A Demon for Midwinter

"I'm fine ..." But trembling. Shock. Reaction. Kris snatched a blanket, some designer gift he'd resolutely ignored, off a chair. Justin's thank you came small and instinctive: automatic niceness asserting itself.

"Your hands are cold."

"That's just being scared." Justin, under the blanket, looked younger, despite the scent of bonfires and caramelized sugar, despite the inhuman scarlet glint in those eyes. He looked desperately unhappy, and beautiful, and like someone trying very hard not to fall apart. "I don't know if they got a good look at me. I don't think so. It was too fast."

"Don't," Kris said, "don't worry about it, I can deal with the media, I've done it for years, stay put, I'll get you a drink," and ducked into the kitchen for the good scotch. His own hands shook slightly when he picked up the bottle; he reminded himself to breathe. Justin. In his apartment. On his sofa. A demon. Half-demon, Justin had said.

A half-demon who'd just saved a baby.

Who loved classic rock and sugary nutty coffee.

Who needed his help.

He came back out, handed over a cut-glass tumbler, and said, "So you're a demon, then, does that mean you know what happened to Elvis? Did he really get carried off by fifty succubi?"

Justin laughed, exhaustedly. Consumed a large gulp of scotch. Shut both eyes, and opened them again. "Not as far as I know, though it's one possibility ... how're you so calm about this?"

"I don't exactly see you as the type to go round nicking anyone's immortal soul." He plopped down on his couch next to the bundle of blanket-wrapped half-demon. "Tell me if you are, though. Mine's not worth much these days, but I could let you have it cheap."

"You'd be surprised how much you're worth." Justin took another sip. Looked at his glass in some bemusement, as if only now realizing he had it. "I'm sorry about panicking. I'm okay."

"Yeah," Kris said, and got refills, "you look completely one hundred percent, sure, let's pretend that's true. Want anything else? Coffee? Food? I don't have any appalling healthy tea, sorry, only Earl Grey."

"... you're not scared?"

"I saw what Reggie once did to a hotel toilet in Glasgow on tour. You're not even close." Light words, batted about like petals on a breeze; covering over yawning cracks in the foundation of the earth. Justin -- his Justin, his manager, made of long legs and music trivia and playful hair and sunshine -- was a demon.

Demon was a misnomer, in fact. Humans tended to apply familiar labels to the magical realm; leprechauns weren't products of Celtic myth, and gnomes would bite your ankles if referred to as lawn ornaments. But demons, oh, demons ...

The term had got plastered onto the collectively less savory magical beings sometime in the fifth century, and like most outside terminology provided a good catch-all phrase while simultaneously reducing near-infinite diversity to zero. Demons came in many shapes and sizes, from the Elvis-rumor succubi and incubi to sandstorm ifrits and crawling arachnids; they did, however, possess two traits in common. Firstly, they dwelt, like most purely magical beings, in a space not quite human, a kind of parallel world between raindrops and mirages; in the case of demons, this had become known as the underworld.

Secondly, demons were inimical to humanity. They fed on human energy -- not exactly a soul, but similar enough -- and they had a propensity for deals, twisted bargains, seductions, and general mischief. They didn't all want the same things, but it was true that they tended to be the wickeder fairy types; this contributed to the legends and lore and perpetual distrust.

Demons existed in stories. In rumors. In tales told to frighten children: don't go outside in the dark, don't make deals with strangers, don't accept a visit to the underworld, beware of men with red eyes, they'll steal your soul ...

Kris asked, curious now, sitting close enough to reach out if his demon looked wobbly again, "How does the half bit work?"