by Jon Skovron
“Don’t fill the girl’s head with your Reclamation destiny garbage,” says her father. He turns to Jael. “Look, Belial is the ultimate perfectionist. He has a homicidal obsession with purity.
Belial has made it a personal mission that demon blood will never get corrupted by mortals again.”
“And you’re saying this Belial is still out there somewhere looking for me?”
“Yes,” says her father. “Which is why we’ve been hiding all these years. Why we have to move so much. Because he will never give up. Not just because are you a halfbreed. But also because your mother mutilated him. He wants revenge.”
“So what do we do?” she asks.
“Give her the letter,” says Dagon.
Her father looks like he wants to object. But instead he presses his lips into a tight, thin line and nods. Then he turns and picks up the Bible that always sits on the coffee table. He flips through the onion-skin pages until he finds a specific page and pulls out an old, yellowed paper.
“This is from your mother,” he says, extending the folded paper.
Jael’s hands tremble as she takes it from her father. On it is written:
To Jael Thompson, on her sixteenth birthday.
The handwriting is small, jagged, and strangely ornamental, almost like that old manuscript style, except messy. Jael takes a deep breath to steady her hands. Then she carefully unfolds the paper, which crackles and feels both rough and delicate from age. The pages are laced with scribbles, scratched-out words, and smears of ink.
Dearest Jael,
You are sixteen now. I must confess that it is strange to imagine you as a teenager while I look at you now, as a baby, lolling around on a blanket, drooling and puking on yourself!
But that is one of the many precious marvels of humanity that I have come to appreciate.
My daughter, it is time for you to reclaim that which you have been denied all these years. It is time for you to embrace your demon aspect. I’m sure it was difficult for you all these years, knowing what you are capable of, but not being able to accomplish it. Remember that it has been difficult for your father as well. I am certain he has done the best he can, but my death will go hard on him. It may indeed be a wound that never heals. He has carried a burden no mortal should ever be asked to carry. But believe me when I tell you, I could see no alternate course of action. It was my death that guaranteed your life.
So I must leave you in the care of your father and your uncle Dagon. If you have not met your uncle, you soon will. You must try not to judge him immediately. He is ugly, he can be difficult sometimes, and can be rude most times. But listen to him. He is incapable of lying and has seen more civilizations rise and fall than he would care to count. There is no one in all of Hell who cares for you more. He will be your guide as you learn what it means to be a demon. And that is what you must do now. It will be dangerous, of course. But it is time for you to accept what you are. To go forth and be the wondrous creature you were meant to be.
There is so much more that I want to tell you. But when I really consider it, I realize that most of what I have to say would not actually be helpful to you right now. It might even make things more difficult. So, I must trust that your father and your uncle will, between the two of them, lead you on the right path.
Hell is a dangerous place and many in it will hate you simply because of what you are. They will call you “halfbreed,” which is a very inaccurate name. Do not ever think of yourself as half of anything. You are all human, and all demon. You have every right to both heritages. Remember, my dearest, that you were created from a love that is seldom found on this earth or anywhere else. With time, patience, and courage, there is no telling what you are capable of.
Love,
Your mother,
Astarte Thompson
Of all the things contained in the letter, the phrase that Jael reads over and over again, and finally speaks, just to hear it, is
“Your mother.”
It sounds almost like a prayer.
“Jael,” says her father. “I know this must be a lot to take in.
Perhaps we should stop for the night—”
“Are you kidding?” says Dagon. “Now we free her demon half!”
“Wait a minute, Dagon,” says her father. “Let’s not—”
“What happens when we do that?” asks Jael.
Dagon shrugs. “I’m not sure. Maybe nothing. Maybe a lot of stuff.”
“Will I . . . ” She’s not sure how to say it without making it totally offensive. “Will I look like you?”
“Ah . . . ,” says Dagon, and his smile fades. He shakes his head. “No, I look like this for a different reason. It’s not hereditary. You’ll probably look more like your mother.”
“And will I have, like . . . powers?”
His fanged grin returns. “Never know until we try.”
“Jael,” says her father, “I really think—”
“How do we do it?” asks Jael.
“Let’s see that necklace again,” Dagon says.
She pulls the gem up from under her blouse. It feels warm to the touch. “You’re going to put this back into me?”
“Yep.”
“But then . . .” She frowns. “Won’t that other demon, Belial, be able to find me?”
“Yes, exactly!” says her father. “Belial is waiting for this to happen!”
“It’s not as simple as that,” Dagon says to her father. “Sure, he’ll hear it all right. But he won’t know what it is exactly or where it’s coming from. There will be way too much noise for him to get any useful information out of the event. But all that’s beside the point.” Then he turns to her. “Jael,” he says. It’s the first time he’s said her name. Most people pronounce it “Jail,”
but Dagon pronounces it “yah-ÉL,” from the old Hebrew.
Jael’s always been slightly uncomfortable with her name, like it doesn’t fit. But when her uncle says it, it sounds right. It sounds beautiful. “Jael,” he says again. “It’s time to become your whole self. Haven’t you always felt it? An emptiness? Like you’ve lost something?”
She nods.
“You can’t go on living a half a life. Being a demon is part of who you were meant to be. And if you don’t do it now, you lose the chance to be a whole being forever.”
“What do you mean I lose it forever?” asks Jael.
“Your demon half will start to fade soon,” says Dagon.
“We don’t know that for sure!” says her father.
Dagon looks at him, his face full of disgust. “It’s been away from her long enough. Maybe even too long already. Did you really think this was a permanent solution? Why do you think Astarte insisted on this age? She was pushing it as far as she could without risking irreparable damage.” He turns back to Jael. “This is what your mother wanted. I trust her completely.
Your father did too, once upon a time.”
“I did until she betrayed me,” said Paul.
“Still, after all these years, you can’t bring yourself to see it,”
said Dagon sadly. “To believe that it’s possible.”
“Here we go again,” says Paul, rolling his eyes. “You and your grand fantasies. There is no destiny, no prophecy, no Reclamation. You’re deceiving yourself if you think we’re anything more than accidental misfits!”
Dagon says nothing, just looks at him with his shiny, black eyes, his face alien and unreadable. Then he turns to Jael.
“Well?” he asks her. “What do you want to do?”
“I want to be what my mother said,” she says quietly. “The
. . . how did she say it? . . . ‘wondrous creature’ she thinks I’m meant to be. That’s what I want.”
“Jael,” says her father. There’s a pleading tone in his voice.
“You don’t have to decide right now. A few more days won’t hurt. Take some time to get your bearings, think it through.
Because you won’t be able to change your
mind later.”
“I’m tired of waiting,” she says. “And I’m tired of doing it your way all the time.” She takes off her necklace and holds it out to Dagon.
He smiles appreciatively as he takes it from her. “This is nice work. She was so good at this kind of stuff.” With his thumb, he bends back the silver clasps that anchor the gem to the chain.
He holds the gem out to her father.
“Here,” he says. “You have to do it.”
Her father reluctantly takes the gem from Dagon’s hand. He walks over to her, looking tired and a little sick.
“Are you sure this is what you want?” he asks her. “It’s going to change everything.”
“Good,” she says. She pulls the collar of her shirt wide.
“It’s also probably going to hurt,” he says. “A lot.”
“Do it,” she says.
He places the gem on her bare skin just below her throat.
“I release you.”
The world crashes down around her.
She can’t breathe.
She can’t see.
She can’t move.
Her skin is slowly peeled from her body. She knows something low and guttural must be coming out of her mouth.
She can feel it ripping its way out of her lungs and past her throat. But she can’t hear it because there is a roar in her veins like a hurricane. Then she hears a crack, like the first strike of thunder. A bright, pure light pierces her, fixes her on a single point of space and time, and she is screaming still, though not from pain, but from fear and wonder. Like she’s just been born.
The storm within her recedes until she is left with only the sound of her own breath. She opens her eyes.
Everything is the same, but it looks different now—clearer, sharper, more alive. It’s like the world had always been covered in a thick layer of dust before, and now it’s all been wiped clean.
She sees the tiny cracks in the paint on the ceiling and hears the water flowing through the pipes in the wall. Dagon smiles at her, his sharp toothy grin consuming most of his face. She smiles back. Then she looks at her father and she is amazed at how old and weak he looks. Sadness hangs around him like a haze.
“Dad . . . ,” she says.
“You look . . . ” he says, “just like her.” Then a tear rolls down his weathered cheek and it’s the most beautiful thing that she has ever seen. It glitters like precious crystal and drops from his chin with a grace that makes her catch her breath. She watches it hit the floor, spreading out until it is absorbed by the wood.
“I want to see the moon,” she says suddenly, and turns and walks out the front door. She hears Dagon call out to her, but his voice isn’t nearly as interesting as the squeak of the front steps beneath her feet or the damp smell of the night with the faintest trace of salt from Puget Sound.
She stands on the sidewalk in front of the house and looks up. Clouds trail across the sky like the memories of dreams. The moon shines as bright as the sun, but with a grace and gentleness that the sun could never show. She sees in its pockets and craters old battle wounds from meteors that hit long ago, before the age of humanity. Before life on this planet. She looks deep into the night sky and she can feel the vast, limitless space like it’s something that continues beneath her skin. In that moment, she understands what infinity means. She understands how small a part she is within it, hurtling through its depths. All control on this planet is an illusion. As that understanding grows, so does a sense of helpless vertigo. Like her vision is pulling her forward, off balance, as though she feels the roundness of the Earth and every step must be taken carefully or she’ll fall right off. . . .
She shakes her head, closes her eyes, tries to rid herself of the sensation. But she can still see the night sky beneath her eyelids, drawing her out into the cold, uncaring stars. She can’t even remember what reality is supposed to look like. Even as she stands on the sidewalk with her eyes squeezed tight, a part of her is being pulled farther and farther through the cosmos until she feels so stretched out that she could snap.
She screams, and screams, and screams.
Dimly she’s aware of thick, scaled arms wrapping around her and dragging her back into the house and to the kitchen table.
“Look,” she hears Dagon’s voice say, piercing through the panic.
There’s a small bowl of water in front of her. It pulls her attention immediately and focuses her down until she’s only aware of the countless minute movements of the water. The surface ripples gently, and it feels like a waterfall is pouring over her, cleansing her, breaking her free of everything else. She shudders and sighs.
“Okay now?” Dagon is directly behind, still holding her.
She nods, her eyes on the water.
His arms slowly release her.
“What’s that burning smell?” she asks.
“Me,” says Dagon.
Jael looks up. There are scorch marks on his arms and chest. Small swaths of scales are peeling off to reveal blistered flesh beneath.
“What happened?”
“You,” he says. Then he grins. “Cool, huh? Your whole body went hot when I grabbed you. Great reflexes you’ve got, kid. A natural.” He slaps her on the back, a look of pride on his face.
A strange flush of satisfaction runs through her and she realizes it’s nice to have someone look at her like that, even a fish monster.
“What happened to me?” she asks. “Out there?”
“Mortals have a lot of safety mechanisms, like perception filters. If they were to ever understand the whole universe at once, they’d probably go crazy and die. It’s a lot to take in, and most of them just aren’t built for it. A demon doesn’t have all those filters, though. We don’t have limitations on what we can see or understand. My guess is that since most demons are thousands of years old, we’ve had time to adjust. You, on the other hand, are just jumping into the deep end on your first time out. Every halfbreed is different. There’s going to be a lot of unexpected surprises.”
“Right . . . ,” says Jael. She looks back at the bowl of water.
She sticks a finger in, breaking the surface.
“Well, let’s start packing,” says Jael’s father, walking over to her. He’s shaken off his earlier sadness and now he’s all business.
“We can be gone by sunrise.”
“What?” says Jael. “What do you mean ‘pack’?”
“We have to move, of course.”
For a moment, it’s hard for her to catch her breath. It brings her back to the reality of her life like a sharp pain. Two really good friends—one of them possibly even a boyfriend in the making. And she’s about to lose them. “But Dad . . . ,” she says, trying to find her voice.
“I think we should try somewhere less populated,” her father is saying. “Maybe rural Australia . . . or Alaska. We home school from now on, that’s certain. And then—”
“And then what, Dad?” says Jael. “What about college?”
“You can get degrees online these days, can’t you?”
“How am I going to get a job?” She’s just throwing things out there, trying to trip him up long enough for her to figure out what she needs to say to stop this from happening.
“It’d have to be something that you can do from home, obviously,” he says. “Perhaps Web design, or copywriting, or telemarketing, or something like that.”
“That’s it?” says Jael, not even trying to hide the misery in her voice. “That’s my whole life you’ve got figured out?”
“I know it’s disappointing,” he says, laying his hand on her shoulder. “We all have dreams that just can’t come true. But trust me, I’ve had sixteen years to think about this, and it really is the best option.”
“Sure,” says Dagon with exaggerated casualness. “If you want to live like a shadow.”
“Dagon, don’t butt in,” says her father. “You aren’t—”
“I’m not what, Father Paul?” Dagon asks. He places a mas
sive, clawed hand on the table and leans across to stick his fanged muzzle right up close to her father. “I’m not allowed?
Entitled? Wanted? I’m her uncle and your time being the one and only voice in her life is over. That was the agreement. That was the promise we made to Astarte.”
Dagon and her father glare at each other for a minute, Jael and the table in between them. Then Dagon turns back to Jael.
“Listen, kid,” he says. “You don’t want that kind of life.
Always hiding and sneaking and running away. It’s not even fit for a mortal, and you’re much more than that. Your daddy’s kept you safe, and that’s great, but now it’s time to fly the nest.”
“You want her to go to Hell?” says her father. “You’re insane!”
“Of course not Hell proper,” says Dagon to her father. Then back to Jael, “But kid, I know this little group that’s kind of . .
. neutral to the whole thing. Heaven, Hell, halfbreeds . . . they don’t judge. You stay with them while you’re getting yourself together. I’ll visit when I can. We’ll work on getting your abilities focused and in control. And then . . .”
“And what?” says her father. “Go out and pick fights with other demons? Or maybe get them to accept her, like that poor bastard Asmodeus did?”
“No!” says Dagon. “Not like Asmodeus! That’s not an option.”
“Isn’t that the guy who—”
“So what then, Dagon?” her father interrupts, his voice rising as he scowls up at the monster twice his size. “If it were up to you, you’d just throw her on some backwater burnt-out husk of Hell and let her go native until someone catches on and rips her to pieces? And you even want to bring the Deadlies into it? You can’t be serious.”
“They’re fine, now!” says Dagon defensively.
“Who are the Deadl—”
“Dagon,” her father interrupts again, “she isn’t welcome in Hell and you can’t guarantee her protection.”
“You can’t protect her either,” says Dagon. One clawed hand digs into the wood of the table; the other clenches into a fist. “If you actually think that hiding in Alaska is going to save you from Belial, then you’re even dumber than I thought!”
