by Jen Ponce
I checked friends, Bisbaz, Lemuel, Malphas, but they all glowed red, all trapped in the Hell of a magi’s crystal but for one. A fellow hellhound, a good friend, Samael’s light glowed black. I put a hand on his now-dimmed light and hung my head for a moment in mourning.
Some of us had been gone for generations, forced to serve the bastards and the bastards’ children and grandchildren. The magi didn’t let go of us once they had us. We could listen in on their conversations, talk with one another if in close proximity—though the bastards often blocked us from even doing that. They were wary of us making plans to fool them. Trick them. Wriggle out of our bonds and kill them.
I’d tried, so many times, to do just that. I’d almost succeeded in winning my freedom once, but they caught me, and the punishment had been …
I shook myself. I was free, though I wouldn’t be for long if I didn’t get my name changed soon. I checked on a few more friends, or those I thought might be helpful in fighting the magi’s hold on us. They all glowed red but one. Stolas was free and currently home. When he’d escaped, we had all hoped he would find us and release us next, but either he hand been able to or he hadn’t bothered. I would have to find him eventually and ask for his help, but first I had to visit the Void.
I left the cavern, crawling out the same way I’d crawled in, passing on what I’d learned to the flame tenders. The news wasn’t good, and brought some of them to tears, but at least they knew.
I ran on.
At one point, I found a loose group of lesser demons, grubby, insubstantial wisps that whispered and cawed to themselves when I shifted back to my bipedal form. They flocked to me, circling me as if I were a flame and they, moths.
“All gone.”
“Taken.”
The first tingle of magic along my skin made my heart speed in my chest. I thought it was a summoning, but this was just one of the wisp demons, playing. They liked to touch the more powerful demons. We fed them, kept them substantial as long as we were around to touch. I didn’t begrudge the damned thing its need, but as soon as it was purring loudly, I headed to the center of Hell where I could change my summoning name. I wasn’t going back up there again, not as a slave.
The sacred pool sat in the middle of the Font of Spirits, surrounded by gravestones my kind had stolen from the witch world. The stones were weather-worn and moss covered and they sat in crooked rows around the black waters of the pool. I used a claw to slice open my forearm, letting my black blood pour into the abyss. “Great Chaos of the Void, I ask that you change my name so that none Above may find me, call me, bind me.”
At first, nothing happened. Then, an enormous thundering boom knocked me on my ass. “Jump in,” a voice intoned, the sound of it all around me and inside me.
I did not hesitate, for if I was consumed by the Chaos, it would be better than serving as a slave to the assholes Above.
The black liquid swallowed me, burning my flesh, melting me to the bone and down to my very soul. It ripped my name from the core of me, tearing it out of every pore and hollow. I was undone.
And then it pieced me back together, whispering a name, a secret name that all demons received on their day of making. This name was complex, and it would take the magi long and long to steal it from me.
I would destroy them all before letting them enslave me again.
Emerging from the black waters, I shook myself like the hound I was, then shifted into the man I could also be.
Hell was barren.
Even twenty years ago, it had been quieter than centuries past, but now I didn’t see another soul. A godsdamned tumbleweed bounced past me, for Satan’s sake.
I walked through the dust to the bar I used to hang out at with my fellow hounds. The hinges on the doors squawked when I pushed my way inside. One devil sat in the corner playing Hang Em with a set of tarot cards. He glanced up as I entered, took in my aura, and dropped his gaze back to the shiny black surface of the table.
I went to the bar and sat, waiting. No bartender came to serve me and finally the devil said, “She gone.”
“Oh?”
“Taken n’but last week. Taken screaming but taken, nonetheless. Didn’t throw herself on the mercy of the Chaos, did she? Not often enough. Above is getting desperate. Gleaning more and more.”
He sounded like a demon who had thrown himself into the Chaos more often than was wise. After a bit, the ripping and reassembly took its toll.
I wasn’t sure if I’d rather be summoned Above or have my mind shredded, though, so I didn’t blame him for doing what he’d done. If I asked, I’m sure he’d have a horror-tale to tell about his time Above.
We all did.
I poured my own drink, a Brimstone Kiss, and downed it in one go. The second I nursed and sat across from the devil playing cards. “Anybody left besides you?”
“Oh sure,” he said, flipping over the Death card and moving it to the Empress. “A couple devils like me, a few lower demons. And several kings, though they’re pieced out, you know.”
Pieced out. Fucking butchers.
However the magi had figured out how to find our summoning names, they’d also learned that the more powerful of us had more than one. They couldn’t enslave one of the more powerful demons—a king, a general, a prince, a queen—in one crystal and with one name, but that hadn’t stopped them for long. They found the smaller names and used those to rip apart demons like Malphas, who currently resided in three different crystals. Forced not once, not twice, but three times over to slave for different masters Above. I could free him, though. I knew where two of his pieces were being kept, who held them. One was a lesser magus, old and doddering, the other a Keeper with substantial power. I wouldn’t stand a chance against a second-tier Keeper, not if she had my friend’s powers at her beck and call, but the old magus I could take out. Once he was freed, Malphas could help me win the rest of himself over.
Perhaps the witch would help, too.
Sometimes, the magi stole a bit of us at a time. It was torture, knowing that someone was stealing essential parts of you and there was nothing you could do to stop them. Lilith had vanished all at once and our dark lord Satan had spent hours staring at her flickering light as it vacillated between dead and enslaved. I often wondered if that was what had made him go mad. Or perhaps he’d always been insane and Lilith’s presence had calmed him.
Hecate had been torn apart and destroyed. I supposed the magi had known that her destruction would help them dominate the witches and enslave the demons. Or maybe they just liked killing things that didn’t serve them. “They all need to roast in the fires of hell for eternity,” I growled.
“Oh aye,” said the devil, and slapped the Fool onto the stack of cards holding Death and the Empress. “Hang Em!” he said, banging his hand on the table. “Wanna play?”
“No,” I said. “I am going Above to see what I can do to free our people.” And, to be perfectly honest, find the strange witch who’d freed me from my cage and learn what made her smell so damn good. “Will you help?”
Fear entered his eyes, a dark, and wily thing that made his nose twitch like a rat’s. “I won’t go up again, d’you see? I won’t, not for Hell nor Brimstone, nay. T’isn’t safe. T’isn’t wise. Stay here, hound, or you’ll be caught up soon enough, caught up and forced to serve one of those who makes Balthazar look tame.” His gaze shifted to the doorway behind me. I glanced back and he skittered away, his chair teetering on two legs before crashing to the floor.
He’d left his cards on the table. I scooped them up, fanned them out, and turned the top one over. The Magician. Lip curling, I turned over another. The woman on the card was black on one side, white on the other. She held a sword in one hand and scales in the other.
Justice.
The sword was bloody, the woman’s mouth curled up in a grim smile. I thought of the witch who’d freed me, the one who had smelled so damn good, who had been drunk on death. Was she the answer? Our answer? The one who might be able
to stem the flow of demons to the Above? The one who might save us?
It was a lot to put on a mere witch, but perhaps she wasn’t just a witch. Perhaps she was something more.
I tucked the card away and stood, leaving behind the empty bar and the disaster it represented and used my magic this time to travel across Hell to Stolas.
He was in his shop, looking no more dangerous than a mundane, though I knew that was a lie. Stolas was ancient and very powerful, powerful enough to have remained free after his escape.
So why hadn’t he tried to save the rest of us?
He looked up, his green eyes so much like Lilith’s it made my heart ache for her loss. “Lux. You’re home.” He sounded surprised and I smiled wolfishly at him.
“Didn’t expect a mere hellhound to free himself?”
He shrugged, knowing better than to walk into that trap full of teeth.
“I didn’t escape on my own.”
Interest lit up his features, but he wasn’t the type to seek eagerly for answers. He was patient and if I said no more, he wouldn’t prod. It was both interesting and irritating.
“A witch freed me. One with dual-colored eyes. One is green.”
His gaze was sharp, but then he deliberately went back to work on whatever thing he was tinkering with as he said, “A lot of witches have green eyes. It doesn’t mean anything.”
Look at where they’d gotten us, these thieving magi. Suspicious, cynical, afraid.
“Did you change your name?”
“I did.” I picked up one of the many trinkets he sold, its wooden surface covered in dust. Not many customers these days, not with much of our kind trapped in crystals Above. “How often do you do so to stay hidden?”
He made a noise of disgust as something snapped off the thing on the counter before him. “Too often. Sometimes I feel like I’m losing my mind.” His face was stricken. “It’s only a matter of time before the Void forgets something vital.”
We couldn’t hide forever, in other words, without losing ourselves or being trapped again. Something had to change. We had to do something.
“I’m going to find her again. I marked her so I’ll be able to follow the scent. Perhaps she’s our salvation.”
“You always were a romantic. Sitting at Lilith’s feet even after Satan took her as his consort.”
Hatred writhed in his voice like snakes. He’d had a bone to pick with our dark lord. Had hated him since the day he’d convinced Lilith to abdicate her throne and dedicate herself to him. It didn’t matter that our lord had done the same in return. Not to Stolas. He would always hate Satan.
I didn’t blame him. Our lord had not been an easy king to serve. I’d stayed in her service because I loved her and someone had to stick by her after Stolas had been banished from the City of Thrones.
“If she can free more of us, perhaps you will change your mind,” I said.
“Perhaps,” he agreed, though I no more believed that than he believed the witch could do anything to help us. Stolas thought we were doomed, I realized. He was merely biding his time until the last demon was pulled shrieking from Hell and our world collapsed around us. Was that why he hadn’t bothered trying to save us?
I left him to his ponderings and made my way Above to find the intriguing little witch and discover just who she was and what magic she possessed.
4
KORRI
I peeled off my gloves, pulled off the wig, pulled out the contacts, and dumped all of it into a black garbage bag. My heart hammered double-time as the darkness inside me howled in frustration at the loss of the death spirit. Hands shaking, I ditched the bag in a dumpster, then slunk the rest of the way to the wall avoiding the Keepers as they patrolled.
The wall was massive and ugly, and it stretched between Hell’s Mudroom and the rest of Bolger. It was the brainchild of a former Grand High Theurge who thought it would keep his precious magi safe from the witches; he’d obviously never heard of tunnels or ladders or planes or boats because there never was a leakier wall than this one. Sure, if you wanted to work legitimately outside of the Witch’s District, you had to make a show of getting the proper paperwork, but if you were denied a legitimate pass, well, there were plenty of magi who would pay under the table to get witches through when it suited them.
Since I hadn’t wanted anyone officially knowing I’d been outside of Hell’s Mudroom tonight, I couldn’t stroll through the gates even with my pass. It killed my grandmother that I chose to live in the WD, but I had a dual citizenship of sorts, and she couldn’t stop me.
Tonight, I made my way to a tiny restaurant near the wall on the magi-side under which had been dug a bootleg tunnel. It was guarded by a couple of witches with a hatred for magi that ran deep. Normally I’d be worried someone might put two and two together and come up with “Korri Marchand murdered Oscar King,” I knew these two brutes from our school days. They’d tried bullying me the first day of school and I gave them what for. We’d become friends and I’d smoked my first joint with them on the rooftop of our apartment building. I’d also gotten in trouble with them numerous times.
They owned a food truck that backed up against the wall witch-side and hid the entrance to the tunnel I had crawled out of. A knock—three times, once, twice—on the underside of their truck opened the hatch and let me back into Hell’s Mudroom.
The smell of old grease and grill smoke clung to everything in the truck. Bernabe gave me a hand up, his big, hairy face aglow with the heat from the cooktop. “How’d things go?”
They knew I was up to something shady, but they never asked. If I was fucking with the magi, they didn’t care what I did. “Not too bad.” Except for the missed death spirit, great. Better than great. Gold. I’d struck gold.
“That Korri?” Rollo called.
“Yep,” Bernie said, turning back to the grill. There was a small line even at this time of night because Hell’s Mudroom was overcrowded. Space was at a premium, so many people swapped out beds so everyone would have a pillow to lay their head on. Most of the time, this was done within families, but some generous souls would rent out their beds or even floors to homeless strangers. Poppy and I had done it often enough we had regulars. Witches had to stick together since the magi stuck it to all of us.
“Here you go, sweetie,” Rollo said, handing me a sack filled with warm food containers.
“Aw, you didn’t have to do this.”
Rollo winked. “I read the papers.”
“Shit,” Poppy muttered.
“Oh?” I asked but offered no more and they didn’t push. Poppy didn’t trust them but that was all right. I did, and she trusted me, so she usually tamped down her worry about them knowing even a little of my comings and goings. “Night guys. Thanks for all you do.”
“Ditto,” Bernie said.
I waited until the last customer left and slipped out the back of the food truck. It was covered in stickers that read, “Fuck the magi!” and “Down with the Keepers!” Bernie and Rollo got harassed on the regular for it, but they had a permit to sell on the spot they were parked and none of the Keepers had ever thought to have them move their truck to look underneath. They’d been searched, bugged, tossed, but the Keepers never found anything.
Rollo and Bernie were two of the best charm makers I knew aside from Poppy, so I guessed they had everything hidden under complex ‘look away’ and ‘you can’t see me’ spells. I didn’t ask about them about that any more than they asked about my nocturnal wanderings. It was healthier for us all.
“Connor called. He wants me to come over. You care if we debrief another time or do you need me?”
I considered the question as I made my way home, sticking to the shadows and working hard not to call any attention to myself. “Nah. You go. I know you need to blow off steam and I’m frustrated. I’ll just bum you out.”
“I’m sorry that damned hound fucked up the last bit,” Poppy said. She didn’t understand why I drank the death spirit or why I needed to. I
know she thought it was seriously weird, but because she was my friend, she knew it meant something to me to miss the chance.
“Me too.” Though I wasn’t sure that was completely honest. “Go on. I’ll be fine. We’ll talk after work or something.”
“‘Kay. Night.” There was a pause. “Thank you.”
I popped the earbud out and tucked it into my pocket. No, I wasn’t sure I was sorry at all at the appearance of the hellhound. Sure, I was all itchy after missing Oscar’s death spirit, but the hellhound had opened a hell of a lot of interesting questions. Did all magi carry demons or just Oscar? Why did he have the demon in the first place? What about the laws prohibiting summoning? If all Lodge magi had demons, then exposing them for hypocritical frauds might help the witches get some political power back.
I rounded the last block and saw that one of my neighbors was sitting on the stoop of my apartment building, his old man’s hands trembling as he lifted his lighter to the cigarette poking out of his lips. “Hey, Korri. Long night?”
I shoved down the darkness still howling inside me and pasted on a smile. “I do believe it’s morning, Eddie. Why are you outside?” I stood near him, one foot on the bottom step as I searched through my small hip bag for my keys.
“Missus don’t want me smoking in the apartment no more.” He sounded so sorrowful I almost felt bad for him. But he was a guy who liked people feeling sorry for him and I, perverse creature that I was, didn’t like to feed into shit like that.
“I wouldn’t want you in there either, puffing on one of those cancer sticks. You shoulda stayed quit.” I patted him on the shoulder and climbed the stairs to the door. My key got me in, and four flights got me to my apartment.
“Damn it,” I said to the empty room. The itch was still there, the need to kill. Oscar’s death spirit was supposed to have scratched it for me, but I missed it because that damned hellhound thought I was a chew toy.
I rubbed my neck and headed to the mirror to see if it left any marks. For a second, red dots flared just where the dog’s teeth had pressed against my skin, but then they disappeared. I stood, staring, wondering if I’d hallucinated them. Maybe so. I made a face at myself, brushed my fingers through my hair—half white, half black—then stooped to untie my boots. When my feet were free, I pulled the heart skin out of my pocket and padded to the kitchen. I put the skin on the top shelf next to Poppy’s lactose-free milk, then poked around in the fridge until I found the pizza from last night’s stalking party. Poppy and I had stayed up half the night, pouring over all the information we’d gathered on Oscar King, clicking through files, cross-checking news stories. Had it been me, someone would have caught us already. I wasn’t savvy with computers the way Poppy was. She knew how to hide our tracks, how to search for information without leaving a trail, and how to worm her way through security so we could find out the good stuff.
