15
‘H ow many more to go ?’ Simone asked twenty minutes later. She picked up one of the dead demons’ swords and gave it an experimental swing. It was an interesting design, obviously based on a Japanese katana, curved with a simple handle wrapped in leather and a minimal guard, but it had been modified to be a Western-style wider, double-edged weapon. ‘Terrible balance, their forge is worthless. Rubbish, but it’ll do.’
‘There are just over ten of them left, in my centre, and they’ve worked out that their patrols aren’t coming back and called for reinforcements,’ Semias said as he dragged the most recent bodies to the growing pile of dead demons. ‘It should take them about half-an-hour to arrive at the least—there aren’t any demons closer than that.’
‘More than half of their number gone before they got smart,’ Michael said. He shook out his shoulders. ‘Let’s finish this.’ He turned to Semias. ‘Once we have them out of your city, can you open a portal for Hades and Persephone to take over?’
Semias paused, watching them, and Michael opened his mouth to say something, but Semias interrupted him.
‘Not until a new High Lord is on the Throne of Heaven. I suggest you have a quick sit on the throne, open the portal, bring them up and hand it over.’
‘Not Simone?’ Michael asked. ‘She’s much more powerful than me.’
‘Her demon nature precludes her from taking it,’ Semias said. ‘It must be you.’
‘Okay.’ Michael studied Semias with a penetrating look. ‘I won’t be tied to the throne or anything? I can pass it to someone else?’
‘Absolutely, yes. You can pass it to someone else if you choose.’
‘Can I stay after all the demons are gone? With my corrupted nature?’ Simone asked.
‘Not corrupted!’ Michael said, protesting.
Semias gestured towards Michael. ‘If he takes the throne, he can grant you permission to stay before he expels the demons.’
‘The “Food of Heaven” that Persephone mentioned—can you make it for me?’
‘Once all the demons are gone—all of them—yes, I can, but he’ll already be on the throne so it will be irrelevant,’ Semias said, and smiled. ‘I never thought I would see these Heavens alive again. Thank you.’
‘Good.’ Michael nodded to Simone. ‘Ready?’
‘I suggest you start by running your Inner Eye over them to thin the ranks, then both of us take the leader—’ Simone started, then spoke to Semias. ‘Any idea how big the leader is?’
Semias shook his head. ‘Afraid not, Highness. Free me from the corruption of the demon presence, and I’ll be able to do everything you ask and a whole lot more.’
‘Okay,’ Michael said. ‘Let’s go.’ He swung his sword. ‘Using my Inner Eye is draining me, so let’s get this done and out of the way and we can stop for a while.’
‘Before you do,’ Semias said. ‘What is this “okay” thing you keep saying? It’s obvious it means “yes” or “let’s go” or general affirmative—and I can see that it’s two letters from your alphabet, but why those two letters? O and K? What do they stand for ?’
Michael’s expression went blank. ‘I have no idea.’
‘I know why, but it’s a long story and I’ll explain when we’ve cleared your city,’ Simone said.
‘Looking forward to hearing it once we have Semias settled,’ Michael said.
They shared a nod and followed Semias as he walked towards the centre of the city.
‘My human body can fly when I’m free of demons,’ Semias grumbled quietly. ‘I really miss that. I’ll make you invisible when we approach them, so you can strategise.’
*
T he demons had set up a makeshift camp in the middle of the city on the raised avenue in what appeared to be a dead park that sat at the level of the roofs of the two-storey houses around it. An expanse of dirt, which would originally have been lawn, spread over the area, dotted with planter boxes, and a flowing shell-like sculpture of opalescent white stone stood in the centre. The demons didn’t require shelter or much in the way of food or water, so only weapons racks, surrounded by piles of dead plant matter stood at the edge of the clearing. Half the demons were, interestingly, lying on the ground in an impersonation of sleep, something Eastern demons didn’t do—Eastern ones just stood upright, parked and unresponsive. The rest sat in a small circle and talked quietly while three guarded the perimeter.
There were ten of the big black things, five smaller human-shaped demons who looked like male British skinheads—shaved heads and cruel expressions—and a single leader that made Simone stop and stare until Michael pulled her behind a planter box. The leader was a copy of Simone.
I can’t distinguish you from the demon , he said telepathically. You have about the same amount of demon essence and as far as I can see, she’s you.
What’s your daughter’s name? Simone asked him.
His expression filled with wonder. I’m a dad! I have a daughter! He went grim. Larissa, after her mother.
That’s the code word.
Gotcha. He poked his head up to see the demons—they were standing quietly in the middle of the park, armed and alert.
Reinforcements are on their way, Simone said. She had a brilliant idea. They may not be able to tell us apart either. Be ready to back me up, I’ll pretend to be the reinforcements and take the leader by surprise.
He stared at her. I can’t let you—
Too late, she said, hefted the rubbish sword, and shot into the air. She flew a hundred metres back from the gathered demons in the centre of the city, then spoke to Michael.
Ask Semias to take down the invisibility.
Done.
The pearly edge to her vision disappeared. She gathered herself and broke the sound barrier—throwing the dead vegetation into the air—as she rushed to the centre of the city and screamed to a halt, then dived to land next to the shocked demons, sending a spray of gravel around her from the impact. She bound her left arm to her side, hopefully looking natural, and strolled to the leader of the demons. ‘You sent for help.’
The demon tossed her head, and the expression on her face was cruel. ‘Help, yes. You, no.’
‘Deal with it. I was ordered here, probably to replace you because ...’ Simone glanced around. ‘This is all you have left? Didn’t you have like ... thirty or something?’ She grinned at the copy. ‘You are in big trouble.’
The other Simone’s face went cunning. She grabbed a sword from a rack, hesitated, then spun and swung at Simone’s neck in a vicious sweep. Simone easily fended her off with her own sword, pushed her arm in the direction it was already going, then struck the copy’s hand with the hilt of the sword to disarm her, making the sword spin away. The other Simone stopped, stepped back, and studied her with loathing.
The demons gathered to watch, some of them grinning with anticipation.
‘You forgot everything you were taught while you’ve been sitting here fucking around,’ Simone said with vicious delight as she moved the copy closer to where Michael was hiding. ‘I, on the other hand, have been learning from the best. I managed to snag one of the young ones that was taught by that Emma thing, and it gave me a bunch of nice techniques.’ She raised her sword, facing the other Simone copy. ‘Go on, get the sword. Bring it. This’ll be fun.’
‘You’re supposed to be my reinforcements!’ the other Simone said. ‘Something’s been taking out my thralls and you need to help me!’ She sounded desperate. ‘Weren’t those Rhonda’s orders?’
Simone nearly dropped the act when she heard Rhonda’s name, then gathered herself. ‘Yeah, until you attacked me,’ she said. ‘Now it’s personal.’
The other Simone edged backwards without taking her eyes off Simone, picked up her sword, and rushed her.
The demon copy was trained, but Simone had been learning from the best since before she could walk. The demon made a swing for her head so fast that it would have been invisible to a human, but Simone had already cut her in half horizontally at waist level. The two pieces separated and collapsed into a heap, looking like a pile of cow entrails from the market.
Simone didn’t give the demons time to think. She strode to the centre of the garden area and turned on the spot to eye them. They stood looking at her and she scowled. ‘Why aren’t you kneeling? I just took out your lord!’
The five skinheads fell to one knee and lowered their heads, but the big, winged things stood uncomfortably watching her.
‘You want me to kill you too?’ she asked them. ‘I haven’t eaten yet.’ She glanced down at the pieces of Simone-demon at the other side of the clearing. ‘Shall I eat her, or you?’
One of the winged demons fell to its backwards knees, and the other four followed suit. They still seemed hesitant, and she recognised the need to press the advantage before they realised she wasn’t who they thought she was. They appeared much more intelligent than the ones they’d already encountered, and she had to move fast.
‘Rhonda said I was to come here because something has killed about half of her ...’ She waved dismissively at the other Simone. ‘Thralls. What was it?’
‘We don’t know, ma’am,’ one of the black demons said. ‘Something is sitting at the edge of the city—probably near the gates—and started picking off the patrols. We sent a larger group out and they all disappeared as well.’
‘Brilliant,’ she said with scorn. ‘Shall we go and see what’s going on, then? All of you, with me.’
The demons nodded and rose, collecting their weapons from the racks.
Simone sensed the reinforcements—five demons flying in at speed. She didn’t glance at Michael, hoping that he sensed them as well. ‘Form up around me, you two ...’ She indicated a couple of black demons. ‘In the van, in front, and the rest around and behind me.’
‘Why don’t we have to obey her?’ one of the skinheads whispered to a black demon. ‘It’s like she’s just talking, there’s no will behind it.’
‘Because I’m such a good copy that you’re not sure if I’m the real thing or not!’ Simone shouted. Any time, she said to Michael, then switched to out loud. ‘Feel free to disobey me, you’ll end up like my other copy. So, let’s go find out what’s been killing our thralls.’
‘No, this is wrong,’ one of the black demons said.
The reinforcements landed into the clearing. They were more of the big winged black things, and Simone hoped that Michael was paying attention because there were now more demons than she was comfortable taking down one-handed.
Duck , Michael said.
‘About time!’ Simone shouted, hit the ground and lay flat, wincing as the shock went through her injured left arm. Michael’s Inner Eye seared above her, and the demons were gone. She pulled herself to her feet, brushed herself off and heard something hit the ground behind her. She turned to see that Michael, his face slack, had fallen to his knees. He toppled over, hitting his head hard as he fell.
‘Oh no, his head!’ she shouted, and flew to him, correcting her low-gravity rush at the last second, and slid to a halt next to him. She rolled him onto his back and concentrated on his head, unable to see inside.
Semias appeared next to her as she sat and placed Michael’s head into her lap as she checked him. He was limp and unconscious.
‘You were supposed to thin the ranks, not destroy them all, you idiot. I could have handled the big ones.’ She looked up at Semias. ‘Do you have medical facilities here?’
‘Not yet, the demon corpses need to be gone before I can fully reassemble,’ Semias said. ‘He hit the ground hard, but I don’t think he’s done any major damage—’
‘He’s had a brain injury before, there’s a great deal of scarring here,’ Simone said. She ran her fingertips over his scalp, not finding any major lumps or blood. ‘I can’t see inside while I’m contaminated like this. You’ll need to check inside his head.’
‘I don’t see any bleeding inside his skull, I think it’s exhaustion,’ Semias said. ‘Can you carry him? We can take him into one of the residences and you can rest and wash and eat, and he can recover.’
‘All right,’ Simone said, and rose. She bent and lifted Michael to carry him over her good shoulder. ‘Where to?’
‘This way,’ Semias said, and led her past the garden and onto one of the raised walkways. ‘About a hundred yards.’
‘I hope you can provide us with something to eat and drink,’ Simone said, concerned by Michael’s extended unconsciousness. He was completely limp in her arms. ‘If he has a brain injury, can you fix him?’
‘Not as long as that pile of demon corpses sits next to my gates, contaminating my essence,’ Semias said. ‘Basic food and drink, yes. Healing, no.’
He led Simone to a small, square, balcony-type extension off the soaring walkway with a waist-high barrier around three sides. The ground of the walkway and balcony was covered in what appeared to be glass tiles, deep blue and glossy, but they didn’t feel slippery underfoot. They were smokily transparent, and the ground below was dimly visible through them. Semias gestured towards the balcony. ‘Stand on this and I will take you down to the residence.’
‘When I’ve settled him, I can remove the demon corpses,’ Simone said. ‘If we leave them for a couple of days, will they dissolve into black goo by themselves?
‘You’ve seen these ones before,’ Semias said, and a third wall appeared at the edge of the balcony. It became an open-air lift, large enough to hold ten people, that slid downwards without any feeling of movement. ‘That would not be a good option, as their essence would contaminate my soil. If you can remove their bodies, I’ll be able to start mending myself, and see about ...’ He touched Michael’s head. ‘Mending him too.’
‘He’s not waking up,’ Simone said, her voice full of urgency. ‘Don’t you die on me here, Michael MacLaren, I need you.’
‘He said the Inner Eye was draining him,’ Semias said.
‘I hope that’s all it is.’
Simone followed Semias along a lower-level avenue that appeared to be a pedestrian boulevard, shaded by the causeway above, and not broad enough to accommodate vehicles that were more than a couple of people wide. Empty planter boxes dotted the footpath, again with dead vegetation in them. Two-storey mansions, made entirely of stained glass, stood on either side of the boulevard, behind waist-high stained-glass fences that led into gardens the size of a modern front yard. The glass walls of the houses were splintered and broken between the metal pillars and stained with mud. Many of the roofs had fallen in, but some of them still had intact towers and spires that looked much too tall and slender to stay upright.
‘This is all very suburban,’ she said, and looked around. ‘Which one?’
‘Michael and the demon copies of his wife and mother were in the mayor’s palace before, and I don’t think it would be an idea to put you there again,’ Semias said. He opened the metal-and-glass gate of the mansion in front of them and gestured her through. ‘This way.’
The mansion had white stone Corinthian columns holding the roof of the stained-glass portico on the front. The front door was a single sheet of shattered, opaque blue-green glass in a metal frame, which rebuilt itself as she approached. She entered the building, holding Michael, and stopped.
It was shaped like a stained-glass version of a traditional Roman building, similar to the ones she’d seen when she visited Pompeii during her gap year. It reconstructed itself as she walked past the shallow, rectangular marble fountain in the central courtyard to the stairs at the back leading up to the first floor. The walls and ceiling were all frosted glass, and its transparency filled the interior with a blue-green morning sunlight.
‘To the left,’ Semias said. ‘In the dining room.’
She turned left and went through another glass door that was in the process of recreating itself. The walls reconstructed themselves to show elaborate scenes of revelry in stained glass, showing the ancient gods in a feast with wine, music and song. The exterior wall’s transparency again filled the room with a glowing golden light.
‘Can’t do anything until those corpses are gone, this is so frustrating,’ Semias grumbled behind her, then his voice changed to chagrined. ‘Not blaming you, Princess, you’ve done so much for me already. I just wish I had full control of my city so I could show you all I’m capable of.’
Simone nodded and stopped in the dining room. There was a central silver-and-glass organically curving table surrounded by similarly constructed chairs. The table deconstructed itself to its glass and metal components and remade itself into a bed. A feather ticking mattress, covered in rough grey linen, appeared on the frame but there was no pillow. She laid Michael on the bed, shook her sore left arm, then fell to her knees next to him. He was still unconscious, and she was unable to see him internally to ascertain whether it was brain damage or just being drained.
‘Can you see inside his head now that we’re in a house?’ she asked Semias without looking away from Michael.
Before Semias could reply, Michael stirred, and she gasped with relief. He winced with pain, and she took his hand. He opened his eyes and blinked at the ceiling, obviously confused.
‘It’s okay, I’m here,’ Simone said, squeezing his hand.
‘Simone? Where? Oh.’ He struggled to sit up and failed. ‘What happened?’
‘You knocked yourself out with your Inner Eye,’ Simone said. ‘Over-used instead of under-used, this time.’
He flashed a quick, wry smile and sighed. ‘I take it they’re all gone?’
‘All gone, lad. Thank you,’ Semias said.
Michael touched his temple with his free hand. ‘Whoa, that’s the headache from hell.’
‘You fell flat on your silly face,’ Simone said. She turned to Semias. ‘Food? Water? Rest?’
‘The kitchen is the room next door. What would you like to eat? What do people today eat? This region’s specialties are roast boar, apples, cow’s milk cheese, soft bread, and pickled cabbage. Some nice pig pancreas? Clarissa and Rhonda—’
Both Simone and Michael winced, and Semias stopped.
‘I don’t eat meat,’ Simone said. ‘Anything vegetable. Mushrooms. Pasta?’
‘What’s pasta? They never mentioned that.’
‘Never mind,’ Simone said. ‘Just whatever you gave ... the copies.’
‘My head hurts like hell, I think I hit it pretty hard,’ Michael said. ‘Can you heal me, Semias?’
‘I can’t help you until those demon corpses are gone,’ Semias said.
‘I can transform to heal the injury, but I’ll be stuck in Tiger form for a while,’ Michael said to Simone. ‘But if I eat in tiger form ...’
‘Good idea, it will help you rebuild your energy as well,’ Simone said. ‘And I’ve seen your father eat, it doesn’t bother me. Get some protein into you, it’ll do you a lot of good. I’m okay with you having half a haunch of wild boar as a tiger. Go for it.’
Michael nodded and grunted as he climbed off the bed, shifted down to a crouch, and changed to a gold-and-white tiger, paler than a natural animal but not as white as his father.
Simone smiled. ‘Pretty fur.’
‘Thank you,’ he said, and shook his head, making his bushy tiger mane swing. ‘I feel much better.’ He looked around with his golden tiger eyes. ‘Semias?’
‘Right here, lad,’ Semias said, entering the room with a large metal platter of grilled vegetables floating next to him. The bed transformed back to a table, and the platter laid itself onto the surface. Another large platter of fruit, bread and cheese landed next to it, with apples, grapes and small apricots. ‘That’s the best I can do, I have trouble conjuring food when it’s out of season. Did you say raw haunch of boar? How about deer?’
‘Sounds good,’ Michael said, his voice a throaty growl, and another platter entered the room and landed in front of his nose, holding a raw, bleeding lump of meat with a deer’s leg and hoof sticking out of it.
‘Wine to drink?’ Semias asked. ‘Ale? Mead? Posca?’
‘Water, please,’ Simone said, and a jug and two cups, all made of earthenware pottery, appeared on the table next to the food. ‘Thank you.’
‘Eat and rest while I rebuild the rest of the house so that you can wash and sleep,’ Semias said. ‘Then I need to rest as well.’ He changed to his automaton self and fell straight into the ground to disappear. The rest of the house made grinding and clinking sounds as it put itself back together.
There weren’t any individual plates, so Simone grabbed an apple and crunched into it. It was harder and sourer than modern apples, but she was too hungry to care. She tried a grape from the bunch of red ones in front of her and found it as sweet and juicy as any modern version, although it had multiple large seeds. She emptied the grapes out of their pottery bowl onto the platter, filled the bowl with water, and placed it next to Michael’s gruesome meal so that he could drink.
He stopped crunching on the bone and looked away.
‘Don’t stop eating, I’m fine with it,’ she said. ‘My father’s Turtle form makes the most disgusting noises when he’s eating a bowl full of the most gross stinky cat food. And I don’t even want to talk about him and Emma’s Serpents eating, that’s even more gross. This—this is normal.’
‘You sure?’ he asked, blood staining the white fur of his jowls.
‘Absolutely positive,’ she said. She tore a hunk of bread from the circular loaf and used a knife to cut a slice of cheese to put on top of it. She took a bite and it tasted as good as any modern food. The cheese was tart, and the bread was soft and warm. She tried a grilled purple root vegetable and it turned out to be a purple carrot, and there was squash and broccoli but no potatoes. ‘I guess people weren’t vegetarian in the Iron Age.’
‘They were, but they called it “fasting” on holy days and it was for religious reasons. Spiritual purity. That sort of thing,’ Semias said from somewhere near the ceiling.
‘That’s why I’m vegetarian,’ Simone said, bit into an apricot, and winced. It was harder and sourer than the apple.
*
W hen they’d finished eating, Michael lay on his side in tiger form on the stone floor and licked himself clean. He lifted one front paw and cleaned the pads, then nibbled between his toes, his eyes half-closed with bliss. He lifted his hind leg like a cat, sat with it in the air for a long minute, then put it back down again and busied himself licking the back of his front paws.
Simone went to the floor and sat next to him. She rested her chin on her knees and wrapped her arms around her legs. ‘How much do you remember about what happened before you passed out?’
He looked up from his paws. ‘I heard what she said.’
Simone lowered her head. ‘I am so sorry.’
Michael dropped his head onto his paws with a throaty sigh. ‘I knew it was a possibility. My father warned me about them.’ He licked the back of his paw again, his tongue making a rasping sound over his fur. ‘Mostly copies of Emma, Rhonda, and you—serpent women. Not so many of Clarissa, because she was ...’ He swallowed it. ‘She wasn’t a fighter, and she was an ordinary human.’ He studied his paws. ‘If we see my mother ...’ He looked up at her, his tawny eyes intense. ‘Could you do it for me? I don’t think I could.’
‘Ditto if we meet an Emma copy?’ Simone asked.
He raised one paw and she tapped it. ‘Deal.’
‘It’s dark now, I guess we sleep here the night and then tomorrow we find this throne.’ She glanced up. Semias wasn’t visible. ‘Where is the throne, anyway?’
‘Close to the region’s centre, next to the river Musell, in a city called Treurorum or Treverorum for the Romans,’ Semias said. He shot out of the floor and sat on one of the chairs to speak to them with his elbows on his knees. ‘It’s floating crystals, and you’ll have to fly to the topmost one. It’s close to the top of the air layer, so I hope you’re capable of dealing with a very thin atmosphere.’
‘I’ve seen those crystals,’ Simone said with wonder. ‘I didn’t go up and visit them, I was looking for a way back out of these Heavens.’
Michael stopped grooming his paw, stretched his claws out and yawned. ‘I’ll have to stay in Tiger form overnight, and I’ll be in clean human form when I change back.’ He glanced at Simone. ‘You rinsed yourself off after you killed that demon, but you should know that...’
‘Yeah, I stink. I’m sweaty and gritty and there are still gross demon bits on me.’ Simone turned to Semias. ‘Is there a bathroom where I can wash?’
‘Yes, it’s across the other side of the courtyard,’ Semias said. ‘No hot water, but there is a bath for you, and I can put a fire underneath it ...’
‘No need, I can heat the water myself,’ Simone said, and patted Michael’s tiger rump. ‘I’ll be right back.’
She stopped halfway across the courtyard, next to the marble fountain in its rectangular glass pool, which was empty of water. ‘Semias?’
‘Yes, Princess?’
‘I need to use the latrine. Can you show me the way?’
‘It’s at the back of the house, past the kitchen, in its own outbuilding,’ Semias said. ‘The demon copies of Michael’s wife and mother told me some most interesting things about modern latrines, and I hope I can see how they work very soon.’
‘Thank you.’ Simone went through the echoing, empty rooms to a small yard attached to the back of the house, bare of greenery. A long, narrow outhouse—a single building with a sloping roof—stood against the back fence. Interestingly, it was made of glass bricks rather than the sheets of glass used for the rest of the building, with a sloping, glass-tiled roof. She opened the door and there were five stone toilet seats in a row over what appeared to be a cesspit, with wooden covers on the openings to keep the smell out. She saw the sponge attached to a long stick sitting in a bucket of water to one side and shook her head. It was straight out of a history lesson.
‘Communal?’ she wondered aloud as she looked for the cleanest-looking seat.
‘No, everyone had their own,’ Semias said from somewhere above her. ‘If someone was using it, others would wait—unless it was really urgent.’
‘Out. This is private,’ she said.
‘I can’t see you,’ he said.
The bathroom was in one of the rooms at the front of the house with a single bath, no basin, and the drain running out into the street. The bath was a rectangular, glass-tiled area with sides raised from the floor, and it was already full of lovely clear water. Simone disrobed, heated the water, and sank into it up to her waist. There was a glass bottle full of some sort of bath oil to one side and she pulled off the stopper and sniffed it. It smelled of sweet clover and she studied it. She hesitated about asking Semias, as the spirit had been very clear about his sexual enthusiasm, and she didn’t want to be naked in front of him.
She poured some of the thick liquid onto her hand, put the bottle down and rubbed her hands together to discover with delight that it was a floral, sweet-smelling liquid soap. She exited the bath to wash Japanese-style, covering herself in the frothy soap and lathering her hair. She rinsed herself off with conjured water, and then returned to the bath, feeling clean for the first time in ages. She sighed and closed her eyes, then sank under the water completely to soak. She was tempted to spend the night in the water, but it would cool quickly without her conscious attention, and the night was promising to be cold.
She dried herself and conjured fresh clothing that was more suited to the fight she expected the next day—a good, supportive sports bra, yoga pants and a long-sleeved T-shirt with a simple leather vest over the top for armour. As she braided her long hair, she mourned not being able to pull her lovely custom-made armour to herself—Moaner at Wudang Mountain’s forge had spent weeks tweaking it to fit her perfectly. She headed back towards the dining room, then stopped and went out to the yard. There had been gardens, but everything was dead. She looked up for a while, appreciating the Celestial stars until the cold became unpleasant and she went inside.