Chapter 2.4: Smithy

No one really seemed to know when the Devil girl first appeared.  It was somewhere between spring and summer, warm enough that she could sleep outside.  She thieved food like a raccoon, and although she didn’t seem to mind the other Devils, no one ever heard her speak.  That winter, the girl settled in the home of an aging half-blind Devil, a metal worker by the name of Edmond.  As his health failed him, the girl took on more and more of his duties. 

Then, on a day with a blue agate sky, there was only the girl left standing at the workbench, the hammer pinging like a cry stealing out between the fingers of one’s hand. 

“Something needs to be done about that girl,” Alison watched two Devil’s carry a pine coffin out the door of the Edmond’s house.

“That thing is wild, best leave it alone,” Luke didn’t even look up from the barrel he was making, “Hoop me.”

Alison placed the metal hoop a quarter of the way down the barrel, “She makes our hoops and shovel heads.  I think she might be deaf.  Maybe if we sent Mary over with the boys . . .”

Luke hammered the ends of the staves, interrupting her sentence.  Once they looked even, he removed the assembly jig, “Sponge.  We’re not taking in another child.”

“No, of course not,” Alison sponged water on the staves of the barrel.  It was as much of a “yes” as she’d get from her husband.

The next day, a teenager with snakes for hair appeared in front of the little Devil girl’s workbench.  Close on her heels were two Devil boys, one whose eyes barely peeked over the bench at her, and the other who stood a head taller.  The teenager gestured intently to the smallest boy, who copied her movement.  Perplexed, the girl paused in her work.

“Smithy,” the older boy grinned at her and made the same gesture.

“Smithy,” the Devil girl repeated.

“Do you want to play?”

—

By the time Mike arrived in Egregia, Smithy had blossomed into a grown woman whose talent for metalwork brought her customers of all breeds.  Even though her shop hummed with activity, for him it seemed like life itself stopped each time he saw her.  Dark ringlets sprang from around her horns, swaying against her neck and brushing her narrow, muscular shoulders.  Their sway made his fingers restless for his fiddle, and he bowed in an ecstasy that was almost painful in its intensity. 

One evening as he stood outside her door playing, a window opened in the cabin across from him.  A Devil leaned out, scowling, “Have you no respect for the dead?”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize,” Mike lowered his fiddle.

“Are you blind then?” the Devil pointed to the door, marked in charcoal with an ellipse.

“I’m new here, I didn’t know.”

“Carl!” It was her.  Mike’s horns prickled with something not unlike embarrassment.  “Quit hassling my musician,” she continued, “The customers like it and so does the metal.”

Carl wet his lower lip with his forked tongue, “It makes Father cry.”

Smithy crossed the dirt path to place a hand on Carl’s forearm, “I have some hoops for you.”

“All you think about is work,” Carl pulled away from her, closing the shutters with a slam.

Mike felt as if he had melted into a puddle.  Had she really called him her musician?  He tried to solidify the parts of himself that he needed to talk.  He had to say something, anything, it was his only chance, “Who, uh, is he mourning for?”

“His mother, Alison hanged herself from a tree,” Smithy leaned towards him, dropping her voice.  Discordant emotions washed through Mike’s melted body; sorrow, excitement, empathy, lust.  Baffled, he oozed away from her.  “I feel terribly for them, I really do, I’m just not good at this sort of thing,” Smithy looked at the ground, “Carl’s right, all I can think about is work.  Anything else, and I’d have been hanging in the forest just like Alison.”

“No, don’t do that,” Mike gasped.

She covered his hand with hers, “I’m fine, really I am; but I worry about Carl.  His brother’s gone too, you know.”  Smithy looked up at the sky, as if suddenly aware of the lengthening shadows and haze that preceded dusk, “Wanna go get a drink?”

—

There was only one place that Devils did exactly that; a large open space cleared of trees and scrub.  Fires burned in pits staggered throughout the sandy pit, and Devils clustered around them on rugs and blankets.  The entrepreneurial minded brought their own barrels, dispensing spirits for a fee.  In the darkness, Mike didn’t recognize anyone, something he wasn’t sure that light would remedy. 

Smithy pulled him by the hand over to a cluster drinking what looked like beer.  “Two blessings a glass,” the woman stood out among the other Devils.  She was human in appearance, with golden hair and white fluffy wings.  Smithy paid the Angel, then nodded at an empty spot on a blanket.  The Angel served another customer, then settled down next to them, folding her wings behind her, “Who’s your friend?”

“Layla, this is Mike.  Layla is going to be president one day,” Smithy grinned at the Angel, “Mike plays fiddle.”

“Nice to meet you,” Layla shook his hand with her fingertips, as if she didn’t want to touch him, “You know, we Devils love music, especially drums.” she laughed, a tripping chuckle like the jingling of tiny bells.

“It helps break up the gloom in my corner,” Smithy licked the foam off her beer, a maneuver that made Mike’s heart pound uncontrollably.

“Poor Luke, losing a wife and a son all at once,” Layla’s wings popped up, “But did you see Bill?  He was so handsome once his curse lifted.  I nearly broke the rules and flew away with him, but he still has that personality.”

Smithy snorted, then coughed.  Once she finally got her breath back, she chided, “You’re so bad, Layla.”

“Oh, you like it.  And anyway, it’s true,” Layla’s blue eyes brimmed with innocence.

“Did you just say someone’s curse was broken?” Mike was so distracted by Smithy, he must have misunderstood.

“Not just someone, Bill,” Layla corrected, “I mean, I get how he could be a virgin, and even how his mom might give her life for him, but still.  Can you imagine having him as a priest?  He’d sooner smack you than bless you.  And why not Carl, I mean, how did she pick?  'Oh, I think I’ll pick the deaf one?'”

Smithy’s forehead creased, “Honestly, I was worried about Bill, too.  Ever since Mary left he’s become more and more withdrawn.  And anyway, Carl isn’t a virgin.”

“Woah, wait, I didn’t know you two went that far,” Layla’s face glowed with amusement, “Was this before or after you broke up?”  Smithy took a long drink of beer, so long that Layla turned to Mike, “I bet Carl just loves you.”

“I think,” said Mike, “that I should play my fiddle elsewhere.”

Chapter 2.3: The Ice Maker

There was a glass partition that ran through the middle of customs and Smithy was pressed against it, her palms blanching pink.  Mike tried to keep his focus on her; not on the guards escorting him, not on the pain that buzzed through his body, and definitely not on the civilians who regarded him with horror or curiousity. 

“Contra legem,” one of his keepers remarked to a woman wearing the red robes of a servant, “in mal repuditare; un Diablo.”

“Video,” the servant waved her hand, “Vade permitele.  Let him come through.”

Mike staggered through the metal detector, “Thanks.”

“Your type has only been trouble to us since we opened the wall,” the servant frowned at him, “If you want to thank me, get a honest job.”

Mike’s ears burned, and for the moment he was thankful that his red skin hid his anger.  As he passed through the gate to Citadel, Smithy nearly flew at him, the flames in her eyes swirling with anxiety, “They’ve taken Anabelle.”

“Took her?”

Smithy was quivering, “We cooperated with them . . . I don’t understand why they took her . . . They said she can’t come back.  They’re going to reform her.”

Patience moves faster than haste, at least that’s what the proverb said.  For Mike, however, patience had just run out and he was on fire in a very literal sense; flames blossomed from his palms.  All the pain in his body vanished as he pivoted back towards the border, his furor materializing with a whoosh into a ball of flames.

There was a hiss and a strange crackling sizzle as a shield of white expanded in front of him.  Some of the ice turned to steam, the rest splattering into a pile of mush as it hit the industrial-grade carpeting.  Mike’s eyes scanned the other side of the border; the cluster of guards scattered as they ducked to the ground or ran for cover.  One man stood out-of-place, his blue ponytail still swaying from his dash forwards, his hands upraised. 

“Ice Maker,” Mike had only seen one other person who could make ice; she was from Citadel, and more to the point, she had been cursed.  The Ice Maker turned, his fellow guards rising around him.  “Run,” Mike called to him, the words barely forming on his lips. The rush of adrenaline was abating, and with it his consciousness pulled back like the tide.

—

“They’ll cut off her horns, make her wear contacts.  She’ll still be red, but she’ll look more human and that’s all they care about,” the voice was unfamiliar and heavily accented.  Mike tried to open his eyes, but found he couldn’t.  “They’ll parade her around as being reformed until she either makes a mistake or realizes the truth,” the voice paused, “You know what I mean by the truth?”

“Uh-uh,” this voice was closer, familiar, it was his wife.

“That the cursed are no better or worse than anyone else; that is the truth that no one can strip away from me.  Take my citizenship, take my livelihood, take my friends. Strip me of my pride and humanity.  Still, I am worth as much as the ruler of Eden.  My hair is just as blue, and my heart loves my country the same.”

Mike forced his eyes open, staggering to a stand.  “Woah, Honey,” Smithy grasped his shoulders, “they said you should get up slowly, that the tranquilizer might make you disoriented.”

“Tranquilizer?” he slurred.

“They shot you while you were distracted by me,” the man swam into focus; bronzed skin, blue hair, khaki uniform. 

“Are we still prisoners?” Mike felt for the chair he had been sitting in.  It scraped along the vinyl floor sideways as he attempted to reclaim it.  The man grinned at him from his seat, his elbows resting on his knees in a position that seemed a little too casual for one who was meant to be guarding them.

“I’m not,” Smithy shrugged, “for what it’s worth.  But I also didn’t shoot fireballs across the room or infiltrate the government, like Whittaker here.”

Whittaker held out a hand.  “Please, call me Whit,” his fingers had the chill of one no longer living.  The chilly handshake made it obvious; he was the guard Mike had seen earlier, the one who had protected his fellow guards by making a shield of ice.  In spite of his selfless deed, he was now a persona non grata.  After all, the cursed were prohibited in Eden.

“We have to get Anabelle back,” Smithy toyed with the necklace around her neck.  In her anxiety, she was heating and deforming its delicate chain, “We need to get ahold of Alister.  If anyone can help us, it’s him.”

“Alister?” was all he could manage.  Last he’d heard Alister had suffered some sort of strange injury and was in a coma.  Remastering, that was what his friend Carl had called it.  Remastering, like somehow you could rewrite someone’s mind to make them bow to your will.  Even if he was healthy, Alister was temperamental.  Maybe Smithy thought he could leverage his position as a government appointed priest, or maybe she thought his Edenian servant could be of use.  Either way, she had grown up with him, and that had to count for something.

Chapter 2.2: Luck is a Fickle Gentleman

There were questions, at least he thought they were questions.  Every sentence, every word was in Edenian, a language that sounded to him like an energetic fiddle playing.  He had questions too, “Where am I?  Does anyone speak Castelian?  Where’s my family?”

“Lineaum te placeum,” responded the skinny, tall one.  His blue hair was cropped short, military-chic.  Like the others, he wore a short-sleeved khaki shirt that showed off his bronzed, muscular forearms.  “Lineaum,” he drew an imaginary line on the desk.

“Line?” Mike guessed.

“Che, che,” The man nodded and pointed at him, “Te placeum.”  He walked his fingers across the imaginary line.

“I walk across the line?”

“Venaca, venaca,” the man waved him over to a door.  He followed him out into the dry heat under a fried egg sky, the golden sun framed by an aura of white.  Wherever they were in Eden was desolate, the cinder-block building the only structure save for a chain link perimeter fence.  A droid rolled up to them, a camera mounted where a human would have a head.  

Mike backed up as the camera focused on him.  “Venaca,” the man waved him towards a drone.  As Mike took a step forward, there was a whirring sound behind him.  He casually looked over his shoulder.  The droid was behind him, taser at the ready.  He looked to his right.  The fence wasn’t that high; he could easily scale it and make his escape.  Humans, even cursed ones, were good at one thing droids weren’t: short bursts of speed.  

He started running, banking sharply to the right as he heard the guard’s footsteps.  “Bastete!” the guard yelled, but it was too late.  Mike hit the fence with a rattle.  For a moment he was climbing, fingers smarting as he linked them through the chinks in the fence, boots slipping as tried to gain purchase.  Then there was a pulse, a sound he didn’t hear, and again he was electrified.

Someone must have pulled him off the fence.  Maybe it was the slender Edenian, maybe it was the droid; but whoever it was had at least put a blanket over him after placing him on the drone’s hard floor.  Mike sat up and groaned.  He hurt all over, which wasn’t a surprise.  He wasn’t bleeding, which was.  He was certain he had been shot in the back, but the only thing he could feel with his painful hands was a large bruise.  There were no chunks of flesh, no gaping hole; and as a matter of fact, his feet hurt worse.  

He stayed seated, peeking above the console at the landscape below him.  He tapped a button on the console.  “Securare puer,” flashed on the screen.  He tried different keys, finally getting a different word, followed by a blinking cursor.

“Pass-eh-ver-boom,” Mike scratched his horns, “Password?”  Stumped he keyed in the same word.  

“Falsa,” lit up the screen.  

“123456789,” he tried again.

“Falsa.”

Frustrated, Mike banged out a random string of letters.

“Falsa,” the screen blinked.

He rested his red fingers on the keys, “Calm down and think.”  

“Falsa.”

“I barely touch you, and you ‘falsa’ me.  I’m having a really bad day today, not that you would understand,” Mike paused.  Maybe he had this backwards, maybe he needed to try to understand the machine.  He didn’t know a lot about drones, just that they ran off a computer mainframe thing-a-majiggy.  Supposedly those things liked zeros and ones.  

“Here goes nothing,” Mike pushed the one.  He pushed it again.  He added some zeros and pushed enter.

“Falsa.”

Maybe that was wrong.  Maybe it was just numbers in general.  “Would you like a song?  I left my fiddle with the wagon, but music can be represented with numbers as well.”  Mike rested his hand on the ten-key and imagined the score of What If?  Painstakingly he typed a string of numbers, pushing enter at the end of each measure to mark time.  The more he typed, the easier it became, and he tapped his foot as the music played in his head.  

He got so used to the screen flashing “Falsa,” that he almost didn’t notice it had stopped.  Puzzled, he pushed some other keys, then rested his ear on the side of the console.  The drone was silent, and there was no sense of vibration, no blinking lights.

“Uh-oh.”

That’s when he noticed the droid was losing altitude.  Mike scrambled to his aching feet, throwing himself at one of the console seats.  Never before in his life had he had such difficulty sitting down.  The seat bucked him off like a wild horse, then dodged his next attempt by ducking left.  Grabbing the base of it, he climbed up the side of it, then strapped himself in.

The drone fell straight down, in an amusement-park plummet.  His stomach screaming, he was almost relieved to see the ground approaching.  The drone hit on the edge of its frame and bounced, flipping as it hit.  He screwed his eyes shut as glass shattered and metal bent.  A wind, heavy with sand, roared around him.  Then, everything was still.

It was so dark, that for a moment Mike thought his eyes were closed.  He pushed the button on his seatbelt before the obvious hit him; he was hanging upside down, the floor now the ceiling.  Grasping the belt as he somersaulted out of his seat, he landed feet first.  A smoky light trickled in through a hole in the cabin, and he crawled through it onto the sand.  All around were broken and twisted pieces of metal, and he found himself thinking there were too many to have been from this crash.  Overcome by his injuries, he lay down in the sand next to a propeller blade.

It may have been hours or minutes until he heard voices, either way, he couldn’t move.  Four men in khaki, guns slung over their shoulders leaned over him.  Two of the men lifted him, while the others checked out the crash site.  The hum of their language blurred into the thrum of their drone’s propellers.  They sat him up, unscrewing a canteen of water.  With no attempt to communicate what they were about to do, they seized him and poured water down his throat.

“Lucky me,” Mike sputtered.