by Stephen Ayer
At least they didn’t know what he looked like. They were no doubt expecting an inconspicuous man from the East. Sangye. Poor Sangye. He had been a hearty and healthy host, one that Aphon had intercepted when he entered this dimension from the Himalayas. Alas, even with the demon’s magic staving off the encroaching ravages of time, nature would have its due, and after years of faithful and unwilling service, Sangye finally returned to dust.
At death, his veins had been solid black, clogged with corruption. His vital and glowing mountain man complexion had long abandoned him in favor of a hue that was akin to dusted marble. Aphon’s power, diminished though it was, was too much for any mortal form to bear for long, and so he had found a new, and more willing host.
Christoper Grenier. A debauched English occultist, though Aphon would be hard pressed to find if there was any other kind. This one fancied bloodshed almost as much as his own reflection. In the mirror stared back an artist, his hair overgrown past his ear and his jaw covered with a thick and old stubble. Dark rings hung beneath his eyes, though he had those before he took the demon in.
His hollowness sprung from the jealousy of another artist, one who demonstrated such skill and technique in his paints as to make Christopher’s works of ‘abstract genius’ look like what they were: a child’s finger painting. The demon recalled that there seemed to be a woman involved as well, notable if only because she threw her affections and praise before Christopher’s rival.
He didn’t care much about the little lickspittle plots and schemes of mortals, the only high point of the whole affair was getting Christopher as his host and imbuing the blooming degenerate with brush skills beyond the pale of any master. Skills that culminated in Christopher’s magnum opus: a portrait of his unrequited love, using his rival as the paint. What splendorous shades of red and crimson he achieved with that brush...
After that episode, the demon grew close and began to enjoy the company of his gloomy host. Both enjoyed wine soaked orgies, women of generous affections and both wanted to go to Hell. In Aphon’s case, go back to Hell. Why any mortal would intentionally want to go there, he did not know, and considered them insane or idiotic, which was just fine for his purposes. Something about wanting to be closer to his ‘lord’. Wasted fool. I am his lord now.
“Chris... topher, my dog, my beloved bootlick...” rumbled Aphon, always pronouncing his host’s name carefully lest he cause himself unneeded pain. “I have an unfortunate... angel shaped problem, compounded with some whoreson of Lilith.”
Christopher felt himself swim back into his consciousness, and took that as his cue that his master was at last letting him speak. “Odd that our friend didn’t see it coming.”
A feeling of blissful drowning overcame him once more, as if he were falling back into a glacial sea, full of scalding ice. “Indeed.” said Aphon, his voice a low purr, like liquid gold dripped over soft velvet. “The times have grown strange. Our holy thorn is attached to an undying rose. I want to know why.”
Christopher coughed back into consciousness. “Perhaps she would know...”
“She will, or I’ll find another witch that does.”
Aphon walked down the halls of the manor with languid smoothness. If one did not hear his bare feet against the ruddy hardwood floors, it would have not been foolish to assume he was floating through the house. As much as the demon loathed the sack of flesh he inhabited, he did admire the focus that came about from occupying a form so beneath him. His fingers gripped around the hard, polished railings that overlooked the stairway, and his nerves drank in the cool smoothness of the sculpted mahogany. He could be aware of these qualities were he outside of Christopher, but they would have been a few of many qualities, the noise and light of many realities, all competing for his attention, being the norm for the demon’s existence.
Now, it was as if someone had limited him to only one spectrum of light to admire. Without the... clutter, of everything else, even the ancient lord of a fallen realm had to admit he had taken some things for granted. He tried to stifle his wonder every time he felt a sense of amazement, but failed every time. If he wasn’t careful, he suspected he would develop some form of envy for the mortal life, and that simply would not do.
The halls were sparsely populated and quiet. Cats hung in the shadows, some watching Aphon’s passing with keen interest. The demon host could see past their fur and flesh, sometimes seeing many shades of darkness or writhing lines of luminous color... yet even after all his years of living, he still did not know what entities hid behind those feline eyes or why they manifested around witches.
Moving past the cats, he began to see people once more.
Followers.
Some he could tell were his own men, dregs who would not look out of place in a prison or ditch. The more dignified members were almost always of the witch’s following. Some were dressed in dark reds, others layered in storm cloud blue silks and many more forewent the robes in favor of more modern wear.
Leather boots, tight gloves and vests of muted crimson and cobalt threaded with silver brocade adorned the younger generation. Whatever their garb, novitiates and veterans alike bore the sigil of a rose with a winding stem embroidered on their backs, the black of their jackets and coats serving as the black of the rose’s petals.
He narrowed his eyes at one whose personal appearance was most unlike anyone’s in the manor. The decrepit man wore a faded green cloak over his shriveled body, the black silk that covered his chest heaving with his breath, bending its colors ever so slightly with each rise and fall. Faint and weak light came from the tips of whitened blond hair, the individual strands seemingly fading away. Hushed tones came from dry lips, his skeletal finger swishing to and fro as he notated to a Black Rose witch, her fingers and pen moving in exact pace to his words.
The man caught Aphon’s gaze for a moment, his milky eyes shining with heathen light, eyes made all the heavier by the losses they had witnessed over the long centuries. Aphon shifted his gaze. He had no time for sentimentality.
You waste your time, witch. There is no secret the Tuatha da Nannan possess that I could not give you myself. He kept his chin high and reminded himself that Agatha had called all witchbreed to her cause, suffering the presence of dying branches of their twisted tree was only a temporary nuisance.
Further down the hall, his mood lightened when he saw someone standing outside the witch’s door. Ah, Josette. The tainted blossom has grown ripe. Her tresses cascaded over her supple shoulders like waterfalls of gold beaten in silver, glowing with an inner radiance that bespoke of a light not from this world. Her gaudy and vivid fabrics popped out against the night black cloak that draped her back, resplendent with its rose sigil.
Even for a witch she was excessive in her decoration. My pact has been more than kind to you, little one. There was only the slightest tell that she was sworn to the demon: a slight writhing shadow beneath the porcelain complexion of her wrists and neck where the skin was thin. Still, her great beauty hinted of a manic instability roiling beneath her soul, as it often was with witches.
Transcendence walked hand in hand with madness for these folk and the demon oft surmised the more opulent the woman, the more power boiling beneath, ready to explode. Manna was an unnatural force, inclining the humors to all that was inhuman and strange. Calanari cunts. Over proud sheep with wands. I should go with the witch when she reclaims their tumor of a city and remind them of that. Make those roads red again. He remembered too well when he came to them as an exiled duke, how they sneered and laughed and flayed him six times with their blue fire. I was a fool then, to think great lords would treat with a demon.
“Is it Christopher now, or the other?” Josette’s smooth, quicksilver voice seeped through his bitter thoughts.
“None other but the other. Where is the witch?”
Her crystalline eyes squinted and the lights in the hall dimmed in turn. “We have names.”
The demon laughed. “None worth knowing.” Watch yo
ur tone, wench. I love nothing more than taking what I’ve given.
“She’s busy.”
“Doing what? Staring at tea leaves? Divining omens in blown smoke? I can read more precisely from spilled blood than she can from a book.”
Josette’s good humor had evaporated and she fixed the demon with a steely glare. “Preparing for your future victory. You would do well to remember who needs who here.” Both, you upstart bitch.
Aphon stepped forward and wrapped his hand around her shoulder, taking a deep breath while her wonderful scents wafted by his nose. “Have you ever... seen, what happens to a warlock when he loses his patron? Most kill themselves to be with their master than suffer what they’d become without.” He caressed her chin but the witch did not disguise her disgust. “I should know. I’ve done it a few times myself.” For fun. “But a witch... nothing rivals the spectacle of a witch whose lost her power... or gained too much.”
The demon’s hand moved from her chin and hovered over her chest and then clenched as if pulling on an invisible string. Josette shuddered as the shadows welled right below her skin while the color of her eyes flared under strain. “You’ve cultivated more magic than your soul can handle. Gluttonous under my bounty.” He pulled more and dark blood dribbled from her refined nose. The skin along her cheeks hardened and grew translucent while the rest of her body stiffened, the tips of her soft tresses hardening into a glassy consistency. “The only thing keeping you from being my own goddamn crystal statue... is my will. Think of the pacts I made with the coven as both incentive and insurance. When I triumph, you and the rest of your pretenders prosper. But if I don’t... well, you won’t be the only one whose immortalized.”
He released his grip and instantly she was restored of her sorcerous suppleness and radiant complexion. The witch wheezed for a moment, rejoicing that her lungs were still made of flesh. “I’m sorry.” she coughed and held her throat. “It won’t happen again.”
Gratitude restored. “I’m seeing the witch now.” He did not wait for her response and stepped through the heavily inscribed door, but did not knock. A lord did not knock, no matter how far he had fallen.
Her room was richly decorated, as if she had taken the furnishings of some far away land from some far away time and transported it exactly as it was then, to here and now. Looks like a Turkish whorehouse. Gossamer crimson curtains stood in his way, billowing to an unnatural wind as he parted them and stepped further into her bedroom. Blood red candles laid out in concentric circles around his feet, and to both of his sides laid fainting couches, freshly upholstered and gleaming with gold buttons and soft leather. He felt a flash of consternation, seeing long beauty mirrors behind both of the couches, catching his hunched reflection perfectly. He saw his watery human eyes in reflection carry a dull glow before becoming pools of black while the skin of his pallid hands darkened to the slitherings of the living shadow underneath.
The mirrors reflected just a hint of his true self, and he forced himself past them. A demon’s hate for being seen as their real selves was just as inborn as a mother’s love for her child. He sighed. No doubt she had laid them out just in case he double crossed her. Just thinking about it made him experience a rare pang of gratefulness that his was a prison of flesh, for flesh could move and feel, but glass... was so still and cold.
Just like Agatha, sitting with her back turned to him. Her long black hair draped over her immaculate, marble skin and pooled below her waist. Only the slight beginnings of a masterwork tattoo peeked out around her shoulders, the rest being veiled behind her glossy raven tresses. “You didn’t knock.” she said, not with excitement, not accusatory, but just as a statement of fact.
Aphon shivered to her voice. Her exquisite tones were like drops of water in the placid lake of his soul, sending tantalizing ripples across his spirit. “You’ll recover. We’ve got a problem, there’s a-”
“Wolf? I have seen him. The ivory flame of his soul ran across the New World before coming to the sea. Too late he dimmed his light before my eyes...” She let her long black nail trace around the wooden floor in circular motions, letting the silvered amulet on her wrist jangle and glint in the diffused moonlight.
Aphon bristled. “No one interrupts me.” he said sharply.
“And no one walks in on me unannounced, and yet, here we are.”
Aphon let out a deep, breathy sigh that sounded like a cave bear’s exhale. His fists bunched up involuntarily and a familiar heat built up in his chest. Agatha stopped her dallying on the floor and her head inclined to the side slightly, as if listening for something.
“Do words fail you or has that wretch’s tongue finally rotted off?”
The demon looked at the back of her head with unrestrained hate. Many times he had fantasized removing every one of her bones and wearing her as a suit or ravishing every hole in her body while creating new ones. And yet, he couldn’t. The air had grown thick, and the nearby windows had begun to crack as the candles behind him wavered and flickered.
Great power had filled the room.
It wasn’t his.
“Some hound of the False God has picked up our trail. He walks with one of the damned.”
“One of yours?”
Aphon sat down next to her, but could not see her face, hidden behind her pitch locks. “No. He would kill our kind on the spot. Must be one of Lilith’s bastards.” He rested his chin on his hand, looking upon the makeshift altar she had created. “I am the prize. Not one of her pale runts.”
The witch stroked her neck, fiddling with her shadowy pendant. “Hm. An angel trapped in the flesh, much as you... and a man who is undone by the sun. Perhaps you estimate yourself too highly if you think them a threat.”
Faster than she could react, she felt his clammy hands close around her throat and his dirtied nails dig into her skin. “Watch your tongue, bitch! Or does the witch forget who pulled her out of her icy pit? Does she forget I could put her back?”
Agatha strained to breathe and felt power simmer beneath her hands. Useless power, now that her throat was closed off, unable to intone her spells even quietly. The demon eased his grip and allowed her to gasp for fresh breath. “I never forget, but if the duke ever wishes to be a king, he would do well to remember to keep my throat intact.”
A parade of emotions ran through Aphon’s mind, and he couldn’t stop his nostrils from flaring with deep, angry breaths, still struggling to hold his hand back from the near instinctive response to cave her smug head in. He screamed and directed his fist into the shining hardwood floor. The wood crumpled inward and was charred in the outline of his knuckles.
He stood up and grabbed her by the chin, looking into her cold, still eyes. “Remember. I get my crown at the end of this. Remember that.”
She smiled. “At the end of this.” she echoed, “You cannot have one without the other, dread lord.”
Aphon said nothing, and focused on cooling himself down. That outburst, and resultant spike of energy, cost him valuable years in his mortal shell. Only two weeks left in here, what’s a lost decade or two? He breathed deeply and reminded himself to mind his temper. As a demon of murder and of the Seventh Circle, he was not suited best for the subtle tricks of his brethren from the Sixth Circle, much less any life that required a modicum of peace and planning.
But the power that came with being a lord of heresy, of corrupting the pure and innocent into sin was far more addicting than rendering entire populations into piled corpses. Even he had to note the poetry of gaining his position by murder, and losing it by heresy, relinquishing his throne of deceit to an ambitious lieutenant who mutinied his forces against him. Soon, very soon, Veseth, you will admire my throne for all time when I have your head on a pike.
He turned back to Agatha and noted she had said nothing while he had been consumed in his thoughts. Her eyes were closed and her face was impassive. It often amused him how her serenity looked like sepulchral sleep, as if she were one dream away from shuffling off her morta
l coil. He crossed his arms and stepped in front of her.
“You mentioned a wolf. Will it be a problem?”
She opened her eyes slowly, and looked at him as if it were the first time she saw him. “Normally, no. This one is special.” Aphon scoffed and moved to lean against a moonlit window. “He is a Seeker, from the city’s Order of Orion. Perhaps you have heard of it?”
He looked at her askance. “Obviously.” While as a demon he couldn’t pretend to know or care much about the intricacies of mortal social orders, he did make it his business to know the business of witches and warlocks. And of them, he knew these outcasts of the world had their own order to hunt down the outcasts of their world. Renegades, traitors... and heretics. “Will he require... special tending?”
“A special level of violence.” Aphon liked the sound of that. Special was just another word for excessive. “Anything less and he will spring back.”
“As for the other two,” she continued and pulled a silvery strand between her fingers, drawing it taut, “let’s wait. Fate has a way of sorting these things out.”
Aphon seethed. I don’t need a witch for plans like that. “If he’s good... and they all are... he’ll track us all the way here. Both of them.”
Agatha looked deeply into her strand and beheld flashes of golden white light, spirals of darkness and showers of ash. “Shhh. It seems...” flashes of illumination reflected in her icy eyes like stars, the skeins of fate fresh before her like a narrow dream, “that two will become one.”
“How?”
She smiled. “By waiting.”
Chapter 13: Red Sun
Frank limped down the hallway, the taste of blood still rich in his mouth. For some reason he still ached. He never ached. Goddamn age catchin’ up with me. Had he drank enough of her blood? Maybe not. It all went so fast.
