by Anne Bishop
Beron opened his eyes. The room looked cloudy, and his ears felt plugged. His heart jumped when someone sat on the bed. He struggled to make his eyes work.
*Don’t push it,* Jaenelle said on a psychic thread. *Your vision and hearing will improve daily unless you disobey your Healer, being me, and do something stupid, which will give you swollen balls.*
*Why?* he asked.
*Because I will kick them.*
Of course she would. Jaenelle the Healer didn’t tolerate any nonsense or sass.
*Can you sit up?* she asked.
*I think so.* She helped him sit up, and being closer helped clear his vision enough to know he was looking at Jaenelle as she was now rather than the girl in the dream.
*There.* She settled herself on the side of the bed and reached for the two bowls of flavored ice floating on air. She handed him one. *Raspberry. Your favorite.*
He grinned. *It’s as if you knew I wanted some.*
She grinned in return. *Imagine that.*
A voice full of lightning and caverns and midnight skies floated through the Darkness, winding its way through sleep and dreams.
We know your face, the voice whispered.
For most, whether they were demon-dead or living, there was a kind of comfort in hearing the words, in being known by that voice.
We know your face.
But one man opened his eyes and shivered with fear, knowing his time was running out.
SIX
Daemon tucked his hands in his trousers pockets. Then, remembering the gesture didn’t belong to the boy whose face he now wore, he withdrew them and asked, “How do I look?”
Tersa studied him, looking confused in a way that worried him. The mundane world was a fragile thing for his mother, more like an illusion she could interact with than solid ground and living people. For Tersa, the roads of the Twisted Kingdom were far more real.
“You look shorter,” she finally said.
Did she see the illusion Jaenelle had made or did she see right past the illusion to a memory of the boy he had been?
*Are you sleepy? I am sleepy. It is time for bed now.*
Daemon looked at the shadow, the complex illusion that Jaenelle had made using Tildee as the template. “Hush.”
The Sceltie looked at him. Then she sneezed.
“Jaenelle talked to you about this,” he said to Tersa. “Remember? I’m pretending to be Mikal to catch the man who hurt Beron and Sylvia.”
Tersa nodded. “Yes. You have to catch him so that the Mikal boy can stay with me again.”
“That’s right.”
She frowned. “And I am supposed to pretend to be a weak female who is no threat to him.”
“Yes.” He stepped up to her and took her hands. “Darling, he is going to come here, to your cottage. When he does, don’t get in his way. Let him come up here, to the Mikal boy’s room. I’ll be here, pretending to be Mikal, and I will deal with him. Do you understand?”
She nodded. “I will let him come up and see the Mikal boy.”
*Are you sleepy? I am sleepy. It is time for bed now.*
“I’ll warm up some milk for you,” Tersa said. “You shouldn’t have a nutcake so late at night, but it’s all right if it’s a special treat.” She walked out of the bedroom.
*Are you sleepy? I am sleepy. It is time for bed now.*
“Shut up,” Daemon growled.
The Sceltie growled back.
Rolling his eyes, he reached for the mind of the woman who meant more to him than anything else in the Realms. *If you had to stick me with a shadow Sceltie, did you have to make it so realistic?*
Her laughter rippled through the psychic thread. *Problem?*
*The dog is so damn bossy! If she bites me for not going to bed . . .*
More laughter. *I’m making a sacrifice too.*
*And that would be?*
*It’s winter. You’re not here at night. My feet are cold.*
He blinked. *You’re sleeping with a fuzzy, eight-hundred-pound cat. Put your feet on him.*
*I do, but he whines about it. You don’t.*
Kaelas came from Arceria, one of the northernmost Territories, and lived in a den made out of snow. Why in the name of Hell would he whine about Jaenelle’s feet? He should be happy to have a cool spot since he’d grown his winter coat and was staying in a room that was much too warm for him.
Of course, sometimes Jaenelle’s feet were breathtakingly cold during the deep part of winter.
*Is everything all right there?* he asked.
*Yes. Beron is asleep and has Shuveen, Boyd, and Floyd with him.*
Shuveen was sensible and would wake Jaenelle if Beron needed a Healer’s help. Boyd and Floyd, on the other hand, were younger and pretty brainless most of the time. However, those two could make enough noise to wake the entire Hall if a stranger walked into Beron’s room.
*Get some sleep, love,* he said. *I’ll see you in the morning.*
The psychic thread faded.
*Are you sleepy? I am sleepy. It is time for bed now.*
“Tersa is bringing up warm milk and nutcakes. We’ll have our snack, and then go to bed.”
*Snack?* The shadow wagged her tail.
Ignoring the illusion that could fool the eye and, sometimes, even fool the sense of touch, Daemon went to the window and studied the ground in Tersa’s backyard. The snow was all churned up from the play of boy and dog, but he didn’t think there were any fresh tracks.
Lucivar would know.
Jaenelle had taken Beron’s memory of his attacker and brought it into a tangled web of illusions. From there, she’d created a basic shadow—an illusion that was a stationary imitation of a person. An artist came from Amdarh and made a sketch of the shadow, and that was taken to a printer. By the end of that first day, every village in the southern part of Dhemlan had a copy of that sketch, and Daemon hadn’t asked if some of those copies had found their way across the border to worried men in Little Terreille.
He had sent an official letter and a copy of the sketch to Little Terreille’s Queen. She wasn’t a personal friend of Jaenelle’s, but his Lady didn’t consider her an enemy either. So he’d given the Queen the courtesy of sharing the information they had because there were families around Goth who were also grieving the loss of children.
We know your face. Witch’s voice had whispered through the Darkness that first night. For the three nights since then, Daemon had spent the hours between sunset and sunrise in Tersa’s cottage, waiting, wrapped in a strong illusion that would make even a demon-dead predator’s eyes see Mikal, the chosen prey.
*Are you sleepy? I am sleepy. It is time for bed now.*
Daemon sighed. It could have been worse. If Jaenelle had made a shadow that had Tildee’s real personality, he and the dog would be in a relentless argument about bedtime by now—and he’d be on the losing end of that argument, since the shadow wouldn’t see past the illusion spell Jaenelle had created for him.
*Snack?* the shadow asked.
He turned away from the window, frowning. Why was it taking so long to warm up some milk?
Tersa carefully poured the warm milk into a mug and a small bowl. Her boy would make sure the Mikal boy would be allowed to live with her. The tangled web she’d woven after Sylvia left the living Realms had told her that much. The grandfather was a good man, and he had been a good father for the daughter. But he was not the right man for her sons. Lives would be soured, and the love that existed now would die if the grandfather took the sons. So the Mikal boy and Tildee would live with her, and Beron . . . Witch knew best what to do for Beron. She’d seen that too in her web.
She rinsed out the pot and left it in the sink to wash later with the mug and bowl. As she turned to get a plate for the nutcake, she saw the stranger in her kitchen, standing close enough to touch.
She shrank back, a response to the foulness of his psychic scent rather than fear of his physical presence.
He grabbed her wrist, squeezing unti
l she flinched in pain. “Where is the boy?” he snarled.
The boy? Wasn’t he supposed to ask her about the Mikal boy? “The boy is upstairs.”
“Show me.” He dragged her out of the kitchen and down the hallway. Then he released her wrist and gave her a hard shove toward the stairs. “Show me.”
She had promised Witch that she would play out this game so that all the boys would be safe. But something wasn’t right because this foulness was supposed to ask about the Mikal boy, not her boy.
Her boy would understand this confusion. He was playing Witch’s game too.
“Show me where he is,” the foulness whispered as it followed close behind her.
Tersa climbed the stairs and led him to the bedroom where her boy waited.
* * *
It took all the control Daemon had to stand still when that bastard shoved Tersa into the bedroom. The shadow Sceltie began barking, but Jaenelle had deliberately left out any commands to attack.
“You brat!” The Warlord’s voice sounded hoarse, as if his vocal cords had been damaged at some point and didn’t heal correctly.
Daemon stepped back, drawing the Warlord farther into the room and away from Tersa.
“You brat! When I’m through with you, even your own brother won’t recognize you!”
Tersa jerked as if struck, but Daemon didn’t have time to wonder why because the Warlord lunged, his hand reaching for where a boy’s arm would be.
Instead of scrambling back, Daemon stepped forward and clamped a hand around the Warlord’s wrist. As Jaenelle intended, contact with another male broke the illusion spell around Daemon. The release of her power in the spell also broke the illusion around the Warlord.
Scars on the throat. Hideous scars on the face. One cloudy eye.
A monster had begotten a monster. As Daemon looked into the man’s clear eye, he felt a stir of pity—enough pity that he decided it would be a swift execution rather than the slow one a monster deserved.
“You came to hurt the boy,” Tersa said, taking a step toward them.
Daemon glanced up and saw rage and a terrible kind of clarity in his mother’s eyes. “It’s done now.”
“You want to hurt my boy.”
“Tersa . . .” He was Black-shielded. There was nothing the Warlord could do to him and nothing the man could do to break free of him. But Tersa might still get hurt, especially now that she was standing directly behind the bastard.
“Jaenelle says it is like deboning chicken,” Tersa said in a singsong voice. “Just hook two fingers around the spine and pull.”
No time to say anything or do anything. One moment the Warlord was standing in front of him, caught in a bone-breaking grip. The next . . .
He felt the sharp tingle of Craft as the bones of hand and fingers passed under his grip. He tightened his hand to hold on to the man’s wrist, but there was nothing but soft flesh, and the Warlord’s hand swelled like a sausage casing when it gets squeezed.
Passing the bones through flesh and skin, Tersa whipped the skeleton free. Then witchfire, fueled by her fury, took the bones, charring them black.
For that moment, the blackened skeleton hung intact from her upraised arm. For that moment, the Warlord stood there, his good eye filled with horror and disbelief. Then the bones rained down on the floor like black hailstones, and the muscles and organs collapsed in on themselves, contained by a shapeless sack of skin.
Daemon stood there, holding one wrist, too stunned to let go.
The eyes lay on top of the fleshy sack, still staring at him.
He’s demon-dead, so he’s still in there, Daemon thought as his gorge rose. His Self is still in there and his mind is still aware.
Tersa dropped the spine on top of the rest of the bones and frowned. “Jaenelle doesn’t cook. Why would she know about deboning a chicken?”
Daemon looked at his mother. Then he released his hold on the Warlord’s wrist and ran for the bathroom.
“I’m sorry,” Daemon stammered. “I didn’t know what to do with it except bring it to you.”
Saetan stared at the skin sack filled with organs and muscles—and the brain. Daemon had thought to put a bubble shield around the sack before bringing it to the Keep. That was fortunate because the contents were starting to drain from the orifices.
Considering what the Warlord had done to his victims, it shouldn’t matter if the bastard heard them or not, but the man’s mind had broken under the horror of the punishment, so Saetan added an aural shield over Daemon’s bubble shield, and then hid it all in a mist so that neither of them had to look at it.
“I’ve walked the Realms for over fifty thousand years, and I’ve never seen this before,” he said as he walked over to the end of the courtyard where Daemon stood.
“He told Tersa to show him the boy, not the Mikal boy.” Daemon swallowed hard. “To her mind, he threatened me, not the illusion.”
“And she reacted.”
Daemon nodded.
“And Jaenelle told her how to do this?”
Another nod.
His boy was looking glassy-eyed and green, which matched how he was feeling. The speed with which it happened and the grotesque result would have unsettled both of them under any circumstances, but the feral natures and the tempers of the women involved scared the shit out of him. No matter what she’d told Tersa, Jaenelle had not learned to do this by deboning a chicken.
If the Darkness was merciful, he would never learn why or how his daughter had acquired this particular piece of Craft—and he hoped with all his heart that Daemon never learned why or how either.
“What do we do now?”
Linking his arm through Daemon’s, he led his son back into the Keep. “You’re going to go home, take a sedative, and get some sleep.”
“Maybe I should—”
“You’re the Warlord Prince of Dhemlan, not the High Lord of Hell.” Saetan put enough bite in his voice to clear the glassy look from Daemon’s eyes. “You did your part in this, Prince. Now it’s time for me to do mine.”
“And your part is?”
“To sift through what is left of his mind for the names of his victims before releasing him to the final death. I’ll send you the list. I’m sure you’ll know how to quietly pass on the information to the people who need it.”
“What happens after that?”
“He is demon-dead,” Saetan said gently. “After his Self returns to the Darkness, the meat will be left for the flora and fauna of Hell.”
SEVEN
A week after No Face had been destroyed, Saetan walked into the sitting room where Sylvia was reading, and sat down in a ladderback chair next to her wheeled chair.
“It’s time for us to talk,” he said.
She marked the page in her book and set it aside. She’d known this was coming, but she hadn’t expected it to come this soon. Even with the heartache and worry about her sons, there had been comfort in his presence. She felt the drag of daylight as soon as the sun rose, and went to bed to avoid the drain in her power. She would wake for a moment when he joined her later in the morning, and then sleep again, cradled in his arms, until they both rose at sunset.
“It’s hard for the living to let go of the dead, and it’s hard for the dead to let go of the living. That’s why my rules about interaction between the living and the demon-dead are so strict, and that’s why I’m so harsh when those rules are broken.”
“Did you live by your own rules, Saetan?” She knew the man, so she already guessed the answer.
“Everything has a price,” he said softly. “When I became a Guardian, I made a choice. It wasn’t prudent to let some things, like Dhemlan Kaeleer, leave my control, but the personal things ...” He sighed. “I never met Mephis’s wife. I never knew his children. I never held them or played with them or read them stories. I straddled the line between living and dead, so I didn’t belong with them. I had contact with Mephis only here at the Keep. He was a grown man, and it was necessary beca
use we were all waiting for the promised dream to become flesh. But I kept my distance from his family, asking no less of myself than I required of the other citizens of Hell.”
“But you know Daemonar,” she said.
He let out a pained laugh. “Yes. Well, Lucivar is not Mephis. When I gave Mephis an order, he obeyed it. When I give Lucivar an order, half the time he ignores it and pisses on my foot. When Daemonar was born, Lucivar told me he didn’t give a damn about my rules. The boy was going to know his grandfather.” He paused, then added, “And things changed after Jaenelle came into our lives. The boundaries didn’t exist with the people she touched. That’s why I know that while the rules I’ve set for the citizens of Hell must be strictly enforced most of the time, there can be exceptions.”
She felt a zing that had nothing to do with her body and everything to do with her heart. “I can see my boys one more time?”
“If that’s what you want,” he replied. He leaned forward and took her hands, rubbing his thumbs over her knuckles. “Prince Sadi denied your father custody of your sons.”
“Why?”
“For one thing, your father doesn’t feel it’s appropriate for the boys to see you anymore. You’re dead. They need to accept that and rebuild their lives without you. Normally I would agree with him, but not this time. You are strong enough to let them go—and they will go, Sylvia. The day will come when they need you to be nothing more than a good memory. But for now, Daemon and I are willing to sanction, and chaperon, a visit twice a month here at the Keep in Kaeleer. You, Beron, and Mikal can spend the evening together. You’ll have the reassurance that they’re being taken care of.”
By whom? she wondered. “Everything has a price.”
“And this is no exception.”
“What is your price, High Lord?”
“I want to show you something.”
Using Craft, he floated her above the chair. She straightened her legs so that her long skirt just brushed the floor. Linking her arm through his, she floated beside him as he made his way through the Keep’s corridors until they reached the Dark Altar. After he opened the Gate, he led her to a landing web, wrapped a shield around her, and caught the Black Winds.