The Demon's Lexicon

15 Nothing Human

“I — YOU’RE LYING,” NICK SAID. “YOU’RE LYING. DEMONS CAN’T live in the world that long. The bodies don’t last.”

There was a clock somewhere in this room, cutting time to pieces with a sharp knife. Nick hadn’t heard it before, hadn’t been aware of time passing until now. He needed Arthur to speak immediately and tell him that it was all a lie.

“Of course that’s true,” Arthur said thoughtfully. “That was always the problem. You give a body to a demon and a few weeks later, it’s all worn out and you’re back exactly where you started. I found that most annoying and so, of course, did the demons.”

The demons, thought Nick, and looked over at Anzu. Anzu was already looking at him with a mocking smile, dark wings outlined against the flame. He was a sinister figure, even in this room full of magic, and Nick stared into his night-dark eyes and knew it could not be true.

Then he wondered why Anzu had black eyes, when usually demons had eyes that were water-clear. Demons had black eyes only when they were possessing human bodies. Thomas in the House of Mezentius, and the dead woman in this house, both had black eyes. Nick knew that the possessed had black eyes, had always known that, and he had looked into the mirror a thousand times and never put it together.

Anzu’s eyes were a message.

Nick looked at his father’s eyes, and then looked at his mother’s, and saw nothing but blue, blue, blue. Nick’s own eyes were an endless, cold black.

“The problem with the bodies was that the souls were always in there fighting. The soul and the demon tear the body to pieces, like two dogs fighting over the same bone,” Arthur said. “I knew there had to be a way around that. Have you ever heard the superstition that a child’s soul enters its body with its first breath?”

Nick looked away from him and found he could not look at Alan. He looked at Mae and Jamie instead, standing behind Alan, and saw that Mae’s face wore an expression of horrified disbelief. When she met Nick’s eyes, she flinched.

Jamie looked upset, but he did not look surprised. Nick recalled Jamie saying that Nick reminded him of someone. Of course. He should have remembered that Jamie had looked into a demon’s face before.

He wrenched his eyes away.

“The demons only grant us so much power because we can only grant them so much time in this world,” Arthur went on, as if telling his son a bedtime story. “I knew that if I could give a demon a lifetime, the power I received would be unimaginable. I knew it was worth any sacrifice.”

Nick’s mother, the sacrifice, seemed unmoved. She was still staring at the floor and playing with her charms. Nick was surprised to see a shimmer of power running through the chains.

“I started to collect pregnant women,” Arthur said calmly. “I had them taken and kept here, but you cannot understand how difficult it is to open a way from the demon world inside a woman’s body. Too many of the women became possessed and died. I had to invent a charm to keep them safe from possession.”

Mum twirled the charm Arthur had kissed around one finger, and this time Nick saw a symbol on the silver disc as it whirled and caught the light. It was the symbol of a circle with a line straight through it, the meaning clear. It marked Mum as forbidden territory to the demons.

“The women kept dying,” Arthur said. “Opening their bodies to the demon world gave them terrible dreams. They went mad. They got sick. None of them survived to give birth. It was then that Livia became pregnant, and I realized what I had to do. I knew how strong she was.”

Nick remembered the days when Mum screamed all the time, her eyes fixed on something far away, something nobody else could see. He knew every line of pain on Mum’s face, and now he knew what had caused them.

“At first Livia did not realize what was happening, and when she did, she was…rather distressed. But I knew I couldn’t stop. I knew what was at stake. I kept on, and Livia survived, and then on one long day of blood and madness, you came into this world. You were a beautiful baby,” Arthur said, and his smile flashed again as if all this was irresistibly funny. “You had blank black demon’s eyes, and you never cried. You never made a sound.”

It was a straw to a drowning man. Even when he grabbed it, breathless and desperate, he knew it would not save him.

“That’s right,” Nick said. “Dem£aids aons don’t — they don’t talk. I can talk.”

“I know,” Arthur breathed. “I couldn’t believe it when Gerald told me. I think that’s amazing.”

“It’s not amazing,” Nick bit out. “It’s not true. I can talk, so it’s not true.”

“Do you find words difficult?” Arthur asked. “I can’t imagine that you’re any good at reading or writing, and as for lying — Words are so alien to your kind. They can’t come easily to you.”

Nick remembered the night he had come back from Natasha’s house to confront Alan and had been confronted by Mae. He had tried to talk and nothing had come out but hoarse croaking, a sound that could never have been language, that did not belong in a human throat.

“Do you know what you remind me of? There are children in this world brought up by animals. There were once two girls brought up by wolves, who thought they were wolves. They howled and they walked on four legs and when people captured them, for a long time they were unable to speak. A baby’s mind is a small, blank thing, and too impressionable. You couldn’t remember what you were; the baby mind was too limited. And then as you grew, the same mind was flexible enough, young enough, to actually take in human speech. The wild girls could howl, but that didn’t make them wolves. And you can speak, but that doesn’t make you human.” Arthur’s voice was almost tender. “Nothing can make you human.”

Nick thought about animals. They had never liked him. Even Alan’s kitten had bitten him. The animals had known.

Then he thought of the boat, and the way he had felt as soon as he had walked onto it: as if his body did not belong to him. He should have remembered that running water was meant to keep the body safe from demons. He should have known.

“I understand that this is difficult for you. It’s a lot to grasp all at once. I knew you wouldn’t remember everything when you were put in the child’s mind. I meant to bring you up and tell you everything. I meant you to be aware of your power. I meant us to have the world, but — well.” Arthur shrugged. “Livia was strange, after you were born. She was so quiet, I thought — we all thought her mind had broken. We thought she was neutralized. We left her alone with you, and one day she was gone. She took you from where you belonged, and then that man and his son tried to take from you what you are.”

Nick opened his mouth and then shut it. He was suddenly and desperately unsure of what would happen if he tried to speak.

Arthur smiled. “They all failed. You’re here now, and you’re mine. I made you. What do you think you owe me for that?”

Nick swallowed. There seemed to be barbed wire in his throat, and he thought that if he spoke, the words would come out mangled and torn.

If he didn’t speak, Arthur would win. He would just be a demon standing imprisoned in his circle, silently waiting for his magician’s command. He had to say something.

“Nothing,” said Nick, and was surprised to hear his own voice. “I owe you nothing,” he continued, and actually listened to his voice, flat and cold as a sheet of ice. He did not sound human. “I owe you nothing,” he insisted. “Because I don’t believe you.”

A car horn screamed outside in a long cry for help that went unanswered.

“That reminds me,” said Arthur. “Those girls who thought they were wolves? They had a mother. The people who found the den had to shoot the wolf before they could get at the girls. An animal might make that sort of mistake, but a human should know his own kind!” He raised his voice. “Wouldn’t you agree, Alan?”

Alan lifted his head. The last color had drained away from his face, leaving it a terrible stony white. His eyes were dark with fury, so dark that they looked almost black.

“Bring him to me,” ordered Black Arthur, and then turned back to Nick. “If you won’t believe me,” he said, “will you believe him?”

The male magician with the knife seized hold of the ropes binding Alan’s wrists and practically threw him in front of Arthur, with enough force that Alan stumbled and had to put his weight on his bad leg to keep himself upright. Nick saw his teeth sink into his lower lip, but he didn’t make a sound.

“Alan,” Arthur said in the tone of a warm, welcoming host. “I think I’ve worked out all that happened once Livia ran, but I’d be very interested to get an insider’s point of view. Go on, don’t be shy.”

Alan tilted his chin up to meet the magician’s eyes.

“Go to hell,” he said, and spat in Arthur’s face.

There was instant chaos. Every magician but Gerald moved forward or spoke angrily. Mae shouted Alan’s name, and the magician holding her thrust the knife back up to her throat. Black Arthur lifted a fist with magical fire sizzling inside it, and Mum lunged forward and caught his wrist.

“Arthur, no! He’s a stupid boy. He’s lonely and desperate, and he got fond of it. He had nothing else. Don’t hurt him.”

Arthur lowered his fist, and Nick slowly unclenched his own. Arthur made a small gesture and his face was clean and smiling once more. He stepped into Alan’s space, and Nick looked at the breadth of Arthur’s shoulders. He was even bigger than Nick; he could snap Alan in two.

He was a magician. He could do a lot worse than that.

“Alan,” Nick said, and on that name of all the words in the world, his voice cracked and emerged as a guttural, inhuman croak. He swallowed and forced out, “I want to know. Please.”

Alan’s mouth twisted. “It’s true,” he whispered. “I’m sorry.”

His voice broke, but it did not mean he was inhuman. It meant he was crying. The sky outside was such a dark gray that Nick knew there was a storm coming with the night, and no light could filter through the clouds. The lamplight caught the tears clinging to Alan’s eyelashes and painted the tears running down his face yellow.

Nick reached out, but the circle stopped him. He let his hand fall; he didn’t know what he could have done, anyway.

Arthur reached up a careless hand, bearing a large, elaborately carved silver ring, and wiped a thumb over Alan’s cheek, chasing away a tear. That was another thing Nick had never been good at, another way Nick had never been human. He was not good at touching.

Alan turned his face away.

“Don’t touch me,” he said in a muted voice.

“You were very young when it came. Can you tell me what happened?” Arthur asked, as if he had a right to ask, as if he was a grown-up who had come to save Alan from all this. “Can you tell me how it learned to talk?”

Alan glanced over at Nick. “Do you want me to say?”

Nick nodded, and Black Arthur laughed.

“Of course it does,” he said. “What does it know about mercy? It will take from you until you have nothing left. That’s what demons are. That’s what they do.”

Alan turned his face away from Arthur again, toward Nick, but he didn’t seem able to look at Nick. He looked at the floor.

“Olivia came to us hoping that somehow we would be able to do something for the baby. Only we couldn’t, of course. And when she realized there was nothing we could do, when she—” Alan shook his head, unable to wipe away the tears with his tied hands. “Dad and I went to our first Goblin Market. I thought it was exciting, I came home laughing, and—”

“And what, Alan?”

Alan’s voice was very low. “Olivia was in the bathroom, with — with the baby. She was trying to drown him. Only the baby wasn’t drowning. The water was boiling, and Olivia was screaming, her hands were getting burned, and my father had to fight her to get the baby. They were both screaming, and when Dad got the baby out, he wasn’t burned at all, and he’d never made a sound. Olivia wouldn’t stop screaming. Dad had to stay with her, he had to calm her down. He had to get the baby out of her sight. So he — he gave me the baby. He said that I had to be the one to take care of him now.”

“And what did you do then?”

“I did my best,” said Alan, his voice raw.

Nick had always known that Alan had practically raised him because Dad needed to look after Mum. He had not pictured it like this. Not Alan, small and trapped in a mad world, as a man and a woman wrestled in boiling water and a demon baby was put into his arms.

Nick had a memory dim enough to be imagination of himself in a little bed, with Alan leaning solemnly out of the darkness, singing something: gibberish. Human words. In the memory Alan’s small face looked worried and fond; Nick had seen that expression on his face a thousand times and had never wondered what Alan saw when he looked at Nick.

Turning away from Alan’s tears, Nick finally located the clock. It was standing in the shadows behind Anzu’s balefire. He saw his own pale face flash for an instant in the fire-lit glass of the clock face, reflection curved in the shape of a scythe.

Even the firelight could not warm those black eyes. The face was made like a man’s, but it showed no more feeling than a mask, looked no more human than a doll.

They had given that to a child. To Alan.

“So it was you who taught it to speak?” Arthur asked, with what seemed to be genuine curiosity. “How did you do that?”

Alan’s face was still averted from Black Arthur, but he did answer him. “I’m not sure. I just — He was my responsibility. I talked to him. I read to him. I took him for walks and pointed things out to him, I told him their names. He started to speak when he was four, and I was so happy. I tried — I tried to raise him right.”

“No,” said Arthur, in the patient tones of a teacher. “You tried to raise it human.”

Alan did not answer Arthur this time. He just kept talking, his voice serious. It reminded Nick of the way he used to tell bedtime stories. “Once he started to speak, Dad started to think — Dad thought there was hope. He tried to teach Nick things, tried to tell him how to behave. The last thing he said before you killed him was that I should look after Nick, and I’ve done my best.”

Arthur sounded truly puzzled. “Why did you even try? Do you think you actually mean something to it?”

“I don’t know,” Alan snapped. “How could I know? That’s not the point. He means something to me. I never wanted him—” He made an effort to lift his eyes to Nick’s face. The effort did not succeed, but Alan’s next words were directed at him. “I never wanted you to know any of this.”

“Why not?” asked Black Arthur, and he looked amused again. “Did you think it would be upset?” He shoved Alan backward a little, turned his head, and grinned at Nick. “Are you upset? What do you feel?”

Nick stared at his wintry eyes, at his handsome, smiling face. This wasn’t Nick’s father. He’d never had a father. Demons didn’t have fathers. Demons didn’t have families. They existed forever, unchanging, in a bleak gray landscape like the endless distance between Nick and all feeling over these past few days.

“Not much,” said Nick.

Arthur smiled the smile of a man who had guessed right.

“You never did feel much, did you?” he inquired softly. “You always thought half the things the humans did were mystifying and stupid. You didn’t want to save people like Alan did. You didn’t want to get close to people. You don’t even understand what love is. Do you? Human love. Do you know what it is?”

“No,” Nick said quietly.

“Do you know anything about it?”

“I don’t,” Nick said, and swallowed. “I don’t know.”

Arthur’s voice went even softer, though the softness was too smooth and easy to be kind. “It’s all right now. You’re free. You don’t ever have to pretend to be one of us again. You know the truth, and you know your own power. You know how it works: At sixteen, the body can control the demon magic. You turned sixteen, and I sent a messenger to find you. I promised you I would stop at nothing to get you back, and here you are. Where you were always meant to be.”

If Arthur was so concerned about him, it was funny he hadn’t put forth his best efforts until the time came when Nick could be useful.

Nick thought of the messenger telling them, Black Arthur says that now’s the time. He wants it back.

It. Nick. The charm Mum had worn had just been another lie, and the look on Alan’s face when that messenger came had not been fear for Mum. He hadn’t been plotting and lying to shield Mum.

Nick ventured a glance at Alan, but Alan’s face was still turned away.

Black Arthur was still talking. “You have what no other demon has ever had: a body of your own. You can do anything you want.”

Nick wasn’t sure he wanted anything. He just felt cold.

“I gave you the world,” Arthur said. “And now you can give me the world — or enough power to swallow up all the other Circles, to become the most powerful magician in the world. That’s all I want, and I think that’s fair, don’t you?”

Nick cleared his throat. “Why should I?”

“We made a bargain when I gave you this body, and now I’ve explained that I expect you to keep it. You gave me your word.”

Had he given his word? He couldn’t remember that, couldn’t remember any of it, but he did remember Alan’s voice saying that the demons would do anything to escape their world.

He looked at Black Arthur’s face, his hungry wolf’s eyes, and believed him. He had made a bargain.

Blood was pounding in Nick’s temples. He looked again at that icy reflection in the clock face and then down at his big hands. He had been right, he thought, looking at the curve of his fingers by firelight as if they belonged to someone else. Black Arthur had given him these hands, that face, and every drop of blood in his veins. Arthur only wanted what he was owed: what Nick had promised him.

He hadn’t promised him Alan. Black Arthur had no right to touch his brother.

“My word?” Nick said. “I have words of my own now? I thought Alan gave me all of them. You asked me what I felt. I don’t feel like giving you a thing.”

Arthur shrugged. “I suppose it would be too much to expect gratitude from a demon. You force me to remind you that you have stepped into a magic circle. If you ever want to get out, you need to cooperate. Come, now. What does it matter to you? You can give me what I want without even trying. You owe me, and I wish to collect, but I won’t be your master. I told you this was a partnership. I contributed the body of my son, and now you will contribute the power, and together we will be able to do anything. We will be able to have anything.”

Nick did not want to be trapped here for the rest of his life. He wondered exactly how much power Arthur wanted, and how he was supposed to give it to him. He suspected that a lot of people would be cut down in Black Arthur’s progress toward power. He wondered if that should matter to him.

The air of the room seemed heavy with the weight of all these expectations. Black Arthur was watching him. All the magicians were watching him. All but one.

Mum’s voice shattered the tense silence, light and easy, as if she was about to sing.

“What about me?”

Arthur looked vaguely startled. Nick thought he might have forgotten she was there. “Livia,” he said, turning his head. “You’ll be with me. I will give you anything.”

“I told you,” Mum said, smiling suddenly. “I only want one thing.”

She had her hands clasped to her breast, like a little girl hiding a secret from her elders. Nick remembered that she had been playing with her charms before. He knew that small, mad smile. He was not surprised when she opened her cupped palms a little, and they all saw the shimmer rising from her charms. Mum walked towards Arthur with her fingertips wreathed in gold and blue.

“Yes?” Arthur asked.

Mum was still smiling when she reached Arthur, and she let her charms fall blazing against her chest. She reached up and threaded her fire-ringed fingers through Arthur’s hair in the same tender gesture she had used before. Arthur was smiling back at her a little; she cupped his face in her hands.

“Arthur,” she murmured.

“Yes, my darling?”

“Give me back my child,” whispered Mum.

She caught Arthur’s mouth in a kiss. She was holding him close when she burst into flame.