After the world ended, demons strutted around like they
owned the place. Which, I suppose, was true enough, but it made me madder than
when Prof Stein announced he wasn’t grading on a curve.
I stood at the foot of the brushed bronze building, my
oversized sweater jacket pulled tight around me. People bustled every which way,
hurrying to work or home or some other pointless social function. It didn’t
really matter where they were headed, because if I failed now, humanity was
even further screwed. I stared up at the sky, a puffy gray. A year ago, I
would’ve used a mild winter day like this to cuddle up and study Psych 101.
I gained a curious glance or two from the busy
trench-coated people, leading lives in unknowing service to the demons. I
ignored them; I was busy searching for demons. Easy to spot, too, when eye contact
was made. For me, I could see it plain as day, for just a second, their faces
slipped like an old TV flipped to a station with horrible reception.
God had given us struggle, but the demons had given us
ease. Insidious and impossible to deny, humans had taken their offering like a starving
kitten offered warm milk.
I rubbed my hands furiously together, trying to work up
some warmth and yeah, maybe some courage, and walked through the revolving
doors of the World Hunger Alliance.
The woman seated at the reception desk was a well-coifed,
classically pretty brunette. Her inspection of me was almost not at all
noticeable, though she had to be wondering what a college-age kid with a messy
ponytail was doing with an appointment to see the executive director. She
blinked and smiled.
“You must be Anala Whitcomb?” Her smile stayed in place.
I nodded.
“Ms. Larvale will see you shortly. Could I offer you some
coffee? Hot chocolate? Water?”
I was cold and had a personal shortcoming when it came to
anything chocolate, but I also had made a promise to never take anything a
demon offered. This woman wasn’t a demon, but it was too close by extension for
my taste.
Of course, if all went well today, I was about to break
that promise anyway. Not for chocolate, no, I needed information. And I’d take
it gladly from any source, even a demon.
I shook my head and took a seat in the lobby. The tile
floor was polished and new. The chairs were comfortable and next to me sat a
benign assortment of magazines, including the quarterly publication for the
World Hunger Alliance. The cover featured Ms. Larvale, the executive director,
hugging a smiling chubby African child in each arm. The title story read ‘The
End is in Sight.’
Har, har. Those demons could really play it tongue in
cheek.
Not quite true, as the end had happened a year or more
ago. No human I’d met really knew and the demons certainly weren’t forthcoming
with the deets. There were precious few humans who could see the demons, but
even they didn’t have any idea. I mean, it wasn’t as if Michael and Lucifer had
had a cage match in the streets of New York, good and evil duking it out.
One day I just started to see them. Talk about freaking
the hell out. That was me. I spent time tucked away and on some really nice
drugs. But I wasn’t the only one, and we all saw the same things. The weird
faces, yes, but other things, too. I’m not crazy, though I did entertain the
thought.
It all changed when I saw one and started to walk the
other way. He caught up to me and laid a firm hand on my shoulder and spun me
around. “What did you see?”
Trembling in my boots, I said nothing.
“Come on, little human, I know you sense me. I’m just
curious what you indagatrix actually see.”
Lips quivering, staring into his wrong face, I mumbled,
“Your face…it shifts and moves.”
He lifted a corner of lip and nodded. “That’s
interesting. So… you’ve never seen anything else?”
With his hand so firm on my shoulder, I was rooted to the
ground, unable to run. Power emanated from his touch, and my skin turned hot in
an instant. Whimpering, I swallowed and shook my head.
“Well, if you’re to be afraid, you should have a good
reason.”
Before me, his face slipped entirely, replaced with
reptilian skin, leathery, and greasy hairy reaching his waist. But it was his
eyes that undid me. The sclera turned red, the pupils turning almond shaped and
bright yellow.
He blinked and was human again, now smiling. “Was it good
for you?” He chuckled.
I found my voice then,
because I assumed death was to follow shortly. “What are you?”
His now perfectly normal face smiled. “We are demons,
little human, and this is our world now.”
So that’s how I found out the truth, about the most
anti-climatic apocalypse imaginable. We didn’t fight it as a species. Hell, we
didn’t even know it happened. Demons took
over, gave us humans everything we wanted. An end to starvation. World peace.
Poverty a thing of the past. Oprah threw a big party.
We never talk about what we gave up to get those things.
Sometimes I wonder if they even remember.
I remember. I do.
I was still staring at the picture of Larvale on the
magazine. Blinking, I tossed it aside. Near as I could tell, she was as close
to head demon as existed. I’d fought for weeks to get this appointment. In the
end, inspiration had struck.
“Look, I really need to speak with her.”
The assistant had sniffed over the phone. “I’m sorry, but
Ms. Larvale only sees preapproved appointments and you can’t tell me what your
affiliation is, or what your business is.”
With my resolve fraying all around me, I gave up a key
piece of information. “Ok, please give her a message for me. And if after that,
she doesn’t want to speak, I’ll honor that, I will. Ok? Will you, will you give
her a message at least?”
A deep sigh carried just fine over the fiber optic line.
“I will give her a message, young lady. Go ahead with it when you’re ready.”
I paused, not sure if this was a grave mistake or a
necessary evil to get to the evil. “Indagatrix.”
“I’m sorry, can you repeat that?”
“It’s just one word.”
“Can you spell it?”
Gritting my teeth, I did. I only knew how to spell it
after some research, after the demon had let the word slip. It was Latin, that
much I figured out. What it had to do with me, I had no idea.
The assistant paused then, and I could read her
hesitation over the line.
“Like I said, give her the message and if she doesn’t
want to talk to me, then I’ll honor that.” I had no idea what I’d do next, but
it wouldn’t involve a phone call.
“All right. I’ll see she gets the message.”
I received a call to set up my appointment within the
hour.
Now here I was, the appointment I’d so desperately
wanted, and scared worse than when my big bro Kyle made me watch the Exorcist
in third grade.
A woman pushed through double glass doors, looking like a
school marm. Plaid wool skirt, glasses perched on the tip of a long pointy
nose. “Anala Whitcomb, I presume?”
Thank God she was human. Otherwise I might’ve bolted.
Seriously, I’m not brave.
Nodding quickly I stood and wrapped the bulky sweater
jacket tighter.
The woman held the door open for me, gesturing to the
elevator. We were both tucked inside when she hit ’60.’ All the way to the top.
The pressure from the elevator pushed against me but I
didn’t want to touch the railing, why exactly, I couldn’t say. The door opened
to a well-appointed modern office, all slick lines done in shiny black and
gray. Then I saw her.
She turned to look at me, her face slipping, slipping. It
didn’t stop, didn’t slow down.
Oh shit, oh holy mother, oh shit.
Her voice called out, pleasant and honey smooth. “Gertie,
lead her on in.”
Was that a hint of amusement?
I’m not brave, no, but I also have a streak of
impetuousness that’s never served me well. Like, say, now.
“Ms. Larvale, so nice to meet you,” I said, trying hard
to mask the stink of fear coating my armpits.
I walked right in to her office, the demon lady, and took
a seat in a big leather chair across from Larvale. Gertie closed the door
behind us.
Her face was still a mess of staticky channel and I
couldn’t decide where her eyes should be. “Could you, um, fix your face?”
A soft chuckle. But she did. Her features snapped into
place with lightning speed. “Does this suit you better, Anala?”
I shivered. Her saying my name felt very much like she
was cursing me, but something told me she shouldn’t know her words affected me.
Probably she’d use it to screw with my head further.
Larvale leaned back in her chair and steepled her fingers
over her lap. “It’s ridiculously rash for you to come here, you know? You have
no way of knowing this, but my kind loved to kill you Indagatrix not so long
ago. Since we’ve won, we don’t really bother. It’s more fun to watch you go
mad.”
Ok, then. Down to brass tacks.
“I’m not crazy.”
Larvale nodded. “Maybe not yet, but when you see the
graveyard, stretching out before you, as far as your human eyes can see, then
we’ll see.”
“Graveyard?” I swallowed.
“Of your kind. There are so many of you now, we will
never again go hungry. We will stay, help you breed, help you further indenture
yourselves. And you Indagatrix will be the only witnesses.”
Against the tide of her words, hope swelled inside my
chest. This was why I was here, I suddenly understood. This.
The words came out a whisper, but with a fine edge of
steel hardening them anyway. “So it’s not over.”
Larvale laughed.
“There’s hope.” I stood and walked out, my spine pulled
erect with fierce purpose.
Larvale’s skittering chuckle followed me out.
I didn’t care.
The war wasn’t over. They hadn’t won.
There was hope.
