by Izzy Shows
She suspected that the taint had come in through a cambion or nephilim who had recently been to the surface, that they had brought it back, and it had spread amongst the other demons they encountered. None of the new cambions would have any reason to interact with a demon of good enough standing to have gone to the surface. To go to the surface, you had to have a proven track record of exemplary service and unquestionable loyalty.
Visiting the surface was not something that just anyone was trusted with, and it was the carrot we used to keep everyone in line, for the most part. Which was why it was such a problem that the ten from yesterday had gone up without permission. If I hadn’t hunted them down, others would have begun to think they could get away with it, and the entire world we had built would begin to spiral out of control.
But the new cambions weren’t much of a concern in that regard. They couldn’t even begin to hope to go to the surface for at least the next century, and they wouldn’t make connections with the higher cambions, much less the nephilim, for years to come.
No, I didn’t have much to be concerned with there.
But I had still needed to come and check this out for myself. If the problem had gone as deep as the newly of-age cambions, it would have been all but impossible to root out without a mass extermination. We would have had to start over from scratch, build up the ranks slowly again, and it just wasn’t safe to do that now.
It had been one thing when the world was young and the other forces were still learning the Earth, but if we had to pull back our resources now, we would never regain our position.
I was lucky that the taint hadn’t gotten here, then. Lucky that I didn’t have to worry about the worst-case scenario. Not yet, anyway. There was always the possibility that things could change, especially if I didn’t get to the bottom of this taint before it spread.
If it was allowed to run unchecked…
No, best not to think about that right now. I had enough problems without inventing new ones.
“If you’ll pardon the question, sire, is there a reason you’re interested in the cambions’ behavior?”
I arched one eyebrow, surprised that she had the audacity to question me.
Her cheeks flushed with heat, and she ducked her head. “Apologies, sire. I meant no disrespect, only that if there was something in particular you were concerned about… Well, if I knew what it was, I could keep an eye on it for you. It is my job to ease your burdens, after all.”
A good recovery. I had to give her that. She had almost endangered herself, but I was content to believe it had simply been a ploy for more favor. She wanted to keep me happy, because that meant keeping her position and possibly advancing further through the ranks if she did her job well enough.
But she had come too close to the real issue. There was something in particular I was concerned about, and yes, it would have made things all the much easier for me if I could pass off this task to another.
I couldn’t do that, though.
“Nothing like that, Serah,” I said. “There is nothing for you to concern yourself with at the moment. I am merely reacquainting myself with the goings-on. However, I would appreciate it if you would keep a close eye on the new cambions. If anything seems out of the ordinary, report it to me.”
“Yes, sire,” she said, looking rather relieved.
“You are dismissed.”
She nodded and left, knowing better than to say anything further.
I turned my gaze back to the new cambions, watching them carefully.
If there was something wrong with them, I would find it. I had to.
Sixteen
Three days.
That was how long I had spent in Hell, with no reprieve to go back to Earth. Three days of going over every single sector and checking out every single unit. I had crawled over the army with a fine-toothed comb to ensure that I had the most accurate information possible. I had not pawned the job off to anyone, not even one of my brothers.
I wasn’t ready to share this information with them just yet. It would be a point of weakness to admit that I didn’t have things under control on my own.
They would never let me live it down after they helped me get it under control again. Even they wouldn’t waste time giving me hell when the realm was at stake.
Thus far, I had managed to handle this on my own. I hadn’t even brought Lilith in yet.
I had located a few soldiers exhibiting some of the symptoms that Lilith had pointed out, and I had given the same orders to the other generals that I had to Serah—to watch their soldiers and report to me if anything seemed out of the ordinary in any way.
Now, I was sitting in one of the arenas normally reserved for nephilim training. It was bigger than the cambion arenas and built to withstand much worse battles.
The nephilim were vicious creatures, only one generation removed from the Fallen. Watching them do battle was a pastime I was fond of, and I enjoyed it whenever I visited Hell, though I had not allowed myself to enjoy it this trip.
There would be time enough for that once I had cleaned up this mess.
The arena was filled with every single soldier who had ever exhibited even the smallest sign of odd behavior, even if it didn’t relate to any of the symptoms Lilith had given me to watch for. I would leave no stone unturned in my quest to resolve the situation.
I was sitting at a desk that I had had two soldiers bring in for me, and in front of me was a single chair that would be occupied by one soldier at a time.
The orders I had given to organize all of this had earned me a few odd looks, but no one dared to question me now. They had been reminded of how brutal I could be, and they would be on their best behavior for at least a little while.
None of them understood why I was interviewing the soldiers, but that didn’t matter.
I didn’t need them to understand. I only needed them to obey.
Looking up from the desk, I eyed the next soldier, a cambion by the name of Jonas. His crime was small—he had expressed an emotion. That wasn’t something that Lilith had told me to look for, but it was something I did think could be indicative of the taint. The taint brought about odd behavior, but most of all, it turned creatures from their usual routine, turned them against their own nature.
To be honest, it was not entirely outside the realm of possibility for a cambion to express an emotion, particularly one such as rage. Nephilim were born of a Fallen and a human mating, and cambions were born of nephilim and human mating. The blood was diluted in that way, and as humans were given to the full range of emotions, it was possible that the weakness of their blood could lead a cambion to depict some human traits.
So, not impossible, but still rare enough that it was not something I could ignore in good conscience.
“Jonas,” I said, waving him forward.
He walked forward on shaky legs, his fear rolling off of him in waves. Another oddity.
He sat down, folded his hands in his lap, and did not dare to raise his gaze to look me in the eye.
“Do you know why you are here today?” I asked, keeping my tone flat and even.
“No, sire,” he said, although it was more of a mumble than a true statement.
I sighed. “Look at me, Jonas.”
Unable to disobey, he dragged his gaze up from the floor and looked at my nose.
“No, look me in the eye.”
Pain seemed to grip his features, and at last he met my gaze.
“You are here because in the grip of battle, you expressed rage,” I said, glancing down at the sheet of paper in front of me: the report his superior had given me. “Do you have an explanation?”
“For expressing an emotion, sir?” He looked baffled and ashamed. He clearly didn’t know what to do with himself, and for a moment, I almost felt sorry for him.
Almost.
Then I remembered that that was ridiculous, not to mention dangerous, and squashed the feeling before it could go anywhere.
“You are a
ware, of course, that this is an abnormality in the ranks?”
“But I’m not the first person to express rage, sir!”
No, he was not. I, myself, was given to it. My brothers were as well. Perhaps it wasn’t fair to expect more from a cambion than I would of my brothers, but that was the way of it. A commander could get away with more than a foot soldier, after all.
“You appear indignant, Jonas,” I said, not bothering to look at him again as I continued to read over the paper. “Are you perhaps feeling anything at the moment?”
“I-I…” he stuttered, and when I looked up at him, I saw him gaping at me.
“I asked you a question, soldier.”
His face turned red, and he looked down at his lap.
A slow grin spread across my lips as I watched his hands ball into fists. I could feel the indignant anger coming off of him, and I knew he wanted to argue with me, against his better judgment. He knew that that would get him nowhere, but he wanted to do so anyway.
“How old are you?”
“Two centuries, sir.”
“Hm. And yet you continue to behave as one of the newly of-age cambions would.” I made a note of that on his paper. “You are stubborn and willful, and you stink of desperation.”
I looked at him again—still, he did not look up from his lap—and saw a muscle near his jaw pulsing.
“Do you have anything to say for yourself? Anything at all?”
“I am sorry that I have disappointed you, sir,” he said stiffly.
“Good,” I said. “You are capable of assessing a situation, then. You are not entirely ruled by your emotions, it would seem.”
And that was what I had called him here to determine. The mere expression of an emotion, while rare, was not abnormal enough to damn a man. But being controlled by those emotions, turning into a beast with no thought—that would be damning enough for me to act on.
I was glad I didn’t have to do that.
“You are dismissed.”
Relief oozed out of him, and he stood and left as quickly as possible, without a backwards glance. No doubt he was going to cower in his quarters and reassure himself that everything would be OK.
It didn’t matter. He had survived the meeting, and I could give him a pass for that.
“Anders,” I said as I shuffled through the papers to the next one.
The next soldier walked up and took his seat.
“Yes, sir.”
“And do you know why you are here, Anders?”
“Because I was lustful, sir.”
Surprise flickered inside me, though I was careful to school my expression so it did not show. I had not expected him to identify his crime so readily, as the others had failed to do. But then again, perhaps I should have. As I went over the report in front of me, it was evident that the man had a history of arrogance.
He would have no problem listing everything he had ever done in his life.
“Yes. You expressed a desire to keep a female human when last you were on the surface,” I said, looking up at him. “Though your superiors did not attribute that to lust. Lust would have been understandable and excusable.”
His cheeks flamed. “I assure you, sir, that was all it was.”
Something inside of me ached as I looked at the young man. He had dark hair and tan skin, and if that was not enough to remind me of myself, his crime did the trick just fine.
Both of us had wanted a female from the surface, had fallen for a human. That was the one thing that was inexcusable, that could not be allowed to stand. Things like rage, envy, and lust—those were emotions we understood. Those were the emotions that most commonly cropped up in the rare circumstances when a demon expressed an emotion.
But such softness as desire was entirely different. Desire was not the same as lust. It was born of affection, and it had no place in a demon’s heart.
Demons did not have hearts.
But how could I condemn this man when I was guilty of the same crime?
It was as if ice had been poured against my back, for I had the worst thought possible.
What if I was tainted? What if the feelings I had for Blair were all attributable to the taint that took Lilith and turned her against her nature, as I have turned from mine?
I looked down at the report in front of me while I gathered myself back under control, dropping one hand from the desk to lie in my lap to disguise its shaking.
This could not be possible. I would know if I was tainted, wouldn’t I? I wouldn’t be so set on exterminating the taint in others, surely. I would want it to spread. I wouldn’t care to keep things safe and controlled.
No, it couldn’t be.
Besides, that was the easy way out: blaming those emotions on a taint rather than admitting that Blair had awakened a softness inside of me that should never have been born. It would allow me to excuse myself of all responsibility. Which I could not.
I do not feel. I am Fallen, and we do not care for the lives of humans. She is nothing to me. I am as strong as I have always been.
I reminded myself of that, as I did every time she came to mind, in the hope that the mantra would stick. Denial was a powerful thing, after all.
“What was her name?” I asked, shifting gears and focusing on Anders again.
He looked rather surprised, then gathered himself. “Elizabeth, sir.”
“And when did you meet her?”
“Two weeks ago, when I was permitted leave to go to the surface for enjoyment, rather than work.”
“And you did not feel an urge to hurt her?” I raised an eyebrow.
He flushed. “No, sir. I did not.”
“Hm.” I tapped a finger against the desk, trying to determine what to do. “What explanation do you have for yourself, Anders?”
“I have no excuse, sir. I will accept whatever punishment you see as acceptable, even if that should be ending my life.”
I narrowed my eyes as I looked back up at him. “You have no sense of self-preservation?”
“I—I did not say that.”
“You did. You are prepared to lay down your life over a human you met two weeks ago. This is unacceptable,” I said, and sighed.
I had allowed myself to be soft on him for long enough, because of the memory of Blair, but even I could not excuse this foolishness. My weakness for Blair had grown over time, not in a matter of weeks. Whatever had taken hold of this man, it was not something natural.
“Erik, take this man into custody,” I said, gesturing to one of the guards who stood at attention beside the desk.
“Yes, sir,” he said, and without further ado, he grasped the man by the forearm and dragged him away.
It was not the fact that he was taken with a human that condemned this man; it was that he did not care for his own life. That went against the very nature of a demon, and it could not be ignored.
I looked down at the next paper and bit back a sigh. This was tedious work, but it needed to be done.
“Ines,” I said, calling the next woman forth.
It would be a long day.
Seventeen
Seven soldiers.
That was how many I had deemed to be potentially infected. I had gone through hundreds of interviews and come up with seven: six cambions and one nephilim.
I suspected there were more, those who were better at hiding their taint, but at least this was a start. It was enough that I could deem the situation acceptable for the moment.
The seven soldiers had been moved into isolation cells and were awaiting me whenever I decided what to do with them.
I couldn’t tell anyone that I had no idea what I was going to do now that I had located any of them.
Blair would know what to do.
I fisted one hand, snarling down at the paperwork on my desk, and shoved the thought aside. Blair might know what to do, but she wasn’t here now, and I couldn’t ask her for help. Even if we had been on speaking terms, bringing her to Hell to assist me would be too dan
gerous even to contemplate. My brothers would destroy her in seconds.
You care too much. You are not a proper Fallen. You let her worm her way into your heart, and now you are as pathetic as the humans you used to hunt.
The accusations flew free in my mind, and for a moment I allowed myself to simmer in them, to pour on the self-flagellation. I knew that nothing good would come of it, that it was not productive, but I saw no reason to hide from it now that I was on my own for a brief period.
I was in my office again, poring over paperwork that I should have dealt with a month ago. I should have been here to take care of business, rather than cavorting about London. Perhaps if I had been here, I would have been able to identify the soldier who had brought back the taint from the surface and killed him.
That would have solved the problem neatly enough.
It was my last resort for the soldiers I had quarantined today. I did not want to kill them. I wanted to cure them, because I wanted to prove that I could. I wanted to prove that I was every bit as capable in this as Blair had been, and that I didn’t need her.
I wanted to prove that she had not made me weak.
But if it came down to it, if there was no other option, I would dispose of the infected to prevent them from spreading the taint throughout the rest of my army. It would become a necessity soon enough; of that, I was certain.
If I couldn’t cure them soon, they would spread the taint to the guards who were keeping them, and then it would continue on until every soldier had been infected. I had to stop that from happening, one way or another.
I was so preoccupied with my thoughts that when a knock came at my door, I almost jumped out of my skin.
I scowled at the door, then schooled my expression and leaned back in the chair.
“Come in,” I said.
My brother—Asmodeus—came in a moment later, looking quite innocent. He shut the door behind him and took a seat opposite my desk.
“Hello, brother,” I said. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“I can’t visit my older brother just to catch up? You have to admit, you didn’t give us a very warm welcome the last time we saw you. Why, you were full of rage then. Very interesting.”