by Nazri Noor
I scratched my forearm sheepishly. “Sorry about that.”
Sterling scoffed. “It’s nothing. But you’ve got other stuff to be sorry about.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “You still haven’t called Asher, I see.”
It was tough not to show my guilt, but I managed to keep my cringing on the inside. Asher was my closest friend at the Boneyard, a necromancer, one of the rarest types of mages you could be in the arcane underground. Carver was our combination boss, mentor, and father figure, everything in one, a deathless lich who had eagerly adopted each of us and welcomed Asher to his unholy fold.
I rubbed the back of my neck, grimacing. “I promise, I will, okay? One of these days. It’s just not the right time yet. And besides, the news flash here is that you really shouldn’t be sifting through Carver’s stuff. I hear that some of it is booby-trapped.”
Come to think of it, he might have even kept one or two mimics around the Boneyard to protect his valuables. It fit his personality precisely.
“Stealing comes with the territory.” Sterling winked, his eyes practically twinkling in the Black Market’s many-colored lights. “I’m a naughty boy, I am.”
Florian tilted his head, frowning. “Boy? Aren’t you hundreds of years old?”
Sterling leaned his torso forward, frowning back harder. “Aren’t you?”
I pushed my hand between their chests, sliding my shoulder in to separate them bodily. “Whoa there, boys. Play nice. You got along before, what the hell is going on?”
“Just a bit of cheeky banter.” Sterling shrugged. “It’s nothing serious.”
Florian’s shrug mirrored Sterling’s. “We’re just playing, is all.”
I looked between them suspiciously. “Well, you guys are both hundreds of years older than me, so maybe quit acting so childish.”
“Childish?” Florian blinked at me incredulously. “Did you know how you were behaving with Quilliam back there?”
“Quilliam?” Sterling narrowed his eyes. “Are we talking about that douchebag who tried to blow you up that one time, then the other time?”
“You slashed his tires,” Florian offered helpfully. “That Quilliam.”
“Oh, that’s right.” Sterling chortled, clapping his hands. “Good times.”
I stamped my foot and folded my arms. “I was not misbehaving. I acted completely appropriately in the presence of someone who was minutes away from roasting my ass. Or my chest. Whatever, point is, the guy’s an asshole, and I can’t be held accountable for my actions around him.”
“Aww.” Sterling threw an arm over my shoulder, his flesh and his skin freezing cold even through his leather jacket. “Isn’t he adorable when he pouts? Look at him sulking.”
“It’s cute,” Florian said. “He gets all red, then his skin starts glowing.”
I looked down at myself, and he was right. My sigils were pulsing right through my shirt. I gathered my arms around my chest, keeping them there and letting my emotions settle. The Black Market was the last place I wanted to be exposing myself, it being the city’s epicenter of magical activity and everything.
“Settle down,” Sterling muttered close to my ear. “We don’t want anybody kidnapping you for your organs. They’d probably fetch a pretty penny in a chop shop, too. You never know who wants an extra spleen. Hmm. Nephilim spleen.”
I shuddered at the thought. Florian nodded in silent agreement.
“Don’t worry,” Sterling added, this time speaking through a cheery grin. “You’re safe with us. Uncle Sterling will make sure you’re okay.”
The thing is, he was right. With my friends around, I never felt vulnerable. I made sure to hide my smile from Sterling, and the three of us continued on out of the Black Market.
Sterling was, unsurprisingly, welcomed back into Paradise with open arms. Artemis had clearly taken a liking to him, maybe because of their shared affinity for darkness and the moon. Actually, it might have been as simple as a matter of compatibility. They both had that laidback vibe, and Artemis really valued the casual, relaxed life. She never even questioned Sterling about showing up without an offering of Snacky Yum-Yums.
To my surprise, the same courtesy was extended to Raziel. I’d summoned him to help me test out the bracer, using a simple communion that involved a sheet of paper, a hastily drawn circle, and a spot of my blood. I did this all from a comfy spot on the ground, because hey, I needed to stretch my legs, plus I hadn’t quite managed to buy or build myself a proper desk yet. Sorry.
Raziel showed up in a huff and a pillar of golden light, his hands pushed into his hips as he frowned down at me. “You couldn’t be bothered to do a proper circle, maybe? Entice me a little with a scented candle, maybe a sprinkle of flower petals?”
I frowned back up at him. “It’s a communion, not our first date.”
Artemis walked by just then, helping Priscilla with some of the cocktails. She nodded at Raziel in acknowledgement. “Oh. Hey. Sup.”
“Oh. H-hello.”
And that was the end of that conversation. No mention of Snacky Yum-Yums, for once. Either Artemis was too eager to get to her pitcher of frozen margaritas, or she was starting to see Raziel as someone who wasn’t just another pain in the butt.
“So,” Raziel said, collecting himself once Artemis was out of earshot. “Why did you call me here, exactly?”
“I need a favor.”
“Evidently the case.” Raziel sniffled. “Seems to be the only reason you ever summon me anymore. Can’t we go out and explore sometimes? I’d like to see more of the world, but through your eyes. Eat your food. See your sights. Smell your smells.”
It almost made me laugh, but I grimaced instead. “Maybe ‘No’ to that last part. But in all seriousness, Raz, is that really how you feel? I’m sorry if it seems like we just use you as an encyclopedia.” I straightened my back, folded my legs under me, and gave him my sincerest, most serious look. “I promise to let you know next time me and Florian go hang out somewhere, with or without Sterling.”
Raziel turned over his shoulder to look for Sterling, then back to me. “I suppose that’s fine. He still appears to be frightened of me, but he seems friendly enough. That said, I could just look down on you from upstairs like I always do, find you that way. Though I couldn’t exactly see you tonight, try as I might. Have you learned to disguise your spiritual emanations?”
I couldn’t help the way the smile broke across my face like sunshine. Raziel’s response was to squint at me suspiciously.
“So you have,” he mumbled.
“So I have. That’s actually why I called you here tonight. I wanted to test this bracer out and see if it really did hide me from entities.” I raised my forearm at him, fist closed, which I’m pretty sure is a fairly rude gesture in some cultures, but I wanted to check if he could see the bracer to begin with.
Raziel folded his arms and scoffed. “I’m not some genie who just shows up every time you please, Mason. Every time you rub your magic lamp.”
I scratched the end of my nose, grinning. “What’s all this about rubbing my magic lamp, now?”
He reddened at the ears, fuming, then squinting even harder at my forearm. “I’m not sure what I’m looking at.” He snapped his fingers. “A tattoo. You got a new tattoo. A very bad one, by the looks of things. I can’t even see it.”
I rolled my eyes. “No. It’s an enchanted bracer. I bought it, custom-made from Beatrice Rex. Blends into my skin.”
“That’s very clever. Saves you the trouble of having someone attempt to deactivate it, or chop your arm off to do so. But – oh. Oh goodness.”
Raziel stared at me hard, his gaze narrowing even more. Then he firmly shut his eyes. I looked down at my chest and my shoulders.
“What?” I said. “What is it?” I’d changed into a tank top to be comfier for the evening, but my sigils weren’t glowing at all.
“I can’t see you,” he said softly. “I can’t detect you anymore, Mason.”
“Excellent. I hope
it’s good enough to hide me from everyone, especially that Raguel guy.”
“Wait, wait.” Raziel lowered his head, staring fixedly into my eyes. “Did you just say Raguel?”
“The angel of justice? Blond, beefy, kind of a jerk? Yeah, that guy. Florian and I ran into him.”
“Please tell me you at least tried to play nice. Please tell me you didn’t antagonize him.”
I kept my gaze on the ground, rubbing my chin, then forcing out a yawn. “Boy, it sure is late. I’m getting so sleepy.”
Not good enough. Like a long suffering kindergarten teacher – or a mother, actually – Raziel pinned me to the spot with a drawn-out, castigating lecture. I sulked, sucking on my bottom lip and playing with my thumbs. I was in for a long night.
18
It was weird waking up in Paradise and feeling so palpably that something was now very different. There was a certain comfort in knowing that the bracer was protecting me at last, hiding my essence from prying eyes. I woke up feeling refreshed, more rested and calm than I’d been in a long, long time.
Raziel had wandered off and left Paradise long before everyone turned in for the night, but not before berating me for the better part of an hour about giving celestials the benefit of the doubt, lest I incurred even more divine wrath. At least I managed to calm him with my promise that we would go out and eat stuff when all this Belphegor business was over.
But as I discovered coming out of my hut, Sterling was still lingering in Paradise. He’d made it very clear early on that the artificial sun of Artemis’s domicile afforded him a rare and nonlethal way to bask in the sun’s glory again. I could see why he liked hanging out. But as I told him the night before, it simply wouldn’t be feasible to take him along with us to Belphegor’s gardens. We had another appointment, as Florian helpfully pointed out. Our last one, I hoped.
Sterling looked visibly disappointed when I explicitly reminded him that it was daylight out, and there was no way he could come with us to the Beauregard or the Crimson Gardens without bursting into flames.
“Aww. You’re right. Fine, then. Guess I’ll stay here and nap.” He turned to Artemis. “If that’s okay with you?”
“Hey, mi casa and all that. Pick a hammock.”
Sterling swung his legs, then his whole body into a hammock, slipping on a pair of sunglasses and placing his hands behind his head. Where did those even come from? Also, where exactly had he found a pair of board shorts to change into? I placed my hand above my eyes as a visor, glancing around Paradise to look for a gift shop.
“Catch up with you boys after work. Uncle Sterling needs his beauty sleep.” He pulled a wide-brimmed hat over his face – again, what the hell? – then almost immediately started snoring.
Artemis took up one of the hammocks next to him, balancing a split coconut on her stomach. “You boys off to hell again?”
Florian nodded. “Belphegor’s, yeah. The sooner all this is over, the better.”
“Agreed,” Artemis said. “Especially with all those hellephants roaming around. Gotta watch out for hellephants.”
I blinked at her, confused. “You – you meant elephants, right?”
She lowered her sunglasses, fixing me with a glare. “I said what I said. They’re huge, those things, and angry. Pretty sure they can breathe fire when they reach maturity, too. Native to the prime hells. Consider yourselves lucky that Belphegor isn’t asking you to trim jungles for him.” She pushed her shades back up her nose, then settled back into the hammock, sighing. “Not yet, at least.”
Florian bent closer to me. “We’re totally going to die, dude.”
I elbowed him in the ribs. “We’ll be fine. You’ll be fine. Shush. Hellephants? Pssh. As if.”
Artemis suddenly sat bolt upright, which is a feat when you try it in a hammock, let me tell you. “Wait,” she cried out. “Watch out for the bed.”
“The bed?” Florian glanced at me worriedly. The bed we used to access Belphegor’s hell? That bed?
She spread her hands out, her head bobbing forward like she was telling a ghost story. “Legend tells of a truly dangerous bed found only in Sloth’s hell. It’s perfectly soft, yet just firm enough to offer perfect lumbar support. It’s as warm as you want it, and cool enough so you’ll never sweat or want to throw off the downy blankets. It’s the universe’s most comfortable California king-size bed, and if you climb into it, you’ll never want to leave.”
I rolled my eyes and scoffed. “Now that? That is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. Ever.”
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Artemis crooked her finger at me, like a witch placing a curse. “Don’t get into any beds while you’re down there. Belphegor is the Prince of Sloth for a reason.”
Florian shrugged. “I don’t know. As far as punishments go, being stuck in a sweet bed for all of eternity seems pretty okay.”
“I wish I could get in that bed,” Sterling grumbled. “I wish somebody would pick me up and throw me into it, because it looks like nobody around here wants to shut the hell up and let me finally sleep, damn it.”
That was our cue to leave. We did one last check before exiting Paradise: bags, water tumblers, extra clothes, and in my case, a teeny, tiny Box in my pocket. I figured it wasn’t a bad idea to help him get more accustomed to the outside world, just so he’d grow a little more used to the concept that not all people were meant for eating. Baby steps for my baby boy.
The trip to the Beauregard was uneventful, which is a nice, polite way of saying that we managed to get there in one piece without being harassed by killer angels, bratty kids of demon princes, crazy cultists, what have you.
It was the same woman who greeted us at the door, this time wordlessly, ushering us to pick up the keys to room 666 ourselves from the counter. A heavy sensation weighed my chest down as we trudged up the stairs. It might have been an echo of the last time we went there, a phantom remembrance of how it felt to die to a knife in the chest.
“Hey, Florian?”
“It’s okay.” His footfalls on the stairs made them creak each time, and he didn’t even turn to answer me. “I’ll do it this time. Fair is fair.”
“You’re a good friend, man.”
Florian reached the top of the stairs and paused in his steps long enough to smile over his shoulder. “Least I could do.”
Room 666 was only a few notches less musty than our first visit, the imprints of our bodies still visible in the dust clinging to the bedsheets. I grimaced at the patch of brownish red, the freshest looking one, left by my own stab wound. The bed creaked as I sat on its edge, and I pursed my lips apologetically at Florian as he joined me. He shook his head, as if to say “It’s okay.” And it was. But it still made me brutally uncomfortable.
We took our positions in bed, our backs flat against the mattress, motes of dust disturbed by our presence dancing in the thin sunlight streaming through the grimy windows. Florian brought something out of his backpack, a large kitchen knife.
I frowned, then chuckled softly, trying to lighten the mood, as light as you can make a ritual sacrifice, that is. “Priscilla’s going to be pretty mad that you stole that from her.”
“I’ll make it up to her,” Florian answered softly, his chin pressed down into his chest as he checked for the right part to stab himself. He turned to me, eyes full of concern. “It’s going to hurt, isn’t it?”
As best as I could, I nodded, unsure of what else to say.
He lifted his face to the ceiling, then sighed. “Here goes nothing.” The knife plunged into his heart.
I should have looked away. Florian’s cries, first sharp and keening, then sobbing, then gurgling as the blood filled his throat, cut me to my core. It seemed impossible to think it, but this was almost worse than doing it myself the first time.
I should have looked away. In that moment, I realized that Florian really was my closest friend throughout all this. Transfixed, the tears threatening to spill down my face, I watched as the light left Flor
ian’s eyes, the bed hot with his blood. I watched as my best friend died beside me.
19
I blinked again, and the musty interiors of Beauregard room 666 had faded from around us. We were on the same bed, nonsensically mounted out on the red lawn of the Crimson Gardens. Slick, glistening tentacles slinked through the grass, flicking like prehensile tongues at the beads of Florian’s blood that dripped from the mattress. It didn’t matter that he was an alraune, I guess – the human half of him made his blood just as red as mine.
After checking that we were both fine, we peeled ourselves off the bed and set to work. Just as soon as my feet touched the grass, my body became rocked with that same, strange sensation from before. My head kept turning, my eyes continually going over to the squat little structure made of red wood that served as Belphegor’s toolshed.
Florian stepped in to retrieve a shovel, some shears, and a rake. I was about to do the same, only I hesitated at the threshold. He stared at me questioningly, then asked anyway. “Is everything fine?”
I wiped the sweat forming on my palms off on the seat of my jeans. “Yeah. Sure. I think so.”
He chuckled. “You’re not going to get all weird and crabby on me like the last time, are you?”
“Oh, shut up.”
I huffed and pushed past him. He laughed, shrugged, then sauntered off into the gardens. I gathered up the tools I needed as quickly as I could move, giving the rusty hoe lying against the shed’s far wall a wide berth. Even just avoiding looking at it took so much effort, its effect magnetic, sinking hooks into my brain. But I resisted.
Gardening was pretty much the same as the last time, sifting around the grounds and clearing out whatever was left of the weeding and raking that needed to be done. I let Box loose to help out with collecting the debris we extracted from the plants, and to help ward off the slithering tendrils that were too brave and too curious about sniffing at our heels.
