Lydia said, “Oh, Timothy what have you done?” as soon as I walked in.
“Already? Really? You just got here and you’re already taking a tone with me? I just met with a counselor at school.”
“Your aura is on fire and you’re throwing off arcs. I could feel you ten feet from the door. An angel could spot you from space. Why are you walking in here charged with magic like you’ve just been fighting for your life? It’s not even Earth magic.” She sniffed. “And why do you smell like a witch?”
“You’re taking a lot of liberties really fast, lady.”
Lydia took a deep breath and steepled hands in front of her face. “I’ve been here less than a day and you’ve already… This is my fault. I should have held back. I should have studied you, but I just couldn’t wait anymore.” She leaned forward, “Timothy, please. Take my hand. Let me bleed this off, before you hurt yourself.”
I laughed. “Really? This is what you’re resorting to, to get me to touch you? Your pitch was a lot better last night.”
Lydia shook her head. I was trying to be cynical about it, but she really did look scared.
“I’m not trying to trick you. This doesn’t count. I won’t even move. I’ll stay right here; you have my Word. Please, to walk around with this level of power, there could be spontaneous effects. Anything you cast will be dangerous. Please, stay with me, just until this wears off. Question me, insult me, throw stones at me, I don’t care. Just please stay here, and don’t try to cast anything.”
“What are you so worried about? I feel great! I haven’t felt this good since I lost my insurance. It feels like my first day back on meds. I haven’t had this much dopamine in my system since I quit my job.” Another cold chill hit me. “Is this how it works? Have I been compulsive and depressed for twenty years because my body needed magic?”
“It’s too early for this conversation, but I see I have no choice. For centuries, the magic in your family was stable, predictable, easy to control. But now, in the last few generations… an element of chaos has entered your bloodline. The power is sweeping, surging, fluctuating in response to emotion. Any strong emotion can spiral out of control. The magic and emotion feed on each other, amplifying the spells until the caster can’t control them.”
“But I’m fine!”
“You don’t feel sad or angry?”
“I feel mildly annoyed at the uninvited supernatural creature who has suddenly decided she’s my girlfriend. I don’t remember voting on that, by the way.”
“Whatever you want. You can stay here and call me names all night.”
“The museum stuff was your fault, right? That thing that attacked us is connected to you somehow? Connected to all this?”
“You were never supposed to see that. I certainly didn’t expect you to be in the museum, just a few feet from the book when those men arrived. Perhaps you were drawn to the book as it was drawn to you, or maybe this is exactly what it looks like, an unfortunate coincidence.”
“So, the most terrifying night of my life was a coincidence?”
“I’ll take the blame for using incompetent men to do the job,” Lydia said. “They were supposed to liberate the book weeks ago, but they kept putting me off. I finally had to threaten their families, and they still waited until the last possible moment to get it done. But you were never in any danger. The Guardian recognized your blood as soon as it got close to you.”
“And what about Judy? Was Judy in danger?”
“Perhaps,” Lydia admitted. “But the Guardian’s primary task is to protect the book. It doesn’t just randomly attack bystanders.”
“I still don’t get it. How is this thing connected to me?”
“Because it’s your book. Taltorak is your family’s birthright, the magical tome Xavier Kovach sold his soul for - the greatest collection of magical knowledge ever assembled in one place. My Master took it from a prince he defeated centuries ago and used it to become a power player in Hell. Once we get you trained, he’ll sell your services to other lords and princes who need to accomplish tasks on Earth. My Master has suffered during these decades we’ve been without an heir, but if you’re as powerful as I think you are, you should be able to very quickly help us make up for lost time.”
“And this book just happened to be there, right in front of me, at the exact moment somebody let it out? That doesn’t sound like a coincidence to me. It sounds like somebody was watching me, maybe somebody even manipulated the director into giving me the job.”
Lydia looked uncomfortable. “It’s hard to say what’s intentional and what’s accidental when it comes to the book. It’s not alive in itself, but it contains many souls. It was created thousands of years ago and became a repository for the spirits of mages who sold their souls to Hell. They contribute their spells to the tome, then they bind their spirits to it. Most of them are grateful to do it, since joining a great conclave of wizards is much more pleasant than burning in the Lake.
“The book got itself moved to Texas when you were born and then got itself moved northeast when your father brought you to Boston. It spent ten years sitting in a government vault in Dallas before it was transferred to another one in Rhode Island, before finally ending up in your museum, just in time to be delivered to you.”
It was very unsettling to hear that Lydia knew my life in this kind of detail, knowing where I had moved from and when. “But it’s an inanimate object! How can it get itself moved across the country? Does it teleport?”
“No,” Lydia said, “but it can exert a mild influence on humans who get close to it, planting suggestions and influencing their dreams. Any bureaucrat or administrator who gets too close will be corrupted by it and feel an urge to move it where it needs to go, all while thinking the move is their own idea.”
“So, if it’s my book, where is it?”
Lydia raised her palm and a tiny version of Taltorak appeared in her hand.
“It’s all yours,” she said. “Eventually you’ll learn to summon it on your own, but I can fetch it for you in the meantime, whenever you need to study.” She extended her hand to me. “Go ahead, open it. I promise it won’t hurt you. I suspect it’s even happier to see you than I am.”
I felt a weird pull from the book, seeing it in her hand, but I shook my head, and made her take it away.
* * *
I made Lydia tell me the birth dates and death dates of each of the seven ancestors who came before me, amazed that she could carry six hundred years’ worth of memories in such detail. There had been thirty generations of Kovachs since Xavier signed his second contract, but only eight of us got the power.
Xavier lived 69 years. Born in 1298, died in 1367. Met Lydia when he was 54 years old, just a couple years after signing his first contract with Baalphezar. Lived in Romania and eventually married a princess named Lucrezia in his mid-50s.
Jacob only lived 43 years. Born in 1443, died in 1486. Lived in Romania and Moldova. Although he may have just killed a bunch of people in Moldova, without actually living there. Married a woman named Ghika, also late in life.
Tobias lived 56 years. Spent most of his life in a place called Montecassino in Italy. Born in 1525, died in 1581. When I asked Lydia when he got married, she shook her head and refused to answer.
Laurence Kovach lived 61 years, from 1618 to 1679. Lydia said he sailed all over the world during his life, and married a woman named Joanna in his 30s.
Anson Kovach also only lived 43 years. Born in 1746, died in 1789. Lydia says he died in battle but refused to elaborate. He married a woman named Brielle, also in his 30s, young by Kovach standards. Lydia says he was born in England, but King George III did something to his family, prompting him to become a mercenary for France.
Stefan Kovach lived 56 years. Lydia described him as a proud German. Born in 1889, died in 1946 in Nuremberg. Lydia said he married a woman named Elsa who brought her baby to America in 1945, shortly before Germany surrendered.
And then Lydia got quiet, and refused to continue, promising to tell me about Kovach number seven later, at a “more convenient time.”
And I guess I might as well include myself in this list. My mother, Cynthia Kovak, only lived 36 years. She had me on April 13, 2033, at Parkland Hospital in Dallas, Texas, and died when I was just eight years old. I lived in Dallas, alone with dad, until I was 12.
In 2045, my father moved us to a survivalist compound in West Texas for several months while the world went to shit, then moved to Boston to take a job with HDI.
Dad moved to Boston, but I didn’t go with him. I ended up in a fancy boarding school in Providence, sponsored by HDI, while my father moved to Boston to help with reconstruction after a series of kaiju attacks. He said the school was a perk of his new job and was very upset when I had to transfer to a normal school and move back in with him, two years later.
I was 17 when I met Judy in 2050, at a corporate co-op that used to be Watertown High School. We graduated in 2051. I immediately moved into the engineering dorm at Boston University but dropped out to take a job with Innovex after just two years. Judy and I got our own place and stayed together until I lost my job in March of 2055. Three years later, I was minding my own business on my twenty-fifth birthday when a demon popped up and promised to make all my dreams come true.
I met Lydia in 2058 and died… way too soon.
* * *
“I don’t understand Xavier, the first guy. I know what he did, but I don’t know why. What kind of man sells his children to the devil? Was he greedy? Was he stupid? Was he just plain evil? You knew the guy, what the hell was he thinking?”
“He was not stupid, and I would not call him evil. He would confess to greed, but that’s not why he sold you. He sold his soul for power. The first time, it was just him. Why did he do it? I think it was pride. Xavier was a village joke, a doddering gypsy, peddling love potions and gout cures door to door.
“He started as an alchemist. Xavier spent years in his hut, working with lead pellets and piles of manure. I remember a batch of fertilizer, some kind of growth magic he tested in the garden. The vegetables were huge, but they had no flavor. In lean times, he lived on those - choking down tasteless tomatoes bigger than my head.”
“So that’s why he signed? He just got tired of being poor?”
“Xavier had a strange obsession with the Prince of Darkness. He used to tell me stories about the early days of creation, when angels walked the Earth with men. God kicked Adam out of the garden, but the angels took pity on him. They came down and taught him things - agriculture, fire, even magic came from the angels. Xavier went on and on about it.”
Lydia dropped an octave and changed her gestures and the tone of her voice, imitating Xavier: “‘Azael taught us magic, and Asmodeus taught us war, but Lucifer was the best friend Man ever had. Apples and snakes be damned, Lucifer gave us music, and music is the sound of hope.’
“That’s how my Master met him. Xavier was trying to conjure Satan, but he got my Master instead. His spell was a dud. He thought it would summon the devil, but it was an open invitation - the infernal equivalent of pulling your pants down. It opened a random gate to Hell, open to anyone who cared to walk through. One of our Imps found it and called home.
“My Master interviewed Xavier and was shocked at how powerful he was. He was the perfect pawn - gifted, gullible, and lonely. The first contract was simple. My Master gave him the book, Taltorak, and Xavier agreed to do his will on Earth.
“Xavier was willing, but his flesh was weak. He was sick all the time, ruined by hard living and homemade wine. He was a confirmed bachelor - a hermit, really. I think he was handsome once, but misery left tracks on his face. Our book brought him wealth, and some sliver of respect, but Xavier was always a lonely man.
“He served us for ten years, then Baalphezar offered him a second contract. He offered Xavier a companion, a woman taken literally from his dreams. There were two conditions: he had to find a wife, and he had to give us dominion over his children. He tried to resist, but the moment he saw me, he loved me with all his heart. My Master came to him, and they drafted his contract together.
“Xavier was weak and smitten, but he was nobody’s fool. His conditions were very clever. Only the male children, only the mages, and I can’t touch them until they turn twenty-five. That was the main thing he insisted on, the provision he fought for, above all others. He thought this clause would defeat us. He thought the age limit would keep his children safe. By twenty-five, his sons would have wives and children of their own. He thought they would be settled. He thought they would be immune to me. Xavier went to his grave thinking he cheated us.”
“Did it work? Eight guys including me, how many have been married by twenty-five?”
“None.”
I blinked. “None?”
“Not one.”
I groaned and put my head in my hands. “Oh my god, it’s genetic. An entire family of wallflowers…”
“Anson called you ‘late bloomers.’” Lydia beamed. “I take it as a compliment. You reject other women because something in your souls is waiting for me.”
“So, you said Xavier was what, fifty when he met you? Who did he marry?”
Lydia squirmed a bit, pulling on her gown. The hem kept climbing up her leg. “I had the body of a woman, and the mind of a child when I met Xavier. I couldn’t really guide him, so I brought in one of my sisters and we— we took a shortcut.”
“What kind of ‘shortcut?’”
“He bought a princess.”
“Excuse me?”
“Xavier took a job in the court of some petty noble, a baron in Wallachia. He sat at this long table, turning lead into gold for hours, days at a time. Basarab used it to finance his war against the Turks. And when the time came, Xavier got him drunk and asked for a wife. It’s not uncommon. A soldier suffers a wound or performs an act of bravery, and the lord gives him a daughter. Mages usually prefer money, but it was a reasonable request.
“We rejected the first one - pathetic inbred thing with a lazy eye and arms like seal flippers. The third daughter became his wife. Lucrezia was no beauty, but she was strong, healthy, and smarter than average. She bore him a son and raised him in court. Xavier gave her an allowance and saw them twice a week.”
“Did they love each other?”
“No, but it didn’t matter. Lucrezia had her lovers, and Xavier had me. The bloodline went on, and Xavier raised me like a daughter. He taught me to cook. He taught me to sew. He taught me to dance, and he taught me to sing.”
“Lydia, this story is starting to worry me. Were you his lover or his daughter?”
“I stayed by his bed at night, but he never saw me as a woman. I sat by his pillow and played the harp while he slept. I loved him like—” Lydia wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her gown. “I loved him very much.”
* * *
I knew what I had to do next. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, but I was dragging my feet, somehow still hoping this was all a joke. I knew I had a gadget for this, but I had no idea where it was. I bought this thing for a video game project I never finished, and it had been gathering dust for five years. I finally found it in a plastic bin in the back of my closet.
I concealed the little box in my hand and walked up to Lydia. “Can you raise your head for me? I’d like to see your face.” She did, and I whipped the box up, taking a full 3-D scan of her head.
I slipped behind my desk and plugged it in. “Okay, Jeeves, I need you to run a comprehensive search for that face. Ignore the hair, the eyes, and both horns. Hit every black and gray source you have and pay any fee under twenty bucks.”
Jeeves had been my interface since high school, made in the likeness of a defunct query engine. His avatar was a jolly cartoon butler, not nearly as smart as a true modern interface, but hooked into hundreds of custom scripts I had been writing since I was a kid. No “real” hacker would trust Jeeves with the kind of shit I let him do, but he could hack a database or punch through a firewall without direct supervision, and he could respond to natural language queries, as long as I didn’t get cute.
“This is your last chance to come clean,” I told Lydia. “If you’re an actress or a witch, I’m gonna know in about thirty seconds. And if you’ve done porn, I’m about to see that, too. Last chance to stop me.”
Lydia said nothing, so I hit the button.
* * *
“There was like a century between the time Xavier died and the time you were allowed to meet Jacob. Were you in Hell for that whole time?”
Lydia nodded. “Most of it. I spent those years in training, doing lessons with Sylvia, dodging knives from my sisters. When Jacob was born, I spent some time at the scrying pool, watching him.”
“You watched him grow up?”
“Just a few times. The Earth is a long way from Hell. Scrying takes a lot of power. My Master was much more generous in those days. In retrospect, he spoiled me. I would stand there for hours, watching Jacob turn in his crib.”
“Did you watch me like that?”
“No. My Master was… very disappointed, when your predecessor died. Scrying was an expensive luxury; one that I did not deserve.”
“Anson and Stefan were soldiers. Xavier worked for this baron. What did Jacob do?”
Lydia gave a wistful smile. “Jacob was very special, but he was broken when I found him. He was trampled by a horse when he was young. The animal broke his limbs, and his mother broke the rest of him.
“She pampered him and babied him and treated him like an invalid for fifteen years. When I finally got to him, he was bedridden, so fat he could barely turn himself over. Baalphezar wanted to skip him, but in that condition, he would never father a child.
“He was angry, despondent, and terrified of women. I told him my purpose that first night, but he didn’t care. He didn’t care about demons or magic or sex. He just wanted to die. He begged me to kill him. Heaven or Hell, he didn’t care. I was desperate to help him, but I couldn’t get past his mother. I offered to kill the old woman, but Jacob refused.”
“So, you’re not above killing mothers when they get in your way.”
“I would have killed that one, absolutely. I saw him, Timothy. I saw what her ‘care’ did to him - gangrene and bedsores and ‘potions,’ sold by the local quack. She was killing him by inches. His ‘medication’ was opium and mercury, in a spoon full of rancid milk.
“Jacob wouldn’t let me kill her, so I took the form of an old woman and told her I was a nurse. I told her a wealthy merchant had offered to put him in my care. She didn’t want to give him up. She whined about the burden, but Jacob was all she had. I had to bribe her. Our ‘sanitarium’ was a villa seized from one of my Master’s rivals - a lovely place, right on the coast. I cleaned out the corpses and took Jacob there by carriage. Once he was settled, I regulated his diet and took him through some simple exercises, relying on advice from one of my sisters. The opium withdrawal was bad enough, but he was always whining for food.”
Lydia smiled. “He said he wanted to die, but he didn’t want to starve. He still wouldn’t touch me, but I found ways to bribe him. He asked me to bring him books - always books. I looted every mansion in Bucharest, finding books for Jacob. Eventually, he learned Latin and let me teach him how to channel magic. The day he learned his first spell, I wrapped him in a cloak and flew him to the mountains. We spent the day looking down on Brasov. I’ll never forget the look in his eyes when he saw the sun set on that mountaintop. He took my hand, and we made love for the first time. Ten years later, he built a castle there. I think it’s still standing.
“He learned magic very quickly after that. He started as a diviner. He enchanted a mirror in our sitting room and used it to scry on places far away. He would sit there for hours, exploring the world from his little chair. My Master thought he was useless, until he started hunting treasure. He summoned objects from far away and presented them as gifts. Jacob was very shrewd, and he had a silver tongue. He was the only one of your ancestors that my Master would speak to personally.
“He filled our coffers with gold from old shipwrecks. He stole valuables from homes all over Europe - an amazing collection of artifacts. He gave most of them to my Master, but he kept a few for himself. He spent hours fiddling with magic trinkets, learning secrets and breaking curses. He found a hundred magic texts and added all kinds of things to the book; Jacob was the only true scholar in your bloodline.
“Once he got tired of summoning objects, he started summoning demons. He started small, binding Imps from rival princes. In a month he had the whole villa crawling with imps - cleaning, fixing, and building things. I had to watch him closely once the summoning began; sometimes he had the Imps bring him food. He was scared to touch opium, but we fought a constant battle over pastries.
“When he got tired of imps, he started summoning elementals. That’s when it got dangerous. Elemental creatures aren’t exactly evil, but they are supremely indifferent to the lives and property of human beings, and they are profoundly stupid.
“Jacob almost destroyed the castle, learning to phrase commands. It frightened me to watch him, sitting in his chair while these massive things roared in front of him. They could have crushed him with one swipe, but I never saw him make a mistake. Anson had courage, but Jacob had nerve. I’ve never seen such composure.
“Jacob mastered the elementals and learned to summon bigger demons. He was very careful, always polite, and mindful of politics. He honored them and flattered them and paid them with gifts no other wizard could match. He learned Hell better than any human who ever lived. Not just for us, he loved it. He loved bribing and bargaining and playing the factions off each other. My Master thought he might betray us, but Jacob loved me. He said I saved his life.
“I remember his mother’s funeral.” She put a hand to her mouth and suppressed a little laugh. “He conjured a pile of ore and had the Imps mold it into a throne. It was a hideous thing - black and fluted - covered with figures in pain. Jacob cast a levitation spell so he could move it around.
“Then he prepared his entrance. He opened a gate to the grave site and floated through on that throne. He conjured a storm and made it rain blood on the crowd. You should have seen them run! He summoned six members of a rival lord’s elite guard to serve as pallbearers. That lord spent the next twenty years trying to kill him, but that castle was impregnable.”
Lydia was laughing so hard, she had to put one toe on the ground to steady herself. “You should have seen it, Timothy - six giant demons, ten feet tall, carrying the body of this tiny old woman! Everyone says I don’t have a sense of humor, but I made Jacob laugh all the time.” She dabbed one eye with the corner of her robe. “All your ancestors loved me, but Jacob was the only one who really understood me.”
“So, Jacob eventually got married?”
Lydia clucked her tongue and made a frustrated sound. “Ghika was another princess, one of the cruelest, most despicable women to ever walk the Earth. She was unspeakably ugly, not just in her face and body, but ugly in her soul, consumed with pettiness and hatred.
“Jacob didn’t have to seduce her, she sought him out, and offered him a fortune in gold to cast curses on her enemies. Jacob took her to his drawing room, and they talked and laughed for hours, thinking up the most grotesque punishments for people she hated. And trust me, she hated everyone. The more outrageous her ideas got, the harder Jacob laughed. Something about her, her pure, unrepentant evil, it entranced him. I can only assume she reminded him of his mother.
“Jacob refused the gold and said he would curse her enemies forever, if she agreed to marry him and give him a child. She agreed, they married, and in a month or so, she was pregnant. Timothy, I never understood it. I still don’t understand it, but I truly believe that child was conceived in love - the most disgusting, most twisted form of love I have ever seen.”
“How did Jacob die?”
Lydia took a deep breath and composed herself. “Most of the time, Jacob was content with his chair, but when he turned forty, he started talking about legs, about making a spell to heal himself. He studied anatomy and spent months experimenting on animals. His injuries were too severe for a healing spell, so he decided to wither his old legs completely and grow a new pair.
“Tobias could have done it, but this wasn’t Jacob’s specialty. It took him three years to make the spell. A young man would have survived the process, but Jacob’s heart was too weak. The spell worked, but the strain killed him. Jacob knew the risk. He just wanted to take a few steps before he died.”
My image search was still running, so I tried a simple name search. I found half a dozen historical texts that mentioned Jacob, but none of the modern historians thought he was real. They described him as a mythical figure, a boogeyman used to scare villagers in Moldova.
Then I tried a bunch of variant spellings, and suddenly popped up a painting.
“I think this is Jacob, but… Lydia? There’s a succubus in this painting, but it’s not you.”
The painting showed a fat man in a black robe with graying brown hair and a ridiculous evil goatee. Obviously a relative. I wondered if I would be that big, without the benefit of modern medicine. He was seated on an ornate wooden throne that seemed to be floating a few inches off the ground. He was facing the painter with the suggestion of a smirk on his face, and he had a nude succubus in his lap, a stunning Polynesian beauty with green eyes and spectacular tits.
As soon as the painting came up, Lydia screamed, “Whore! That filthy whore! Jacob said he destroyed this!” Lydia was so angry, she leaned in and started jabbing at her screen like she was trying to make my buttons work. “Where was this found? Where did they dig this up?”
“Says it was found while excavating the site of a castle in Calarasi. They thought it was cleaned out, but they went back and found all kinds of new stuff with ground-penetrating radar. That’s when they found this, in amazing condition.”
Lydia was so mad, I was expecting smoke to come out of her ears. “He had a secret basement! An entire secret basement! It probably wasn’t even in this dimension until his anchor failed!”
Lydia leaned in and poked her finger at the projection, like she was poking my ancestor in the face. “Oh, you better stay dead, Jacob. You better stay dead. Because if you ever come back, we will have words, you and I. A great many words. Does this painting still exist? In physical form somewhere?”
Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.
I checked. “Says it’s in the Moldovan National History Museum.”
“And you still have planes in this world? We could fly to this place and see this in person if you had enough money?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“All right,” she huffed. “We’ll talk about this later.” She started to turn away, then snapped her head back to me. “Do you know what else they got out of that basement? Do you have pictures of anything else they found?” But before I could start, she said, “No. Don’t show me now. I’m already too angry. But we will come back to this. We will absolutely come back to this.”
“Lydia, I am totally lost. Who is this naked chick and what is she doing on his lap?”
“My Master told Jacob to cultivate a source of information in the Overlord’s court, so naturally, he picked Noelani. She wasn’t even ranked in the harem! She was like eighth girl! She didn’t even get to participate unless he had guests! But Jacob treated her like a queen. Probably the best source we ever had. If Jacob had a couple more years to work her, he could have made my Master a Lord. She commissioned this painting as a gift for him. Didn’t even consider it an insult. She showed it off like she thought I would be pleased! And she was one of the Overlord’s pets, so I had to stand there with a big smile on my face and pretend to love it!”
Lydia waved her hand through the projection like she was trying to claw at it. “Can you make this go away, please, so I don’t have to look at those?”
* * *
“Okay, Xavier made gold and Jacob was a scholar. What was Tobias?”
“Tobias was a monk.”
I laughed. “A monk! Didn’t that make things difficult for you? Holy ground and all?”
“I had a contract with Tobias. I couldn’t wander the grounds, but I could follow him anywhere. We spent most of our time in his cell.”
“But he was a legitimate representative of the Church, right? Couldn’t he just call in some favors and
… exorcise you or something?”
“He could have, but the Church would have punished him.”
“Punished him for what?”
“Demons couldn’t enter the monastery without invitation. I had him by blood, but the elders wouldn’t believe that. They would think I was summoned, called by Tobias so he could make a deal.”
“That’s bullshit! He was a victim! Why would the Church punish its own monks?”
“Tobias had enemies at Monte Cassino. He was an accomplished scribe, but he had a history of defying the Abbot. Tobias had peculiar ideas about how to help sick and poor people, and he had no ear for politics. He said God told him what to write, and he would never put the Abbot’s judgment above God.
“His defiance was a minor thing, until I came. Tobias couldn’t go to the elders; they already hated him, and mages were routinely put to death. He would have been burned alive for consorting with demons. Tobias was a tortured soul, but he wasn’t tortured by me. He trapped himself between duty and desire and tore himself apart.
“He took to magic slowly, but he couldn’t deny his passion for it. Tobias lived at the mercy of his passions. He was fifteen when he entered the monastery - young and poor and sadly innocent. Chastity was hell for him. In a normal village, he could have found a simple girl and taken the mystery out of it, but in cloister, he thought about sex all the time.
“Lust was a snake in his belly, and he knew all about demons. He knew exactly what I was, and exactly what I could do for him. That first night, I sat by his bedside and whispered to him for three hours. Over the next few weeks, I extracted his darkest fantasies, and one by one, I made them all come true. Tobias was shy, but he knew exactly what he wanted. Every morning, he would take the whip and flog himself, and every night I would come and tend his wounds.
“Tobias couldn’t deny the magic, so he tried to use it for good. He learned healing spells and protective magic, hoping good deeds would help him atone for the sex. I told him no one ever went to Hell for sex, but he wouldn’t listen.”
I frowned. “I’m not a monk, but even I know that’s bullshit. Betrayal, adultery, rape - all those things can send you to Hell.”
“Some evil actions involve sex, but sexual acts are not inherently sinful. Men go to Hell for causing pain, Timothy. No one ever went to Hell for simple pleasure.” Lydia said that pointedly, like she was giving me personal advice.
“Wait, I should have thought of this first. Monks don’t get married, and they don’t have children. Wouldn’t that end the bloodline?”
“Tobias fathered a child, many years after he left Monte Cassino. But the story of how that happened, and what happened after, is not mine to tell.”
But that wasn’t the whole story about Tobias. She left out the most important part, details I didn’t learn until I read his journal in the book.
Tobias did eventually ask the Church for help, and it might have worked. He might have even earned direct intervention from the angels, but Lydia’s Master sent Sylvia to seduce the Abbot and drive him insane.
The Abbot locked the doors and burned half the abbey down to hide the shame of what she made him do. Lydia took Tobias a safe distance away, and made him watch his friends burn, all because he asked for help.
* * *
The first result from my face search was a series of drawings recovered from a shipwreck off the coast of Spain in 1910. The caption said the ship went down in 1679.
Lydia jumped off the wall and made an uncharacteristic squealing noise when she saw them. I swear, she was bouncing.
These moments are so precious to me, looking back, the moments when Lydia let her guard down, and let me see the girl under her demon mask.
The drawings were extraordinary renders of Lydia’s face and body, drawn in such exquisite detail, facial recognition was able to pick them out, almost four hundred years later.
“I can’t believe these survived!” Lydia put her hands on her hips and struck a pose for me. “Do charcoal drawings count as pornography? Am I a real modern girl now?”
“My ancestor drew these?”
“Oh no, Laurence couldn’t draw. These were done by his wife, Joanna. Our wife. I think she would let me say that. It was so beautiful, Timothy. No sneaking, no hiding, no stolen moments under the covers. She just accepted me and was at peace with my place in her husband’s life. The happiest I’ve ever been. Maybe the happiest I will ever be.”
Lydia smiled like she was remembering a joke. “All your ancestors had style, but Laurence was dashing. He enjoyed magic and women, but he loved ships, most of all. He spent many years as a vagabond, but by the time I found him, he was a sailor. He worked crew jobs for nine years, until he… acquired enough for his own ship.”
Lydia had a way with pauses. She used them like bait. “Acquired how?”
Lydia gave me her innocent kitten look. “Hard work and diligent saving, of course.”
“You’re telling me my ancestor was a pirate?”
Lydia gasped and put a hand to her breast. “Oh, I wouldn’t call him a pirate. That’s a very rude word. He made his name carrying spices and gunpowder, but Laurence loved ships. When he saw a fine ship in the hands of a bad captain, it pained him. And sometimes, when he couldn’t stand it anymore, he would take steps to… relieve that pain. He never actually ordered an attack, but every now and then, he would stand on the prow of his ship and address the crew.”
Lydia lowered her voice again and adopted a new expression - stern, with a hint of whimsy. She looked like a medium, channeling this dead man.
“‘See that ship over there? Look at her, men. A beautiful ship like that, covered in barnacles, rotting planks on her deck, fittings that haven’t been polished in a month. Her mast is bent, and her sail is patched, and she’s carrying too much weight for her size. Yessir, I’d like to have a few words with her captain. Man like that doesn’t deserve a ship that fine.’ He would lower his eyes and rub his face - sometimes he would even drop a tear. Then he would go below decks and wait. The men would load the cannons and strap on swords. Then Laurence would come back and start giving orders…
“We eventually got a house in port, but in the early days, we both traveled with him. He would go to taverns and bring women back to the ship. Sometimes two or three at a time. We would have these amazing nights, then at the end, he would have me do the demon reveal to run them off. But that backfired once. One barmaid was really happy to see me. She moved in with us for a while.”
Lydia reached out and brushed her hand through the projection. “It’s so good to see these again. You have them in your machine now, so I can see them any time?”
I nodded.
“Thank you,” she said. “Can we go to the next one, please?”
* * *
The next match was a portrait. As soon as she saw it, Lydia jumped down again for a closer look. It was a gorgeous painting. Lydia and another ancestor, posing in some elaborate garden.
I didn’t recognize it, but Lydia squealed again and clapped her hands like a little girl. “I haven’t seen this in centuries. Where did you find it?”
“Jeeves, where is this painting?”
“This painting hangs in the Museum of Versailles.”
Lydia said, “The man in this picture is your ancestor, Anson Kovach. Anson was an English mercenary who essentially betrayed his country and became a soldier for Louis XVI. There was a war in America, the start of your revolution. Louis called for wizards, so I put Anson in tails and took him to court. He had a warrior’s heart, and a brilliant tactical mind. This was painted just days before he left for America. He spent three years in the New World, fighting the English. Louis sent him with D’Estaing’s fleet, as part of a loan package to the Colonies.
“Anson loved your people. He didn’t care for democracy, but he loved the land, and the spirit of your common folk. If it wasn’t for Anson, you’d probably be English. Stefan hated the Allies, of course, but Anson’s writing about America convinced him to send his wife here after she got pregnant. Stefan didn’t really like Americans, but he admired them. He wanted his child to learn the country, infiltrate the power structure, and conquer it from within. Your predecessor wasn’t worthy of that dream. Perhaps you are.”
I laughed. “Nobody conquers nations anymore. It’s all one big corporation now, cut up into ten parts.”
Lydia nodded. “He would have been sad to see that. Anson loved newspapers. He used to read me letters, debates about the new system. He had some sympathy for Hamilton, but he said it would take a king to make it work. Without a monarch to keep them in line, he said the commoners would eat their own young. Was he right?”
I shrugged. “Yeah, I don’t keep up with political shit, but I’m sure my dad would have had a lot to say about this.”
* * *
The next result was another painting. The portrait at Versailles was lovely, but this was devastating. I’d never seen this kind of texture before. I’m no expert, but the quality was obvious. This was painted by a master.
But that’s not what made my jaw drop. The technique was beautiful, but the scene was horrific. The image drained my strength and leaned me against my desk. I whispered, “Mother of God” and started to shake.
The painting was a vision of Hell - jutting black rocks and a boiling red sky, centered on some Gothic palace. The structure was built on a giant bridge, arcing over a river of lava. A flock of demons flew in formation over the palisade. The foreground was so vivid, it made my eyes hurt.
The central figure was a succubus, sprawled like a jungle cat. Her body was exquisite, painfully nude. Her skin glowed like gold on my screen. Her tail was hovering coy over one shoulder. Her wings cut the sky like a pair of black knives. She had long claws on each hand, pink, like human fingernails. One claw was bent seductively, inviting me to come and play.
Her eyes were deep, luminous blue. Her hair hung in golden curls, halfway down her back. The effect was erotic, until you saw the face. Her mouth was twisted in a maniacal grin. Blood dripped from her teeth and ran down her chin, pooling somewhere in her cleavage.
Her right hand was raised in invitation, but her left was on the ground, wrapped around a gruesome meal: the half-eaten remains of a human leg. There was still meat left on the foot and the knee joint, but the calf was eaten down to the bone.
The bottom of the picture was strewn with human remains - the bloody, gnawed pieces of one man. His arm was nothing but bone. His other leg was lying behind the demon, discarded like an animal’s toy. His chest was an open wound before her.
And there, in the corner, was his severed head. The hair was wrong, but everything else was dead on. This was a Kovach face. The painting was called “Adam and Eve.”
I couldn’t speak. I just stared at it. The detail was so good, I didn’t have to magnify the face. This was Lydia - a stunning representation of Lydia, perfect to the last detail. She was the most hideous thing I had ever seen, and she was standing in my living room.
“It’s true,” I said. “It’s all true. The book, the magic, the contract… My soul - you bastards have stolen my soul. Jeeves, who painted this?”
Lydia answered first. “You won’t find him. This was painted by an angel.”
“A real angel?”
“Real as they get.”
“Bullshit. Jeeves, give me everything you can find about this painting. I want everything.”
My screen filled with the fat pink face of an art professor, an officious balding man with tiny glasses and a white beard. The quality was awful, mottled and burned like a high school filmstrip.
“This painting was found in the personal collection of an SS Colonel. It wasn’t on display at his estate, but it’s actually quite valuable, dating back to the 17th century. We think this is religious propaganda, commissioned by the Church of Rome. Art from that period is characterized by dark colors, rich textures, and simple moralistic themes. This work was inspired by repression, superstition, and a pathological fear of female power. The demon in this painting is a metaphor for all women, preying on the inherent goodness and purity of the male.”
I took a step back and started to laugh. “Well, the professor says you’re just a metaphor.” I brushed the sweat off my forehead in an exaggerated gesture of relief. “Glad I found this, I was startin’ to worry.”
“This painting is an act of revenge,” Lydia said, “created by one of my Master’s enemies. It was painted by the Angel Roland, a guardian working for Raphael. In 1664, my Master sent Laurence to kill a bishop in the Church of Rome. Roland was his guardian. I drew the bishop from sanctuary, imitating the voice of a child. It was a hard fight, but we won. Laurence killed the Bishop and sent Roland back to Heaven.”
Lydia smirked. “I guess he took it personally. He made this painting as a warning to Laurence, trying to drive a wedge between us. The palace is accurate, and the figures are perfect, but this atrocity pictured here, I did not do this thing. Stefan found the painting and kept it in his archives. I sent an Imp to destroy it, but it survives in your machine. Roland was a wily old rabbit. I guess he had the last laugh after all.”
“That assignment Laurence did, that’s the kind of thing you want me to do. You want me to kill people.”
Lydia didn’t hesitate. “Sometimes but killing is a small part of your job. I suspect you’ll be more like Jacob - a diviner and seeker of lost things. Violence was necessary in the old days, but your world is open to us now. We can use demons for the dirty work.”
“But you don’t deny it. You’ll be asking me to kill.”
“No, I don’t deny it. But think about it: that bishop we killed, Laurence gave him an instant of pain and his soul floated to Heaven like a soap bubble. He’s up there right now, basking under a fig tree, singing praises to God. Destroy a good man and he spends eternity in paradise. Destroy an evil man and he gets his just punishment in Hell. The killing isn’t so bad if you remember the big picture.”
I just stared at her.
“You won’t be killing the same people your ancestors did. The Church destroyed itself before you were born. Most of your assignments will be attacks on rival servants. These are sick, ruthless creatures. You have a good heart, Timothy. You will enjoy killing men like this. You won’t be killing good guys; there aren’t that many good guys left.”
“Wait,” I said. “You have wings in this picture. Do you still have wings?”
Lydia flinched, but she recovered so fast, I almost missed it. “You’ve heard legends about angels earning their wings? Well, demons do the same thing.”
“So that’s it? You haven’t earned your wings yet?”
Lydia whipped her head up in a sudden flash of anger. “I earned them centuries ago! I earned them the minute Xavier gave us his children. I earned my wings in six weeks. No succubus had ever earned her wings that fast. My sisters were furious. Most of them still hate me.”
“So, what happened?”
“Seventy years ago, my wings were… taken from me.”
“Why?”
“I made a mistake, a big one.”
“What kind of mistake? Stop dodging this.”
Lydia looked profoundly uncomfortable. She pleaded with me. “Timothy, please don’t make me talk about this. I’ve spent a human lifetime trying to live this down. That’s why you’re so important to me. You’re my last chance to set things right. My Master confined me to Hell for decades as punishment for my failure. I thought I would never see the Earth again, but then you came along and rescued me. I’m the key to your future, and you’re the key to mine. You’re going to be the most brilliant servant my Master ever had. You’re going to turn this world on its ear, and I’m going to get my wings back.”
I rubbed my temples and slumped across my desk. “Great. A million demons in Hell, and I get one with a work ethic.”
* * *
“Oh, no,” I said, pulling up the next match. “Please don’t be what this looks like. No no no no no…”
This result was a black and white photo, very old, but from upscaled video. The image was simple, but it took a minute for my brain to process what my eyes were telling me. It was obviously Lydia, wearing a 1940s dress and a ridiculous hat. The hat would have looked silly on a modern woman, but it fit her hair and makeup perfectly. She was standing next to a man in uniform. I recognized it immediately, but I didn’t want to believe it. It was absurd. Impossible.
“Jeeves, where did you get this picture?”
“This photograph is from a biography series called ‘Hitler’s Henchmen,’ produced in 1998, restored in 2027. This is from tape four.”
“Identify the woman in this picture.”
“There is no name associated with that image.”
“Identify the man.”
“The man is Colonel Stefan Kovach of the Schutzstaffel, First Sorcerer of the Reich.”
“He looks like me.”
Lydia said, “Yes.”
His hair was blond, and his nose was too small, but that could have been my face, centered above those lightning bars. I collapsed in my chair. History settled like a boot on my neck. Then I remembered something. “Jeeves, repeat that last name!”
“Kovach.”
“Spell it!”
“K-O-V-A-C-H.”
I was stunned for a moment, then I started to laugh. “I’ve been sent to Hell by a typographical error.” I turned to Lydia. “It’s been fun, lady, but you’ve got the wrong guy. My name is Kovak. K-O-V-A-K. Sorry to waste your time, you can let yourself out.”
“Stefan’s wife changed her name at Ellis Island.”
“But still, the name on that contract is Kovach. That’s not my name.” My last name should have been Peterson, but my father never formally married my mother. He bought a ring, but never proposed.”
“I don’t have you by Name. I have you by Blood. That contract was signed in Kovach blood, the same blood I smell in your veins.”
“So, you’re telling me my great-grandfather was a Nazi? That’s insane!”
“Stefan knew the Reich was doomed after Normandy. Hitler didn’t believe his Oracles, but Stefan always did. He used the last of his fortune to send Elsa and her unborn child to America. By the time he was captured, Elsa was already working in the States. I stayed with her until Stefan was executed, guarding her identity. Their marriage was a close thing. It took me forever to find a mate for Stefan. He loved me desperately. He didn’t want anyone else, but the bloodline must continue. He was fifty-five when he fathered James.”
“Stefan was our champion,” she said, “our greatest success. The most powerful, most effective mage your bloodline ever produced. And the easiest seduction. I had him immediately, the first night. I said my usual thing, ‘I am a succubus in the service of…’ and he said, ‘rub my feet.’”
“So, I rubbed his feet. We made love a few moments later and fought side by side for the next thirty years.”
“Lydia, how many people did Stefan kill?”
She shrugged. “It’s not the kind of thing you count. There was a war on. Stefan didn’t spend much time on the battlefield, but he probably killed three thousand men in naval battles. He never went to the camps, if that’s what you’re asking.”
* * *
“Timothy, I know you don’t owe me anything, but could I ask you to wait, before you look at this? If this is what I think it is, it’s going to make you very upset, and with the amount of magic surging in your system right now, I’m worried that you could hurt yourself.”
“It’s that bad? You think I’m gonna lose my shit over an old CNN video?”
“Timothy, you’re about to learn what happened to your grandfather, and make me relive the worst failure of my life.”
I always wondered why my mom blocked genealogy sites. Cynthia Kovak was her own kind of computer geek, raised in the mobile computing and AI boom of the early 21st century. I remember her setting up all the devices around our house, teaching me how to plug in TVs and use a kid’s tablet computer. I even helped her build a PC once, long before I was old enough to know what it was.
My family was so poor for so long, me and dad used the same router for most of my childhood. And even when we got a new one, we just kept using the same settings Mom set up before she died. It’s the kind of thing you just don’t think about. Mom blocked all the usual kid’s stuff, to protect me from porn and news and adult sites I wasn’t ready for. But she also blocked sites where you can look up your ancestors and get your DNA checked.
She also blocked every government agency in Arizona, in a weird, encrypted text file it took me forever to find. Mom hacked the shit out of our little home router, to keep her inquisitive son from learning who his grandfather was.
She went out of her way to make it boring when I asked about him. She told me Jim Kovak was a bad man who went to prison for doing bad things, but she made me think he was a car thief or that he had killed somebody drunk driving - exactly the kind of sad, boring crime that a teenage boy is likely to overlook, especially when his first few searches turn up a hundred guys with the same name as his grandfather, but nothing on the man himself.
Grandpa Jim died in prison when I was two years old, and Mom kept nothing that belonged to him. No clothes, no letters, no family photos. Nothing. It was like he never existed, and I grew up believing he wasn’t even worth looking for.
It’s easy to forget how difficult it was to find records of pre-Internet stuff after 2045. A lot of this tape had just never been scanned, and those archives that did exist were confined to carefully curated walled gardens, maintained by corporations that didn’t exist anymore.
But Jeeves had better sources now. The old I1, I2 stuff had been replaced with modern Datacore nodes, and an army of obsessive geeks had ransacked hundreds of old datacenters, once any hobbyist could rent or steal quantum time and crack the original encryption.
“Well, you’re in luck,” I told Lydia. “This thing is locked in a Time-Warner archive with decent encryption, so we have exactly as long as it takes Jeeves to crack this for me to get some sleep and let this magic bleed off. If I’m still carrying too much power in six hours or so, we’ll just have to take our chances.”
The encryption was good enough, I had time to sleep, shower, and grab a shitty breakfast burrito before it was done. It turned out to be a low-res video clip from CNN, recorded on August 17th, 1986. The dateline said Chandler, Arizona.
Jeeves didn’t flag the whole clip - just three frames of a crowd shot. Dozens of people with shocked expressions; some of them were crying. Lydia’s face was surrounded by a glowing green box.
“Zoom. Interpolate.” The picture was grainy, but it was her. “Play the whole clip.”
“Terror hit the quiet southwestern town of Chandler, Arizona today, as sixty-two people were killed in a devastating magical assault.”
“Stop! Repeat that.”
“Terror hit the quiet southwestern town of Chandler, Arizona today, as sixty-two people—”
“Sixty-two people. Continue.”
“…construction engineer James Kovak has been taken into custody by agents from Bluestar 10.” The camera lingered on the smoking ruins of a trailer park. A man was being led away from the wreckage in handcuffs.
I froze the scene and zoomed his face. It had to be Grandpa Jim - a little older, a little fatter than the pictures I saw on dad’s phone, but it was him. He looked like a wreck, dressed in dirty jeans and a worn flannel shirt. His nose was bright red from booze, and his hair stuck out in all directions, like he hadn’t combed it for days. Tears flowed freely down his face. The camera caught him mid-blubber. Jim was surrounded by police in bulletproof vests. His hands were cuffed behind his back, but two cops still had guns trained on him. The 1986 version of Lydia watched from the crowd as they took him away.
Seven decades later, I stood in my living room and screamed at her. “Did you make him do this? Did your Master make him do this?”
I was yelling in her face, but Lydia didn’t flinch. “No one made him do this. Your grandfather was a sick man.” Her face twitched as she started to cry. “I did everything I could. Please believe me. I tried everything, but he had stopped listening years ago. He was too angry, too hurt. He wouldn’t listen to me. Jim never listened to me.”
An instant of pity, but I wasn’t done yelling. “Bullshit! You’re covering for your Master. You made him kill those people, didn’t you? Didn’t you?”
“No. I swear to you, I did not. You don’t understand. Jim didn’t just kill those people; he destroyed himself, and he destroyed me. My Master would never order a slaughter like this. It’s too public. It would draw too much attention. Centuries ago, a mage could do this with impunity, but your governments are too powerful now. There are too many of these ‘heroes’ working for the state.” Lydia pleaded with me. “Please believe me. I would give anything to undo this crime. You have no idea what this cost me.”
I didn’t want to believe her, but it made too much sense. Jim was forty-two when he did this. He had decades of work ahead of him. Baalphezar wouldn’t just throw that away. “Why, Lydia? Why did he do it?”
“He wasn’t trying to kill everyone,” she said. “He was trying to kill two people: a woman who broke his heart and the man she was sleeping with.” Lydia started to cry again. “But he was angry, and drunk, and stupid, and he didn’t know his own strength. He used too much power. He destroyed everything. If he’d been sober, he could have stopped himself. But when he saw his woman with another man, he just didn’t care anymore. He used rage to fuel his power and killed them all.”
“Isn’t it your job to keep us together? How did you let him get like this?”
“Jim was always difficult. I tried to distract him, but he got bored with me. Those last two years, all he cared about was whiskey and television, but he wasn’t always like that.
“He accepted me in a few days,” she said, “after I announced what I was. He said I should never look like a demon in front of him, and he dressed me up like some country singer he had a crush on. Even made me take her form a few times.
“Jim didn’t know many spells, but he liked to break things, and burn things. He used to go to bars and provoke normal humans. Jim felt persecuted, bullied by the world. When he discovered his power, he wanted to get even. He started hanging out in biker bars and strip clubs owned by drug cartels, to try and pick fights with guys who ‘had it coming.’
“He started to talk like a vigilante, like he was on some kind of righteous crusade, as if getting drunk and blasting drug dealers with magic made him a hero. Then one day, he burned a whole motorcycle club to the ground, and got caught using magic on camera.”
Lydia paused. “I need to explain something about how Hell works. We don’t send demons to seduce senators or presidents. They have to stay clean for the cameras. We send demons to seduce their senior staff, and the hungry young ones who want to be senior staff. One of those aides worked for an Arizona senator who wanted to make a name for himself fighting the War on Drugs. When I told my Master that Jim was about to be arrested, he sent Sylvia to seduce someone on this senator’s staff, a despicable young man who was delighted to meet her.
“By the time the government came for Jim, accompanied by some genetically engineered monster that ate magic, the deal was already done. They took him in, but instead of putting him in prison, they offered him a job.
“And thus began the happiest, and most productive period in your grandfather’s life. He became a drug warrior, a covert metahuman asset managed by an American intelligence agency. Some of the assignments didn’t even require killing. They sent him in to burn fields and destroy processing facilities. And if a few dozen cartel soldiers died in the process, that was just icing on the cake.
“Jim started learning more advanced magic and started using me to scout locations. It was a good time for us, truly working as a team. He would even joke around and buy gifts for me, after a job well done. He saw himself as a black book superhero, fighting the good fight by doing the dirty jobs that respectable heroes couldn’t do.”
“And how many innocent people got caught in this crossfire?”
“Jim never intentionally killed women or children, but when you’re burning entire villas, wiping out whole factories with a single spell, there was no way to be sure.
“After a decade of loyal service, Jim started to wonder why there were still so many drugs on the street. He was wiping out millions in product every week, but cocaine was everywhere, and the prices were going down. He started sending me into government offices, asking me to steal documents and help him figure out what was going on.
“Eventually he learned that his cartel targets were not random, and they were not simply the most productive or the most vulnerable sites. The CIA had picked a new drug lord to run the cartel, and Jim was being used to eliminate his competition.
“It crushed him. Jim survived all those years because he saw himself as a patriot, serving his country with blood, magic, and fire. He saw his killing as a righteous crusade, so when he finally realized how cynical the whole thing was, how pointless his efforts had been, it didn’t just depress him, it destroyed his whole concept of who he was.
“We were planning to buy a ranch, financed with stolen drug money. Jim had a gang of Texas crooks set up to launder it for him, but they cheated him, and stole six million dollars. Jim killed them, of course, but the damage was done, and the money was gone.
“Jim stopped working in 1984, and I spent the last two years in his tiny trailer, while he spent every night with his mistress down the road. Jim rescued Maria from a Tijuana whorehouse and brought her home across the border. It was all quite romantic in his head. She was his cartel princess, and he was her knight in shining cowboy boots. He set her up with her own trailer and slept there every night. To get away from my ‘nagging,’ he said.
“The attack you just saw started with a video tape, recorded by Maria’s boyfriend. Jim hadn’t used his powers in so long, nobody really believed the stories anymore. Maria’s boyfriend decided to call out this ‘Redneck Archmage’ and make himself a legend by taking him out. So, he drove to Arizona to get his princess back, and videotaped the touching reunion, with both of them making it clear that Maria felt nothing but contempt for Jim, and that she was delighted to be back with her lover.
“It broke him. He was already angry; he was already drunk. I begged him not to watch the tape, of course. I begged him not to go. I told him it was a trap. I told him he was taking the bait. But I was just a tiny, annoying voice in his ear by then. I never had a chance.”
“I expected the government to execute him,” Lydia said, “but this senator really did see Jim as a kind of hero and got the governor to intervene. Jim got a life sentence, and lived a shocking long life, into his 90s. Even more astounding, he managed to father a child with a nurse in prison, fathering the woman who became your mother.
“I was long gone by then, suffering exile in Hell, convinced that the contract was over, and the bloodline was dead. My Master’s status plummeted; all his favors dried up. His palace quickly looked like a ghost town. And then, after we all thought it was done, you were born. You wonder why I was so happy to see you? You saved me, Timothy. You already saved me, just by being alive.”
I stared at the frozen image of my grandfather, sighing as the timeline clicked into place. “That’s how it happened. Jim killed those people, and Baalphezar took your wings.”
* * *
“You say I’m the eighth Kovach mage in this bloodline, but you’re skipping one. Is magic what drove my mother crazy? Is magic what killed her?”
“Your contract specifically prohibits contact with females of this bloodline. If she had been male, I could have helped her, but for a woman, I could do nothing.”
“So, you’re not denying it. Did demons do that to her?”
“No,” Lydia said. “Genetics did that to her - a terrible roll of the dice that gave her power she could not control. It was a miracle that she was able to maintain her sanity for as long as she did.”
“Lydia, if I find out you’re lying to me, you and your Master are going to pay for this… somehow.”
Lydia shook her head, pretending to be on the verge of tears. “Timothy, I would never hurt your mother. I would have done anything to help her, but Xavier’s contract absolutely forbade it. I stood to gain nothing from her suffering, or from yours, growing up without her.”
“Sounds like you gained quite a bit,” I said, “if this power manifesting in a female is what it took to restart your little wizard project. You even stand to benefit from my shitty childhood, since it makes me a nice easy target for you.”
“For centuries,” Lydia said, ignoring my accusations, “the magic in your family was strong, steady, and predictable. But something changed before your grandfather was born. The power took a turn and began responding to emotion, surging when the heirs were excited or angry, failing when they were sad or afraid. By the time it reached your mother, it was completely wild, more than her body could contain. If she’d been a man, I could have stabilized it and siphoned it off, as I offered to do for you, as I offered to do for your grandfather, time and time again.”
“So, if you’re telling the truth, if demons didn’t do this to her, could it have been angels? Or gods, or something else?”
“I suppose it’s possible,” Lydia said, “but the angels in Heaven haven’t interfered on Earth since God left. The only one left down here is Gabriel, and he’s a soldier, not a mastermind. He wouldn’t have the skills or the subtlety to meddle in a bloodline like this.”
“So, God really did abandon us and turn demons loose on Earth? I know humans suck, but what did we do to deserve this?”
“We’ve heard a thousand rumors,” Lydia said. “Most of the new souls blame the Christian churches for turning their backs on God, but no one can agree on any single event that tipped the scales. Demons like to say Satan finally defeated God and left our universe, satisfied that he had his revenge.”
“So, it’s not just God. Satan’s gone, too?”
“They apparently left together and turned their respective domains over to their seconds sometime at the beginning of this century. Michael took God’s place on the Throne of Heaven and the current Overlord took Satan’s place in Hell. I would rather not say his name.
“Demons can now visit the Earth any time we want, as long as our Masters have enough influence to get portals approved. The only thing holding us back now is the sheer amount of magic required, and the occasional intervention from Gabriel. God is clearly punishing the Earth for something, but no one can agree on any particular sin.
“Certain apocryphal versions of the Bible refer to a time of tribulation when humans were supposed to suffer, but that period was only supposed to be for seven years, not fifty, and it should have been preceded by a Rapture that took all the good souls up to Heaven. Either that didn’t happen, or there were so few good souls left on Earth, no one really noticed when they disappeared.”
“My father’s family believed in stuff like this,” I said. “They were old school Christians, who followed some weird version of the New Testament, full of extra books that had Jesus coming back from the dead. Maybe they were right, and we’re all just living in Hell on Earth.”
“I assure you,” Lydia said, “as unpleasant as 21st century Earth may be, it is still far superior to Hell.”
* * *
“And there really is a contract? A physical contract?”
Lydia produced it instantly: a scrap of paper, ten inches long and three inches wide, covered in tiny script. She bowed slightly and dropped it into my hand.
The contract was soft and warm, pulsing like blood under skin. I threw it to the ground and the damn thing wriggled toward me, crawling up the leg of my desk. Once it reached the top, the contract glowed for a moment and spread itself out, expanding to fit the surface.
I backed against the wall and enjoyed a full-blown case of the willies, twitching like I had a roach in my hair. “What the fuck was that? Is that thing alive?”
“It’s just a form,” Lydia said, “enchanted so it’s easier to read.”
I crept up to my desk and put one finger on it. The damn thing had a pulse. The contract was creepy as hell, but I could read it. The handwriting was elegant and clear, written in a language that made no sense at all. “What language is this?”
“Latin. Specifically, Medieval Latin. Most of this was written by Xavier.”
“I can’t read Latin.”
“I have the contract memorized. I can recite it for you in English.”
“But if I can’t compare it with the hard copy, how do I know you’re telling me the truth?”
“I’m not allowed to lie about the contract,” Lydia said.
“But are you allowed to lie about being allowed to lie about the contract?”
Lydia said nothing.
“Great.” I gestured to the acre of flesh on my desk. “I think I’ve seen enough.” The contract rolled itself up and darted back to Lydia’s hand.