What Crawls Below

9 § Etiology

Insisting he wouldn't be in the proper state for explanations until he slept and had a stiff drink in his hand (in that order), Raziel had told Cyrus once more they could talk more after they both got some rest. Naturally, it was a fitful rest for Cyrus. The next morning took its sweet time coming, leaving him to toss and turn and stare at the ceiling until brief moments of sleep took him under. In some of those rests, he dreamt of vague memories stemming from the ancient darkness inside him; during others, he once again saw Tuesday with those disturbing eyes.

When the first rays of light crept through the bedroom window, Cyrus couldn't wait any longer. He rose from the bed, padding quietly to the door and inching it open. The hall was quiet, empty. Placing each step with care, he made his way to the living area and took another few moments to revel in it again. It was still hard to come to terms with the idea of Raziel living the good life in some--what, penthouse?

Behind him, the door furthest down the hall creaked open and shut quietly. Raziel had emerged from his own room, eyes still half-shut and a hard grimace etched onto his face. He grumbled something unintelligible, which Cyrus took as his cue to not bother him just yet.

Raziel crossed the room and into the kitchen, fiddling with an automatic coffee machine on the counter. When he silently held up a mug in offering, Cyrus declined, the thought of Acheron's own penchant for the stuff now on his mind. He sank onto one of the bar stools, cradling his head in his hands.

When Raziel had made himself a cup and drained it dry, he finally spoke, though his voice was still a bit gravelly. "Well, here we go, I guess. Time to bare my sins." Laughing coldly, he reached under the bar, producing a metallic flask and pouring some of its contents into his mug. He filled it the rest of the way up with another serving of coffee before turning to Cyrus.

"Where to start..." he muttered, stirring a finger in his drink absently. He lifted it to his mouth, licking it clean, and sighed. "We were like brothers once."

Raziel glanced up at the confusion evident on Cyrus's face, and elaborated, deadpan, "Acheron and I, if you can believe that."

Cyrus couldn't. The two were much too different and had such obvious bitterness for each other. Although, a contradiction began to poke at him--Tuesday and Cyrus were each other's opposites, at least at one point in time, too. Look where that got them: thick as thieves.

But, Acheron had obviously been content to be the top dog. In what reality would he want to hang around another demon?

"Large numbers of us can't live together long," Raziel responded, voice still flat. "There's few enough of our kind to spread out, but total solitude doesn't work for humans and it doesn't work for us." He nodded down the hall to his bedroom, where Cyrus could only assume his female companion was.

The thought still gave him the creeps. Suppressing a shudder, he tried to tamp down those remarks and allow Raziel to continue.

"Eternity is lonely. Can't remember who even came first, but for a long time, Ach and I ran in the same circles. That is, until he decided to settle down amongst the humans."

Meeting Cyrus's open-mouthed look of disbelief, Raziel gave a wry smile. "Humanity...is a far greater siren than the one you're familiar with. All of us fall under its spell at least once. And for him, it really was just once."

He swallowed hard, beginning to tap his fingers aggressively against the island. His eyes went unfocused, the fire in them
doused, no longer smouldering.

"The Salem trials had long come to pass but that scar had not yet scabbed over, the paranoia hadn't died. Acheron sired a child with a human, and the others noticed there was something off about it. Oh, don't get too excited, hybrids have nothing on you--but they're still dark, devoid of a conscience. I believe people nowadays refer to them as sociopaths.

"Anyways, the village noticed, and they drove Acheron out...but not before burning the child and its mother alive. The church condemned him of witchcraft and he didn't return to New York for many decades. What better place to build an empire than in the city that never sleeps," Raziel muttered.

"That's when he came back to me," Raziel continued, voice hovering just over a whisper. "And asked me to help him burn humanity to the ground."

Cyrus had done his best to keep his thoughts to himself up until that point, but then the wall in his mind flooded. He had the creeping suspicion the same hatred of humanity that had clouded Acheron's mind passed on to Raziel.

Laughing quietly, Raziel produced a cigarette from his pocket and lit it. "Of course they've disappointed me, too," he said around the cigarette, "but the trick is to not set your expectations too high."

He blew out a long drag, the smoke hanging in the air between them. Cyrus stifled a cough, not wanting to disturb the moment, not when someone was finally being open with him.

Sighing, Raziel continued with his speech.

"I guess he wanted to make sure he never lost his power like he did that day, and to do that he'd need something far stronger than himself or any hybrid. But all energy has to come from somewhere, and Ach was dead-set on hunting down our brothers and sacrificing them for his cause.

"And I helped," Raziel said blankly, looking up to meet Cyrus's eyes with completely emotionless ones of his own. "I helped him slaughter dozens of us so he wouldn't kill me too. I lured them to him, much like your girl did for you..."

At that, Cyrus was briefly drawn out from the story. The parallel bothered him, brushing cold fingers down his spine. What if Tuesday had only helped him because she, like Raziel, had been afraid?

Raziel didn't let him continue to ponder this.

"What goes around--" he began to say, then trailed off, mouth hardening into a thin line. "Well. Killing each other, that is a very taboo act. Bad karma surely marked Acheron for the crimes he committed and what goes around surely comes back. But he thought if he could play God, he could live above the rules."

Crossing his arms, Raziel said coldly, "I do not live under those same pretenses. I'm damned, that's for sure. But I thought that maybe, if I could keep you from destroying the goddamned world--well, maybe that would be enough to balance the scales."

He leaned forward, holding Cyrus's gaze even when the latter wanted to wilt under the intensity of that stare.

"I'm old, kid," he whispered. "I'm tired. But I want to get something right for a change. What do you say we help each other do that, hmm?"

Chest tight, head spinning, all Cyrus could do was nod.

Raziel shoved back from the island, facing away, and moved on to his second cigarette. After a heavy moment, he said under his breath, "I need to get some air," before making for the balcony and shutting the door between them.

Cyrus watched him for some time, unable to make sense of the chaos in his own head, before deciding it would be best to leave the demon be for now. He returned to the guest bedroom, curling into a ball on the bed and hugging his knees to his chest tightly.

It would be a long day.