13. Leah #2
I gape at how baldly he puts it, but there’s no point in venting my outrage. He’s a coward, preferring to send me marching into the danger zone rather than face the enemy himself, even with all his power. Yelling at him about it won’t change that.
“I’d get ready now,” Vizmodeus says once they’re done carving the runes. “This rift is designed for precision, not longevity. It will burn quickly.”
Syrus nods, sliding his gaze toward me. Those invisible fingers stroke their way up my spine again, encircling my shoulders, pulling my breath sharply inward.
Will it ever stop being so intense, looking directly into those red-ringed eyes as he fills me like this? Watching him as he slips into my mind and touches the most vulnerable, private parts of me?
I release a sigh of relief when that intensity eases a little, his presence settling into my skin.
Meanwhile, he looks totally composed, his expression unchanged except for a faint set of lines between his brow as he unbuckles the knife sheath from his belt and approaches me.
“How do you do that?” I blurt out, needing to know.
“Do what?” he asks with a raised eyebrow.
“How is your consciousness in me and you at the same time? You just took that sheath off like I can’t also feel you under my skin. Could you move my body at the same time as yours?”
“Yes, but it takes focus and a lack of distraction,” he says.
“The more complicated the movements, the more difficult it is.” A smirk appears on his lips as he swipes his hair back from his face.
“Think of it as like patting your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time. Now take this, just in case.”
He holds out the knife to me and I take it, if reluctantly. If we’re going into danger, I’m all for having something to defend myself with, but…
“I’m not much good with a knife,” I admit, chewing my lip. I used to carry one on the plains, but that was for practical reasons. Very different from actually having to fight with it.
“Lucky for you, I am,” he says, then steps aside as his magic takes hold of my legs and marches me toward the well.
The rest happens so quickly I don’t have much chance to think. Vizmodeus strikes a match, tucking a box of them into my pocket with his other hand.
“For the journey back,” he explains, then bends to light the runes. They fizz to life, glowing and flaring until they start to rip the fabric of the realm apart, burning a doorway into thin air.
“Have a safe trip,” Vizmodeus says just as Syrus’s consciousness takes hold of my body and shoves it through the rift.
It’s like being dragged through molasses at the same time as being pushed through a laundry mangle.
My limbs and head are heavy, but I also feel like I’m being squeezed from every angle, the aether pressing in around me.
Everything is moving too fast for me to actually see what’s ahead—I’m only aware of that flare of rift light, flashes of stone I think are the well in Malice, and then glimpses of something else—wood and brick in an unfamiliar room.
It’s impossible not to get dizzy, but I try to stop my vision turning fuzzy at the edges by blinking rapidly.
The whisper of a touch passes across my face, an invisible hand pushing my eyelids closed.
“Keep them shut,” Syrus orders sternly in my mind. “I don’t need you passing out this time.”
I’m tempted to ignore him—after all, passing out would temporarily kick him out of my head. But the prospect of lying unconscious—alone and helpless—wherever we’re about to end up is enough to convince me. I close my eyes.
Moments later, the squeezing sensation fades and the atmosphere shifts; the air’s a few degrees cooler on my skin, and the faint smell of damp fills my nose.
My eyes fly open, not knowing what or who I expect to see.
I’m met with an empty room.
Well, thank the goddess for that. It’s definitely preferable to a pack of angry ephilium.
I take a step forward and am immediately hit with a wave of nausea. Oh crap.
I manage to direct myself over to a corner in time to deposit my breakfast onto the floor.
The presence inside my mind sighs. “It’s better than fainting, I suppose.”
“Shut up and just give me a moment,” I hiss back as I wipe my mouth with the back of my sleeve.
I spit once to get the acrid taste out of my mouth—the Lord of Malice thankfully doesn’t offer commentary—and then straighten up to get a better look at the room.
“Looks like this place was a craftsman’s workshop once,” I say, peering at the wooden benches pushed against the walls.
There’s not much else to see. A pile of discarded sacking in the corner, some empty shelving and hooks on the walls where tools might’ve once hung.
There’s a single door in the wall behind me.
“You think that’s what they used to open the original rift? ”
“You don’t always need a preexisting doorway to anchor a rift. The one those arrogant sorcerers opened to summon me is proof of that.” The skin at the base of my throat prickles with his anger at the thought. “But it makes it easier.”
“Sure, easier than ripping a woman from her bed on her wedding night and using her instead.”
I think it offhandedly, not really meaning it for him, but I feel his attention sharpen in my direction, like the twitching ears of a predator catching the sound of its prey. There’s a beat, then he’s behind my eyes, looking out of them onto the room.
“Well, now that you’ve wrestled your fragile digestive system under control, we can get on with finding out where we are,” he says, his tone snide.
“Next time you get pushed through the fabric between realms, I hope you throw up your breakfast and your lunch,” I grumble back.
Still, he’s right that we need to orient ourselves. I glance up at the windows set into the left side of the room, but they’re positioned very high—too high for me to climb up and look through, instead just letting in a few shafts of sunshine.
It hits me I haven’t seen the sun for several days, but the thought slips away as Syrus’s presence shifts behind my eyes, as if he’s leaning in closer to get a better look. When I turn away from the windows, he draws back again.
“It’s obvious we won’t learn anything without leaving this room,” he says.
I examine the door nervously. “What if there are ephilium on the other side?”
“A risk I’m willing to take.”
“Sure, as long as it’s my body you’re risking.”
“You’re catching on at last. Wonderful.”
I huff out my exasperation but step forward.
I’ve risked my life on battlefields more times than I can count.
Opening a door shouldn’t be difficult after that.
The handle turns with a squeak, and I wince, wishing it was quieter.
I’m a little hopeful it will be locked, and we’ll have to turn around and go back to Infernum, but it opens.
What waits beyond is just another empty room, except this one is larger and clearly the main space of the building we’re in.
There’s an external door, the sunlight shining through the cracks around the frame and the distant sounds of a street floating in from outside: the clop clop of horse hooves and buzz of people calling to each other.
I can’t see the street, however, because while there are windows in here too, they’re boarded up. The room is shadowy, lit only by the light flowing from the door I’ve just come through.
I exhale. “Okay, so there’s no one here either. Doesn’t look like this fishing expedition is going to catch much. Maybe you should just give up now and—”
“We’re far from done.” Syrus paces impatiently in my head. “You know Pax. Go outside and find out exactly where we are.”
I move to cross to the door, only for a mental grip to halt my foot midair.
“Wait,” Syrus is suddenly alert.
“What?” I ask in a panic, pinwheeling my arms so I don’t lose my balance.
“There’s something over there.” His attention shifts toward the end of the room.
Now he’s drawn my attention to it, I can see he’s right. On the other side of the room, there’s a darker patch of the floor. I move cautiously over to it, a bitter, sulfurous scent assaulting me.
“Ugh, what is that?”
“You smell it too?” he asks as I bend and strike one of the matches Vizmodeus gave me.
“What do you mean ‘too’? You’re using my nose right now,” I say, as if that isn’t a disturbing thought. I hold up the match, letting its light fall over the floor.
“Yes, but usually humans can’t smell it.”
I stare at the sight in front of me—a black, sprawling mark baked into the floorboards. It’s a tangled mess of shadow, like a creature covered in soot writhed around on the spot, tarnishing everything it touched.
“Can’t smell what?” I ask nervously. There’s something wicked about that mark, my gut can feel it. Syrus knows it too because his voice is unsettled when he answers.
“The smell of a dead demon.”