XIII: The Night Market

In spite of recent events, I didn’t find it particularly hard to leave the Saint Reiss of the Sea this time. The place was barren and empty, and I didn’t hear a solitary sound apart from the squelching of my shoes into the decaying pavement. Rocks broke beneath my boosts with a soft crunch, like teeth snapping down over a particularly large chunk of food. I walked through the broken down city with my nerves on a knife’s edge, holding my breath whenever I heard a rumbling.

The oddest thing was there was no screaming. I was sure Maria would be in danger, or terrified enough to make a sound, but the eerie silence of Saint Reiss made me feel as if I was at a graveyard. There wasn’t even a whisper of noise. The only comfort to me was that my constant examining of the halo on my wrist let me know one thing for certain.

At the very least, the gold worked faster than the smoke. The thing inside Machiel’s silvery shield was growing jagged, long thorns that curved around themselves and intertwined as if they were some sort of ouroboros. While the halo was a shimmering silvered color, the actual thorns growing off of it were as black as pitch. They wrapped around it repeatedly, and each moved like they had a mind of their own; greedily reaching towards the flesh that was inside the shield before flinching back, barely two fingers width away from cutting my skin in half. 

Despite Machiel and my best efforts, there was little to be done from inside the Sea. The rot from our prior visit had barely managed to wrap itself around my wrist, a single silvery bar that reappeared too quickly when I re-entered the Akashic Sea. My only hope was that the longer I stayed out of the Sea, the more contained the infection would become, until it slowly vanished into the mist like it was never there at all.

Silver rained from a point above my left eye and scattered itself across the ground, an elegant arrow beginning to quickly outpace my vision as I followed it with my hands in my pockets. Machiel had a better idea than I did of where the exit was, considering she had a full map of Saint Reiss that she could access at any time. Humans weren’t so lucky. We had to make due with the esoteric and the supranet to supplement our own abilities. Angels just had them all hardwired into them from the moment they were born. 

Sometimes, Machiel, it’s hard not to be jealous of you. Even if I wanted it bad enough, the weight of humanity’s history is way too much for me to hold.

She giggled in my ear, and I dutifully followed the perfectly drawn silver line as it hovered a few meters off the ground. It was mainly automatic for me, moving my feet to the beat that Machiel set as was usual. Her presence was a constant comfort in many ways, the wind that hovered over my shoulders with bated breath as it peered curiously into the distance for me. 

I couldn’t trust humans. I couldn’t trust demons. But Machiel wouldn’t steer me wrong even if the world would be set aflame for it.

After a brief time, we stood near the edge of the island. The circling smokestacks above hovered lazily in the sky, drifting back and forth with little care. Thick fat bubbles of the black water below rose lazily from it, popping with a hiss when they brushed against the shimmering gold that had covered the island. The island itself seemed to hover in the gold, floating five or ten feet above the waters below. I loosened my tie and took a deep breath.

I dived in.

The water was so terrifically hot I felt for a moment like I was melting. But the silvery sheen around me twisted and expanded, even as the halo on my wrist grew with it, crafting that same box that made up our small slice of Akasha that I used all the time.

It was still barren, and disturbingly simple to most. Devils don’t teach class or aesthetics or culture when they discuss the supra. They whisper the words you want to hear into the curve of your ear, licking at the insides as they entrap and entice you into doing things you shouldn’t.

Humanity is naturally selfish. It’s not that humankind is raised to wickedness, but rather that human lifestyles beget wickedness. These selfish desires exhibit themselves in hundreds of thousands of ways, but all have the same reasoning, the same justification and ideas.

I want it.

I deserve it.

The Akashic Record cannot judge. It cannot raise someone high or bring them low. It is what its name states: a record. The only purpose it serves is to record and regurgitate information it already knows.

Devils, humans, and angels are very different. We all have our own innermost thoughts, feelings, and desires that we only bring to surface when we truly want something. And in this world of esotericism, demons, and Akasha – if you want something badly enough, then it becomes true.  

I was taught to whisper my desires to the world until the world gave them to me. What need did I have for a galleon, or for a fortress in the Akashic Sea? There wasn’t anyone else with me, and there wasn’t likely to ever be.

My desk fixed itself into an invisible ground, and a computer screen blared silver as it started up, spreading wide past my head as Machiel started to assume direct control over our Space, and I breathed deeply as the rocking of it slowly faded while we emerged from the depths. 

I examined the space, and instantly frowned. It looks like I wasn’t coming away from Saint Reiss as cleanly as I thought. A fixture rotated lazily over my usually empty box – a halo made of interconnecting silver that looked as though it was desperately trying to devour itself alive. An ouroboros colored the same as Machiel’s connection to the supra. I could sense the angel already beginning to fret as the entire Space shivered; once, twice, thrice. It twisted and spun around, and the silvered circlet above our heads hung there still, like a sword of Damocles that was simply waiting for the order to execute.

Hey Mach, doesn’t it look like I could be part of your crowd? What with the halo and all. 

The bells that jangled in my ears were frosty and tightly wound, making me laugh softly. Machiel’s worry always showed itself in the strangest ways.

We sailed some distance away from Saint Reiss, and Machiel rotated the floor to show me the island directly as I sat in my office chair, one leg resting on the edge of the seat. Saint Reiss was still painted in shimmering gold, but the mouths that normally expelled smoke above it were laughing. A giggle like a hyena echoed throughout the Akashic Sea as they laughed. And then they began to move as well, twisting themselves into the shape of a star over the island. And every single one of the smokestacks were slowly rotating again to face their mouths directly towards it. They had jagged teeth like swords that lined their jaws, and each set gnashed violently as they gnawed at the air in desperation.

Suddenly, all the motion of the mouths stopped for a moment. There they stayed, open wide and slobbering, as fat large drops of saliva that rolled across their teeth and down towards the buildings on the island. Each globule was like venom to whatever it touched. I watched buildings begin to wither where each fell. Concrete grew smaller and more malleable, ready to cave in at the slightest motion. Glass shattered and turned to sand from the vapors of it passing by.

Bells shivered in my ears.

And then, like a vacuum, it began to suck. The shimmering gold rotated slowly at first, then faster and faster, until a veritable vortex of wind and gold began to circle upwards towards the mouths. When the gold began to enter them, the mouths let out a cacophony of sound, so loud and uproarious that if I had been on the island my ears and mind wouldn’t have been able to stand it. Even as it were, far away from the island, it made my teeth vibrate in my gums and had the hairs on my neck standing on end. 

It greedily drank the gold until not a drop was left. And then, like nothing happened, it began to slowly spew out the jet black smoke that covered the entire island. They twisted themselves back into position, and it was as if the entire sequence of events was nothing more than a dream that some disturbed and twisted mind had conjured up from the corner of his skull. 

I would have thought it was just a figment of my imagination, or some twisted game that the summoner was playing, if not for the eye.

Above the smokestacks, golden dust lazily drifted. It formed a shape, a circle of gold and smoke, and inside of that circle was a set of vicious, jagged lines to form a bastardized pupil, more like a cat or snake’s than a humans. Black smoke drifted upwards towards it, and the eye greedily sucked it in, until a thick fog of air and darkness covered the entire center. And it looked at me.

It looked at me. 

The eye hovered, staring down with all the authority of the absent deity that crafted this realm, and Machiel screamed in the back of my skull, so high pitched that the monitor before me shattered like glass. My eyes were wide as I stared back, ignoring Machiel as I reached a hand upwards with splayed fingers towards the eye.

No rest for the angelic, huh Mach?

She snarled in my skull, and with a jagged grin I clenched my fist at the eye while it hovered in the air, looking imperiously downwards. 

Summoners, sinners, and devils – all three aspects of the same coin called esotericism. I watched as reality scratched in front of my eyes, a jagged line of static blurring my vision as Machiel dragged us through the cracks in time and space and back into reality. 

I was standing in the train station, just outside of Saint Reiss. The place was still worn down to the point of being a nightmare to walk around, let alone actually catch a train at. The night air was brisk and clear, despite the fact that it had been early in the day when I had made my way towards Maria’s house. That wasn’t too concerning. Time flows differently in the Record, especially when you weren’t planning to make a visit.

The moon hung high over my head, and it reminded me of something important. With a sigh, I tapped Machiel, who reverberated in the back of my skull. A hint of worry stained every motion she made as she rapidly checked and rechecked my body for any issues from our impromptu stay in the Akashic Sea.

Mach, give me the time and point me to the market.

An elegant hand wrote in a silvered script by the corner of my right eye. The time was 10:45 PM. Plenty of time to make it to the night market without having any issues. The guard said it was livelier at night, and that certainly wouldn’t surprise me.

An arrow of the purest silver twisted itself under my feet and began to lead the way. My feet followed as I put one hand in my pockets, the other pulling out my focus and rolling it over my knuckles. The coolness of the faded coloring calmed my mind and sharpened my soul as I moved, Machiel’s senses still expanding outwards to track for any passerby who could be dangerous.

The journey was modestly quiet. We felt no presence in the supra but our own in the woods. Ichabod’s new position standing in front of a gate hidden in darkness seemed to take up much of his time if he still hadn’t appeared now, close as it was to midnight.

The streets were similarly silent, empty of any noises or sounds as people locked their doors and shuttered their windows as midnight approached. The witching hour was a very little thing in any town steeped in esotericism, and even those without. Slowly the lights began to fade from our surroundings, and I continued rolling my coin across my knuckles as the concrete faded beneath my feet, turning into green grass. Lamp posts sprouted like trees on either side of me, and a bridge made of iron and cherry-red wood flowed itself into existence, with a small brook running either way underneath it. 

I took a step onto the bridge, and an ugly face squished itself into existence before me. It had long drooping ears with sharp points at the end, and two golden earrings on one. The face sat on a bed of smoke and ash, half translucent as it swirled left and right. Two eyes of differing colors sat above a wickedly sharp nose, and it leered at me with a grin of golden teeth. The entire head glowed with a shining amber light, and beneath it was a sigil carved into the ground that blocked the threshold, glowing with amber energy.

Among devils, there were seven who commanded the utmost respect and attention. Mammon had taken his position with cunning and guile that rivaled even the Morningstar’s, and he had used his newfound power to consolidate. One of the Seven Lords of Hell, the master of wealth and the hoarder of greed. Mammon, the devil of profits.

Mammon was the leading mind behind the Night Market. The Pact of Kings made many accords between the creatures of the supra, but the existence of neutral ground was arguably the most important to many of the original signatories.

A place of neutral ground, required in any city that had more than three operating existences involved in the supranatural. All that was needed was a large, open field, and Mammon’s market of the night would provide.

It would always provide.

“The newcomer, finally arriving!” It bellowed, in a nasally high-pitched voice filled with cheer. “Welcome, welcome, welcome! Thrice we greet ye, and first we ask ye: who doth ye serve?”

“For where your treasure is,” I replied with a lazy ease, “there will your heart be also.”

The head of Mammon grinned joyously at my reply, before vanishing into amber light that twisted as it dangled long arching waves of color across the sides of the bridge, and formed a pair of brilliant crimson curtains with Mammon’s mark across them; the two sides of a coin, one golden with the face of a devil smiling, and the other obsidian with that same face contorted into a grimace. The two sides of every contract; the one who wins and the one who loses.

In order to have a purely neutral ground, you would need a completely neutral leader. Against all odds and in spite of his devilish nature, it would be nigh impossible to find one more neutral and steadfast then Mammon. Such was his greed that breaking a contract in the market was grounds for near-instant excommunication from any of his spaces.

The Market was only half in reality, after all. The vast majority of it was a warp in the supra, similar to the one I had walked through under Ichabod’s watchful eye. The entrance was in reality, but the market itself?

I brushed my hands against the curtains, and they slowly swept clear to show me the Night Market, the Akashic Space owned, operated, and controlled by Mammon, the lord of profitability.

Saint Reiss’ market was in the same gardens that were so carefully kept by the mayor’s office. A shimmering sky of the darkest blue had twinkling stars of amber that hung like dazzling lights in a makeshift night sky. In the center of the clearing, a massive bonfire was burning liquid silver while a stuck pig rotated lazily on top of it. There were dozens of makeshift tents, each with a different seller trying to hawk wares that may or may not be worth what they were claimed.

And, of course, there were the participants.

The Night Market was a place for everything in the supra. I saw a floating skull cloaked in indigo flame haggling with a dark-skinned woman in an oversized coat, who rolled her eyes while she guzzled her wine, both of whom sat under a tent with rows of jagged black lightning bolts encircling its pristine white covering like halos. On the other side was a man with red skin and fully blue eyes wearing a brown robe as he smiled pleasantly at a passerby and inclined his head to a blonde woman with pointed ears who approached and looked curiously at the bizarre bubbling cauldron before him.

There were hundreds, if not thousands of tents down the seven lanes that had been prepared for Saint Reiss, some stretching out so far back that I couldn’t even see where they were, even if I squinted to try. Every lane was lit by paper lanterns glowing with amber light, all of them lazily swinging in the air as they drifted back and forth across the way. Each of the makeshift lanes had neon blue letters that glowed brilliantly as they attached themselves to the air, marking and naming each aisle for ease of use.

Mammon’s vision allowed for all types, as long as they had things to trade and a desire to do so. It was open to anyone who knew the passphrase and could taste the supra on their tongue when they were in the Sea. That was, to put it simply, a vast array of people and places that could be a part of the Market at any given time. It included me. The summoner. Ichabod.

Bells shivered in my ears, and my lips twitched when the air brushed against my fingers. Don’t worry, Mach. Haven’t forgotten that you’d be allowed as well.

I walked towards the liquid silver as it burned in the center and took my bearings of the aisles available here. While the Night Market was everywhere and anywhere, some things simply weren’t available to buy in differing locales. What was the point of offering, say, assassination services to those in Saint Reiss? There’d be no worth in it for either party; not even Mammon wants to take a cut from a job that isn’t worth doing. The Market praised one thing over all else: profits. And so, knowledge was the main thing traded in every location.

In a world of esotericism, knowledge is as powerful as it is damning. For every fact that could save your life, there are ten that could damn you to eternal suffering. But such a thing is a risk that all agree to when they begin to enter the world of esoterics – the concept that your life could be taken in a monstrous way was just assumed. I had been told as such by a demon, in a very matter-of-fact way, during one of the routine summons that the FSS did on the regular to see who was talking to the denizens of hell. Why would it be surprising that a devil was bound to an entity it could neither see nor fight against? It’s only natural for all things in esoterics to one day lose.

The seven aisles available to Saint Reiss weren’t that unusual in any case. Armaments, Spellcraft, and History were the classic mainstays in any of the locations, and oftentimes you rarely needed more. Weapons and knowledge – a match that could only be made in Mammon’s small sector of hell.

I made my way down the history aisle and looked at the shops. For the most part, I couldn’t see much use for them in this specific instance; there was an old woman who grinned with gummy teeth and far too pale skin, rolled a scattering of dice across her table, and her eyes glowed with blue light when they all rolled onto the same side. Her tongue danced out with a hiss, and her eyes closed sideways. Diagonally to the right of her tent was a demon with eight sets of eyes that it juggled with four arms made of red light that was attached to a body made of stone with no head. But I had chosen history with a purpose, and a destination.

There was someone here who had to work with the FSS. Not because they wanted to or cared about things like justice, but because to not work with us would kill them in a heartbeat.  

Machiel and I made our way deeper and deeper down the lane, and the lanterns drifting overhead slowly began to shift in color, from amber to a black light that somehow shone all the brighter for its lack. Silver lit my eyes and the way while the lights shone across the path, and eventually we came to a stop in front of a bizarre looking chest atop a wooden platform. Floating next to it was a red pot that opened and closed, and when it opened the head of a small blue devil popped out when the lid came off, and went back inside when the lid was replaced. Across the pot, in glowing golden text, was a name: Dantalion.

The chest was large; at least five feet in length and height, with huge spikes that were attached to the golden inlays that criss-crossed along dark ebony wood. The chest was locked, with a massive silver key laying in front of it and a small piece of paper that simply said ‘turn me.’ I would have rolled my eyes at the dramatics, but it was only natural.

Esoterics and dramatics went hand in hand. Even if it was only for yourself, that measure of belief was important. I grabbed the key, feeling the heft in my hand, and placed it into the lock, upon which two eyes opened above the keyhole and watched me as I twisted it.

The chest opened up, and inside was a creature with off-colored dark green skin. Its head was deformed and bulbous, like an overly ripe melon attached to a too-thin tree. It reached out to pull itself up with two of its six long, spindly arms, dragging itself upwards out of its position in the bottom of the chest, and blinked at me a few times with massive eyes that had yellow sclera and big, dark pupils. Its stomach was distended, and its head rolled around in a circle for a moment as it raised a hand to hold it upright for a moment, before sticking a finger into one of its long pointed ears, one of which had two golden earrings attached towards the very tip. One of its right arms carried a book inscribed with a bizarre character, like a fishing line with two axes where the hooks would be, with a crooked square near the end of it that had a cross with seven circles surrounding it.

This was Dantalion, the seventy first of seventy two demons named in the Lesser Key.

“Yes, yes hello!” It asked, one of its arms leaning against the corner of the box, while one continued poking around inside of its ear and the others stretched, “are you a customer looking to purchase, or bargain?”

Dantalion’s voice was high-pitched and wheezy, like the sound of a person blowing a grass whistle. It, like most demon’s voices, was layered like the summoner’s had been, a guttural low thing that smoothly entwined itself in Dantalion’s natural intonation. Most lower-class devils, like imps, didn’t have enough presence in reality that their voices needed an additional layer. But with more and more power came additional complexity in regards to your relationship to reality.

“I’m with the FSS.”

It rolled its eyes with its head and spat, a thick glob of vacuous dark blue liquid that sizzled when it hit the grass at our feet. I never turned my eyes away from it as its head rolled back towards me and it lurched forward a bit, using two of its front arms to raise its bobbling head to leer at me and two of its back to hoist it further out of its chest.

“Show me some credentials,” Dantalion said as its long tongue darted out of its mouth and licked at its right eyeball, “I’m not giving out anything for free, no matter what sort of names you drop.”

I pulled out my badge and showed it to Dantalion, firmly placing my finger over the space where my name was. Dantalion glared at the badge for a moment, then at my face, before shrugging six arms and letting its head roll forward as it smiled wickedly at me with too many teeth.

“Yes, yes, a pleasure to see you again Mister Magister!” Dantalion said as it inclined its body towards me, two hands holding up its head so it could look me in the eye while the rest of it turned downwards. “Now please, please – what is your desire today? As you know, I have many talents, and all of them are naturally at the disposal of the noble United States government.”

I pretended not to hear the mockery in his last sentence as I looked away from him, glancing at the notes Machiel’s silver had swiftly spun into existence. There were a few things that I needed to go over, but the FSS had Dantalion over a barrel in a few ways. While ordinarily, making bargains and deals with demons required at least the implication of equivalent exchange, we’d caught Dantalion in a bit of a complex binding agreement that applied to the FSS as a whole.

Each agent would be allowed to ask one question, as long as the answer was worth a single letter of their name. Obviously agents were told to never give their name in full, or even in half to Dantalion, but the FSS management was remarkably hands off for a federal organization. If you wanted to get yourself killed by sacrificing every letter of your name to the seventy first signatory of the Pact of Kings, who were they to stop you?

After all, a few corpses aren’t worth that much when one every decade or so maintains the agreement for another fifty years. Dantalion was a secretkeeper, and a respected one at that. If an intern or three was lost to its grasp, the FSS didn’t care much as long as those interns didn’t know anything important.

Breathing in deeply, I squared my shoulders, cracked my neck, and prepared to make a deal with the devil.

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