The Devil You Know

by Erin Evans

  Havilar sped after the boy, following the thread that led back to her body, reaching as if she could catch hold of him—he couldn’t be allowed to cross the threshold.

  It came to her, a moment too late, that if he could see her, then so far as Remzi could tell, a ghost was chasing him, and that might be far scarier than anything on the other side of the door.

  Farideh! Havilar screamed, hoping beyond hope that her sister would hear. Whether it was Havilar’s scream or Remzi’s footsteps running out of the cottage, Farideh did look back, away from Bryseis Kakistos, away from the copper-capped scroll she was holding out to Farideh.

  “Remzi, get back in the house!” Farideh shouted.

  In the same moment, Lorcan pointed his wand at the scroll. Magic, invisible but for the sizzling, searing disturbance it left in the air, streaked across the distance. It devoured the scroll, burning it to a cloud of ashes and flakes of charred copper. Bryseis Kakistos pulled her hand back, surprised. Remzi stopped short of the tiefling man who clutched a painful-looking burn.

  “Well met, dear boy,” Bryseis Kakistos said. The tip of her staff glowed and a glowing net shot out, all made of magic. It wrapped around the boy, who screamed. The tiefling man made a grab for him, but missed. Farideh drew her sword, swung it through the spell’s long rope. The blade slid past as if it had cut through nothing more than a sunbeam.

  For Remzi, on the other hand, the bands of light were like solid rope. He fought and kicked and grabbed at the grass as Bryseis Kakistos dragged him nearer. Havilar surged forward, grabbing hold of the net herself. The magic burned her palms, and though the net slowed, she had no way to stop it.

  Again, Lorcan flung missiles of magic at the Brimstone Angel. Farideh grabbed hold of Bryseis Kakistos by one wrist and yanked her out of the path. Havilar nearly shouted at her—what kind of pothach move had that been?—only to realize she’d forgotten she was looking at her own body. The missiles streaked by harmlessly, but the moment of distraction made the net evaporate. Remzi, suddenly unencumbered, sprawled belly-first in the dust.

  Bryseis Kakistos’s staff began to glow again. Farideh slammed into the other tiefling as the spell erupted from the staff, searing a line of violet energy across the sky, away from Lorcan. Bryseis Kakistos shifted her weight, twisting so that Farideh fell instead of her, landing flat on her back on the ground. She planted the crystal of the staff in the middle of Farideh’s chest.

  “The trouble is,” Bryseis Kakistos said, “she’s your sister. You won’t hurt her. But I will hurt you.” She spat a word of jagged Infernal, a short blast of magic exploding from the tip, sending hot magic over Farideh’s chest and arms. She cried out, spasmed.

  Fari! Havilar screamed, and pressed toward her.

  As Farideh lay on the grass, trying to regain her breath, Bryseis Kakistos grabbed hold of the boy by one arm. With a swirl of her staff, she reopened the portal, pulling Havilar with her into the smell of ice and wood smoke. The pull of the portal dragged her back across the plane, swiftly as a watercourse, and she found herself flung back into that place of fog and emptiness with the memory of her body being slammed against the ground.

  Alyona looked down at her. Are you all right? What happened? Where did you go?

  Havilar started to answer, but found her voice breaking on a sudden lump in her throat. She wept, even though the tears weren’t real and the breath she gasped was only a memory, and that somehow made it worse. Alyona kneeled down beside her, lifting her from the cloudy ground and cradling her close.

  How could you not tell me? Havilar asked. I had a son.

  I thought you knew, Alyona told her.

  Havilar pushed away from her, started to … say … something. What had she known? She studied Alyona’s face as if it might remind her. Farideh was there, she said. She’s … She’s figuring things out. Havilar shut her eyes and tried to steer her thoughts back on course. I forgot what I was saying.

  That happens, Alyona said sadly. The longer you’re not connected to your body this way the harder it is to keep your thoughts together. She smoothed Havilar’s hair back. This is taking longer than I think Bisera expected. Perhaps we should ask her to give you some time in your own body.

  Havilar peered at Alyona, sure she’d misheard. You can talk to her?

  Of course, Alyona asked. I talk to her all the time. Haven’t you noticed?

  This time Havilar did scream—in frustration, in rage, in grief. How cruel were the gods to let her end up here and give her someone who seemed so close to being helpful and yet who was so incapable of helping her manage anything? Alyona might be kind, but she seldom made sense … and now Havilar wasn’t going to make sense. She wasn’t going to make sense and her sister might be dead—but at the very least she wasn’t here—and she had a son no one told her about and she was all alone, except for Alyona, and she didn’t have her glaive. Havilar curled into a ball and sobbed and sobbed, for all the good it did, but in that moment it was all she could manage.

  Alyona’s arms wrapped around her. There, there, she said. We’ll both go and talk to her. The moment she’s asleep. This will all be over soon. I promise..

  • • •

  EMMER’S SHOUT OF anguish rivaled Farideh’s screams, still echoing in Lorcan’s ears as he raced across the farmyard. The tiefling cowherd crawled toward where Farideh still lay writhing in the dirt and grabbed hold of what remained of her shirt sleeve.

  “Where did she take him?” he demanded, shaking her. “Where did she take him?”

  “Erlkazar,” Farideh gasped. “Maybe … I don’t …” She broke off with a cry of pain, gritting her teeth, and a fresh tide of fear rose in Lorcan. He shoved Emmer away as he reached her.

  “Where are your healing potions?” he demanded as he dropped to her side. She shook her head—back to Djerad Thymar, it was the only choice. He plucked the portal ring from the chain around his neck and scooped her from the ground. She cried out again—the remains of the armor still steamed and his hand burned where it brushed a buckle. “I’m sure Mehen will have words for you about rushing into battle without proper equipment,” he said, even while some distant part of his brain began to panic.

  “Stop,” she said. “We can’t … leave them.”

  “We can and we will.”

  “Stop!” she cried.

  He stopped walking, but he held her all the more tightly. “Darling,” he said in a low voice, “I cannot take them through the Hells. Whatever you were thinking to promise, they would lose their minds at the sight of the fingerbone tower and you know it. That aside, you are in a great deal of pain and you need healing, now!”

  “Put … me down,” she said.

  Instead he turned so that she could see Emmer, still on the ground, Merida standing in the door. “You’ll have to excuse us,” he said, letting his disguise spell drop with a shiver of needle-sharp pain. “Your son is as necessary to us as he is to you and I promise we’ll be in touch about his circumstances.” Before Farideh could protest again, Lorcan blew through the portal ring that pulled them both back through the planes and into the Hells. Farideh, for all she gritted her teeth and scowled, kept her eyes shut tight, her face turned toward Lorcan, until he opened the portal again, to the Verthisathurgiesh enclave in Djerad Thymar.

  He set her down on the bed. “You need out of that armor,” he said, reaching for the still-hot buckles.

  Farideh grabbed his hand. “Don’t.”

  “Do you imagine this is a seduction?” he said, trying to keep his voice level. The remnants of Graz’zt’s curse, he told himself. The triple urge to scream at her, to panic, to leave and cut his losses like he ought to. He ought to force a deal, some little part of him noted. She’d make any kind of deal right now.

  “Mehen’s … room,” she said. “On the … dresser. Burn salves.”

  This is what happens when you stop thinking like a devil, he told himself as he bolted from the room. They start giving orders. They start thinking they’re driving the
team. They start figuring out how to push and pull you.

  Yell at her later, he thought, as if that would regain anything.

  Lachs and Adastreia looked up as he strode through the central room. “What happened?” Adastreia called. “What did you do?”

  “We don’t need you anymore!” Lorcan shouted. He plunged into Mehen’s room, everything organized in tidy precision so the box of salves and healing supplies was easily snatched up.

  “Is Bryseis dead?” Lachs called as he sprinted past again.

  Not dead, Lorcan thought, returning to Farideh. Closer than ever.

  Farideh had managed to get her leather brigandine partway off, lying back panting on the bed. The skin beneath was angry red and weeping, though thankfully not charred away. He threw the healing kit on the bed, and ignoring Farideh’s attempted protests, unbuckled the rest of the armor.

  “Did you find the Brimstone Angel?” Adastreia stood in the doorway, examining Farideh with a callous sort of curiosity. Lorcan ignored her, pulling pots and bottles from the kit, all of them labeled in Draconic.

  “Which of these is for burns?” he shouted.

  “Oh for blessed Beshaba’s sake.” Adastreia sat down on the opposite side of the bed. She examined the burns across Farideh’s chest and neck and shoulders. She reached up for the necklace she wore, sorting through the beads by touch. With one careful hand, she laid her fingertips against Farideh’s sternum. She whispered a word that sent the feeling of a moonbeam slicing through the clouds in Lorcan’s brain, and a faint silver glow over Farideh’s reddened skin. Lorcan blinked, his panic all erased. Farideh’s skin was still raw-looking, but the skin was intact, the weeping and blood gone.

  “Better?” Adastreia asked.

  “Better,” Farideh said, still breathless. “Thank you.”

  Adastreia stood, dusting off her hands. Lorcan scowled. “Prayer beads?”

  “I don’t like being in pain,” Adastreia said carelessly. “I’m not such a fool as to make myself beholden to Kulaga’s opinion of what I might need.” She folded her arms. “I assume if you don’t need us, that means you lost the sixth heir. I assume that Bryseis Kakistos came to fetch him, if you’re burned like that, so—”

  “Give me a moment,” Lorcan said. “I’ll call on Kulaga when she’s settled.”

  “I was going to say,” Adastreia went on, “that means you’re on to the staff, and Lachs had a notion about that you might want to hear.”

  “What is it?” Farideh said. “No, wait, let me … Let me get dressed again.” She pulled the sheet up over her. “He can tell me.”

  “I can tell you,” Adastreia said. “It’s not on this plane. Stands to reason. Asmodeus is a god here, so hiding something here—especially something that’s connected to him on such a fundamental level—would go poorly. In a hundred years, he would have found it and reclaimed it. It’s not here, and if Bryseis Kakistos thinks she can get hold of it, it’s a fair wager that it’s not in the Nine Hells.”

  “Excellent,” Lorcan said. “Only ten thousand planes to search.”

  Adastreia snorted. “Don’t be dramatic. Lachs and I will help you narrow it down. While we wait for Kulaga and Shetai.” She left the room without waiting for an answer.

  Farideh blew out a breath. “I have no idea what to do with her.”

  “It could be worse,” Lorcan said. “She could be actively trying to kill you. Which pot is the burn salve?”

  “I’m fine. This will heal.”

  “Darling, humor me?” he said, hating the brittle sound of his own voice. She considered him, wary and worried.

  “The clay one with the red labeling.” Farideh pursed her mouth. “Are we doing the right thing?”

  Lorcan rifled through the pouch’s contents. “I told you this isn’t a seduction.”

  “I mean, should we be trying to stop her? She has a point—you had the same point—if she doesn’t do this ritual, Asmodeus wins.”

  “Asmodeus always wins,” Lorcan said. “Are you planning to sacrifice your sister’s child to realize that?”

  “Maybe there’s another way to go about it,” Farideh said. Then, “I just want Havilar back safe.”

  Lorcan stopped. “You can’t listen to her,” he said. “It’s dangerous.”

  “As dangerous as listening to Asmodeus?” Farideh asked.

  “Easily,” Lorcan said. “Do you remember what I told you? In life she was a monster. A madwoman. A killer of her own kind. She coerced the Toril Thirteen into sacrifice—”

  “All of them?” Farideh asked. “It seems like some were eager enough.” She shook her head. “Why change her mind now? Why make it all out to be a mistake?”

  “Because she feels cheated,” Lorcan said. “Isn’t that obvious? She wants revenge.”

  “But she has the powers now,” Farideh pointed out. “She’s Chosen. That’s what he promised.” She pursed her lips, deep in thought as Lorcan found and opened the pot of ointment. “Is that all he promised?”

  “It’s a fairly standard agreement,” Lorcan said, scooping amber jelly from the jar and smearing it over the burn across her neck and chest. Farideh gasped in sudden pain, sinking her fingers into his shoulder like claws. It sent a muddled rush of pain and pleasure and anger through him. “Shit and ashes!”

  “Sorry!” she cried, but it took a moment longer for her fingers to unlock. “Sorry,” she said again, and she seemed to remember, as he did, how fiercely, how passionately she’d gripped him other times. How similar this seemed, even if it wasn’t a seduction.

  Farideh pulled the now greasy sheet up over her. “I … I can do this myself now.”

  “Do you want to?” Lorcan asked, his eyes never leaving hers.

  “I need to.” She took the pot from him. “Thank you … for helping.”

  “What else am I here for?” Lorcan asked. The god’s orders rang in his thoughts: Stay by her side … You know how to make certain … You might even know how to be certain … Lorcan cleared his throat.

  “There’s no question now that she can track me,” he said. “The pradixikai too once they realize Sairché’s out of reach.”

  Farideh didn’t look up from her awkward self-ministrations. “I thought they didn’t want you.”

  “They want Sairché,” he agreed. “But they’ll spread their net soon enough.”

  Farideh nodded toward the dressing table. “Can you get my spare shirt?”

  Lorcan gritted his teeth. Once, he would have been sure she was only missing his meaning. Now? He handed her the shirt. “Would you share the protection spell again?” he asked bluntly. “Or am I to fend for myself?”

  Farideh said nothing for a moment, shrugging into fresh clothing as if it didn’t matter in the least that he was standing there. “I’m not sleeping with you,” she said finally.

  “Presumptuous,” Lorcan said. “All I asked about was protection magic.”

  “Don’t,” she said. “Don’t pretend I’m too stupid to know what you’re doing.”

  Think like a human, he told himself. Talk like a devil. “Making sure you know where I stand?” Lorcan said. “Darling, you make your own decisions—you’ve always made your own decisions, good or ill. You chose Dahl. Now, I have my own opinions about that—we’ve been over them. Moreover, I think you have a great deal more important things to do than worry about which fellow warms your bed. I’m hardly so desperate as to press you when you’ve got your sister to worry about and gods to untangle. When this is all through, and Dahl is still gods’ know where, then I might press my suit. But now? Please.” He regarded her in a way that ought to look concerned, vaguely wounded. “I’m your ally.”

  Farideh looked away. “I’m sorry. You’ve been … You’ve been helping in ways no one else can. I know that.” She drew her dagger and handed it over to him. He made sure his fingertips brushed hers the barest possible degree—a reminder, not an overture. “Do it.”

  “Do you want to wait for the salve to do its work?”
<
br />   “Everything already hurts,” she said, extending her arm and rolling the sleeve up past her elbow. “What’s one more scratch?” She cut the thin skin there, swiftly, without hesitating the way she had the last time they’d done this, then handed Lorcan the weapon and heaved herself from the bed.

  Lorcan slashed his own arm, black blood smearing into red along the well-worn blade. The powers of the Nine Hells surged around the blade, around the both of them as he stood, as she moved closer to him. He spoke the words of the spell, the magic that would let him borrow a measure of the protection spell some god had bestowed on her. Farideh’s eyes locked on his, flinching slightly as the spell built, no doubt surging through the brand that marked her upper arm.

  He released the dagger, the spell buoying it between them. The blood exploded from the blade of the knife, the spray of droplets fine enough to coat them both and leave no trace at all. Lorcan’s hands shot out, grabbed hold of her and pulled her close.

  Mine—the only thought that pierced the wall of power that knotted together around them. His thoughts blurred into the spell and his pulse beat a tattoo against his brain. A flicker of fear crossed Farideh’s features. Mine, he thought.

  The spell finished, vanished into the air. Farideh gasped as if she hadn’t been breathing and took a step back. The magic that wound around them persisted, a tether that kept him bound to her side. She brushed her hands over her arms, as if trying to dislodge the vague presence of the spell.

  “All right?” she asked.

  “Seems in order,” Lorcan said calmly.

  She ran a distracted hand through her hair. “Good. All right.” She wet her mouth before looking up at him. “I meant to ask, what was that?” she asked. “That scroll she was trying to trade? Was that yours? That’s why you said she can find you?”

  Lorcan held perfectly still. Dahl’s agreement—the copper-capped scrolls were copies of deals created for Glasya’s recorders. Bryseis Kakistos could have gotten it while she was impersonating Sairché, and what else could she sow such fast-growing chaos with?

  It meant the Brimstone Angel knew about Dahl. She knew about the deal.