Ascent
or, the Risen and Fallen on the Seventh Floor
by Kirryn Lia Todd
–woke up.
I was sitting straight up in bed, yet again, blinking owlishly around the room – the soft blue light of summer dawn slipping in through the window along with the sound of the city waking up. I looked around the apartment, bringing familiar things to my eyes – unused TV, moribund if not undead couch, kitchen, little table, strings of peace cranes, bottles of lucky stars, books borrowed and some owned, candles, incense tray, boxes of Nag Champa, demon sitting on the side of my bed; surprised.
“Fligitfl?” I asked Mephisto.
“Another dream?” he asked me.
I nodded, slowly. “It…it was unfinished again…”
“You shouted yourself awake,” the demon said, and he was smiling, now. “You seemed to take great exception to someone calling you a certain unpleasant word, I believe.”
“No…that…it wasn’t me, again,” I said, rubbing my forehead as this realisation settled in. “Again, that was someone else…”
Mephisto frowned. “Again? You’re sure of this?”
“Yes…I don’t own combat boots. I don’t know how to kick people. The person – me – the girl – whatever. She knows how to kick people. Where, I mean. She kicked one of the no-faces in the head and I think it might have died…she knows how to fight, she thinks like a fighter. I don’t. That was…it wasn’t me. Not that time, not me.” I felt light-headed with my own bewilderment. “Wasn’t me…”
“Elouise…these no-faces. Tell me about them.” Mephisto’s eyes seemed extremely dark, then, bordering on midnight blue. I swallowed a rising beat of terror.
“They…they…they got no faces and they’re not nice and they wanna eat me. Why do you want to know about them? They’re not what’s important!”
“On the contrary, I think they may be very important.” The demon’s serious face was almost more beautiful than his usual mocking expression, but I suppose that’s how he wanted it to be: I stopped panicking over thinking about the no-faces and instead gazed, enrapt, at his face.
Killian had said that he and I looked similar, and we did, the ceiling mirror confirmed it. Killian looked identical to Mephisto. Did that mean Mephisto and I looked as if we could be siblings, as well? I studied the lines of his face – he was pale, pale, deathly pale, any whiter and he’d be a corpse. While Killian and I both had linen-coloured skin, neither of us were as pale as Mephisto. The demon’s eyes seemed naturally kohl-lined, and his brows naturally upswept. If you singled out his features, it seemed like he couldn’t possibly look a thing like Killian, but he did.
Why? Why did he look like Killian? Did he look like me? Logically, he had to…if logic hadn’t taken long service leave about three days ago when I woke up with no memory and the demon appeared in my apartment…
“Elouise. Elouise. Are you listening to me?”
I snapped out of my thoughtful daze and returned my attention to Mephisto, who was frowning again.
“Um, no. I wasn’t. But I am now.”
“Tell me all you can about the…no.” He shook his head. “No, actually, we’ll wait…”
“Wait?” I blinked at him. “Wait for what?”
He grinned. “Not ‘what’, ‘who’. Although I supposed ‘what’ fits, as well. And Nutmeg. We’ll wait for Nutmeg.”
“Wait for…? Why Nutmeg?”
“Because I believe these no-faces, as you call them, may be…” he trailed off. “I’m not sure. But Nutmeg is knowledgable about dreams, and what they portend.”
“Nutmeg is?”
“Yes.” He looked at me with that half-grin, through partially lidded eyes and a scattering of thick, dark eyelashes that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a woman. “There are many, many things you don’t know about your Nutmeg, baby child. In some places in the world, she would have been called a witch for her knowledge. Unfairly or fairly, who knows.”
“Nutmeg is a witch?” I asked, wide-eyed.
“I simply said she was called a witch, at some point in time,” Mephisto replied. “Who is Nutmeg to you?”
“Nutmeg is Nutmeg,” I replied, without really thinking about it. The demon smiled, a real, non-mocking smile.
“I think she’d be very pleased to know that you think that way.”
“Uh,” was my ingenious reply.
Mephisto stood up and stretched, elegantly – dear God, was there anything that he did that didn’t ooze charm? – and nodded at me as he sunk into the red sofa.
“As soon as it’s a decent hour, and you’ve bathed, we’ll go and see her, shall we?”
“A decent…” I peered at the clock. “Six in the morning?! How long have I been asleep?!”
“A little over twelve hours, I believe. Transforming yourself into a song seems to sap all your energy. I imagine it’s a difficult process.”
“It isn’t,” I replied, off handedly, then shot him a look. “What do you mean, bathe? Do I smell bad?”
“No.” He granted me a mocking smile. “But you have been wearing the same clothes for the past twenty-four hours.”
I glared, half-heartedly. “What are you, my baby sitter?”
“Absolutely not. No one is paying me.”
“Pah,” I grumped, sounding a lot like Nutmeg. I climbed out of bed and stretched, then moved towards the bathroom. I grinned at him from the doorway. “I can turn myself into a song. I have no time for trivial things like bathing. It’s a very exhaustive process. Can you turn yourself into a song, mister?”
“No,” Mephisto smiled, and a drop of ice slid down my spine, my hair stood on end. “I have no need. People write songs about me.”
I swallowed, then croaked out, “You’ve probably stolen many a man’s soul and face.”
“It’s no secret,” he replied in a mild tone, and I disappeared into the bathroom so he wouldn’t see my knees give out.