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His eyes. Dear gods, his eyes.
They were dark, not incandescent with awful power. Black from lid to lid, but not empty. No, his eyes were grieving holes in a face that had drawn itself tight around a sorrow like a burning stone in the throat.
Like the burning stone in my belly.
I met his gaze, and the gripping pain in my belly coalesced around a hot hard fist buried in my flesh. I knew that grief.
I'd lost people too. Their names were a litany of pain, each one a different scar on my still-beating heart. My social worker Lewis, killed by a Chill junkie. Doreen, slaughtered by a demon intent on breaking Lucifer's hold on Hell. Jace, throwing himself past me to take on a Feeder's ka. Eddie, dead in his lab, betrayed by his sedayeen research partner. And Gabe, my best friend, lying tangled in her garden, dead protecting a traitor my god had asked me to spare.
Each anguish rose up to choke me as I stared into those black, black eyes. Whoever this demon was, he had lost something.
No. Not something. Someone.
Another cramp unzipped me. I spilled against Japhrimel, the agony drawing a curtain of red-black over my vision. I lost sight of the white-haired demon. Japh murmured something to me as I inhaled sharply, wondering who was making that soft mewling sound of pain.
It was me.
"You have lost whatever wit you once possessed." The demon's voice was now a bath of terrible icy numbness.
Nobody paid any damn attention. Lucas had gone silent and still as an adder under a rock. Leander's pulse thrummed audibly, the only human heartbeat I'd heard for a while. Va
That hair's amazing. I wonder if he smokes synth hash and rides a slic in his spare time. He looks like a sk8 in Domenhaiti. All he needs is permaspray stains on his fingers and a few circuit wires in his hair.
The thought sparked a jagged laugh. Why was I always laughing at times like this?
"I do not dispute that," Japhrimel said, still calmly. A steady bath of Power flushed from his aura to mine, working in to meet thin wires of flame ru
I snapped a glance at the black-haired Hellesvront agent, who slung his laserifle's strap over his shoulder and stepped forward. Japhrimel, without so much as a glance down, transferred my weight to the agent by the simple expedient of pushing me. I spilled against McKinley like a newborn kitten, my legs useless and the rest of me not far behind.
What the hell? Another cramp was gathering, my belly quivering with anticipated pain, something trying to climb up through the space caged in my ribs, twisting and clawing.
"Japh? Japhrimel?" I'll admit it. There was no room for pride. My voice was the thin piping squeak of a child caught in a nightmare.
"So it is true. You have Fallen, committed the sin you punished others for."
"What talk is this of sin, between us? You have spent too long with humans." Japhrimel braced me, the scar on my shoulder spilling warmth into my racked body, fighting with the hideous clawing in my belly.
It hurts it hurts oh Anubis — I dragged in another breath. "Anubis et'her ka; oh my Lord my god, please-" Again the pain retreated. It left no relief in its wake. How could I call on Him? Why would He answer me? I was a traitor to myself, and this was my punishment. But it hurt.
"I have spent my penance with mortals. You still reek of Hell and murder, Kinslayer." His voice was rising, and the entire temple throbbed. I had a sudden uneasy vision, between flashes of pain so immense it was like drowning, of Sofya's white walls weeping blood like an injured tooth.
Breathe, Da
But I couldn't. Not until the swell retreated and I found myself sweating and shaking, wrung out, hanging in Japhrimel's hands. Fine time to have an attack of nerves, sunshine. What the hell? I was feeling fine.
But I hadn't been feeling fine for a long while, had I? Stumbling from one terror to the next, staggering from one suckerpunch in the gut to the next, spilling from horror into agony and ending up at numb grief each time.
My eyes cleared. I didn't look up at the demon's face again. "I think I should wait outside," I whispered. The urge to retch rose and passed through me, so immense it felt like all my insides were trying to crawl out the hard way.
Maybe he can make it stop. Oh please, please make it stop.
No wonder my god didn't want me. I was praying to a demon, the only intercession I had left.
"It's all right." McKinley closed his right hand over my arm, bracing me so I didn't go straight down to the floor. "Just relax, Valentine. It's okay."
This is not anywhere near okay.
A new quality crept into the stillness. It was the unsettled boiling of air about to erupt with violence, and Japhrimel moved out in front of us as Va
Seen so close, the difference was startling. The white-haired demon was more than human, true. It screamed from every pore and angle of his frame.
But Japhrimel was more, too. If the other demon was a candle compared to the weak shimmer of a human's aura, Japh was a halogen lasebulb, burning hot enough to scorch plasteel.
He hadn't looked like that compared to Lucifer, had he? My brain shivered away from the idea. Eve. What is she doing now? Where is she?
The thought enraged the tearing thing living in my vitals. Pain swelled, blackness bulged under the surface of my mind, and whatever Japh and the other one said was lost in the fact that I was pretty sure I was dying here in Hajia Sofya.
The blackness swelled, pulsing obscenely as something alien fought for control of my brain and agony-wracked body. Out. I had to get out of the temple and away from whatever divine anger was punishing me. Unfortunately, McKinley thought otherwise. My sword dropped to the floor with a clatter as I feebly tried to fight his hands off me. Then the most amazing cramp-bolt lanced my belly and I went down to the floor, scrabbling for my sword to cut out whatever monstrous thing was growing in me.
I convulsed.
Sudden coolness ran from the crown of my head down through my flesh, a river of balm. I gasped, mouth working like a fish's, and was aware of a slick pattering sound and Leander's muffled curse. The pain in my belly turned back into inert heaviness, as if I'd swallowed something indigestible, lodged in the bowl of my pelvis.
My hands searched fruitlessly for my sword. Warm bony fingers caught my wrist. "Avayin, hedaira." Weary kindness in each syllable. "Peace, beautiful one. Be at peace. You will not die of this."
Are you sure? Because I really think I might. I collapsed against the unforgiving floor, pebbles of mosaic digging into hip and cheek. They felt cool and good against my fevered skin, as the darkness struggled to birth itself inside my head and the thing in my belly twisted. I heard my own breath, a panicked whistling I wasn't sure I liked.
The kind voice wasn't familiar, and it turned unkind again. "She carries a'zharak." Each word laden with disgust and some other, less definable emotion. "This is how you treasure your prize?"
"I made no claim to be the best of my kind. I make no claim to be the best of yours either. The Prince seeks to control my link to her world. She has suffered for it — and suffers now." Japhrimel sounded just as tired, and just as sharp. "I did not come here for my sake, but for hers."