Mori gives Beatrice a last look. She’s at ease on her cot – platinum hair spilling out behind her, dancing lights all around. Blood on her clothes tells a tale of past violence with no trace of wound remaining. Sadie puts a hand on his arm. “Let her rest,” she says, as she arranges some of Beatrice’s hair. The gesture strikes Mori as motherly. “She’s safe.”

Mori trusts Sadie. There’s no better people. But it’s tough to let go. He tenses at the thought of leaving Beatrice alone after the battle at Furze Bank. At the memory of their only daughter stepping into the great inferno. It makes him want to take Beatrice in his arms and gently rock her. Mori wonders what Myra must be going through down in that poisonous heat-well of a literal climate hell-hole teaming with all the worst monsters in all the worlds. Everything will be touch-and-go for her. We knew it when we signed up for this mad-ass caper. Mori tries to steel himself for what he knows is coming and for a thousand likely surprises. Most of their work will now aim at spoiling any response by Asmodeus – giving Myra enough time to liberate the wisps she’ll need. Meaning Mori and Beatrice will be doing their honest best to get in the frigging face of the actual Devil. To distract him with as much light and noise as possible. An insane enough project by itself. Mori looks to Sadie. The specific details of this dangerous Devil-baiting are mostly her domain. He just knows he and Beatrice will be on board to help her the whole way through. With the added wrinkle of the endeavor hinging on Ivan’s ‘cooperation.’

Sadie is heading for the door. Mori and Ivan follow. They exit. Sadie shuts the door behind them. It closes with a quiet ‘whup.’ Mori can see the ignarus curse activate the moment the latch fastens. There is a nearly imperceptible splash of light. Door and wall suggest to him politely that they blend seamlessly, thank you very much. But Mori’s mind is trained to recognize such tricks, so he’s not fooled. Ivan is staring with bewilderment at what he must imagine is a wall that just ate the door. “Where did it go?” He asks to no-one in particular.

“Never mind that,” Sadie says coyly. “Let’s get you some decent clothes.”

Ivan looks self-consciously at his bare legs and feet — the rest of his body covered by Mori’s leather jacket. He’d do great as one of The Village People. “Da. Please.”

“Really, Mori, you could have had some extras on hand for Ivan,” she says, mock-scolding Mori as she walks them down the hall to a closet. She opens the door. Inside are a number of black robes for the clergy. She pulls one off the rack and sizes it up. “This should do for now. Shoe size?”

Ivan is looking at the robe with pursed lips. “Nine,” he replies.

Sadie produces some black slippers to match the robe. She motions for him to enter the closet as she leaves, then closes the door behind her. “Just knock on the door when you’re done,” she calls back to him. They here a muffled “Da” from inside. Sadie’s looking directly at Mori now. “So, you got Myra into Hell without a hitch?” she asks in a whisper.

“Well, wouldn’t say without a hitch,” Mori whispers back as he scratches the side of his head self-consciously. “Ivan…” He trails off. Sadie already knows about the possession so no need to go into it now. “She got through. Her name curse worked as planned. But Ivan sent out what sure as hell sounded like a summons when he went all wolf on us. It was pretty scary.”

“You think Asmodeus heard it?” Sadie asks, eyes glittering with speculation.

“Probably. Don’t know for sure. But as you know Ivan’s been watched by him for a long time. All of us from the Council knew something was up with him. The rumors big A was grooming him for his Earthly herald seem to be true. If so, that means…” Mori pauses ominously.

“Ivan likely bird-dogged you and Beatrice for a hunt,” Sadie says what he doesn’t want to. Mori knows Terror Hounds can do it. And the call Ivan put out sounded a lot like one of them. “Well, that’s good news.”

Mori can only laugh nervously and raise his eyebrows at her poser. He sure as hell didn’t want to be the target of one of Asmodeus’s lethal and soul-stealing hunts. But that was the object of the whole distract the Devil mission after all. On the other side of the door, he can hear Ivan cursing and rustling.

“Don’t forget to put buttons-side front,” Sadie says more loudly through the door. They only hear Ivan’s exasperated exhalation as reply. Sadie drops her voice again. “No one saw Myra?” Sadie asks in a bare breath with intensity.

Mori can understand it. That part was pretty important. “A Pride-Eater saw her sparks. That was the first one I took out with Macto,” Mori whispers back.

There’s a rap on the door from Ivan. “It’s all as good as can be expected. We’ll talk more after,” she says as she opens the door to reveal an Ivan bedecked in priestly robes. Sadie looks him over. “It oddly suits you,” she says.

“Yeah, if you’re looking for a vampire priest,” Mori can’t help himself. Sadie cuffs him.

“Jacket,” Ivan says, handing Mori his coat. Out of habit, Mori makes sure Ivan didn’t drop anything untoward into one of his pockets or attach something to it. It’s clean. Why wouldn’t it be? The guy was frigging naked.

“Now, if you would please follow me, gentlemen.” Sadie glides down the hallway, returns to the stairs, and ascends. They pass up through the cathedral area, rising past a balcony with choir benches facing an organ. The organist is still playing. He gives them no notice. They continue to wind upward, ascending to a fourth floor – at last entering a long hall with office doors in rows on both sides. Sadie comes to one with her name on it. She produces keys, opens the door, waves them in. Inside is a cosey office with bookshelves covering one side, a half-moon stained-glass window for its back wall, some comfortable chairs scattered about, a green throw rug over hard wood flooring, and an old, ornate desk facing the door. On the opposite wall is a painting of a lioness padding through sun-dappled forest, reminding Mori of a female Aslan. A stack of papers on the desk is entitled Laudato Si. Beside it is a binder labeled – Interfaith Coalition for Earth Justice. Sadie flops down behind her desk and motions to the chairs. “Please, make yourselves comfortable.”

They sit down while she rummages behind the desk. In a moment, she produces a thermos, cups, and some paper-wrapped peanut butter and banana sandwiches. “I know it’s not gourmet dinner. But the PB&B and coffee will have to do.” She hands them to Mori and Ivan. Mori’s stomach rumbles gratefully. He didn’t realize he’d worked up such an appetite. He checks his watch. It’s 8:11 P.M. Beside him, Ivan is pouring himself a cup of coffee. Mori tucks into his sandwich. Ivan sips from his coffee.

“So, you have…” Ivan looks at Mori’s watch, “I give you until 8:30 to explain all the…” he seems at a loss for words for a moment “…phenomena. To convince why I don’t call police to have you both arrested.”

“For your first request – gladly,” Sadie replies. “Although, it might take more than the 20 odd minutes you’ve asked for. As for your second, no need, the police are already here.” She motions to Mori.

“Thanks for blowing my cover Sadie,” Mori grunts. He figures he’d have told Ivan soon enough anyway. Mori flips his badge out of his pocket. “Robert Hansen, Special Investigator, Climate Crimes Division, DOJ, Interpol, at your frigging service.” Ivan looks at the badge with raised eyebrows, scrutinizing its veracity. Again, the poker face settles in. He’s seen crazier stuff tonight for sure. But Mori is a little disappointed by his non-reaction.

Ivan spreads his hands out before him in a fanning gesture that is both dismissive and accepting. “Explain.”

“First, tell us what you remember of the evening’s events,” Sadie says. Her eyes glitter as she watches Ivan. Mori figures he could see the two squaring off over a high stakes game of poker.

“Da. I was in bathroom when Mr. Hansen broke in…”

“Investigator…” Mori interrupts.

“Investigator Hansen broke in on me in the bathroom,” Ivan continues. “His wife, Beatrice Hansen ran up behind him. She was shouting insanely and assaulted me with sword. Thankfully, she missed.”

“She hit you exactly how she intended,” Mori corrects him. Sadie doesn’t bat an eye. She’s watching Ivan like that lioness in the painting might watch a creature of the savanna. Ivan rubs the mark on his forehead.

“Go on, what happened next?” Sadie says.

“It is inexplicable. I saw dark ghosts. Terrible. There were three of them. They had… giant claws. One of them is cutting me with claws. There is something coming off me. The ghost is eating it.” Ivan’s face contorts with involuntary fear as he recalls the event. He points an accusing finger at Mori. “Beatrice… she drugged me.”

“With a strike from the flat of her sword? Try again,” Mori replies.

“She is witch. She cursed me.”

Mori balls his hand into a fist. “Never say that word!” he growls. Ivan lifts his hands defensively.

“She did curse you with the sword-touch, Ivan. I’ve seen her do it before. It was a helpful curse,” Sadie says calmly as she waves Mori down. “That’s what let you see them. The ghosts, as you call them, are actually Pride Eater demons. They were attracted to you because you were full of the pride they crave.”

Ivan’s heard some of this before. He seems to accept it a tiny bit more the second time. “She cursed me?”

“It’s a kind of magical spell,” Mori says. “Beatrice cast a curse upon you so you could see the demons that had gathered around you. They’ve been coming there every night you sit on that damn golden toilet.”

Ivan sits forward. “No. I can’t believe.”

“Of course you can’t. You’re a frigging moron.”

Sadie turns her eyes to Mori. “Give him time,” she says evenly.

“Sure,” But Mori’s thinking time probably won’t do squat for Ivan. Garbage brain equals garbage out.

“Now, what else did you see?” Sadie prods.

“There were the ghosts … tall demons, above me. Below me there was a circle. A glowing circle of light on the black. It pulsed with red light.” Ivan looks to Sadie and then to Mori. “What was it?”

“That, Ivan, was a Hell Gate,” Mori says turning to face Ivan, meeting his stone-faced gaze. “When the demons saw you dripping with pride from their perch in Hell, they ripped open that gate with their claws so they could come to feed on you. Since you did your little crap on the world thing pretty regularly and in the same place each day, they knew you were a sure thing. An easy hunt. But that’s not all. You didn’t just attract the eyes of the demons. Someone else caught wind of you. You see, Pride Eaters are a kind of demon that the Devil keeps on a short leash. He uses them to hunt the most prideful of mortals as they are often his best servants. When he asked them what they were doing with you, they happily told him. And that’s how the Devil became very intimate with the name of Ivan friggin Volkov.”

“Devil?” Ivan is whiter than usual which is saying something.

“Yes. The frigging Devil. Not a devil. The Devil. And his name is Asmodeus.”

“Your claim is kakashka. Preposterous.”

“It is written in your flesh now. I saw the mark on your back.”

“You shot me.”

“I shot the Pride Eater possessing you. If that was an earthly bullet, we wouldn’t be having this enlightening little chat.”

Ivan sits back, going silent. Sadie steeples her hands. “Now Ivan, tell us what you remember of the thing that happened next.” Ivan looks away. He rubs a hand over his head. His eyes glint.

“It stabbed me with long talon. Girl, Beatrice told me it was demon. I should have been protected. Was baptized.”

“Baptism doesn’t do squat for what you invite willingly,” Mori says under his breath. Ivan continues talking as if Mori hadn’t spoken.

“I felt terror, pain, rage. Power came into me like the rush of fire. I grew and changed — becoming wolf. My eyes could see far, my ears could ear heartbeats, the sound of far away voices like echoes, my tongue could taste feelings, emotions, fear, my nose could smell city, the stink of sulfur rising up through red circle. With my senses I knew your…” Ivan struggles for a moment, not wanting to say the word, “… magic. I saw and smelt your names. Mori, Lushael.” He laughs. “Not Hansens. That is alias. I felt mighty above all things – glorious and terrible. What was in me gave me strong voice. I knew I could call to others for help against you. To track you down and make you pay for your crimes against me.” A wicked glint has bloomed in Ivan’s eyes as he recounts his experience. Mori can see that the demon possession was so complete Ivan still mistakes its thoughts and desires for his own. Again, he almost feels pity for the guy as he wonders at whatever broken or crooked thing within Ivan made him so vulnerable to willing possession by evil.  “So I used my great voice to shout your names,” Ivan continues. “To mark you. My voice went out through the mighty kingdom. I am certain it found ears.”

Ivan is sweating now. He has raised his hands into the shape of claws. He is reaching for Mori’s neck. Mori’s arm shoots out and he smacks Ivan on the forehead, hitting near the mark Beatrice left there. The force causes Ivan to fall back. “Get a hold of yourself, man!” Mori shouts.

Ivan self-consciously drops his hands. “Then you shot me! Stabbed me! Pain! Death! I was dead. Dead.” He is blithering as he recalls the moment of trauma. He omits the part where he almost bit Beatrice’s leg clean off.

“We didn’t kill you, moron. We shot and stabbed the demon that possessed you. Our strikes were an exorcism. Yet you sympathize with the demon that took you in mind, body and spirit.” Mori turns to Sadie. “Please tell me you know how we can work with this guy. I am drawing a blank. He looks like wasted effort to me. The moment Asmodeus gets a demon to touch him again, he’s a complete goner.”

“Dead… How am I not dead?” Ivan says accusingly toward Mori who waves his hand at Ivan dismissively.

Sadie stands up, walks forward from behind the desk and puts a hand on Ivan’s shoulder. Her eyes glow with faetor oculorum. Mori figures she’s seeing the scar the demon left on him. She runs her hand down to his back. “You are not dead because Beatrice and Mori, in their grace, decided to save you. To give you this last chance, Ivan, not to be damned as a destroyer. Beatrice nearly died to save you. Yet you are still marked in body, mind and spirit. Asmodeus has claimed you for his own with that, still-burning, brand upon you. We will intercede. We will try to save you from him. But you have to help us. We need you to agree.”

Mori laughs harshly at this. “Sadie, the guy is a total lost cause, can’t you see it? He doesn’t even realize what he does for his vile life’s-work is the dead-wrong thing that summoned the demon he now chooses over us.”

“Then we will teach him.”

This must be a part of the ‘plan’ that Mori’s not yet fully cluing in on. He and Beatrice were mainly focused on the Myra side. Sadie had identified Ivan and his Hell Gate. Had instructed them to use the Gate and to bring Ivan to her. For Sadie, Ivan is as important as Myra. She saw him as Asmodeus’s earthly implement and wanted to, as she called it, “take Asmodeus’s rod from his hand.” But Sadie was cagey about the modus operandi part. Typical mage with her secrets. Mori can’t talk, he’s got about a hundred up his sleeve too.

“How do you intend to teach this guy? What makes you think he’ll learn a damned thing after all he’s already done?”

“We will take him to the celestial realm. Its ocean heart – Merrin.” Sadie probes at Ivan’s scar and faces him. “Does this hurt you Ivan?”

“Yes. Pain in my back. Burns… Exactly in place I can’t scratch. It maddens.”

“What if I said I could heal it fully? What if I told you – I could take you to a place where this death in your flesh could not touch you any longer? Would you come with me to Heaven? Would you open your heart?”

Ivan looks over Sadie. Mori can see the condescension and disbelief on his face. Mori can tell Ivan’s even less able to take it in because of the black-skinned, female face before him. Can tell he sees her as a lesser being. Oh man, you can’t even begin to comprehend how far beyond you she really is.

“How could someone like you show me, Heaven?” Ivan says. Mori grinds his teeth to hold back his anger. On top of everything else, this guy’s a bigot too. Mori isn’t surprised. But it still pisses him off.

“Oh, you just live in that doubt, don’t you?” Sadie says evenly, taking his insult right in the teeth then biting down hard enough to break it. “I dare you to let me show you. What you will witness, through me, will be far more spectacular and wonderful than the healing I did for Beatrice. Consider it a gift I offer you. One you do not at all deserve. But a great gift none-the-less.”

Mori is silent as Sadie plays magical Santa Claus. He shrugs his shoulders and thinks to himself Friggin special treatment. It’s the only thing that seems get through to guys like Ivan. Because they always want more.

“You can fix back? You can take to Heaven?” Ivan says as he reaches toward the scar. These words seem meek, as if from another person entirely. Mori’s magically sensitive eyes flare and he picks up Ivan’s thoughts. He has a brief vision of a snow-speckled wind blowing over Siberian forests. Of a tiny mitten in Ivan’s larger hand. A sense of love and belonging. Associations from a more wholesome past. Maybe. Mori wonders if this is the real Ivan. This frail as butterfly wings flicker of nostalgic love beneath a lifetime so dark it caught the eye of Asmodeus. He reminds himself – which one is real is up to Ivan. Mori, for his part, doesn’t hold much hope. He’s seen too many like Ivan. Too many unable to turn back.

“We can bring you there bodily at great cost. To remove you from Asmodeus’s grasp, if only for a brief while, will be worth it. The rest is up to you,” Sadie says. Mori can see a perplexing kind of joy light in her eyes.

“Da. OK. We go to Heaven.” Ivan’s face is still half-disbelieving his own words. All Mori can think is – Great, I just sent my own daughter to Hell and now this jack-ass gets to go to on a free all-expenses-paid trip to Heaven. Oh, the humanity!

(Want to read the first Chapter of Helkey? You can find it here.)

(Looking for another chapter? Find it in the Helkey Table of Contents.)