THIRTY-SIX

Dee was just getting off her shift of volunteer work at the hospital when she saw him.

The lean, beautiful figure standing on the sidewalk.

As she made her way toward the Daemon, the sound of her own breath became loud in her ears. The bustle of the hospital seemed to fall away around her, until it was as if they were the only two living beings there.

The lamplight caught on the Daemon’s skin, making him look ethereally pale. Lovely and eternal. And yet, he came from the same place as that burrower, that creature of ill-formed legs and claws. She wondered what kind of world could birth two such different species.

She spoke first; somehow it made her feel as if she had some control over the situation.

“Tonight’s the night?”

He nodded. There was almost a look of… that couldn’t be sympathy on his face, could it? A chill went through her.

“Tonight,” he agreed. “Come to the bank.”

And then he simply vanished.

Well, she thought, at least he hadn’t told her the world was ending via text message.

Dee wasn’t sure how one dressed for a potential apocalypse.

“Doesn’t matter, does it?” said Gremma. “If you fail, you’ll be dead before the actual destruction happens.”

“Thanks for that encouraging thought,” said Dee.

It felt odd to be sitting in her dorm room, on her computer chair, lacing up a pair of running shoes. It was exceedingly routine, but she could taste the strangeness of the night on her tongue. Her skin felt as shivery as if someone had run a live current over it. Perhaps it was nerves, or perhaps her heartless body was attuned to this night, to the thinness of this world. To the closeness of another.

She closed her eyes for a moment, steadied herself

“You’re going to be all right, right?” said Gremma. She sounded uncommonly worried. Her face twisted, annoyed she was forced to endure such an emotion.

Dee nodded. Her stomach felt as if she had swallowed shards of broken glass. She looked around her dorm room, acutely aware that this could be the last time she ever saw it—her bed with the worn blue comforter, her desk, their TV, Gremma’s stuffed animals. She made herself say, “Listen. I—I’ve got a letter for my mother. In my desk. If—if something happens.”

Just in case.

Gremma put her hands on her hips. “Oh god. Last requests. It’s always the part of the movie I fast-forward through, usually because the character is dying in some factually inaccurate way.”

“If I do die,” replied Dee, “I’ll try to do it accurately.”

A choked little giggle escaped Gremma. Her hands fell to her sides. “Well, I’ve got something else encouraging for you, too.” She knelt, reached beneath her bed, and dragged out a backpack. “Here.”

Dee looked inside. Nearly dropped the backpack. She stared down into a space filled to the brim with small jam jars. Their metal lids were pierced through, cloth wicks dangling limply, ready to be set alight. “These… aren’t stink bombs, are they?”

Gremma held out a lighter and Dee took it. “Riley had a recipe for Molotov cocktails and we decided to hold our own version of craft night.”

Dee smiled.

She would not be helpless. A fierce joy seized her. She laughed, and some of her fear dropped away. She had something to fight for. She had something to fight with. And people to fight alongside.

This was how normal people survived their own fairy tales.

They became their own kind of monster.

Gremma grinned. “Anything comes at you,” she said, “burn the motherfucker down.”

 

That evening, fog hung heavy through Portland.

The city lights were muted, headlights struggling to pierce the thick mist, and Dee watched as buildings and other cars slid by. She had decided to take the bus, to walk the last few blocks herself. Gremma would have driven her and James offered to pick her up, but she declined them both. This was what she wanted—the rattling engine of the bus, the smell of sweat and bodies, the squeak and hiss of the brakes, the gentle sway when it took a sharp turn.

It was strangely meditative, but that was not the true reason Dee got on the bus.

Dee got on the bus to see the other people taking it. She did not put in her earbuds, nor pretend to text on her phone. She simply watched the family of three, a mother and two young sons. Twins, perhaps. The single teenage boy with spiked hair and pierced eyebrows who gave Dee a polite nod when he passed her. The homeless man who spent most of the ride doing a crossword puzzle out of the Oregonian.

People. All people. All in danger, if the demons were to be believed.

Dee was no hero. She was afraid.

But looking at these people, she knew there was no running away. She watched them, wondered if their lives were as tentative as her own. And when her stop came, she rose to her feet, thanked the driver, and stepped off. The driver smiled at her—at the teenage girl with Molotov cocktails in her backpack.

The doors to the bank were not chained. They hung open and Dee took a moment, dragging a breath between her clenched teeth, and stepped inside.

James sat on the floor, fiddling with his phone. When he saw her, he scrambled to his feet and hastened to her side. “Hi,” he said, and his smile was almost shy.

She thought she loved him. This boy with freckled feet and paint-smudged hands. This boy who played the world off as a joke, but took others’ suffering seriously. This boy who looked at her and never saw a broken girl—just a girl.

She would say the words. Not tonight, not with the weight of everything hanging over them. But she would tell him.

And for the first time, she thought about what might happen after tonight.

She thought about this summer, and what it might bring. About hot days spent in the loft apartment, of rooms cordoned off with curtains, of a half-constructed kitchen and couches that always smelled of paint. She thought of the freedom of being able to come and go as she pleased, of making her own life. She thought of days spent with James, of going to more art galleries, of watching his ascension into history. He would do it, she knew. He would climb his way into the ranks of the great artists, and she would be proud of him.

Her own future was less defined. Perhaps she would travel, use a fraction of the Daemon’s money to go somewhere she’d never visited. Perhaps James would go with her—she thought of the two of them on some road trip, driving to who knew where with no schedule to bind them.

The thought was a happy one. “Hey,” she said, smiling, and took his hand. Their fingers laced and he gave her hand a squeeze.

She half expected him to make some sort of joke about tonight, but he did not. He simply pressed a kiss against the crown of her head, and then turned to his left.

Riley was sitting by the vault. She was dressed in worn boots, black jeans, and a loose sweatshirt. Her thick eyeliner looked as if it belonged on a football player. She looked ready for war. “Save the lovey-dovey stuff for after we’ve blown up a void, okay?”

James smiled, but it was brittle.

“We’ll be all right,” said Dee, and bumped his shoulder with her own. He felt solid, comforting, and she took strength from that. “We’ve done this before. We’ll have creepy-as-hell backup from the other demons, and thanks to you and Gremma, we have a few weapons.”

Riley shrugged. “Hey, demolitions experts have to know how things burn. I may have… tested a few recipes.”

“You and Gremma are well-matched,” said Dee drily.

Riley gave her a carefree grin.

Then Dee heard the approach of the Agathodaemon. He strode around the corner in his usual suit, an umbrella tucked beneath his left arm. He surveyed the three of them, heaved a little sigh. His step was slow, and he eyed the teenagers the way a buyer might look over a prospective car.

“I should have made more of you,” he said, a little regretfully. “Or brought in another troop.”

“Why didn’t you?” asked Riley bluntly. “Three of us. Seems a bit thin to me.”

The Daemon sighed again. “Unfortunately, my methods are considered… dangerous by most of my kind. They frown on me making more than three or four of you in a single location. The one time I attempted to do so, the constructs were taken from me. You are not easily controlled, not when you still possess minds of your own. Random, chaotic, fragile.”

“Then why do it at all?” said James in a low voice. He was more serious than Dee had ever heard.

The Daemon slid him a look. “Because you heartless are more effective than the homunculi, but you carry too many memories in your heart. The voids will seek to expel or tear apart anything that is real, that is vibrantly alive. Memories and emotions are incompatible with a void. Thus, the only creatures that may enter are like the burrowers—empty, hungry things. Or the homunculi—dead and controlled. And you—my hollow little constructs.”

He said the words fondly, though, and perhaps that was the most frightening thing of all.

“And if we hadn’t shown up,” said Riley, “what would you have done?”

He glanced at her. “Well, for one thing, it would have taken longer to track you each down individually. And this wouldn’t have been nearly as impressive.”

Dee expected him to reach for her, to take hold of her arm the way he had when he transported her before. But he did no such thing.

He snapped his fingers.

The world shifted.

Blurred beneath their feet.

It was as if he had yanked the floor out from under them; when Dee stumbled and forced herself to balance again, she stood in an entirely new location. James’s hand tightened around hers, and she blinked several times, tried to make sense of her surroundings.

They all stood outside of what looked like an abandoned mall.

Of course the world would end in a mall, she thought.

“Come,” said the Daemon. His moment of levity was over; his features were drawn, pale, and his long fingers twitched toward his umbrella. He strode through a shattered window.

The three teenagers lingered on the threshold for a moment. “Whatever happens tonight, I’m glad I met the two of you,” said Riley.

“Same,” answered Dee softly.

James did not answer, but his thumb stroked the back of her hand.

Dee stepped into the remnants of the mall, a backpack full of Molotov cocktails slung over her shoulder. She glanced around, at the cracked linoleum, the shards of broken glass, and the walls bending in on themselves. The ceiling was half caved in, and the dim moonlight fought a losing battle against the shadows.

“No rats yet,” she said, and Riley and James followed her inside. The acrid scent of burned plastic hung in the air, and Riley tried to breathe through the sleeve of her cotton shirt.

James glanced around and said, “I get the whole post-apocalyptic-fashion thing, but this is taking it a bit too far.”

Riley coughed and turned it into a laugh. “You never know—the look might catch on.”

Something scurried along the wall, darting through a crack in the granite. The rats were here after all. “Let’s get this over with,” Dee said.

Riley let out another shaky laugh. “Oh, this is the part where you give us a pep talk, right? ‘We can do it.’ ‘If this is how the world is going to end, at least we won’t feel anything, right?’” She shook her head, straight dark hair falling in her face. “Come on, then. Give us a pep talk.”

Dee gave her a disparaging look. “First of all, I’m not Cora. I don’t do pep talks. But I’ll tell you this: We’re going to win. Because we’ll do whatever it takes. We’re heartless.”

James looked over the destruction, and there was a twist to his mouth when he said, “‘This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang but a’ bad pun.”

“You wouldn’t have it any other way,” said Dee.