Ascent
or, the Risen and Fallen on the Seventh Floor
by Kirryn Lia Todd
“You’re warm,” I murmured to Mephisto. He chuckled.
“So you’ve told me before. Aren’t you getting tired of being curled up against me?”
“No,” I answered, honestly. To tell even more truth, I was wondering if I had ever been more comfortable in my life. I had no idea how that worked, really – cuddling, essentially, with a demon who may or may not have been the Main Demon of Demons, if you know what I mean. And, I realised with heat flooding my face, it was cuddling. I pressed my body close to his, he stroked my face and ran his fingers down my hair.
How exactly did all this come about? How crazy does someone have to be before they’re sitting in the lap of a demon, with no memory of the last eighteen months, mourning the suicide of a friend who couldn’t do something you seem to do unconciously…turn yourself into a song?
“This is real, Elouise,” Mephisto said, and I actually smiled at that.
“Reading my face again?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact.” He traced the shell of my ear with a fingertip, gently.
“How do you even do that?” I asked.
“It’s terribly easy,” he chuckled.
“For you!”
“Yes, for me. But some other people are extremely talented at the same. Have you ever heard of ‘micro-expressions’?”
“No. What’s that?”
“They. They are, in very basic terms, involuntary facial displays that only last perhaps one fifteenth of a second, or less. Their opposites are macro-expressions, which last much longer. The difference between the two is that while humans can very easily modify their macro-expressions to their will…’putting on a happy face’, you understand…micro-expressions are near to impossible for most of you to resist. The best you can do is to mask them with a suitable macro-expression.”
“Hm,” I frowned, running my finger down the edge of his lapel offhandedly. “That’s heavy stuff. I never knew that. And I went to university, for a little while.”
Mephisto laughed. “Unless you were studying human behaviour, my dear, that doesn’t surprise me. Or perhaps psychology. I could be wrong, it’s been quite some time since I bothered to check in at one of your hallowed halls of higher learning for any purpose.”
“Mm,” I replied, still ruminating on expressions, both micro and macro. “You said that humans can’t suppress micro-expressions.”
“Yes.”
“So…do demons? Can they suppress theirs?”
“My kind do not have micro-expressions.” Mephisto smiled, something unpleasant and yet curiously seductive beneath his face. “We wouldn’t be able to…hm…carry out our jobs efficiently, let us say, if we did.”
“Yeah…I suppose that might get in the way. A tad.” I tilted my head. “What about sociopaths? Do they have micro-expressions? You said it was almost impossible, not quite, and…” I trailed off, suddenly aware of what I was implying. Assuming again, Elouise.
“And sociopaths are the nearest to demons?” He curled his lip ever so slightly; I attempted to look guiless. It didn’t work, but he did laugh. “You, child, are completely impossible.”
“So I’m told…”
“In answer to your question, I’m not sure I know. Sociopathic behaviour and extreme violence without remorse aren’t my specialties, I’m afraid.”
“Who looks after them?” I had to ask, how could you not?
“A rather…interesting female demon with a mouth like a sailor and the dress sense of a doll who sniffs glue for a living,” he answered, and I couldn’t help bursting into giggles at that description. “She looks absolutely adorable, I will freely admit, but she isn’t the most savoury of people to be around. She and I don’t get along terribly well, so I stay out of her way. I think your Nutmeg might know her, though…”
“Nutmeg…”
“Yes, Nutmeg. You know she’s more than just a normal woman, don’t you? She could see me…and she wasn’t expecting it.”
“She knew you,” I corrected. “It wasn’t just seeing you, she recognised you. Didn’t she?”
Mephisto shrugged. “Perhaps I may have met her before. I had certainly heard of her before. She has quite the reputation, where I come from.”
“Good or bad?” I asked, timidly. The demon smiled enigmatically.
“What is good and bad? Demons are bad. Why? Why are my kind bad?”
“You…do bad things…” I said, slowly. “Right?”
“Hm. Why is what demons do classified as bad?”
“Because it hurts people. What you do, I mean. Hurts human beings.”
The glint in Mephisto’s sin-blue eyes was both violent and extremely amused. I wanted to reach out and see if I could feel anything in the maelstrom that was his emotions, but I really wasn’t sure if that would be the wisest thing to do, as safe and as comfortable as I felt in his arms.
“Tell me, Elouise,” he purred in a voice like melting dark chocolate and midnight jazz. “What have I done to hurt you?”
“N-nothing!” I gasped out, heat rising up my neck and onto my face yet again. “You haven’t…you haven’t hurt me! You’ve been…that is, I mean…when I was…when Nutmeg and…before…” I shook my head, viciously. “You haven’t hurt me, but, but you’ve surely hurt…other people…”
“Assumptions,” he whispered. “So many assumptions made, Elouise. You truly do break my heart.”
“But that’s what demons do,” I insisted, weakly.
“Hm? And who told you so?”
“I guess…well, no one really told me…but, in books and television, demons are bad, right? The opposite of angels. In Christian theology, I mean…you were angels thrown out of heaven, right? For disobeying God. Lucifer…fell. I think. It’s been, it’s been a while…since I studied anything in the Christian religion…”
“Lucifer,” Mephisto murmured. “The light-bringer. The brightest star in his sky, undoubtedly his most magnificent creation…”
“What was?”
“Lucifer, to Yahweh.” Was I going even crazier, or was there a note of longing sadness in Mephisto’s voice? Tentatively, I reached out to try and feel what he was feeling, despite my better judgement, and very nearly gasped when I felt blades of sorrow just as sharp as Nutmeg’s for the redhead in the portrait slice through me so cleanly they left spurting wounds that wouldn’t heal. Almost unconsciously, I lifted my hand and placed it gently against Mephisto’s face. Why? I couldn’t say exactly. A gesture of comfort, or…friendship? Were we friends? I’d only known him for two days. Is that a long time or a short time for a demon? He said he knew me better than I knew myself.
Shock ghosted across Mephisto’s face as I reached out, his eyes widened and his lips parted, as if he wasn’t sure if he was going to say something or not. It was almost as startling as if he had blushed (and that, I supposed, he never did, and probably didn’t even have the physical ability to do so).
“It’s all right,” I said, very softly, though I wasn’t sure what, exactly, I was reassuring him of.
His face changed, then: the shock disappeared in a soft, genuine smile that actually touched his eyes. For a split second I thought I could see it as if it had been lit in neon – the difference between his face and Killian’s. Mephisto was a thousand million years older than Killian was, he was the wintering dusk to Killian’s bright midday summertime. To live forever, a man of wealth and taste and feline grace.
“You are extraordinary,” he said, just as softly. “Extraordinary.”
Had a line been crossed? I wasn’t sure. It didn’t feel like it, although something had undoubtedly changed between the demon and I, something had come undone of its own volition…or maybe stitched itself back up. I didn’t know what it could be, though.
Perhaps, if I had been sane, my next movement would have seemed romantic…although I didn’t mean it in a romantic sense. I don’t know what it was (I didn’t seem to know anything at that point in time), but I traced my fingertips down Mephisto’s face, across temple, curving over his somehow avaricious cheekbone, letting my fingers rest gently at the corner of his lips. I may have been crazy, but I wasn’t stupid – if I touched his lips, that would definitely have been crossing a line.
He was still smiling gently, though, the dark thunderclouds of his eyes surrounding me like an ocean storm, and I was standing on the shore, letting myself be consumed by it. I had never thought that a demon, of all creatures, could hold such power in his eyes.
Come to think of it…I didn’t really know anything about demons, did I? Perhaps they were fallen angels, or something of the kind…and Lucifer was the main man…but that was really all. I had said they were supposed to do bad things to people, Mephisto wondered why I thought that…because I was told. I’d never seen a demon do anything bad to anyone, and Mephisto was yet to even lie to me, let alone try and devour my soul or run me through with a pitchfork or a flaming sword. Or were flaming swords for angels? But demons were angels, weren’t they, just angels who were kicked out of heaven…
“I don’t know anything about demons,” I said to him, again pressing the palm of my hand to his cheek. I felt his constant warmth, the strangely soft, light texture of his powder-coloured skin. “Books and TV say that they’re meant to be evil, to do bad things. But I’ve never seen them do bad things, not with my own eyes. Hardly ever seen them all…”
Mephisto closed his eyes and leaned in to my touch, the same beautiful little smile upon his lips.
“Now you’re using your head. Haven’t you ever wondered, Elouise, how strange all human knowledge of the Fall and the War before it really is? I trust you know what I’m speaking of.” I mmhmm’d, he opened his eyes and drowned me in the ocean tempest again, crashed against my own eyes like a wave. “Isn’t it strange how Yahweh got to tell His side of the story, but no one has spoken for Lucifer?”
“That’s true…” I nodded slowly. “I never even gave that a thought…when I thought of angels and demons and gods and things…”
“All that humanity has heard is one side of a story…and yet you are all so very fond of saying that it takes two to tango. You can’t have an argument by yourself. Both sides need to tell their stories…if it’s really true that human beings have free will, that you can choose what to believe.”
“Sympathy for the devil,” I murmured, and Mephisto chuckled.
“Human beings are such strange creatures…they’ll believe some things they’re told without even questioning them, and others they are so truly stubborn about it amuses me like very little else can.”
“Like when people are crazy,” I said. “They just assume…assume you talk to yourself and dribble into your soup and are violent and horrible…assumptions…” My voice faded into near soundlessness. “I get it now,” I whispered, and without truly stopping to think about it, I wrapped my arms around his neck and hid my face against his shoulder.
“Baby child,” he said, a susurrus of words against my ear, and he pressed his lips to my temple. Perhaps I blushed, I wasn’t sure.
Sympathy for the devil, hm.
I pulled back, looking him over carefully, over moonshard eyes and sensual lips, the curve of cheekbones and the elegant upsweep of his eyebrows, midnight-tinted hair slicked back from his face…two blood red horns from either side of his head. I wondered if they were sharp, or hollow, or what their real purpose was – they were only about two and a half inches long. Sure, they couldn’t have been a lot of fun to deal with if you were on the receiving end of a headbutt, but I couldn’t picture Mephisto being physically violent. (Inspiring physical violence, yes. That was something else entirely.)
“Your horns…” I began.
“Hm? What about them?”
“Are they…I mean…why do you have them?”
Mephisto chuckled. “You’re very fond of these direct questions, aren’t you?”
“It’s the best way to find things out,” I said, distractedly. My eyes were still lingering on the protusions, the colour of a bleeding rose. “So why do you? I mean, it’s not like you can, what’s the word…stab, or something…gore, gore, that’s it. It’s not like you can gore someone with them, right? I mean, you could, but it would be awkward, I bet…”
“Well spotted,” Mephisto said. “No, I can’t do overmuch damage with them. They are primarily a status symbol.”
“What do they say? That you’re the main man?”
“I wonder,” the demon mused, his smile cheeky and vague. “Perhaps there are demons with longer horns than I?”
I couldn’t help myself; I was getting used to Mephisto, so I heard the innuendo in that statement, and was having a losing battle with laughter. The fact that he was positively smirking wasn’t helping matters in the slightest.
“Why, what on earth can you be laughing at, Elouise?”
“Nothing,” I giggled. “Nothing at all. So, um. Are they…made of bone?”
“I assume so,” he replied. “If teeth are bones, then my horns should be, as well.”
“So, does that mean you have red bones?”
“Hm. That’s an interesting question, and also one I’ve never thought about. I may have. I may not have, as well. My own physiology has never been something that’s sparked my interest, I’m afraid.”
I chewed my lip, thoughtfully. I wondered if…
“You can touch them, Elouise.”
I swear that I blushed crimson right up to my hairline.
“I wasn’t–!”
“They aren’t coated in poison, and they have no nerves on their surface. And you were,” Mephisto chuckled. “You were entirely curious.”
“Shut up,” I grumbled beneath my breath, but reached up to run my finger along his right horn, all the same. I cried out when my fingertips made contact.
“They’re cold! That’s so strange, so strange…the rest of you is warmer than a fire, yet they’re cold…” I had forgotten my hesitation, and had both my hands on either of the horns, now, marvelling at their marble-smoothness and icy temperature. I was almost wondering if they would melt beneath the warmth of my own fingers, let alone the mini-inferno heat of Mephisto’s body.
“Another one of the marvels of demon physiology,” Mephisto smiled. I made a clicking noise with my tongue, still enrapt, still touching.
Of course, because as I said, poetry has its cues – so does comedy. The door to my apartment swung open, and I heard someone else click their tongue, although not in the same way I had just done.
“I trust I’m not interrupting anything?” Nutmeg’s drawl practically oozed exasperated disgust.