Ann Aguirre - Devil's Punch

On second glance, I noted the faint flicker of magick emanating from the runes. The air was cold as a freezer as we passed through, a dark and silent stream running beside us. Some distance along, the river expanded into a shallow underground lake, broad enough that I couldn’t see the opposite shore.

Butch whined then, and Chance put him down so he could stretch his legs and christen the ground. The demon was patient with the dog’s needs, which was a surprising kindness, I thought. Then it knelt and touched the animal on the head with its long, strange fingers. Butch quivered, but didn’t flee, his big, bulging eyes fixed on the creature before him. He didn’t growl, either. Interesting.

“A most intriguing creature,” Greydusk said as it rose. “Shall we move on?”

I was tired, but didn’t want to camp down here; that was for sure. The sooner we got to the gate, the better I’d like it. So I nodded, Chance grabbed the tiny dog, and we set off.

This time we marched for hours. The path led subtly downward, following the lake, wherein…things splashed. Just beyond the range of my witchlight, movement stirred, the hint of fins and tentacles bestirring the water, and that uncertainty was worse than knowing what danger I faced. I hastened my step as Greydusk diverged from the lake, charting a course across more uneven rocks that led to a natural archway painted in more demonic sigils. I hoped this would be the homestretch. Surely we’d almost covered the distance the demon had mentioned.

Earlier we had paused for protein bars, rest, and bottled water. My thighs burned from all the climbing. I concentrated on Shannon. It didn’t matter how much this hurt me; I’d get her back.

This is your fault. Her involvement with me led to her abduction. Yet if I’d left her in Kilmer, she’d be dead. And if I’d taken her away and then found somewhere else for her to stay, I had no guarantee that would’ve ended better. Sometimes there were no good choices.

“What’s Sheol like?” I asked eventually.

The demon answered without turning. “Darker than your world. Colder.”

That didn’t tell me as much as I’d hoped. “Anything else?”

“You’ll see when we reach Xibalba.”

“I thought we were going to—”

“Xibalba is a city.” By its tone, I could tell Greydusk wished I would stop pestering it.

Since my questions could distract from important matters, such as our safety, I shut up, but we hadn’t been walking long when that faint flutter of wings got louder. The demon’s reaction told me that wasn’t good. Not just bats like I had been telling myself for half a kilometer. This wasn’t the small flutter of many leather-winged creatures, but a deep and powerful snap-snap-snap . For reasons I couldn’t articulate, the sound chilled the marrow in my bones.

“It appears we shall encounter heavy resistance,” Greydusk observed. “Prepare to fight.”

The passage had a high ceiling, which wasn’t good. It gave whatever was coming too much room to maneuver. I had five spells swirling in my head, and one of them made light. Not helpful. So really I had four spells at my command, plus the touch, and unless the monster coming for us was wearing some article of clothing, like the knight had been, it probably wouldn’t help. Beside me, Chance crouched in a fighting stance; he had knuckle knives on both hands. Before, I’d always seen him fight without weapons, but a demon’s hide wouldn’t take damage from a human fist.

Even if he’s only half human .

The creature shrieked and dive-bombed us from the shadows, moving too fast for me to get a good look at it. I had a fleeting impression of a monstrously female face grafted onto the body of a humanoid pterodactyl, and I saw claws that shone like diamonds as it dove a second time. Chance slashed at the wings, trying to bring it down, and I mustered my resolve, firming hands that shook as I raised my athame. While this spell might not save us, it wouldn’t hurt either.

The power swelled inside me, burning, hurting, but I let it center me. Pain means I’m still here, fighting. I envisioned it swelling in my hand in a seething rush, gathering, gathering, and then I sent it out on my resolve like a dark and winged thing riding the magickal wind as I whispered, “ Hostes hostium caecus .”

The enemy sightless .

I knew nothing about this demon, but it would help if the monster couldn’t see us. Its face looked so hideous that I wondered if this thing might have inspired the Harpy legends, thousands of years ago, but its skull didn’t seem shaped for sonar. A second later, it proved it had no special neural navigation when it screamed and slammed into a wall. The collision stunned it, and the thing dropped. Chance sprang to finish it before it could recover, but Greydusk raised a long, unsettling hand.

“Please. Allow me. Its death can serve us in two fashions if I do it.”

Though I didn’t know if this was a good idea, I nodded, mostly because I wanted to see firsthand what it could do. That might save our lives later, if it gave me time to prepare some defense. My spells weren’t super-blow-the-door-off-the-hinges powerful, but properly deployed, they might save us.

Greydusk strode in, dodged a blind and desperate strike, and slammed both hands—with sucker pads—on either side of the misshapen skull. The creature seized, grand mal tremors rocking it from head to toe. Steam hissed from the point of contact, and an awful purple light ran up our guide’s spindly arms. An orange glow sparked in Greydusk’s skull and then the attacker went limp.

“You killed it?” Chance asked.

It had done more than that, but I waited to see how it would reply.

“I drained it,” the demon corrected. “Its knowledge, memories, and skills are now mine. Sadly, in this form, I cannot use some of them.”

A joke, I thought, if not a funny one. It reminded me of the way a cat licked its whiskers after a mouse. I smiled uneasily.

Chanced stared down at the still-smoking corpse. It was smaller, withered, as if Greydusk had taken more than information, terrabytes of data streaming in magickal light. The exchange set my teeth on edge. I wanted to blind Greydusk, and then let Chance kill it, but then I’d leave Shannon stranded in Sheol. I couldn’t do that, so once again I proved myself willing to work with the devil in order to achieve my own ends. Is this what evil feels like? How it begins? You started with a slippery slide down the slope of good intentions until you were mired in the blood and mud at the bottom, unable to see any light no matter which way you turned. Heart dark and heavy, I wondered how far I would go, and what I would become when I got there.

If you care for no one , a little voice whispered, if you remain firm and steadfast and will not act to save the ones you love, in the name of some abstract good, is inaction not the same as evil? I couldn’t fashion an answer; it was too much, too confusing, but I did, unfortunately, see how good and evil were almost like a wheel, and that if you went far enough down one road, the two became virtually indistinguishable. People had done terrible things in heaven’s name, too.

“What happens to demons when they die?”

“Nothing,” it said.

“There’s no afterlife? No hell?”

It flashed its teeth. “According to your lore, Binder, we’re already there.”

“But Maury told me—”

“Ah, yes.” Its tone became disapproving. “You have…contacts, do you not?”

“I guess. What kind of demon is Maury?”

“He is of the Birsael caste, the bargainers. They are easy for practitioners of your world to call because they long to cross over. They are…playful?”