028.005

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Peaceful Days

The Demon

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The main room wasn’t so bad. Not so long as Alyssa held onto the staff anyway. The second she started down the closest hallway, she started to feel nervous again. The staff couldn’t even block out the source of her nerves.

There was moaning.

Had she said that to some of her coworkers back on Earth, they probably would have stifled some of their giggles… or they might have been brash and irreverent. But this wasn’t that kind of moaning at all. It was like… Perhaps it was just because of the building, what it was for, and what Alyssa was here for, but she wanted to compare it to Hell. Tortured souls trussed up in chains within tiny cells, left to rot until they either died or were weak enough to be slain by plague containment teams.

And the cells were tiny. Alyssa wouldn’t have been able to reach the back with her arm even if she wanted to press herself up against the bars, but it would have been close. Every body seemed to be chained in a cage pressed to the back wall. The cages restricted movement but kept them standing. They were too small to sit inside. Because of that small buffer between the cage and the front of the barred cell, she didn’t expect any trouble with a scythe. All she needed to do was find a living one.

It was actually hard to tell if the bodies were living or not. Every single one of them had a thick leather blindfold strapped to their head. It completely covered their eyes and nose. Even though she had her light waving around in front of the cells, she doubted any of them noticed. Which fit with what the Pharaoh had said. They tended to be docile when left on their own. Seeing someone would send them into a frenzy.

What she was surprised about was how many bodies were around.

The biggest clue that a cell occupant was dead was etched into the floor. Those pentagrams. The same ones that had appeared around the demon and the soul it had dragged away. From the Pharaoh and Fela, Alyssa knew that those were bad news. They had to be cleared regularly. Too many building up would apparently create another pit. That meant that some poor people had to actually approach this place and clean them out regularly. They would probably take the bodies too. If Alyssa were in charge, she would see them burned. What they actually did with them, she didn’t know, but burning was a tried and true method for getting rid of infectious plagues.

Though, she didn’t really believe that it was a plague in the sense that she was familiar with anymore. Aside from the demonic aspects of it all, the biggest clue to that was the fact that people just knowing about plague incidents were at risk for developing the infection. It wasn’t a biohazard. It was an infohazard. Of sorts, anyway. Belief in Tenebrael apparently helping to stifle the plague probably meant that it was more of a faithhazard, if she wanted to be technical.

Knowing that was one of the only reasons she had dared to come here.

And she still felt like she needed to go rub her skin raw afterwards.

Alyssa and Kasita trudged on, sharing the staff between them as they moved at a snail’s pace. Neither had said anything since entering the hallway. It wasn’t that they had agreed on silence before walking into it. There was just… something. For Alyssa, at least, she felt like speaking might wind up triggering a frenzy in the things. She was sure that Kasita felt the same way.

“There,” Kasita whispered.

Or not, Alyssa thought, tense as she looked around. There was a mild increase in moaning. Further down the hall, she heard the metal of a cage rattling. But nothing immediately dangerous. Whipping her head back to Kasita, Alyssa slammed her finger to her lips in a silent shushing gesture.

That one moved, Kasita mouthed, pointing into one of the cages.

Sure enough, the skeletally thin toes were wiggling on the thing inside the room. The cell was only the eighth one down on the right, just a quick jaunt from the main room, but for some reason, it felt like she had been walking a lot longer.

With a silent nod to Kasita, Alyssa held out her free hand. She kept it as far away from Kasita as she could as she cast a Spectral Axe. The curved head sprung out of the ethereal shaft in her hand. It was a bit awkward to wield with one hand, but it also didn’t have much weight. Alyssa didn’t have any problem slicing right through the bars and the cage to hook onto the thing inside.

And the scythe did hook. The people and bodies out in the desert had their souls ripped out with frighteningly little effort. This was not the same. The scythe felt more like a meat hook with the body as a hunk of meat.

Except, hunks of meat didn’t scream. The body did. Alyssa almost let go of the scythe as she jerked back. She tried to tug, tried to pull against the soul. The scythe moved. It wasn’t as bad as the Taker. It was possible. But one handed?

“Hold the staff,” Alyssa said. She let go, but only after pressing her leg right up against the haft. Grabbing the scythe with both hands, she tried again.

Sticky tar clung to the tip as she pulled it from the body. The soul, if it could even be called that, clearly didn’t want to leave its host.

Alyssa wasn’t giving it a choice.

As soon as it was free, Alyssa gave it one firm tug to make sure it was out of range of the body.

Then… she did not want to stick around.

All throughout the hall, cages and chains rattled. Moans and screams increased tenfold as more and more of the creatures woke each other up. And… she swore that she could hear actual words among the cacophony. Lucid words. Ones asking for help or release.

Alyssa grit her teeth and ignored them. They were distractions. False words. She had heard from Irulon that Octavia occasionally spoke with lucid words as well. Requests to be freed. Apologies. Temptations. Offers of power. Of Love. The exact kinds of things that Alyssa figured true demons would do. And these words couldn’t be any different.

Alyssa backed away from the cell. With one hand around the staff again, she carefully pulled the soul out and away from the hall, back into the main room. Only when she and Kasita were near the desk did Alyssa stop pulling the soul around. Only then did she allow the scythe to fade away.

Sweat poured down her forehead. There was no air conditioning and no shade for the building with the dead trees, but the sweat came from elsewhere. Worry. Fear. Anxiety. Even with a firm grasp of the staff, she felt sick.

The writhing mass of a soul squirmed in the center of the larger room. It tried to edge away, but its short tendrils could find no purchase on the air or the floor. It was stuck there, impotent.

Now it was just a waiting game.

Alyssa kept her eyes on the hallways. When she had first gotten here, it had been mostly quiet aside from some moaning and the occasional rattle. The entire place had clearly woken up thanks to her stunt. If the things did get free, it would be her fault. And it would be up to her to clean up her mess. Two Annihilators would destroy the entire building. One aimed down either side. She didn’t want to do that if at all possible.

Obliterating half the valley would definitely tip off everyone that she had been inside.

All she wanted was for them to stay in their cages and quiet back down. Until they did, she couldn’t let her guard down.

Not even as a fiery circle carved itself out in the middle of the room with a bright flash.

Kasita gasped. She probably couldn’t see the demon standing in the circle, but the circle itself was definitely visible.

Alyssa honestly couldn’t say if the demon was the same one she had seen back with the Pharaoh. She looked the same, with her mask covering most of her face, leather outfit made of black leather straps, and high boots. For all Alyssa knew, every demon looked like that. She supposed that she was lucky that the demon didn’t have hooks peeling her flesh away or… other mutilations. That might have been another thing that would have kept her far away.

The scythe in the demon’s hands spun as she kicked its base. Just as she had done with the other infected soul. Another circled star lit up in the floor as the soul spiraled downward. So far, everything had gone just as Alyssa had envisioned. Now she just needed to not screw this up. If I accidentally sell my soul to the literal devil, mom will kill me.

“Wait,” Alyssa said, holding out a hand in the hopes that the demon wouldn’t disappear as she had last time.

The demon didn’t say anything, but she did cock her head to one side. Her burning ember of an eye locked onto Alyssa.

“Where is Tenebrael?”

The demon’s head slowly rolled to her other shoulder, all without breaking the lock on Alyssa. Slowly, she lifted up her shoulders and then let them fall. A shrug.

She doesn’t know?

Emboldened by getting something that constituted a response, if not a verbal one, Alyssa tried again. “Do you know if… Has anything happened to her? Is she around this world at all?”

A pregnant pause passed, filled only with the shouts and clanks of the prisoners in the hallways. Eventually, the demon nodded. It was a slow, deliberate nod. She managed to bob her head without losing eye contact.

Momentary elation welled up inside Alyssa until she realized her mistake. She had asked two questions at once. Had something happened to Tenebrael? Was she around? Both? Neither? “Can you talk?” Maybe there was some body horror going on under those leather clothes. Visions of horror movies welled up involuntarily as Alyssa wondered why she might not be speaking. Hooks keeping her mouth shut. Her tongue pierced from the roof of her mouth to the bottom. Her throat torn open and pinned into place like some medical procedure.

With far too many horror movies running through her mind, Alyssa was surprised to find the demon nodding. Again, it was another slow and deliberate nod.

“Then…”

One gloved hand, the one that wasn’t holding onto the scythe, lifted up to the demon’s ear. Or where the ear would have been if not for the strange mask that the demon wore. The demon’s fingers scratched right at the lip where her black hair started, but failed to find purchase. After a moment of fruitlessly trying to remove her mask, the demon started to lower her hand, but paused halfway. The finger pointed straight at Alyssa.

“You want me to…”

Another nod, slightly more eager than before.

“Uh, no,” Alyssa said with a shake of her head. “Nope. Absolutely not. I am not that big of an idiot.”

The skin around the demon’s sole visible eye crinkled in mirth. Her shoulders shook as if she were laughing, but not a single sound came out. It was actually a bit creepy. Even with that miming of laughter, the demon’s eye never strayed from Alyssa.

Concrete evidence that Alyssa had made the right choice, in her opinion.

“So you’ll answer yes or no questions?”

A nod of affirmation.

“But you won’t answer anything more unless I take off your mask?”

Another nod.

“That’s not happening.”

The demon shrugged again, allowing her hand to drop to her side, limp.

How about this then, Alyssa thought, staring back. “Can you contact Tenebrael?”

An affirmative nod.

“Will you contact Tenebrael?”

No. The demon shook her head without hesitation. Alyssa hadn’t even asked if she would contact her to tell her something. The demon simply wouldn’t take the action in the first place.

“Can you tell me how I can contact her? And I don’t mean through Message cards or prayers. Or even calling her on my phone. I’ve tried those. I mean a real definitive way of getting her in front of me so that we can have a conversation.” And maybe so I can punch her in the face for not even bothering to send a postcard. “Without killing someone,” she tacked on.

The demon nodded, meaning the information was transferable, but she lifted her hand to scratch at her mask again.

Alyssa shook her head with a scoff. “No. What about… Can you show me how I can contact her? Same stipulations that I just mentioned apply here.”

This time, there was definite hesitation behind the demon’s eye. It took a moment, but she eventually nodded her head.

That got Alyssa to perk up despite the dreary atmosphere. Now they were getting somewhere. A way to contact Tenebrael. That was exciting for more reasons than just the prospect of talking to her once. Her phone had been a positive step in being able to talk to Tenebrael when she needed as opposed to Tenebrael just showing up whenever it suited her. But, for the past month, the call hadn’t been connecting. Much like how it had acted when Adrael had been jamming it, the phone just fizzled and needed a reboot. So having a more reliable method would be nice.

But also… the way her phone fizzled out had Alyssa worrying that it was actually angel interference rather than Tenebrael simply ghosting her.

Alyssa’s excitement dropped as she realized how she had phrased the question. Licking her dry lips, she had to try again.

“Same question as before except will you show me?”

That mirthful wrinkle returned to the demon’s eye as she quirked her head. Her foot tapped against the ground, a steady heartbeat against the irregular yet thankfully dying background noise of the bedehouse. A gloved hand stretched out toward Alyssa, but it stopped abruptly in the middle of the air. Her hand went flat against an invisible wall, like she was some kind of mime.

Looking down, Alyssa noted that the invisible wall lined up perfectly with the pentagram’s ring beneath the demon’s feet.

So she was trapped in there. Though the scythe could leave the boundary. The soul was outside its radius as was the fresher, smaller circle that the soul had been pulled through. With all the rules Tenebrael and the other angels were forced to follow, it made Alyssa wonder just what kind of restrictions demons had. Surely they had some. Like not being able to leave their circle.

Although the circles had popped up wherever a soul had died, so perhaps they could just make them anywhere.

But now the demon was standing there, staring with her hand out like she wanted to shake hands.

Alyssa just shook her head. Seriously, she thought, glaring at the demon, did all those other idiots in this place wind up infected to obvious ploys like this? She wanted to contact Tenebrael, if for no other reason than peace of mind that the world wasn’t going to be destroyed by Seraphim anytime soon. But she wanted to turn into a zombie-demon-monster-thing even less. She kept one arm around the staff and the other firmly at her side.

The demon took the hint and slowly lowered her own arm. Even with her face mostly covered, Alyssa could see the disappointment in her posture.

“Sorry, you’re going to have to try a little harder for that.”

The demon nodded, serious.

Alyssa felt a tingle go down her spine. Nothing magical, just another thing added to her already unsteady nerves over this whole situation. The demon looked like she was taking Alyssa’s words as a challenge.

That nod, more than anything, convinced Alyssa that she really didn’t want to continue this interview with the demon. It didn’t seem like they were going to get anything valuable out of more discussion anyway. Alyssa decided to end it. Except, a thought popped into her mind as she looked over the demon one last time. “Final question: Can that scythe harm angels?”

The eye crinkled again as the demon gave a vigorous nod of her head.

“Huh. Interesting.” Alyssa filed that bit of information away for later. Maybe she would never use it. In fact, she hoped she never needed to use it. But if she ever lost access to the staff, or if it simply proved to be inadequate for defending herself from angels, at least she knew that something out there might work as an alternative.

“Come on, Kasita. We’re leaving.”

“Oh good. Is it gone?”

“No,” Alyssa said, eying the demon. With her hand still on the staff, she pulled Kasita around the demon and the circle, making sure to give both a wide berth. “But I don’t have any more questions.” That wasn’t completely true, but the demon not talking limited the value of most questions. And that nod accepting Alyssa’s accidental challenge…

Better not give her a chance to rise to the challenge.

The demon slowly pivoted where she stood, moving to keep that unblinking smoldering eye locked on Alyssa. In turn, Alyssa kept facing the demon while she dragged Kasita away from the desk and toward the partially open gate. When Alyssa had her back to the gate, the demon held up a single finger.

Alyssa froze, tensing and gripping her deck of cards tighter as the demon reached two fingers into one of the slits of her outfit’s straps. Hands touching on the staff, Alyssa could feel a few little twitches coming from Kasita, but she wasn’t willing to take her eyes off the demon just yet. Slowly, the demon withdrew her fingers, holding tight to a small red marble. She held it out to Alyssa as if offering a gift.

Except, it wasn’t a perfect orb. It wasn’t smooth and round, but lumpy. And the red wasn’t uniform either. Rather, it looked like a burning lump of coal. A small ember.

“Yeah right,” Alyssa said with a scoff, taking a step away. If this was trying harder, the demon clearly was taking her for a fool.

Not taking apparent offense at the rejection of her gift, the demon simply shrugged. She knelt on one knee, letting go of the ember right at the edge of the circle. With one last wrinkle of her eye, the pentagram flashed bright flames, blinding Alyssa. When it wore off, the demon was gone.

The ember was still there.

Alyssa grit her teeth. A bad feeling welled up in her stomach.

“What is that?” Kasita said, voice trembling. “I don’t like it. It feels like… Tenebrael’s feathers. Or this staff.”

“You can see it?”

“Clear as day.”

“Let me ask again because this is important. Can you see it like you can see the desk? Or can you see it like how you can sometimes feel the presence of an angel nearby?”

“The former. It is definitely a real thing in this room. I just feel like it shouldn’t exist.”

Alyssa clicked her tongue. That was it. This was a trap. She could turn around and leave it. That would be the easy thing to do. But if she did, guards would come. They would see it. They might touch it. Alyssa didn’t know what would happen if they did, but it probably wouldn’t be a good thing. Worse, one of the prisoners might touch it. Either one being brought in or an escapee.

Kasita tensed even more than she had been. Leaning over, she whispered. “People outside,” she said. “Guards. They’re walking up slowly, so we have a moment.”

“Damn it.”

Had that demon known that they would be coming? Probably. She was forcing a decision without giving the time to think about it. The guards must have seen the half-open gate. Or maybe they just had a way of detecting people’s presence within the building. Alyssa hadn’t thought of that. They would definitely come inside and inspect things.

She considered blowing her only Infinite Regress on testing what it was like to pick up the ember. But she had been affected for real during Infinite Regress before. If anything could do that again, it would be a demon. Fractal Mirror had the same problem plus it only showed a few seconds.

“Alyssa?”

“Pocket, quickly.”

“You aren’t going to touch it, are you?”

“Just… hurry.”

Kasita gave her a look. Concern. Worry. But it only lasted a second.

Alyssa stood alone with the staff in the room. She wasn’t sure exactly when the spell had failed, but sometime after entering the building, the shards signifying her invisibility had vanished. It was with some reluctance that she popped another Empty Mirror. The second today of only three that she had. They were annoying to draw, but she couldn’t be caught. For that, she had to extinguish the orb of light that was hovering around her head.

The room went dark, but the ember’s faint glow meant that it was impossible to miss.

One problem out of the way, she walked up to the ember. She didn’t touch it. Rather, she gripped the staff in both hands and just tapped the ember with the ruby head of the staff.

A little spark of lighting connected the two for an instant before the ember went skidding across the floor. The staff just about lurched out of Alyssa’s hands in the opposite direction.

Alyssa clenched her teeth. She had been hoping that the staff would just destroy it outright. Maybe if she slammed the staff down on it, but… that might also just send it flying further. Her staff as well. She probably wouldn’t lose the staff given its size, but if the little ember flew off somewhere and got lost… bad things might happen. So stupid, she groaned. Who thought doing this was a good idea?

The loud ratchet from the gate meant that Alyssa was out of time.

She quickly flipped through her cards until she found a spell. Relieved that she had bothered to draw out three of them, she aimed at the glowing ember and cast Levitation.

Alyssa let out a small sigh as the ember rose up into the air. She pulled it close. Not close enough to touch, just close enough to keep it inside the shards of Empty Mirror.

No less than twelve men walked into the building only seconds later. Three at the front had large tower shields. The three behind them held pikes, ready to jab around the shields if necessary. The last half all had tomes out, spells at the ready. They carefully marched inside, heads swiveling to check everywhere as the arcanists sent light spells darting inside. They checked the corners and even above their heads. One of the pikemen seemed to have looking up as his only duty.

Alyssa had to wait until they were further into the room. Two arcanists stayed back by the door with a shield wielder, but the rest quickly started examining things. The group was quiet. Hardly saying a word. Maybe to keep the prisoners from hearing, or maybe it was just the atmosphere. One arcanist pointed out the marks on the floor and quickly set about destroying it with a spell akin to a flamethrower. As he worked, a few split off down the hallways to check the integrities of the cells.

Leaving them to do their jobs, Alyssa slipped between an arcanist and the shield guy at the entrance. As soon as she was outside, she ran.

She ran and she ran. All the while, she kept the ember close, but not too close. She jumped the walls slowly and carefully, making sure to avoid accidentally touching it.

Only when she cleared the final wall and made it out of the little caldera did Alyssa finally stop. She panted, gasping for breath. Sweat rolled down her face from the run, from the heat, and from that horrid place. But even with sweat stinging her eyes, she never blinked. She stared at the ember.

What the hell do I do with it now?

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