Humans and Demons and Elves Read online

  Kryvek called out from the kitchen, “Get used to it. By conservative standards in this part of the world, this is almost too long. How did you find me, anyway?”

  “A simple finding spell sufficed. This place–”

  “Laconia. The town is named Laconia, in the state of…”

  “Please, Kryvek, I am in no mood for geography.”

  The three-room condominium was all in shades of brown, with sienna furniture that looked as though it had been picked up from yard sales and street corners, a single bare incandescent bulb dangling from the ceiling of each room, and a tan carpet. A tiny cream-colored folding card table served as work desk and dining table. One half was covered in sheets of music, while the other had a single cracked plastic plate and bent steel silverware. The walls were covered in posters of birds, trees, and mountains.

  Edofine held his head in his hands, and tears trickled down his face. He talked in a low, toneless voice as Kryvek clattered the mugs. Elves tend to be emotional and open about their feelings, for Elves can sense emotion and there is no good in trying to hide any deep pain or joy. Without shame he quietly mourned the world he had known.

  His life had been that of a hunter and warrior, who prayed to the spirits of every bird he caught, every deer he shot, and every Eudemon he stabbed. He was used to killing for the survival of the clan and enjoying his own success, but never, ever forgetting the cost of taking a life. He never killed a female of any species, save mosquitoes and the Eudemon she-warriors. He was used to being alone during the day, but every evening as he came to the village campfire he watched the merriment and sang along. Though he was frequently injured and suffered the ire of Eudemon hate-thought regularly, he had felt important. Content. Needed. A simple niche for a simple person.

  A week ago, all had been well. He had made his first courting move towards Faeriva, the first female he had been attracted to ever since he had become an adult two years before. He left the requisite four roses at the front of her cottage door, letting her choose between the white of disinterest, the yellow of friendship, the pink of uncertainty, and the crimson of romance. Meanwhile a grizzly bear had mauled an Elf child of the Dance Clan. The council chose Edofine to track it down and reform it, using some animal magic that would strip away the bear’s human-induced taste for garbage.

  While studying the trail, Edofine heard a twig snap and he jumped up– grabbing the Eudemon sneaking up behind him. Edofine smashed him against a tree trunk. Like all the Eudemons the intruder had stark white skin, white as bone, and his eyes flashed violet. The entire effect was one of a beauty that frightened adults’ leggings off. The Eudemon’s knife clattered to the ground. The two youths were of the same age.

  Edofine pinned his arms by his sides. “Kindly tell me what you are doing here.” When North American Elves met Eudemons and Archaedemons they spoke English, as none of the races were willing to teach any of the others the magic syllables of their own tongues.

  The Eudemon grinned. “Go back to your village, and you will see. You will weep today.”

  “We beat your kind back months ago, after you sacked the place. I thought it was a lesson you would have learned. Must I kill another one to make my point?”

  “You cannot kill me. Once one of your hands leaves contact with me, I will fight.”

  “We could stand here all the day long. Let us see who has the greater endurance.”

  “Fine.” The Eudemon rolled his eyes. “It makes no difference anyway. It has already happened.”

  “What has happened?” Edofine suddenly couldn’t breathe. A moment ago he thought the creature was bluffing, but he sensed mocking truth emanating from his foe.

  The only response was laughter. Since the Eudemon was no immediate threat, Edofine knocked him out with a head-butt and left him there.

  When Edofine returned, sprinting at full speed, there was no village. There were only fallen trees and a steaming clearing of cooling lava, black as his heart became at the sight. He crumpled to the ground and screamed.

  “Wait a second,” Kryvek said, handing Edofine his drink. “Lava? How is that possible? There aren’t any volcanoes around here.”

  “The Eudemons must have made a treaty with the Archaedemons. They can cause a small volcanic eruption over a mile all round. I was the only one who escaped.” Edofine took a sip. His bent over the mug, which lost all its cracks once his tears touched them. “Mmm. It tastes like autumn nights. Thank you kindly. How do you not know about the treaty?”

  “Give me a break! It’s been years. The Archaedemons trade something with the Eudemons—something, argh, I don’t remember. It’s too early in the morning.”

  Edofine took another shuddery sip. “The Archaedemons mine and smelt. They find gems and metals to trade, coal to eat, and asbestos to use for clothes, paper, and playing cards. It is difficult for them, however, to have enough air in their tunnels and caverns to support a large community. They trade with both the Eudemons and us, because we know how to supply them with carbon dioxide, produce, acorn bread, and meat. In the past years, however, they have allied with the Eudemons because our best Sky Mages were lost in a Eudemon attack, so we were unable to meet their demands. The Wind Eudemons of this area wanted our land.”

  Kryvek nodded, understanding. Even he knew only the Elves were able to create the Space Enclosures, which was how they had survived human encroachment of the forest. They drew symbols in the dirt and carved them in tree trunks surrounding a designated one-mile radius circle. With the proper song and dance rituals, once someone entered that one-mile radius, it became a ten-mile radius. The Space Enclosures were larger on the inside than they were on the outside. The Elves sensed, snatched up, and dropped off far away any non-Elf sentient being entering the zone, with an unbreakable oath never to reveal what they had seen.

  The Eudemons suffered from dwindling woodland as much as the Elves, but they never developed this type of magic. Instead they slaughtered the Elves in a Space Enclosure and set up their own village where the Elves had once lived.

  “How goes it with you?” Edofine asked.

  “I’ll tell you the full story in the morning,” Kryvek said. “It’s a good thing you came during summer vacation, so I don’t have to get up early tomorrow. To summarize, though, the Fletcher family took me in. There was some awkward paperwork, but Mister Fletcher used to work for the FBI – I’ll explain what that is later– and became a lawyer, so he knew how to get things like that done. Mrs. Fletcher home-schooled me until I was old enough to appear like a human college student, and I went to a music conservatory and am now a teacher. On holidays I play saxophone at restaurants, on weekends I play guitar at clubs, and in evenings during the school year I play the flute in an orchestra. I’m off to a gig tomorrow, actually. I’ll drop you off with Christine, my adoptive sister. She lives across the hall with her roommate, Lira.”

  Edofine was getting a terrible headache. New words—roommate, gig, saxophone, paperwork, college, restaurant, and club—jumbled together in his head. He felt like a child all over again, staring at his feet and wanting his mother. “I have never met a human,” he said.

  “She’s very sweet. I think you’ll like her. She studies Elf and demon culture for the OMHI, the Official Magics-Human Institute. They call Elves, Archaedemons, Eudemons, vampires, and werewolves “Magics”. My parents—the human ones—helped begin it. Do you want me to explain it?”

  There was no answer, for Edofine was asleep on the couch, trembling slightly with weariness and pain. Kryvek yawned, stretched his younger cousin out in a more comfortable position and put a pillow under his head. Then he put a patriotic American flag blanket on him and went back to bed.

  Chapter Two

  Lawyers and Cooks and Guests

  Lira knew how this was done. She’d seen Christine do her womanly duty thousands of times, and now it was her turn. She took a deep breath and stared at that little circle until her eyes bulged out.

  Making pancakes had to be easier
than this.

  Kryvek would arrive soon, since the three had breakfast together every Saturday. He would laugh at her, Lira thought. Elves always laughed at her, and her love-hate relationship with the species didn’t help. Everyone else in the village where she grew up had two parents. Every other young female was content with self-defense (archery, swordplay, hand-to-hand), and studies in reading, writing, and the essential magics: Growth, Healing, Survival, and Illusion. They were perceptive in the thought-music enough to immediately pick up who liked them, how everyone felt, and what kind of person everyone was.

  Lira looked Elven, except for maroon hair, but if she bled even a drop, her skin turned Eudemon pale, and her eyes became red-streaked purple. Anything she spoke while the blood dripped could kill plants, cause pain, or crack stone. Her temper was quicker than the purebreeds’, and she often had hurt other children after they teased her. It wasn’t completely an accident, but it was much more severe than she intended. One boy’s leg was eaten up as if by acid, and Lira had to pay back the debt by doing buckets of laundry for the afflicted family.

  Her mother, Alarif, loved her deeply. However, there was always that tension in the air. Lira was the product of rape, and no male would court Alarif once she gave birth to a half-demon child. They had lived alone; Alarif did needlework to support them.

  Stuck halfway between her Elf mother and a Eudemon father she had never seen, Lira sought a place where she could be neither, turning her keen mind to greater things than chopping wood and growing vegetables. She wanted to do something that would protect women from going through what her mother had suffered. She wanted a world that protected the innocent, to be an advocate for those who needed it. So she left the Arrows Clan, disguised herself, set up a time-bubble where time passed more quickly inside her dingy one-room tenement than it did outside, and studied until—with the assistance of some gray magic—she managed to win a scholarship to Harvard Law. It had been a long, uphill struggle until she found the Official Magics-Human Institute and moved to Laconia, working as a defense lawyer for the non-human. Now she had enough money to send to her mother and live in an expansive apartment with her one close friend.

  Her name hurt her, sometimes, because it spoke of her mother’s sorrow. “Lira” in Elvish meant “Fierce Tears”, the kind of tears that come when someone is biting her lip and clenching her fists, trying with all her might not to cry. When Lira entered human society she chose the last name of Steele, as steel is an alloy of two elements and a harsh, strong metal. It seemed appropriate.

  While Lira was wrapped in thought, the pancakes burned. “Spirits,” she hissed, chiseling them out of the pan. They curled up as if in apology.

  Christine patted her on the shoulder. “Someday you will learn how to cook, Lira. Someday.” She was as round as Lira was thin, with lovely brown hair and a kind face. It was unfortunate girth, really, because it sent a message of laziness Christine did not possess. Christine was just too busy reading, studying, and working to exercise, and being head of the anthropology apartment at the OMHI stressed her into eating. Usually she was a bubbly, warm person, but any mention of her weight made her burst into tears. Currently she was trying a vegetarian, wholegrain, low-fat, low-sugar, and low-calorie diet. She’d been so hungry that she hadn’t slept much the previous night and had wearily donned sweatpants and a Smithsonian t-shirt, with dark rings under her doe-like eyes. “I need to make oatmeal.”

  “Here you go,” Lira said, handing her the spatula and moving away from the stove. On weekdays she was business-perfect, clothing ironed so crisp that the creases could cut through butter. Saturdays and Sundays she indulged in richly embroidered purple Elf skirts and peasant tops festooned with designs of hunting, fighting, and dancing. Alarif sent them to her daughter every month. The OMHI had a limited Post Office consisting of five Elves who delivered letters and packages to nearby Elf clans. They had stopped trying to send mail to demons after three workers were incinerated and four used as person sacrifices.

  “I think I’m starting to hallucinate Belgian Fries,” Christine mourned. She refused to call them French Fries because fries were invented in Belgium and Christine felt obscure countries needed all the credit they could get. Kryvek found in a book of word origins that they are actually called “French” because “frenched” used to signify a method of slicing vegetables, but by then Christine was set in her ways. “Kevin is going to demand pancakes, and I don’t know if I can stand to watch him eat them.”

  “Make him eat oatmeal too,” Lira said. For yet another time, her attempt at preparing food had to be thrown away.

  Meanwhile, across the hall, Edofine and Kryvek were standing in Kryvek’s bathroom, which was so small that anyone taking a shower banged his elbows constantly. So far this had not been a problem for Edofine—he couldn’t yet master the showering process.

  Kryvek massaged his temples. He had completed his morning toilette already, and wore a white seersucker shirt, crinkly with green and blue stripes, and knee-length denim shorts. As usual, he gelled his silver brown hair in a tousled style.

  “One more time. You turn these knobs, and water comes out. One knob has hot water and one has cold water. You adjust the amount depending on your preference.”

  “And then what do I do?” Edofine stood inside the shower, gingerly poking the pipes. He was still in full Elf regalia, complete with dead leaves and grass stains.

  “Cover yourself with soap and stand under the water so that it washes off. Do you think you can handle that?”

  “You do this every day?”

  “Yes.”

  “What a waste of time and water.”

  “Way to be sanctimonious, kid. I am merely teaching you how to conform to local hygienic standards. When you live indoors in small apartments, washing frequently becomes very important. Some even enjoy it. I’ll leave you alone now to get acquainted with it.”

  Kryvek was growing annoyed with having to explain these basic things to his cousin. He knew Edofine wasn’t being obtuse on purpose, but helping him was like having a child to take care of. Kryvek’s stomach growled again and he looked at his watch for the fourth time in ten minutes.

  Panic rose in Edofine’s throat, which, coupled with his hunger and disorientation, made him worried he might vomit. “You cannot leave me. What if I do something wrong and I scald myself? What if the magic governing these pipes breaks down? Anything could happen.”

  Kryvek was about to dismiss Edofine’s fears, but he saw the hurt in Edofine’s drooping shoulders and bowed head and changed his mind. “All right. I’ll stand right here in the doorway and talk you through the process. First take your clothes off.”

  Standing in the shower, Edofine disrobed. Kryvek noted many scars and bruises underneath the grime.

  “You have to put the clothes outside of the shower, otherwise they’ll get wet.”

  “Ah.”

  “Now turn the hot knob…”

  “Aiee!”

  “I meant turn it while standing sort of away from the stream of water, so it wouldn’t hit you full force. No, don’t turn it off! Turn on some of the cold!”

  “I think you are trying to kill me,” Edofine deadpanned, although obviously he knew Kryvek’s true intentions. In fact he was fully aware of how irritating he was unintentionally being. “Why are there so many bottles?”

  “One is for the body, one for the face, two for the hair.”

  Edofine sighed and started reading the labels. “I can see right now that my stay in the human world will be absurdly complex.”

  “You find the sensation of the water pleasant, though.”

  Edofine blushed. “Your Thought-Music Sense is not dulled with the years.”

  “Definitely not—hurry up, kay? Do you think you can take it from here?”

  “I believe so.” To himself, once Kryvek had gone, Edofine murmured, “Why is it called shampoo? Is there something inherently false about it?”

  Across the hall, but one door to the
left, the newlywed Tufts maneuvered around stacks of cardboard boxes. Sara patted the substantial bulge in her stomach and smiled.

  “Do you think the baby will like it here?”

  Even without the pregnant belly she was a little plump, but in such a pretty and wholesome way that it never occurred to anyone that she should be slimmer. She was just Sara, cute and clever Sara, a non-blonde-acting dirty blonde chemist on maternity/moving leave. Her blue cotton dress attested to the pleasures of summer and new life, full of sunny cheer.

  “I ink ee ill ot otice or a ear or oo,” John replied, mouth full of toothpaste. He was a bespectacled, gangly young African-American man, a beginning prosecuting attorney. When not in a suit he leaned towards polo shirts and corduroy pants, but today he donned blue slacks and a short-sleeved pink shirt as a concession to the heat and their status as guests.

  “What?”

  John spat out the foam. “I think she will not notice for a year or two.”

  “I know I will like it in Laconia,” Sara mused. “It’s such a nice small town. Our next-door neighbor inviting us to breakfast on the very first day is so kind. What was her name again? Catherine?”

  “Christine Fletcher. She said her roommate and her brother would be there as well.”

  “It’s amazing that she can stand to live with her brother so nearby. I would go insane.”

  “You already are, sugar.” He kissed his wife on the lips, short and sweet.

  Christine and Lira finished setting the table. “John Tuft is a lawyer,” Christine said. “Have you heard of him?”

  “I don’t magically know all the lawyers in the country, sweetie. He’s probably barely out of law school. I hope the clay delivery comes—I need to go to my studio this afternoon.” Lira rented an old barn on the outskirts of town, where she worked on her second career as a freelance painter, traditional potter, and conceptual sculptor. There were archery targets as well, and when time allowed she tutored teenagers in her greatest athletic skill. As was generally true, Lira managed to take herself out of the Arrows Clan but couldn’t take the Arrows Clan out of herself.