Infernal Affairs by Jes Battis

my gaze.
    “Don’t worry. We’ll get him patched up.”
    “What about the pureblood?”
    “We have the technology to contain him. We’ll be able to question him later, under controlled conditions.”
    The two agents had already surrounded the frozen demon and were weaving a complex field of infrared light with their athames.
    I walked shakily over to Miles and Dr. Rashid. The coroner saw the expression on my face and cleared his throat.
    “Your friend has a broken arm. Possibly a few broken ribs, and a concussion. But he’s stable. I believe he’ll recover completely.”
    “I thought you normally dealt with dead bodies, not live ones.”
    “I’ve dealt with a lot of things in my career.” He blinked. “This is new, though. In fact, I’m not exactly sure what—” He blinked. “I mean, I don’t know—What am I supposed to think about—”
    He gestured wordlessly to the four-legged demon, still locked in midscream.
    Suddenly, a small gray form appeared at his side. The demon-boy looked up at him. Rashid looked down at the boy. He had an expression of almost childlike wonder on his face.
    “What exactly are you?” he asked softly.
    The boy smiled. Then he reached up on tiptoes, as if to whisper something in the doctor’s ear. Rashid leaned down, and the boy placed a hand on his cheek.
    “Good night,” he said simply.
    Rashid stared at him, confused for a moment.
    Then he dropped to the floor, unconscious.
    The boy turned to me. “He won’t remember any of this. I’ve damaged the specific neuronal clusters associated with this incident. He should wake up with a headache, but that’s all.”
    “Nice trick,” I said. “Want to come with us now?”
    I held out my hand.
    The boy looked solemnly at me for a moment. His eyes were the color of two peacock green marbles that I used to have as a child.
    Then he took my hand. His skin was cool to the touch. His horns were gone, and he resembled a blond boy once again, face streaked with dirt, naked, shivering, and hopelessly small.
    “I don’t have anywhere else to go,” he said.
    I led him over to Selena. “Don’t worry. That’s kind of our specialty.”

4
    “Have you ever tried hot chocolate?”
    The boy gave Selena a skeptical look as she held out the foam cup. He shook his head slowly.
    “Try it. Our machine makes it pretty good. It’s not fancy, but it’ll warm you up.”
    “I’m ectothermic. I can regulate my own body temperature.”
    “Try it anyway.”
    He took the cup. “It smells strange.”
    “You’ll like it. Trust me.”
    He took a sip of the hot liquid. He swallowed, then licked his lips. “You’re right. I do like it.” He drained the cup. “Do you have any more?”
    “Sure. Follow me.”
    Selena led him to the coffee machine. He stared at it in fascination.
    “It makes hot beverages,” she said.
    “How does it work?”
    “See the buttons with the numbers? Press B and then four.”
    He did so. His eyes widened as the machine began to hiss and burble. Another foam cup dropped into the slot at the bottom, and he actually stepped back in surprise. “Where did it come from?”
    “There’s a stack of them inside the machine.”
    “Oh,” he murmured.
    The machine gave a final loud bubbling noise, and then a stream of hot chocolate poured into the cup. The boy’s eyes never left it. When it was done, he just stood there, uncertain what to do next.
    “Reach in and take it,” Selena said. “It won’t bite.”
    Slowly, as if reaching into the mouth of a tiger, he withdrew the foam cup. He sniffed it once again. Then he smiled and began to drink, this time more slowly.
    “We don’t have this where I come from,” he said.
    “Oh? And where’s that?”
    “I’m not sure what you would call it. In my language, it’s called Ptah’l , which means Red Island. It’s a small plane bordering several larger ones in a dimension adjacent to your own.”
    Selena had managed to find some clothes for him, but they were