The demon nudged the heart on the floor. It quivered and tendrils of smoke drifted up from it. Trey tried to imagine the terror Kidd must have felt as this monster attacked him and brutalized him, and he found that he felt a splinter of compassion for Kidd.
“You pretend to be scholars,” breathed the demon, “so then here is a lesson to ponder. You think that all of religion, all of faith, all of spirit, is a cultural oddity, an accident of confusion by uneducated minds. An infection of misinformation that spread like a disease, just as man spread like a disease. You, in your arrogance, believe that because you do not believe, there is nothing to believe in. You dismiss all other possibilities because they do not fit into your hypothesis. Like the scientists who say that because evolution is a truth—and it is a truth—there is nothing divine or intelligent in the universe. Or the astronomers who say that the universe is only as large as the stones thrown by the Big Bang.” He touched his lips to Trey’s ear. “Arrogance. It has always been the weakness of man. It’s the thing that keeps you bound to the prison of flesh. Oh yes, bound, and it is a prison that does not need to have locked doors.”
Trey opened his eyes. His mouth was still free and he said, “What?”
The demon smiled. “Arrogance often comes with blindness. Proof of magic surrounds you all the time. Proof that man is far more than a creature of flesh, proof that he can travel through doorways to other worlds, other states of existence. It’s all around you.”
“Where?”
The screens once more filled with the images of Maori with their painted faces, and Navajo shamans and their sand paintings; medicine men in the remote Amazon, singers from among the Bushmen of Africa. As Trey watched, the images shifted and tightened so that the dominant feature in each was the eyes of these people.
These believers.
Then ten thousand other sets of eyes flashed across the screens. People of all races, all cultures, all times. Cavemen and saints, simple farmers and scholars endlessly searching the stars for a glimpse of something larger. Something there. Never giving up, never failing to believe in the possibility of the larger world. The larger universe.
Even Bird’s eyes were there. Just for a moment.
“Can you, in your arrogance,” asked the demon, “look into these eyes and tell me with the immutable certainty of your scientific disbelief that every one of these people is deluded? That they are wrong? That they see nothing? That nothing is there to be seen? Can you stand here and look down the millennia of man’s experience on Earth and say that since science cannot measure what they see, then they see nothing at all? Can you tell me that magic does not exist? That it has never existed? Can you, my little student, tell me that? Can you say it with total and unshakeable conviction? Can you, with your scientific certitude, dismiss me into nonexistence, and with me all of the demons and angels, gods and monsters, spirits and shades who walk the infinite worlds of all of time and space?”
Trey’s heart hammered and hammered and wanted to break.
“No,” he said. His voice was a ghost of a whisper.
“No,” agreed the demon. “You can’t. And how much has that one word cost you, my fractured disbeliever? What, I wonder, do you believe now?”
Tears rolled down Trey’s face.
“Answer this, then,” said the demon, “why am I not bound to the circle of protection? You think that it was because Mr. Kidd played pranks with the wording? No. You found every error. In that you were diligent. And the circles and patterns were drawn with precision. So . . . why am I not bound? What element was missing from this ritual? What single thing was missing that would have given you and these other false conjurers the power to bind me?”
Trey wanted to scream. Instead he said, “Belief.”
“Belief,” agreed the demon softly.
“I’m sorry,” whispered Trey. “God . . . I’m sorry . . .”
The demon leaned in and his breath was scalding on Trey’s cheek. “Tell me one thing more, my little sorcerer,” whispered the monster, “should I believe that you truly are sorry?”
“Y-yes.”
“Should I have faith in the regrets of the faithless?”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I . . . didn’t know.”
The demon chuckled. “Have you ever considered that atheism as strong as yours is itself a belief?”
“I—”
“We all believe in something. That is what brought your kind down from the trees. That is what made you human. After all this time, how can you not understand that?”
Trey blinked and turned to look at him.
The demon said, “You think that science is the enemy of faith. That what cannot be measured cannot be real. Can you measure what is happening now? What meter would you use? What scale?”
Trey said nothing.
“Your project, your collection of spells. What is it to you? What is it in itself? Words? Meaningless and silly? Without worth?”
Trey dared not reply.
“Who are you to disrespect the shaman and the magus, the witch and the priest? Who are you to say that the child on his knees is a fool; or the crone on the respirator? How vast and cold is your arrogance that you despise the vow and the promise and the prayer of everyone who has ever spoken such words with a true heart?”
The demon touched Trey’s chest.
“In the absence of proof you disbelieve. In the absence of proof a child will believe, and belief can change worlds. That’s the power you spit upon, and in doing so you deny yourself the chance to shape the universe according to your will. You become a victim of your own close-mindedness.”
Tears burned on Trey’s flesh.
“Here is a secret,” said the demon. “Believe it or not, as you will. But when we whispered the secrets of evocation to your ancestors, when we taught them to make circles of protection—it was not to protect them from us. No. It was us who wanted protection from you. We swim in the waters of belief. You, and those like you, spit pollution into those waters with doubt and cynicism. With your arrogant disinterest in the ways the universe actually works. When you conjure us, we shudder.” He leaned closer. “Tell me, little Trey, now that your faithless faith is shattered . . . if you had the power to banish me, would you?”
Trey had to force the word out. “Yes.”
“Even though that would require faith to open the doors between the worlds?”
Trey squeezed his eyes shut. “Y-yes.”
“Hypocrite,” said the demon, but he was laughing as he said it. “Here endeth the lesson.”
Trey opened his eyes.
Trey felt his mouth move again. His lips formed a word.
“Username?” he asked.
Anthem looked sheepishly at him and nibbled the stub of a green fingernail. “You’re going to laugh at me.”
Trey stared at her. Gaped at her.
“What—?” she said, suddenly touching her face, her nose, to make sure that she didn’t have anything on her. “What?”
Trey sniffed. He could taste tears in his mouth, in the back of his throat. And there was a smell in the air. Ozone and sulfur. He shook his head, trying to capture the thought that was just there, just on the edge. But . . . no, it was gone.