Chapter 32 - Reap and Sow

Tenelle reacted before anyone else.

She swung for Mr. Night, who shoved Fane away from him so hard the bishop fell in white-faced shock. The demon stepped neatly around her blow, grabbing her sword arm—

And snapped it.

Tenelle’s scream speared Eda like a lance.

Cries rolled through the nave. Despite the commander’s sagging stance and visceral agony, she swung her good fist hard. Mr. Night seemed surprised by the swiftness of her retaliation—he barely caught it in time. She made to headbutt him, but he threw her to the ground as though batting away a rabid dog. He planted a boot in her back, pinning her.

Quicksilver eyes took stock of the horrified audience. Some fled, but most simply gripped one another, rabbits caught in a fox’s stare. Like a compass returning north, the demon’s gaze swung unerringly toward Eda. She froze.

Blades rushed the dais. Tenelle bellowed, “Hold!” Her face was pressed to the scarlet runner, teeth bared. The soldiers paused uncertainly.

She wants everyone to see this.

Mr. Night ignored them. “Florian, Florian. Imagine my surprise to learn that instead of ensuring my use of the Prime Gateway, you have allowed it to be destroyed.” Mr. Night’s hiss was serpentine and sharp, like nails on chalk. “And now you stand before this gathering of unwashed peasants to oversee the destruction of my own. You would leave me stranded here, in this fetid carcass of a world?”

Fane stumbled upright. “I—I did not know about the other…” His eyes were on stalks as he seemed to register the gobsmacked attention of the templehouse upon him. “You cannot discuss…!”

“Our Pact, you mean?” Despite his bland expression, Eda gained the distinct impression Mr. Night was laughing at him. “You were canny enough to dictate that I may not discuss it. You failed to make note of Clause Fourteen: Signee agrees to the expiration of all stipulations and amendments made upon completion of this contract. And here we stand, with you having quite industriously gathered my three thousand years just in time for autumn harvest. In other words…” He held out his arms, smiling. “I can discuss it with whomever I like.”

Loopholes, Eda thought numbly. The same clause featured in the Shaws’ own Pact. Fane was clever but made hasty by the promise of power—his dreams so close at hand. He’d agreed too readily to Mr. Night’s terms in their basement. Now you reap what you sow.

The bishop turned white as milk. His red hair seemed garishly bright against his wan complexion as he faced the congregation. “He’s…it’s lying! The demon lies! That is what they do, don’t you see?” No one spoke. Fane’s hands were like claws as he shook them. “The demon lies!”

Beneath Mr. Night’s boot, Tenelle laughed. Eda felt like laughing too.

The Patriarch pointed with a shaking finger at Fane. “Apprehend this heretic at once! Cast out the demon!”

Then all was chaos.

Clearly following Tenelle’s prior orders, the Blades barked at the nave to empty their seats, pushing those that dallied toward the doors. At the front, silver swords surged toward Mr. Night.

The first to reach him were thrown in opposite directions; the sickening crash of their landing sent the templehouse into full-blown hysteria. People screamed. The clerics tripped over themselves as they ran, joining the surging river of bodies cutting down the center of the hall.

“C’mon,” Ben said, pulling her away. Eda had the presence of mind to look for Bartholomew, but he was already gone. A good thing, too, for a Blade was thrown into their pew and sent the whole thing skidding backward. His sword fell from his limp hand, sheared in two.

Tenelle bellowed, “Now!”

Eda spun. The commander had escaped to the far side of the dais, sword in her good hand. Her broken arm hung heavy and useless. She was looking up at the galleries above, where two figures in blue and silver robes stood vigil on either side.

Alchemists. I didn’t even notice them!

They raised their hands and began to chant, too distant to understand.

The stone dais glowed. A cold blue light reminiscent of warning fires burst to life in strange lines and bisecting shapes, as if from nowhere. It ran wall to wall, like flame racing along a hidden trail of gunpowder. It was a hidden trail, Eda realized. A glyph, prepared by the alchemists. They were activating it.

She’d doubted Tenelle’s provisions for dealing with a demon like Mr. Night. Perhaps Eda had underestimated her, for this was a trap.

Mr. Night froze where he stood. The Blades were unfazed. As one, they retreated. From above came a flash of silver like falling rain: a net, the same as those they’d tried to trap Kit with. Weighted on each corner, it would wrap bodily about the first thing it hit.

Mr. Night spun, hissing, but was too slow—he was enfolded. He snarled so loudly it was nearly a roar, a terrible noise Eda had never heard him make. He thrashed. Skin smoked as silver burned through him like hot wire.

But then he was a writhing ball of black smoke, whispering across the stone to freedom.

The Blades stood guard beyond the borders of the glowing glyph. Tenelle did not. She took immediate advantage of the demon’s distraction and lunged across the dais, fixated on something on the ground. The Breakers, Eda realized. They gleamed in the icy light, discarded near the Gateway.

Tenelle barely took three steps before Mr. Night materialized in her path. She stopped dead.

For a moment, Eda’s heart stopped too.

Ash-gray skin. Knifelike ears. A lashing tail and razor claws. Atop his head, two huge curling horns grew, each as thick as Eda’s arm. They arced downward toward his jaw—she was strongly reminded of a ram. When he bared his teeth, four white fangs gleamed in a wolfish maw. His perfect skin was lined with smoldering black burns where the net had caught him, bisecting an eyelid and the corner of his mouth. But the look in his eyes was most fearsome of all.

Eda spent years wondering at his true face. It was more beautiful and terrible than she could have imagined.

Tenelle stood weak and impaired, but she took a defensive stance, brandishing her sword with stalwart bravery. She shifted, displaying the footwork of a trained fighter.

Mr. Night did not smile or laugh at her hubris. He did not even sneer. All arrogance and lofty condescension had been blown away by the searing injuries to his person. He would kill Tenelle for this, Eda knew. What was she thinking? If this glyph trapped him, then Tenelle could surely retreat. Attack at a safe distance where he could not follow, with arrows and nets and colloidal silver…

Eda and Ben crouched behind a pew. The templehouse had all but emptied of anyone besides the Blades themselves, many of whom were keeping the riotous crowd at bay outside. The rest gathered warily about the dais.

To the side, Marshal Tiernan had Fane pinned beneath his knee. The bishop was screaming his innocence, red-faced. His cries went unheard.

Tenelle suddenly swung at Mr. Night. He jerked out of range like a coiled snake. Eda looked again at the silver Breakers scattered behind him. A Blade dared to cross the borders of the glyph, made to grab them—

Mr. Night threw a hand up without looking.

A fiend crawled through the rippling surface of the Gateway. The Blade tried to retreat, but the creature fell upon him, crushing him beneath its weight. It clamped its jaw over his screaming face. The other Blades ran forward to help.

Fane’s power over the fiends had expired with the completion of his Pact. They answered only to Mr. Night now. And they would kill anyone they could reach.

But he can’t kill me. Not until sundown.

Three more fiends spilled from the mirror and charged into the fray. It was a red and gray blur, beast clashing with man.

When no more came, Eda ran.

Ben called after her. She did not heed him, racing up the dais steps with her heart in her mouth, past the blurred bodies and flashing swords. She snatched up the silver chisel and hammer. Stumbled to the Gateway. In her peripheral vision, she saw Tenelle narrowly miss a strike from Mr. Night that could have decapitated her, sweat pouring down her face.

Eda’s blood roared. The carnage at her back was a mere thrum, as though she were underwater. She put the chisel to smooth obsidian, readied to strike—

Something knocked her off her feet.

She hit the ground hard. The hammer skittered away. Someone grabbed her by the throat and Eda struck out blindly with the chisel, hitting a bony shoulder. The assailant grunted with pain, but only squeezed harder as they crawled over her. Her vision cleared enough to make out Fane’s blotchy, snarling face.

“You whore,” he seethed. “You meddling, stupid little bitch. I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you!” His pupils were huge and black. Every muscle in his body tensed as he did his best to choke her, arms fully extended to keep his face beyond the range of her swings. The chisel clipped his chin once, twice. But he did not let go. Desperate, Eda drove it into his side. She felt skin break and give way. Heard him grunt in pain. But he gritted his teeth and bore it. Whatever genial mask of temperance Florian Fane once wore, it was well and truly discarded now.

The face of a monster, she thought madly. Darkness bled into the corners of her vision. Now everyone can see it.

Just when the pain in her lungs overcame all other sense, her arms falling lax and heavy, Florian was ripped away. Eda gasped. Coughed. Rolled to the side, desperate for air.

Mr. Night stood over her. He had Florian by the neck.

“You cannot kill me!” the bishop wheezed, clawing at the demon’s grasp. “I brought you three thousand years!”

“You did. And for this I might have left you be, Florian Fane, except you stood here, in your precious god’s own house, and called me a liar.” Mr. Night sneered. “Our Pact is finished. As is my use for you. But you may yet give something back to those who did your bidding so loyally, no? They are always hungry.” He held the bishop fast as a fiend approached, mouth dripping with pink drool. “After all…you did ask for fear.”

Fane saw the fiend. He screamed, thrashed, clawed, kicked. Mr. Night stood fast as rock and just as unmoved. He let go only when the fiend latched onto the bishop’s leg. Fane fell to the floor, howling like a struck pig. The fiend shook its head in delight. Blood flew. Another of the beasts, drawn by the struggle, bit into Fane’s shoulder. The two began to pull like scrapping dogs fighting over a bone. Flesh tore. Sinew snapped. The bishop’s screams became gargles, his eyes white and rolling in his head. Innards spilled free, and blood ran like rivers over the glyph’s glowing lines.

Eda did not look away.

Cool fingers hooked beneath her chin. Mr. Night tilted her face toward him.

“Eda!” Ben stood with silver sword in hand at the border of the glyph. His face was lined with terror.

Beside him, Tenelle was bleeding, her bad arm a dead weight. She yelled to the last of her soldiers, “Hold your fire!”

Eda wasn’t sure she could move. All her energy had been sapped by the struggle with Fane. If Mr. Night wanted to hurt her, what could she do to stop him? Their Pact bade him leave her unharmed, unless he wished to lose a thousand years in recompense. But was it enough to stay his hand? Fane had given him more.

He lifted her to standing. Eda clung to him on instinct. They regarded one another: she with open trepidation, Mr. Night with no discernible expression at all. His injuries were inflamed and angry, his breathing labored through his nose. You can be harmed after all, Eda thought, even as she trembled like a rabbit in his arms.

“Sweet Eda. I expected the bishop’s weakness of character. But yours?” His claws dug at her waist. “I confess myself hurt that you would plot against me. I thought we understood each other. You were better than the rest of them.”

Them. Humans. Mortals.

“I’m not better,” Eda said. It hurt to talk. “I’m exactly like all the rest. It isn’t such a failing.” She tried to pull away. He did not let her. “You aren’t hurt, Mr. Night. You let them take Ben and Lawrie, let the bishop turn Blackbridge against me. It’s all a game to you. My life is a game. You don’t even care about the last ten years we owe—it’s nothing to you.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, sweet thing. No matter how much one already has, there can always be more. But you are shortsighted. A flaw I can easily forgive, for I am fond of you. Whether you believe so or not.”

“So your greed is a virtue, but human greed is a vice?” Eda was mortified to realize she was crying. Not for him but for herself. For the version of herself that had once believed his honeyed words. “You’re fond of me as one is fond of a pet, a dancing bear at the end of your leash. And when I’m no longer diverting, no longer useful—what then?” He seemed surprised by her rancor. “Tell me you don’t mean to kill us if we fail to get you your years by sundown.”

Mr. Night caught a tear on his claw. The charred welt across his eye pinched as he frowned at it. “I care nothing for your loutish brothers, but you…you have always shown respect, and an admirable mettle besides. I am tempted to spare you. Keep you by my side. If you continued to bring me years of your own free will, you would want for nothing. You would remain ever useful, and thus would never tire me.” He pressed his nose to hers until the tip of his horn dug cruelly into her cheek. “So long as you remember your place.”

He shoved her away.

Mr. Night turned and marched to the edge of the glyph. He faced the watching Blades and held his arms wide. “None of you simpering fools could kill me. Not if you tried for a thousand years! You will not hold me here for long. Your little alchemists will weaken, and I shall be free. Then I’ll rip your spines out your miserable arses!” The air trembled. The Blades took a step back, crossbows trembling. He laughed and said something in guttural Infernal.

He can’t hurt me without losing a thousand years. But neither could Eda hurt him. If the Shaws harmed Mr. Night or his Gateway, he’d be free to kill them without consequence. It was a clear stipulation of their Pact. But he had to die. If he did not, Lawrie would.

The Blades could fire their arrows and throw their nets until they had none left, but how did you injure a creature that could turn into living smoke?

Take him by surprise.

Eda was charging across the platform before she knew what she intended. “I know my place, Baelion.”

He turned.

She drove the chisel into his chest.

Mr. Night bellowed. In the next instant, Eda was flying across the dais. Her back hit the Gateway with shocking force; she slumped to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut. She heard yelling, but her vision danced. Pain flared everywhere. She tasted blood.

The blurry shape that was Mr. Night drew the chisel from his chest with an agonized snarl, hands smoking. It clattered to the ground. He swayed in pain, but Eda clearly hadn’t stabbed him deeply enough. He strode toward her with an expression that sent her bowels churning—all blistering black rage. His tail lashed like a whip. His claws flexed. In his burning eyes, she saw her own death.

Ben raced after him. Tenelle ordered him to get out of the way. Crossbows readied to fire.

Idiot, she thought despairingly as Mr. Night’s shadow fell over her. The mirror was hard against her back. You idiot, Ben. Leave me. Don’t die here too.

In one last desperate bid to buy herself another moment, she spat, “Vhesak’din!”

Fuck you.

Mr. Night stopped dead in astonishment. One moment he was staring down at her, garish as a ghoul with the glyph illuminating his every sharp angle.

The next, a dark shape crashed to the ground between them.

Mr. Night reared. The Blades shouted in alarm. Ben slid to a halt.

The black figure uncoiled from his landing crouch, and Eda’s heart thumped painfully. She would recognize him anywhere.

“…Kit?”

A glowing eye turned toward her. His broken horn caught the frigid light, casting shadows across his face. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking.

“Little brother.” Mr. Night stared. Uncharacteristic shock rapidly melted into ghastly delight. “After all these years, you dare to face me? Now?”

Kit was still looking at Eda when he said, softly, “I finally have something worth fighting for.”

Then he punched the other demon in the face.