Dark Light of Day

by Jill Archer

  Around me, the cement paths were full of students walking back from Lekai. Nearly to a person, they carried small lit candles. I gritted my teeth. Would this day ever end? Most years I holed up inside to avoid spectacles such as this. Everyone smiled and laughed, some couples even embraced. I stood there in the dark with my dark clothes and dark mood, solitary and unlit, wondering why I felt left out when all I’d wanted was to be left alone.

  I was on the verge of scowling when I felt Ari’s signature touch the edges of mine and slowly melt into it, the way the sun melted into the horizon at dusk. He was the only one who could soften my edges like that. He rounded a corner and stood before me. I swallowed. He seriously tested my resolve to stay away from him.

  His crisp white shirt, still open at the collar, was now smudged with black soot. In the semi-dark of sunset and the glow of passing candles, Ari’s skin looked golden. His eyes shone like black glass, reflecting the myriad flames around him. He stared at me solemnly, his face a mixture of desire and determination. A single candle burned bright in his hand. He held it out to me.

  “I saved one for you,” he said.

  I shook my head. “No, thanks.”

  “You can’t know this,” he said, “since you’ve never celebrated Bryde’s Day, but the custom is that you find someone you… care about, and you give them a lit candle.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s a gift,” he said.

  “You’re giving me the gift of fire?”

  “No, I’m giving you the gift of life. That’s what it means today.”

  Oh.

  I reached for the tiny flame, speechless. My hand grazed Ari’s just as he stepped forward to embrace me. I clasped my hand around his as he pulled me close, cradling my head with his other hand. He tipped me back, touching his lips to mine. You would have thought four days was forty years from the urgency I felt in him. But he kept his kiss light, his lips barely skimming mine. He held me for a moment, his eyes locked to mine, and, for once, I felt absolutely calm in his presence. I laid my head on his shoulder and stared into the flame.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  We would be meeting with our clients separately first, in the old abandoned classrooms on the fourth floor of Rickard Building. It was a place the demons would be comfortable in and it was less risky for the Hyrkes if we confined our interview to places they were less likely to be. The other MIT’s, who had Hyrke clients, were meeting elsewhere on campus. After the introductions and initial assessment, Ari and I were to take our clients to the Manipulation classroom where we would make our first settlement attempt. Both Ari and I thought it prudent to go up to the fourth floor alone, although Ari seemed far less concerned about what Rochester might think than the clients.

  The lift ride up was slow, creepy, and quiet. The operator seemed nervous. Had Nergal and Lamia taken the lift to the fourth floor? It would be unusual since demons had the ability to shift into forms of things that traveled far faster than those of us with only two feet.

  When I stepped out on the fourth floor, the experience was anticlimactic. I knew walls and physical barriers interfered with my ability to perceive signatures, but somehow I’d thought that I’d be able to feel them immediately. Instead, all I saw were two lit rooms farther down the hall. Ari had told me Lamia would be on the left. So that meant Nergal was waiting for me in the room on the right. I squared my shoulders and walked in.

  Two people stood to greet me. The first was a robust-looking young man dressed somewhat similarly to me in a black suit with a white shirt. His shirt was fully buttoned but had soot marks like the ones I’d seen on Ari earlier. The second was a large, almost beefy man, somewhere in his midforties with sunburned skin and blond hair that was so long, thick, and curly, his hair reminded me of petals on a giant yellow chrysanthemum. Their signatures hit me at once, the young man’s black and dense as coal, sure fuel for any fire he chose to use it for, and the older man’s the equivalent of a radiation blast from a solar explosion. I knew, both from my reading, and from my first day of Manipulation class, that touching signatures was kind of like shaking hands. They were introducing themselves to me. And I thought the old man, who must be Nergal, was also testing me, similar to the way someone squeezes your hand too hard to see if you flinch.

  I didn’t.

  I carefully avoided directing any magic toward Nergal and concentrated on the younger man, obviously the upper level Maegester-in-Training who’d been sent to make the formal introductions. I pushed a thick flat slab of magic at him, which he was unable to disperse. We tussled for a moment, my magic seeking to smother his. His magic flared, first red, then blue, as he turned up the heat in an attempt to throw me off. My magic shimmied and swayed with the effort of trying to extinguish his. When it became clear neither of us would win, he backed off.

  “I’m Clarence Diamond,” he said, clearly annoyed with my bungled efforts to “shake hands” gracefully.

  Clarence turned his magic off as easily as turning a knob on the stove. My cessation wasn’t quite as adroit. I realized I didn’t know how to retract magic. After an agonizingly slow few seconds, I managed to disperse what I’d thrown without setting anything on fire. To my chagrin, it burst in the air like a bubble full of firecrackers. Nergal appeared appallingly delighted.

  Clarence’s expression soured. “Nergal,” he said in a dry voice, “this is Nouiomo Onyx of Etincelle, first year Maegester-in-Training here at St. Lucifer’s Law School, daughter of Karanos Onyx, executive of the Demon Council, and daughter of Aurelia Onyx nee Ferrum of the Hawthorn Tribe. She is sister to Nocturo Onyx, a Mederi who goes by the name of Nightshade.”

  Nergal raised an eyebrow at this last sentence and then Clarence turned to me.

  “Nouiomo, this is Nergal, Prince of Drought and Patron of Midsummer Death.” He gave Nergal a short bow and whispered in my ear on his way out.

  “Fare well, Noon.” I couldn’t tell if he was wishing me luck or saying good-bye.

  I turned to Nergal, whose signature was still blisteringly hot. I was in danger of being melted on the spot but I didn’t dare try to tussle with Nergal the way I had with Clarence. I raised my hand, gesturing like I was shielding myself from the noon-day sun.

  “Do you mind?” I said.

  Nergal cut the heat in half as his gaze swept over me. His eyes were a light grayish blue, the color startlingly vivid against his sun-darkened skin. His gaze lingered longer than it needed to on my hips, lips, and breasts. He chuckled, the sound raspy and rough.

  “A Host female with waning magic, how delightful,” he said. “They didn’t tell me.”

  “Why should they?” I said, masking my annoyance. “There’ll be no difference in the representation I give you.”

  “Hmm… we’ll see,” he said. His throat sounded dry, like he hadn’t had a drink in days. He walked around me, looking me up and down. He was so close I could feel his breath. It felt like a dry summer wind, the kind that blows and brings no relief. I stood still, hiding my offense and irritation. He stopped behind me and I fought the urge to turn around. It would be a sign of weakness. Keeping my back to him showed I wasn’t afraid.

  But it was a lie.

  Sweat began to pool in my armpits and I wondered if he could smell my fear. His breath, hot on my neck, itched like an insect bite. I don’t know if it was my subconscious or his magic, but I suddenly heard a great swarm of bugs behind me. Locusts, I thought. No. My skin prickled as a thin film of sweat broke out over my entire body. Yellow jackets. I bit my lip to stop from screaming and reached out to steady myself. But we were standing in the middle of the room so there was nothing to hold on to.

  “Nouiomo,” Nergal said harshly, gutturally, putting his hands on my shoulders to stop me from falling forward. I steadied myself and tried to shake free of Nergal’s unwanted embrace. His touch felt like fire ants crawling over my skin.

  “You’re shaking,” he said, his voice crackling in my ear.

  “Enough,” I said, hum
iliated that my voice shook too.

  “You can’t just say enough, you have to show me enough. Didn’t your parents ever warn you about demons?”

  My cheeks flushed. They hadn’t. But I knew what he was referring to. The demons’ reputation in the pre-Apocalyptic world had been well deserved. They were lustful creatures with base natures and poor control over their sexual appetites.

  “You excite me, Nouiomo,” Nergal said, turning me around. He disgusted me. I shook off his hold and stepped back. “Just look at you,” he said. “Your hair is like the cool dark waters of a mountain spring at midnight, your skin as white as the milky sap of a dandelion, and your lips… ah, your lips are as red and full and quivering as a beating heart. With your lack of experience and control, you are virgin material, ready to be taken, as ripe and luscious as any demon might want—if you weren’t already marked by another.”

  A small fissure of alarm shot up my spine, this one having nothing to do with my fear of plague or pestilence.

  If he could sense Ari’s mark on my heart, could anyone with waning magic? Rochester? Seknecus? Or were demons the only ones who could sense a signare?

  “Interesting that you do not deny it,” Nergal said. “He must share your feelings. Ah, to be young and in love again.”

  “No one’s in love,” I said, with far more conviction than I felt.

  “I was once in love,” Nergal said, finally backing off. His voice was clearer and his stance less threatening. It felt like we’d crossed some sort of threshold. The introduction was over, I thought. The interview was starting.

  “How did you meet?” I asked. There was no doubt about who I was referring to. Demons mate for life, as Ari had pointed out.

  “Centuries ago, when New Babylon was smaller, I was setting fire to the eastern fields one summer. The grasslands were withered and the wheat fields were ripe and ready for burning. As wildfire, I tore up and down the hillsides, destroying crops and fallow fields alike. In time, I came to a spot that would not burn. Enraged, I took human form.”

  Nergal sat down, choosing a large wooden chair with armrests and a worn cushion. He motioned for me to sit opposite him. I did, somewhat uncomfortably, since the only other choices were bare benches and stools.

  “The heat was immeasurable,” he continued, “and the smoke disorienting, but it was my doing and I was proud. I must have walked for miles, determined to find the obstinate spot of land that had refused my touch. Finally, hours after sunset, I came upon a well. A young woman was drawing water from it. She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. Her hair was like black rainwater and her skin like liquid pearls.

  “Not unlike you, Nouiomo,” Nergal murmured, sounding like wind on a wheat field. I motioned impatiently for him to get on with it. I figured if my client were going to strike me with wildfire he would have done so by now.

  “Her breasts and hips were wonderfully round and full and her skin was cool to the touch—and moist, like dew in the morning. Imagine. I’d never felt anything like it in my life. I began to imagine what it would be like to lie with her. How I might place my parched and peeling self inside certain places of hers. What blessed relief she would be to my burning need, my never ending thirst.”

  I wanted to roll my eyes but didn’t dare.

  “I imagined how wet, how lush, how succulent she would be. She was so full of blood, so engorged, so swollen.

  “We married and built a house right there at the well. At the time, it was a beautiful place, endless fields and fruit trees. I never lost my urge to burn it all down but the spot was impervious to my touch. But she wasn’t. She loved me, did my Lamia. But, with time, whatever she gorged on to make her so sweet turned on her and poisoned her. And the land around her well died. The trees grew old and twisted. The house fell into disrepair. We stopped spending time there, preferring to spend more and more time in our true forms—me as midsummer heat, crackling, dusty, and stiflingly hot, and she as the cold hours after midnight, damp, dank, and dark.

  “Nouiomo,” Nergal said, putting a hand on my knee. This time it only felt like a rock warmed in the sun. “I can’t bear to be connected to her anymore. I want us to be put asunder.”

  “You know you can’t have a divorce, Nergal, absent her consent,” I said. “It’s against demon law.”

  “Demon law?” Nergal practically spat out the words. “What is the law with no sovereign to enforce it? Lucifer is too weak to return, so demon law is enforced by Maegesters, descendants of his old warlords ruling as regents who still believe in the application of thousand-year-old precedents. Do you really believe in the anachronistic rules you are asked to enforce?”

  “Promises are timeless.”

  Nergal scoffed at me.

  “Only the young can make such a statement and believe it. Lamia changed and that change was a brutal betrayal. All that she was is gone now, replaced by a vile creature I don’t know. I miss her, my old Lamia, even still. And I would have her back if what happened to her was reversible. But instead I am filled with rage at the thing she has become. I hate the thing in the next room for stealing my young bride away. Lamia no longer loves me, nor I her. She is as old and twisted as the trees around our well. I should have burned them, Nouiomo, even when they were young and green. I should have found a way.”

  Pain, bitterness, and loss enveloped him the way heat hovered over the ground after a burning. I stood at the edge, as a survivor might stand at the edge of a field after a battle, surveying the broken, the burned, and the bloody. The end is always easy to spot. The wreckage and desolation of a thing torn apart is unmistakable. What is more difficult to determine is the cause. Why had Nergal stopped loving Lamia? Why had my father stopped loving my mother? If life and youth were not immune to the corrosive effects of time, why should love be any different?

  Nergal had painted a story that vividly portrayed him as the victim. But I rather thought it might be the other way around. Our interview had been conducted without the use of magic, neither with me trying to control him, nor him trying to enchant me. But that didn’t mean that manipulation hadn’t been attempted. Good old-fashioned emotional manipulation was still practiced by every resident in Halja. I had a hunch that Nergal’s loss of love was caused by something extraordinarily common—Lamia had aged and Nergal’s attraction to her had dried up along with her youth and vitality.

  When Nergal and I entered the Manipulation classroom to meet with Lamia and try our first settlement attempt, Ari rose to greet us, covering the distance in a few long strides. In my mind, I’d always compared Ari to the sun, but as he stood facing Nergal, I realized it wasn’t the sun so much as sunlight that he reminded me of. The two squared off and something passed between them. A flash of recognition, I thought.

  Nergal narrowed his eyes at Ari and glanced at me, frowning. Ari ignored him and took my arm, turning me away from Nergal and toward a hunched creature who was sitting in the corner. Ari’s touch instantly heated me, shielding me against the cold I felt radiating from Lamia. Her signature was the worst I’d ever felt. It wasn’t full of malevolence. It was full of madness.

  Evil, gray, cold unhappiness wafted around her like disease on still air. She felt like black ice, frozen in odd patches, a danger unseen until it was too late. Physically, she was pitiable. The hair that Nergal had compared to black rainwater now lay flat and lackluster down her back. Bare patches of scalp peeked through thin spots on a head now covered with warts and lumps. Her skin, which had once reminded Nergal of liquid pearls, now looked like the outside of an oyster shell, wrinkled and calloused with a sick bluish gray undertone.

  “Lamia,” Ari said, “this is Nouiomo Onyx. She’s assisting Nergal.”

  She raised her head in my direction, her gaze focused somewhere past my face. She can’t see me, I thought. She’s blind. But she could feel me.

  Lamia’s signature wrapped around mine like a snake, squeezing and constricting. Breathing became more difficult. To fight my growing panic, I reminde
d myself that touching signatures was standard. Lamia would let go any minute and I’d be winded but fine.

  But she didn’t let go.

  “Lamia,” Ari warned, and I could hear the anger in his voice. But, if anything, the squeezing got worse. Surely ribs would crack and lungs would be punctured. My vision blurred at the edges. I wanted to scream, but couldn’t because I couldn’t take a single breath. As consciousness faded, I felt Ari blast Lamia—a sharp, concentrated burst. She rocked back in her chair as if slapped and suddenly I was free. I slumped against Ari, heaving.

  “Threatening Nergal’s counsel is counterproductive, Lamia,” Ari said. His signature was still hot but his voice was soft, as if he were speaking to a child. “Ms. Onyx is here to help. Try anything like that again and I’ll send over something that hurts.”

  Lamia cackled and rocked in her chair. I glanced back at Nergal, but he seemed to be paying more attention to Ari’s arm around my waist than his wife. I disengaged from Ari and walked over to sit with Nergal. I reflexively rubbed my throat, ignoring an impulse to shoot Lamia through with the kind of magic I’d used to kill Serafina. With a demon like Lamia, it would probably be like stabbing a wild boar with a needle. And with my luck, I’d probably aim for the eye and get the rump.

  I sighed. It was going to be a long negotiating session.

  Ari got the ball rolling by explaining, as if they didn’t already know, what their positions were. Nergal wanted a divorce but his only legal option, absent Lamia’s consent, was a separation. In short, under demon law, Nergal was stuck with Lamia until she said otherwise. Her debts were his debts; her sins were his sins. Demon lovers who married were bound by magic. They lived—and died—together, unless both agreed to end the marriage.