Losing My Religion

Amber

“I have no idea what this spell is supposed to do,” Sophia said, hunched over the desk in her dorm room, “I don’t trust it one bit, though, there’s no way it’s worth the risk of casting it.”

“Then what are we supposed to do? I know we’re hardly in a different place than we were yesterday – we still need to figure out how to keep Lily and Katie safe long-term, but she reframed the whole conversation so much that I don’t even know what to think anymore!” I yelled, turning to face the corner and clench my fists.

Sophia remained silent behind me.

“I’m sorry… I’m not mad at you and I shouldn’t take it out on you,” I sighed, “It’s just so annoying, trying to sort through everything she said – is there anything we can trust?”

She stood, walking close and wrapping her arms around me from behind, “It’s okay, Amber, we can figure this out.” She guided my body back onto her bed, where we laid together, loosely entwined and staring at the ceiling. “Let’s think about this logically – what are we trying to accomplish?”

I took a moment to think, taking deep breaths and feeling Sophia’s fingertips idly scratching my outer hip. “We need to protect Lily and Katie, mainly from my mother – whether that’s by hiding them from her like we are now or…” I didn’t want to voice the more permanent way to keep my mother away, mostly because it wasn’t feasible given the amount of power she’d demonstrated.

“Exactly, so some options: We can keep Lily and Katie in Hell, with or without us being there as well – assuming your mother was even telling the truth about being banished in the first place. We can help your mother complete her goal of returning to Hell and the rest of us can stay on Earth while demon society deals with her. We could wait until Lily returns, and see if she learned anything in Hell that would help us. What else…?”

“I don’t know… It feels to me like she’s just so powerful, so all-knowing that it would be impossible to outwit or overpower her – like no matter what we do, she’ll always be ten steps ahead. And if we managed to somehow send her away, what would happen to my sisters?”

Sophia hummed, caressing me reassuringly.

I laughed, “It almost feels like we know less after our conversation with her, and I can’t tell if that’s on purpose. Was she just trying to confuse us, to make us doubt ourselves? Did she really want us to call Lily back, or did she want us to not call her back? Ugh, I kind of want to give up on this for now and just focus on something else – unless you’ve got more ideas.”

“No, I agree with you, it’s confusing, trying to piece together what she’d been trying to do. What do you want to talk about?” Her caressing hand moved from my outer thigh, up through my inner thigh towards my stomach.

“Well, there’s the thing I don’t want to talk about,” I turned my head to give her a pointed look, “But we aren’t going to talk about that,” I paused, “I don’t know, we could talk about more stress relief,” I proposed, already knowing that’s where she’d been hinting with her hand.

Her hand stilled. “What aren’t we talking about?” she asked, confused. “You’ve got me curious now.”

I shook my head. “C’mon, you’ve got to know already, you were the one that told me.”

She stared at me silently, one eyebrow raised.

“We aren’t talking about it,” I reasserted.

“Fine you can keep it to yourself,” she rolled her eyes, hand resuming its motion on my leg.

“It’s not important,” I insisted, “Like it doesn’t even matter in any way and I–”

“Amber. I said it’s fine. Are we going to bang or not?”

Huh, that’s a compelling argument…

 

Lily

The Central Seriza Library was a grand structure, about as big as I’d ever seen, given that the tallest buildings in my hometown were a handful of stories tall.

The entrance to the library stood atop a half-dozen worn stone steps, and after I climbed them with Katie, the sloped roof jutted out from the walls to hang over us. The building itself was made of large, dark grey bricks with flecks of black speckled across their smooth faces, and tall windows, small, intricately carved arches cresting the top of each.

I hefted open the massive stained wood doors and, instead of being met with the musky scent of dusty paper and the silent shuffle of library goers, there was a clean, sterile smell reminiscent of a hospital, and a constant chatter that filled the space – not quite high-energy, but still a far cry from what I’d expect on Earth.

I stopped in my tracks as my eyes roamed where the books should’ve been. While there were no shelves anywhere in the cavernous room, there were square pillars at regular intervals, with there being a section cut into each face at head-height, although from across the room I couldn’t tell what it was for. People were everywhere, sitting at the long tables, reading, studying, discussing, and working, and like much of my time in Hell, it was overwhelming.

“Wow…” Katie let out, “Where’re all the books though? Is it all digital?” Her tone made it clear she wasn’t a fan of the prospect. 

On my part, I couldn’t remember seeing any piece of electronics in Hell – as far as I could tell all of the lights I’d seen and all of the appliances in Kelith’s kitchen had been powered by magic – although Kelith had mentioned phones before.

We continued forwards, me following my little sister as she hunted down where the books were, and, once she asked a librarian to explain how it worked, all I could do was try to keep up.

Apparently the books were all upstairs, and while you could look through them yourself, it was more common to use the stations at the pillars to query for books magically and have them teleported to you, also using the station to teleport them back when you were done.

Katie scampered over to the nearest pillar, skimmed the instruction placard, and slammed what was essentially Google’s ‘I’m feeling lucky’ button a few times – although this version seemed more sophisticated, not even needing her to give it a topic.

We then carried a small stack of tomes to a table and began reading.

—

I’m so bored….

My forehead rested against the cool surface of the table, my horns short enough to avoid scratching the surface. 

I should’ve gotten my own book, I don’t know why I thought Katie's would be interesting… She’s sixteen, isn’t she supposed to be a hyperactive social media addict? 

The first book I’d tried to read out of her pile had gone on and on about molecular magical capacitors, how they created a circular flow of energy in the lattice structure… and I almost fell asleep. I picked up a different book after a dozen minutes of skimming – and maybe a few of dozing – thinking that surely it must’ve been an exception.

Nope! The next book was about the resonance frequencies of specific arrangements of cellulose in magically significant herbs and…

I yawned, stretching in my chair and blinking my fatigue away. I hadn’t noticed earlier, but Katie had utilized this little magical doohickey that made the room quiet around us, although the sign for it clarified that it didn’t silence outgoing sound. 

“I’m almost done, Lily, sorry this is so boring for you,” Katie glanced at me sheepishly.

Another yawn escaped me, “No don’t worry about it, I’m fine. It’s nice to spend time with just the two of us… It’s just that maybe I’m not the person to discuss this kind of stuff with…” I poked at the plant book, happy I hadn’t drooled on it.

She giggled, “Yea, I can’t wait to get back to Amber and talk about all this stuff with her – she would love it here….”

There was a brief silence as she returned to her reading, and I daydreamed about moving to Hell.

I could get to know my family better, I wouldn’t have to hide who I was or the fact that I was dating two women at once… Although maybe people would be a little weird about them being human, I guess we haven’t seen how other species are treated here.

“Do you think Amber would want to move here?” I asked, trying to mask my hopeful tone.

“I don’t know. She would definitely want to visit, but as far as living here? I’m not even sure whether I would want to live here. It’s cool, but there’s so much I still don’t know.”

“Yea, that’s true… I feel a bit more like I belong here, though, at least on my initial impression – but you’re right, there’s so much I don’t know about demon culture. I’m sure I’ll be back soon to visit, though.”

I can’t wait to see what Amber and Sophia think about Hell.

—

Once Katie finished up her initial skimmings and I woke up, we made our way back to Kelith’s place, enjoying the pleasant weather – although I didn’t know what season it was. 

When we arrived, Katie went off to the kitchen to help Kelith prepare lunch, while I went to the living room to talk with my mom more, wanting to better understand demons and Hell.

I sat on the couch with her, keeping a comfortable distance away. “So do any of you have jobs? Or how does the economy work…?”

She set down the novel she’d been reading, marking her place with a blue ribbon. “Yea, we’re all employed, but in Hell we have long vacations – more than one person will fill the same position, taking turns while the others take time off. Older people like Kelith will get longer time off and higher priority, but that’s the jist of it.”

“Huh. How long do we live?” It was surprising that I’d taken so long to ask that question – given that it had been hanging in the back of my head since I’d accepted my identity – but it also wasn’t surprising given everything else that had been vying for my attention and the fact that I was scared to find out the answer.

“It depends on race quite a bit, but most are in the hundreds – concubi in particular live somewhere around 800-1200 years.”

“Huh…” Yea… that’s what I was scared of. Cool, just what I needed, another awkward conversation to have with my partners…

She watched my reaction, maintaining the distance we’d held since our meeting in the restaurant.

I was eager to move on. “Is there any downside to hopping in and out of Hell? Like teleportation sickness or whatever?”

“There’s no such thing as teleportation sickness, but demons that go in and out of the human world quickly have escalating portal costs. It’s not a cooldown per say, but it functions a lot like a cooldown. Honestly, I only know this because I did my homework before chasing after my sister. Most demons don’t care about the human world – to them it’s just the place we dump people that are especially cruel and destructive.”

Katie entered the room holding a platter of sandwiches, diverting my attention away from our conversation. We were soon joined by Kelith and Edith, the latter of which beelined directly to her wife, carrying a plate for the two.

I thanked her and Kelith as Katie plopped beside me and we began munching on them – although I still couldn’t tell what any of the vegetables were. 

Is there even any meat in this sandwich?

“So, have you asked about my mom yet?” Katie asked.

I shook my head. “I was waiting for you,” I looked towards Kelith, who’d sat on an armchair with her own plate, “Katie’s mom is a human witch, and she’s not the biggest fan of demons, or succubi in particular, so she’s been giving us some trouble – it’s why we’re here in the first place, to hide out while we figure out a permanent solution.”

“I’m assuming you don’t want to kill her?” Edith asked, shrugging when my mom glared at her.

“No,” Katie answered, “I don’t know who’d take care of my sisters if she wasn’t there…”

Holy shit, that’s the reason she doesn’t want her mother dead?! 

I wrapped an arm around Katie’s back, hugging her close, trying to make her feel loved.

Kelith hummed thoughtfully, setting down a half-eaten sandwich on her plate. “It’s hard to sway, without the full context – what would your ideal resolution be?”

I glanced at Katie, unsure if she was okay with me speaking for her, given that it was her mom. At her nod, I spoke, “Well, ideally we solve it diplomatically, but her beliefs are pretty deeply entrenched – at least by my understanding – and she used to work as a demon hunter, so…”

Katie added, “If someone wanted to, we could maybe have a powerful group escort her around Hell and let her understand on her own terms that demons aren’t evil? I’m sure she’d be interested in visiting – she loves to research and study – but maybe I’m just being optimistic.”

Edith nodded, “As a devil, I doubt she’d be stronger than me magically, and she certainly wouldn’t be stronger than me physically. I’d be interested in showing her around, if you could convince her to come in the first place.”

“Yea, that sounds like an idea, but I think it would be good to have backups, just in case we’re being too optimistic.” I said, breezing past her admission she was The Devil – I assumed it was some kind of nickname, hoped it wasn’t literal for the sake of my fading – but still present – religious sensibilities. 

Despite my words, after another few rounds of discussions, the best idea anyone had was Zamira asking if we’d gone to the administration of the college I went to. She referred to it as the embassy for Hell, not knowing I attended the school, and I slapped my palm to my forehead, irritated I hadn’t thought to ask them for help in the first place.  

So, in all, we had two plans for dealing with Amber’s mom when we came back to Earth, and going home didn’t seem so scary anymore. 

Ugh, I still need to talk to Katie about how she feels about her parents, there are a million conversations of varying levels of embarrassment I need to have with Amber and Sophia, and I need to have one – potentially last – conversation with my dad.