Round Four: Team Rarepear
Title: The Demon's Crown (part 1/2)
Author: There's three authors! There's three members in the team! WHO COULD THESE MYSTERIOUS AUTHORS BE? (Spoilers: It's mizzy2k, empresstria and altogetherisi)
Pairing: Rarepears! Rarepears in lots of places! Wheeeeeee.
Summary: A shapeshifting demon, diary abuse, a heist involving the Royal Jewels, Nick discovers something shiny and a hidden identity revealed - the Demon's Crown could save the world, but is the price worth it?
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: One use of the F word! (AND YOU KNOW HOW DANGEROUS IT IS USING THE WORD FOOD WHEN NICK IS AROUND.)
~one~
Dear Diary.
Wait, I almost vomited writing that. No, just give me a second, there's a reason for it: it would be a disgrace to my quotation marks open people close quotation to actually turn into a giant girl.
With all this magic floating around in my life, I wouldn't be surprised if that happened one day.
Anyway, I totally digress. I'm feeling vulnerably teenage at the moment, especially spewing everything out into diary form, but there's nothing else to do.
Sometimes history just gotta spill onto the page.
So here goes. Be kind to me. As every other soul on the crumbly shining path to hell, I have good intentions.
That's one of the few mantras that let me catch some shut eye while I'm in this place.
When Mae and I were little, I used to fantasise about running away to join a commune, where other people had the same gifts as me, and I didn't have to hide that part of me. I guess that's what a Circle is really.
The Aventurine Circle is nothing like I daydreamed a magical commune would be.
Still, there's Gerald. Gotta keep an eye out for those silver linings.
Albie,
Gerald here. This paper will burn up once you've read this note. Well. Perhaps. I advise you to read fast, I spelled it to disintegrate in exactly 120 seconds.
The dance last night was successful. The demon who we know as the Thief at the Gate, who the Ryves threat seems to know as Anzu, had spectacular news as I assumed he would, given the right deal.
Remember those faint rumours five years back about the Demon's Crown?
Not rumour at all.
The Demon's Crown exists. I repeat, the Demon's Crown is not an urban fantasy. The thing actually freaking exists.
This whole thing smells of bad and that's not an exaggeration - it's an understatement.
This thing stops demons from accessing their power. It cuts them off from the demon world. It means we could never dance up a demon or call up a deal ever again, and worse, it cuts off the power we already have access to.
If anyone without a brain gets hold of the Demon's Crown, well, in the epic terms of the survivalist nut-jobs: Shit Will Hit The Fan.
“Anzu” couldn't tell us where the Crown currently lays, but he did know the existence of a tablet appertaining to its location.
The tablet is currently in the possession of one Merris Crawford.
Talk to me. We're mainlining to attack the Market tonight. Could do with your help.
Jamie.
PLEASE DON'T STOP READING THIS JUST WHEN YOU SEE MY WRITING THIS IS IMPORTANT. I know I'm screwed up, but this is beyond everything.
Last night while you were running that errand for Gerald, he summoned the demon Anzu.
There's an object called the Demon's Crown. If it's destroyed, demons and magicians alike will lose their power forever. Its location is described on a tablet that Merris Crawford is in possession of.
I overheard Gerald's plans to attack the Goblin Market, where Mae is. I've dug up some of the stones around London to disrupt the Circle. It's only a matter of time before Gerald finds out it was me. You can tell him if you like. I did it for you and for Mae. He can't do anything to me that's worse than you losing your sister. I had the chance to stop it so I took it.
Things are about to go real bad. The stone circle is down; magicians are already on their way to attack. Please keep safe.
Seb.
Seb,
You're an idiot. We've got four enemy magicians on their way as I waste time writing this.
Thank you.
But don't write to me again.
Jamie
C,
THE SMALL CIRCLES WILL HOLD UNTIL I CAN REFORM THE LARGER ONE. I THINK I KNOW WHO IS CULPABLE.
GERALD
Jamie,
Your defense work has been excellent over the past day since the slight hiccup with our stone circle. Would you like to join me for dinner in the boardroom tonight?
Yours,
Gerald
Gerald,
I would. But Seb McFarlane's scream of pain from the guys you sent to drag him off to be punished are still ringing painfully in my ears.
I'm feeling a bit bushed after all the attacks. Raincheck?
Jamie x
Mae.
Usual time. Usual place.
HUGE news.
Before you say it: No, I'm not pregnant.
Love you,
Jamie.
~two~
Mae spun through the ache in her side, the burn in her thigh. She mimed a stooping falcon, dipping almost the ground with her arms flung behind her, and her blue skirt blossomed around her like the bruised sky. Breathing fast and deep, she brushed fingers with her partner-didn’t remember his name, didn’t care-before diving away with a sleazy roll of her neck.
One more twisting leap on tired feet, then she swept into the final curtsy. Mae held it a beat longer than she needed to, savored the crowd’s brief hush, then threw her head up to accept the cheers.
The only thing keeping her steady as she left the dancing grounds was the fever fruit tingling in her gut. She saw Sin nearby, glowing under a golden lantern. When their eyes met, Sin glared.
A patched figure blocked Sin from her line of sight. “Lovely dancing,” said Matthias. “Best I’ve ever seen you.”
“Thanks. I’ll admit, I was nervous when Merris asked me to lead the dance tonight.” The fever fruit sharpened her smile, brightened her eyes.
“Nervous? I’m sure nobody could tell. I certainly couldn’t.”
“You’re so kind,” purred Mae, brushing her hair from her face. The pink was faded, and she’d grown half an inch of dark roots. No time for maintenance these days.
The pied piper laughed, like bells. “It’s no kindness to tell the truth.”
Mae caught sight of Sin over Matthias’s shoulder. The dark-haired girl had a sour twist to her rouged lips. The darkening sky had taken some of the glow from her skin.
Darkening sky. Mae had an appointment to keep. “So sorry, but I’ve got to go.” She brushed past his farewell and slipped through the Market crowd. People made way for her these days, especially those who thought she might win out over Sin for control of the Market.
She returned all the smiles but evaded conversation. The booths gave way to dark, old trees. Mae leaned against one and folded her arms over her ribs.
The fever fruit was starting to wear off, thankfully. Talking to her brother while hyped up on aphrodisiacs would be kind of awkward.
A thin blue light spiraled in front of her, flickering and shimmering until it resembled Jamie. The focus was sharpest on his lips, his voice, and the rest blurred away until she couldn’t see his feet at all.
“You look tired,” said Mae, like she always did.
Jamie gave his customary response, voice clear as if he really stood before her. “That’s just the projection.”
As usual, Mae didn’t believe him, but neither did she press the matter. He could only hold the projection for so long. She uncrossed her arms. Once, she had tried to hug the projection. She wouldn’t again. “What’s up?”
“You need to talk to Merris. There’s this thing Seb heard Anzu talking about. It’s called the Demon’s Crown. It’s-I don’t know what it is, exactly, but if we destroy it, the demons lose their power. And that means the magicians do too.”
Mae’s eyes widened. “Keep going.”
“Anzu said Merris has a tablet describing its location. Get the tablet. Find the Crown. The Circle can’t attack for a while, Seb dug up some of the-shit.” His projection wavered and his head turned on his thin neck.
“Jamie, what’s wrong? Is someone-“
“Yeah, someone’s coming. Love you, Mae.” He fizzled.
“Love you too,” she said to the vanished projection.
For once, excitement at the news outweighed her regret for Jamie’s disappearance. If they could cripple the demons, and the magicians to boot-Mae flung herself away from the tree and sprinted back towards the Market.
As she reached Merris’s wagon, the last sunlight bled from the sky. Only when she knocked on the doorframe did Mae realize that with nightfall, Liannan would answer her call, not Merris.
A claw-like hand raked aside the curtain and Liannan’s youthful, vicious face hovered into view. Her red hair, backlit with candles, blazed.
“Yes? What do you want, faded girl?”
The words were exhalations, not fully sounded. The creature was still unused to voice.
Mae met the dark eyes. She briefly considered turning away, waiting until morning to talk to Merris, but now she was here, she rather thought that Liannan might know more anyway.
And over the demon’s shoulder, she saw Sin poised on a pile of cushions. Mae couldn’t run away in front of her rival.
“I need information,” said Mae.
A shark grin. “And you’ll pay for it?”
Mae hopped the step into the wagon by way of answer.
The demon hummed, off-key, and motioned for her to sit beside Sin. The other girl tilted her head back, dark curls spilling over half-bare shoulders.
Pretending to ignore the gesture, Mae remained standing. She was already shorter than Liannan as it was, no need to exaggerate the height disparity during negotiations.
Liannan’s smirk said the demon knew what she was doing. She spread thin arms. “Make your demand and I’ll name the price.”
Mae thought over her words. This was not a dance, there was no circle to bind them, but that only meant she needed to exercise even more caution in this bargain. “I need a particular tablet from Merris’s collection.”
“More than simple information, oh? Which tablet?”
“I need the tablet that gives the location of the Demon’s Crown.”
The demon froze, then let out a slow hiss. Her shoulders hunched as if wings were about to sprout from her back. Her hair burned brighter.
Sin sat up, but Mae spared barely a glance for the other girl.
Liannan shook her head and straightened again. “So you know of the Demon’s Crown. Why should I give you something with which you could take from me?” Her voice sounded more human than Mae had ever heard it.
Mae waited out the question.
The demon hummed again. “I’ll give it to you, but in exchange, I will take power from you.”
“I don’t have magic,” Mae pointed out, but she felt foolish as soon as the words left her lips.
“Not magic,” chided Liannan. “But you have power nonetheless. So in exchange for the tablet leading to the Demon’s Crown, you must relinquish your candidacy for leadership of the Goblin Market.”
Mae and Sin gaped at the demon.
Sin recovered first, standing quickly. “Why?”
“I’d prefer a Market with weaker leadership, of course.” Liannan fluttered her eyelashes and blew a kiss from her fingertips.
Puzzlement fled Sin’s brow, replaced with a scowling rage. Her lips tightened as if to keep back an unwise response.
Mae looked down at herself, at the flowing blue dress, the grass and dirt stains on her feet, the charmed bangles. All the accoutrements of the Goblin Market, of the place she had carved for herself. All that against the possibility of crippling the magicians forever. Her faded pink hair fell before her eyes. There was no real choice. She shoved her hair back and met Liannan’s black gaze. She didn’t want to look at Sin. “I accept.”
Liannan laughed, and Mae couldn’t tell if she was glad or not. “Go to Alan to get the tablet. Merris gave it to him months ago so he could translate it.”
“And has he translated it?”
“You’ll have to ask him.”
Mae took a deep breath, then whirled out of Merris’s wagon.
~three~
Dear Diary,
Things are even more insane than usual. I mean, on a scale of insane to more insane - which is the only scale I can really use for things any more - this is up there, heavy on the more.
Gerald - who still makes my stomach do giddy upside down and round and round things just by breathing, the smug bastard - is like that Katy Perry song times a million. One second he's so very attentive to me that my skin thrills with it. Other times he's cold and dark and he's plotting to attack the very place he knows my sister is.
I wonder which Gerald is the real one. I hope it's the first, because even when he's the second, I still get dizzy when he catches my gaze in his. If he's the first, I'm less of a psychopath. Less of a Nicholas Ryves.
Gerald has been teaching me to hone my craft, with one-on-one sessions, and it's been fast and dangerous and brilliant and he's been paying me compliments and you can't believe how delicious it feels to fight and feel someone fight back with the same level of power, and I should be dropping wholeheartedly into it, but I'm not. I'm holding back.
I'm holding back, and Gerald isn't noticing.
Someone did notice, though. Turns out when Gerald summoned Anzu, the Tengu demon hung around. Mostly he just lounges around and smirks, sometimes he eats everything in sight, mostly he just smirks and insults people. It's a lot like having a less comforting version of Nick around.
Wait, did I write that last sentence?
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Keyboard smashing aside, Anzu has been good to talk to. I know I can't trust a single thing he says, but he talks to me, and in this place, that's rare. Most of the Aventurine and old Obsidian members take one look at the demon's mark on my chin and back off. I know most of them want me gone. Gerald fights for me to stay. That gives me hope he thinks of me like I think of him.
Anyway, this place is like boot camp, and Anzu is General Nuisance, and seems to think because I tolerate him talking to me, he can ask me questions. I answered all of them reluctantly, until he asked me one thing that made me stop.
Gerald didn't notice I was holding back, but Anzu did. And he wants to know why. He said rather emphatically that Nick was the most dangerous thing in both worlds (I think Gerald has said that before), but that I was still pretty bad ass in this one. I think he was trying to compliment me to get me on his side. It's not going to work. Even if he's right about me. I am pretty bad ass.
So why am I hiding it from Gerald? Why am I holding back? I didn't have the answer, so I sassed Anzu; told him he needed to dance, summon me and provide payment for the answer.
I wasn't expecting him to offer payment.
Here it is: -
He can tell me where the Demon Crown needs to be deployed for the worlds to be closed off permanently to each other. With me knowing where, and Mae finding out how to get it, we can rid the world of magic and demons in no time.
Of course, life without magic...
It would be safe.
I would be closer to that elusive, wrong concept of normal.
It would mean life without Gerald.
I did what I could. I told him I would think about it, and then went to see Mae at our same bat time, same bat place.
She wasn't there.
Sin was. She was bitter. She seemed surprised that Mae was coming to see me every night. I wonder who she thought Mae was coming to meet. I deduced from her bitterness that Sin thought Mae had been meeting a lover or something, and probably a man that Sin herself had an eye on. Still, Sin's bitterness didn't seem to go away on realising Mae had just been talking to her brother.
It turned out that Mae had to give up vying for Market leadership in order to get the Demon's Crown tablet. She's felt weak since nearly losing her brother to Gerald's mark, so her bitterness was a familiar flavour to me. When I told Sin that, it surprised her, but I had to explain the truth - Mae's always been the strong one. Sin was surprised because with my power, I shouldn't feel weak to anyone.
I didn't want to answer. I'd been neatly psychoanalytically thraped by a demon just half an hour before. I wasn't about to let Sin do it too.
I told Sin to leave me two flowers underneath the rock she was sitting on, because I was coming to see her.
Soon.
~four~
The Ryves brothers had a new house. Shabby walls and a roof that didn’t leak too much. Mae didn’t bother to look around-soon this Cardiff house would be a thing of the past, like London or Exeter or wherever.
Nick held the door open but didn’t meet her eyes. His scowl was liable to wrinkle that perfect brow. “What do you want?” he asked, with words like ice cubes clinking into a glass.
Mae resisted the urge to scowl back. “Certainly not your smiling face. Where’s Alan?”
He leered. “Oh, I see how it is.”
She tried very hard not to take the anger personally. Nick’s moods always depended on Alan’s well-being, and ever since Alan took that mark, well-being was impossible.
But even if it had a very good reason to be sharp, a knife still cut.
“Is that Mae?”
A brighter voice, from upstairs. At first Mae only saw white socks and faded hems of jeans, before the rest of the long body limped far enough down.
“Hey there,” she called. “I’ve got news!”
Nick let the door swing shut behind her and moved to the foot of the stairs.
“I don’t need help, Nick,” Alan said.
She thought his limp looked worse than when she’d last seen him, only a week ago. From the pinch to his face, expressing concern would go poorly. “Alan, do you still have that Sumerian tablet? The one Merris gave you, the first time you took me to the Goblin Market.”
The first time she ate fever fruit and danced until she burned. The first time she tried to seduce Nick, and Alan too.
Alan’s eyes lit up behind the glasses. “That! I finished translating it, but never got around to telling her. Does she want it back?”
Mae shook her head. “No. I got a message from Jamie. There’s information in that tablet that could be really important.” Her fingers twisted the hems of her long sleeves as she relayed the details.
Nick whistled. “Magically castrate demons and magicians alike? Impressive.”
“Nick,” said Alan. “I’m not sure that-I’m not sure. This could be monumental.” His glasses shone under the cheap overhead lighting, the glare hiding his eyes.
The demon grinned. “Don’t worry about me. I’d be happy to give up my power if that lot did too.”
Alan pursed his lips, then nodded. “I’ll find the tablet, then. Somewhere downstairs-“ he only took one step before his face went all funny, blank like a doll.
Then he flung himself down.
A dull sound-Mae thought it was her heart thudding, but it was just Alan’s head against the wall. His body arced out into the open air, feet scraping along the banister.
Alan slammed into Nick’s arms, because Nick was catching him before Mae even started breathing again. They were a shaky tableau, Nick rocking under Alan’s weight, Mae lurching a half-step closer.
Still cradling his brother against his chest, Nick snarled, “What was that?”
Alan groaned and extricated himself from the embrace. His feet hit the floor with a wobble. “You know what it was. Gerald’s mark.”
“You are not allowed above the ground floor anymore,” instructed Nick.
Mae darted forward and brushed her fingers over the swelling lump on his temple. “You need to get some ice on that, it’s going to be gross.”
“Ugh,” replied Alan. He tottered towards the kitchen.
Mae and Nick sat at the table while he fished a bag of frozen peas from the freezer. He joined them, pressing the bag against his forehead.
“Does this happen often?” Mae ventured to ask. She thought she knew the answer, from the hardening in Nick’s face, the softening in his brother’s.
Alan shrugged. “Fairly often. Don’t worry, it’s not usually quite so dramatic.” He shifted the peas, nudging his glasses askew.
“Always so strange. It felt like I meant to do it. Like I deliberately threw myself down the stairs.”
“How weird must that be?” Mae said, leaning over the table.
Nick growled. Hands on those lean hips. “You already know, don’t you? I’ve used you twice.”
Mae sat up straight. “What do you-“
“Once,” he said, holding up a finger, “on the battlefield. Once,” holding up another, “when you made out with me.”
“That wasn’t-no. You weren’t.” Her face felt hot.
Nick just raised one of those beautiful dark eyebrows.
She turned away, because her cheeks had to be as red as they felt, and because for some reason Alan actually seemed to look happier. She didn’t want to ponder why.
“Whatever,” she muttered.
Alan coughed. “I’m going to put the peas back in the freezer, then dig up that tablet.”
His footsteps echoed hollow in the otherwise silent kitchen. He touched his brother’s shoulder once before he retreated to the main of the house.
As soon as he was out of earshot, Mae hissed, “What was that about? I know the difference between you controlling me and not!” Her cheeks still burned.
Nick’s face shadowed. “Shut up, Mae. The truth just hurts people.”
She gaped. “And lies don’t? More particularly,” and her voice took on a defensive edge of mockery, “since when have you cared about hurting people?”
“I’ve learned more from humans than lying.” He sneered right back.
Five minutes later, Alan walked back into a completely silent kitchen.
He glanced up at them once, then reburied his nose in the paper he held. He slid the ancient tablet onto the table rather too nonchalantly, Mae thought. She ran her fingers over the worn geometric scribbling.
She jumped when Alan burst into laughter.
“What’s so funny?” asked Nick.
Alan quieted, smoothed the paper out in front of him. “First off, the Demon’s Crown is not a crown. It’s an orb.”
That didn’t, of course, explain the twist of suppressed laughter in his voice. Mae tapped his arm. “I don’t think the shape matters much, Alan.”
“I know that. The thing is, according to this, the Demon’s Crown was hidden in Ekur, a temple of the Sumerian god Enlil.” Appropriately expansive gestures accompanied the ancient words.
Mae groaned. “So the Demon’s Crown is in Iraq? Ridiculously convenient.”
Nick snorted.
Alan shook his head and pointed at a line of cuneiform, as if showing them the line would help them understand. “No, no, see, I remember reading about some artifacts that were unearthed there years ago. One of them was an orb that matches this description. It’s currently-currently among the Royal Jewels!”
He burst out laughing again.
Mae raised her eyebrows. “You mean the Royal Jewels. The Royal Jewels in the Tower of London?”
“Yes,” Alan choked out between wheezes.
“The Royal Jewels locked very, very, very securely in the Tower of London, that might as well be in Iraq for how difficult it would be to steal one?”
Alan couldn’t answer. Mae wondered if the fall from the stairs had messed up his head, because he was laughing rather more than the situation called for.
“Difficult or not,” Nick said, cracking his knuckles. “Alan, start planning.”
~five~
Arthur. I miss you. I miss you. This thing I've been doing, it's not good. It's enough. I worry, if someone saw, what would they think? You took my heart with you when you died. Arthur. Arthur. G.
Dear Diary.
I can barely get this down.
I can't I can't I can't I can't.
I have to.
I thought life Bel-Aired itself to hell when I found out I had magic. I didn't think life could quite get so flipped, turned upside down again.
Lesson learned: stop thinking.
To think things through, maybe I'd better start at the beginning.
I was still contemplating whether to go to Anzu to ask for the Demon's Crown, and vaguely contemplating talking to Gerald, so I went looking for Gerald with the excuse on my lips for another magical control lesson. I told myself maybe this time, I wouldn't hold back.
I looked in the kitchen, and didn't find Gerald or Anzu. I found Seb. He had this thing around his neck which he told me suppressed his magic, and he was bruised and battered more than I've ever been myself. I felt so sorry for him that the feeling was uncomfortable and unfamiliar in my chest. I tried to speak my concern, but Seb brushed it off as not the worst of times he's ever had. Seb clearly didn't want to talk about it, so I asked if he'd seen Gerald.
Seb didn't want to answer.
I know why now, but I still forced it out of him, at first with my voice, and then with one hand on his shoulder blade-- I didn't mean to hurt him, but he was already damaged, and my touch made him whimper and withdraw, and when my mouth choked up with apologies, Seb was the one who tried to say sorry first.
I fled to find Gerald, and found him all right. With Anzu.
Anzu, it turns out, can shapeshift into anyone you want him to. Anyone. Alive or dead. I couldn't think, couldn't do anything but mindlessly stare. My heart and brain were a jumble of whatwhywhereArthurhowno.
Anzu winked at me. Gerald didn't see. I ran. I didn't know where I was running. I found myself going back to the kitchen, where Seb's face and exposed arms resembled my heart.
“It hurts, doesn't it,” Seb mumbled softly, sinking down on the floor opposite me. We hid in the dark, eyes dry, hearts breaking.
Synchronised despair - if that was in the Olympics, the UK would be a shoo-in for Gold every time. Anzu came in after a long while, still smelling of sex.
Anger curled around my spine.
I made the deal.
~six~
They spilled out with all the other tourists, Mae clutching her oversized sunglasses to her chest and Alan palming sweat into the pages of his brochure. Only Nick seemed entirely unaffected by the first-hand sight of the immensity of their task.
“All of the cameras,” moaned Mae.
“At least we found where it is in the exhibit.” Alan folded up his brochure and stuck it in his back pocket. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”
Mae’s eyes followed his hand, then lingered on the pocket as they departed the premises. Not bad? That was an understatement.
To distract herself from Alan’s jeans, she said, “So, we’re going to need some way to avoid the cameras. Or deactivate them, or whatever.”
Alan tapped his finger against his lips. “Any way Jamie can leave the Circle for a few hours to help us out?”
“No, I don’t think so.” Yes, thoughts of her imperiled brother were sufficiently distracting.
“So it’s down to technology and brawn?” Nick stretched his arms behind his back. “I like it. Here’s the car.”
Alan fished his keys from his pocket-damn it, back to the pocket-and jiggled it in the lock. Jiggled it again. Running a hand through his hair, he asked, “Nick, can you hand me a knife?”
“I don’t know, can I?” Nick chose one from his arm, with a long, thin blade and a sharp glitter to the edge.
Mae leaned her elbows on the roof of the car, getting dust on her sleeves.
“Thanks,” said Alan. He bent at the waist and poked the knife at the keyhole-to what effect, Mae really couldn’t fathom.
Nick hopped up to sit on the hood. “No problem. I enjoy it when you handle my weapons.”
His leer drew a laugh from Mae, until Alan put his hand against the window and stabbed into it, and her laugh turned to a scream.
Cursing, Nick jumped down and stripped off his shirt in one frantic motion. He pressed the shirt around his brother’s hand, muttering angry words in a beautiful low voice.
Alan just closed his eyes and let them drive him home.
~seven~
Oh human words. You are so restrictive. Better to be a demon, where we have no use for words.
Why speak when you can say so much more with chaos and with pain?
Still, the boy named Jamie writes, and I am pretending to have his face to mess with the boy called Seb, so I write too. What better to write than the truth, especially when it can cause so much more distress than with a lie?
I wasn't born in the fourth century, so I wasn't going to allow the Jamie boy to make all the conditions of the deal. I insisted on travelling along, for no reason than to wind him up.
Humans go such a lovely shade of fuchsia when they are annoyed. It makes me want to peel their skin off, to wonder if the blood beneath is that colour. I'm too lazy most of the time to give into my demonic desires.
Most of the time.
The sandy haired one, Gerald, who I had wasted time with in a pleasant way but I had my fill of it, tried to stop me from leaving the Circle with the boys Jamie and Seb. Sandy Gerald even tried to lean in closer to boy Jamie, flick those pretty golden eyelashes, crease those dust of freckles across his cheeks into an alluring smile, but Sandy Gerald is an amateur when it comes to manipulating people. Gerald, Gerald, you have to give them what they want, and you are not exactly what the boy Jamie wants any more. Not since I sullied your image.
Sandy Gerald showed his true colours, which I enjoyed. Bless his stupid dark little heart, Gerald thought his one-on-one classes with boy Jamie had taught him exactly how strong boy Jamie was, exactly how to stop him.
Jamie went a delicious colour crimson, and blasted the crap out of Sandy Gerald, while boy Seb attacked Sandy Gerald from behind.
Sandy Gerald crumpled in the best kind of way, head smacking to the ground, red red blood spilling over the white dust of the floor. Boy Jamie turned to Sandy Gerald's back up magicians, holding lightning in his outstretched hands, and they fled. Their fear swirling through the air tasted like the most delicious meat.
After, I removed the boy Seb's collar, so he could spin magic in the air too, and we went on the run to find the location of the Demon's Crown.
Boy Jamie wanted to deviate by the Goblin Market first, so I acquiesed. He says he needs something there. Curiosity kills cats and so do I; I do not mind to wonder what it is.
~eight~
Mae turned off the hairdryer and walked out of the bathroom. Of course, Nick had to be just there. He loomed.
She scowled at him, touched her hair. The fumes clung to her hands. Her baggy old tee had new stains on the shoulders.
He reached out, touched her hair too, fingers a centimeter from hers. “You dyed your hair?”
“Yeah. Decided I’d be a bit less conspicuous this way.” She let her own hand drop and tried not to pull away from his. Or to lean closer. “The pink was fading kind of gross, but it was better than brown.”
Nick tilted his head. “You look as good as ever.”
At that, she did pull away, managing a laugh. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”
His hand went back to her hair, fingers tangling in the warm strands. “It means you look good,” he whispered near her lips.
Afraid to breathe, Mae slid her hands up to his shoulders. She looked up into those dark eyes and rocked up on her toes, just the hair’s breadth needed to close the distance between-
But Nick twisted his head to the side and her lips grazed his cheek.
All her breath returned in a rush. She reached for his hair, grabbed tight to hold him in place. “What is with you, Nick? I can’t take all these mixed signals. Either you like me or-“
Nick wrenched himself from her grip. “I know Alan wants you,” he snapped. “So I can’t.”
“Nick.”
It took her a moment to realize that she wasn’t the only one saying his name.
Alan stood at the end of the hall, right under the ceiling light, so his hair blazed. A fresh bandage wrapped around his hand. He wore that wistful little smile, the one Mae sometimes thought might be real. “Nick,” he repeated. “If that’s the only thing stopping you, don’t let it. I’m all right.”
“No, you’re not!” Nick shook his head and continued, quieter. “Stop lying to me.”
Mae watched Alan’s throat work, watched the words stumble and die behind his lips. She swallowed. “Come on. We need to get ready.” Pushing her dark hair out of her face again, she walked past Alan and down the stairs.
A long moment preceded the sounding of footsteps behind her. Alan’s, she knew. She heard Nick stomping off upstairs. “You were working on the computer program, right?” she asked, waiting at the landing.
“Yes,” said Alan, all crisp business and efficiency. He led the way to the kitchen, where his laptop waited. Lines of text that looked like they almost made sense filled the screen. Alan sat heavily, resting his bandaged hand in his lap, and put his other hand to the keyboard.
Mae reached for one of the programming books stacked on the table, just to have something to hold. “So, you said you’d hacked into their security mainframe?”
“Not on my own, so don’t look too impressed-I called in a favor with someone from the Market. Specializes in magical hacking.”
“What’re you working on now?” She knew enough coding to get around on the internet. Nothing like this.
“This will interrupt all their security protocols-cameras, alarms, the works-very briefly at very specific times. We’ll have to be very precise.” He started tapping away, one hand doing the work of two like a quick but clumsy spider.
“Do you want me to type for you?”
He kept typing, but his shoulders tensed. “I’m perfectly capable of typing this, Mae,” he said, uncharacteristically cold.
“Sorry for offering,” she muttered, flipping through the book, letting the pages slap together.
Those blue eyes turned to her then, narrow behind the glass. “Is that still all I am? A cripple who needs your charity?”
Mae blinked. “What are you talking about?” She dropped the book back on the pile.
“It’s like I told Nick. I’m all right. I won’t stop you from being happy together. Just stop being so damn charitable.” His hand hovered over the keyboard, shaking.
Her eyes felt dusty. She wanted to sleep. “I’m not being charitable,” she said softly. “I like you. I like Nick too. But I can’t have one without hurting the other, so I’m choosing neither.” Not wanting to see his reaction, she pushed away from the table. “I’m going to change into something less disgusting. Shout when we’re ready to go.”
She walked away to the click-click of his fingers.
~nine~
Everyone in our intrepid trio is writing a diary now. Who am I to avoid jumping on the bandwagon?
Here it goes. Be gentle with me. Normally I get to draw how I feel, but it would just come out as meaningless scribbling. Words will have to do.
If you told me that I would ever be on the run with a shapeshifting demon and the guy I've been steadily crushing on for well over a year now, I would probably have punched you in the face and called you gay. (Uh. Sorry about that. I have issues.)
It's beyond surreal. It's like that song, whatever it's called, clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right. Both are taunting me and teasing me, like I'm the poor butt of the joke trapped in the middle, unable to get away.
I could run, I guess.
But then the joke really is on me, because I'm not going to. I would follow Jamie Crawford into the mouth of hell.
Maybe I am for all I know.
Jamie's refusing to “pay Anzu's price until we've arrived” and I don't know what he means, but it worries me. What could he be paying Anzu for? I know demons. I know the kind of things they want. I don't know if Jamie could survive anything a demon could be asking for.
I don't know if I could survive watching him do anything a demon could be asking for.
Anzu insists on taking Jamie's form to mess with me. He taunts me. I know Jamie realises what he is doing, but Jamie's doing his best to ignore Anzu, so I am too. We went into the Goblin Market and attracted the strangest looks, but then I was bickering with someone who looked like Jamie while Jamie picked up what he called were bits and pieces. It must have looked so strange.
People didn't bother with us for long.
People don't tend to bother with me for a start. But if your home started to be attacked by other people possessed by demons and by magicians in the shape of terrible animals, I would start to get a whole more less interesting to you too.
Hell is breaking loose in my home.
I know the Market isn't what most people would consider a home, but it is one to me.
As soon as it happened, as soon as those screams started filling the air, I took my knives and went to Merris. I coaxed Liannan out of her with my blades, and apparently she was the one who spilled the beans on our location. Liannan was cool and unrepentant. It took Matthias holding me back to not push one of my thin narrow blades into her windpipe.
He has been my rock these days, and he can do one more thing for me, if nothing else. I'm going to ask him to summon the possessed from Mezentius House, which will risk the bodies of nearly a hundred loved ones, to fight for us. One hundred possessed to save the lives of a hundred innocent Market dwellers. I think this horrendous thing, this distinction in my mind that the free are worth more than the possessed might push Matthias from me. If so, I am regretful, but I must do this.
I must save my people.
Dear Diary,
When all this is done, I'm telling my sister as gently as I can how ferocious Sin looked when guarding the Goblin Market tonight. She danced with blades, the pied piper at her side, and had fire in her face and death in her hands. Sin is the leader now fully. No one doubts it. Sin is the true leader of the Goblin Market.
Gerald joined the attack, and I held him back as much as I could until I could get to Sin and tell her what was going on. It was hard amongst the screaming and blood, but she understood.
She's going to distract Gerald long enough for me to escape with Anzu to find the place for the Demon's Crown.
I think she's willing to die to make sure our mission happens.
Please, please, anyone listening, don't let it have to go that far.
Part 1 | Part 2
Author: There's three authors! There's three members in the team! WHO COULD THESE MYSTERIOUS AUTHORS BE? (Spoilers: It's mizzy2k, empresstria and altogetherisi)
Pairing: Rarepears! Rarepears in lots of places! Wheeeeeee.
Summary: A shapeshifting demon, diary abuse, a heist involving the Royal Jewels, Nick discovers something shiny and a hidden identity revealed - the Demon's Crown could save the world, but is the price worth it?
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: One use of the F word! (AND YOU KNOW HOW DANGEROUS IT IS USING THE WORD FOOD WHEN NICK IS AROUND.)
~one~
Dear Diary.
Wait, I almost vomited writing that. No, just give me a second, there's a reason for it: it would be a disgrace to my quotation marks open people close quotation to actually turn into a giant girl.
With all this magic floating around in my life, I wouldn't be surprised if that happened one day.
Anyway, I totally digress. I'm feeling vulnerably teenage at the moment, especially spewing everything out into diary form, but there's nothing else to do.
Sometimes history just gotta spill onto the page.
So here goes. Be kind to me. As every other soul on the crumbly shining path to hell, I have good intentions.
That's one of the few mantras that let me catch some shut eye while I'm in this place.
When Mae and I were little, I used to fantasise about running away to join a commune, where other people had the same gifts as me, and I didn't have to hide that part of me. I guess that's what a Circle is really.
The Aventurine Circle is nothing like I daydreamed a magical commune would be.
Still, there's Gerald. Gotta keep an eye out for those silver linings.
Albie,
Gerald here. This paper will burn up once you've read this note. Well. Perhaps. I advise you to read fast, I spelled it to disintegrate in exactly 120 seconds.
The dance last night was successful. The demon who we know as the Thief at the Gate, who the Ryves threat seems to know as Anzu, had spectacular news as I assumed he would, given the right deal.
Remember those faint rumours five years back about the Demon's Crown?
Not rumour at all.
The Demon's Crown exists. I repeat, the Demon's Crown is not an urban fantasy. The thing actually freaking exists.
This whole thing smells of bad and that's not an exaggeration - it's an understatement.
This thing stops demons from accessing their power. It cuts them off from the demon world. It means we could never dance up a demon or call up a deal ever again, and worse, it cuts off the power we already have access to.
If anyone without a brain gets hold of the Demon's Crown, well, in the epic terms of the survivalist nut-jobs: Shit Will Hit The Fan.
“Anzu” couldn't tell us where the Crown currently lays, but he did know the existence of a tablet appertaining to its location.
The tablet is currently in the possession of one Merris Crawford.
Talk to me. We're mainlining to attack the Market tonight. Could do with your help.
Jamie.
PLEASE DON'T STOP READING THIS JUST WHEN YOU SEE MY WRITING THIS IS IMPORTANT. I know I'm screwed up, but this is beyond everything.
Last night while you were running that errand for Gerald, he summoned the demon Anzu.
There's an object called the Demon's Crown. If it's destroyed, demons and magicians alike will lose their power forever. Its location is described on a tablet that Merris Crawford is in possession of.
I overheard Gerald's plans to attack the Goblin Market, where Mae is. I've dug up some of the stones around London to disrupt the Circle. It's only a matter of time before Gerald finds out it was me. You can tell him if you like. I did it for you and for Mae. He can't do anything to me that's worse than you losing your sister. I had the chance to stop it so I took it.
Things are about to go real bad. The stone circle is down; magicians are already on their way to attack. Please keep safe.
Seb.
Seb,
You're an idiot. We've got four enemy magicians on their way as I waste time writing this.
Thank you.
But don't write to me again.
Jamie
C,
THE SMALL CIRCLES WILL HOLD UNTIL I CAN REFORM THE LARGER ONE. I THINK I KNOW WHO IS CULPABLE.
GERALD
Jamie,
Your defense work has been excellent over the past day since the slight hiccup with our stone circle. Would you like to join me for dinner in the boardroom tonight?
Yours,
Gerald
Gerald,
I would. But Seb McFarlane's scream of pain from the guys you sent to drag him off to be punished are still ringing painfully in my ears.
I'm feeling a bit bushed after all the attacks. Raincheck?
Jamie x
Mae.
Usual time. Usual place.
HUGE news.
Before you say it: No, I'm not pregnant.
Love you,
Jamie.
~two~
Mae spun through the ache in her side, the burn in her thigh. She mimed a stooping falcon, dipping almost the ground with her arms flung behind her, and her blue skirt blossomed around her like the bruised sky. Breathing fast and deep, she brushed fingers with her partner-didn’t remember his name, didn’t care-before diving away with a sleazy roll of her neck.
One more twisting leap on tired feet, then she swept into the final curtsy. Mae held it a beat longer than she needed to, savored the crowd’s brief hush, then threw her head up to accept the cheers.
The only thing keeping her steady as she left the dancing grounds was the fever fruit tingling in her gut. She saw Sin nearby, glowing under a golden lantern. When their eyes met, Sin glared.
A patched figure blocked Sin from her line of sight. “Lovely dancing,” said Matthias. “Best I’ve ever seen you.”
“Thanks. I’ll admit, I was nervous when Merris asked me to lead the dance tonight.” The fever fruit sharpened her smile, brightened her eyes.
“Nervous? I’m sure nobody could tell. I certainly couldn’t.”
“You’re so kind,” purred Mae, brushing her hair from her face. The pink was faded, and she’d grown half an inch of dark roots. No time for maintenance these days.
The pied piper laughed, like bells. “It’s no kindness to tell the truth.”
Mae caught sight of Sin over Matthias’s shoulder. The dark-haired girl had a sour twist to her rouged lips. The darkening sky had taken some of the glow from her skin.
Darkening sky. Mae had an appointment to keep. “So sorry, but I’ve got to go.” She brushed past his farewell and slipped through the Market crowd. People made way for her these days, especially those who thought she might win out over Sin for control of the Market.
She returned all the smiles but evaded conversation. The booths gave way to dark, old trees. Mae leaned against one and folded her arms over her ribs.
The fever fruit was starting to wear off, thankfully. Talking to her brother while hyped up on aphrodisiacs would be kind of awkward.
A thin blue light spiraled in front of her, flickering and shimmering until it resembled Jamie. The focus was sharpest on his lips, his voice, and the rest blurred away until she couldn’t see his feet at all.
“You look tired,” said Mae, like she always did.
Jamie gave his customary response, voice clear as if he really stood before her. “That’s just the projection.”
As usual, Mae didn’t believe him, but neither did she press the matter. He could only hold the projection for so long. She uncrossed her arms. Once, she had tried to hug the projection. She wouldn’t again. “What’s up?”
“You need to talk to Merris. There’s this thing Seb heard Anzu talking about. It’s called the Demon’s Crown. It’s-I don’t know what it is, exactly, but if we destroy it, the demons lose their power. And that means the magicians do too.”
Mae’s eyes widened. “Keep going.”
“Anzu said Merris has a tablet describing its location. Get the tablet. Find the Crown. The Circle can’t attack for a while, Seb dug up some of the-shit.” His projection wavered and his head turned on his thin neck.
“Jamie, what’s wrong? Is someone-“
“Yeah, someone’s coming. Love you, Mae.” He fizzled.
“Love you too,” she said to the vanished projection.
For once, excitement at the news outweighed her regret for Jamie’s disappearance. If they could cripple the demons, and the magicians to boot-Mae flung herself away from the tree and sprinted back towards the Market.
As she reached Merris’s wagon, the last sunlight bled from the sky. Only when she knocked on the doorframe did Mae realize that with nightfall, Liannan would answer her call, not Merris.
A claw-like hand raked aside the curtain and Liannan’s youthful, vicious face hovered into view. Her red hair, backlit with candles, blazed.
“Yes? What do you want, faded girl?”
The words were exhalations, not fully sounded. The creature was still unused to voice.
Mae met the dark eyes. She briefly considered turning away, waiting until morning to talk to Merris, but now she was here, she rather thought that Liannan might know more anyway.
And over the demon’s shoulder, she saw Sin poised on a pile of cushions. Mae couldn’t run away in front of her rival.
“I need information,” said Mae.
A shark grin. “And you’ll pay for it?”
Mae hopped the step into the wagon by way of answer.
The demon hummed, off-key, and motioned for her to sit beside Sin. The other girl tilted her head back, dark curls spilling over half-bare shoulders.
Pretending to ignore the gesture, Mae remained standing. She was already shorter than Liannan as it was, no need to exaggerate the height disparity during negotiations.
Liannan’s smirk said the demon knew what she was doing. She spread thin arms. “Make your demand and I’ll name the price.”
Mae thought over her words. This was not a dance, there was no circle to bind them, but that only meant she needed to exercise even more caution in this bargain. “I need a particular tablet from Merris’s collection.”
“More than simple information, oh? Which tablet?”
“I need the tablet that gives the location of the Demon’s Crown.”
The demon froze, then let out a slow hiss. Her shoulders hunched as if wings were about to sprout from her back. Her hair burned brighter.
Sin sat up, but Mae spared barely a glance for the other girl.
Liannan shook her head and straightened again. “So you know of the Demon’s Crown. Why should I give you something with which you could take from me?” Her voice sounded more human than Mae had ever heard it.
Mae waited out the question.
The demon hummed again. “I’ll give it to you, but in exchange, I will take power from you.”
“I don’t have magic,” Mae pointed out, but she felt foolish as soon as the words left her lips.
“Not magic,” chided Liannan. “But you have power nonetheless. So in exchange for the tablet leading to the Demon’s Crown, you must relinquish your candidacy for leadership of the Goblin Market.”
Mae and Sin gaped at the demon.
Sin recovered first, standing quickly. “Why?”
“I’d prefer a Market with weaker leadership, of course.” Liannan fluttered her eyelashes and blew a kiss from her fingertips.
Puzzlement fled Sin’s brow, replaced with a scowling rage. Her lips tightened as if to keep back an unwise response.
Mae looked down at herself, at the flowing blue dress, the grass and dirt stains on her feet, the charmed bangles. All the accoutrements of the Goblin Market, of the place she had carved for herself. All that against the possibility of crippling the magicians forever. Her faded pink hair fell before her eyes. There was no real choice. She shoved her hair back and met Liannan’s black gaze. She didn’t want to look at Sin. “I accept.”
Liannan laughed, and Mae couldn’t tell if she was glad or not. “Go to Alan to get the tablet. Merris gave it to him months ago so he could translate it.”
“And has he translated it?”
“You’ll have to ask him.”
Mae took a deep breath, then whirled out of Merris’s wagon.
~three~
Dear Diary,
Things are even more insane than usual. I mean, on a scale of insane to more insane - which is the only scale I can really use for things any more - this is up there, heavy on the more.
Gerald - who still makes my stomach do giddy upside down and round and round things just by breathing, the smug bastard - is like that Katy Perry song times a million. One second he's so very attentive to me that my skin thrills with it. Other times he's cold and dark and he's plotting to attack the very place he knows my sister is.
I wonder which Gerald is the real one. I hope it's the first, because even when he's the second, I still get dizzy when he catches my gaze in his. If he's the first, I'm less of a psychopath. Less of a Nicholas Ryves.
Gerald has been teaching me to hone my craft, with one-on-one sessions, and it's been fast and dangerous and brilliant and he's been paying me compliments and you can't believe how delicious it feels to fight and feel someone fight back with the same level of power, and I should be dropping wholeheartedly into it, but I'm not. I'm holding back.
I'm holding back, and Gerald isn't noticing.
Someone did notice, though. Turns out when Gerald summoned Anzu, the Tengu demon hung around. Mostly he just lounges around and smirks, sometimes he eats everything in sight, mostly he just smirks and insults people. It's a lot like having a less comforting version of Nick around.
Wait, did I write that last sentence?
Adsfjkl;adsklfjdlas;fjlk;fjd
Keyboard smashing aside, Anzu has been good to talk to. I know I can't trust a single thing he says, but he talks to me, and in this place, that's rare. Most of the Aventurine and old Obsidian members take one look at the demon's mark on my chin and back off. I know most of them want me gone. Gerald fights for me to stay. That gives me hope he thinks of me like I think of him.
Anyway, this place is like boot camp, and Anzu is General Nuisance, and seems to think because I tolerate him talking to me, he can ask me questions. I answered all of them reluctantly, until he asked me one thing that made me stop.
Gerald didn't notice I was holding back, but Anzu did. And he wants to know why. He said rather emphatically that Nick was the most dangerous thing in both worlds (I think Gerald has said that before), but that I was still pretty bad ass in this one. I think he was trying to compliment me to get me on his side. It's not going to work. Even if he's right about me. I am pretty bad ass.
So why am I hiding it from Gerald? Why am I holding back? I didn't have the answer, so I sassed Anzu; told him he needed to dance, summon me and provide payment for the answer.
I wasn't expecting him to offer payment.
Here it is: -
He can tell me where the Demon Crown needs to be deployed for the worlds to be closed off permanently to each other. With me knowing where, and Mae finding out how to get it, we can rid the world of magic and demons in no time.
Of course, life without magic...
It would be safe.
I would be closer to that elusive, wrong concept of normal.
It would mean life without Gerald.
I did what I could. I told him I would think about it, and then went to see Mae at our same bat time, same bat place.
She wasn't there.
Sin was. She was bitter. She seemed surprised that Mae was coming to see me every night. I wonder who she thought Mae was coming to meet. I deduced from her bitterness that Sin thought Mae had been meeting a lover or something, and probably a man that Sin herself had an eye on. Still, Sin's bitterness didn't seem to go away on realising Mae had just been talking to her brother.
It turned out that Mae had to give up vying for Market leadership in order to get the Demon's Crown tablet. She's felt weak since nearly losing her brother to Gerald's mark, so her bitterness was a familiar flavour to me. When I told Sin that, it surprised her, but I had to explain the truth - Mae's always been the strong one. Sin was surprised because with my power, I shouldn't feel weak to anyone.
I didn't want to answer. I'd been neatly psychoanalytically thraped by a demon just half an hour before. I wasn't about to let Sin do it too.
I told Sin to leave me two flowers underneath the rock she was sitting on, because I was coming to see her.
Soon.
~four~
The Ryves brothers had a new house. Shabby walls and a roof that didn’t leak too much. Mae didn’t bother to look around-soon this Cardiff house would be a thing of the past, like London or Exeter or wherever.
Nick held the door open but didn’t meet her eyes. His scowl was liable to wrinkle that perfect brow. “What do you want?” he asked, with words like ice cubes clinking into a glass.
Mae resisted the urge to scowl back. “Certainly not your smiling face. Where’s Alan?”
He leered. “Oh, I see how it is.”
She tried very hard not to take the anger personally. Nick’s moods always depended on Alan’s well-being, and ever since Alan took that mark, well-being was impossible.
But even if it had a very good reason to be sharp, a knife still cut.
“Is that Mae?”
A brighter voice, from upstairs. At first Mae only saw white socks and faded hems of jeans, before the rest of the long body limped far enough down.
“Hey there,” she called. “I’ve got news!”
Nick let the door swing shut behind her and moved to the foot of the stairs.
“I don’t need help, Nick,” Alan said.
She thought his limp looked worse than when she’d last seen him, only a week ago. From the pinch to his face, expressing concern would go poorly. “Alan, do you still have that Sumerian tablet? The one Merris gave you, the first time you took me to the Goblin Market.”
The first time she ate fever fruit and danced until she burned. The first time she tried to seduce Nick, and Alan too.
Alan’s eyes lit up behind the glasses. “That! I finished translating it, but never got around to telling her. Does she want it back?”
Mae shook her head. “No. I got a message from Jamie. There’s information in that tablet that could be really important.” Her fingers twisted the hems of her long sleeves as she relayed the details.
Nick whistled. “Magically castrate demons and magicians alike? Impressive.”
“Nick,” said Alan. “I’m not sure that-I’m not sure. This could be monumental.” His glasses shone under the cheap overhead lighting, the glare hiding his eyes.
The demon grinned. “Don’t worry about me. I’d be happy to give up my power if that lot did too.”
Alan pursed his lips, then nodded. “I’ll find the tablet, then. Somewhere downstairs-“ he only took one step before his face went all funny, blank like a doll.
Then he flung himself down.
A dull sound-Mae thought it was her heart thudding, but it was just Alan’s head against the wall. His body arced out into the open air, feet scraping along the banister.
Alan slammed into Nick’s arms, because Nick was catching him before Mae even started breathing again. They were a shaky tableau, Nick rocking under Alan’s weight, Mae lurching a half-step closer.
Still cradling his brother against his chest, Nick snarled, “What was that?”
Alan groaned and extricated himself from the embrace. His feet hit the floor with a wobble. “You know what it was. Gerald’s mark.”
“You are not allowed above the ground floor anymore,” instructed Nick.
Mae darted forward and brushed her fingers over the swelling lump on his temple. “You need to get some ice on that, it’s going to be gross.”
“Ugh,” replied Alan. He tottered towards the kitchen.
Mae and Nick sat at the table while he fished a bag of frozen peas from the freezer. He joined them, pressing the bag against his forehead.
“Does this happen often?” Mae ventured to ask. She thought she knew the answer, from the hardening in Nick’s face, the softening in his brother’s.
Alan shrugged. “Fairly often. Don’t worry, it’s not usually quite so dramatic.” He shifted the peas, nudging his glasses askew.
“Always so strange. It felt like I meant to do it. Like I deliberately threw myself down the stairs.”
“How weird must that be?” Mae said, leaning over the table.
Nick growled. Hands on those lean hips. “You already know, don’t you? I’ve used you twice.”
Mae sat up straight. “What do you-“
“Once,” he said, holding up a finger, “on the battlefield. Once,” holding up another, “when you made out with me.”
“That wasn’t-no. You weren’t.” Her face felt hot.
Nick just raised one of those beautiful dark eyebrows.
She turned away, because her cheeks had to be as red as they felt, and because for some reason Alan actually seemed to look happier. She didn’t want to ponder why.
“Whatever,” she muttered.
Alan coughed. “I’m going to put the peas back in the freezer, then dig up that tablet.”
His footsteps echoed hollow in the otherwise silent kitchen. He touched his brother’s shoulder once before he retreated to the main of the house.
As soon as he was out of earshot, Mae hissed, “What was that about? I know the difference between you controlling me and not!” Her cheeks still burned.
Nick’s face shadowed. “Shut up, Mae. The truth just hurts people.”
She gaped. “And lies don’t? More particularly,” and her voice took on a defensive edge of mockery, “since when have you cared about hurting people?”
“I’ve learned more from humans than lying.” He sneered right back.
Five minutes later, Alan walked back into a completely silent kitchen.
He glanced up at them once, then reburied his nose in the paper he held. He slid the ancient tablet onto the table rather too nonchalantly, Mae thought. She ran her fingers over the worn geometric scribbling.
She jumped when Alan burst into laughter.
“What’s so funny?” asked Nick.
Alan quieted, smoothed the paper out in front of him. “First off, the Demon’s Crown is not a crown. It’s an orb.”
That didn’t, of course, explain the twist of suppressed laughter in his voice. Mae tapped his arm. “I don’t think the shape matters much, Alan.”
“I know that. The thing is, according to this, the Demon’s Crown was hidden in Ekur, a temple of the Sumerian god Enlil.” Appropriately expansive gestures accompanied the ancient words.
Mae groaned. “So the Demon’s Crown is in Iraq? Ridiculously convenient.”
Nick snorted.
Alan shook his head and pointed at a line of cuneiform, as if showing them the line would help them understand. “No, no, see, I remember reading about some artifacts that were unearthed there years ago. One of them was an orb that matches this description. It’s currently-currently among the Royal Jewels!”
He burst out laughing again.
Mae raised her eyebrows. “You mean the Royal Jewels. The Royal Jewels in the Tower of London?”
“Yes,” Alan choked out between wheezes.
“The Royal Jewels locked very, very, very securely in the Tower of London, that might as well be in Iraq for how difficult it would be to steal one?”
Alan couldn’t answer. Mae wondered if the fall from the stairs had messed up his head, because he was laughing rather more than the situation called for.
“Difficult or not,” Nick said, cracking his knuckles. “Alan, start planning.”
~five~
Arthur. I miss you. I miss you. This thing I've been doing, it's not good. It's enough. I worry, if someone saw, what would they think? You took my heart with you when you died. Arthur. Arthur. G.
Dear Diary.
I can barely get this down.
I can't I can't I can't I can't.
I have to.
I thought life Bel-Aired itself to hell when I found out I had magic. I didn't think life could quite get so flipped, turned upside down again.
Lesson learned: stop thinking.
To think things through, maybe I'd better start at the beginning.
I was still contemplating whether to go to Anzu to ask for the Demon's Crown, and vaguely contemplating talking to Gerald, so I went looking for Gerald with the excuse on my lips for another magical control lesson. I told myself maybe this time, I wouldn't hold back.
I looked in the kitchen, and didn't find Gerald or Anzu. I found Seb. He had this thing around his neck which he told me suppressed his magic, and he was bruised and battered more than I've ever been myself. I felt so sorry for him that the feeling was uncomfortable and unfamiliar in my chest. I tried to speak my concern, but Seb brushed it off as not the worst of times he's ever had. Seb clearly didn't want to talk about it, so I asked if he'd seen Gerald.
Seb didn't want to answer.
I know why now, but I still forced it out of him, at first with my voice, and then with one hand on his shoulder blade-- I didn't mean to hurt him, but he was already damaged, and my touch made him whimper and withdraw, and when my mouth choked up with apologies, Seb was the one who tried to say sorry first.
I fled to find Gerald, and found him all right. With Anzu.
Anzu, it turns out, can shapeshift into anyone you want him to. Anyone. Alive or dead. I couldn't think, couldn't do anything but mindlessly stare. My heart and brain were a jumble of whatwhywhereArthurhowno.
Anzu winked at me. Gerald didn't see. I ran. I didn't know where I was running. I found myself going back to the kitchen, where Seb's face and exposed arms resembled my heart.
“It hurts, doesn't it,” Seb mumbled softly, sinking down on the floor opposite me. We hid in the dark, eyes dry, hearts breaking.
Synchronised despair - if that was in the Olympics, the UK would be a shoo-in for Gold every time. Anzu came in after a long while, still smelling of sex.
Anger curled around my spine.
I made the deal.
~six~
They spilled out with all the other tourists, Mae clutching her oversized sunglasses to her chest and Alan palming sweat into the pages of his brochure. Only Nick seemed entirely unaffected by the first-hand sight of the immensity of their task.
“All of the cameras,” moaned Mae.
“At least we found where it is in the exhibit.” Alan folded up his brochure and stuck it in his back pocket. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”
Mae’s eyes followed his hand, then lingered on the pocket as they departed the premises. Not bad? That was an understatement.
To distract herself from Alan’s jeans, she said, “So, we’re going to need some way to avoid the cameras. Or deactivate them, or whatever.”
Alan tapped his finger against his lips. “Any way Jamie can leave the Circle for a few hours to help us out?”
“No, I don’t think so.” Yes, thoughts of her imperiled brother were sufficiently distracting.
“So it’s down to technology and brawn?” Nick stretched his arms behind his back. “I like it. Here’s the car.”
Alan fished his keys from his pocket-damn it, back to the pocket-and jiggled it in the lock. Jiggled it again. Running a hand through his hair, he asked, “Nick, can you hand me a knife?”
“I don’t know, can I?” Nick chose one from his arm, with a long, thin blade and a sharp glitter to the edge.
Mae leaned her elbows on the roof of the car, getting dust on her sleeves.
“Thanks,” said Alan. He bent at the waist and poked the knife at the keyhole-to what effect, Mae really couldn’t fathom.
Nick hopped up to sit on the hood. “No problem. I enjoy it when you handle my weapons.”
His leer drew a laugh from Mae, until Alan put his hand against the window and stabbed into it, and her laugh turned to a scream.
Cursing, Nick jumped down and stripped off his shirt in one frantic motion. He pressed the shirt around his brother’s hand, muttering angry words in a beautiful low voice.
Alan just closed his eyes and let them drive him home.
~seven~
Oh human words. You are so restrictive. Better to be a demon, where we have no use for words.
Why speak when you can say so much more with chaos and with pain?
Still, the boy named Jamie writes, and I am pretending to have his face to mess with the boy called Seb, so I write too. What better to write than the truth, especially when it can cause so much more distress than with a lie?
I wasn't born in the fourth century, so I wasn't going to allow the Jamie boy to make all the conditions of the deal. I insisted on travelling along, for no reason than to wind him up.
Humans go such a lovely shade of fuchsia when they are annoyed. It makes me want to peel their skin off, to wonder if the blood beneath is that colour. I'm too lazy most of the time to give into my demonic desires.
Most of the time.
The sandy haired one, Gerald, who I had wasted time with in a pleasant way but I had my fill of it, tried to stop me from leaving the Circle with the boys Jamie and Seb. Sandy Gerald even tried to lean in closer to boy Jamie, flick those pretty golden eyelashes, crease those dust of freckles across his cheeks into an alluring smile, but Sandy Gerald is an amateur when it comes to manipulating people. Gerald, Gerald, you have to give them what they want, and you are not exactly what the boy Jamie wants any more. Not since I sullied your image.
Sandy Gerald showed his true colours, which I enjoyed. Bless his stupid dark little heart, Gerald thought his one-on-one classes with boy Jamie had taught him exactly how strong boy Jamie was, exactly how to stop him.
Jamie went a delicious colour crimson, and blasted the crap out of Sandy Gerald, while boy Seb attacked Sandy Gerald from behind.
Sandy Gerald crumpled in the best kind of way, head smacking to the ground, red red blood spilling over the white dust of the floor. Boy Jamie turned to Sandy Gerald's back up magicians, holding lightning in his outstretched hands, and they fled. Their fear swirling through the air tasted like the most delicious meat.
After, I removed the boy Seb's collar, so he could spin magic in the air too, and we went on the run to find the location of the Demon's Crown.
Boy Jamie wanted to deviate by the Goblin Market first, so I acquiesed. He says he needs something there. Curiosity kills cats and so do I; I do not mind to wonder what it is.
~eight~
Mae turned off the hairdryer and walked out of the bathroom. Of course, Nick had to be just there. He loomed.
She scowled at him, touched her hair. The fumes clung to her hands. Her baggy old tee had new stains on the shoulders.
He reached out, touched her hair too, fingers a centimeter from hers. “You dyed your hair?”
“Yeah. Decided I’d be a bit less conspicuous this way.” She let her own hand drop and tried not to pull away from his. Or to lean closer. “The pink was fading kind of gross, but it was better than brown.”
Nick tilted his head. “You look as good as ever.”
At that, she did pull away, managing a laugh. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”
His hand went back to her hair, fingers tangling in the warm strands. “It means you look good,” he whispered near her lips.
Afraid to breathe, Mae slid her hands up to his shoulders. She looked up into those dark eyes and rocked up on her toes, just the hair’s breadth needed to close the distance between-
But Nick twisted his head to the side and her lips grazed his cheek.
All her breath returned in a rush. She reached for his hair, grabbed tight to hold him in place. “What is with you, Nick? I can’t take all these mixed signals. Either you like me or-“
Nick wrenched himself from her grip. “I know Alan wants you,” he snapped. “So I can’t.”
“Nick.”
It took her a moment to realize that she wasn’t the only one saying his name.
Alan stood at the end of the hall, right under the ceiling light, so his hair blazed. A fresh bandage wrapped around his hand. He wore that wistful little smile, the one Mae sometimes thought might be real. “Nick,” he repeated. “If that’s the only thing stopping you, don’t let it. I’m all right.”
“No, you’re not!” Nick shook his head and continued, quieter. “Stop lying to me.”
Mae watched Alan’s throat work, watched the words stumble and die behind his lips. She swallowed. “Come on. We need to get ready.” Pushing her dark hair out of her face again, she walked past Alan and down the stairs.
A long moment preceded the sounding of footsteps behind her. Alan’s, she knew. She heard Nick stomping off upstairs. “You were working on the computer program, right?” she asked, waiting at the landing.
“Yes,” said Alan, all crisp business and efficiency. He led the way to the kitchen, where his laptop waited. Lines of text that looked like they almost made sense filled the screen. Alan sat heavily, resting his bandaged hand in his lap, and put his other hand to the keyboard.
Mae reached for one of the programming books stacked on the table, just to have something to hold. “So, you said you’d hacked into their security mainframe?”
“Not on my own, so don’t look too impressed-I called in a favor with someone from the Market. Specializes in magical hacking.”
“What’re you working on now?” She knew enough coding to get around on the internet. Nothing like this.
“This will interrupt all their security protocols-cameras, alarms, the works-very briefly at very specific times. We’ll have to be very precise.” He started tapping away, one hand doing the work of two like a quick but clumsy spider.
“Do you want me to type for you?”
He kept typing, but his shoulders tensed. “I’m perfectly capable of typing this, Mae,” he said, uncharacteristically cold.
“Sorry for offering,” she muttered, flipping through the book, letting the pages slap together.
Those blue eyes turned to her then, narrow behind the glass. “Is that still all I am? A cripple who needs your charity?”
Mae blinked. “What are you talking about?” She dropped the book back on the pile.
“It’s like I told Nick. I’m all right. I won’t stop you from being happy together. Just stop being so damn charitable.” His hand hovered over the keyboard, shaking.
Her eyes felt dusty. She wanted to sleep. “I’m not being charitable,” she said softly. “I like you. I like Nick too. But I can’t have one without hurting the other, so I’m choosing neither.” Not wanting to see his reaction, she pushed away from the table. “I’m going to change into something less disgusting. Shout when we’re ready to go.”
She walked away to the click-click of his fingers.
~nine~
Everyone in our intrepid trio is writing a diary now. Who am I to avoid jumping on the bandwagon?
Here it goes. Be gentle with me. Normally I get to draw how I feel, but it would just come out as meaningless scribbling. Words will have to do.
If you told me that I would ever be on the run with a shapeshifting demon and the guy I've been steadily crushing on for well over a year now, I would probably have punched you in the face and called you gay. (Uh. Sorry about that. I have issues.)
It's beyond surreal. It's like that song, whatever it's called, clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right. Both are taunting me and teasing me, like I'm the poor butt of the joke trapped in the middle, unable to get away.
I could run, I guess.
But then the joke really is on me, because I'm not going to. I would follow Jamie Crawford into the mouth of hell.
Maybe I am for all I know.
Jamie's refusing to “pay Anzu's price until we've arrived” and I don't know what he means, but it worries me. What could he be paying Anzu for? I know demons. I know the kind of things they want. I don't know if Jamie could survive anything a demon could be asking for.
I don't know if I could survive watching him do anything a demon could be asking for.
Anzu insists on taking Jamie's form to mess with me. He taunts me. I know Jamie realises what he is doing, but Jamie's doing his best to ignore Anzu, so I am too. We went into the Goblin Market and attracted the strangest looks, but then I was bickering with someone who looked like Jamie while Jamie picked up what he called were bits and pieces. It must have looked so strange.
People didn't bother with us for long.
People don't tend to bother with me for a start. But if your home started to be attacked by other people possessed by demons and by magicians in the shape of terrible animals, I would start to get a whole more less interesting to you too.
Hell is breaking loose in my home.
I know the Market isn't what most people would consider a home, but it is one to me.
As soon as it happened, as soon as those screams started filling the air, I took my knives and went to Merris. I coaxed Liannan out of her with my blades, and apparently she was the one who spilled the beans on our location. Liannan was cool and unrepentant. It took Matthias holding me back to not push one of my thin narrow blades into her windpipe.
He has been my rock these days, and he can do one more thing for me, if nothing else. I'm going to ask him to summon the possessed from Mezentius House, which will risk the bodies of nearly a hundred loved ones, to fight for us. One hundred possessed to save the lives of a hundred innocent Market dwellers. I think this horrendous thing, this distinction in my mind that the free are worth more than the possessed might push Matthias from me. If so, I am regretful, but I must do this.
I must save my people.
Dear Diary,
When all this is done, I'm telling my sister as gently as I can how ferocious Sin looked when guarding the Goblin Market tonight. She danced with blades, the pied piper at her side, and had fire in her face and death in her hands. Sin is the leader now fully. No one doubts it. Sin is the true leader of the Goblin Market.
Gerald joined the attack, and I held him back as much as I could until I could get to Sin and tell her what was going on. It was hard amongst the screaming and blood, but she understood.
She's going to distract Gerald long enough for me to escape with Anzu to find the place for the Demon's Crown.
I think she's willing to die to make sure our mission happens.
Please, please, anyone listening, don't let it have to go that far.
Part 1 | Part 2