Worldsoul

Thirty-Three

Shadow woke, blinking at the stars. The veil was thin across her face, its infinitesimal weight a comfort. She lay on her back, on what felt like a pallet of straw, on the courtyard in front of Elemiel’s dwelling. As she watched, a star shot overhead, bolting down in a trail of green fire. She groped at her sash and found the sun-and-moon blade hanging safely in its leather sheath.

Once she was assured of her veil and the knife, Shadow was more concerned with what was happening within. She shut her eyes and looked inside her mind: there was nothing there, except a sense of unfamiliar peace. The spirit had gone. Shadow breathed out, a sigh of relief and got unsteadily to her feet. Neither Elemiel nor Gremory were anywhere in sight. The crescent moon was riding high above a handful of cloud, but the desert seemed to shine with its own faint light, casting odd moving shadows across the rocks. Shadow remembered the figure she had seen and shivered.

Across the roof, steps led down to the platform of rock by which they had entered. Shadow went down the steps and looked in through the black arch, but there was no sign of the demon or the angel. The chamber was dark and quiet. She took the slope that led down from the platform, out into the desert.

Its peace mirrored the landscape within. She was reminded that it had been years since she had last been truly alone in the desert, without angel or demon or passenger. The journey she had made to find the knife had been like this, with the great starlit bowl of the sky hanging over the shifting sands and the green glow of twilight and dawn.

But now she was not alone; at least, if Gremory and the angel were still even here. Perhaps, their work done, they had departed for other realms, and she was alone. Shadow was not arrogant enough to think this had all been done as a favour to her. There were other agendas, more layers of meaning.

Then she came around an edge of rock and there was the demon. Gremory was in human form, barefoot and wearing a robe of black silk. She was crouching among the stones and as Shadow watched, her hand darted out, re-emerging with something spiny and wriggling. A scorpion. The demon stood, opened her mouth, bit it in half, and then swallowed each half. She turned to Shadow, a bead of venom glittering on her lip. She licked it away with the swipe of a long tongue and smiled.

“You’re awake.”

Shadow nodded.

“I-it’s gone. Where did it go?”

“Ah.” The demon had the grace to look a little abashed. “I need to explain something to you.”

“What?”

“Come up to the chamber.”

“Gremory?”

“Come.” The demon strode past her up the slope, beckoning. Shadow followed with a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach. Gremory did not pause at the angel’s chamber, but went past it, up onto the roof.

“There,” she said. “Do you see?”

Shadow frowned into the darkness. Something was sitting on the lip of rock opposite, something small and tailed. It raised its head and she caught a glimpse of eyes that were the colour of roses, a curl of horn at its brow.

“It’s a demon.”

“Only a little one. A small spirit, a genus loci. You shouldn’t be able to see it, Shadow.”

“Then why can I?”

“Well. Elemiel did his best.”

“And he got rid of the thing in my head.” The demon was looking somewhat shifty. “Gremory? Didn’t he?”

“He was largely successful,” the demon said. “He got it out of your mind, but it went-elsewhere.”

“What? Where?”

“Into your flesh. I don’t know whether it even meant to. I think it was so afraid of him that it split into a thousand pieces, and those fragments went into you-into your fingertips, your eyes, your ears… ”

“So now I’m-what? Infested?”

“Look on the bright side,” the demon said. “Try to see it as an upgrade.”