The young man waiting in the conference room at the DOA didn’t look particularly demonic. He was slight and neat, with a boring sort of face and gloved hands folded in his lap. His blond hair was pulled back into a ponytail so pale it very nearly looked like a powdered wig, but other than the dated fashion of it he seemed nearly normal. The infernal pentagram in red chalk he’d drawn around himself was probably a giant indication that something was off, but other than that, he just looked like a person. Silent. Meek.
It was a glamor, of course, that had turned his lamplight-yellow eyes nondescript brown. His forgetful sort of face had a gauzy spell on it that he used when blending in with humanity. So often they forgot about the hired help regardless. But people had a tendency to remember the faces of demons, cut as they usually were of sharp and beautiful angles, and Silas did not want to seem frightening. Not currently, anyway. A few people had already seen through the glamor - was sorcery so common here? - but he kept it on regardless. Maintaining the spell gave him something to do other than panic about the fact that his deal with the Thorn family wasn’t applicable here, and he could feel self-control slipping away like grains of sand in an hourglass. How much time did he have? Not much. The pentagram would help, but it wouldn’t solve the problem. That he was certain of.
Silas had asked the DOA for someone who knew demons an hour before, and here he’d parked himself. Whatever was on the outside of those walls could wait, he felt, until he knew he wouldn’t destroy it.
The door swung upon, and he looked up at the visitor’s arrival.
To be fair, Julian's experience with demons was primarily in destroying them. But he was a nephilim and the question had arisen, and so here he was. Better to keep the demon close and keep an eye on him than worry whoever was doing it wasn't doing it well enough.
And if he were honest with himself - which he often was when it came to anything but his heart - Julian needed something to do that made him feel useful. He desperately missed Emma, the rest of his siblings, and even the frustrations of an old house renovation. Without the drama of the shadowhunter world to take up the rest of his time, he was spiraling.
One would never guess it looking at him though. He stepped through the door looking tall and controlled, minus his chaotic hair. His runes were left exposed on his neck and arms. He'd stopped bothering with a glamour to hide them. The permanent voyance rune on his hand let him see Silas as he was; there was no question of his otherworldliness but demons were far more horrific looking in Julian's world.
"Silas, I'm guessing?" Julian eyed the chalk pentagram. "Do we need to be worried about that?"
Silas stood, because that was the polite thing to do when someone entered the room, and after a cursory glance at Julian, lowered his eyes to the pentagram. “It will hold, presently.” ‘Presently’ was doing a lot of heavy lifting in that answer, but Silas figured that some amount of concern was implied in the situation.
His quick assessment of Julian confirmed what he’d already been told by the DOA: demons and magic were hardly universal things with universal rules. Something about looking at the other man burned, like staring into a sunset, and those marks on his arms pulsed with magic. Silas might have labeled him as ‘trouble’ in another situation, but here and now, he was an opportunity.
“You don’t seem to be the type to make deals with demons,” Silas observed softly. His magic felt more pointed than that. A blunt weapon. Spirits and sages, it was hard to think. “Apologies, but they didn’t give me your name.”
"It's Julian. And I'm not," Julian admitted. He didn't like that 'presently' modifier. That was the kind of thing he'd have said to the Clave to not be lying, but not particularly be telling the truth either. "But I'm adaptable. Our demons weren't particularly interested in deals, just killing everything in sight. So I guess you could say I'm curious."
He didn't take a step back when Silas stood; it would look like weakness and he was keenly aware that this was uncharted territory where the balance of power would be crucial. But he was also still examining the sigil. "What does it do? Your marks are different from ours."
“It’s a leash,” Silas answered, and reached out to demonstrate, his gloved fingers hitting the edge of the pentagram as if he were in a glass cage. Demons without deals? Silas knew some didn't bother even in his world, but he would never understand it. Even at his worst he’d never relished chaos. “I drew it myself when I arrived. You see, Julian,” he tested the name deliberately, “demons - where I am from - require deals from mortals. In exchange for years off of human lives, demons use their magic in the service of their masters. Without a deal in place, we go hungry.”
He dropped his hand. Flexed it, once. “I’m afraid hunger is not something any of us tolerate well,” Silas said, a note of apology in his voice. “We appear very much like the demons you are familiar with at home, when hungry. Killing everything in sight? Yes. That much is familiar. My previous deal appears to have been severed upon my arrival, and my control is not faultless. Which is why,” he concluded, lifting his chin to meet Julian’s stare, “I have a deal to propose to you, if it is something you might hear.”
"I'm listening." Julian was a decisive person. And the idea of a demon let loose on this place without a seraph blade in his possession made his blood run cold. "And I have questions."
He took a step back finally, but only to reach into a pocket and pull out his stele. Turning over his left arm, he quickly drew an insight rune on the underside of his forearm. The rune sizzled and then settled into black ink, like all the other visible marks on his body.
"This will help me know when you're lying. So don't bother. You be honest with me, I'll be honest with you. What deal do you need to stay fed? What does it cost the person you make the deal with?"
Silas eyed the wound with curious twin emotions: hungry delight at the scent of mortal life so near and unfurled, and a desire to clean it, and provide his handkerchief to staunch the blood.
“Twenty years is what I prefer,” he answered honestly, looking away from the rune, “but I could make do with a minimum of five. The contract will siphon off the service day by day so as to prevent any infernal ah-- interference.” Demons stayed loyal because it was guaranteed food. Those that broke the agreement got nothing, the years returned to the mortal who had made the deal. “The mortal in question - the head of the contract - will receive my loyalty and service for whatever they require. Housework, political maneuverings, magical assistance… I’ve done university coursework for a foppish master who preferred social engagements to the classroom, once. I received an ‘Outstanding’ in Ancient History.”
There was very little to indicate that Silas was telling a joke, his sense of humor was so dry. The corner of his mouth quirked. “But more than my service, the head of the contract receives a fraction of my power. It manifests in many ways - enhanced magical ability, strength, a general adeptness toward healing faster when injured. I can hear you from anywhere in the event of an emergency. And in times of life and death, I can make the divide a little more… malleable.”
"Twenty years…off my life," Julian clarified, probably unnecessarily. There was zero chance he'd sell off twenty years of his life to a demon without exploring other options, but he was smart enough to keep his mouth shut. He had no way of knowing how strong Silas was. Whether even one seraph blade would be enough to take him down. Different worlds meant different potential horrors. His face showed no extreme emotion, one way or the other, just a carefully neutral expression.
"Maximum of five and you don't get them all at once so you can't just kill me and move onto the next person. How many deals can you make at a time? Is five years going to leave you chomping at the bit? Are you going to siphon anything from me other than years of my life?" He realized he was starting to sound like Ty so he scowled and didn't add another question to the pile but he had a few more ready to fire off.
Silas hesitated, and then inclined his head in a silent acknowledgement of Julian’s initial request. Five years wasn’t awful. He’d had worse deals. It wasn’t what Julian’s white-hot power of a life force was worth, but he kept that himself. “Five years. One head of contract. I believe I can take others’ years in your stead, if you can procure them. Subsidiary holders. But they will not receive the magical benefits, and you must take the brunt of it. And no,” he said, holding the word clearly so as to demonstratively rake it across whatever truth spell Julian was using. “You will only lose your years. The contract will take a physical mark on you - a strand of hair will turn white. But that is all.”
Sillas took a breath, pursing his lips together. “I have a day,” he finally said. “Twenty-four hours. For you to talk with your family, for you to consider. I will write on this-- network? And see if there are other options.” A small, tired smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “But I can’t give you more than twenty-four hours before the situation gets significantly more exciting for the both of us.”
Julian tilted his head thoughtfully. "Do you think it'll make a difference to all of this that I have Angel blood?" It was still very strange admitting he was a nephilim to random strangers in this place, but there was little use in hiding that particular detail in Vallo. He'd seen what the internet had to say about him.
"And what happens if Vallo sends me back? I guess you can't really know that one." He frowned and paced away a few steps. "Have you had any of your deals end up in another dimension? Did the deal still hold?" Not for the first time, he was glad he was no longer parabatai with Emma. He would not have risked this touching her for anything. Not even the safety of all of Vallo.
Silas considered Julian’s initial question. Demons were sensitive to iron and salt, and any sort of holy magic. It had hurt a little to look at the man when he had first entered the room, which he assumed came down to the origin of his power. “I couldn’t say,” he concluded after a moment. “I don’t think either of our magics were intended to work with one another. It could prove unpredictable.” One or both of them might explode. Who knew?
The other questions were easier to answer: “Dimensional shifts appear to be enough to break any contract I’ve held. I can’t feel any connection with my past master.” His face remained impassive, but the words ached. He’d known Nathaniel from the first breath that the baby had taken, had raised him to be a mostly-functional adult. Silas could accept that time functioned differently here than it did at home. It didn’t keep Nathaniel’s absence from hurting. “I suspect that the same result would occur for either of your scenarios.”
Those answers were about what Julian had expected. But now that he'd started thinking about Emma, he was distracted. She would hate this idea. But she wasn't here and Julian was far more reckless when she wasn't around.
"Okay, let me think about it and talk to my brother." Julian knew Ty would have more questions and that if he did anything like this without discussing it with his brother, he'd only encourage Ty to also make deals with demons without talking to him. That was the last thing he wanted. "We'll probably have more questions, but if I can't agree, I'll help you figure something out."
It was a neutral way of saying he wouldn't let Silas run loose on the populous, whatever it took. While he didn't have a seraph blade of his own here, he suspected Ty and Kit had theirs. Whether that was true or not, he'd find a way to do his duty.
Julian looked around the DOA office. "I assume you're not staying here."
Silas hesitated a moment before providing Julian a slow nod in response. It was both gratifying and irritating to be a problem to be managed - Silas prided himself on his independence - but he couldn’t have foreseen this happening. He planned his life generation by generation, and Vallo had broken that pattern. It was really, truly humbling, in a loathsome sort of way.
“I’m staying here until it is safe for me to leave,” he corrected, indicating the pentagram’s confining rings. “I’m quite literally starving, and so out of an abundance of caution…” He looked around the artless room with a curled lip, for it was styled in the boring sort of way most conference rooms. Pitiful. “It’s not due to preference so much as necessity, I assure you.” Ugh. Plastic blinds. Hideous.
"Oh." Julian frowned. This was a demon, he reminded himself. It was better if he stayed here, under the watchful eye of someone until he was under control. But the instincts of a teenager who'd raised four kids made him twitchy at the thought of anyone having to stay in a business overnight, like a lost piece of luggage.
"Right, well. I'll think fast. Don't eat anyone," he said blankly. And after a moment's hesitation and another frown, he left.
He made a detour to talk to whoever was on duty at the DOA currently first. Just to be safe.