The Demon Beside Me

by Nelson, Christopher

  “What do you think will happen as soon as they find you and Isaiah outside this place?” Caleb snapped. “Do you want to see him die before you again, Anna? Do you want his torture to be the last thing you ever see before they do the same to you? My people are sick! They’re turning into monsters and I will be eternally damned before I let them use you as part of that conversion!”

  “Then why are you doing this yourself?” she shouted back at him. “You know that as soon as you show up, Victor’s going to take you!”

  “Because this is my fault!”

  “Don’t you fucking dare tell me this entire war is your fault!” She pointed the tip of her knife at him. “You aren’t responsible for the actions of others!”

  “I didn’t kill him!” Caleb’s roar echoed in the small hotel room. Tink reflexively stepped back as the outline of his sword appeared. “I let myself be talked out of it! I knew he needed to die, I had my suspicions all along, I had him at my mercy and I let him go! Now there’s a war, because of him! Thousands are dying, because of him. Jase is dead! Dead, because of him, because of me! Don’t you tell dare me I’m not responsible for this! I could have killed him! I could have stopped this!”

  She threw her knife. I didn’t even have a chance to grab her. She threw the knife to the side, threw herself at Caleb, and wrapped her arms around his waist. “You fucking idiot, it’s not your fault! It’s not your fault!”

  His silver gaze caught mine, over the top of her head. I nodded slowly, not looking away even as tears filled his eyes. His legs buckled and he slid to his knees, Tink still clutching him even as he dropped. As his eyes closed and his shoulders began to shake, I finally had to look away.

  I walked into the suite’s small kitchen and poured three glasses of water. Caleb’s sense of responsibility was going to be the death of him, and possibly the death of all of us. We all felt just as responsible. We all knew that we had to kill Victor. For Tink and me it was personal. He’d tortured me, killed one of our closest friends, started a genocidal war, and more.

  However, for Caleb, it wasn’t just personal, it was primal. Victor had made it clear that he would stop at nothing to bring Caleb down. He had forced this war simply to bring Caleb to this point. Slaughtering demons was secondary. Torturing me was a means to an end. Killing Jase was something to hurt Caleb, deeply, personally. The war was meant to break him by forcing a choice between his people and his friends.

  I picked up the glasses and walked back into the living room. They were sitting on the couch now, both of their eyes damp and reddened. I handed each of them a glass of water, then sat down across from them. “We’re friends, Caleb, as strange as that has always been,” I said. “And as your friend, I need to tell you this, and I don’t want you to take it the wrong way.”

  He nodded. “Go ahead.”

  “Good luck.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. This is your fight. We’re just the sideshow for Victor. If you think that your best chance is to go it alone, I can respect that. I don’t like it. I think we should be there with you. But this is your call to make.”

  “I don’t know what to say,” he said. “I was expecting more of an argument.”

  “That’s her job,” I said.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You’re a bitch and you love it,” I said. “Also, your knife’s over there.”

  “I know where it is and I know where it should be, demon.”

  “So go ahead and try to argue him out of it.”

  She glared at me, then turned that glare on Caleb. “You’re a dumbass angel, but as much as it pains me to admit it, the dumbass demon’s right. If you think this is the best way to accomplish it, do it, and do it right. I just want you to do one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Find a way to get word to us if anything goes wrong. We’ll come rescue you.”

  Caleb shrugged. “I already had plans for that.”

  “When are you leaving?” I asked.

  “As soon as possible. I have a few old friends who can quietly reactivate some of my old clearances and allow me to move freely. My status will at least get people to listen to me, though convincing them will be harder. Not everyone in the Choir agrees with the brutality going on right now, so hopefully I can find some people to help me.”

  He stood up and rolled his shoulders, then stuck his hand out toward me. I stood as well and clasped his hand. “Again, good luck,” I said.

  “Wait,” Tink said. “Wait just a minute. You’re both forgetting something here. We only have a few days before the final Horseman shows up. We’re supposed to all be together for that. That can’t happen if you go off like this, Caleb.”

  “Considering the way that the Horsemen appear to operate, I’m sure that’ll be taken care of,” Caleb said.

  “And what if the way for it to be taken care of is for you to be dead?” she snapped.

  He flinched. “Not necessary, Tink,” I said.

  “Someone’s got to remind the two of you of reality once in a while.”

  “Not necessary,” I repeated. “Caleb’s older than the two of combined. I’m sure he knows what he’s getting into.”

  The look in his eyes when I glanced to him made me want to reconsider. He wasn’t thankful for my stepping in. He wasn’t angry. He was simply at peace. He was ready to leave in more ways than one. Before I could say anything, Tink had deflated and the moment was gone. “All right. I’ll trust you on that. Get out of here before I change my mind.”

  Caleb gave us a thin smile. “Take care.” The door clicked shut behind him and left me alone with my partner, who was pointedly looking anywhere but at me.

  I sighed, then looked to the ceiling. “Kibs?”

  “What’s the score, Zay?” The imp phased through the door. “Wasn’t that Caleb? I’m surprised the guards didn’t turn him into angelic kibbles as soon as he showed up. Fucking angels.”

  “I’ve got a rough job for you,” I said, “and I’m not asking as a friend, I’m making a formal request.”

  “Something for the Lord of Heaven? Sure thing, buddy.” Kibs fluttered toward Tink, sweet malice in his beady little eyes.

  “I want you to follow Caleb and let me know as soon as possible if anything happens to him.”

  Kibs came to a halt in midair. Tink whirled around. “Wait just a damned minute-“

  “You heard me.”

  “You want me to go fucking kill myself?”

  “I didn’t say you had to go reveal yourself to all the angels and archons around him,” I said. “Unless I completely misunderstand how your abilities work, you can just sit around phased out and no one will ever know you’re there.”

  “Except for the archons,” Kibs snapped. “Who will tell the fucking angels that there’s an imp hanging around Caleb. At which point, the fucking angels tell the archons to seize the imp and then they kill Caleb for being a spy.”

  “Are you saying you’re not good enough?”

  Kibs smacked his forehead. “Are you functionally retarded?” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Tink unsuccessfully trying not to laugh. “Look, Zay, you’re a smart kid but you don’t know shit about how this works. Yes, we can move between the different layers between here and Heaven and Hell. But, the further away we move, the less we can sense. There’s an extremely limited range where we’re effectively invisible here while still being able to see and listen. We know it, the archons know it, and we’re always using those couple of layers.

  “And you know what makes it worse, Zay?” Kibs waved his arms all around him. “Each layer is the same. There’s always a point where you’re invisible to a certain layer, but can still sense what’s going on there.”

  “Who watches the watchers,” Tink said.

  “Exactly, Sweetcheeks. I always knew you had a brain up in that pretty head of yours. A bigger brain than his, at least.”

  “All right, so it wasn’t the best idea I’ve ever
had,” I said. “With that in mind, is this area swept for archons? I really hope that they don’t know Caleb came here.”

  “Does the pope shit in the woods?” Kibs asked.

  “You’re mixing metaphors.”

  “Depends on if he has toilet paper,” Tink added.

  “Of course this place is swept. Look, if you don’t have any more idiotic requests, I’m actually supposed to be patrolling for the little glowballs.” He phased out without even waiting for a response.

  I sighed and flopped down to the couch. “It was worth a shot, right?”

  Tink crashed down into a chair. “Sure.”

  “You’re worried about him.”

  “Sure. So are you.”

  “He can take care of himself,” I said.

  “Sure.”

  “You don’t believe that.”

  “Neither do you.”

  “Well, shit, Tink! What were we supposed to do? Hold him down?”

  She flung a pillow across the room. “I don’t fucking know! I can’t ever talk him out of anything! You’re the one who just wished him luck and sent him on his merry way!”

  “I’m sort of regretting that now.”

  The next pillow she tossed hit me in the face. “Oh, now you regret it. Two minutes too late, demon. Maybe if we were both arguing against him, we could have made him see reason.”

  “But neither one of us could argue about it,” I said.

  She half-growled, half-sighed, and slumped over on the chair arm. “I know, and that’s what pisses me off the most about this. I hate it when he’s right. I hate it when you’re right, too. I hate it most of all when you’re both right. Makes me feel like the world is broken.”

  “Not to switch gears entirely, but the next Horseman,” I said. “We don’t have long, do we?”

  “No, and this one’s going to be hard. Death.”

  “I think it’s pretty safe to assume that we’ll be asked to kill outright.” I drummed my fingers on the couch cushion. “I hate to say it, but I think I know what to do.”

  “You can’t waste it on Victor.”

  “What?” I was very certain that it wasn’t a waste, but I wasn’t sure what she would consider a waste.

  “Demon, while it pains me to suggest this, remember that you’re at war and the Choir’s planning on killing every last one of you. You’re going to have the power to turn this entire war around.”

  “You’re telling me to genocide them before they genocide us?”

  “No! Damn, demon, I’m not that sort of monster. I’m just saying that you’ll have the power to kill their leaders, or a chunk of their military forces, do something to even the odds or force them to sue for peace. Something that’ll keep your people alive.”

  “Or simply kill them all before they do the same to us,” I said quietly. “Or simply kill every female angel, or every adult. Tink, I’ve thought about it before.”

  “You’re not a monster,” she said.

  “Funny. I remember you calling me one, once.”

  She muttered something under her breath and held her hand out. Her knife spun across the room to smack into her palm. “That was before I knew what real monsters were like. You’re not one of them. Monsters don’t care.”

  “Don’t they?” I shook my head. “You don’t understand what drives them, Tink. Don’t you understand what drove Azriphel? Your family killed his brother. He hunted your family down for all those years not because he didn’t care, but because he was driven to avenge his family by how much he did care. He cared more about that than almost anything else. Even then, he was willing to set that aside for his other goals.”

  “Are you trying to say that Azriphel wasn’t a monster?”

  “I’m trying to give you some perspective,” I said, watching her knife very carefully. “Take Victor, now. Back when we first ran into him, Caleb told me that Victor’s father died under his command. Think about it. We don’t have any details about what happened, but couldn't it explain a few things? Maybe that’s why Victor hates him so much?” She refused to answer me, simply stood up and walked to the window, knife tapping her thigh. “Doesn’t it mean that we’re all monsters somewhere inside?”

  Instead of rising to that bait, she tapped the window with her knife, then rapped out a curse in demonic. “Demon, you idiots don’t know shit about mage surveillance methods, do you?”

  “We’re at war with the Choir, not with human mages,” I said.

  “Now whose turn is it to learn from the past? Remember that Deshavin and Azriphel had contracts with mages. Why are you assuming that the Choir couldn’t have human mages on tap?”

  I walked to the window. The street outside of our hotel was busy, with a constant stream of traffic passing by. The sidewalks were less busy, but there were enough people walking past that our security would have a hard time keeping track of any repeat customers. “How could we tell?”

  “You don’t look at where the people are,” she said. “You look at where they aren’t. The magical expense of a true invisibility spell would kill us within a couple of hours, without proper preparation. Inscribing a magic sigil into the sidewalk would be obvious while it was being done, and people would walk right into it afterwards. No, the way you hide is just to make like a chameleon. No one will see you, but they’ll still subconsciously avoid you. It’s much easier to cast and maintain.”

  “What’s the downside?” I asked.

  “The downside is that you need to stay very still. So when you suspect you know where a mage is hiding, you just do something that makes them need to move.”

  “Like what? Chuck a ball of hellfire at them?”

  “Nothing so crass.” She smiled and gashed her palm with her knife. “Sometimes all it takes is a rock or two.” The rune she inscribed in the air was similar to the simple force rune I knew, but with some elaboration regarding timing and direction. She set it in motion and tapped the window again with her knife.

  I watched for the effect, but almost missed it. The rock she had sent flying into the air came from fifty feet down the street. It arced high into the air and came down directly toward an inoffensive piece of wall directly across the street. “I noticed someone walking next to the wall simply stop,” Tink explained as a figure sprawled to the ground. “They walked around an empty spot. Stupidly obvious. You need to set your camouflage up next to a telephone pole or lamppost or something else that people will naturally avoid. Harder to sense it then.”

  The figure scrambled up and I saw red streaking down her face, a face that I recognized. “Tink, that’s Hikari.”

  “Shit!” She immediately scribed some sort of binding, but Hikari was already moving, clutching her head and running. People reacted, stopping to stare and call out.

  “Kibs!” I shouted, turning away from the window and running to the door. “Dammit, Kibs, now!”

  The imp phased through the floor. “What-“

  “Shut up and get imps to follow Hikari! She was watching from outside the building! She’s running down the street, that way, bleeding from a head wound.” I threw the door open and sprinted for the stairs, Tink snapping curses and racing after me.

  We burst out of the building and an imp immediately oriented us. “She’s going for speed,” he said. “You won’t catch her without being obvious and we don’t have the resources to make suggestions to all the humans in this area.”

  I ignored the imp and started running. She was bleeding, probably drained from maintaining her spell, and slower than me. I could also run practically forever with just minimal use of my ichor. “Do we have any patrols who can cut her off?”

  “Already being oriented,” the imp said as I left Tink to scramble after me as best I could. “We’ll be able to catch her as long as she doesn’t use any more magic.”

  “Don’t count on that,” I said. “She knows about imps, and she’s a master level mage. Does she look like she’s running randomly or going somewhere in specific?”

  �
��One moment.” The imp was invisible, but I felt his presence vanish. Hikari was smart enough to have a contingency plan for something like this. She’d have an escape route. We’d have to catch her before she got there. “She seems calm,” the imp reported, his voice barely audible in my ear. “Odds are she’s running to something. Without knowing where she’s going, there’s no way to know if we’ll catch her.”

  I racked my brain to think of what she’d do to get away. She wasn’t afraid of demons, but she wouldn’t fight against the odds we could bring to bear. If she were just looking to spy on me, she wouldn’t have bothered to hide. If she had been hiding, she was trying to learn something that I wouldn’t share with her. That meant it would have to do with either Tink or Caleb. “Shit! We need to bring her down. If the opportunity presents itself, bring her down, period. She’s bringing information to the Choir.”

  “By your word.” The imp vanished again.

  I continued down the street, running as quickly as I could in my human form, which was fast enough to draw attention. “Take your next right,” another imp said in my ear. “She has changed direction, away from our patrol, outward from our area of control. We have no word of Choir activity in this area, but be careful.”

  “She has a cell phone in hand,” said a voice in my other ear. “A smartphone. She has been doing something with it while on the run.”

  “Probably uploading something,” I said. “Like a video. Shit!”

  I spared a glance back to see if Tink was still behind me somewhere, but she was nowhere in sight. The poor girl had probably given up. Short legs couldn’t carry her this long. It took another change in direction and three more blocks of running before the news I was dreading finally came. “Zay, you can stop running,” Kibs said in my ear, his voice thoroughly disgusted. “She’s fucking gone.”

  “What happened?” I slowed to a stop, leaned on my thighs, and took a deep breath. Even with ichor helping my metabolism, I still hadn’t fully recovered from the coma.

  “She hit a park and must have had some sort of triggered spell waiting. One step there was one of her, and then there were six bitches, all running in different directions. We were just about to trip her up, too. We did get one, but it was a simple illusion and popped as soon as it hit the ground.”