They arrived at the main branch of the Scranton Public Library, a marble and granite Gothic monstrosity that looked like nothing so much as a set piece in a particularly clichéd vampire movie. The car sped off before Lucia had a chance to shut the door.
Finsternis studied the building quizzically. “You work here?”
“No, I work two blocks that way. I just didn’t want that freak knowing where I work.” Lucia shrugged. “I guess it doesn’t matter now. I doubt I can fit stopping Revelation around my work schedule.”
“Not unless the hours are particularly flexible,” replied Finsternis, his eyes crinkled in what Lucia realized was a demon’s smile. It made sense. Most creatures with fangs didn’t bare them to communicate friendliness. She remembered his almost literally ear-to-ear grin on the rooftop. He hadn’t been grinning, he’d been baring his fangs at his enemies.
“So, angels don’t have senses of humor, demons do, are you guys opposites in everything?”
Finsternis nodded. “Yes, that is what I what I was trying to say before you interrupted me with doughnuts. Everything in this universe has its opposite. Must have its opposite. In creating angels, Yhwh created demons, just as creating Heaven created Hell. He did not intend to create us or our realm, but he did.”
They stopped in front of a tall brick building with four white pillars stretching from the roof to the ground. Despite the grandiosity of the pillars, the building showed obvious signs of neglect, peeling paint, crumbling bricks, rusting iron railings.
“I can see why they don’t pay you much,” observed Finsternis.
“Psh. Wait until nine o’clock and see what cars roll up. Better yet, if we had time, we could take a tour of the partners’ homes. Then you’d see what they spend their money on.”
Finsternis raised one perfectly arched eyebrow, a trick Lucia envied. “And when the building falls down upon them, will their riches cushion them?”
Lucia stepped onto the first stair and Finsternis grabbed her wrist. Testing her theory, she bared her teeth at him and he jerked back, letting go of her wrist. “We need to work on this touching thing, Finsternis.”
He shrugged uncomfortably. “ ‘Personal space’ is not a demon concept. That sort of thing is for angels.”
“Remind me not to attend any parties in Hell. Anyway, what’s up?” She looked around. At 6:30, the only people around were residents from the shelter across the street making their way to the soup kitchen around the corner. The partners of the law firm had made it very clear that a shelter would only be tolerated if it didn’t impact them at all. Residents who so much as looked at the law office were blacklisted. There was no danger there.
Finsternis looked up at the second floor then shook his head irritably. “There is a true believer in there. You need to be careful.”
Lucia looked up at the building. She didn’t feel any spiders, but she did feel something now that he mentioned it, like wearing an itchy wool sweater just under her skin. “A true believer?”
“One of Yhwh’s faithful. Not an agent, not searching for you, but they will recognize you for what you are, or at least as not being human, if they see you,” Finsternis explained, frowning at the windows.
“Andy, has to be. Andy’s office is all the way in the back, Doris’ is in the front. I’ll go in, get my check and get out. There’s no real reason for Andy to be out front, anyway.”
“There are other ways to get money, you know,” Finsternis growled. His voice had a quality to it in his agitation that was particularly inhuman and entirely unlike his usual smooth tenor. It reminded Lucia of coyotes wailing in the desert.
“I’m not stealing from people if that’s what you mean. I may be the daughter of Satan, but I’m not a thief!”
At that, Finsternis did growl, a low, throaty rumble that made the hair on Lucia’s arms stand on end. He stared at her as if attempting to crush her skull with the force of his gaze, then bowed slightly and said, “Hell’s grace to you, Daughter of the Morningstar.”
It had the sound of something formal, but Lucia had no idea how to respond, so she went with the one good piece of advice her mother had ever given her. “Thank you, Finsternis.”
It seemed to satisfy him and he walked away, melting into the shadows of the alley next to the building. Literally melting. Every part of him touched by shadow became it, until only a slight purple glint the height of his eyes remained. “Why does he get all the cool stuff?”
Lucia called Doris to open the door, then thought about Andy while she waited. Everyone at work called him “Mr. Rogers” behind his back. Ned Flanders on the outside and the Grand Inquisitor on the inside, the snide nickname was unfair to the real Mr. Rogers. Perversely, Lucia felt more comfortable with Andy than with her more liberal coworkers. He felt like home.
Andy had been thrilled to meet Lucia- “Your story changed my life!”- until it occurred to him to wonder why she wasn’t the dutiful wife of a preacher or on the Evangelical talk tour herself. After that, he either ignored her or questioned the state of her salvation. No question about that now, thought Lucia.
As she followed Doris up the stairs, the woman refused to carry checks out of her office, another thought hit Lucia, leaving her breathless. How many true believers were there? The way she was raised, real Christians were few and far between, but was her family right? The lower Hill Section was almost exclusively Hasidic Jews, could anyone who wore black wool head to toe in mid-August not be a true believer?
What about the Catholics? One block down, the Cathedral swelled with the faithful for noon Mass every day despite the complete lack of parking. Wouldn’t at least some of those people qualify as true believers? And the Muslims, a small but growing population, the women dressed in hijab and occasionally full burqas despite the weight of public sentiment against them, surely they were true believers.
Lucia was holding back a panic attack by the time they reached Doris’ office, cursing the necessity of making small talk with Doris, who was perfectly capable of refusing to give Lucia her check until nine. She’d been surprised that Doris had agreed to give up the check early at all. Fortunately, a conversation with Doris was a matter of nodding every so often, because Lucia was too busy trying to gauge the intensity of the itch just under her skin to pay much attention.
Last night may have begun with Lucia becoming an entirely different species, but she was still the same person and that person was nervous at best, not brave. With Finsternis around, it was easy to stay calm. He was a demon who could disappear and set fires with his mind. As long as he was at her side, it was easy for Lucia to stay focused on her immediate goal and forget about being nervous.
Stuck in Doris’ office, listening to her go on about- camping?- waiting for Andy to decide he needed company had Lucia ready to crawl out of her own skin.
“You got somewhere to be, Lucy?” asked Doris, holding the check just out of Lucia’s reach. Doris always changed Lucia’s name to Lucy. You ain’t no eye-talian, she had declared, you’re American. Lucia hated it and she was sure that was the only reason Doris called her that.
“Just give me the fucking check, Doris!” Lucia snapped, then slapped her hand over her mouth in wide-eyed horror. What was wrong with her today? And what was wrong with Doris? She was completely motionless, holding the check out to Lucia, her face curiously slack. For a moment, Lucia thought Doris had had a stroke. Past 80, in poor health and with a temper that would rival a grizzly bear caught in a trap, no one in the office could understand why Doris hadn’t had a stroke yet.
“Persuasive. I’m persuasive.” Lucia took her check out of Doris’ outstretched hand.
Doris shook her head slightly and sat at her desk, ignoring Lucia, who stared at her, waiting to see if Doris would recover. Then she heard footsteps from the back of the building and left.
“Hey! Who are you? What are you?”
Andy. He was still fifty feet away from her, but he’d seen Lucia and what he was seeing wasn’t a mousy, brown haired human.
Lucia ducked her head back into Doris’ office. “Doris! You haven’t seen me today. I’m just a stranger asking for directions.” With that, Lucia ran down the steps, out the door and into the alley.
“Finsternis? We have to go,” Lucia hissed, frantically searching the gloom for him.
She saw a glint of purple then shiny white fangs an inch from her face. “What now?”
“Andy. I have no idea what he saw-“
Finsternis pulled Lucia up against him, put a hand over her mouth and whispered in her ear, “Deal with it.” Up close, he smelled like summer- salt water and woodsmoke, fresh cut grass and five minutes before a storm.
Lucia watched Andy walk into the alley, increasingly nervous as he moved further into the shadows. At one point he looked directly at her and paused, but then he moved on. Lucia was sure she was done for when he started reciting the 23rd Psalm. The Bible was, in many churches her mother had spoken at, nothing more than a series of verbal talismins against demons. Any random verse would do in a pinch, but the 23rd Psalm was better than garlic against a vampire.
Nothing happened. Andy’s gaze swept over them again as his lips moved silently along the verse Lucia couldn’t stop herself from reciting- Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me- and then he walked out of the alley and into the sunlight without a backwards glance.
“Why do you get all of the cool abilities?” asked Lucia when Finsternis finally let her go.
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