Humans and Demons and Elves Read online

  Humans and Demons and Elves

  By

  Donaya Haymond

  Eternal Press

  A division of Damnation Books, LLC.

  P.O. Box 3931

  Santa Rosa, CA 95402-9998

  www.eternalpress.biz

  Humans and Demons and Elves

  by Donaya Haymond

  Digital ISBN: 978-1-61572-435-2

  Print ISBN: 978-1-61572-436-9

  Cover art by: Amanda Kelsey

  Edited by: Sally Odgers

  Copyedited by: Kim Richards

  Copyright 2011 Donaya Haymond

  Printed in the United States of America

  Worldwide Electronic & Digital Rights

  1st North American, Australian and UK Print Rights

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any form, including digital and electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the Publisher, except for brief quotes for use in reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. Characters, names, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  To my own family-away-from-family, the Fencers and associated Geek Alliance denizens at the University of Mary Washington–long may you thrive, and greet each friend as they walk through the doorway with a resounding, “Ayyyyyy!”

  My best friend in this world, “Aurore Ford”, who has been so since I was eleven, came up with the germ of this idea in 2002 while her dad was driving us to our middle school. Initially we were going to make a graphic novel by this name–me doing the writing, and her doing the drawing. I remember us laughing for nearly fifteen minutes over a drawing of Edofine yawning that looked like he was, in fact, roaring. Sadly, I moved to China before we got very far and we didn’t see each other for two years. “Mrs. Ford” looked at our drafts and said she was certain someone would be willing to pay for the story one day. I thank the whole “Ford” family, with lasting love.

  I would also be amiss in not thanking, once again, the great and generous Sally Odgers in being my fairy godmother and making my wishes come true.

  In the Neolithic Age savage warfare did I wage

  For food and fame and woolly horses’ pelt.

  I was singer to my clan in that dim, red Dawn of Man,

  And I sang of all we fought and feared and felt...

  …Still the world is wondrous large,

  —seven seas from marge to marge—

  And it holds a vast of various kinds of man;

  And the wildest dreams of Kew are the facts of Khatmandhu

  And the crimes of Clapham chaste in Martaban.

  Here’s my wisdom for your use, as I learned it when the moose

  And the reindeer roamed where Paris roars to-night:

  “There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays,

  “And-every-single-one-of-them-is-right!”

  —From “In the Neolithic Age” by Rudyard Kipling

  Prologue

  Orphans and Hitchhikers and Enemies

  Five minutes after eating their s’mores, the Fletchers heard cries. They didn’t sound like a baby’s wails, or like calls for help, but they were interspersed with snatches of song in a language none of them recognized. The very air wept with the grief choked out of every sob. The occasional shriek turned into a soprano crescendo.

  Christine Fletcher reacted first. Ever since her mother learned she never could never have children again, she treasured Christine as a woman on a diet treasures her one chocolate of the week. Her looks left something to be desired; face excessively round with baby fat, and eyes small and beady. The brown bowl haircut failed to be silky, instead being reminiscent of a dandelion. Behind the chubby exterior, though, lay a keen mind, a vivid imagination, and she was naturally compassionate to all that grew.

  “Daddy,” Christine said, “I think someone needs help.” She wiped her sticky fingers on her shorts and stood.

  “You stay back here with your mother,” Mister Fletcher replied, pointing his flashlight at the darkening wood. “It could be dangerous.”

  “I think she can handle it,” Mrs. Fletcher argued.

  “If anything happened to her, you would blame me.”

  “Nothing will happen. It’s not like someone’s screaming while being attacked by a bear.”

  Christine stamped her foot. “C’mon! Somebody’s really sad right now, and we need to do something!”

  Eventually Christine ended up going with her dad, on the condition that she held his hand the entire time. The night hung heavy with summer, and they continually slapped their exposed skin for mosquitoes. Along the path, Christine noticed wild roses growing in increasingly dense clumps. Eventually they came upon a dome of thorns, the size of a tent. Someone crouched in among the plants, singing in broken phrases. The entire shelter shook with the quivering form within.

  Mister Fletcher had no idea what was going on, but he shone his flashlight into the dense growth. “Um, excuse me,” he said, loudly, “are you all right? Is there anything that we can do?”

  The person inside squeaked a C sharp, and a round hole appeared in the rosebush wall. Out came the head of a boy marred with bleeding scratches. His hair was a strange shade, brown and silver at the same time, a mixture of earth and starlight. The eyes were silver and large as an owl’s with amazement. It was impossible to tell how long he had been crying, as his skin was coppery and too dark to discern any red blotches. The overall effect was of supernatural perfection; gorgeous as no regular teenage boy had any right to look. After a moment of stunned amazement, he hissed, “Humans go away now!” Then he receded into his enclosure again.

  Pointy ears, was all Mister Fletcher could think. The kid had pointy ears! Could they be prosthetics? Plastic surgery? A costume? Why would a thirteen-year-old boy dress up and sob in the middle of a forest?

  “Son, we just want to help. Will you come out? We won’t hurt you.”

  “Away with you,” commanded the child.

  Christine let go of her dad’s hand and knelt down among the grass. “Hi, my name’s Christine,” she chirped. “I like books and ponies and Zulu a cappella group singing. I go to Truman Elementary School, and I’m ten. How old are you?”

  “Twenty-six,” the boy replied.

  The girl giggled. “You’re funny.”

  “Mock me not. I am twenty-six. My voice still is high and the spirits do weep at my archery skills. I can only sing the Child magic, and I cannot make them alive again.” This set off a fresh bout of sobbing.

  “Who alive again?” Christine asked.

  “Father and mother. Ai! Ai! Ah me!”

  Mister Fletcher was pleased at his daughter’s diplomacy, but this situation was getting out of hand. “Don’t you have any relatives to take care of you?”

  “They tell me my parents were fools, wicked, and I should forget them. I will not live with those who dishonor them.” The barrier withered, starting from the top.

  “They said they were bad?” Christine asked.

  “My mother had the madness, the blackness inside, ai! She jumped into the river, all laden with stones. Ai! Father saw and slit his throat. Ai!” The boy’s clothes were now visible, looking like he’d wandered out of a Renaissance fair. The simple plain gray cloak with a lily-shaped pin fastening it at the throat covered a velvety shirt and long, soft leggings, and he wore sandals. A crushed silver hat lay next to him. He sat curled up in a fetal position, eyes wide open and brimming with pain.

&
nbsp; “You can’t stay here. It’s too dangerous,” Mister Fletcher said.

  “I have the Song,” the boy said.

  “Your voice is very pretty,” Christine complimented. “Do you want to camp with us? You can share my tent.”

  “I think that may be a bit risky,” Mister Fletcher said.

  The boy sat up. “You desire my company?”

  “You’re so thin and shiny,” Christine said.

  “Humans are more dangerous than a thousand bears, the saying goes,” the boy replied.

  “So, you’re not human?” Mister Fletcher asked.

  “What a strange question. I am an Elf, of course. Can you not see it?”

  Christine laughed and impulsively hugged him. “You can be my brother,” she said.

  “Honey, what will your mother say?” Mister Fletcher was getting anxious.

  “I’m sure Mommy will be happy too.”

  “Do you have any food?” asked the alleged Elf. He stood up and dusted himself off, wiping his nose on his sleeve. Tears still fell, but vocal wailing had ended. “I can pay with spells. Humans have no spells. I know this, at least. Would you like illusions? I make a lovely sunrise.”

  “One night,” Mister Fletcher said, pointedly. “And you will have your own tent. Christine will be in ours. Then we’ll take it from there.”

  “Daddy!”

  “No. We don’t even know his name!”

  The Elf cleared his throat, put his hat on, and bowed. “With song I come to you. I am Kryvek, in your tongue, ‘Accepting Heart.’”

  “Can I call you Kevin?” Christine asked.

  * * * *

  Several years later….

  A slim, somewhat dazzling young woman–who appeared to be around sixteen– stood by the highway, thumbing for a ride.

  She wore a heavily embroidered purple dress with designs of birds in silver, had equally silver eyes, and unusual hair that straddled the line between maroon and purple. It was waist length and mercifully covered her ears. Her skin was coffee-colored and could have made her look Hispanic if it weren’t for her decidedly Roman nose. Over one shoulder was a knapsack filled with gold and jewels, over the other was a quiver full of arrows, and in her right hand was a wooden longbow. No cars had appeared for two hours, and she was growing impatient. Finally, she sighed and pricked her left palm with an arrow, allowing one drop of blood to fall upon the ground. “Speed, please,” she mumbled.

  A truck appeared momentarily and slowed to a stop in front of her. Inside was an overweight Caucasian man in an undershirt and a baseball cap. He would have wondered why his truck had just moved three times as fast as the speed limit when he usually drove only twice as fast as the speed limit, but the parts of his brain that weren’t devoted to vital functions were channeling all their energy into his eyes. Damn that kid was fine! He grinned.

  “Looking for a ride, Tootsie? Hop right in.”

  The young woman winced at the prospect of being in an enclosed space with that leech. She restrained her revulsion and climbed up to the passenger seat. “Whichever is the nearest city,” she told him, and shut the door.

  “My name’s George,” the man said, by way of conversation.

  “Lira,” she replied. If she had grown up in human society she would have thought that his breath was like elderly McDonald’s cheeseburgers, but in Lira’s experience it was best described as ‘rank’.

  Exhausted from the effort of saying his name, George drove in silence for a while. Lira could hear him building up his courage for what he evidently thought was a daring and clever move. He activated the center lock, and with a little click both of them were closed in. “What’s a nice girl like you doing hitching?” he asked, trying to put an arm around her shoulders. She hoped the oozing flab wouldn’t suffocate her.

  “I am not a nice girl,” Lira said, staring into his eyes. This was the first human she had met, and she hoped it was not a representative sample. Her piercing gaze could see no kindness, dignity, or nobility of any sort.

  “I like ‘em better that way,” he whispered, leaning in.

  Then her eyes flashed purple, and her skin turned albino pale. George froze.

  Lira held up both of her hands, each slit across the palm. She rubbed the blood onto his corpulent cheeks and spoke three words. The first was in English: “Shock.” The second was in North American Elvish: “Alarm.” The third was in Eudemon, part of the limited vocabulary she had gleaned from the warrior raids on her village. “Sting.”

  Moments later, after the trucker stopped screaming, Lira patted ashy-faced George on the back as he drove. Lira de-demonized and returned to her Elf self. “If my mother could do that sort of thing, I never would have been born,” she noted. “I am sure you understand it was merely for protection.”

  “When will it stop?” George whimpered, reaching up a hand. The blood ate away at his skin like maggots. The skin writhed visibly.

  “Avoid scratching it, sir, or else the damage will be irreversible. When the blood evaporates your face will return to normal. Now what have we learned from this?”

  “Never...attack...girls...again…” he stuttered, tears falling.

  And another few years later…

  A solitary Elf dressed in green, in human age thirty-four and in Elf years seventeen, jumped several feet into the air. He pointed his arrow at the red creature that had just popped out of the ground.

  “Demon, begone!” the Elf said.

  “Ain’t gonna,” the Archaedemon answered. “I got here first, and I got folks runnin’ after me.”

  “You trade with the Eudemons. We fought them only last week. Now go before I slay you.”

  The Archaedemon blew a wisp of fire at the Elf, who rolled his eyes and turned it into a violet by singing three lyric notes. “Not bad,” the Archaedemon conceded. “Want to play asbestos cards? We can modify the rules so you’re not required to incinerate yours, Elves being sissies like that.”

  “But—but you are an Elf’s most foul bane!”

  The demon shrugged. “The name’s Krith. I owe some folks money and they’re going to put me on ice if I don’t pay up, so I need to do something until the heat is off, pardon the pun.”

  “My name is Edofine.” The Elf sat down cautiously, still holding onto his bow and arrows. “Tell no one.”

  “Ah, who would care?”

  “It is not right for things to be so. Elves are Elves, demons are demons, and humans are humans, and never the three shall meet.”

  Krith wreathed himself in flame and crawled out of the hole he had dug, long, sharp fingernails excavating his body from the soil’s embrace. His eyes glowed like old orange coals, and the black membrane between his arms and chest had holes poked in it. Dirt filled his hair. “You may find the cards a little hot.”

  Chapter One

  Refugees and Hermits and Cousins

  It was fourteen years since Kryvek was adopted, five years after Lira left her village, and one year after Edofine encountered an Archaedemon. Kryvek lay peacefully, resting, smiling...

  Knock, knock, knock.

  Kryvek stirred in his sleep, luxuriating in silky satin pajamas with American flags printed all over the soft blue background. He still clung to his dreams of every single one of his students completing all their homework when it was due. Ahh. He might never be this happy again.

  Wham, wham, wham.

  “Grmfph,” Kryvek mumbled, his mouth full of pillow.

  “Please! Please!” The words were Elvish. A young male voice began to sob.

  “All right, all right, keep your hair on.”

  The open doorway revealed a prostrate, pallid Elf who looked like an eighteen-year-old human with pointy ears, so he was thirty-six. His waist-length brown hair was full of leaves, and his velveteen green cloak was torn. He clutched at Kryvek’s feet. “Dear cousin,” he said, still in Elvish, “I have sad news. All our kin has perished.”

  Kryvek looked down. “Um, Edofine,” he said in English, “why come
to me? Why now? Why not, say, fourteen years ago?” The conversation continued with Edofine in Elvish and Kryvek in English.

  “Forgive me. You know why. You threw your lot in with the humans, and thus you were dead to us. I had hardly any friends and I thought you might have shunned me for my views.” Edofine did his best to stare like a puppy.

  “What, that my parents were going to spend eternity as ghosts wailing through the woods because they committed suicide? I should turn you away. “

  “No! Please no! The entire community was engulfed in lava, and I have nowhere to turn. You are the only friend I have in the world. I would be near silent and I could help you with anything you require. Merely until I find another clan to join, I swear. Sisters, brothers, cousins, aunts, uncles, parents, gone, all gone, ai!” He clutched at Kryvek’s legs.

  Kryvek looked at his cousin for a moment. Edofine seemed sincere, and he was in dire need of a shower and a meal. They hadn’t interacted much back when Kryvek lived among the Dance Clan, since Edofine had been a few years younger and much more interested in hunting and warfare, rather than the music and poetry towards which Kryvek leaned. Kryvek felt a twinge of grief, for though he had lacked contact with other Elves ever since his adoption, it was always a pleasant feeling to know that his people were out there somewhere. No matter how estranged he was, he had not desired destruction for his childhood home.

  Lifting Edofine to his feet, Kryvek said, “All right. You can stay here, and I will try to get you set up somewhere. Care for some hot chocolate?”

  Tears came to Edofine’s eyes. “I thank you from the depths of my soul. What is chocolate?”

  “A human food, one that should not be eaten in great quantities, though, because then you and I won’t be able to sleep. Then I’ll teach you how to use a shower. You seriously need to wash your hair.”

  Bewildered at the sights of a human apartment, Edofine sat down on the moldy couch and absorbed the strangeness of the television, telephone, and wonders of wonders; the kitchen. He felt as though he were flickering in and out of existence.

  “Your hair is of such shortness,” he mumbled.