But these words… The syntax was wrong, and the grammar. They made no sense, as if a child had written them. My lips moved as I sounded out the odd phrases. “Fucking fuck facers, bad man baby takers? Burn off bad, fire fire fun fun. Run run. Fly!” Then I noticed, written in blood on the concrete next to the burning men was one word:Mama.
Mama? The demonic symbol for mother was almost identical to the angelic sigil, and it gave me a chill to think how closely the two languages were related. Was this demon after a woman, a mother?
I stepped toward the dead men, speaking the word to extinguish fire, though I knew it would most likely be futile. Sure enough, it had no effect. Angelic and demonic powers canceled each other out on Earth, now that the balance was skewed toward the shadows. I stepped toward a blanket on one side of the room, prepared to snuff the flames the old-fashioned, human way, when I stopped.
And stared.
Sitting to the side of the piled-up men, so short I hadn’t seen it at all, sat the demon.
It didn’t resemble a possum or raccoon, as Philanthropy had reported. It was the exact shape and size of a human toddler, not quite two years old. But it had glittering, dark gray skin, like wet hematite sparkling in bright light. It was naked, and obviously a female. Her small hands and feet were perfectly formed, and her tummy pooched out like any healthy toddler. But she had a small, perfect pair of horns at the top of her forehead, and her dark hair—which looked oddly lavender, or possibly blue, in the smoky room—was a tangled mess that ended above her shoulders. She held something unusual in one of her hands. Another piece of cotton? I watched, dumbfounded, as she cooed and leaned toward the burning man on her side of the pyre, holding out the small white object.
The unmistakable smell of toasting marshmallow mixed with the other, less pleasant scents.
“Demon?” I called, holding my soul knife ready. The Celestial sword on my back was too large for this task, to vanquish such a small foe. I felt queasy for a moment at the thought of killing her. It.
This form could be some sort of disguise, I supposed, though my powers of perception had never failed me before. But when the creature looked up at my question, and her round, dark eyes met mine, I saw not shadows in those depths, but glittering starlight, as if every nighttime sky that had ever existed had coalesced inside her gaze. It had to be a trick. Her physical form was made of shadows… or coated with them. But her soul, reflecting back out of those eerie eyes, was as innocent as any two-year-old Novice Mikhail had ever formed.
“Mikhail,” I rasped as I stared. I could hear him in the other room, speaking in Mandarin, then Vietnamese, then Spanish. He was releasing imprisoned children, and soothing them.Mik, make them sleep. You need to see this.I felt rather than heard him obeying my request.
In seconds, he was there, stepping through the narrow door. “Gav, what is it? Is that… Is she…?”
“The perfect demon,” I said softly as I watched her gobble down the marshmallow that she had toasted over the man she was burning into cinders. She licked her tiny, sharp nails clean, then stuffed one entire fist in her mouth, gnawing at it for any remaining sugary goo. “The glitter baby.” Our eyes met, and I was almost relieved to see he looked as befuddled as I did.
“These men were evil,” Mikhail said, his eyes trained on the entity we’d come to extinguish. “They had stolen these children, purchased them, and… had done great harm to them, Gavriel. I don’t understand.”
I nodded. Leaving these men alive would have caused much more damage to the balance than killing them. Honestly, if I had come upon them, I would have killed them myself, though not quite as horrifically. It was almost as if this demon had done a particularly dangerous, angelic mission. And brought marshmallows to celebrate.
“Unless it was planning to kill the children later?” As we watched, the demon squeezed her face up in a grimace, staring slightly cross-eyed at her hand. A tiny puff of smoke appeared, and another marshmallow lay on her open palm.
“Gah!” she said, clearly pleased as she clumsily threaded it on a nail, then held it out to toast it as well.
“This isn’t normal, Gav. Is it?” Mikhail asked uncertainly. “I’ll admit, I haven’t been to Earth for a long while, except for Las Vegas. And I did see a similar creature in a Cirque show there. But when you say you’re fighting the forces of evil, this isn’t what you meant?—”
“No,” I assured him, not looking away from the demon for an instant. “It’s normally masses of shadows with edges like teeth, or razors, that shred my soul as well as my physical form.”
“I thought so,” he mumbled as we watched the toddler patiently toasting the new marshmallow. Then, not so patiently, she gave up and stuffed the whole thing in her mouth, making disgusting slurping noises as she chewed and drooled.
When she was done, the demon child burped and stood, toddling around the burning child traffickers toward me. I backed up a step. “Come no closer, demon,” I warned, holding the knife up. “I am High Angelus Gavriel, and I am here to…” I couldn’t say extinguish, or kill, to a fucking toddler. Mikhail muffled what might have been a cough. “I am here to apprehend you,” I finished weakly.
She blinked those miraculous, deep eyes at me, tilted her head and said, “Dada?”
Mikhail’s unrestrained laughter was the last thing I’d ever thought to hear on this trip to Earth. I glared at him.It has to be a trap.
I think you’d better apprehend the wee one before it drools on your robe, he shot back.
I blinked, feeling an unexpected tugging on my trouser leg. “How did you move that fa—?” Before I’d finished my question, she had pulled herself to standing using my leg—yes, wiping marshmallow, gray glitter, and spittle all over the bottom of my trousers—and had unfolded her tiny wings.
Mikhail and I gasped simultaneously. They weren’t made of shadows, like the other beings I’d fought and sent back to the Abyss for so long. No, hers were feathers, individually perfect, but glossy and shining an almost matte black that seemed to soak in the light around her. She pumped them a few times and took off awkwardly into the smoke-hazed air.
Her tiny face—which was also a perfect, sweet, normal toddler’s face, only dark gray—screwed up in what looked like the beginnings of a tantrum. “Dada?” she demanded again, wobbling in the air as she pumped her wings.
“No!” I replied, slightly horrified, and stepping back.
And then the damned thing started crying, like I’d struck her. Great, glittery tears rolled down her squalling face as she wailed… then began to tumble from the air, forgetting to flap. She was about to fall onto the pyre! I stepped forward to catch her, the thought that maybe I had been deceived after all flashing through my mind, as those wide, innocent eyes narrowed slightly when I ducked under her.
But before I could rescue her, she was plucked from the air by a massive, scarred hand. I fell on my ass in the middle of the burning pile of now-dead criminals, cursing as I felt overheated organs explode onto my robe.
“There, there, little one,” Mikhail said, pulling her into his arms and patting her hair, neatly avoiding the wickedly sharp horns. “Don’t let mean old Gavriel scare you. He’s just grumpy.” The crying stopped abruptly. A soft gurgling sound came from the creature’s mouth, and I stood, cleaning myself off as best I could, as Mikhail played a game of ten little toes on her infernal feet until the sobs had been entirely replaced by sweet giggles. “Gavriel, come look.” Mikhail’s voice was strangled, but soft, as he held up one little heel. “What do you see on the bottom of this foot?”
