Dark Light of Day (26 page)

“What I hate,” I said advancing on Rochester, “is blood on my hands.” Without thinking, I flicked my fingers toward him. Drops of my blood splattered on his face and clothes.

For the first time, I felt Rochester’s signature heat in anger. I was afraid if I stayed, he would crawl inside me and just keep expanding, until I was nothing more than a quivering mound of red jelly on the stone-cold floor of this hideous place. So I walked out without being dismissed.

At least I didn’t run.

Ari found me later in the bathroom at Megiddo cleaning my face.

“Do you want me to take you to Bryony?”

“No,” I said, not even meeting his eyes in the mirror. A Mederi was the last thing I wanted to see.

I
woke up Thursday with mixed emotions. For twenty-one years I had dreaded this day. Every year, I’d marked Bryde’s Day’s passing with as much interest as my own birthday, though neither had been much celebrated in our house. My declaration last week meant I would survive the day, but it couldn’t erase a lifetime of unpleasant memories. Bryde’s Day celebrated young women, small animals, and children. In other words, life and those who make it. Bryde was the patron of weddings, of course, but she was also the patron of any fertility union and was generally associated with all things regenerative and abundant. She was the ploughed ground pregnant with seed, she was the swelling bud ready to burst, and she was the first flow of milk, from ewe to lamb, from cow to calf, from mother to child. She breathed life into the dead mouth of winter and resurrected it.

It was said Bryde had been wet nurse to Lucifer himself. That she had suckled him as an infant, cured his fevers, and tended his scrapes and sores. It was said she tended him even now, wherever he was, willing him to heal and return.

Bryde had been Halja’s most powerful Mederi. So Bryde’s Day was, obviously, a major holiday.

Classes had been cancelled today and we were on a modified schedule. This morning was our first midterm, Sin and Sanction. Later today, there would be a big festival at Lekai and then tonight, all students would have their first client interviews. Even the Hyrke A&A students would be meeting at various places around campus to discuss cases and strategies and lay the initial groundwork for hopeful settlements. None of it would be easy. Nothing at St. Lucifer’s ever was.

Ivy, Fitz, and I had stayed up as late as we dared, comparing outlines, drafting practice answers, and drilling each other on the difference between
actus reus
and
mens rea
, causation and complicity, mayhem and malfeasance. We memorized all the Latin names for Halja’s numerous sins as well as the demons who protected their practice. Fitz and Ivy were thrilled to have my Manipulation books to supplement our Sin and Sanction materials, but I was afraid we might have overstudied that. It was unlikely the midterm fact pattern would have Host or demon deviants.

We entered Copeland’s class bleary-eyed and anxious, strung up on too much coffee and not enough sleep. My eyes had deep, dark circles under them and I carried a pack of tissues for my still swollen nose. The three of us took our seats near the middle of the classroom, about halfway up the rise. On the way, I passed Ari, who looked irritatingly calm and well rested.

“Good luck,” he said, giving me an encouraging smile. Thick dark waves of his hair fell to the collar of his shirt, which was a bright white buttoned affair, open at his throat.

“Luck be with you too,” I mumbled, rushing past him. He was too distracting.

The exam was a toilsome, laborious, perspiration-inducing mess. Three hours of reading fact patterns, code sections, outlining, drafting, and sweating. I broke five pencils, chewed off three fingernails, and wrote enough to fill two and a half sheaves of paper. Afterward, fellow students’ reactions varied. Some wanted to debrief endlessly by discussing
and comparing answers. Some didn’t want to talk about the exam at all. A few were clearly relieved, while others cried.

I chatted briefly with Ivy and Fitz, as we dumped books into our lockers and grabbed our cloaks. Fitz was in hand-wringing mode. He nearly freaked when I told him how many sheaves I’d gone through.

“I have large handwriting,” I tried to assure him. Fitz looked strained. His face was red and his coppery hair was standing up in places where he’d obviously been pulling at it.

“It’s time to celebrate,” Ivy said, putting her arm through Fitz’s. “I’m sure you passed. And now it’s over. Let’s head over to Lekai for the festival. Lunch won’t cost anything but the calories. It’s Bryde’s Day so everything will be loaded with cheese or smothered in cream sauce.” Ivy smacked her lips in mock anticipation, looking increasingly vexed at my lack of enthusiasm. “Vanilla ice cream with
real
butterscotch? Come on!”

“No thanks,” I said, slamming my locker door. I jumped when I saw Ari leaning against the lockers behind it. I’d been so focused on shutting him out for the exam I didn’t feel him sneaking up on me. I noticed his signature was on stealth mode. He’d ratcheted down to low hum. I glared at him.

“How’d you do on the test?” he said.

“Fine.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You two?” he said to Ivy and Fitz. Ivy gave him the so-so sign, which was Ivy’s way of being modest. I was sure she’d end up in the top 10 percent of our class. Fitz, on the other hand, grimaced. Ari laughed.

“It can’t have been that bad,” Ari said to him. “Besides, they usually fail no more than three students per section.”

The red in Fitz’s face disappeared, replaced with a deathly white pallor. His skin shined with sweat. The effect was awful. For a moment, I thought Fitz would be sick. But then Ivy propelled him toward the door.

“We’ll save you a seat if you change your mind,” she called over her shoulder. The hall door swung shut behind them. A few other students milled about.

“You’re not going over to Lekai?” Ari asked.

I shrugged on my cloak.

“I don’t celebrate Bryde’s Day,” I said.

“Why not?” Ari looked genuinely puzzled.

What could I say? That I hated corn dolls? I didn’t. I just hated the fact that I couldn’t hold one. What’s more, I dreaded the thought of being asked to burn Yule greens in front of an audience. It was something I’d never even done in the privacy of my own home.

“Because I don’t like setting things on fire.”

“It’s much easier to control your magic if you’re not sparring with someone who’s trying to hurt you. And I’ll be there. I won’t let your magic burn anything it’s not supposed to.”

“Ari, I don’t want to burn the Yule greens, or anything else.”

He leaned in toward me so that his face was only inches from mine. His closeness in such a public space, when we weren’t supposed to be seen together, made me nervous.

“Have you ever seen a Bryde’s Day ceremony, Noon?” His voice was quiet, almost tender. I stubbornly refused to answer.

“Burning the Yule greens isn’t meant to be destructive,” Ari said, his words making it clear he understood me all too well. “It’s meant to represent the flame of life. When the Yule greens are burned on Bryde’s Day it symbolizes the destruction of winter. But by destroying winter, we destroy death. Sometimes destructive powers give rise to new life. Just look at Nergal’s forest fires.”

I frowned, not following.

“The burnoff created by a forest fire allows new growth afterward that wouldn’t have been possible before. The fire burns away old brush and other dead matter, preparing the ground for new life.” Ari reached out and clasped my shoulders, gently shaking them to emphasize his words. “Come celebrate Bryde’s Day with me. Come feel what it’s like to burn something so that it can be reborn.”

We hadn’t embraced since I’d let him touch my demon mark in the alley on Monday. That had been four days ago. I
was ready to agree to almost anything he said. But Rochester’s warning about not collaborating with Ari outside of class and the fact that I was already on shaky ground with Rochester firmed my resolve.

“Speaking of Nergal,” I said, stepping back. “I’m going home to prepare for our meeting tonight. You said it yourself, I’m behind. I need the time to catch up.”

I ignored Ari’s disappointed look and broke free of his hold. I could feel him staring at my back. His signature flickered, some flare-up of emotion that was too fast to define. Then I was around the corner and racing to Megiddo, half-afraid I might change my mind and decide to voluntarily burn something (or involuntarily burn someone) in front of all of St. Luck’s and the Joshua School too.

The rest of the afternoon passed quickly. I was determined to be as prepared as possible for my first interview with Nergal. I pushed away all thoughts of Yule greens, corn dolls, and dairy products. Instead, I reread the section of the
Demon Register
devoted to Nergal and Lamia, I studied chapters thirteen through fifteen of Dymas Painbourne’s
Demons, Deities, and Devotional Practices
, and I reviewed the
Barrister’s Guide to Separation Agreements
. I dug out my Manipulation books and read all of Seknecus’ margin notes on first encounters, meeting protocol, and establishing the upper hand with recalcitrant clients.

Almost as an afterthought, I decided to test my magic control. I wadded up a piece of paper and placed it on the linoleum floor. I sent a whiplike surge of magic in its direction and it instantly went up in flames. Unfortunately so did everything in my trash can, which was over a foot away. My hands shook as I leeched oxygen from around the fires. They hissed and went out, leaving black ashes and the burning smell of shame. I grabbed my cloak and a notebook and headed for the door, my thoughts as dark as the ashes in the can.

Outside of Megiddo the sun set in chalky reds and yellows, glazed with streaks of white from low lying clouds. The night was cool, but not cold. My hood hung down my back along with my hair, which I’d left loose and long. I’d
traded my usual high-necked sweater and canvas trousers for a heavy black sheath dress. I belted it with a waistband of thick black leather and paired it with black leggings and boots. The dress had a raccoon fur collar that completely covered my demon mark. The demons would know I had waning magic, and everyone else did now too, but it was hard to break a lifetime habit of covering it up.

Around me, the cement paths were full of students walking back from Lekai. Nearly to a person, they carried small lit candles. I gritted my teeth. Would this day ever end? Most years I holed up inside to avoid spectacles such as this. Everyone smiled and laughed, some couples even embraced. I stood there in the dark with my dark clothes and dark mood, solitary and unlit, wondering why I felt left out when all I’d wanted was to be left alone.

I was on the verge of scowling when I felt Ari’s signature touch the edges of mine and slowly melt into it, the way the sun melted into the horizon at dusk. He was the only one who could soften my edges like that. He rounded a corner and stood before me. I swallowed. He seriously tested my resolve to stay away from him.

His crisp white shirt, still open at the collar, was now smudged with black soot. In the semi-dark of sunset and the glow of passing candles, Ari’s skin looked golden. His eyes shone like black glass, reflecting the myriad flames around him. He stared at me solemnly, his face a mixture of desire and determination. A single candle burned bright in his hand. He held it out to me.

“I saved one for you,” he said.

I shook my head. “No, thanks.”

“You can’t know this,” he said, “since you’ve never celebrated Bryde’s Day, but the custom is that you find someone you… care about, and you give them a lit candle.”

“Why?”

“It’s a gift,” he said.

“You’re giving
me
the gift of fire?”

“No, I’m giving you the gift of life. That’s what it means today.”

Oh.

I reached for the tiny flame, speechless. My hand grazed Ari’s just as he stepped forward to embrace me. I clasped my hand around his as he pulled me close, cradling my head with his other hand. He tipped me back, touching his lips to mine. You would have thought four days was forty years from the urgency I felt in him. But he kept his kiss light, his lips barely skimming mine. He held me for a moment, his eyes locked to mine, and, for once, I felt absolutely calm in his presence. I laid my head on his shoulder and stared into the flame.

“Thank you,” I said.

W
e would be meeting with our clients separately first, in the old abandoned classrooms on the fourth floor of Rickard Building. It was a place the demons would be comfortable in and it was less risky for the Hyrkes if we confined our interview to places they were less likely to be. The other MIT’s, who had Hyrke clients, were meeting elsewhere on campus. After the introductions and initial assessment, Ari and I were to take our clients to the Manipulation classroom where we would make our first settlement attempt. Both Ari and I thought it prudent to go up to the fourth floor alone, although Ari seemed far less concerned about what Rochester might think than the clients.

The lift ride up was slow, creepy, and quiet. The operator seemed nervous.
Had Nergal and Lamia taken the lift to the fourth floor?
It would be unusual since demons had the ability to shift into forms of things that traveled far faster than those of us with only two feet.