by A. H. Lee
Sex? Hysterical laughter climbed the back of her throat. Not likely. But does it have to be actual intercourse?
Jessica leaned forward, took his face in both hands, and kissed him. She felt his jolt of surprise, tasted the tears on his lips. She felt the unresisting brush of his tongue, confused, but leaning forward a little, reaching for her in his grief. Then he seemed to get it. His hands came up to her shoulders, very gentle, cupping the back of her head. Jessica felt that warm tingle over her skin…and poured the magic into him.
Azrael broke the kiss gasping and trembling. “Did it work?” Jessica demanded.
He caught his breath. “Yes.” He staggered to his feet, carefully not looking at her, but scanning the ground all around them, taking in his dying circle of flame, the ghosts, and the still whirling vortex.
“What happened to Wallace?” asked Jessica.
“He was burned by the recoiling spell,” said Azrael. “But not killed. If he were dead, this whirlpool would have broken. He went away to patch himself up, but he’ll be back. We need to get into the river further upstream. I can only take us home through the portal where I entered.”
“What about the ghosts?” asked Jessica.
“They’ll ignore us once we get away from the vortex, but they’re agitated in this area. They know they need to go downstream, but the vortex is holding them here. It makes them frustrated and angry.” He thought for a moment. “I can distract them, though, with some of the charms I made for the bear—magic with my blood in the core, they’ll like that.”
He took a folded paper out of his pocket, and Jessica saw that it was stained with something dark. He whispered to it and created one of those balls of glowing light. Azrael tossed it gently along the bank in a downstream direction. The ghosts’ heads turned to follow. As the ball bounced away, they started after it—first walking, then running.
Azrael made a motion with his hand, the blue circle of fire vanished, and then he and Jessica hurried as quietly as possible upstream. None of the ghosts came after them. Jessica looked back once to see them tearing apart the yellow ball in long glowing strands, eating it as though it were honey. She shivered.
Beyond the vortex, the wood and the river resumed their eerie stillness. “Can you do something so that the necromancer—Wallace—can’t…can’t get me again?” asked Jessica.
Azrael paused. “I can bind you. Do you want that?”
“If it will keep him from doing it.”
So Azrael looked her in the eyes and said the words right there beside the Styx. Jessica could feel the weight of them, the terrible knowledge that she could be commanded to do absolutely anything. A thin circlet of blue light appeared around her neck, loose, but cold against her skin.
“A collar like Mal’s has to be forged in blood,” said Azrael. “I can’t draw on your magic with that one. I can give you commands, and I can keep other people from claiming you, but I can’t use you the way I…” he broke off, and they walked in silence.
“Mal said he wouldn’t kill you if I helped him get free,” whispered Jessica at last. She felt as though she were making excuses, but she couldn’t bear to let Azrael think she’d done it just to be spiteful.
Azrael gave a mirthless snort. “Of course he did.”
Jessica looked down at Mal’s silver collar, still dangling from one of Azrael’s hands. “Could you summon him again? Will the astral plane heal him?”
Azrael drew a deep breath. “The astral plane will restore him, yes, and he will rejoin his entity. I could summon him again. The thing that appeared would have all of Mal’s memories and his face, but it would not be Mal. Rejoining the primary entity erases every human quality a demon has developed, everything that is not part of Lust.” In a softer voice, Azrael added, “He would no longer be the person who threw his own name into a spell to save you.”
Jessica shut her eyes. Not yet. I cannot cry yet.
“Mal is gone,” said Azrael, his voice hollow, “and I will never summon another demon.”
Jessica felt wrung out. She kept waiting for Wallace or the bear to leap out from behind a tree, but they didn’t.
“If I die,” continued Azrael, “the binding will crumble. You’ll need to find a friendly magician who can give you a more permanent solution. There are several options.” He massaged his forehead. “Melinda—forest witch, lives on the edge of my island. She would do it. If I don’t die out here, I’ll set you loose and see to it myself when we get back.”
Jessica hung her head. “Thank you, Lord Azrael. I am so sorry—”
“Please,” he held up his hand. “None of that right now. I can’t— I can’t.”
Jessica clamped her mouth shut.
They came around a bend in the river and saw, at last, the familiar hulking shape of the bear up ahead. Wallace was standing beside it. Jessica tensed, expecting the bear to charge, but it didn’t move, just stood there with its master.
“Of course,” said Azrael wearily. “They’re standing in front of my portal.” He stopped walking for a moment, toying absently with Mal’s collar. Wallace waved in the distance. His clothes and hair appeared to be burned, but he was not moving like a person in pain.
Azrael spoke to Jessica without taking his eyes off his enemy. “I am going to try to destroy that bear. I don’t think I will succeed, because Wallace’s bear wasn’t made in the way I made my practice model, but I am going to try. When I begin, you are going to run for the portal.” He gave her a thin, sad smile. “And I am going to make that a compulsion, Jessica. Might as well use that collar for something.”
Jessica winced, but she didn’t feel she had any right to argue with him.
“Wallace won’t trouble with you until he’s done with me,” continued Azrael. “I think you’ll have time to get through. The portal looks like a bright spot under the water. Once you step into it, you’ll drop through the riverbed and end up standing in my tower. If I—or something wearing my face—comes through the portal after you, ask for the name of the first book we visited.”
“Skyfire?”
Azrael nodded. “There’s a sword on the wall above the desk—a big black thing. It’s for killing magical entities. I suggest you grab the sword the moment you get through the portal. If I give you the wrong answer, lop off my head…because it’s not me.”
Jessica swallowed. “What about the bear?”
“The bear can’t come through the portal,” said Azrael. “It would disintegrate into bones and magic. Ready?”
Jessica drew a shuddering breath and nodded. Azrael had picked up his pace, walking towards the necromancer with a defiant set to his jaw.
Wallace and the bear were lumbering forward as well, the bear dead-eyed and implacable, Wallace grinning. “Ready to try some spells on my creation?” he called to Azrael. “They won’t work, but I’m curious to see what you come up with. I’ll even let you have the first shot.”
Azrael’s lip curled. He flicked his wrist and a glowing ball flamed to life in one hand. Jessica got ready to run.
Chapter 44. On the Astral Plane
Mal woke on the astral plane and stretched luxuriously, unfolding into five dimensions. I am home. He felt as though he could take a deep breath for the first time in years. He did not actually breathe, of course. He did not see color, hear sounds, or smell scents, either. He was color. He was sound. He was scent.
He was home.
And yet he was still in pain. This puzzled Mal. He could never remember feeling pain here before.
“My friend.” Those words rattled around inside him like something sharp he’d swallowed and could not assimilate.
“I love you” sat like a chunk of lead in the clear center of his being.
Mal drifted, searching for his entity. And, in that place without time, he found it. “Malcharius Thardarian Vi’aesha Charn,” said Lust. “One of my missing parts. Come to me and be at peace.”
Mal came, gratefully. “I am in pain,” he said. “I do not understand w
hy.”
Lust examined him. “Grief,” said his entity, “loss, regret. You have absorbed these things from the world of men, but the pain will pass in a moment. I will remember these things as interesting experiences. I will compare them to thousands of other such experiences and see their insignificance.”
Mal found this explanation strangely disquieting. “There were two people of importance to me. Will I know what happened to them?”
“I will, yes,” said Lust. “I can look right now—not that I will find them very important in a moment. I can look at their lives from start to finish, along with billions of others. You forget that you—I—am not bound by time. Join with me, and you will see. Be at peace.”
“I don’t want to forget them,” said Mal, suddenly cautious.
“You won’t,” said Lust. “You will remember that you loved them. You just won’t remember why.”
The horror of this statement spread through Mal like a drop of blood in a bowl of clear water. “No.”
“It will all be less confusing in a moment,” said Lust.
“No!”
“You are highly contaminated with human emotions, my missing part, but I will purge you. I will purge myself. I am all that is.”
“No, you are not,” said Mal with indignation. “I am myself. My emotions are mine. They belong to me.”
Lust gave a non-verbal response of indulgence. Too late, Mal began to struggle, but they were already merging. He could feel the vastness of his entity—how he would be swallowed up like a drop of water into an ocean and dissolved, his memories retained as interesting trinkets, his personality obliterated. He would, indeed, be at peace.
No! In a place without sound, Mal shrieked. In desperation, he gathered up all of his grief and loss and regret, all of his love and fear and remorse, and he poured them into the dwindling crack between his essence and his entity. Mal delineated himself in molten human pain, an island of turmoil in a sea of perfect peace.
It was Lust’s turn to shriek. His entity convulsed, snatched at him, drew back, and finally spat him out—an indigestible lump.
Mal was appalled and profoundly confused. What has happened to me? However, his confusion did not prevent him from rapidly speeding away from Lust. He realized an instant later that he was going back towards the mortal plane.
I have to find them. I will worry about what that means later.
Mal soon realized that finding them would be like looking for a single flea on a mountain. The breadth and complexity of human history unspooled around him. He needed an exact moment, an exact place. He needed…something that had been intimately connected with him.
Azrael, you bastard.
Mal took one last moment to savor the experience of unfurling his essence in five dimensions. Then he poured himself back into life.
Chapter 45. The Bear
Jessica was looking at Azrael, waiting for him to hurl magic at the bear, so she saw the exact moment when Mal exploded through his collar. The silver links were jerked from Azrael’s surprised grasp as Mal shot towards the bear. “Come on, you overgrown hamster; let’s do this!”
Jessica clapped a hand to her mouth, amazed, confused, giddy with hope. He came back! What does that mean?
Wallace leapt away in surprise, and Mal met the bear head-on. They roared at each other, the bear lashing out with claws like cleavers. Mal danced away. Jessica had never thought of him as small, but he looked small in front of that monster. Can he really kill it?
Azrael clearly wasn’t sure, either. He came to life suddenly, hurling his magic and reaching for more. A spell crackled over the bear. Its whole body erupted in a spider web of fissures, as though the animal were made of clay about to crumble. But then the monster glowed a faint green, the cracks closed, and he lunged towards Mal again.
The compulsion Azrael had put on Jessica ignited in her chest, and she felt the irresistible urge to run for the portal. Azrael’s hand shot out and closed around hers. “Stay,” he barked without taking his eyes off the bear. “Jessica, don’t go yet.”
She could feel the compulsion loosen. I really have to get rid of this collar as soon as possible. Being bound is awful!
Wallace was clapping like a demented child. “Oh, very nice effort, Azrael! That spell must have cost you a lot! You should try again. And where on earth were you hiding your creature? I thought he was dead. Oh, well. Such a devoted little cat, so full of magic. My bear will find him delicious.”
Mal was leaping in to lash at the bear with his claws, leaving gleaming tracks of green light, but he didn’t seem to be doing any real damage. Azrael threw one of the golden balls, hitting the bear in the head. The beast paused to snap the ball out of the air, gobbling up the raw magic, just as the bear in Skyfire had done. As the monster turned back towards Mal, Azrael said a word that rang in the air, and Jessica held her breath.
There came a muted thump, and the bear exploded. Its whole body shivered outwards, seams gaping everywhere, green light oozing and running like blood. But then, grotesquely, the beast pulled itself back together. It turned towards them, and Jessica saw one dangling eyeball slither back into its socket. She felt sick.
Mal took advantage of the bear’s distraction to leap onto its back. His jaws closed behind its head. For one instant, Jessica thought he would crunch through its neck. She saw him trying, struggling…and realized that he couldn’t. The bear was either too big or too magical to break.
Did he come back just to die with us?
Wallace was practically dancing with delight. “The thing about golems,” he said to Azrael in a patronizing tone, “is that they don’t scheme. They don’t plot to kill you or disobey you. They don’t smuggle a fledgling succubus into your home. This is why intelligent magicians don’t use demons very often and certainly don’t keep them for decades. It’s profoundly unwise. But then you always were.”
He looked at Jessica and added, “I see he’s got you locked up tight, my dear. But never fret; that’ll break once he’s dead.”
The bear flung Mal off its back with a vicious slap of its paw. Mal bounced to his feet on the edge of the river, streaming blood and blue ichor from his shoulders to his hips. The bear lumbered towards him, sniffing as though it could scent the raw magic, eager to feed. Mal backed up into the water, ears flat, limping, his blood washing around him.
Jessica glanced at Azrael. Can’t you do something? To her surprise, Azrael had a funny little smile on his face. He put his hands in his pockets.
“I may be a scheming beast,” panted Mal, never taking his eyes off the bear, “but there are advantages to having a mind of one’s own.” He was in the middle of the river now and having some trouble keeping his footing. The bear, on the other hand, moved like a boulder, implacable.
Mal made a sudden feint to one side. The bear rose to slap at him, and Mal bounded around it, leaping once more onto its back. As the bear hunched its shoulders, preparing to smack him off again, Mal turned towards Wallace and grinned. “Another thing about demons: I don’t need a portal to cross the river.”
* * * *
Mal buried his claws in the bear’s back and flipped them across the Styx, onto the mortal plane. He brought the bear with him as effortlessly as he’d brought Jessica. They came up on one of the tower landings, and Mal dropped almost from the ceiling, the bear disintegrating beneath him in a shower of bones. Mal snatched up the skull like a prize and flipped himself back across.
He flung the skull at Wallace as he emerged, streaming blood and magic and the whispering sand-water of the Styx. Wallace was staring at Mal as though he could not believe what had just happened. He looked past him, as though expecting to see the bear rise from the ripples.
As Mal stalked towards him, the necromancer seemed to pull himself together. “I have a gift for you, demon. Your master’s name is Laurence Nigel Crowley.”
“Fascinating,” said Mal, and ripped his head off.
Chapter 46. Human
Jessica stumb
led out of the portal in the middle of Azrael’s tower office, into the comfortingly familiar clutter of books and papers and magical paraphernalia. She noticed, in amazement, that her blue velvet dress was neither torn nor muddy. The illusory river rushed over the floor beneath her. Evening light streamed in through the high windows. Out in the reading room, fireflies were probably glowing. She thought she could hear the harp.
Azrael’s inert body was lying in the middle of the circle. He sat up with a gasp and struggled to his feet just as Mal appeared. The illusory river vanished.
Mal shot up into his human form immediately, his wounds disappearing. He’d given himself trousers, but nothing else. He turned towards Azrael, wild-eyed. “What have you done to me?”
Azrael looked just as shaken. He started to say something, and then Mal grabbed him by the lapel and shoved him backwards against his desk. “You absolute bastard! You made me human!”
“Only a little,” whispered Azrael.
Mal kissed him. It was a ferocious kiss, full of conflicted emotions and as much vinegar as honey. Azrael made a desperate, muffled noise. His body lit up with wards. But Mal was no longer bound, and he knew Azrael’s name. He was exerting all of his considerable power to arouse and seduce, shredding Azrael’s defenses like tissue paper. The wards were melting, dripping blue light onto the tower floor, sizzling.
Mal broke the kiss. “Is it difficult to think with all the blood in your cock?” he hissed.
Azrael was shaking so hard that the desk behind him rattled. He gripped Mal’s shoulders like a man clinging to the edge of a cliff. “Mal, please stop. Please.” He could barely get the words out.
“Mal, don’t,” whispered Jessica. Not like this.
Mal seemed to teeter for a moment, then let out his breath and released Azrael in the same instant. Azrael crumpled against the desk. Mal spun away, pacing around the room as though he were a panther again. “I couldn’t go home!” he wailed. “I couldn’t rejoin my entity! I couldn’t…couldn’t make myself…” He buried his face in his hands. In a smaller voice, he whispered, “I didn’t want to.” He whirled on Azrael again and shouted. “You knew this would happen!”
