Darlings of New Midnight

by Andrea Speed

  While she did yawn on her way back to the bedroom, she wasn’t really tired. Sometimes magic coursed through her veins like mystical speed, and now was one of those times. Lyn was sleeping, because she could sleep anywhere at any time. She went into instant deep coma-like sleep whenever given the chance, sleeping the sleep that only the genuinely fearless could manage. Technically, Esme should be able to do that too, since she hardly needed to fear anything, but these were uncertain times, when even being the most powerful witch might not be enough. And while Lyn was, as Logan called her, a “tank,” she could still die. Yeah, it was hard to kill a harpy, but it had been done. And Hell must have known it couldn’t attack Alex/Cthylor directly, because they’d be as useless as Heaven against a protogod. But the rest of them? Fair game. Maybe even Ceri, which should be off the table, but Lucifer had shown no sign of caring whether his offspring lived or died, especially if he wasn’t going to do the task he was created for.

  Did she want to bust out her Tarot cards again? They certainly worked well predicting Alex, but they also made her a little uneasy. Which was funny because Esme had done it to herself. Maybe if she hadn’t cursed the cards, their accuracy wouldn’t have been so unsettling. The problem was she was too good at her job.

  Still, she got herself a soda from the fridge and sat at the coffee table, her cards in her hand. In a strange way, she didn’t want to do this. But if she could get any information from them, it would be worth it. Esme shuffled the cards and asked, “What will Hell’s response be?” She shuffled them one more time and then laid the first three cards on the coffee table.

  To say the three cards were both on the nose and yet very confusing was an understatement. The first card was the Devil, because of course it would be, and the second card was the Two of Swords, with the blindfolded woman holding up two blades. Huh? And the third was the Wheel of Fortune, which looked much more entertaining than the TV game show. “What the hell is this supposed to mean?” she asked. Not that the cards could answer.

  She studied them, trying to tease out the message. Maybe the Wheel of Fortune was the cards’ way of telling her that there were no firm plans yet and there were a plethora to choose from. But what was the Two of Swords doing here? It was the card of stalemate. But Hell had no counter to Cthulhu, so that made no sense.

  Unless… maybe she needed to go deeper on the meaning here. The Wheel of Fortune basically meant the law of chance was in play, and the Two of Swords could mean a balance of forces. The Devil meant what you thought it meant, with an emphasis on black magic. Oh shit—was that what it was?

  She was indeed the reina de las brujas, but if Lucifer wanted to use some magic, most likely it would be a stalemate. Because he wasn’t human, and black magic was his jam anyway. So was that the Two of Swords? They’d cancel each other out? That wasn’t great, but that still meant Cthulhu tore Hell to pieces, so it definitely wasn’t a win for Lucifer’s side.

  But he had to know that. He was an arrogant fuck, but not stupid. Magic was of super-limited use against Cthulhu, and the best it could do was annoy him. Since that would only make him more angry, that was, at best, an own-goal.

  There were steps she could take. It was impossible to completely nullify black magic, especially if it was Lucifer casting it, but its edges could be blunted. That would break the stalemate. Not that he couldn’t do damage, but it would reduce it up to half if she got it right. So Esme had no choice but to get it right.

  She packed up her cards and went off to the bedroom, where Lyn was sleeping like a dead person. While at first it was kind of distressing, Esme had to admit she liked it because she didn’t have to worry about being quiet. She went into the closet and found a box set on the floor, tucked into the far corner.

  It looked like a battered old Macy’s box with a broken corner, and if anyone lifted the lid, they’d find lots of receipts and other boring tax documents. Except that was a lie. This was a complicated, interactive glamour, which was also a “lock” only she knew how to open. A pass of her hand over it, along with the words that acted as a key, and the Macy’s box illusion fell away, revealing a weathered old jewelry box with a physical lock on it. She sprang the lock with a touch and opened the lid to reveal a sort of unimpressive collection of what appeared to be aged costume jewelry. Except that wasn’t true at all.

  This was Esme’s collection of enchanted jewelry. Not cursed, not ensorcelled by her, but mostly heirlooms or things she’d picked up in random places. Logan and Ceri actually brought her a couple they’d found in their own travels. She looked through the items until she found what she wanted—a hinged silver bracelet that looked like it came from that period of time in the late ’60s/early ’70s, when chunky jewelry was a brief but terrifying rage. It honestly looked plain and a little old. Maybe you could pick it up for a buck at the thrift store. That was nothing but natural camouflage.

  It was in fact the only remaining piece of the Gauntlet of Hecate, supposedly blessed by the goddess of witchcraft herself. It enhanced the natural power of witches, but also it acted as kind of a force field against black magic. That was specific to one user, but having it around put a damper on the ability of black magic to do damage. It also enhanced the efficacy of poisons, but she wasn’t sure that applied here. Still, if black magic were being thrown at them, Hecate would deflect some of it, and there were rumors it was gender based—Hecate’s Gauntlet worked twice as hard on a man throwing black magic than a woman. Esme had no idea if that had been field-tested or not, but Hecate had a soft spot for female witches and a general dislike of men. Esme could sympathize.

  She could feel the tingle of magic when she touched the bracelet. Yet she didn’t use it often, mainly because she didn’t need to. Between her evil eye and natural talent, she could blow most of her fellow witches out of the water, dark or light. It would have been like adding Ebola to a nuclear warhead. At a certain point, why bother? You couldn’t double kill someone. It wasn’t necessary.

  But if Lucifer was going to throw black magic at them, at last she had another excuse to try it. It would also give her some idea about the limits of its use. Wearing it for target practice hardly counted.

  She put it on her wrist. It was a little loose, although not by much, and the cool metal was almost enough to cover the tingle of magic. She felt more energized, but that may have been psychosomatic.

  Esme crawled into bed with Lyn, who finally stirred. She muttered something, but Esme didn’t catch it. Lyn put her arm around her waist and snuggled up against her. She was wonderfully warm and soft, with surprisingly taut muscles mixed in with her nicely curvaceous form. Esme had a bit of weakness for the curve of her hip.

  Since Lyn could look like any woman, she could have looked like a supermodel at all times. But what Esme really loved about her was she kept it fairly real. Lyn looked like a healthy gal, with some heft and toned arms that were fairly beefy for a woman. Lyn liked to say she didn’t want her strength to be a complete surprise. Esme related her to Amethyst from Steven Universe, only for her to complain she wasn’t short. But other than that, she had no dispute with the comparison. In fact, half joking, Lyn told her she might try to mimic the skin tone for Halloween, even though she’d never done purple before. She might try to change her hair color too. Esme kind of hoped the world wouldn’t end so she could see that. It also gave Esme a chance to figure out what her costume would be. She thought about a gender-bent Steven, but would that be goofy? Still, probably too early to think about it, since the apocalypse, as far as she knew, was still happening.

  Esme looked at the bracelet on her wrist and thought she could see the faint traces of old runes and the spells carved into it so long ago. Idly, she wondered if she could call on Hecate to join the fight. After all, another god on their side wouldn’t be a bad thing, and she couldn’t quite shake the feeling that the destruction of Heaven was a little too easy.

  Lyn rolled over toward her and opened her eyes. “Hey, you.”

  Esme was genui
nely surprised. “Did I wake you up?” That almost never happened.

  “Nah. Had a weird dream about a monorail and peanut butter.” Before Esme could ask about that, Lyn stroked her arm and came across the bracelet. “Hey, jewelry. What’s the cause?”

  “It’s the Gauntlet of Hecate. Helps ward off black magic.”

  “Cool. I guess now is the time to pull out everything that might help. Or might not. Smoke ’em if you got ’em, yeah?” Lyn trailed her fingertips over Esme’s arm, lightly enough to cause goose bumps. Lyn seemed to go out of her way to seem rough and tough, but she could be surprisingly gentle. You just had to know her. “Still jazzed up?” Esme nodded. “Wanna fool around?”

  She grinned at Lyn. “I thought you’d never ask.” They kissed, and Esme pulled Lyn as close as possible, wrapping her legs around Lyn’s, which were surprisingly muscular. Lyn was a fascinating contrast between wonderfully soft and amazingly taut.

  What was Esme worried about? Between her and her kickass harpy girlfriend, Lucifer didn’t have a chance.

  IT WAS a stupid dream, like all dreams were. Logan was in an office building for some reason, and then he was suddenly outside in a plaza, one of those depressing open-air areas between skyscrapers in some city centers, with seating around a statue or a water feature. In this case, he couldn’t actually tell if the thing in the middle of the plaza was either, because it seemed to change depending on where he was standing.

  Logan always thought these kinds of places were ugly and fucked up. Why did they bother with them? His best guess was the designers thought it might be nice for the sad office drones to eat outside, but since when was that a treat? Did people find lunging seagulls and angry wasps vying for your food charming? Was he missing something?

  Well, probably. Considering his weird-shit life, he probably had no right to judge anyone. Not that that stopped him, but it did occur to him it might be slightly off base. Logan was looking around, wondering where else this stupid dream was going to go, when he was hit by a truck.

  Well, it felt like a truck. It threw him forward so violently that he hit the plaza’s centerpiece—now a statue—and took a good chunk of it with him as he flew through it. He felt the impact of it, and when gravity dragged him back to earth, seemed to be flattened like a pancake. He heard and felt bones crack and wondered if he’d split his skull wide open. But if that were true, how was he conscious? Also, how were all of these physical sensations possible in a dream?

  “You fucker of mothers!” a female voice exclaimed. It was funny to hear motherfucker put that way. “How dare you!”

  Logan tasted blood in his mouth and spat out an impressive amount as he pushed himself up to his hands and knees. He felt every injury, every broken bone and mashed organ, and knew that couldn’t possibly be happening in a regular dream.

  Fantastic. Some of the angels had come to play.

  “I did fucking nothing,” Logan said, sitting back on his haunches. He would swear he could feel his pulped innards sloshing around. “Cthulhu did it. I was just there.”

  “First the Abomination and now Cthulhu. You breed with monsters. You do realize what you are to Cthulhu, yes? Food. In the end it will fuck you, because that’s what it does.”

  “I have not fucked Cthulhu, nor will I ever, so don’t make me sue you for slander.” Logan finally saw who was attacking him. It was the blond yoga teacher he’d seen with Raphael outside the Delacourt Manor, but with a tunic of filigreed silver over her linen pants, and her pale yellow hair was standing up and glowing like a halo, except it was made of hair. It was weird, like a punk haircut gone wrong. Gender didn’t mean anything to angels, so he didn’t know who this actually was, although he might as well think of this one as she. He was going to have to make this one tell him who she was. “Which one are you? Antioch or whatever?”

  She scowled. “Zachariah, you Philistine.”

  Logan gave her a thumbs-up. He really didn’t know any of the angels well. Except his own sister, but did that count? Raphael had mentioned at some point, when the last vestiges of Gill disappeared, she’d get an angel name. Logan couldn’t help but wonder what it would be. Maybe she’d be the new Raphael. “You know torturing me is pointless, right?”

  “Causing you pain is never pointless, meat bag. Torturing you is the whole point.” She raised her flaming sword and started stalking toward him across the frankly boring plaza, and only since he was so close to the ground did Logan realize the patterned tiles that made it up were little ink splotches, like the kind a psychiatrist might show you. They all looked like variations of roadkill to him. Did that mean he was insane? Might be a mercy, all things considered.

  Logan was still trying to figure out if he could stand when a black blade erupted through Zachariah’s chest. She looked as stunned to see it as anyone. “Back off from the boyfriend, you bitch,” Ceri said, yanking Godslayer out.

  Since this was a dream, Godslayer didn’t act like it did in the real world. But Ceri had enough presence here that it clearly hurt as he yanked it out. “How the fuck are you here, Abomination? You can’t do this.”

  “I can if I’m invited.”

  “And I totally invited him,” Logan admitted. Now that Ceri was here, the sense of pulped organs and injuries was going away. In dreams, willpower could determine everything, and clearly Zachariah had a strong will, but so did Ceri. Logan had made a minor name for himself as a stubborn bastard, but obviously he couldn’t compete with supernatural beings. He felt well enough to get to his feet, and Ceri gave him a hand, all while keeping Godslayer aimed at Zachariah. For her part, the sword wound had healed over already, although there was a bloody streak on her otherwise exquisitely polished silver armor, which had seemingly healed over as well.

  Zachariah snarled at him, and Logan almost took it personally. “You are under his sway and you don’t care.”

  “I’m not, as much as you give a shit,” he replied. It bugged the hell out of him that everybody thought he was under sway.

  “You can rebuild Heaven, start over,” Ceri said. “And maybe not have such a hard-on about the apocalypse this time.”

  Zachariah scoffed. “Are you that dumb, or are you being an idiot to be irritating? The apocalypse is still happening. Just because the prophecy didn’t mention you being the Destroyer of Heaven doesn’t mean you won’t be the Destroyer of Earth.”

  “Repeating something doesn’t make it so,” Ceri pointed out.

  Zachariah made a noise like a swallowed scream and raised her sword high, where it bloomed with flames. She swung it their way, but Ceri grabbed Logan’s arm and pulled—

  —and Logan woke up in bed with Ceri beside him. “Holy fuck,” Logan said, not 100 percent sure he was awake. What if Ceri had moved him to another dreamscape?

  Before he slapped himself to check, Ceri stirred and put a hand on his arm. “You okay?”

  Logan nodded, even though he wasn’t sure. He had to get used to strange shit happening all the time. He thought he had, but clearly not.

  “I hate to tell you, hon, but this might be the new normal for a while,” Ceri said, giving his arm a comforting squeeze.

  Logan sighed and wished he didn’t find that so depressing. Was he going to look forward to those weirdass dreams he used to have, like somehow being in a circus on a cruise ship in the desert? “Did we do the right thing?”

  “Honestly? I’m not sure,” Ceri admitted. He turned on his side and faced him. It was dark, but not so dark Logan couldn’t see him and his bisected face. Logan couldn’t understand how anyone could miss his beauty. “At least it will force my dad’s hand, making him act. Subtly or dramatically.”

  “Which is worse?”

  “They’re both terrible in slightly different ways.”

  “Fantastic.” Why did he think it would be any different? Anything about Satan was terrible.

  Logan wondered if he was ready for whatever came next. And he wondered if it mattered either way.

  THE NEXT morning,
they had everyone drop in to discuss strategy over breakfast. Esme offered to conjure up food, which Logan found disturbing. Sure, it was a great thing to do, and boy, wouldn’t he have loved it when he was a kid and sometimes wondered if they’d be eating that night. But Logan liked to cook when he had a chance to do so.

  So they compromised, and Esme conjured up a couple of things while Logan made scrambled eggs for those who wanted them. He generally scrambled them with salsa, so most people enjoyed them. Well, except the vegans. Ahmed sat it all out, as he didn’t eat, and gave them all disgusted looks. He’d forgotten to ask Alex if they had any food allergies or anything, but luckily they didn’t.

  Esme was vegan and stuck to toast and other egg-free things, but Lyn was anything but and basically inhaled whatever was put in front of her. If it wasn’t apparent there was no such thing as body shaming in harpy culture before, it certainly was now. Once he’d settled down to eat, Logan joined in the conversation.

  “Do you think we’ll have any downtime before Lucifer reacts?” Lyn asked, between forkfuls of eggs. Lyn’s healthy appetite for absolutely everything had attracted Logan at first, and it still kind of did. He admired both the fearless and the shameless, and she was both in one package.

  “Knowing my dad?” Ceri responded. “Not much.” He then frowned and looked at Esme. “Are you wearing something anointed by Hecate?”

  “Wow, you are good. Yeah, I am. I did a reading last night, and it seemed to indicate that Lucifer would use black magic to counter us.”

  After Ceri finished signing that, Alex scoffed. “Black magic is nothing.”

  Ceri nodded. “Normally, no. But if Lucifer’s wielding it, it’s a whole different beast. I mean, a shark isn’t a threat outside water, but in it, it’s a nightmare.”

  “We’re not bothered by sharks either,” Alex said, cheerful as always. They gestured at their plate with a fork. “These eggs are great.”