Chapter Thirty-Six #2
I follow her gaze and find only the empty doorway, but she never looks away.
“Winter hurts,” she murmurs at last, lashes slipping like they’re too heavy to hold up. “It’s broken.”
I have no idea what she’s talking about, but she’s swaying on her feet as if already half asleep.
“What’s wrong?”
I nearly jump out of my skin at the voice that springs up behind me like a whip.
“Jesus!” I snap, glowering at the demon taking up the little space remaining in the bathroom. “This doesn’t concern you.”
He’s not listening to me. Not even a glance. His entire focus is on Lenora as she forces her eyelids open and sees him.
“Veyn,” she mumbles.
“I’m here, little one.”
I’m taken aback when she brushes out of my arms. But rather than go to him like I expect, she staggers past him and out into the bedroom.
“Lenora?”
She ignores him and ambles to the door. It’s tugged open and she shuffles out into the corridor.
“What is wrong with her?” The demon rounds on me like I had something to do with this.
I bite back the outrage hot on my tongue and answer, “I think she’s sleepwalking.”
Whatever response he has is pushed aside as he hurries after her only to smack into an invisible wall at the threshold. His entire body jerks back at the force.
“What is it?” I ask, wondering what fresh hell this was if we are trapped in this room with Lenora out there wandering around alone.
“I can only go where there are mirrors,” he snarls. His eyes are no longer pools of black, but an ocean of crimson. They blaze against the contours of his twisted face. Over the serrated lines of his bared fangs. “Get her!”
I don’t need to be told twice.
I bolt past him and sprint down the corridor. Lenora is no longer on the second floor. I catch a subtle hint of her dress as she rounds the corner and disappears down the stairs.
“I counted,” she’s mumbling as she hits the bottom landing and veers left. “Tomorrow.”
I thunder down the stairs after her and reach her as she reaches to take a candlestick off a nearby table. A fresh, long stem candle already lit. I don’t pause to ask how or who would have lit it.
“Maybe,” she says, taking the light and moving slowly down the hall leading to the solarium. “Where it rains.”
Her words are nonsense.
A jumble of phrases that can’t be pieced together even as I try.
Overhead, I hear the demon roar and beat his fist, and I understand his frustration even while a part of me relishes it. Still, Lenora is more important than my satisfaction and I need to get her back upstairs.
“The box.” She suddenly stops and turns to me. In the shadows, she has no eyes, only the hollow sockets of a skeleton with dark, shiny pinpricks of light at their center. “It’s in the box.”
A chill scuttles down my spine at the echoing hiss. At the hollow gauntness of her features.
“What is?” I ask.
“Destroy the box.”
The urgency in the statement, the grating scrape of steel over stone has every instinct in my body begging to step back. But I can’t leave her.
“What box?”
Her head snaps to the side, a jerking twitch that snaps the bones of her neck. And I flinch.
“Kill him.”
I’m trying to piece it together, but none of it makes sense.
“Julen Duval?”
“Destroy the box.”
The candlestick slips from her fingers and slams into the marble with a resounding clatter that — even while I watched it plummet to the ground — causes me to jump.
The flame sputters out, but I have only a second to notice when Lenora collapses.
Her knees fold beneath her and I barely manage to catch her.
Overhead, the demon is waging a full war in my bedroom. His fury echoes with violence across every wall, filling the manor with a sound that I will never unhear.
He’s where I left him when I return with Lenora in my arms, but he is nothing like the creature I’ve seen so far.
Every barb and blade, every wild bit of madness is on full display.
He is truly a demon with blood on his teeth and in his talons, though I don’t know from where, nor do I care as I step into the room.
In a blink, it’s all gone. The razor blades and knives vanish. His talons snap back into their beds as he takes her from me. The red in his eyes remains, but it’s clouded with a panic I feel to my own soul.
He’s gentle as he settles her on the bed. His hands brush back her hair and smooths over her as if searching for injuries.
“Wake her. Wake her!” he roars when I don’t move.
Ignoring his command, I hurry into the bathroom and soak a cloth with cold water. I return to him nuzzling the side of her face, murmuring something I can’t hear, but sounds like pleading. Maybe a prayer.
This reaction raises questions I don’t have time for when Lenora needs my focus. I tuck it away for later analysis. Instead, I take her other side and lightly press the cloth to her cheeks. Her brow. I dab it along her throat.
“Linny?” I whisper. “Réveille-toi, mon amour.”
She doesn’t stir. Even her eyelids are still. If it wasn’t for the slow, rhythmic motions of her chest…
“What happened?” The demon interrupts my thoughts.
I shake my head. “She came to my office like that. Said she wasn’t feeling well.”
His face tilts down to her again, searching. Hands brushing and roaming. He checks every inch of her like he might find a clue, but I don’t think he’s going to find any.
“Something happened downstairs,” I tell him, though I don’t know why. It just seems important and I need to tell someone.
I have his attention, but I don’t know how to begin.
A month ago, I never believed in demons and curses.
None of this is logical or safe, but there is a literal demon on my bed.
Lenora is pregnant with a baby that defies modern medicine.
There are two other demons somewhere in the house.
If anyone is going to understand what I saw downstairs and believe me, it’s probably this asshole.
“Can…” I break off, feeling ridiculous.
“What?” he snaps when I take too long.
I peer down at Lenora, steeling my nerves.
“Can you tell if she’s possessed?”
He’s still and too silent for far longer than is a comfort. Tendrils of black have begun to snake through the red, but not completely.
“What are you talking about?”
Fantastic. Even the demon from hell thinks I’ve lost my mind.
In too deep to turn back, I tell him exactly what I saw.
The black vanishes and I am inches from a creature not of this world. A monster that relishes the taste of blood. There is a venom that rolls off his tongue with his snarl that I feel crawl beneath my skin.
“Stay with her,” he growls. “Do not leave her. Do not fall asleep until I return.”
I had no intentions of doing either, but I nod and watch him shove off the bed. He stalks to the wall of mirrors and pauses. His head turns back over his shoulder to where Lenora lies still and his nostrils flare. The sight of her seems to spur him the rest of the way through the glass.