Morning Star

by Nazri Noor

  My fingers dug into the earth, the underside of my nails filling with soil. “You’re a fucking asshole.”

  “How charming.” Belphegor chuckled, then turned her head towards the trees. “Ah. There’s my signal to depart.”

  She spun in place, her body bursting into a column of crimson flames that dissipated as she faded out of reality. A second explosion erupted at the spot where she had stood, this one coming from an angry, sputtering ball of fire that rocketed from the direction of the trees where Priscilla kept her kitchens. Raziel yelped and dived out of the way, his spear disappearing as it fell from his hands.

  Priscilla yowled in fury, the ground thundering as she loped hurriedly towards us. In her hand was a long, gnarled branch. Its tip glowed like an ember, issuing wisps of black smoke. The earth reverberated as she slammed the end of her staff into the ground one final time. Ouch. I felt that in my bones.

  “It’s too late, Priscilla.” Artemis disengaged her bow and returned her arrow to her quiver. “Sloth is gone.”

  And again, in spite of my suffering and the fact that my body was still rocking with spasms from Belphegor’s psychic assault, I couldn’t control my curiosity. I raised one shaking finger at the wooden pole in Priscilla’s grasp.

  “What the hell is that?” I croaked.

  “Staff of fireballs,” Artemis said. “Priscilla loves magical weapons. What, where do you think her salary goes?”

  3

  I pressed the wet towel harder against my forehead, willing the cool compress to work better at wicking away the residual ache of Belphegor’s brain-fire surprise. Seriously, what a huge jerk. My foot dangled off the edge of my bed and I sighed, wishing the world would be just a little bit cooler. Creatio ex nihilo powers be damned, I still couldn’t do a single thing about chilling the air around me.

  Belphegor was right about one thing. Artemis’s domicile was pretty hot most hours of the day, set at that sort of tropical climate she liked to maintain, something about how it suited the animals. More like how it suited her, truthfully. It’s like that thing of how an old married couple bickers about the thermostat all day long, except in our case, we were all married to Artemis, and she won the argument, every time.

  “Okay, boy,” I said, one hand still damp from pressing the towel to my brow, the other holding my phone out towards the little wooden chest sitting on the floor. “Do like this. Copy this.”

  The box creaked as it tilted sideways, stretching and warping, then making a low whimper, very much like a dog.

  “It’s okay, boy.” I sighed, dropped my phone onto my chest, then patted the box on its – well, where its head would be. It whined again, this time making a somewhat happier noise. It was hard to tell with Box.

  Super creative, I know, but that was the name I settled on for the mimic who wanted to come home with us, that night out at the warehouse. And so far, so good. The thing hadn’t tried to eat parts of my body in the night, though he did enjoy a steadily omnivorous diet.

  Actually, that might be slightly inaccurate. Box liked raw meat, and berries, and nuts – and planks of wood, and crumpled paper, and basically everything else I tried to feed him. You couldn’t really tell from a casual glance, but Box’s mouth was precisely at the seam where his lid opened. Inside were just rows and rows of enormous, wickedly sharp teeth.

  As for why it was a him – I don’t know. It just felt right. He seemed to respond really well to “Good boy,” but then again, he also really liked the name Box, so maybe it was something about the B sound.

  Box had permanently taken the shape of a wooden chest, too, just like Artemis’s field guide said. It could have been some kind of genetic memory, based on what mimics were known for doing historically, which was to hang out in the dungeons, cellars, and studies of especially cruel and creative wizards. There they would wait in disguise, eager to eat the fingers and hands off of reckless thieves – maybe even entire bodies, if they were lucky.

  I picked up my phone, sighing as I gazed at the photo I’d brought up on my browser. Box whined again. I smiled at him and shook my head.

  “It’s okay, boy. This is a tough one. I don’t expect you to pull it off that quickly.”

  Over the past week or so, I’d been showing him pictures of air-conditioners and electric fans, hoping that visual exposure would somehow teach or encourage him to transform into one. Genius, you say? Totally. How Box could even see anything without a pair of eyes was anyone’s guess, but it seemed to be working to some extent.

  One time, he’d actually stretched his body into the circular shape of an oscillating fan. The jury’s out on whether he would have the proper mechanical ability to blow cool air right into my face, but hey, you never know until you try.

  Naturally, the more permanent solution would have been to go out and buy an AC unit in the first place. Still, until Florian and I knew whether Loki was just making false promises or actually planning to pay us a fair price for retrieving his sword Laevateinn, we needed to keep our expenses under control.

  Artemis paid us a little, sure, but after the initial construction work we did for Paradise, that stipend shrunk. Commensurately so, I hate to admit. It wasn’t like we did much else to help around the place apart from some random chores and minor repair work.

  Priscilla, though? I didn’t know how much she made, but she deserved every penny for all of the delicious meals she lovingly prepared for everyone who lived in Paradise. And whatever her salary was, it must have been pretty sweet. I mean, she could afford to collect artifacts. I still wasn’t over the fact that she kept a staff of fireballs in the kitchen.

  I put my phone to sleep, folded my hands behind my head, and sighed again. “I guess we’re just really going to have to go to Loki and get our paycheck.”

  Florian lumbered in just then, giving Box a quick, cautious glance before stepping towards my bed. “It’s the best option we’ve got. Beatrice Rex still expects you to pay up for that invisibility bracer, remember?”

  “Yeah, yeah. Don’t remind me.”

  I rubbed my hand against my face. It wasn’t going to make me invisible in the conventional sense, only enough to disguise my spiritual signature so that entities like Belphegor and his friends could no longer track me. That was all that mattered, really. If I wiped myself off the map, then I’d have far fewer arcane ambushes and supernatural surprises to deal with.

  “We should visit Loki soon,” Florian said. “He said to just go over to Happy, Inc. headquarters whenever we were ready. Are you feeling better?”

  I sat up and nodded. “I think so. You?”

  Florian sat on the foot of my bed and nodded back. “I’m okay. But it really felt like Belphegor was punching me out from the inside of my brain. Stabbing, more like. The worst kind of pain.”

  My hands flew to my forearms to rub down the goosebumps forming on my skin. The sheer memory of the agony was enough to make me shudder. “Don’t remind me. What could she possibly want from you now?”

  He shook his head. “Dunno, but she’s right. I still owe her.”

  “What exactly for?” I cocked an eyebrow. “I needed her help for something specific. The fact that you owe her a favor means you needed something too.”

  Florian threw his hands up, then plonked down onto the lower half of my bed. “It wasn’t even by choice, you know? I told you before, I was in hibernation for a while. When I woke up, I was in Belphegor’s garden. Nasty place, just a bunch of carnivorous plants, and a lot of toxic ones, too. The kind that spit acid in your face. Anyway, that alone meant that I owed her, me waking up in the Crimson Gardens.”

  I scoffed. “That hardly seems fair.”

  “Not really, no, but she reasoned that she could have crushed me to death, fried me up in oil, turned me into nut butter.” He made a shape with his arms around himself. “I was in a seed form at the time. In a fetal position, but there was this thick membrane around me, like a shell.”

  “Or an egg. Or a cocoon. Man, you alraunes ar
e weird.”

  Florian shrugged. “Point is, she spared my life and allowed me to grow in her garden, taking in the nutrients and whatever form of sunlight they had down there. That was the favor. And now she wants me to return it.”

  I patted him on the shoulder. “Listen, I might not understand what Belphegor is going to need from you, but I’m here. I’ll help you any way I can.” Box nuzzled up against my foot just then, making an odd, wooden noise that might have passed for a vague bark. “And Box will, too. Won’t you, boy?”

  Florian sat up, folding his legs under him, making sure that Box was nowhere near his toes. He frowned at the mimic for a moment. “Might as well take him along when we go to see Loki. You never know. If things go super sideways, maybe Box could eat his face off.”

  I chuckled. “Box would probably love that. Wouldn’t you, boy? Would you like to eat a rat bastard trickster god’s face? Of course you would.”

  I rubbed Box across the top of his lid, tickling with the tips of my fingers – not at all expecting him to open wide, show me his rows of spiky teeth, then lick my hand affectionately with his huge, snakelike tongue.

  Huh. That was new.

  4

  Florian and I didn’t have to wait in the lobby of Happy, Inc. headquarters for very long. Within minutes we were ushered through the locked security doors by a woman who introduced herself as Katherine.

  Katherine had a pleasant enough smile that got more and more disconcerting as you realized how it never left her face, almost as if some invisible strings were pulling on the sides of her cheeks and making her look that way.

  Fortunately, there was plenty to see around Happy HQ without having to stay focused on Katherine’s increasingly creepy smile. I didn’t know what Loki’s hiring standards were, or if he made an effort to, um, magically enhance his employees to help them better fill their job roles, and I didn’t want to find out.

  The office was a skyscraper located in Central Square, the heart of Valero’s central business district, which also, incidentally, contained the local Lorica office. How Loki could keep his seat of power so close to people who were essentially the paranormal police was anybody’s guess, but the Norse god of deceit had amassed a lot of magical might in contemporary times. He had plenty of mundane security upfront, which only hinted at the amount of arcane protections he would have had in place as well.

  Loki’s offices reflected the spirit of his fast food empire, all bright colors and fun decor made to evoke the young, carefree nature of Happy’s various franchises. Katherine plied us with samples as we headed towards the back of the building, where we were assured that the elevator leading directly to Mr. Theodore Thorpe – Loki’s human alter ego – was waiting.

  By the time we got to said elevator, both Florian and I had been loaded with everything the Happy empire had to offer: artisanal hotdogs, steamed Chinese meat buns, milk tea in various fancy flavors, even miniature bowls of their upcoming Happy Ramen franchise.

  Whenever possible, I dropped crumbs and morsels into my right pocket, where I kept Box. We’d practiced this before. He liked going on walks with me, which only ever happened around Paradise because you obviously can’t go around a dog park with a little treasure chest on a leash.

  Box seemed to understand that he needed to keep a low profile out in the real world, so on command, he’d conveniently shrink himself down to a little cube about the size of a die. Katherine, fortunately, didn’t seem to notice the faint munching sounds that issued from my jeans pocket.

  The decor got more severe and serious as we reached the back of the building, until everything was so sumptuous and rich that you’d thought we’d been transported to a different property entirely. Here it was just all deeply stained woods and shiny lighting fixtures and knobs and knockers, including those found on the door opening out into the single elevator that Katherine helpfully corralled us into.

  “Mr. Thorpe will be waiting at the top,” she said cheerily, the whiteness of her permanent smile searing itself into my brain.

  “Thanks for your help,” I answered, giving her a small wave. Florian tried to say something similarly polite, but had too much hotdog crammed in his mouth to successfully do so.

  The elevator quietly hummed as it brought us to our destination. The thirteenth floor, we learned from the brightly polished numbers mounted on the wood-paneled walls as we stepped out into a corridor carpeted in rich vermilion. Thirteen. Typical.

  Florian nudged me with his elbow. “I feel so poor,” he said, though not with any amount of shame. It was more out of excitement, the odd, naughty thrill of knowing that we weren’t supposed to be there, that we didn’t belong.

  I nodded. “Totally agree. This all feels so pretentious, which is probably exactly how Loki likes it.”

  A pair of doors near the metallic numbers on the wall swung open, faint strains of classical music spilling out. I rolled my eyes, having no doubts that Loki heard us gossiping about him through the walls. Florian and I stepped through the double doors, and I fought to keep my awe to myself as we stepped into Loki’s offices.

  The bastard had rearranged the place. He had to have. There was no desk there, only endless rows of bookcases filled with ancient, impressive-looking books. Tall, huge light fixtures tipped with green glass lamps that glowed like emeralds flanked a massive chair that sat in the center of the room. To either side of the chair were huge black vases positively overflowing with lush plants that spilled their snaking tendrils all over the floor. I could smell them, too, the cool, sweetish scent of green, and somewhere in there, the aroma of freshly turned earth.

  It was like Loki’s own little taunting joke. He knew exactly what Florian needed to activate his powers, and Loki made sure we could see that he didn’t fear his nature magic. “Try and strangle me with these vines that I’ve provided for you,” the presence of the vases seemed to suggest. “Try and see what happens.”

  And in the massive chair which was upholstered in shimmering red velvet and finished in black lacquer, a seat that was more throne than anything, sat Loki, one leg casually draped over the other, a smirk on his lips.

  “The nephilim and the alraune. So we meet again.”

  Florian grunted his greeting. I scratched my eyebrow and shot him an annoyed look. “It’s not like I’m thrilled about this or anything.”

  Loki chuckled. “Always so charming, Mason Albrecht.” He leaned forward in his throne, then sniffed at the air. “I smell something familiar. Something I made on my own.”

  “Oh. Must be this.” I plucked Box out of my pocket, felt him wriggling happily in my fingers as I set him down on the floor. He grew several orders of magnitude within seconds, transformed into a little treasure chest once more.

  “A Cube,” Loki breathed. “One of them survived?”

  I stuck my chest out proudly. “And followed me home. His name is Box.”

  Loki rose from his throne, then bent forward, as if to touch the mimic. Box growled. The god flinched, frowned, and quickly retrieved his fingers. I kept my smile to myself.

  The first few nights with Box in my hut, I had mildly disconcerting dreams where I would wake up to find that he’d singlehandedly – or singlemouthedly, rather, devoured every last animal that fell under Artemis’s protection.

  It was encouraging, seeing the mimic be so apprehensive towards the fickle god that made him. It meant that there was very little chance of Box suddenly developing a fondness for his wayward asshole father and turning on everyone in Paradise.

  “I don’t like it,” Loki said, his fingers safely tucked into the palm of his other hand as he returned to his throne.

  “Well, you’re in luck.” Florian knelt on the floor, giving Box a tentative pat on the lid – the first time I’d seen him do so. “He doesn’t like you either.”

  Loki sniffed, raising his nose in the air. “Pray that it doesn’t learn to bite the hand that feeds it.”

  “Right,” I said. “Whatever, man. Listen, we’re just here
for all the money you owe us. Remember? For retrieving the one magical weapon you actually do own, plus the other two that you lied to us about?”

  The god laughed, covering his mouth when the first peals came out too loud and thundered around his office. “It was entertaining, all right? So very amusing, seeing all of those disparate parties come together, all because you two numbskulls couldn’t be bothered to do a little research.”

  My eyes narrowed as I focused on his stupid face, as I imagined how much fun it’d be to punch his teeth in. “I don’t like libraries. I don’t like books.”

  That was a lie. Reading’s fun, when I’m in the mood for it. But considering how my last few brushes with books nearly got me killed – I’m talking about Quilliam and his levitating literature, here – I wasn’t too keen about opening one up for some light afternoon reading any time soon.

  My lips curled. Quilliam. Just the thought of him made my blood simmer. I dug my nails into my palms, reminding myself that we were only at Happy, Inc. to pick up our paycheck, and not to rearrange Loki’s face.

  “More’s the pity,” Loki said. “There’s so much to be learned from a good spot of reading. One or two spells, for example. Ah, but surely the newbie nephilim, the son of Samyaza has no use for tawdry hedge magic. Why bother when he has twenty-four hour access to divine miracles and the armories of all the heavens themselves?”

  I hadn’t meant to do it, but the joints in my knuckles popped when I clenched my hands into fists. The god grinned, satisfied and pleased by how he was getting his hooks into me.

  “Listen, Loki. We didn’t come here to chitchat. We’ve got no reason to make nice and polite with you, considering the number of times you’ve put me and my friends in danger. So if you don’t mind – just sign the check out to Mason Albrecht.”