Chapter 108: Demon promises are shit

Belanger narrowed his eyes. Even from this distance James could tell he was a striking man; his face was dramatic, with deeply carved cheeks and a hawk-like nose, his eyes gleaming from under bristling brows, his skin heavily wrinkled like a paper bag that had been crumpled over then smoothed over his skull. Yet for all that he burned with a youthful vitality, and his presence was searing.

“Sacrifice all of humanity?” Belanger’s words were a sneer. “You think me far more important than I am.”

“You don’t hold the Light Eternal right there?”

Belanger considered the gem. “Why, so I do.”

“Then surely you had some role in what’s happened.”

“That I have. But a middling role, unimportant, everything considered. I suppose you’re just as ignorant as the last lot.”

Scorn slid into Belanger’s voice, and James could feel the man distancing himself, growing aloof, reaching for superiority.

He had to keep him on his heels.

“Yeah, I’m pretty ignorant. Won’t deny it. I was homeless till this all kicked off. Could probably have used some help, but there wasn’t any at hand. Not for the likes of me. Still, even at my worst, when I was lost in the bottom of a bottle and with no hope for a better tomorrow, I doubt I’d have agreed to have my dead wife back as a demon.”

“Your wife is dead?”

“Wife and both girls. They were killed in our family home while I was at work. Nearly broke me, when I found out. I guess it did. But still.” James stopped walking, placed his hands on his hips and stared across at Belanger. “Still I’d never have accepted a fake version back.”

Belanger’s upper lip lifted from his yellowed teeth. “That’s because you’ve yet to learn the fine art of acceptance, Kelly. You’re young. You think you had it rough? You don’t know what you’re talking about. This thing here?” He patted the gem. “It’s a curse. It turns you into Job out of the Old Testament. Everything you touch turns to ash. Everyone you love dies. Every attempt at self-improvement becomes a mockery. And why? Because it’s one big fucking test. To see if you can resist long enough to hand it on. But fuck that. I finally understood after running from the truth my whole life.”

“Understood what, Belanger?”

“That we’re all alone in this world.” The old man leaned forward, eyes blazing. “That you’re born alone and you’ll die alone, that nobody can change, that nobody cares about anything more than themselves, that it’s a crapsack world full of idiots and fools, and the greatest fools are those who think otherwise. And you know why they think that way? Because they need to. They need the world to be better so they can get up in the morning, so they can brush their teeth and look themselves in the mirror. Without that faith they’d curl up and die.”

Belanger sat back. “Not me. I’m done lying. I accept that I’m weak. That I’m old. That soon I’ll die alone. I’ve no illusions as to Jane being more than a manipulative succubus who’s manipulating me, making me dance to her strings. But while I live I might as well get to finally enjoy the best life has to offer. You wouldn’t understand. You’ve no idea what the demons can do to us, to our brains, our minds, the worlds they can create, the sheer fucking pleasure they can drown us in. And why shouldn’t I? My whole life’s been shit. Why shouldn’t I get to enjoy my last final years before it all goes literally to hell?”

It sounded like a rhetorical question, but Belanger watched James with avid interest, as if defying him to contradict his words.

“Well.” James rubbed his beard. “That’s a hell of a life philosophy. Hard to argue with you when you admit you’re a selfish piece of shit who’d rather get your rocks off with some demon magic than save the billions of men, women, and children out there who never did nothing to you.”

Belanger went to sneer but James spoke over him.

“Thing is, while you’re sitting here on this throne of yours getting demon head, I’ve been fighting on the streets of New York. I’ve seen countless good people lay down their lives to help each other out. I’ve seen my share of idiocy and greed, too. Now I know I’m far from perfect, so I don’t want to be a hypocrite and preach perfection here, but I do know the demons are worth fighting. And you know why?”

“No,” said Belanger, staring down his nose at Kelly. “Why?”

“Because fuck these guys.” James grinned and resumed walking. “Fuck these guys if they think they can come into our house and kick over shit. If they think they can make us jump through hoops like circus dogs while laughing at us. Fuck them for thinking we’re not worth taking seriously.”

“But we’re not,” smiled Belanger. “We’re little more than monkeys with the capacity to think for a few minutes before going back to planning how where and what to fuck.”

“Nah, we’re more than that. They wouldn’t have given us that Light Eternal if we were just glorified chimps, would they?”

Belanger frowned down at the gem.

“What is that thing, anyways?” James tried to keep his tone careless. “Since we’re just chatting here. You said it gets passed on?”

“And on and on.” Belanger’s voice grew quiet, almost inaudible. “Ostensibly. Once we developed the capacity to destroy ourselves utterly the demons finally took notice and gave this gem to our species. As long as its bearer could resist their offers, humanity was safe.” The old man looked up and his smile was terrible. “But they knew we wouldn’t last long. And they were right.”

“The capacity to destroy ourselves? You mean atomic bombs?”

“Precisely. It’s the milestone they watch for, the natural culmination of our species’ evolution.”

James frowned. “But the messages said 60,000 years.”

Belanger waved a hand. “Who’s keeping track? Roughly 60,000, yes, since we were gifted with the ability to tell stories. But is it exactly so? Who knows? Who cares?”

“Wait, what? Stories?”

“Stories, yes, mass delusion that entire tribes of homo sapiens could buy into. Unlike Neanderthals or Homo Erectus, we developed the ability to believe in intangibles, in spirits, religion, in identities that transcended what we could touch and kill. And those stories allowed us to organize and work together. Before that gift, home sapiens were just another band of monkeys trying to survive. After? We tore across the world so fast that nothing was able to resist us. We wiped out all competition, and like viruses thrived everywhere from the Arctic to the Sahara.” Belanger smiled. “Our capacity for destruction was engendered by the gift for story, with the atomic bomb being the endpoint in that evolution. And once we mastered the atom? Why, that’s when the demons knew it was time to come pay us a visit.”

James didn’t understand half of what Belanger said, but the old man’s certainty was sobering. “How do you know all this?”

“It was told to me by the previous bearer of the gem. Just as it was told to him by the original bearer. Three iterations are all we lasted. Pathetic, is it not?”

“Then…” James tried to make sense of this, to grasp something he could work with. “Then the demons set us up to fail?”

“It didn’t take much effort. We are so uniquely suited to self-destruction.”

“But they didn’t just launch the Nemesis 1 when we discovered the bomb.” James fumbled for a line of attack. “They gave us the Light Eternal. There had to be a reason for that.”

“It’s symbolic.” Belanger waved his hand. “They need permission from a human who fully understands the consequences of his betrayal to begin the apocalypse. I resisted for decades, but then…” His hand sank back down onto the gem. “Then I grew tired.”

“But you could have passed on the gem?”

“Only if I accepted death. Relinquishing the gem is suicide.”

“And that didn’t have its appeal?”

“It did.” Belanger glared at Kelly. “For long years I thought of nothing else. But… I’m a coward. Once you learn that demons are real, you see, it becomes that much harder to risk going to hell for suicide.”

James laughed. “Catholic guilt?”

“As good as any. But yes. Mock me if you will.”

“But how is this going to safeguard your passage to heaven?”

“Once I realized I failed the test, I knew I was damned regardless. Why shouldn’t I enjoy myself before an eternity in hell?”

James opened and closed his hands. He was a third of the way across the cavern. There’d been no sign of Jane yet. “You know, there’s a way to make this right.”

Belanger’s skepticism was searing. “Oh really?”

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“Yeah. You man up and give me the gem. And in death find redemption for what you’ve done.”

“There’s no redeeming my betrayal.”

“That’s absolutely true if you stick to this course. But what if there’s a chance at salvation if you do the right thing at the last? When you’re dealing with eternity in hell, isn’t even a chance better than none?”

Belanger opened his mouth to protest but made no sound.

James resumed walking, hand extended. “I get where you’re at. I was down in that hole myself for years. Pain. Guilt. Self-loathing. Hatred. Fury. Turning it in equal measures upon myself and then the world. If somebody had extended a hand I’d have bitten it. But I know that was cowardice, just like you said. In the end, it takes saying enough. Knowing that there’s no greater depth to fall to, and deciding, exhausted and burned out as you are, that it’s time to just stand up, dust yourself off, and do the right thing.”

Belanger’s brows beetled over his burning eyes. “Pretty words.”

James pretended to consider. “They’re not bad. Doesn’t mean they’re not true. Fuck it, Patrick. You’ve made a colossal mistake. No way around it. But there’s still a chance to do better. All it takes is your deciding not to play ball any more with the demons. Give me the gem, shuffle off this mortal coil, and see if that’s good enough to reunite you with the real Jane. Because if she’s up there right now, watching, listening, you know what she hopes you’ll do.”

Patrick licked his lips, considering.

Jane appeared by James’s side, her lithe, gore-smeared body pressed against his side, her arm wrapped around his neck, talons pressed lightly against his throat.

James froze.

“Give me the word, darling,” she said, staring at Patrick. “And I’ll silence this self-righteous prick forever.”

Patrick hesitated. Began to shift from side to side, uncertain.

“Here,” said James, ignoring the pressure from the talons that split his skin. “New idea. Don’t give me the gem. Give it to one of my friends back there. I’ll sacrifice myself on purpose, right here, right now, to prove that my money’s where my mouth is. Tell this demon to kill me. I won’t fight. I’ll die gladly if I know that you’ll take my death as proof that I’m not fucking around and give the gem to one of the others.”

“James!” screamed Serenity. “No!”

“It’s all right!” James raised one hand to forestall one of his friends doing something stupid. “Patrick’s tired of fancy words, aren’t you Patrick? You just want this all to stop. So. Let’s go. I’ll die for what I believe in. You get to pull the trigger, Patrick. Kill me. Prove to yourself that I’m not full of shit, then give the gem to the others. What do you say?”

Patrick stared at him, eyes glazed. “You don’t mean that.”

“Sure I do.” James frowned at the bloody woman next to him. “Tell this demon to kill me already. I’ve never been much of a fanatic, but if it means giving our species a fighting chance, I’ll die for the cause. Go on Patrick. Tell her.”

“You’re bluffing,” said Patrick. “Or you’re mad.”

“You know I’m not crazy.” James smiled tiredly. “You’ve seen crazy. I’m just tired and old. C’mon. Let’s do this. You’ve wanted to shut me up since I started making you uncomfortable. I’ll happily die if it means you realize there’s still some genuine people out there, and if that realization shocks you out of your doom spiral. Kill me and give my friends the gem. Everybody wins.”

“Shut up,” hissed Jane, closing her fingers around James’s neck and nearly crushing his throat.

The sound of a scuffle broke out behind them. It sounded like several people struggling.

Patrick leaned forward, eyes bulging. “Fuck you.”

“Sure,” hissed James. “Didn’t come here. To be friends. Quit being an asshole. Kill. Me.”

Patrick rubbed his face then lurched to his feet. He gripped the Light Eternal in his fist and stared at it. “I made a deal with them! I swore!”

“Don’t mean. Nothing.” Jane was almost crushing his throat, and though he felt her desire to do so, she held back, waiting for Patrick’s order. “Demon promises. Are. Shit.”

Patrick was coming apart at the seams. His whole body was shuddering, arms trembling, his face having gone pale. “Hurt him!”

Jane laughed huskily, placed her bare foot against James’s knee, and jerked her foot down.

James’s knee snapped and bent the wrong way.

The pain was tremendous, overwhelming, but his impossible Stamina made it feel more like a lightning strike on the far side of a mountain than an immediate blow. James gasped, staggered, then placed a hand on Jane’s slick shoulder as she released his neck.

“Mind if I borrow your shoulder?” he smiled. “Thanks, hon.”

“Now? Now do you change your mind?” shouted Patrick.

“Oh, come on,” said James. “Of course not.”

Patrick dug his nails into his face and scratched down his cheeks leaving crimson trails in his own flesh. “You’re not real! You’re not real!”

“Fuck,” sighed James. His whole leg felt like it was bathed in magma, his knee joint as big as a house and all pure agony. “It’s not fair expecting me to reason with him if he’s crazy,” he said to Jane.

Who glared at him, hatred in her brown eyes.

“I never wanted this,” shouted Patrick, glaring at the gem. “I never wanted any of this! This world, this fucking world!”

“Then give it to me!” James shouted back, losing his patience. “End this shit! Just give it up and see if you get into heaven already. Anything’s gotta be better than this!”

“Better than this,” said Belanger quietly. “Yes. You’re right. This… this is worse than anything else. Knowing I could end it and never doing so. That’s the real torture. Just… end it.”

“My love,” called Jane. “We’re not done with our games. Our fun. There is so much still to teach you. Tell me to finish this man and we can resume our pleasure.”

“End it!” shouted James. “Now!”

Patrick stared at the gem in his hand. It trembled so that the gem bounced in his palm, and with terrible effort he tilted his palm, slowly, awkwardly, so that the burning blue gem trembled and slid and then fell free to the floor.

“There,” said Belanger. “It is done.”

“Oh fuck,” said Jane in annoyance. “Enough of these games.” She grabbed James by the throat and lifted him off the ground. “You can’t collect the Light Eternal if you’re dead, can you?”

James grasped at her wrist as her talons sank into his flesh.

“Wait!” croaked Belanger as he sagged against his throne. “I’ve passed on the gem. Stop!”

“Shut the fuck up, Patrick,” snapped Jane. “And focus on dying. I, on the other hand, am going to do what I do best.” She grinned up at James, revealing a row of fangs in her mouth that would have done a white shark proud. “And murder everyone else.”

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