The Demon's Lexicon

5 Dancing Up a Demon

NICK DID NOT SMILE AT MAE FOR LONG, BECAUSE HE WAS busy being kissed by another girl.

Sin Davies, the best dancer in the Market, reached him and leaned up, resting her palms against his shoulders, to give him a kiss. It landed light as a butterfly, as a petal, in the area between Nick’s mouth and cheek. “You’re dressed for dancing,” she said in her throaty stage voice.

“Being undressed for dancing occurred to me, but I didn’t think Merris would like it.”

Sin slid a look over to Merris, who did not look any more outraged by Nick than usual, and then laughed. Sin was the hot tip to succeed Merris as the unofficial leader of the Market, and Merris was the one who had looked after the Davies family since magicians had killed Sin’s mother; Sin would do anything for her. Merris had been unimpressed when Sin had thrown Nick a fever blossom on a warm night last summer.

Nick seldom cared much about girls, but for that one night he’d thought maybe he could like this one.

Merris pointedly introduced Mae and Jamie, and Sin flashed a bright, practiced smile at them. It warmed into a real smile as Mae enthused over her dancing, and it became an entirely different smile, something secret and tender, when Sin’s little sister ran up to tell her the baby was in bed.

“Thank you,” Sin said, fingers lingering in the child’s blond hair.

The way she was with her baby brother and younger sister was one of the reasons Nick had noticed her.

“Come here, sweetheart,” said Alan helpfully. He knelt with some difficulty on the grass, and the child ran to his arms as all children did, instinctively seeing him as a refuge. He whispered something to her, low and sweet, and Lydie laughed.

“Thanks,” Sin said without looking at him, her mouth a thin straight slash of red.

“You’re welcome, Cynthia,” Alan replied, his voice distant.

The way all the dancers acted around Alan was one of the reasons Nick had stopped dancing and one of the reasons he had not spent any time alone with Sin since last year. It was almost reasonable, Nick supposed. Dancers relied only on their strength, their sure feet, to save themselves from the demons. Even seeing someone stumble made a dancer wince; seeing someone crippled was like seeing their own death.

Nick understood all that and did not care. Nobody was allowed to look at his brother like they did.

He glared at Sin, who looked badly startled. Then he looked away and met Mae’s eyes. The excited flush in her cheeks was fading, and she was watching them carefully.

She turned to Merris and said, her voice loud in the sudden silence, “Will you tell me how the real dances work?”

It was such a banal tourist question that everyone relaxed. Sin turned to a couple of the other dancers, Alan began Srs,th= murmuring to the child again, and Merris gave Mae an approving look. Merris’s favorites were always the ones who knew how to manage situations to their own advantage.

Merris reached over and plucked a fever blossom from Sin’s shining hair. “These flowers grow on trees that need magic to feed them. The trees bear fever fruit; once dancers eat fever fruit, their perceptions of the world are altered and their inhibitions are lowered. In this state they can share energy with demons. They dance in magical circles and perform exorcisms.”

“Exorcisms?”

Merris raised her eyebrows. “Calling demons into this world is usually referred to as an exorcism.”

“I thought that meant getting rid of demons,” said Jamie.

“Exorcism means naming the demon and commanding it,” Merris Cromwell answered. “Often people do try commanding the demon to leave, but once a demon has a human body, it will not leave without destroying the body. Call a demon into the circle and bribe it, though, and it may do what you want. If you offer enough.”

The dancers were already cutting the lines for the weaving. Each had already cut their own circle in the ground, perfect circles set about with charms to keep the demons inside. The demons were always trying to get out, but not even a magician would let a demon go free.

Nick knelt on the ground, motioning away the offer of a ceremonial knife. He preferred to use his own weapons, even if he did have to sharpen them afterward. He took his largest knife from a sheath strapped around his ribs and began to cut his circle. The blade bit deep into the earth and he made a symmetrical circle with the ease of long habit, his hands remembering the symbols and guiding the blade without input from his brain.

First there was the circle itself. Then he cut the lines for walking between the worlds, traveling out from the center like the spokes of a wheel. He cut two circles intersecting to represent worlds colliding. He cut straight lines through those, the lines of communication that would hang between him and the demon like magical telephone wires so that the demon would be able to understand human speech and the silent communication of the demon would be translated into human words for Nick. Later he would have to walk each line perfectly, in a series of measured steps, or the demon would never come and the circle would remain silent and still.

“A dancer calls a demon into the circle — but a dancer does much more than that,” Alan said in his earnest teacher’s voice. His arm was still around the little girl, but he pointed out the intersecting lines with his free hand. “This is the weaving. It opens up a connection between a human and a demon, so the demon can feel some of what the human is feeling. A dancer has to follow the lines of the weaving perfectly, even while he takes fever fruit to lessen his control.”

“Demons always demand a price,” said Merris Cromwell. “That is why magicians are corrupt. A magician is someone who wants something for nothing — they are willing to let someone else pay the price for what they want. A dancer opens himself up to demons. He lets the demon share a few beats of his heart, a few breaths from his lungs, and Alan’s right, the demon can feel what the dancer feels. The dancer shares a part of himself with the demon in the dance, but he has to be careful what he says when the demon comes. If he says the wrong thing or takes a wrong step, then the demon can have all of him.”

Merris Cromwell regarded the circles with a slightly wistful air. The story in the Goblin Market was that she had been a famous dancer when she was a girl.

Jamie looked extremely alarmed. His eyes darted from the dancers — some of them already stretching, most lying on the earth cutting the lines of the weaving — to Nick.

“Alan will be the one doing the talking,” Nick explained.

“That’s what the speaking charm is for,” said Alan. “So I can speak for Nick. Demons trick you, and the fever fruit lowers your defenses, so—”

“Never been all that good with words,” Nick said. “Alan always does it.”

“So the dancer in the circle is the one who asks for favors,” Mae said in a strange, speculative voice.

“Well, there are always two dancers in two circles,” Alan said, and went a little red. “Usually a girl and a guy dancing side by side. It’s often couples, because, um — the demons are attracted to strong feelings, and the fever fruit lowers inhibitions, and, er—”

“It’s all very Magical Circle Dancers Gone Wild,” Nick interrupted, and tucked his knife away. “You’ll see.”

“We can ask about Jamie,” Alan continued, looking relieved to be on a safer subject.

“I’m getting that damn mark off Alan,” Nick corrected, so that everyone was clear. “I might get around to Jamie later.”

Mae’s eyes had a bright, strange look about them. They were fixed on Alan. “So it matters if you care about what the demon has to offer,” she said slowly. “That’s why Nick is doing it for you.”

Nick looked away into the darkness of night and tangled trees. He did not hear Alan reply. It was possible that Alan nodded. It was possible that Mae simply swept on without waiting for an answer.

“And you don’t have to be able to do magic?” Nick could look at Alan then, and he saw him nod this time. At Alan’s nod Mae went on, her voice gathering determination. “If it’s just steps along those lines, I can do it. I want to do it. I want to dance. I can ask the demons to help my brother myself.”

Of course it was all about helping her brother, and nothing to do with being a dazzled tourist.

“You can’t dance,” Nick said flatly.

“I can,” said Mae, the light of battle in her eyes. “I’m a good dancer.”

“I don’t care,” Nick snapped. “If you get one step wrong, then calling the demons won’t work, and calling the demons is going to work. This isn’t clubbing, sweetheart. This is my dance. And I say you can’t do it.”

A moment afterward Nick knew he had made a mistake. Merris Cromwell did not like anyone besides herself to assume authority. Her face changed as she looked down at the small and defiant shape of Mae.

“If you want to help your brother,” she said, in her cool voice, “that might make a great difference. How much do you want to help him? Are you desperate?”

“Mae, don’t,” said Jamie.

Mae met Merris’s eyes. “Yes.”

“That’s good,” said Merris. “The demons will like that.”

“I’ll do anything—”

Merris made a hoarse, abrupt sound that was almost a squawk. She sounded like a kicked crow. “You must understand, you have to be very careful about what you say. None of that ‘I’ll do anything.’ The demon will be trying to twist any word into a promise so it can possess you.”

“I promise I’ll be careful,” Mae said breathlessly.

“Well,” Merris said, with a certain amount of approval. “If you dance with an experienced partner like Nick, it might do.”

“She’s not dancing with me,” Nick snarled.

“Be sensible, Nick,” Merris told him. “You always do best with an emotional partner.”

“That’s true,” added Sin over her shoulder. She was looking at Mae with some sympathy.

It was true. Everyone always said it was because Nick didn’t have much feeling to share with the demons. It didn’t bother Nick. He thought they were right, and it made sense. Why should he care about the strangers dancers were usually called on to help? Their problems had nothing to do with him. When he’d danced before, he’d been doing it for money or favors.

He opened his mouth to say it was different this time because it was Alan, but they were all looking at him, and he couldn’t think of a way to say it. He shut his mouth.

“Come, child,” Merris said briskly. “We will test your speed and reflexes. We’ll see if you would make a dancer.”

Sin reached out and grasped Mae’s hand. The other girl dancers moved to form a fluttering crowd about Merris, like bees attending the queen, and they moved away from the lights in a group. They all looked coldly at Nick as they went past.

Apparently Sin did not appreciate being glared at. Well, what did it matter? He’d made his decision about her already. Dad wouldn’t have approved of him getting mixed up with a Goblin Market girl, someone who might have guessed the truth about Mum, and Sin shouldn’t look at Alan like that.

Maybe dancing with Mae wouldn’t be so bad, he thought suddenly. At least she was decent to his brother.

His gaze fell on Jamie, who was looking decidedly nervous about Mae’s sudden departure.

“Don’t mind Merris, she always acts like that around me,” he said. He figured jokes were the only language this boy understood, and added, “She tries so hard to hide her attraction. Her mouth says, ‘I cannot imagine what they all see in you’ but her eyes say, ‘Take me, wild stallion.’ She’ll be back. She can’t keep away.”

Jamie smiled, looking a little startled.

“You’re not allowed to be a wild stallion until you’re older,” said Alan, but he caught Nick’s eye and smiled crookedly at him, looking very pleased.

Alan cared so much about kindness.

The dancers returned, bearing the platters of red and golden fruit to lay around the circles. The fruit formed bright circles around the dancing circles, rings laid within rings. The lights of the Market danced over the fruit and made it gleam.

Fever fruit was grown from small trees carefully nurtured in the caravans of the Market folk. For a long time they looked like nothing but dry sticks in little pots, shriveled and dead, but every tree had a day of blooming like a butterfly. Then the tree was garlanded with blossoms, their colors bright as ribbons on a maypole, and under the rich colors the fever fruit grew. They were gold and scarlet, like apples to bite into but with a single poisonous stone at the core, and they had the heavy exotic smell of expensive perfumes.

Once anyone tasted fever fruit, it became their favorite food.

Nick gave Alan his new sword to hold, took one of the fever fruit, and bit into it. The skin broke at the first light touch of teeth, and juice burst thick and sweet on his tongue.

“Don’t eat those,” Alan advised Jamie, stopping the boy’s reach. “They’re kept for the dancers. The dances used to be called bacchanals once, and nobody measured the amount of fruit they should eat. After the dance was done, the dancers were let loose on the world. Sometimes they killed people.”

“I think I’ve read about that,” Jamie said. “The dancers, they were called maenads. The wild women.”

The juice of the fever fruit coursed down Nick’s throat in a thick stream as he ate, like the blood in his veins, quickening everything, making him feel better about everything. Maybe he’d dance with Mae and like it, maybe she would fail the tests and he’d dance with Sin. One thing was certain: Either way, he would cure Alan. He laughed and Jamie looked alarmed at the sound. Nick grinned at him and realized he was not grinning so much as baring his teeth.

He pitched his voice low. “Not just women.”

More dancers started to gather around the fruit, taking a piece for themselves. Laughter and a humming sort of energy started to rise from their little group, and a larger group gathered to surround them. Dancing was just another part of the Market, since most of the dancers were dancing for pay, for strangers who needed help or information, but it was also the closest thing to entertainment the Goblin Market had to offer.

Besides, Nick was going to dance again. They all knew it would be a good show.

A lot of the time, dancers would dance through their steps, and no demon would show, but they never failed to come for Nick.

“Who’s Anzu?” Jamie asked. “Nick said he was going to call him.”

“Two demons have given Nick their names so he can call on them,” Alan answered. “Demons can do and show themselves as almost anything, but mostly they have preferred forms and ways of doing things. There are the ones Mae would call succubi and incubi, who try to appeal to people romantically, there are those who show themselves wearing the faces of the dead, there are the ones who favor a particular animal. The demons Nick calls are Anzu, who often takes a bird shape, and a succubus called Liannan who — well.” Alan glanced over at Nick, who smiled at him and waved a hand for him to go on. “Demons don’t have a very good sense of time,” Alan went on. “Liannan thinks Nick is a boyfriend of hers from a while ago.”

They were starting to light torches and chant to prepare the circle for opening. Torchlight caught Alan’s hair and changed it from the color of blood in the dark into bright gold.

Jamie looked stunned. “A boyfriend? I thought demons were evil!”

Alan frowned. “Well, it’s up for debate. Some of us argue they are, and of course Liannan would have been ready to take her boyfriend’s body and his life. You can’t trust them, not for a second, because they are so desperate to get into this world, but — some people think that not all their feelings are simulated to trick us. They are very different from us. It’s hard to tell, but some people think…” Alan’s voice softened, and he admitted, “I think — that they can love.”

Nick thought that if a succubus ever got to Alan, he would probably want to take her out to dinner and talk about her feelings before he’d accept any dark demonic delights.

The torches were burning steadily in brackets set on the trees around them. The circles were done, and the plates of fever fruit were emptying. Nick felt like he was separate from his body and still trying to keep it steady. Light was brimming and refracting in his vision as if he was seeing it underwater. Girls and boys with sticky fingers and sticky mouths crowded around him, laughing and asking him why he was dancing again. Alan, the fixed point in a whirling world, stayed close and answered for Nick. He would be asking questions for Nick soon enough.

The drums started the dancing rhythm, a low, muffled sound that seemed to begin in his bones. They always had to muffle the drums in case someone heard them, but all the sounds of the night were distinct in Nick’s ears suddenly — the sound of a woman spreading her cards on a stall, the sound of small, frightened animals in the wood.

The light step of a girl, behind him. Nick spun and saw Mae.

“Good news,” announced Merris Cromwell. “We have found a most promising new dancer.”

Nick laughed, and Merris regarded him coldly. “She fulfills all the requirements. She has good coordination, she has a strong desire to call the demons, and she has no fear.”

“She’ll be afraid enough in a minute,” Nick murmured.

“Want to bet?”

Mae strode past Nick to the nearest dish of fruit and seized one as if she was picking up a gauntlet someone had thrown. When she bit into it, the juice ran in a golden stream down her chin.

Her eyes met Nick’s, and his hand went to his belt. He unbuckled his old sword and scabbard, and tossed them aside. He wasn’t going to back down from a challenge.

“Let’s dance,” he said.

As Mae cut her circle under Merris’s direction, he turned to Alan, who offered him the shell. It gleamed i S. Iwidn pale seashell colors, blue and violet and apricot in the Goblin Market lights, and then it was white once more. Nick kissed it, put the speaking charm around Alan’s neck, and then stepped into the circle of summoning.

Nick’s talisman flared in a sudden moment of pure pain. Nick tilted his head back and absorbed the shock, let it wash over him like water, and listened through the feeling of pain and rising magic for his brother’s voice.

“I call on the demon they called Anzu in Sumer!” Alan said as the sound of the drums came faster and faster. “I call on the demon they called Djehuty in Egypt! I call on the demon the Romans called the thief at the gates and the watcher by night. As they called him, so I call him: I call on Anzu!”

Mae must have entered the circle beside him when Nick had entered his, but Nick had no awareness of her now. Partners or not, she would dance or fall on her own.

The drums surged and pounded in his temples, and he stepped along the lines for communication. The lines of traveling began to whirl as if they really were the spokes of a wheel, and he had to keep up with them. There was a cold, well-known touch all along his side, a seductive and almost familiar voice whispering to him, and in his other ear the call of “Come buy!” spiked into an appeal to stay, a promise of warmth in this world. He side-stepped neatly, never going too far to meet the demons; he twisted and spun in the center of sound and color and set lines.

There were thin screams of approval all around him. Arms reached out for him. Some were human, and he let them reach him. They pressed warm hands against his body, against his face, and the fever fruit was pressed again to his lips. He bit down and the world was bright around him, like a glass sculpture on the very edge of a mantelpiece, catching the light before it fell. He put his body between the worlds, threw back his head and put the straining muscles of his shoulders, the twisting strength of his hips, put his heart and his clenched hands at the service of the demon, and then held firm.

Nick always had to wait for his partner to catch up. He waited with his heart slamming against his chest and his throat raw with every breath, the world in a glow from fever fruit.

For a moment all he registered was that Mae was doing well for a beginner. Her steps along the weaving were sure, and she was making the right gestures of offering and appeal. Then he saw the fall of her skirt against her leg, the gleam of the chain around her stomach in the firelight. He saw her hands sliding like a lover’s hands down her own throat as she tipped her head back, and he realized that he could want her, after all.

He realized that he did want her.

There was no time to think about that, since at the point where their two circles intersected there was a cold light burning, racing along the patterns of the weaving but growing stronger and stronger at the point where it had started. Until the light gave birth to a dull red bonfire, and at the center of the red chill a shape formed.

Anzu was taking the shape of a man today, though there was a suggestion of the eagle in the curve of his nose, a glint and pattern like crimson feathers about his golden hair. The fair skin he had chosen to wear was reddened by the dull glow of the fire around him, and when he lifted his eyes to Nick’s face, they were enormous, and clear as water.

Nick saw his own face reflected in those e Stedormyes, black eyes and black hair, a face far colder and more grim than the demon’s face before him. That was Anzu’s intention, of course.

“Nick, isn’t it?” Anzu asked, pronouncing Nick’s name as if it was rather a good joke. “Well, well. Dancing again, are we?”

“Our pair danced for you and you fed off their feelings. You owe us some service, Anzu,” said Alan.

Anzu peered out past the circle. “Ah,” he said, looking even more amused. “It’s Alan, isn’t it? The one who knows so much. What service do you require?”

A new voice broke through the sound of drums and the sizzle of the flame.

“I want to save my brother,” said Mae, clear and confident. “He has a third-tier mark. How can I do that?”

Anzu laughed. “You can’t,” he answered. “He’s ours now. It’s only a matter of time.” His great glass-colored eyes traveled to Jamie’s face. “So young,” he remarked, smiling wickedly at Mae. “We do like them young.”

He turned and grinned at Nick. Nick saw sparks pinwheel around Anzu’s head and take flight in the shape of tiny birds.

Alan hesitated, his face grave, but Nick’s brother knew better than to leave a pause for a demon to misinterpret.

“I have a first-tier mark,” he said quietly. “Can you remove it?”

“Oh, of course,” Anzu replied. “Washing you clean would be my pleasure. Can’t have you leaving that little family of yours. What would they do without you? Put the mark in the flame.”

Alan knelt with some difficulty on the grass and rolled up his jeans. He extended his leg into the circle, making sure it was lifted well above the pattern of the weaving, and held it in the center of the fire.

The fire did not burn him, but its sullen glow lit up his leg so the first mark stood out dark against his skin, the two slashes forming a doorway. The shadows lurking in them were so deep that it looked like they were welling with fresh blood.

“Hmm,” said Anzu. “That’s interesting.”

Alan’s voice was clipped. “Explain.”

“Oh — it’s nothing,” Anzu said. “Only that your mark”—he nodded to Alan—“and the young thing’s mark were made by the same Circle. The Obsidian Circle. And they were made by the same demon.”

“What does that mean?” Alan demanded.

“A small thing,” Anzu told him. “It means that if you agreed, I could transfer one of the young thing’s marks onto you instead. That would mean you would both be bearing a second-tier mark, which still means death for someone. If you caught and sacrificed two magicians of the Obsidian Circle, then you would both live. It is the only chance the boy has, but it would be a terrible risk for you to take.” Anzu waved a careless hand, fingers blending into the flame. Nick could almost see talons. “Forget I mentioned it.”

“Wait,” said Alan.

Nick had kissed the speaking charm and given his voice into Alan’s keeping a hundred times, and he had never missed his voice. It was almost peaceful, having no words, having Alan speak for them both, but now Nick had something to say. It felt as if smoke had got caught in his throat, or the lack of words was scorching him. He moved his mouth, moved his tongue with a painful effort, and found his whole body empty of words when he needed them most.

Mae had words. She looked at Alan and she said simply, “Please.”

Nick knew that while he was within the circle, Anzu could feel a little of what he felt. Even though Nick could not speak, even though he knew that his own face rarely betrayed much emotion, Anzu looked at Nick as Mae spoke and Nick was sure Anzu knew everything Nick could not say. In turn, Nick thought he could feel just a touch of the demon’s malicious delight.

No, Nick thought, his whole body thrumming with that single word. He wanted to shout it. No.

Alan cleared his throat and said, “All right.”

Still looking at Nick, still grinning, Anzu reached out one of those hands that blurred into talons, and with a talon he stabbed Alan three times as deep as he could.

He drew the second mark, which meant death, onto the skin of Nick’s brother.