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There’s a practiced ease to the way Blue River sets up the exorcism, placing candles and bowls of salt in exact positions around the room without reference to a tape measure or a compass. The victim himself sits perfectly quiet at the centre of the circle, stunned by a talisman now glowing softly blue on his forehead. Blue River paces the perimeter once, satisfying himself with the layout, and steps back and begins the recital.
Almost at once, smoke pours out of the victim, pooling into a sinister gleam of red on the ground. A ripple of laughter bounces off the walls.
Blue River stops. Walks carefully around the circle, never letting the demon out of his sight. Stares directly into the camera.
“Really?” he asks. “This was the best way you had of inviting him?”
In person, Blue River appears the kind of normal that would make Moonglow Haunt (director of the cult classic Thirteen Nights in a Demon’s Hell, in which the exorcist is an old, sour-faced man wielding a sword of fire) and Three Pine Ardour (director of the recently-released Terror of the Hot Springs, in which the exorcist appears as a veiled woman bearing a crown of starlight) weep over the death of mystique. His hoodie, bearing the double-edged swords of the Saint of Opportunity, is a size too large for him, and the only crown on his head is a stray autumn leaf that he brushes off when he sits down. There is also a particular strain around his eyes common to working human adults all around the world, that of not having imbibed enough caffeine to start the day. Indeed, the first thing Blue River does after sitting is reach for the coffeepot.
“I hope you don’t mind,” he says. “The full moon made for a long night.”
There is a refreshing frankness to the way he answers questions, with an easy smile and a friendliness often missing from his more serious colleagues. Part of this may well be from how he entered the industry. As he reveals while we wait for our other interviewee to arrive, he became an exorcist not out of family tradition or to repay a life debt, as most other exorcists do, but because it was a respectable way to continue a hobby his relatives disapproved of.
“Not many occupations out there involve keeping up sword practice,” Blue River recalls. “It was either this or the circus or a job that gave it up, and my grandparents aren’t as robust as they used to be. I would never forgive myself if I gave them a heart attack, and I would never forgive myself if I gave up swords, so here we are.”
As for how his grandparents reacted to the news?
“They were very proud,” he says, smiling. “Very angry with me, but very proud. I could see it in their eyes.”
“Also quite horrified,” adds Lord Grim, materialising on the couch. His fashion sense is the type that would make various horror directors, or at least their costuming departments, weep in order to blur their sight. “Shall we begin?”
The first time Blue River met Lord Grim, back before he had known there would be a second time – or a third, or a fourth, or so many that he would eventually lose track – was during a possession.
It was, all things considered, a very straightforward possession. There was no lightning crossing the sky, no doves bursting into song, nothing that could have warned Blue River his life was about to turn irreversibly. There were only panicky undergraduates attempting to avoid their suddenly beanbag-shredding, eyes-glowing roommate, and out of all the things Blue River had imagined demons to be interested in, this was at the bottom of the list.
He was easy enough to subdue, given that all his focus had been on ripping the couch apart to shreds, and Blue River spared a moment of pity for the victim’s wallet. If there had ever been a demographic who badly needed insurance for demonic-influenced activity, it had to be those in higher education. Something about staying awake all night, drinking too much coffee and procrastination attracted demons like flies.
Blue River poured out the holy oil, set down the salt and candles and silver, and called for the demon, one hand closed around the reassuring hilt of his sword. While the circle was whole the demon could neither touch him nor escape, but there was something extremely satisfying about the weight of it as red smoke began coalescing into a set of eerily scrutinising eyes. At least no mouth meant Blue River could hopefully avoid conversation.
The rest of the banishment ritual finished easily enough, though not recognising the demon had meant he had to substitute the naming for a prayer to the Saint of Patience instead, and by the time that had finished the sun was dipping low towards the horizon. Blue River packed up his things, and gave the victim a card for the Financial Help for the Possessed, and headed off for a garlic-heavy stir fry before the night settled in. Being a security guard at a vampire party was a terrible job that paid awfully, but finances had to come after the safety of humanity.
By the time the sun rose again as a disk of pale, blessed gold, the encounter was the furthest thing possible from Blue River’s mind.
“I feel like now’s a good time to ask,” Blue River pauses to say, refilling his coffee. “Why were you shredding beanbags?”
Lord Grim scrutinises a piece of shortbread. “He was shredding beanbags,” he corrects. “I only repressed his self-control and made him stop feeling so conscious about things.”
Blue River does not appear convinced by the explanation, but continues nonetheless.
The first time the demon spoke to him was during their fourth meeting.
By then, Blue River had begun to suspect that his luck, at the very least, was off kilter. Very few exorcists met the same demon more than twice, and those times were usually well apart. This particular one had shown up to a possession almost every week. He was almost tempted to ask what they found so fascinating about possessions when there was an entire range of demonic activity available, but initiating conversation with a demon was never wise.
“Can’t you recite any faster?” the demon asked, interrupting his prayer to the Saint of Patience halfway through the ninth verse.
It was fortunate that the Saint of Patience was, well, patient, enough so that Blue River could simply continue from where he had broken off without changing the effects of the prayer. If he’d had to start again there would have been no saint in heaven who could have restrained him from attempting to strangle the demon with his bare hands, as unadvisable as that was. “You can’t rush Patience,” he said. “Shouldn’t you know that, being a demon?”
“Maybe I thought you exorcists just liked reciting for three hours straight,” the demon answered. “Aren’t humans supposed to get thirsty?”
“Well, you could save me a lot of trouble if you drank this holy water,” Blue River said. His fingers rubbed circles into the lapis prayer beads, and he was about to start again when the demon said, thoughtfully, “You could ask my name.”
And, okay, Blue River had possibly never met a more shameless demon. What exorcist didn’t know that using the wrong name in a banishment ritual could result in dire consequences? “I don’t think I can trust you to give me the right one,” he said, suppressing a snort, “and I don’t want to be facing the consequences of a wrong one.”
“Right,” the demon said, somehow managing to sound as if they’d completely forgotten there were consequences at all. Either demon school wasn’t what it used to be, or Blue River was going to have to rearrange his private list of ‘Worst Demons Ever Encountered.’ “My mistake.”
“Quite,” Blue River said, primly. He had almost finished the eleventh verse and had glimpsed the end when the demon opened their mouth again and immediately dethroned the last worst demon Blue River had ever encountered.
“We could make a deal,” the demon suggested. “A name for a name. I can’t lie that way.”
Blue River silently closed his mouth on the refrain.
See, the thing about names was, the less power you had, the more you had to hide it away, which was the whole point behind the courtesy and earned names that could stand in for legal documents and even close a ritual in a pinch but could never sign your soul away as an undine’s possession or a dryad’s fertiliser. And Blue River, being an exorcist of no significant self-delusion, knew perfectly well where he stood on the power scale; that was, nowhere near high enough to trade even a courtesy name with a demon, not unless he wanted trouble lasting well after death, which already operated under the excessively tenuous assumption he wanted to make a deal with a demon in the first place.
“I’ll pass,” he said. “Most exorcists don’t make deals with the demons they’re expelling, you know.”
“You shouldn’t,” the demon said. “I’ll find out sooner or later, and then you’ll have even less to hold over me.”
It would have been a better threat if the demon hadn’t chosen to inhabit a victim wearing red flannel combined with jeans and sandals. Blue River pulled out his set of anti-noise headphones and closed his eyes and returned to the lapis prayer beads. This time, nothing interrupted him.
“Your fashion sense hasn’t improved much, has it,” Blue River says, wrinkling his nose.
Lord Grim, who can only be charitably described as an eyesore, shrugs. “It’s efficient,” he says.
Efficient for what, he does not elaborate on. Perhaps efficient for torturing the aesthetic sensibilities of all those in hell. The sight of him is certainly an advertisement for virtue.
“With the spring snows the lord returns to the blue bridge; with the autumn wind I depart for the high mountains.” The demon interrupted him three verses in, eyes narrowed, and Blue River’s voice died in his throat too obviously to pretend at any other reason.
One of his earned names – no, one of his former earned names, and fleetingly Blue River wondered if he was supposed to be grateful now to Poplar Beach for taking the weight of it off him so long ago. He wondered, equally fleetingly, if it still belonged to Poplar Beach, or if the other exorcist had traded it away for even more layers of obfuscation around his true name. But the larger part of him was still in mourning shock, and it was an effort to pull himself together to say, acidly, with one arm swept out to point at the window, “It is autumn. Why haven’t you departed?”
One of the demon’s eyebrows rose, a movement callous with mundanity. “I see,” they said.
Blue River realised his hand was shaking. He lowered it, curled it into a fist, ignored the way he could feel his pulse pound in his fingers. Breathed. He had, it seemed, already made more mistakes than he could afford; all he could do now was finish, as soon as possible, and pray they never saw each other again.
Easier said than done, Blue River suspected, when the last verse concluded and the circle blazed into imperious command. The frown on the demon’s face didn’t suggest he was the kind to let go easily.
“It’s been very long since I was human,” Lord Grim says reflectively. “I forgot all your norms.”
It is highly tempting to ask if the norm of fashion is amongst those forgotten norms. For the sake of self-preservation, this question goes unasked.
After that incident, Blue River took four weeks leave.
There was nothing quite like being threatened by a being of indeterminate power who was only restrained by a thin layer of ritual to force a drastic career reassessment. Blue River had pulled out an entire bucket of comfort ice-cream that evening, numbing his brain with the combined anaesthetic of chocolate and two hours of Splendid Six, and the day after found him handing in his notice of leave to the confused-looking receptionist staffing the infernal branch of the city exorcists’ office. Apparently very few people handed in their leave notices in person at the office, but Blue River thought he needed the walk.
The benefit of being an exorcist: paid leave whenever and wherever, since everyone understood that supernatural perils rarely had the decency to provide two weeks’ notice. Blue River figured it just about cancelled out the numerous risks and disadvantages. He dropped by the training branch to sign himself up for the calligraphy and exegesis course, and spent the next three weeks struggling to distinguish heavily stylised commas from ink blots.
Exorcists, strictly speaking, did not need to be proficient in either calligraphy or scripture – there were printers to churn out talismans on an industrial scale, and the prayers to the saints of Patience and Serenity were all they really needed for regular exorcisms. But there was something Blue River found very peaceful about imitating centuries-old calligraphy styles, a new chain in a lineage disappearing into the mists of time. And you never did know when obscure information about a saint turned up as the last question in Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?
(Wandering Peak had been so upset over his wrong answer that he’d gone and spent an entire two years drifting between libraries to make up for the gap in his knowledge, back when Blue River had still been relatively new. Failing on a question about his patron saint had really shaken the man.)
After the course, Blue River spent a week lying flat, then eased himself back into work with a patrol at the antiques market (the suspected demonic object turned out to be an ordinary wolf fang rather than a hellhound tooth, which made it the environmental agency’s problem and not his) and the purification of a heavily cursed ruby ring (the grandfather had been tricked into trapping a fairy inside, and the wards had steadily weakened until the fairy’s rage had begun manifesting in the form of horrific curses). He determinedly avoided possessions; there were, after all, plenty of other kinds of demonic activity.
It worked, until it didn’t.
Blue River was recording several angry flower nymphs’ complaints over a factory pouring contaminants into the ground when they all fell silent, wilting at some threat he couldn’t see. At first, Blue River thought the factory owner had caught wind of their complaints and had sent someone to threaten the nymphs’ flowers, in which case he was going to need to call for backup. Then all but one of the nymphs bolted – which meant it wasn’t a threat to the nymphs – and then Blue River had his sword pointing at the hollow of the remaining nymph’s throat, her eyes a brilliant shade of red.
“You’ve been avoiding me,” the demon said, ignoring the sword at their throat.
“How kind of you to notice,” Blue River answered, rapidly cataloguing his options. He’d had no reason to bring any of the materials needed for an exorcism when demons so rarely possessed other supernatural beings; something about their stronger awareness made it difficult for a demon to catch them in a battle of wills, or so he’d heard. The nymphs had certainly all sensed it. But all that meant was that he had exactly one vial of holy water – not even in a spray bottle – on him to face a demon, and no matter how hard Blue River wracked his brain, he couldn’t see it ending well.
He could discorporate the nymph. The rules were strictly about human victims, and her sisters could regrow her as long as her flower lived. But then Blue River would have to hope that the talisman around his neck could prevent the demon from possessing him, and given that it was only a generic protection spell supposed to protect him from minor bruises – well.
“I changed my name too,” the demon said.
“That’s nice,” Blue River said, still searching for a way out. Then his brain performed a double take as it registered the words, and he said, inelegantly, “What?”
“I changed my name too,” the demon repeated, examining the flower nymph’s fingernails. “The old one… this one suits me better as I am now, anyhow.”
“I suppose you gave up the old one out of the goodness of your heart,” was the only response Blue River could muster up to that. What was that, anyway? Was the demon attempting to console him over not being Blue Bridge Spring Snow anymore? Blue River had gotten over losing that name the minute the demon had said it weeks ago; if it wasn’t for the fact that he couldn’t figure out what Poplar Beach’s name was now, he would have sent the other guy flowers.
“Oh, for much of the same reasons you gave up yours, I suspect,” the demon said. “Or perhaps entirely different ones. I don’t know. You won’t give me your name.”
“I hate to break this to you,” Blue River said, “but it would take someone of incredible stupidity to agree to give their name to a demon.”
The demon raised an eyebrow. “I’m not incredibly stupid,” Blue River found himself compelled to add. “Just so you know.”
It wasn’t convincing even to his own ears.
“We appear to be at an impasse,” the demon finally said, mercifully changing the subject. “Shall I offer you a deal?”
Blue River almost wished the demon hadn’t changed the subject. He could comfortably point his sword for quite a while longer, but no matter which way he approached the problem, the end result was the same. He simply lacked the materials to subdue the flower nymph and draw up an exorcism circle and complete an exorcism at the same time. “I’d rather not,” he said anyway, almost certain he was not going to like whatever the demon proposed.
“One of your names for one of mine,” the demon said. “Of equal value.”
“You,” Blue River said, “are way too obsessed with my name. Why?”
“Pretend I saw a kindred spirit,” the demon answered, which didn’t sound ominous at all. “You will take this deal. Add your conditions.”
And – oh, with curses on everything under the sun, but Blue River was going to do it. There were no other options; all he had left was damage control. “How does knowing my name benefit your position in hell?” he asked, grasping at straws.
“Very little benefits my position in hell,” the demon said mildly. “Your name certainly isn’t one of them. But it will benefit me by giving me peace of mind, if that brings you any of the same.”
“I’d rather not have known that, actually,” Blue River told him. He took a deep breath, ignoring the screaming in his head that sounded like every mentor he’d ever met and every senior exorcist he’d ever crossed paths with. None of them had had a stalker demon who defied the laws of logic, probably. “Right. You can’t tell anyone my name. You can’t sign me up for or into any contracts. You can’t use it to summon me, or in any ritual, or for any reasons I don’t agree to beforehand. You definitely can’t use it to possess me. Um.”
“Hold yourself to the same, and we are agreed,” the demon murmured, eyes falling shut. The flower nymph’s hand came up to brush the tip of the sword away from her neck, and Blue River shivered as a chill traced every bone in his ribcage.
The other downside of making a deal: they were incredibly uncomfortable.
“It’s a living contract,” the demon said, when Blue River’s teeth stopped chattering and he no longer felt the urge to find and gorge himself on a safe-for-human-consumption version of antifreeze. “Add more conditions any time, if you agree to them yourself.”
“Oh,” Blue River said, lowering his sword. It was almost enough to make him believe that the demon only wanted peace of mind. “And the name you give me is of equal value to the name I give you.”
The demon had a pretty smile. Or rather, the flower nymph had a pretty smile, and it was being co-opted for nefarious purposes. “After you,” they said.
If only he could make up a name on the spot – but if they were trading for equal value, then the demon would also make up a name on the spot, and Blue River would be the one left holding the repercussions when the rune blew up on him. “You can call me Blue River,” he finally said.
“Blue River.” The demon spoke the words carefully, as if testing the sound of it. Blue River hoped it sounded like twittering birds in spring, or some other pleasant worldly sound that offended all of hell with its niceness. “A pleasure. I suppose, to mimic your wording, you can call me Lord Grim.”
“A pleasure, Lord Grim,” Blue River repeated, flatly, and indeed had the pleasure of seeing Lord Grim’s eyes widen fractionally before the rune Blue River had been sketching on the ground blazed into life. An unconscious flower nymph slumped to the ground, the sudden blast of wintry wind ruffling her snowdrop hair, and Blue River breathed out a sigh of relief.
It could have, he supposed, gone worse.
“He grew on me,” Blue River adds. “Eventually.”
“You overthought my intentions,” Lord Grim says. “I did only want to know your name.”
“You’ll have to excuse me for thinking the demon who was apparently desperate to know my name had ulterior motives,” Blue River drawls. This is clearly a familiar argument to both of them, as Lord Grim immediately leans over the armrest with a challenging expression, while Blue River folds his arms.
Perhaps, the suggestion is made, Blue River could elaborate on the growing.
“Indeed,” Blue River agrees, and continues.
If Blue River had ever harboured hopes that Lord Grim, after satisfying his “peace of mind” – and what a freshly steaming pile of cow dung that was – would leave him alone, he was soon disabused of the notion.
The demon showed up with persistent regularity, to the point where Blue River began marking the end of the working week with the demon’s appearance, though that was less to do with Lord Grim showing up on Fridays and more to do with the fact that Blue River, frankly, deserved two days off after interacting with the headache. To an outsider, it would have been difficult to understand why Lord Grim was a headache, when exorcising him was now just a twenty-minute, no-words-exchanged affair after gaining his name, but Blue River was keenly aware of the red eyes that regarded him every time he laid out Invocations to Serenity. And while there was nothing overtly dangerous or threatening about that regard, there was a cool weight to it, and the weight was heavy enough to leave Blue River drained and exhausted each time the exorcism finished.
It was the uncertainty that nagged. Uncertainty, and helplessness. Not a single person in all of recorded history who had gotten themselves entangled with a demon had had a happy ending, and Blue River was both uncertain of whether he and Lord Grim counted as an entanglement and helpless to change his inevitable doom. He was just human, in the end. How was a mortal supposed to spin the immortal wheels of fate?
At least his bank account had no complaints about their regular meetings, which meant Blue River could forget his troubles every once in a while through liberal application of alcohol. It did make him wonder if he had some kind of moral obligation to dissuade Lord Grim from possessing so many innocents, but – Blue River had seen the states other demons left their victims in, if the exorcist simply couldn’t arrive fast enough. Compared to others, Lord Grim was positively gentle.
“Don’t you have anything better to do?” he asked anyway at their next meeting, the first conversational words he’d spoken to Lord Grim since they exchanged names.
Lord Grim considered it. “Plenty,” they said, a smile playing at the corners of their mouth, or where Blue River supposed the corners of their mouth would be if the smoke would deign to compress itself into something inhabiting conventional three-dimensional space. “Are you flattered?”
Blue River grabbed his noise-cancelling headphones and finished the Invocation to Serenity without another word. Why had he even tried?
Still, the floodgates had opened. “Am I that stressful?” Lord Grim asked, smoke pooling out the moment Blue River set down the last bowl of salt. “You keep getting paler.”
“You try waking up in the middle of the night wondering what a demon’s going to do with your name,” Blue River muttered. “The more you do nothing, the more worried I get that it’s going to blow up in my face.”
The smoke paused. For the first time, it began folding back, paring itself down into a solid figure until Blue River was looking at the image of a man in his late twenties bearing the eyes of someone who had witnessed several millennia, with the clothes to match. As it turned out, even demons could not match a colourful embroidered tunic with a leather jacket, fur kilt and metal greaves. “That’s unfortunate,” Lord Grim said. “I don’t suppose me saying you’re thinking too hard will reassure you.”
His eyes were golden. They were, perhaps, the only part of him that weren’t an eyesore. “Coming from you, it doesn’t really work, no,” Blue River admitted, staring at him. “Uh. Is this your usual form?”
“In a manner of speaking,” Lord Grim said. “What would reassure you?”
An odd scent in the air; ozone, and leaf rot, and the dryness of smoke. “You trying at all isn’t reassuring,” Blue River blurted out. “I’m a human, and you’re a demon. Why are you even trying to reassure me?”
Smoke, and now also the smell of rain and stormy wind, a combination delighting in chaos. “Ah,” Lord Grim said. “It has been a long time since I walked this dimension. I see I need to brush up on some relationships.”
Blue River abruptly found himself wondering which circle of hell Lord Grim belonged to. He’d assumed by default the demon was part of one of the outer rings, weak enough to slip under the radar of the saints who prevented hell from spilling over into the human realm, though weak was rather relative. Even the weakest of demons outmatched dozens of exorcists when they were unafraid of divine intervention – thankfully, they were always afraid of divine intervention, so there was at least a pretence of equal ground there – but the weak demons of the outer rings were young demons. All the older ones, if the ancient monks were even half accurate, were constantly playing power games to get closer to the thrones of hell, with no time for anything else.
The way Lord Grim spoke did not imply he was a young demon. But if he wasn’t a young demon, how did he slip under the radar – and how was he still finding the time, every week without fail? There was some kind of solvable puzzle in those questions, Blue River thought, but he was not quite sure if he wanted to see the answer.
“Where I come from, it’s very rude not to know how to address someone,” the demon continued blandly. That was probably true; demons, being powerful creatures, held the opposite attitude to names humans did. “As for why you… your life is more interesting than most of hell. Most humans’ lives are more interesting than whatever happens in hell. The mould growing on the block of cheddar in your fridge is more interesting that what happens in hell. Don’t be too arrogant about it.”
“So I just got unlucky, is what you’re saying,” Blue River muttered.
Lord Grim shrugged. “I don’t spin the wheels of fate,” he said. “Go complain to the saints.”
It was very difficult to decide if the careless way Lord Grim spoke of those in heaven was reassuring or horrifying. Probably that was a decision Blue River could only make at four in the morning, curled around a tub of ice cream. “There’s mould on my cheese?” he asked instead, focusing on something that was a little more controllable.
“It’s a hard cheese,” Lord Grim said. “You can just cut it away.”
“You’ll have to excuse me for not taking health advice from a demon.” Blue River made a mental note to throw the entire block of cheese away. There wasn’t much of it left anyway, if he remembered correctly, and cheese that a demon had taken interest in sounded much less appetising than normal cheese, even if Lord Grim – supposedly – was interested in everything more interesting than hell.
“Why, Blue River,” Lord Grim said, amusement plain across his features, “you don’t want to become a saint?”
Hearing his name from that mouth was enough to send frost spidering down his spine. Blue River grimaced, the words to the Invocation falling out by instinct, and then Lord Grim was gone.
“He was referring to the Saint of Lament,” Blue River supplies helpfully. “But out of all the saints, I think he’s the most unsettling. Uh, no disrespect intended.”
“None taken on his behalf, I’m sure,” Lord Grim says, with the kind of glint in his eye that dares anyone to suggest otherwise.
For those less familiar with theology, the Saint of Lament is the saint whose blessing is invoked at funerals to lay ghosts to rest. In addition to funerals, he is the saint of transience; doorways, atriums, offerings and graveyards fall under his domain. Traditionally his blessing is invoked with six circular boundaries, although in modern times this has been simplified to one large elaborate carving, a prominent example of which can be found in the Rotunda in Congee City. In legend, he ascended after consumption of a food advised to him by a disguised demon.
What is most notable about this saint, however, must be his paintings. In life the saint was a master of observation; now, ascended, the eyes of his paintings drill into your own from every angle, too consistently across styles to be anything but a miracle.
Here was the thing: ever since graduation, the only constants in Blue River’s life were his boss, his colleagues, and his exhaustion after werewolf patrol every full moon. And while he liked Changing Spring and Bound Boat and Flying Brushstroke and all the others well enough, now that Blue River was solidly stuck managing the affairs of the infernal department he really only saw them at the inter-department dinner parties held every few months to celebrate not-having-died-on-the-job, which wasn’t particularly conductive to maintaining solid friendships. Also, none of them asked him about moulding cheese in his fridge, so.
Now that Blue River was reasonably sure Lord Grim was only interested in him out of a general interest in humanity, and not as a specific interest, it was easier to let curiosity out from where it had been held back by prudence. Here was a demon who knew hell, in a way that all the previous demons caught in exorcisms did not, who – probably – had no interest in his immediate death. The last time humanity had learned new things about hell was almost two hundred years ago, when the Saint of Opportunity had dropped enough visions into a secluded monastery to write fifty-eight new manuscripts, most of which… had been largely descriptive and repetitive, but still. Of course Blue River was curious, even if curiosity killed the cat.
He held back for six solid weeks while Lord Grim asked questions on everything from thirteen-century poetry to croquembouche-making to calculus. On the seventh, after Lord Grim had spent an hour vanishing down the rabbit hole that was the Wikipedia page on metallurgy, Blue River gave in to his curiosity, and said, “What’s it like, in your corner of hell?”
Lord Grim paused his scrolling. “Quite boring,” he said. “Everyone’s either screaming or scheming or both. Sometimes I wonder if Total Darkness thinks I don’t have eyes. How do you control for temperature when cooling without allowing for martensite?”
“I don’t even know what a mart and site is,” Blue River said. “Is hell like that everywhere?”
“What a good question,” was the reply. “Probably not.”
He went back to scrolling through Blue River’s old phone. Blue River aimlessly refreshed his social media feeds, learning nothing of interest other than the unfortunate reminder that the next month had a blue moon – double the exhaustion for half the pay, wonderful – before he put the phone down, laced his fingers together, and said, “Tell me something we don’t know about hell.”
“All that you don’t know about hell must be guarded secrets by now,” Lord Grim said without looking up. “Why?”
“It doesn’t seem very fair that you’re learning things new to you about humanity, while I’m learning things known to me about hell,” Blue River said, picking his words carefully. “Isn’t that the kind of deal that would fall through?”
That made Lord Grim look up, an amused glint in his eyes. “Interesting appeal,” he said. “But I wasn’t asking why I should tell you. I was asking why you wanted to know.”
“Call it benefitting the future generations,” Blue River said.
He received a cool gold stare for that, calculating and thoughtful. “Take me to a café with croquembouches, and I’ll tell you one.”
For a moment, Blue River was strongly tempted. He still didn’t know what croquembouches were, but surely they were less hard to find than a fresh secret of hell. But – “I can’t,” he said, reluctantly. “I’m not taking a victim of possession anywhere. Even if they don’t remember, it would be a severe oversight. What if they were allergic and went into shock after you left?”
Lord Grim blinked. He glanced at the body he had been borrowing before Blue River had arrived, the body of a now-sleeping, slightly balding man in his forties who looked very, very different to his actual appearance. “And if I didn’t arrive by possession?” he asked.
“I don’t trust you enough for that,” Blue River said bluntly. Free demons, who had entered the human realm without a form to restrain them, and therefore could take all forms, were a nightmare to send back. Blue River had had the misfortune of participating in the exorcism of one who had adopted the form of a hurricane years ago, and it wasn’t an experience he was keen to repeat.
“Hmm,” Lord Grim said. “I could possess an inanimate object?”
“What,” Blue River said.
The whole tenet of possession was that the possessed had to be sentient or alive. That was the whole reason exorcists didn’t have to guard undertakers from legions of demons out to steal corpses for possession. What did Lord Grim mean, that he could possess inanimate objects?
“Something that you wear normally,” Lord Grim continued, as if he wasn’t upending the foundations of possession. “Maybe your shoelaces? They’re nice, by the way. I like them.”
“Thanks,” Blue River said. “I stole them from the president.”
He had the pleasure of seeing Lord Grim’s face go perfectly blank with confusion, which was only fair given what Blue River had just learned. On one hand, the fact that no demons had stolen corpses yet implied that the regular demons who entered the human realm… couldn’t possess inanimate objects. On the other hand, what did that make Lord Grim?
“Do we have an agreement?” Lord Grim asked.
He must have really wanted croquembouches.
Blue River pinched the bridge of his nose. “Wait. Okay, first, you’re not possessing my shoelaces. That’s just weird. Also you’re going to explain how you can possess inanimate objects to me in great detail. And you have to promise not to harm anyone. Or trick them into signing away their soul. Or ask for their name, actually. And—”
“Yes, yes,” Lord Grim interrupted, waving a hand. “You have my oath. Next… Thursday, then?”
Blue River shook his hand.
“And that was how he tricked me onto a date,” Blue River says dryly. “Never converse with a demon indeed. You’ll agree to things you didn’t even know you were agreeing to.”
The smile Lord Grim gives Blue River is particularly self-satisfied. The smile Lord Grim turns upon the rest of the room, however, is significantly less so. “Some of the following contents of this interview will be unable to make it to print,” he says. “I’m sure you’ll understand.”
Blue River sips at his coffee, and continues.
In the end, Lord Grim possessed Blue River’s keys, which turned a blistering cold in Blue River’s hands to register the possession before Lord Grim flowed out and returned them to normal. Blue River dropped the keys into his pocket and tried not to overthink. “After you,” he said, opening the door.
It was a beautiful spring day, the sun having finally slid out from the shadows of three days of rain. Even Lord Grim looked – well, not beautiful, but at least he’d abandoned trying to mishmash different eras of history together for a perfectly ordinary turtleneck and jeans. Compared to the sequined cape and striped bell-bottoms he’d appeared with last time, he was practically a sight for sore eyes.
“You’re staring,” Lord Grim said.
“Just amazed you know how to match clothes together,” Blue River said, truthfully. “I thought you like, threw darts at a closet filled with historical junk to make your outfits.”
Lord Grim smiled.
At the café, he went straight for the croquembouche, which Blue River only recognised because he’d spent an entire afternoon searching ‘croquembouches near me’ until he no longer knew how to spell the word. “It’s larger than I expected,” he admitted to the waiter.
The waiter gave him an odd look. “Your friend asked for the largest one,” he said.
If Blue River listened carefully, he could hear his wallet crying. He gritted his teeth and ignored it.
Halfway through the croquembouche, Lord Grim put his fork down. “,” he said, looking directly at Blue River.
Blue River very nearly choked on the pastry. “You could have given some warning,” he wheezed out, glancing around the rest of the café. Nobody acted as if they’d heard them, but if they had, and it was one of hell’s guarded secrets, then there was no way Blue River could protect them all from retribution. Protecting himself was all well and fine, but others, without any preparation?
“They didn’t hear,” Lord Grim said mildly. “I placed a silence boundary.”
Blue River’s jaw worked. “Isn’t that unique to the Saint of Lament?”
“And those who follow his class,” Lord Grim agreed, as if it was at all possible for a demon to follow a saint. “You asked for something you didn’t know about hell, and now I’ve told you.”
“Oh,” Blue River said. He chewed another pastry, and drank some coffee, and swallowed. “That must make for some unique interior design.”
“Extremely interesting,” Lord Grim agreed. “But quite variable. What is a lake one day becomes a mountain the next. Very bad for organising picnics.”
Lord Grim’s face remained perfectly straight until between the two of them they had somehow polished off ninety pastries – the advantages, Blue River supposed, of not being limited by a human appetite, since he had only eaten about twenty and wanted nothing more than to lie on the grass and sleep for an hour – when he suddenly smiled. “Of course, picnics in hell are quite dreary affairs,” he said. “The food is quite miserable, the scenery awful, and the company simply cannot be described.”
“Somehow I didn’t think you were the type to complain,” Blue River said, which made Lord Grim smile wider. “What’s the truth?”
“I’ve told you one already,” was the answer. “If you want another, I’m quite curious how your historians explain the enmity between sirens, undine and kappa.”
Which was how Blue River ended up in front of a glass display of woven seagrass that, according to the sign at the side, recorded a treaty made between sirens and kappa over the splitting of the estuaries that were downstream of the kappa’s homes. According to Lord Grim, it was actually a siren’s shopping list. A young one, too, since “the weaving is too basic for any self-respecting siren elder.” Blue River had no idea if he was supposed to break the bad news to the museum curators.
In the gardens of the museum, while Blue River was still blinking from the bright sunlight, Lord Grim snapped a lycoris. “.”
Dazzling Hundred Blossoms – Blue River knew that name. It was the courtesy name of the demon who sat on one of the three thrones of hell, assuming he had not been dethroned between the time Flawless Lotus had received a vision and now. Of all the demons the saints watched for, preventing their entrance into the human world, Dazzling Hundred Blossoms had to be somewhere near the top of the list.
“Are you – not afraid of retribution, if he learns you’ve told someone?” Blue River asked.
“He would like the whole universe to know he’s searching,” Lord Grim said. “It might make his search easier. He just can’t get past his pride, though he will.” A sidelong glance. “What do you think, Blue River? Can you miss a memory?”
Blue River was never going to get over the fact that a demon knew his name. Even now, it sent lightning up his spine. “It sounds,” he said slowly, “very difficult.”
“Don’t sympathise too much.” The flower in Lord Grim’s hands turned to dust, blew away in the wind. “He hates it. Do you ever use your sword?”
“Would you like it pressed against your throat?” Blue River shot back. “Not to expel demons. But it’s useful with the rest of the supernatural, and there hasn’t been a harpy squabble I haven’t been able to break up yet with it.”
“Ah,” Lord Grim said. “You in your element. That must be a sight.”
Had Lord Grim just complimented him?
In any case, a week later, in a dusty attic, surrounded by feathers in every colour of the rainbow, Lord Grim told him, “.”
Blue River stared at him. Lord Grim did not seem particularly bothered by the stare, or by how he was – once again – turning Blue River’s world upside down. “It’s the side effect of eternity,” he continued. “Hate is an expensive emotion. .”
That… made sense, Blue River supposed, in the awful kind of too-big-for-humanity-to-comprehend way. Being hostile forever had to be more exhausting than being hostile on command. And now he had secrets on two of the three thrones of hell, so—
“What about One Autumn Leaf?” he asked.
Lord Grim raised a finger to his lips. “Shhhh,” he said. “We demons don’t speak ill of our superiors.”
Well. At least that told Blue River who Lord Grim’s direct superior was, not that he was ever going to be able to use the information. A throne like One Autumn Leaf did not approach the human realm of their own volition, and if they were summoned – if they were summoned, Blue River couldn’t imagine the summoner living long.
“Funny,” was what came out of his mouth instead. “I thought that was what made you demons.”
Lord Grim laughed. “Blue River, Blue River,” he said, “why would you believe anything in hell is consistent?”
“And then everyone knows what happened next,” Blue River says, shrugging. “I hope you’ll excuse us for not rehashing the events again.”
A perfectly reasonable request, given how searching ‘moonbeam aqueduct explosion’ returns, by the editor’s last count, twenty-eight million results, most of which adequately recall the sequence of events. His capture and his escape and his daring reversal of a summoning circle which stirred even the saints – it is all there, readily accessible.
From the countless interviews Blue River has given on the topic, he knew the above-average danger going in; equally, he was tempted by the above-average additional reward. An apt reminder of the dangers of human greed and temptation, as he himself admits.
Though there is no trace of regret in his face when he rises to leave, nor on the face of Lord Grim. As bold as it is to predict the whims of the divine – we may well see the ascension of a saint in our lifetime.
Blue River knew the task was trouble the moment the email arrived.
Each region had its own organisation of capable exorcists, and it was rare for their paths to cross during business. That Relic City had, therefore, sent out a wide-ranging request for aid was not a good sign. His frown only grew as he searched up the case; of the twenty exorcists who had attempted the task, either singly or in pairs or in groups, all but one had turned up wandering the wilderness with their memories missing, unable to resume duties until they had sufficiently recovered. As for the one who presumably hadn’t lost her memories – she had lost her head.
Relic City was not a small city, but the exorcists had always been limited there, and the loss of twenty at once posed a serious threat to general security. In a week was the full moon, the solstice chasing its heels, and both required full teams to prevent the mundane from disturbing the supernatural. Why foolhardy teenagers insisted on sneaking into werewolf grounds during full moons Blue River would never understand, but it was a duty to protect them all the same.
“Am I going?” he asked Changing Spring over lunch.
“Yes,” Changing Spring said. “You’re one of the most flexible we have. I don’t know who Arisaema or Lonely Drink is sending, but I trust your decision-making. If you think they can’t tide past the solstice, go guard with them. If you think they can, go find the source of Relic City’s troubles. I’ve looked at the missing exorcists – they aren’t as skilled as you.”
“Thanks.” Blue River took a bite of his curry. “Who else is coming?”
“Flying Brushstroke and Ice of Dawn, but strictly for the full moon and solstice,” Changing Spring said. “They don’t have your touch with the infernal, and Relic City has no safety in numbers. I don’t trust them to stay safe. I barely trust your ability to stay safe. Blue River. You put your safety before the truth, understand?”
There was such deadly seriousness on his face that Blue River swallowed down his first reassurance. “I understand,” he said, abnormally cold.
“It’s a high reward being offered,” Changing Spring said softly. “But it’s no good to anyone dead.”
The atmosphere when Blue River arrived in Relic City was grim. The original exorcists were shaken by their loss, and the new ones shackled by impending duty. There was not a single one of them who didn’t want to be finding out what had happened instead of waiting around, Blue River thought as he looked around the meeting room, but they also knew full well that if any of them went missing, there would be bigger disasters.
The full moon rose, and fell, and the clock ticked on.
If anything was going to happen, Blue River reasoned to himself, it would be at the solstice, where torrents of power threw every supernatural being into frenzy and supercharged every ritual drawn that day. The memory-wiping of nineteen exorcists was far too targeted to not have a ritual behind it. There were just about enough of them still standing after the full moon to pass the solstice safely, so if Blue River snuck out to where the incidents had happened the night before the solstice, then he would not be jeopardising anyone’s safety but his own, and perhaps could even figure out what the people behind it all were planning—
—at which point he ran into Plantago Seed, who evidently had the exact same idea.
“You’re not supposed to be here, Blue River,” the other exorcist hissed. “I saw the rosters, you’re not on patrol tonight. Go and wait for the solstice to pass.”
“You’re not supposed to be here either,” Blue River hissed back. “And I know Arisaema put you under strict orders to only deal with the solstice, not anything else. Go back to your bed.”
“This is the best chance to figure out why our fellow exorcists lost their memories,” Plantago Seed shot back. “You have to go back, we can’t both go. That’ll leave a gap in the team calming down the harpies, and Relic City’s been a harpy roost since forever.”
“You have to go back, your whole department is managing the solstice,” Blue River hissed. “I’m the one in the infernal department. You can’t look at this and genuinely think anything ordinarily supernatural is behind it. I’m better suited to dealing with this than you!”
Somewhere up a tree, a bird cawed. Blue River suppressed the urge to shiver. “You’re just after the money,” Plantago Seed snapped, his face twisted in the darkness.
“As if you aren’t. How are those debts going? You don’t really think they’ll let up if you lose your mind, do you?” Blue River fired back. “Go back. I’ll say it again – I’m better suited to dealing with the infernal than you, and there’s a bonus if you see through the solstice anyway.”
“You two-faced—” A light flashed on and off in the building, and Plantago Seed shrank back. When he spoke again, it was through gritted teeth. “Fine. I see your point. And if you’re not back before six, I’m raising the alarm.”
“Thanks,” Blue River whispered back.
All nineteen exorcists and one beheaded corpse had been found near the ruins of an ancient aqueduct, long reduced to rubble by the earthquakes that frequently shook Relic City. The moon was bright in the sky as Blue River made his way towards it, following the stream that now flowed from where the aqueduct had broken. In the night everything was quiet, the mud a reflective silver under the moon, and when Blue River arrived at the remnants of the arches that had once held up the aqueduct there was nothing blatantly out of the ordinary.
He was turning over a rock that looked as if it had been recently disturbed when a shadow caught his eye. Blue River spun around, staring at the arches he had already passed over, and the blood-painted rune for surrender stared back at him. The muscles in his body relaxed.
And everything went black.
When he woke again he was tied to a chair, a position Blue River had not been in since he had learned how to prevent himself from being possessed over a decade ago, and there was a familiar circle around him. Another man was slumped by his feet, unbound. Not an exorcist, at least, so Blue River could let out some sigh of relief; come morning, no human in Relic City would be in undue danger.
“He’s perfect,” a voice said from behind. “I told you, an exorcist with ties to the infernal will show up before the solstice. What else would they expect?”
“Your foresight is indeed…” Another voice, vaguely familiar, trailed off. “As always, I am impressed.”
Now Blue River could place that second voice; the simpering was too recognisable. “Excellent Dynasty,” he said, “what are you playing at?”
“Oh,” the voice he did not recognise said. “He’s awake. And just in time, how wonderful.”
Two men rounded the circle. Excellent Dynasty was as sour-faced as the last time Blue River had seen him, when he’d been cast out for endangering lives for the sake of his ambition. Unfortunately, that didn’t seem to have changed. The other man Blue River had never seen before – but nobody overly sane wore a three-piece suit in the ruins, so he couldn’t be normal either.
“It’s nice to meet you, Blue River,” the man said. “You may call me the Manager.”
A title he was not beholden to, Blue River knew immediately. He attempted to wriggle his wrists. “What happened to the others?”
“You mean the twenty who came before you?” the Manager asked. “They weren’t usable, so they were returned. As bait for those who were useful, you see.”
“Lunar Grace,” Blue River said. “What was she useful for, then?”
“You’re asking a lot of questions for someone tied up,” Excellent Dynasty sneered. “Don’t worry, you’ll find out. It’ll just be too late.”
“I’m sure you’re a very smart person,” the Manager said, taking out a folding chair and a lamp. “If you try, you can even figure it out. Let us know if you do.”
Blue River’s hands, slippery with sweat, wrestled with the knots. “This is a restraining circle,” he said. “For possessions. But there aren’t any demons here, and this man here isn’t possessed, so I don’t know who this circle is for. It doesn’t hold back humans.”
“Very good,” the Manager said, and Blue River swallowed the wave of rage that swept over him. “And if I told you only half the bowls are salt, and the other half hold cinnabar?”
Blue River’s hands froze.
“You must be wondering how I plan to contain the summoned demon,” the Manager mused. “It is, in fact, quite easy. First I offer them you. And then my friend here restrains them after.”
“Excellent Dynasty,” Blue River said truthfully, “is a shit exorcist.”
“Not him.” There was a glint of satisfaction in the Manager’s eyes. “My other friend.”
Smoke pooled around him, a dull, viscous indigo under the silvered moon. “Total Darkness,” the demon that emerged said, peering down at him with disdain. “He will do.”
“After you,” the Manager told Excellent Dynasty.
“Wait,” Blue River said. “What makes you think the demon will want me, and not him?” He jerked his chin towards Excellent Dynasty, and the other exorcist smirked in response.
“You’ll find out when the demon arrives, won’t you?” he taunted, and kicked the bowl of salt over.
Invocation to the Damned; Blue River recognised it not by words, but by the dread that skittered along his muscles and sank into his bones. Pieces of the Manager’s plan fell into place. The summoned demon would possess the unconscious man at his feet, and see Blue River at once – and then what? What kind of ritual were they planning if it only worked with the power of the solstice?
The ropes against his wrist turned blistering cold, locking every muscle into spasm. The man at his feet did not stir. But smoke pooled all the same, red and thoughtful, and then Lord Grim was standing in the circle with him, examining their surroundings with curiosity.
Excellent Dynasty’s voice died.
“You didn’t possess him,” the Manager said, eyes narrowed. “How are you here?”
“Humans make very boring hosts.” Lord Grim paced a circle around Blue River, then stepped up to the boundaries of the circle. “As for how I came – you called for me, didn’t you? The demon who thinks of him most. I do believe none other in hell would qualify.”
What kind of bullshit qualifier was that? Blue River was tempted to ask, before another piece clicked – of course the Manager would assume that any demon who thought of him most would be full of thoughts of revenge. Before Lord Grim, Blue River would have thought the same.
The Manager appeared to have gotten over his uncertainty. “I offer you a deal,” he said.
“An interesting proposition,” Lord Grim returned evenly. “That’s usually my line, you see. But do go on.”
“That exorcist’s true name for your cooperation.” Ice shot down Blue River’s spine, his instant horror only matched by the surprise decorating Lord Grim’s features. “I am quite certain it is mutually beneficial.”
“You’ll have to explain my role in some more detail,” Lord Grim murmured. “I was under the impression true names do not come cheaply. How do you intend this to happen?”
“There are many flavours of forbidden ritual,” the Manager said impatiently, waving a hand. “All you have to do is repeat the Invocation of the Damned for a specific demon. Which throne do you sit under?”
There was a pause. Pins and needles tingled in Blue River’s fingers as he began fighting the knots again, slowed by the numbness. “One Autumn Leaf. But why me, and not him?” he heard Lord Grim ask.
Total Darkness’ laughter was bitter. “Oh, that bastard hasn’t trusted me for quite some time,” he said. “He wouldn’t listen to an invocation from me.”
Lord Grim hummed. “I imagine he would be quite upset with me, then, if I summoned him here to see you,” he demurred. “How do you expect to contain a throne’s rage?”
“It’s the solstice,” the Manager said. “We kill him.”
“What,” Blue River said, loudly.
“I beg your pardon?” asked Lord Grim.
There was a fanaticism to the Manager’s voice when he spoke again, his voice shaking. “My life’s work,” he said. “This circle turns into a ritual to kill a throne of hell.”
“What,” Blue River said again.
“How did the thrones of hell offend you, exactly?” Lord Grim sounded – amused. Then again, shock didn’t seem to be an emotion he was well acquainted with. The knot slipped out of Blue River’s hands, and he cursed and fumbled for it again.
“I want to be immortal,” the Manager said. Blue River had clearly overjudged his sanity. “No sainthood without a miracle, and why wouldn’t the death of one of the most powerful demons of hell at my hands be a miracle?”
“There is something seriously wrong with you.” Blue River found himself unable to resist the quip. “Have you tried therapy?”
“What would you know?” the Manager snapped. “You’re just a little exorcist, blinded by your own mortality.”
Blue River turned his head as best as he could to stare at Excellent Dynasty. “You’re working with this guy? Really?”
“Some of us have ambition,” Excellent Dynasty sneered.
“Some of us have working brains,” Blue River muttered.
Lord Grim clapped his hands. “Let me see,” he said. “I gain his name, and in return I summon for you a throne of hell. You gain my aid, and also immortal acclaim and sainthood, or at least delusions of it. And our friend here gets… what do you get? The throne?”
“Problem?” Total Darkness asked, silkily.
“Not at all,” Lord Grim said smoothly. “Now, while this sounds wonderful, how do I know it won’t fail?”
“Fail?” Excellent Dynasty repeated.
“Yes, fail.” Lord Grim brushed a stray strand of hair out of his face. “I summon a throne of hell, your ritual doesn’t work, an extremely angry lord of hell blasts all of you here out of existence and the saints come down and start a war. I mean, that’s not going to be a concern for you, since you’d be quite thoroughly dead, but I’d like some assurance I won’t be spending the rest of my immortal life on the torture rack while our would-be prince goes unblemished, thank you.”
“It’s worked before,” the Manager said. On Lunar Grace, Blue River realised at once, and murmured a silent verse to the Saint of Lament. By his ear, he heard a sigh.
“On a throne?” Lord Grim asked, disbelieving.
“It’s the solstice.” The Manager raised his chin. “It’ll work on anything. Are you with me or not?”
“Quite honestly, your plan sounds astoundingly horrible and stupid,” Lord Grim said. “But I do want to hear his true name, so I suppose I will agree.”
Shit. Blue River had been so astounded by the Manager’s impossible claims that he’d forgotten what they were bargaining for. He plucked at the knots faster, wishing they would unravel, but they remained stubbornly tight, pain lancing through his wrists.
“You may have the circle to yourself, of course,” the Manager was saying. “I have no interest in him.”
“Of course,” Lord Grim agreed, and then there were syllables struggling to escape Blue River’s mouth, syllables he had long decided to take to his grave. Blue River pressed his lips together tightly, fighting the pressure, and his hands fisted the ropes as spots began to swim in his eyes.
A pair of sabatons appeared in his vision.
The demon toed aside the unconscious man that was to have been his host, stepping into the space left behind. “You have something to say to me, I think,” he murmured, leaning down.
Fuck you, Blue River wanted to tell him, but the sounds would not come. All he could do was shake his head, frantic.
“I told you before,” Lord Grim continued, his voice barely audible. “A living contract.” There was a hand against his own, the ropes loosening. Blue River’s mind went blank. His lips parted of their own volition, breathing out three syllables.
Lord Grim’s hand went still. “Don’t leave the circle,” was all he said.
When he straightened, his expression was unreadable, the steps he took as he returned to the Manager steady. “Most pleasing,” the demon drawled. “Though I suppose I should leave this circle.”
“Indeed.” There was a violent excitement to the Manager’s voice. Blue River wanted, very badly, to throw up; he restrained himself purely because there was nowhere to throw up on that was not himself. “Excellent Dynasty, the salt.”
He watched as a bowl of salt was placed in Lord Grim’s hands; watched as he spilled it, very deliberately, over the boundary. In Lord Grim’s mouth, the Invocation to the Damned was almost musical, if music felt like a knife scraping his bone marrow clean. When he finished, the entire circle was glowing softly.
The unconscious man now four paces from Blue River began to stir.
The Manager leaned forwards, one hand around a bottle of holy oil.
And the circle exploded.
Blue River, at the centre of the circle, felt nothing, but he saw the way the backlash swept outwards, a ring of pure energy that threw Excellent Dynasty off his feet and knocked the Manager against the stone arches and… and gathered, obedient, around the feet of Lord Grim.
Only that Lord Grim had hair that soaked in the moonlight instead of hair that reflected it, now, and a matching set of jet-black armour threaded with gold, and a spear Blue River recognised from thousands of paintings the world over.
“I heard,” One Autumn Leaf said, his voice conversational, “that you were attempting to usurp me.”
The shadow speared on the end of Evil Annihilation screamed in a voice that was never meant to be heard in the human realm. Blue River’s hands shot free of the ropes and clamped over his ears, but it did not stop him from hearing One Autumn Leaf’s sigh. “Liu Hao, Liu Hao,” One Autumn Leaf said, shaking Total Darkness around like a rag doll, “even I have limits, you know.”
Total Darkness’ voice died along with him.
The backlash from that did hit Blue River, a violent sledgehammer that turned the ropes still around his legs to dust and possibly the bones inside his legs to dust as well, though there was an odd lack of pain. Possibly his adrenaline levels were too high to feel it just yet. He collapsed to the ground, next to the once-again-unconscious man – the most fortunate of them all, really – and gulped down five breaths before he heard the unmistakable tap of metal on stone, and pushed himself up with his hands.
“Don’t kill them,” he said.
One Autumn Leaf looked at him.
Blue River swallowed. “They’re human,” he said. “They deserve human justice before they feel your brand of it. The nineteen others, and Lunar Grace, they would want to know.”
For the second time that day, a pair of sabatons stopped in front of him. One Autumn Leaf crouched down. Tipped Blue River’s chin up, the metal gauntlet cool against his cheek.
“Xu Boyuan,” he said, the name careful in his mouth. Blue River swallowed. “I believe I owe you a name of equal value.”
Blue River’s throat worked. “I think,” he managed, “you also owe me an explanation.”
“Humans can be many things,” One Autumn Leaf said. His form wavered, compressed and streamlined back into the familiar face of Lord Grim. “Why not demons, too?”
Next to Blue River’s ear, so close he could feel the warm puff of air, he whispered two syllables.
“I cannot stay,” Lord Grim said, a little mournfully, when he drew away, leaving Blue River’s heart pounding. “Invocation to the Damned on such a scale is sure to draw the attention of the Saint of War any moment now, if it has not already. I suggest you start planning your story. Ideally, it does not involve any thrones of hell, though it may involve minor demons. Like Lord Grim.”
Blue River managed a shaky nod.
“You’ll return, won’t you?” he asked, unsure of why he was asking one of the highest ranked demons in hell to stay, and knowing he had to do so anyway.
Ye Xiu smiled.
“Of course,” he said.