Joining the library and the Archive was far easier than Kate had expected. Within a day, the library’s original architect, Bastet, had come by to take a few measurements and install doors next to one of the conference rooms in the back and at the bottom of the vaults below the library. Those doors both led to the break room of the Archive.

While Kate had met most of the Archive team, Amaterasu had somehow evaded her. Now, Kate and Nirrti were waiting for the newcomer to the library at the reception desk, while Eisheth, Apollyon and Adelina toured the Archive, which would likely soon lose its name to simply be part of the library. Kate had opted to forego the tour and explore on her own time, and Nirrti knew it like the back of her hand. She did a lot of her work there in the past and filled a shelf or two by herself already.

“I didn’t expect this to be done before the funeral. Makes me want to apologize for missing a day in the transition here.”

“Apollyon will miss it too and there is no need to rush it anyway. The funeral is in two days, right?”

“Yes, I will be here after it’s all done. Polly, Malice and I will just attend the actual burial and the small gathering afterwards.”

“I don’t think there will be much to transition here anyway. We might be overthinking it.”

“Better to be sure and I would like to take the time to get used to having so much more to take care of.”

Before Nirrti could respond, Amaterasu arrived. She teleported into the library in her human disguise, as a pale woman with pitch black hair and fiery orange eyes, not unlike Sariel’s. But in contrast to Sariel’s rather burning gaze, Amaterasu’s was warm and inviting.

She looked around and eventually made her way to the reception desk. “What a lovely place you have here. Hello.”

“Amaterasu, I assume?” Kate returned a smile.

“The one and only. Nice to meet you, you must be Kate.”

“I am, hi.”

“I heard about your reticence regarding the Archive, it’s nice to see you agree to join our operations anyway. And I have to admit, I felt the same way about this place. So many new books, I could spend earthly millennia just reading. I always avoided coming here because of that.”

“It’s honestly good to feel seen like that. I suppose you might like a tour?”

“Not unless it’s absolutely necessary. The exploration is part of the fun.”

Kate grinned. “How have we never met? I feel like I’m talking to a mirror.”

Amaterasu chuckled. “I haven’t been to this world in centuries. And you haven’t been to… let’s call it my realm either. Speaking of this world, you have a balcony in the back, right?”

“We do.”

“Awesome! I look forward to seeing the stars again.”

Kate raised an eyebrow. “I am extremely certain that there’s a good story there.”

“I don’t know about good, but there is a story, yes.”

“And I would like to hear it. But how about we get some drinks and snacks in the back first and sit down properly. It’s a little awkward having you stand out here while we get the comfy chairs.”

“That would be lovely, thank you.”

 

Once they had conjured some hot chocolate to enjoy, both Nirrti and Kate had shifted back to their demonic forms. Amaterasu seemingly did not.

Kate tilted her head, trying to figure out if her new friend was in her demon form of not. “You know you can be yourself back here.”

“I am.” Amaterasu smiled and brushed back some of her voluminous hair to reveal two very short black horns.

“Those are so cute!”

“They really are, aren’t they? Yours are quite lovely too, so elegant.”

Kate ran a hand over one of her slung back horns. “Thank you. I always feel awkward about that question, but I think I need to ask it more often: what sort of demon are you?”

“I assume you haven’t met every kind yet, right?”

“I don’t think so. There are always new demons who are unique in ways I couldn’t have imagined before. And there are demons I have known for years that I don’t know what they are.”

“Well, I for one am a kami. I’m not sure how many of us ‘rare’ demons you have met, but we kami are few in number.”

“Okay, this is the second time someone claimed to be a rare type. What’s up with that?”

“It’s quite simple. There are a few types of demons that are very numerous and many many types of demons with very few members.”

“That’s… yea, that makes sense. So, I have run into a lot of devils, Nightmares, succubi and gorgons. A few spider-y demons and a few that have these cat-like parts. I know abyssals are rare and I have only ever met one Noppera-Bo, can you give a little more on who is what and how common?”

“The most common demons are definitely devils, the group of physically animalistic demons, which would contain gorgons, lamia, and the family of spider-likes for example, and succubi. That you ran into so many Nightmares is not unusual, but they are fewer in number than, let’s say, devils. Most demon types fall into that in-between range, especially if you categorize all the animalistic types on their own. The feline demons are kasha, the spider-likes are sometimes called driders but that is a very old term and doesn’t necessarily include those like Jorogumo, if you have met her.”

“I have, she’s great. I was told demons are categorized by the magic that comes natural to them, why then are there categories for physical features?”

“Because for most of those demons, their features are part of their magic. Spider-likes excel at visualization magic. Jorogumo uses her eyes to get an amount of visual information we couldn’t even dream of and turns that into incredible plans and projections of structures. The bartender Uttu uses her highly refined senses of touch and taste to create the perfect drink. Kasha, then, have a heightened version of the predatory skills we all possess. I don’t know how deeply you have dabbled in yours, but you should give them a try. They can be useful. Some, like Bastet, channel their abilities towards the creation of highly effective weapons. Seshat used to do that too as the master weapon smith of the armed forces.”

“That would explain how Polly knows her.”

“It does, yes.”

“Okay, are there any important demon types I don’t know about, anything I have missed?”

“Well, reapers for one have a large impact on demonic culture and of course the fomori.”

“I have met some reapers, but I’m not sure I know any fomori? Any names?”

“Hm… You might know War.”

“I totally do. War’s great.”

“And she is a fomori, their thing is supplementing their physical prowess with magic. They can be stronger, faster or more enduring depending on what they need in the moment.”

“That sounds quite useful. Now I just want to know what Noppera-Bo do and what you do.”

“Noppera-Bo are masters of blending in, funnily enough. They will simply be overlooked if they want to, and they can extend that effect onto others. That ease of sharing their magic is also the reason why their physical quirks get, well, shared when they get intimate with someone.”

Kate nodded solemnly. “I have experienced that myself. That was quite something honestly, not having anything anywhere. Not bad though, rather fun.”

Amaterasu chuckled. “Most people are still too, well, not scared but a bit spooked by that prospect. To see someone so young just try is reassuring.”

“I totally plan to do that again, Yumi and I even set up a date already.”

“I almost envy you. I haven’t befriended any Noppera-Bo enough to pull someone into bed. But you wanted to know what kami do. Well, our magic is inverted in a way. You know how doing small things is easier than trying to conjure a ship or something, right?”

Kate simply nodded.

“For me, that’s the opposite. I can easily snap a large ship into existence or move a mountain, but it took significant effort to create this mug of hot chocolate. I would have to push myself to my limits to hand you a single cookie. If you wanted to flood the city in cookies, that would be far easier.”

“Funky. That is honestly really fascinating and I need to dig into the Archive for more. Don’t want to take up all of your day with that when there is an entire Amaterasu to learn about.”

“And a Kate to learn about too. A Nirrti as well, if we hadn’t worked together in the past.”

“You did?”

Nirrti took the chance to jump into the conversation. “I was doing my work on finality in this world, the fact that things end and how, and Ama was doing work cataloguing the night sky. We cooperated on figuring out how stars are born and die.”

“The saddest thing I ever wrote about.” Amaterasu looked almost hurt reminiscing about that time.

“Wait, you did star charts?”

The kami forced a smile. “I did. I was trying to figure out what Noxite was doing and how, so I drew the sky here. A lot.”

“That means that… we have a compilation of historical star charts that some of the local hobby astronomers like to look at that was written by one A. Terasu. That’s you, isn’t it?”

“Totally me, yes. I gave permission to show my drawings to humans under that name a very long time ago. My friends call me Ama, felt right to use that as a pseudonym. You can call me that too, of course.”

“Sure thing.”

“I actually wrote a lot of books that should be in your vaults, I didn’t just study the night sky, my biggest works were about the sun, even successfully replicating it in a magical bottle.”

“Nuclear fusion in a bottle, damn.” Kate laughed.

“Is that what humans call it? Nuclear fusion?”

“Yes, and they have managed to replicate it too. It’s just super difficult for them.”

“Understandable, if it wasn’t for how I do magic I would have struggled immensely too.”

“Humans have managed quite a few remarkable things, except making a society I want to be part of.” Kate sighed. “They sure have a tendency to turn every good invention into something horrible.”

“I expected you to be a bit negative about them but you sound actually hurt.”

“I couldn’t even tell you why. I can’t make sense of why I feel so disconnected and almost upset about humans. I mean, obviously I’m a demon now and I have seen what a society of good people looks like, but I just can’t make sense of what I feel.”

“Maybe a fresh perspective would help?”

Kate nodded. “It just might, but not today. Today is a happy day and you still need to meet our chef.”

“You have a chef?”

“Sure do. An incredible human and I look forward to when she finishes her cookbook. Her food is some of the best I have ever eaten.”

“I look forward to dinner then.”