Dire Blood (The Descent Series, Book 5)

by Reine, SM

  “Are you going to attack me?”

  “No. It would be too easy for you to end my life.” A sly smile crossed his frog-like mouth. “But you don’t know that, do you? My name is Hyzakis. Nobody important. But perhaps we can help each other, you and I.”

  Before she could respond, something darker than the night loomed overhead. It was bigger than an airplane, and swollen like a tick filled with blood. Its semi-translucent skin danced with reflected gold and crimson. A hundred writhing legs, like worms that terminated in hooked claws, dangled from its underbelly.

  “What is that?” Elise asked, grabbing Nathaniel’s arm as its wriggling legs descended towards them.

  Hyzakis grinned. “Transportation.”

  VII

  Isaac knew that his wife would be expecting him at their quarters soon. She would have heard of the trial and expected news. But he didn’t want to deal with her—not with his blood boiling and his fists still aching from James Faulkner’s face.

  Isaac detoured at the library instead. He sat at a desk and folded his hands on top of the wooden surface. A knife concealed underneath one sleeve pressed hard into his forearm.

  The thing on the opposite side of the table was barely recognizable as a sentient creature, much less a librarian. A head similar to a goat’s protruded from the shadowed depths of her orange hood, and she had a feathered chest and goat’s legs underneath.

  “Onoskelis,” Isaac began.

  She held up one dainty finger to silence him as she finished writing on a piece of paper. Her hand wouldn’t have been out of place on a small human child, aside from the black fingernails and leathery skin.

  “I have a question,” he went on.

  She whispered, “A moment.”

  He gritted his teeth and watched the surrounding desks as he waited. Onoskelis wasn’t the only one busy in the library. The dozens of tables were occupied by dozens more demons, all of them writing, all of them wearing the orange robes of scribes. Thick hoods draped over their twisted, inhuman heads, making each of them indistinguishable from the next.

  The library was in the east tower, and it took up the entire lower half of the building. The roof vanished into darkness overhead. The walls were covered in impossibly tall shelves, which were occupied by row upon row of documents. Beneath Isaac’s feet, the floor was frosted glass, and he could make out the blurred shape of more shelves below. He had always wondered what the demons kept in the basement of the library, but he wasn’t allowed down there—and the librarians weren’t talking.

  Onoskelis was writing in one of the ledgers. Her pen scratched on paper that wasn’t made from trees. It was a peachy-gray color, and shone strangely in the light. Wood was scarce in Dis, so they made paper out of the flesh of fiends.

  Isaac bounced his knee, drummed his fingers on the desk, and tried to be patient. But the thought of James Faulkner in one of his cells made it impossible to wait. “Onoskelis, I need to ask you something,” he said, doing his very best to wrap his mouth around the infernal tongue.

  Again, she held up one finger.

  “Shh,” she whispered. “A moment.”

  “I don’t have a moment. Why was there a secret bounty placed on James Faulkner? What’s his crime?”

  Onoskelis continued to write.

  He angled his head to try to read the runes she etched on the page. He only got through one line, which said something about ethereal influences and apotheosis, before she turned the page.

  She wrote three more lines, signed the page with a flourish, and blew on it. The ink flared with flame.

  “When a bounty isn’t public, it’s for a reason, Isaac Kavanagh,” Onoskelis said. Her voice was low, throaty, and strangely human, considering that it came out of a goat’s muzzle. Her mouth barely moved.

  “I’m a touchstone and the Inquisitor. I handle prisoners. I’m not the public.”

  “Then you should ask yourself who would place a bounty without telling you, and why. And you should ask yourself if the answers to your questions are worth the cost of learning them.” Onoskelis carefully folded the paper and shut the leather cover.

  “So you know why he was arrested,” Isaac said.

  “Of course,” she said, and she leaned back to sift through her desk drawer. She came up with a rubber stamp and licked it. Her tongue was thin and purple. “I know everything that happens in this Palace, Isaac Kavanagh. I would be of no use as a record-keeper if I didn’t.”

  “Well?” he asked.

  She wrapped a cord around the ledger and stamped its cover. “That answer isn’t worth my life. Is it worth yours, I wonder?” Onoskelis didn’t wait for an answer. She rose from the desk. “Follow me. I have some filing to do.”

  “Now, listen to me—”

  The demon cut him off with a guttural bleat. It was loud enough to draw the attention of the other scribes, but as soon as they saw Isaac, they quickly returned to their work.

  Onoskelis repeated herself, carefully enunciating each word with her furred lips. “Follow me. I have some filing to do.”

  She swept off to the spiral stairs, leaving Isaac no choice but to follow.

  Every level of the library’s catwalks was lit by standing lamps, and no two of them matched. It was as though the decorator had picked them up at rummage sales on Earth. One had a brass stand with a shade that looked like turtle shell; another was a white, modern torchiere. Onoskelis turned them on as she passed, marking her trail.

  Isaac followed her to a quiet level two hundred feet above the floor of the library before she stopped climbing. She limped toward a stack at the end of the row. “James Faulkner is on high trial,” he said, staying far enough back that he wouldn’t step on her snakelike tail. “Humans never go on high trial.”

  Onoskelis snuffled, nostrils flaring. “Martin Beaumont was on high trial in 1932. He took an ethereal artifact to the Coccytus and destroyed the Maw. His sentence was eternity in Hellfire, where he waits to this day. Genevieve Teufel was on high trial in 1765 for casting arcane ethereal magic—impressive for a human, and also worth Hellfire. Aksinya Samov—”

  “So there’s a precedent,” Isaac said.

  “But it’s rare. Mortals go on high trial for the most catastrophic of reasons, and none that have gone before the entire Council have faced a punishment less than Hellfire.” Onoskelis handed him the ledger. “Your reach is better than mine. Put this on the shelf over your head, beside the blue book.”

  He stretched onto his toes to file it where she ordered. “You’re telling me that Faulkner must have nearly destroyed the world to earn high trial, but that’s not the accusation. They said that he’s changed species and become a demon. It’s impossible. That man’s as much of a demon as I am.”

  Onoskelis swept up the next set of stairs as if she hadn’t heard him. She was fast when she wanted to be. He had to hurry to keep up with the beating of her hooves against the catwalk.

  The librarian took him to the highest level of books, and kept going. The east tower held the offices of lesser infernal nobility, and none of them would meet eyes with Isaac as he passed their doors. Everyone enjoyed watching him practice his arts in the courtyard, but nobody wanted to deal with him outside of the torture room. Or inside of it, for that matter. Too many of their friends had passed through the Inquisitor’s office.

  Onoskelis moved onto the open walkway that led to the grand tower. The winds were strong that high off of the ground, and even the dust storm wasn’t enough to spare Isaac’s skin from the harsh air. He felt the bridge of his nose immediately begin to burn. He flipped his hood over his head, tugged his sleeves down to the knuckles, and followed her across the black bridge.

  “Not all of our records are kept in the library anymore,” Onoskelis said, her voice soft underneath the whipping wind. She moved as confidently and smoothly as though there was no wind at all, even though the cloak beat at her furred legs and Isaac had to grip the bone railings. “There are more secrets in Dis than there used to be,
and they have never been in short supply.”

  “If they aren’t being kept in the library, where are they?” Isaac asked, words raspy.

  “Localized regions around the palace. Private offices or what have you. I would retrieve them if I knew.” She vibrated with barely-controlled fury. “Withholding records from the librarians is criminal. Perverse.”

  The admission that there might have been something that escaped Onoskelis stunned him. He stopped walking halfway across the bridge.

  He stared down at the city spread around him, far below the walkway between towers. The streets looked like a spider’s web spread over offal. Isaac never went into the city if he could avoid it; it wasn’t safe for humans, even ones employed by the Council.

  But if records were being hidden from the librarians…

  Onoskelis had reached the entrance to the grand tower, and Isaac’s fingers were being worn raw by the dusty gale. He rushed to catch up with her, elbowing past a line of nightmares on their way to the library. “Who would do that?” he whispered as they stepped into the foyer. The floor’s mosaic sparkled in the harsh light. “Nobody even has that ability.”

  She gave him a blank look.

  So they weren’t going to discuss missing records within the Palace walls. Isaac clenched his jaw and nodded.

  Onoskelis took him to the elevator and flipped the lever to take them higher. She tucked her sleeves around her to keep them from catching on the walls as they ascended. “The Council has done a lot of work to encourage people to see it as a nonpartisan organization. They have forged a tenuous agreement with the human Union. They hired mortal ambassadors to visit Heaven. Building such a reputation is expensive, and it has been paid in blood.”

  “I know that,” Isaac said.

  “This James Faulkner—a human on high trial following a private bounty—he is swathed in secrets. I would be curious to know what other secrets surround him.”

  “For your records?”

  “The library’s records are already complete,” Onoskelis said. “Of course.”

  The elevator stopped. Fiends were waiting in the hall beyond, and each of them was so riddled with black brands that there was barely an inch of unmarked skin remaining upon them.

  They stepped back to allow Onoskelis to lead Isaac down the glossy black hall. The windows were tall, open arches that funneled the wind through the tower with a whistle that sounded like screaming.

  She took him to a public temple that overlooked the courtyard. A dozen worshipers kneeled around the room, supervised by guards that stood on either side of a massive statue. Isaac had passed by it once or twice, but had never paid attention to it. The placard said, “The First Summit.”

  It was there that Onoskelis stopped. Backed by the flaming red sky, her doe-like face and ovular pupils were almost beautiful. “Times are changing,” she murmured, keeping her voice low enough that it wouldn’t disrupt the praying demons ringed around the statue. “But how much? Does time progress, or regress? Should we look to the future for answers, or to the past? What ancient battles have yet to be won?” She touched Isaac’s arm. His skin crawled. “Knowledge for the sake of knowledge is a dangerous thing, Isaac Kavanagh.”

  “What in the seven Hells are you getting at?” he hissed.

  She touched her furred forehead, her heart, and kissed her fingertips. “I’ll be interested to know what you learn about James Faulkner.”

  Onoskelis walked away, hooves giving metallic claps against the tile.

  He gazed up at the statue that the demons worshiped. The statue commemorated the entities that had originally conceived of the Treaty of Dis: Yatam, the father of all demons, depicted as a smiling, flirtatious man with eight arms and a sword; the mortal king of Sparta, crowned and robed; and Metaraon, the voice of God and the highest of archangels. The latter was as severe and cold in marble as he was in person.

  Isaac had been led to the temple for a reason. But why? Did Onoskelis think that James Faulkner’s crimes had something to do with the conception of the Council? Or was there something else afoot?

  There was an empty pew nearby. Glancing around to make sure nobody was watching—nobody dared look at the Palace’s Inquisitor, lest he think of a reason to question them—he knelt at the stone bench and folded his hands.

  He was a man of God, so he didn’t pray to those idols. But he whispered a single question: “Why?”

  Isaac was Inquisitor. He had a way of finding answers.

  And it all began with James Faulkner.

  James felt like a jack-o-lantern shriveling in the sun. The skin around his wounds was puckering. His flesh was taking on a dull hue, as if he had been bleached by the harsh air of Hell.

  The wounds on his wrists had clotted again; there wasn’t enough fresh blood there to keep painting. He lifted his wrist to his mouth and bit. It didn’t even hurt anymore, although hot prickles spread down his spine at the discomfiting sensation of teeth sinking through the scabby, caking blood to the meat underneath. He had to bite a little harder than before to make himself bleed again.

  Thick blood flowed out of the wound and dripped onto the floor. He scooped it up with his thumb and rubbed it against his finger as he returned his attention to the wall.

  Though he had no way of tracking time, he had probably been drawing for hours. Maybe days. He had started painting in the corner opposite the door, focusing on the precise curlicues of the kinds of spells he usually considered to be too dangerous to perform.

  Every line, every angle, had a meaning in the arcane language of magic. That first line meant a very specific kind of fire, pulled through the air in a very specific shape. The next line indicated where he wanted that lick of flame to travel before it was extinguished. The third line was a plea to fire spirits. And so on.

  Without any of his usual shortcuts—herbs, crystals, stones, ink—he had to spell out, very precisely, everything he wanted to happen. It was like writing binary code. Ones and zeroes of James’s arterial blood drawn on stone.

  He had been afraid of being discovered, at first—that someone would come in to find that he had covered the wall in his fluids. But nobody came. Aside from the occasional vibration of stone, as though something had shifted deep in the earth below him, there was no noise, no light, no sign that anyone lived beyond his six-foot cube.

  James used the tip of his pinky to draw a short, half-inch slash through one line near the ceiling.

  He had already covered two walls and half of the floor. He had probably used too much of his blood. He needed food and drink, sustenance, replenishment.

  But nobody came. The lightless day wore on in Hell, and he continued to paint.

  James lost himself in the rhythm of the magic, and his mind wandered as his hands continued to spread crimson symbols on the stone.

  He thought of Elise sharpening her swords, and how amused she would have been to see him casting spells from scratch with his own blood. It was the kind of insane escape plan that she would have approved of.

  He thought of Hannah, somewhere out there in the rioting city. He thought of rusty meat hooks and delicate legs that terminated in black loafers. He thought of the way she had screamed to him as the demons had hauled him away, and of the very first time they had made love on the grass in the Colorado forest.

  And James thought of his son—or, at least, the amorphous idea of having a son. Someone who carried his blood. The legacy of it.

  His thumb smeared another line. It was paler than the others. He was running out of blood again.

  He touched his wrist and found the wound tacky. Was he healing with the speed of a kopis, or was he just running out? He felt so dry, so heavy, so exhausted.

  James peeled the scab off of his arm. It caught at the edges and ripped. New blood trickled forth.

  Oh God, did that hurt.

  And still, he continued to paint.

  Near the desert temple, the floating demon descended upon Elise. A rope lowered, and the demons climbed onto
its broad back one by one. “It’s called a kibbeth,” Hyzakis told Elise. “It’s one of the few old beasts still roaming about.” He caught the rope and offered it to her. “Join us?”

  It was better than trying to carry Nathaniel across the desert. Elise scaled the rope easily, going slowly enough that the boy could keep up, and she reached the top in moments.

  The body of the kibbeth was broad enough that the rebels had placed a three-story construction of bone and iron across its back, moored with spikes underneath the scales. It had open windows like the temple below, and the demons milled inside of them with no apparent concern for the fact that their vehicle was living and breathing.

  But they did care about Elise’s presence. They pointed at her and whispered. She picked up Yatam’s name here and there, as well as “father” and “blood.”

  “I’d rather walk,” Nathaniel whispered to Elise.

  Hyzakis appeared behind them. “The third level will be empty. Let’s ascend and have a talk.”

  He was right—the top of the building was unoccupied. Oil lamps sheltered in glass sconces flickered on the pillars; a mirror stood at the end, near another small altar. So it was some kind of mobile temple.

  As soon as Elise set foot on the tiled floor, the kibbeth shifted into motion, and a hot breeze drifted through the open room. It felt a lot like being on a ship, but with smoke surrounding them instead of sea. “What do you want from us?” Elise asked, positioning herself between Hyzakis and Nathaniel.

  “You have the blood,” Hyzakis said, fluttering his fingers at her. “You must be Yatam’s daughter, I would think. Not one of the millions of watered-down bastards produced by his children’s children. You can get the Palace back.”

  She frowned. “Back?”

  “There’s been an upset at the Palace, and the administration has changed. We’re considered rebels, but in truth, we are loyalists. The judge presiding over the Council is a fraud, so you will enter the Palace and kill him.” Hyzakis said it casually, like assassinating the demon in charge was as easy as walking down to the street corner.