//------------------------------//
// Chapter 10 - Shout At The Devil 
// Story: Sundowner 
// by King of Beggars 
//------------------------------//

My magic was all screwed up. I didn’t know how much of that Clavus could see, but I knew he suspected something was wrong. Anyone who knew even a little about magic could tell you that what happened to me, having inborn magic and all, was bound to screw up something on the inside.

Magic was a part of who I was, gifted to me by the place of my birth and from the mother I never knew. Getting that squeezed out wasn't fun, and it wasn't going to be healthy.

I wasn’t sure just how bad I was messed up, I just knew it was bad. I barely had the power in me to summon a pair of socks from halfway across the bedroom, and the attempt had me biting a hole through my cheek just to keep from yelling out in pain.

With the shape I was in, even the stuff in my safe down in the basement wasn’t going to be much help. Everything that might be useful in there was either ingredients or knowledge – everything I would need to cook up some nasty mojo, but only if I had my own magic to make it all go. I was just never the kind of sorceress that leaned on magical trinkets in a real fight. Never needed it before, and now that I did need it, I just didn’t have it.

Not that I was going to let that stop me. I’d done a lot of big talk to Clavus about how I was going to kick every ass and chew every bubble gum between here and Hell to get Twilight back – I’d never outlive the shame of backing down from that.

I’d probably just… just die of embarrassment. Maybe even have to jump dimensions like Clavus had suggested.

No one was waiting to ambush me outside my bedroom door. I had half expected to find Luna standing in the hallway with her hands on her hips, holding a rolling pin like in old cartoons. But there was no one upstairs, and the usual sounds I had come to accept as normal the past week were absent – no talking, no indistinct wailing from the TV, or the sound of running water in the bathroom, or down in the kitchen.

Quiet. Sickeningly still, deathly quiet. This was the real reason I’d gone to meet Clavus when he’d called. The temptation to curl up into myself and shut out the world until the bill collectors started beating their way in was strong… but it wasn’t stronger than the sickening quiet, crawling over my skin like thousands of little spidery legs, pricking at my flesh.

My boots were sitting at the bottom of the stairs, still caked in mud. I pulled them on in a hurry, eager to get out of the quiet. The only indication that anyone else had been in the house was the light pouring into the hallway from the kitchen. As I was lacing up, I heard a quiet, mewling noise floating down the hall from the direction of the light. Straining my ears, I managed to pick up the muffled sound of someone crying into their hands. 

It was Celestia. I knew her voice well enough to recognize it through the grief. Clavus had mentioned something to Luna about her sister being in rough shape. Were I a braver person, I might’ve gone to see her, but that would’ve just led to a lot of questions and discussions I wasn’t ready to have. There’d be time for those fights later, once Twilight was home and Ahuizotl was in the dirt for good.

I slipped out the front door, quiet as I could.

I wasn’t surprised to see how quickly the sunny late afternoon was turning to gloom, knowing that storm magic was getting ready to brew up again. The last hour or so of sunlight was fighting to push through gray clouds that had coalesced from the aether, tinting everything below in a dismal glow. It was cold, and the air had that slick humidity you felt when the fog was setting to roll in heavy.

Clavus was standing across the street, again in the form of a grown man, and the uncomfortable grimace he wore said a lot about how much trouble he was having holding that form with his weakened powers. Cilia was with him, sitting on the wheel well of the older changeling’s car with contemptible disrespect for the nobility of an early-model Rolls Royce – a perk of the old monster’s high-paying night job.

Cilia gave a little wave, while Clavus just watched me with that same pitying look he’d given me up in the room. Neither moved to come speak with me – not that Cilia could even if she wanted to. Clavus was keyed into my wards, but prior to this whole misadventure my relations with Cilia had been chilly at best. Given the nature of changeling magic, and how closely it was tied to their ability to live, crossing the threshold of my warding wasn’t something to toy around with for her. She’d proven herself a friend, though, and I resolved right at that moment to go ahead and whitelist her for my wards provided I survived whatever I was going to get myself into. Wouldn’t do to have my new gal-pal come over for tea and a football game only for her to run afoul of my protections.

The reason for their distance was apparent as I finally noticed Luna standing in the driveway, leaning on her hands against Philomena’s passenger side door. Admittedly, she’d looked better. Even from a distance I could see the dark circles under her eyes, the powder-blue fabric of her blouse was wrinkled and stretched like someone had been pulling at it.

I approached her, carefully, like an unfamiliar dog that you weren’t sure of the temperament. The way she was standing there, she had something to say, and my imagination ran wild with every permutation of what that might be. I just let my feet keep moving until I was close enough to touch her, though I didn’t dare.

“Heya,” I said. I almost winced at how awkwardly the word fell out of my mouth and onto the mountain of regrettable things I’d said in my life.

Luna made no immediate indication that she’d heard me, aside from an almost imperceptible tightening in her shoulders. She just looked up at the sky, squinting at the clouds like she was trying to read their secrets.

“That’s all you have to say?” She reached up and ran her fingers roughly through her hair. “Just ‘heya’?”

Yeah… that one was going to stick with me for a while. I could already foresee all the nights spent staring up at the ceiling, silently mouthing the word to myself.

“Your friend,” she said, flicking her head minutely in the direction of the two changelings who were no doubt eavesdropping on us from across the street. “The one that isn’t human. He says you’re going to go get Twilight back.”

Luna had kind of slipped that ‘isn’t human’ in there, real casual-like. I knew she’d seen him in his other form, so I had imagined they must’ve had a talk about it at some point. It was just a little shocking to see her taking it in stride like this. Though, I guess at this point the fact that I was friends with a handsome shapeshifter was probably relatively easy to swallow compared to everything else she’d learned about me.

“Yeah,” I said, with more of my trademark worldly eloquence.

“So you know where she is?”

“I know how to find out,” I said. “Ahuizotl’s got some tricks, but he doesn’t have as many as I have… I just had to be willing to use them.”

Luna clucked her tongue impatiently, pushing away from the car to face me fully with her shoulders squared. “So you’re okay then?” I could hear genuine concern swimming beneath the ice in her tone. “Your body, I mean. You’re going to be okay?”

“I should be fine,” I said, doing my best to conceal the uncertainty I felt. It helped to know she still cared. “Fine enough to get her back, at any rate.”

“Good.”

And then she slapped me.

I’d like to think that on my best day, I could’ve parried that slap. Luna certainly wasn’t the first girl to ever have tried to give me five across the eyes. A few of them had even landed their attacks. She was the first girl to have ever put that much oomph on it, though. Luna had an athlete’s build and the hand-speed to match, and considering I’d been bleeding out of my eyes and ears just a day or so ago, I think staying upright meant I’d taken it pretty well.

“I’m sorry?” I said, timidly enough that it came out with the upward inflection of a question. I held a hand over my stinging cheek and shrunk my head back into my shoulders, like the mighty turtle… Not that I was scared or nothin’.

“You’re damn right you’re sorry! I’ve been bending over backwards trying to get you to open up, and every time I think I’m getting somewhere you pull away from me!” She stamped her foot, and her voice was cracking with emotion as she stared me down and screamed into my face. “I told you how hard it was for me to put myself out there like that, how scared I was of being hurt. But you know what? I was ready to accept that this could go bad, that maybe I wouldn’t be able to ‘fix’ you. I was ready for it, and I could have lived with you hurting me…”

Something like a sob strangled the poor woman’s voice, and the quiver of her lip as she swallowed it down hurt me more than any indictment she could level at me in words. I could tell that everything she was letting go had been brewing in her for days. It said a lot about how hard it must have been for her to call me to find Twilight the night she’d gone missing.

“I could live with you hurting me,” she repeated, “but not Twilight. After everything she’s gone through, I couldn’t watch you break her heart like that without hating you a little bit.”

Shame tried to bow my head, and for once, I resisted it. I felt like I owed that to Luna. “I know. I know I messed up. I really am sorry. I’m sorry for the way I spoke to Twilight and I’m sorry you had to see it. I’m sorry I let down your expectations for me. I’m going to stop running away, though. I promise you… I will make this up to you.”

She was the one that looked away at that moment. I feel like it’s important to stress that.

Luna turned her back to me, hugging herself against the late-afternoon chill. “You really think that’s enough? Just an apology?”

It wasn’t, and I knew that. There was a lot I wanted to say to her. It was way, way more than I could say in a day, or even a week, let alone the few short minutes we had before I needed to be on my way.

And these were big feelings. Maybe the biggest I’d ever had. It had been hard enough to spill my guts to Clavus, who knew all the sordid details of my tale. It was quite another thing entirely to do the same with Luna, who – for all the attraction I’d felt for her – was still very new to my life. The words wouldn’t come as easy with her, especially not when she was so deserving of them for giving me a chance at something I'd thought I'd lost hope of ever having.

I took a step forward, a big one, and brought myself face to face with her again. I didn’t want to say this to her back.

“I am sorry,” I repeated. “I’m the sorriest, stupidest woman in the world. Saying that much is the best I can do right now. I know it’s not fair of me to ask for another chance, but if you give me one, I’m going to prove that your feelings weren’t wasted. I promise you that.”

A dozen emotions flickered across Luna’s face. Anger seemed the most prevalent one, and she raised her hand to slap me again. Her hand held still in the air as she watched me, like she was waiting for me to try to avoid the threat, as if that might give her permission to do it. That I was willing to let her have that outlet apparently stayed her hand as her fingers curled and flexed, seeming to grasp at the courage to let me have it.

Finally, Luna growled in frustration and struck out at me.

I was expecting a palm across the cheek, but instead she grabbed my face, digging her fingers into my cheeks hard enough to pucker my mouth. It hurt, but the sour came with some sweet as Luna darted in and kissed me, harder than she ever had in the course of our still fairly new romance. Hard enough that it felt like I’d just gotten socked in the mouth – I could feel her teeth pressed against mine through our lips.

“You’re going to make this up to both of us,” she said as she broke the kiss. “Bring her home.”

She hurried back into the house, leaving me standing in the driveway with the lingering sensation of her lips burning against mine. She said a lot in that one kiss, but it was like it was in another language or something, because I could only get intimations of everything she was saying. I’d have made a joke to myself about it being a ‘French Kiss’, but all I could think about for a good ten seconds was the way she’d dragged her tongue against my upper lip as she’d pulled away.

God but she was a weird kisser.

I shook my head to clear the cotton out, gathering up all the soft feelings and locking them in a box deep down inside. There was no place for softness where I was headed.

“That’s a better woman than an idiot like you deserves.”

“I don’t disagree,” I muttered, finally managing to tear my eyes away as Luna’s back just as she disappeared into the house. I looked down and saw my jacket folded over Clavus’ arm. “Hey, there it is.”

“Indeed." He held the ratty leather thing out to me, wrinkling his nose as he took one last look at it. "I managed to grab this out of the mud as I was dragging you back to the car. I know you're fond of it."

I took the jacket back, my hopes for the night already buoyed by having it back. I’d been a little afraid that it might’ve gotten lost or even destroyed in the fracas. Last I’d seen it, Twilight had been wearing it. I knew it was just my imagination, but I almost felt like I could pick up a little of her warmth in the leather.

What wasn’t my imagination was the ugly burn across the back. It was just a jagged streak of charred leather that went from the right shoulder and down across the back to the left. My memory of what had happened was real fuzzy, but I could remember a lot of electricity getting thrown around. It was another scar on the jacket from yet another nasty spill.

“Cilia cleaned it for you as best she could,” he said, a solemn note in his voice. “It’s fairly beaten, but at least you won’t freeze in the rain.”

I nodded and slipped the coat on. I already felt more confident, like I’d been missing a layer of my skin.

“I won’t mince words with you, brat,” Clavus began. “I know what you’re planning.”

I forced a smile. “Oh yeah? And what am I planning?”

“Don’t play coy,” he snapped. “I know as well as you do that there’s only one creature that can tell you what you want to know. You’ve spent all this time avoiding the blasted thing, and now you’re going to jump right back into his shadow.”

He was right of course. I’d resolved myself to getting Twilight back, no matter the cost. I wouldn’t be holding up that oath if I didn’t use every tool at my disposal, and that included the last resort option that I would have never, ever considered for anything less severe.

“So what?” I asked, annoyed that I was being judged for something I already didn’t want to do.

Clavus took a step closer, getting right in my face, his eyes shining with that cold supernatural glow that told me he was using the full force of his other sight on me. On another day I might’ve pushed him away, but today? I was unshakable.

“The girl’s worth it,” I said. “I won’t let anyone have Twilight. I’ll protect her from anything, even him."

Clavus stepped away, nodding in appreciation. Apparently I’d passed another of his tests.

“Look in the pocket.” He pointed down to the jacket pocket on my right side. “That’s what I wanted to give you.”

I lifted an eyebrow, curiosity now surging in my breast as I reached into the pocket he'd pointed at. I expected like… I don’t know, a nice trinket or something. Something I could use as a weapon.

Instead, all I found was a sheet of paper that I immediately recognized as the one Caballeron had left behind. I hadn’t even seen Clavus take it as he’d left the room upstairs. I frowned at him, but he made no move to explain.

I unfolded the paper, and almost fainted dead away at what I found. Caballeron’s final words had been crossed out, and beneath it was just a few words – a title and a name. It was written in Clavus’ hand, and it was a name I’d never seen or heard before, but I knew from the familiar power radiating off it in waves who it belonged to.

“How long have you had this?” I asked, breathless and hurt and angry all at once. “How long have you been hiding it?”

“I told you before,” he said, hanging his head in what I could only assume – for it was such an unfamiliar look on him – was shame, “when the demon approached me to teach you he made an offer. When I declined he changed the offer… to this. I did not lie that I only accepted you as a pupil after our meeting, but I would have been a fool to decline something so rare as this – a single favor, contained within the utterance of the demon’s truest name. Binding on his very magic. Access to his power without need of further bargain, with no need for collateral or repayment. How could I say no?”

I clenched the paper in my fist. “When?” I asked. “When were you planning on telling me?”

“When you were ready,” he said. “When you first came to me, I saw potential, but I also saw a girl who sat too comfortably in darkness. When you came to me again, years later, you were damaged, but fearful of the dark and better for it. I worried that the only thing keeping you in the light was that fear – fear of the demon.”

“And so you kept it from me,” I asked, grinding out every word like I was trying to wring blood from them.

He nodded, somberly. “I planned to give it to you eventually… when you found something else to keep you connected to the goodness in this world.”

I leaned in, and a cruel little thrill went through me as he leaned away from my glare. “You’re a monster,” I breathed, “and you’re going to lecture me on the virtues of the Light Side?”

“I am indeed a monster,” he agreed, nodding sadly to himself, “which is why I understand how frail even monsters can be when living alone in the shadows.” He cast a glance back at Cilia across the street, who was on her feet, pacing the perimeter of my wards like she was debating whether to risk them to get at me for making her uncle feel whatever he was feeling. “I found the thing that moors me to the light. All I wanted was the same for you, before I helped you sever your own chains.”

He looked back to me, the glimmer of cold, calculating superiority that always shone in his eyes was gone. There was shame there, as real as I’d ever seen. It was like looking into my own eyes in the mirror.

“We can only do what we think is best in the course of protecting our children,” he said. “I think, some time in the future when this is all over, you might understand that sentiment.”

“We’ll see.”

I got into my car and threw it into reverse, the engine screaming my emotions for me as I drove away. I left Clavus standing there in my driveway, with hands in his pockets and worry wrinkling his brow.



* * *



I didn’t drive for very long. It wasn’t like I had a heading yet, I just wanted to get away from my house. Aside from not wanting to see Clavus, I didn’t want to do what I had to do anywhere near the place that I slept. My home was my castle, and I wasn’t going to just let a dragon in.

I drove just about a mile away, not towards the city, but further out into the country. There was an old pear orchard here, abandoned years ago by the family that had run it for generations. The house had been boarded up, and the orchard trees were no longer the neat lines of modern agriculture, having grown wild and untended. Every tree was covered in beautiful spring flowers, white as the snow in winter. Come summer the flowers would fall away, and fruit would grow in their place. I'd come and steal a bucketful for myself, just like I did every year. Maybe this summer I’d be able to bring Twilight with me... but that was a thought for later. As I sat on the hood of my car, staring at the piece of paper in my hand, I couldn’t bring myself to think further than the next few hours.

Clavus had lied to me. A lie of omission is still a lie, and this was one hell of a thing to omit.

A favor from Fiddler...

Favors from higher beings were rare. Usually something they only gave to their closest worshippers, or to other beings of middling power that had rendered some service to them. There were a ton of rules governing them, but the most ironclad one of all was that they could not be refused. So long as you didn’t ask for the life or very power of the being repaying the favor, you could ask for damn near anything.

The paper meant nothing, only the utterance of Fiddler’s truest name, given to Clavus personally, held a trace of his power. I’ve mentioned before that names only held power against beings of a certain nature, and this was one of those few instances where it held true. Creatures like Fiddler were pure magic, in thought and deed and body, in their very selves. It was a connection to his own magic far, far beyond what I had with mine. Only for such creatures could their names, as much a part of themselves as a piece of their physical forms, be used to bind their will.

By writing the name and applying the trace of power Fiddler had given him, Clavus had given me ownership of his favor – something that should only be possible with direct relatives. That he was able to transfer ownership meant that Clavus, in his very heart and for all practical magical purposes, considered me his child.

I would’ve been flattered if I wasn’t so furious.

A golden ticket from my contract holder. The freedom to ask for anything… even my soul… and this was the night he chose to give it to me.

I sat, burning precious time that I didn’t have as I considered the best course of action. The more I thought about it, the more I realized it wasn’t a choice at all.

It was now or never. I hopped off the car, walked into the middle of the road, and made a call. 

You know the saying: speak of the devil, and he shall appear.

“Fiddler, I need to talk to you.”

I spun in a circle, my heart beating in my throat as I looked for the demon I’d been running from for all these years. I could just see him stepping out from behind a tree like he'd been there the whole time. He wasn’t the kind of devil you saw in cartoons, appearing in a puff of smoke or a whiff of brimstone. If he was coming, he’d just appear. It was more unsettling that way.

I was happily disappointed to find myself still alone.

Part of me was relieved that he didn’t show. I could take that as proof that he’d kept his promise, and that he hadn’t been listening in on me every time I said his name aloud. There was no way he wouldn’t have rushed over to gloat and preen at me summoning him.

If he wasn’t going to come easy, then I’d just have to shout a little louder.

I reached deep, deep down inside, wringing out what little magic I could, my head pounding as I squeezed every drip I had left in me. I let what I’d managed to gather build in my throat, just like when I used compulsion magic, and I let it go.

“Fiddler, show yourself!”

The scant fumes of magic still inside me burned all at once, flashing violently like the powder in one of those old-timey cameras. The whole world seemed to tumble and turn, every bit of light made it seem like I was staring directly into the sun. I stumbled backwards over my own feet and felt myself go weightless for just a fraction of a second.

A hand pressed against my back, stopping me from falling on my butt.

“Careful there, kid.” That familiar dry, ugly laughter sent shivers up my spine. “Don’t want to break open that pretty little head of yours.”

I practically lunged forward, the panicked lizard part of my brain telling me to just start running, to put as much space between me and that laughter as possible. I only made it a few feet before I stumbled again. I caught myself this time, and I stood, panting as the world faded back into focus. When my sight was returned to me, Fiddler was the first thing I saw.

He was just as I’d remembered him. Same suit, same hat, same smile, that same pimp cane with the big jewel glittering in his hand. If there was anything unexpected about this meeting, it was the soft carpet beneath my feet, and the orange glow of a roaring fireplace against the wall. We weren’t in no pear orchard, I could tell you that.

It took me a minute to suss out the uncanny feeling this place gave me. This was a penthouse I’d lived in for a brief period early on in my studies in this world. We were smack in the middle of a major city, but this high up there was no need for walls, just huge panes of glass that let you look down on everyone that was beneath you – in every sense of the word. It wasn’t high enough to peek above the clouds dusting the city with that famous Chicago snowfall, but it was a near thing. Close enough at least to stand on the balcony and daydream that you could reach out and tear great big tufts of it like handfuls of cotton candy.

This wasn’t really that place, though. We weren’t actually here, just somewhere like it, somewhere ‘real’ that only existed within the cosm of his will. Maybe that was the point of bringing me here – that it wasn’t on Earth, and it wasn’t even another world. He was showing me that I was standing in the palm of his hand.

“Gotta say, kid…” He twirled his cane between his fingers with a pickpocket’s dexterity. He doffed his hat, holding it over his chest as he beamed at me – devilishly charming with little more than a smirk. “...it does my heart so much good to see you again. I’ve missed you so, so much.”

“Wish I could say the same.”

Laughter again, with the same disconcerting timbre you’d expect to hear if the beams holding up the highrise were suddenly giving way. His smiles were always disarming, but it was that laughter that always gave him away and let you know what he really was.

At least if you knew him as well as I did.

“Come now.” He drew a line from each corner of his mouth and up to his ears, pantomiming an exaggerated grin. “No frowns. Only smiles. My prodigal child finally comes back to me. This is a time for celebration.”

My hand found its way into my pocket, clutching desperately at the piece of paper with my only leverage in this meeting written on it. It wasn’t time to show my hand just yet. I just felt better knowing it was there.

“I’m not your child!” I insisted.

Fiddler didn't seem to pay my outrage any mind – he never did. He simply walked to the crystal decanter sitting on the table next to the couch, which was pointed towards the fireplace. The stopper came free with a thirst-inducing pop, and he held it to his nose for a sniff of the bouquet before pouring himself a couple of fingers.

The weakness inside me wanted some of of that drink, too, and I told it to shut up and sit back down. I'd be damned if I ever shared another drink with this demon.

“Whatever you say, kid. Doesn’t change the fact that I’ve missed having you around. What’s it been? A hundred years? Two-hundred?” He replaced the stopper in the decanter, holding his finger atop it and worrying the bottle back and forth in virtual thought. He might never have lied, but that didn’t stop him from vamping every chance he got. For an ancient beast of incalculable might, he sure loved his pageantry. “Oh right, you don’t live that long. Well, however long it’s been, it’s such a joy to have you running back into my arms.”

I suppressed the shiver going down my spine at the thought of being in his arms. “I’m not here to listen to you talking to yourself. I need your help.”

He cast me an amused look, as if to say, “Of course you do.”

He just sipped his drink, sighing as he savored whatever the liquor must taste like to his inhuman tongue. The couch moved aside and one of the nearby chairs – some round, egg-like thing that was more form than function – slid across the marble flooring and into place behind him. He sat, facing me, and the chair just melted, forming itself into something with a little more dignity. He laid his cane across his lap and lounged on his velvet throne, looking pleased as punch with this whole situation.

“Anything you need, kid,” he said, setting down the glass and smiling over tented fingers. “I’ve always been willing to answer any questions you might have, you know that.”

I had to be careful. The real danger of Fiddler, the thing that made him the finest possible teacher of the craft, wasn’t that he knew everything, it was that he could know everything. He was ancient beyond measure, and powerful as anything, but he wasn’t omnipotent. For all his might, Fiddler didn’t have an all-encompassing mind. What he did have was the power to know the answer to any question asked to him.

How do I turn into a wolf?

What’s the magical formula that explains the principles of Celtic song magic?

Meaning of life?

No matter what you asked him, the answer would appear to him like a revelation. Every time someone came to him for knowledge, they made him more knowledgeable. The secrets of the universe at his fingers, but only if someone asked him the right question. It was no small wonder that he’d amassed so much power.

I’d already decided on what I’d ask. The path I was on was set before I’d even left the house, and the possibilities had been rolling in my head ever since. The more I thought on it, the more I figured it was better to just be direct – no getting sidetracked with unimportant questions that might force my hand too early.

“What’s the ‘Sixth Sun’?”

Fiddler tilted his head, but didn’t answer straight away. His reply to my questions had always been immediate, so I could only imagine what must be going through his mind at the moment. Maybe he was just sorting through all the possible things that phrase could mean. His power had never failed me, no matter how vague I was. I have no idea exactly how much he could learn from any given question, but he always replied with exactly what I wanted to know.

“There’s a story,” he began, “in the Popol Vuh, the creation myth of the humans living in Central America. This creation myth, like many, begins with the creation of the sun. The god named Tezcatlipoca, the lord of Night and Sorcery, surrendered his body to become the sun. The god of light, Quetzalcoatl, was jealous of his brother’s might and clubbed him out of the sky. Quetzalcoatl then commanded an army of jaguars to eat all of humanity. A new god was chosen to be the sun, and human civilization grew again.”

Fiddler chuckled to himself, tickled by some stray thought. He probably just thought it was funny that a bunch of humans died in the story.

“This repeated several times, I won’t bore you with the other incidents unless you ask for clarification. According to the myth, the current era of humanity is living under the ‘Fifth Sun’. What it would mean to transition into a ‘Sixth’ is rather self-evident to someone as clever as you.”

So it was ‘end of the world’ stuff, huh? I probably should’ve guessed that. Villains were so predictable. Even back in Equestria, every time Celestia told me about some big incident she had dealt with in her past, it was just some mook trying to end the world or become its new god or something.

Still, a threat was a threat, and this guy had my kid. That wouldn’t stand. I needed to know a little more, so at the chance of giving away something I didn’t mean to, I decided to risk an off-the-cuff question.

“Was Tlaloc one of these suns?”

“Ah, their Storm God,” he said, chuckling to himself. “He was the third sun, according to the story. He decided to rain fire on the world, driven to madness by his wife’s infidelity. An age-old story, the busy husband and the lonely, neglected wife.” He gave a sly look. “I believe you owned a few romance novels with such a premise in your… formative years.”

Ugh. I really didn’t need to know he’d peeked at my old literary spank material.

“That’s interesting,” I said, “but how much of it is true?”

Fiddler shrugged with his hands. “A bit, but hardly more than that, and anything that is true happened either somewhere else or long ago.”

I waited for him to continue, but he wasn’t being forthcoming with any further information. Not unbidden, at any rate. It was better to move on than to beat my head against a wall. Whenever he went mum like this it meant he was fishing for more questions.

He’d get his questions, but only ones that I wanted answered.

“How do I find the sorcerer named Ahuizotl?”

Fiddler’s smile dimmed to what I knew to be a contemplative smirk, before blooming once more into full self-satisfaction. “Well,” he said, “now isn’t that an intriguing question? It seems someone has been poking their nose into interesting places again.”

“What, you didn’t know about it? This being end-of-the-world level stuff, I would have assumed you’d already know the whole deal, since you’re such a big shot and all.” Maybe it wasn’t smart to be openly taunting the super-powerful demon, but... you know. Screw it and screw him. “It’s really not like you to have your finger so far from the pulse of evil.”

Any hurt feelings Fiddler might’ve felt at having been called out like that were buried under a peal of gravelly, bone-dry laughter.

“If I told you the number of similarly-scaled plots in motion as we sit here speaking, you might not ever sleep again,” he teased. “Though, looking at you, it seems you’re already having difficulty in that regard.”

Before I’d even realized he’d moved, Fiddler was already running a finger under my eye, tracing the baggage that years of restless sleep had etched into my face. His touch was gentle, but the fact that it was Fiddler touching me filled me with indescribable disgust.

“You didn’t answer my question,” I said over the pounding roar of my own heartbeat. I stepped away from his touch, with infinitely more calm than I felt.

“Of course,” he said. He twisted his wrist, flourishing his hand like a stage magician pulling something out of his sleeve, and a big red apple appeared in his palm. “Here, the knowledge you wanted and a little something extra to boot. Just for old time’s sake. I don’t know what happened before you rang me up, but it looks like you could use the pick-me-up.”

There was magic in the thing, a lot of it. I could feel that before I even touched it. It was suffused with his power, in the same way the ink I had used to break Ahuizotl’s storm had been.

When I didn’t immediately accept the thing, he bounced it a few times in his hand and said, “Take it. It won’t bite back.”

It was tempting, like everything he’d ever offered me. My own magic was damaged, and I had no idea when I’d be able to recover it on my own. I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t been secretly hoping that Fiddler would make an offer like this, because even if I was resolved to get Twilight back, Hell or high water, I didn’t much like my chances of doing it with just bare fists and sass.

I reached out for the apple, carefully, like I was being asked to take hold of a rattlesnake. Fiddler’s assurances that it wouldn’t bite me back weren’t comforting, not when his ‘help’ had bitten me before.

“An apple,” I said, putting on a frown. 

He shrugged. “I thought it was cute.”

I stuffed the snake’s fruit in my pocket for later. I still had one more question to ask and I didn’t want the rush of magic I was about to get muddying my thoughts. I needed to be clearheaded here.

“One more thing, and then I need to leave,” I said, taking a few more steps away from him. I knew he could close any distance faster than thought, but I felt safer being able to see all of him at once.

“Come on now, kid. No need to end the night so soon.” He pointed his cane at the door leading out onto the balcony. The door flew open with a bang, and suddenly we were outside, in the snow. “It’s Christmas, we're in Chicago, and I haven’t seen you for so long. Don’t you want to go for a walk?”

I looked over the edge, curiosity getting the better of me. The streets were just a little brighter, with light not just from the lampposts and storefronts, but hanging from trees and above doorways. We were close enough to Millenium Park that I could see the skating rink, and all the people on the ice looked like colorful bugs in their bright, festive winter clothes. Nearby, a giant Christmas tree glowed like a beacon of good-cheer leading people in from the darkness.

“I spent my first Christmas here,” I said, frowning as the memory came back to me. I had been under Fiddler for almost two years before I’d been struck by the notion to try human holidays. As I was between tutors, I had asked to go somewhere fun that I could celebrate. This was where Fiddler had brought me. “My first real holiday since I’d left Equestria…”

“You were so cute,” he said, affecting a tone that would have seemed wistful from a human. As it was, his attempt at a fond sigh of remembrance had a distinctly mocking lilt to it. “You had that little notepad, and you kept making comparisons to Hearth’s Warming Eve.”

I did have fun. I had ordered Chinese food every day, I drank thrice my weight in cocoa, and watched It’s a Wonderful Life until I could recite it from memory… but I’d been alone. A demon was no company for the holidays, and there were no tutors I would have wanted as surrogate family for the season. Even asking would have probably only earned a pitying laugh from all but a few.

I gave a hard sniff, gathering phlegm in my throat and hocking a spit right over the edge, silently praying that it would hit one of the human-simulacra Fiddler’s little illusions had conjured.

“Yeah that’s a real fond memory right up until you gave me a book bound in human skin,” I said, my face twisting up into a grimace at the memory. I could still remember the feel of the leather under my fingers.

“You learned a lot from that book!” Fiddler exclaimed, entirely heedless of the discomfort the memory was causing me.

“I don’t have the time or the patience for any trips down memory lane,” I growled. “I have stuff to do tonight.”

Fiddler shrugged, tapping his cane on the snow-covered balcony. The doors leading back into the house closed with another bang, and suddenly we were back inside, sitting in comfortable chairs and warming next to the fire. A mug of cocoa had appeared in my hands, and a small table next to me had a large red bowl, decorated with cavorting Christmas elves, filled with marshmallows and gobs of whipped cream for the cocoa.

“Well time is something we have in abundance,” he replied. “This place is outside of such restraints… but if you insist.”

“Just tell me this,” I said as I emptied my mug into the bowl of marshmallows with a slow, deliberate pour. This was it, this was where it could all go wrong. “Tell me what makes the Twilight Sparkle of this world special. Why does Ahuizotl want her?”

Fiddler, even by demon standards, was a strange one. While most demons I’d met cared little for the minutiae of human disguise, Fiddler’s was always immaculate. He dressed well, he mimicked human courtesy and charm without flaw, and even the little things, like pretending to need to drink or breathe, weren’t beneath his notice. But when I asked about Twilight, the steady mechanical rise and fall of his chest came to a dead halt. He sat there, smiling like a statue, perfectly still.

And then he began to laugh. He threw back his head and laughed like I’d never seen him laugh before. Pure, actual laughter, not the false-approximation of human warmth he could fool the rest of the world with. The dry crackle of snapping twigs in his laughter was full and explosive and warm, like all that kindling in his laugh had burst into open flame.

“Kid!” he exclaimed. “Oh, kid, you picked up the double of the little girl that drove you from your home!?”

The fireplace had nothing to do with the warmth I was feeling in my face. I hated this monster, but to hear him laugh at me like that still drug up some primal sense of shame at having disappointed someone who had instructed me as a child.

“Oh, and what a special girl she is!” he crowed as he got up and began pacing before the fire. “The end of two noble lines, the final guttering flame of her lineages. If that sorcerer manages to wake that power up…”

He began chuckling to himself again, practically tittering. The sound filled the room with a rumble like millions of insects skittering in my ears and biting at my skin.

But I wasn’t so uncomfortable that I didn’t pick up on what Fiddler had just said.

The end of two noble lines...

Kings and pharaohs, emperors and sultans, all had stories claiming that their lineage was blessed by the gods, gifted supernatural powers, or otherwise simply better than the hoi polloi. What humanity at large had forgotten as ancient knowledge, was that at least in some part, they were right.

Magic doesn’t exist in this world unless it comes from other places. Because there’s no magic in the human world, cracks between here and other worlds filled with the stuff sometimes just happen, and when they do it lets things in.

Some of those things became the basis for human myth, like minotaurs and sea serpents. And some of them were like me, coming through a portal that, for whatever reason, changed them from what they were into a less conspicuous shape – a human shape.

Those creatures that took human form, yet still possessed the magic or special traits of their original species, were different than other humans. They were wiser, stronger, able to rally primitive people under them as prophets and kings – given the title of nobility. Even the simplest magical advantages were like miracles to humans who barely understood how to pound bronze into a usable shape. Their children would inherit these traits, only to have them diluted in the human gene pool, until there was nothing left of what they were but the family tree.

And that’s what Twilight was. A child of two noble lines merging into one just as they were about to die out, the inhuman parts eroded away by the tides of time. Twilight had said that she didn’t have any relatives to speak of, and Night Light definitely was higher on the hog than your average college prof, the way “Old Money” would be. Add in the fact that Twilight was now the last survivor of her lineage, and a lot of little things were clicking into place all at once.

Twilight was special… she was like me, but generations removed from wherever her blood originated from. That was why Ahuizotl wanted her. He’d probably scouted out dozens of noble bloodlines, watching them, waiting for the blood to thin, and for that thin blood to join into something he could use. For all I knew, he might have even had a hand in making sure Twilight's parents ended up together. Wouldn't be the first time I heard of a sorcerer dipping a toe into something as sleazy as eugenics.

“What is she?” I asked. Something inside me was desperate to know, and the question slipped from my mouth before I had the chance to even consider it.

“It doesn’t matter,” Fiddler said, waving it off. “The only thing that matters is that she is yours. My kid has picked up a kid of her own. I’m practically a grandfather!”

A fresh wave of laughter rumbled from his throat as he rubbed his hands in worrying glee.

“I just can’t wait to meet her!”

I shot to my feet, kicking away the chair behind me. “You stay the hell away from her!”

The laughter died, and the warmth left the room so quickly that the fire seemed to be smothered in the silence. It died, and the lights went out, and all that was left was the glow of the city outside the windows and the cold glint of Fiddler’s smile, wide as the heavens and glittering like he had stars between his teeth.

“Kid,” he said softly, so softly that it shook the paintings from the walls and shattered the windows, letting the gusting wind blow flurries of snow over us. “I’ve always indulged you, but this is one demand I can’t suffer. I can do so much with such fine clay. I could mould her into something great, maybe even greater than you. I’m going to have her, and nothing’s going to stop me. No worries, though. I’ll treat her just as well as I treated you. I’ll even let you see her for Christmas.”

A lesser woman might’ve just withered and died under the glare Fiddler was giving me, but he’d tempered me better than that. I’d faced him down like this once before, and I didn’t have nearly the leverage I had now.

I pulled my hand out of my pocket, the sheet of bloody paper clenched tightly in my fist. I held it up like a ward against evil, as though he would shrink away from it like Nosferatu fleeing from a cross.

“You’re not ever going near her,” I said, putting power into my voice, even without magic. “You’ll never approach her and you’ll never interfere with her life, directly or otherwise, through design or through circumstance. That goes for anyone else I care about, too.”

Fiddler’s eyes were locked on the piece of paper, a look of total amusement on his face. I took immense pleasure in wiping off that look.

“I command it,” I said, opening the paper with a flick of my wrist to show the name written there. “By your name, O’ Tempter of Man, the demon named Mephistopheles.”

The laughter stopped. The snow stopped. Even my heart had stopped...

...because Fiddler’s smile had also stopped.

I wouldn’t have recognized him if I hadn’t watched that grin fade from his face. The corners of his mouth drew inwards, until his mouth was pulled into a flat, even line. And just as slowly, his lips curved the other way, the wrong way, into a deep, frightening scowl.

“Didn’t think I’d hear that name from your lips,” he said. His voice had the same ominous tonality as a frozen pond cracking beneath your feet, threatening to plunge you into freezing water. “I recognize that favor. That’s the one I gave the changeling. Didn’t think he’d give that away.”

I tried to say something, but Fiddler’s presence filled every inch of space in this little simulated reality, and the pressure forced the words back down my throat. I tried again, refusing to let this battle of wills be so one-sided, and managed a trembling, “I care about him, too, so you stay away from him and his kids.”

I shook the piece of paper again. The power it held had already been spent without flash or flourish, but it still bore his name, and reminded him of what I’d done.

He didn’t appreciate that apparently. He waved his hand and the piece of paper burst into flames. I didn’t even have time to register it was happening before the fire singed my fingers.

Fiddler sighed, lowering himself back into his chair. I had no idea how cold the air had gotten around him, but when he reached for his glass of liquor it had frozen over. Still frowning, he dipped his pinkie finger into the glass and melted his drink.

“Kid, I’m not angry,” he said, sipping from the steaming glass, “I’m just disappointed. I did enjoy teaching you, even if you don’t believe that. I gave you everything you wanted, and right at the end of our journey you turned your back on me... I’m not quite sure where I went wrong with you, but for a moment there, I thought I might get another chance… a promise is a promise, though, and I’ll honor it.”

The smile returned, wane, but evident. And with it some heat came back to the world. I hadn’t even noticed I’d been shivering.

“No hard feelings,” he said. “You can even keep the apple. It’s been great talking to you again. I’ll be seeing you.”

The relative warmth of a windy, overcast spring day hit me full in the face. I was back, standing in the middle of a crossroad, next to an overgrown pear orchard. Philomena was parked only a few feet away. If it weren’t for the lump in my pocket, and the throbbing burns on my fingertips, I might have even questioned if I’d gone anywhere.

I pulled that lump out of my pocket. The apple looked good, bright and red, the skin polished to gleaming. I turned it over in my hand, weighing it carefully. It was like any other apple except to someone who could see it burning like a star with magical presence.

I’d just traded away what was probably the only chance I’d ever have to get my soul back. And for what? An address and a quick recharge on my magic?

Had it been the right choice? 

Years from this moment, I’d probably look back and realize there had been a better way to get what I wanted. Some way I could’ve driven the discussion that would’ve resulted in getting the information I wanted, saving Twilight, and still getting my soul back. Like one of those text adventure video games with a perfect ending.

That was a tall order, though. A smarter me might pull it off, or a version of me that had more time to work out all the angles, but I’d done what I could with what time and smarts I had. It would’ve been tempting to use the favor to just wish for Twilight to be brought back to me right then and there, but that wouldn’t have protected her from Fiddler in the future. What good would it have done to save her from a god only to let her fall into the clutches of a demon?

“You didn’t tell him to leave you alone, too…” I whispered to myself.

Why had I done that?

Years ago, I had told him that I never wanted to see him again, and that had been with no guarantee that he would agree to it. I’d honestly had no reason to believe he would. And yet he did, and today I broke the promise he had made myself – out of necessity, yes, but by my own will. And now? With the means literally in my hand to force him, for true and for certain, to leave me alone until it was time for him to collect my debt, I hadn’t even thought to close that door. And if that wasn’t bad enough, Fiddler had noticed my omission.

I’ll be seeing you...

I took all this new baggage and stuck it in the attic with the old. I had the rest of my life to drive myself crazy with how I could’ve done all this better. Right now, I had a kid to save.

I sunk my teeth into the bright red virgin flesh of the apple, and it was the best Goddamned thing I’d ever tasted.



* * *