engine churned as they made their way, the pavement of 24th Avenue gliding swiftly by under the black car’s white-rimmed tires.

  “And to make matters worse,” Dakryma continued, “Ophidia has informed me that Beldame knows that she is Seattle’s Morrigan.”

  “What does that mean?” Freya asked.

  Ophidia sighed.

  “It means I’m respected by the demons I outrank,” she said. “Something about which you seem to have very little understanding considering your subordinate position.”

  “Oh, god,” Freya said, exasperated. “We know, we know. You are great and powerful and we are just puny mortals. Blah, blah, blah. Can you just finish your story, Dakryma. And make it quick. My patience is running out.”

  “Of course,” he said. “There isn’t that much more to tell really. As I was saying, Ophidia is the Morrigan, a queen of sorts chosen from among the most powerful beings of the local Verge enclave. It’s a tradition that all large Verge communities follow and one of the Morrigan’s most important duties comes on Halloween when the Convocation happens.”

  “The Convocation?” Freya said.

  “Halloween is an important time for the Verge,” the professor continued. “It’s when the boundary between our realm and the real world is at its most tenuous, when the creatures of the Verge are at their most powerful. Bad things can happen. So the Convocation is a safeguard, a gathering in a secure place where the demons of the Verge can be free to be themselves without consequences.”

  “As the
Morrigan,” Ophidia interjected, “I am responsible for protecting those of the Verge from themselves. Think of me as a guardian, or perhaps more cynically, as a warden. My sisters and brothers, those lesser demons, consider Convocation to be merely a party, a giant bacchanal, but the truth is without their chosen Morrigan to reign them in, the demons and monsters of the Verge, on the night when they are most powerful, would explode upon this world. Seattle wouldn’t understand what hit it. With my portrait in her possession Beldame could keep me from my Morrigan duties. Far worse, however, and a distinct possibility, would be if Beldame used her power over me to attempt to control the Verge. Through me she would command the stuff of nightmares. There is no telling what she would do.”

  Ophidia paused and Dakryma caught Freya’s gaze in the rearview mirror, holding it with an intensity that made her wholly uncomfortable. But she couldn’t look away. She had to see him. His eyes held an ocean of lies, but under that tumult in their silent depths there was a truth, the hard realities of the dark side of life. That is what she concentrated on, why she looked so hard.

  “If Beldame has the colors, there won’t be anything we can do to stop her,” Dakryma began again. “But with them, we can. We can keep the barrier between this world and ours intact.”

  “How?” Freya asked.

  “I will paint her,” he said. “I will paint Beldame’s portrait.”

  Suddenly the words of the old woman outside of the House of Kour came rushing back to her. “The devil is a maker too,” she had said. “He paints with a somber brush, but he is an artist, make no mistake.”

  “But how will a picture of Beldame keep all this madness from happening?” she asked.

  “You have to trust me,” Dakryma said. “Remember, I, just like all Verge creatures, am only a figment of the human imagination. I live only because I was dreamed into existence, first as an incubus hundreds of years past and then as Lucifer by a nineteenth-century painter. I am only what you make me. We, all of us from the Verge, are only as good or bad as the humans who created us.”