Chapter 9 Malachi
Malachi
Ilean in, my nose hovering inches from the junction of her neck. My mouth waters at the scent of her—that intoxicating, head-spinning cocktail of sun-warmed peaches and the sharp, metallic tang of grief that wafts from her skin with every micro-movement she makes.
The morning light slices through the shitty, thin curtains in yellow lines, striping her skin in golden bars, illuminating the soft dip of her chest where the collar of her t-shirt has slipped.
I track the light as it follows the curve of her hip and the tangled mess of her legs, documenting every soft, mammalian detail.
Oh, what is that?
There—on the sleeve of the flimsy cardigan she clings to like armour, right over the inner forearm. A small, dark, crimson blemish is blooming through the grey fabric. It’s barely there—a pinprick of a stain—but it’s expanding quickly, the wool drinking it up.
A flicker of genuine irritation sparks in my chest.
My hand closes around her shoulder, and I shake her with fervour until she gasps, her eyes fluttering open, wide and glazed with confusion.
“Did you try to perform a ritual again during the night?” I ask, frustration lacing my words. “Did you think you could bypass me while I was in another room?”
“What?” she croaks, her voice thick and clumsy with sleep. She blinks up at me, squinting against the morning light. “Why are you in my room? Why are you... on my bed?”
I don’t even acknowledge her questions, I just tilt my head toward her arm.
Her eyes dart down, tracking my gaze, and then they widen.
A small, shaky breath hitches in her throat—a sound that tells me this in fact wasn’t intentional.
She pushes herself up in the sheets shakily and peels the sleeve back with a pained wince, the fabric making a sickening, tacky sound as it separates from the skin.
Oh, it’s angry.
It isn’t deep enough to be fatal, but it looks disgusting. The skin’s puckered and flushed, and trailing away from the center of the wound are faint, hair-thin crimson lines trapped under the skin, spiderwebbing out toward her wrist.
I lean in, my nose catching the scent. Biological failure—that’s what it smells like. Rot, and off blood. A mundane, mortal infection.
The pieces click into place with an embarrassing, audible thud in my brain.
The nausea. The feverish heat radiating off her in waves.
The way she’s been trembling like a leaf in a gale for the last forty-eight hours.
I dismissed it. I assumed the clammy skin and the scent of distress were just her baseline settings.
I thought ‘sallow and sweaty’ was her natural aesthetic—a feature of her general state of disarray.
But she isn’t just stressed; she’s turning into a walking petri dish right under my nose.
And I missed it. I, who can smell her fear, missed the fact that her flesh is actively fermenting.
“It’s fine.” Her voice is defensive, brittle as dry parchment, but her fingers are trembling as she tries to tug the sleeve back down. “It’ll heal. I just need to put a fresh dressing on it.”
Absolutely not.
Before she can get out of bed, I reach out, press a thumb directly onto the center of the wound, and twist. Her body jerks and she whimpers, pressing her back further into the mattress—but I don’t let go. I hold her wrist in a vice grip, forcing her to look at it.
“Is it really fine, little summoner?” I growl. “Does it feel fine when I do that? Or does it feel like something may be amiss here?”
A single bead of fresh, dark crimson wells up around my thumb, staining the grey wool of her sleeve further.
“Stop,” she whispers, her eyes fixed on my hand. “Malachi, stop. It hurts.”
“Good. That means you agree there’s an issue.” I snap, finally releasing her.
In my realm, if you get a hole in you, you either knit it back together with a bit of spit and spite. But mortals wither at the slightest of ailments, and I’ll be damned if I’m stuck to a bag of bones because her arm decides to rot and fall off.
“Do you have the supplies to fix this?” I demand, gesturing to the stained wool.
Her throat works as she swallows, eyes darting toward the hallway with a look of pure, unadulterated dread.
“I have... gauze,” she says, her voice sounding thin and unconvincing. “And some... uh…”
“Gauze and ‘uh’ aren’t going to fix this, little summoner,” I growl.
She pulls out her phone and taps away, brow furrowed.
“Shit,” she whispers, her fingers hovering over the screen.
“The delivery app’s down. There’s some kind of server error for the whole zip code.
It says there aren’t any couriers available.
” She lets out a sigh, her shoulders slumping.
“Whatever. I’ll just... I’ll wait until later.
Maybe if I just wash it again, it’ll be fine. ”
“No,” I say simply. “You will not wait. Your flesh is already beginning to hum with the wrong kind of heat. You need to fix this now, little summoner, or the ‘after’ will come much sooner than you’ve planned for.”
The panic is a palpable thing, radiating off her in thick, hot waves as her fingers twist tightly in the sheets, her breath coming out in shallow puffs.
“Fine… I… I can go there. I’ll go now,” she says, her voice shakier than a leaf in a gale.
“We,” I correct her as I stretch lazily. “Unless you’ve somehow, very suddenly, forgotten the little issue of our leash? You’re going to have to take your demon for a walk.”
“Stay still.”
She pumps a dollop of beige cream onto the back of her hand with the grim dedication of a martyr stepping into a lion’s den, and approaches with a damp, egg-shaped sponge, pressing the nude-colored mud against my cheek.
It smears across my jawline in a feeble attempt to drown the storm-cloud hue of my skin into something aggressively mundane.
You’d think she was about to perform surgery on a live bomb with the way her eyes are darting across my face, refusing to meet mine, focusing entirely on the logistics of my camouflage.
“You’re wasting your time, little summoner,” I huff, my gaze tracking the pink, blotchy heat rising in her neck. “You can paint me all you like. I will not pass for a mortal.”
“Shut up,” she snaps, leaning in closer.
The dabbing of the sponge picks up with such intensity my neck cricks.
She isn’t applying makeup anymore; she’s attempting an exorcism by percussion.
Each tap lands with enough conviction to echo through my skull, a steady, ridiculous thudding that suggests she sincerely believes she can bludgeon the demon out of me one beige molecule at a time.
“I’m a demon, not a piece of dough,” I growl, catching her wrist.
She doesn’t pull away—she’s too far gone. She just pries her hand loose and goes back to it, hitting a particularly sensitive spot near the top of my ear as she tries to cover those with the beige mud too. I wince, a hiss escaping my teeth, head jerking back.
“Watch the damned piercings,” I snarl.
Her nostrils flare, the sponge hovering mid-air. She finally looks at the silver rings pierced through the cartilage of my ears, then down at the small ring in my septum.
“Why do you even have piercings?” she asks.
I cut her a look, jaw ticking. “Why don’t you have them?”
Her mouth opens like she wants to spit out a rebuttal, but it promptly snaps shut. “Fair point,” she mumbles as she turns back to her makeup bag. “I guess vanity isn’t just a human sin.”
The soft bristles of a large, fluffy brush covered in translucent powder hit my face next—a cloud of fine, white mist that smells like artificial roses and dust filtering through the air, tickling my sinuses.
My gaze drops of its own accord as she works, tracing the cracked, dry skin of her lips, before sliding lower, along the pale, vulnerable column of her throat.
It would take nothing to reach out. One fingertip, a slow line drawn from jaw to collarbone.
A little pressure. Just enough to feel her breath catch —
“I think...” She steps back, wiping a smudge of beige from her own thumb. “I think that’ll do... maybe.”
She bravely grabs my shoulder and hauls me toward the full-length mirror on the back of the door.
NO. FUCK. NO.
The thing staring back at me is not a disguise so much as an insult. My face—my bones, my angles, the clean severity of my true form—has been smeared into something dull and politely mortal.
From the neck down, I am still a marvel—a stunning, lethal, symphony of power. But from the neck up? I am a tragedy. I am a generic, doughy-faced disappointment. I look like the kind of man who has a favorite brand of lawnmower and an opinion on tax brackets.
It is, quite frankly, fucking vile.
“I look ridiculous,” I grit out, the vertical slits of my eyes pulsing hard with barely-contained irritation. “You’ve committed a crime against perfection, Eden.”
“You look safe,” she counters. “Safe is the only way we don’t end up in a government lab by midnight. But…” Her gaze travels down my body and I follow it.
I’d managed to dry my slacks and shirt over a radiator when I cleaned the apartment, and shimmied back into them when she conjured the grand-master plan of disguising me as one of them. But the rest needs fixing, fast.
“Wait here,” she says as she crosses to the wardrobe and wrenches it open, fingers skimming along a row of hanging fabric and grabbing a piece of clothing.
It’s pale blue.
Great.
“Put it on,” she says, holding it out to me. “It’s the biggest one I have.”
It fights me the whole way—the fabric complaining as I force my arms through, seams creaking in protest, and when it finally settles, the hem hovers dangerously high on my hips. I look down at myself, and bite back the impulse to peel it off and throw it right back in her face.
She doesn’t give me the chance. A drawer rattles open and a second later, she produces a thick knit beanie.
“Sit,” she demands. “I have to do the horns.”
I drop onto the edge of the bed and she shuffles closer on uncertain feet until she’s standing between my knees.
She’s frowning in a fit of adorable concentration, her bottom lip caught between her teeth as she tries to bully the fabric into submission.
She smooths it, adjusting the knit, angling it with a desperate kind of hope—as if a bit of cheap acrylic could actually hide the fact that I’m a predator in her bedroom.
She’s trying to convince the world that I just have a catastrophically disfigured skull, and not two very beautiful horns protruding from it.
It would be so, so easy to reach up, hook a thumb against her chin again, and free that abused lip from her plain, mortal bite.
“There,” she whispers, stepping back.
“This is seriously degrading, you know,” I mutter, pushing up to my full height.
She hums in response and rises onto her tiptoes. Pale blue fabric tunnels my vision as she yanks the hood up over my beanie. I can practically feel the silhouette of my head expanding, transforming me into a very depressed-looking blueberry.
“Hold still,” she murmurs and turns to rummage through her nightstand, tossing aside stray receipts and hair ties until she finds what she’s looking for: a pair of oversized sunglasses.
Black lenses, frames thick enough to hide a multitude of sins.
She studies my muddied, angular face for a second, then slides them onto the bridge of my nose with the careful precision of a Sixth Circle curator deciding where to display a new relic.
I strike a pose, doing a slow, mocking twirl. “Well? Give it to me straight, little summoner. Do I look human? A human-demon hybrid? A very expensive clown?”
She doesn’t even blink; she just adjusts the frames one last time, her fingers lingering a second too long near my temple.
“You look like a guy who’s had a very long weekend,” she retorts flatly.
Her hand drops away, and she stares down the hall toward the front door as if she’s looking at a firing squad. I, however, am starting to feel a strange, buzzing electricity in my fingertips.
I’ve spent an eternity in the suffocating heat of the Ninth. But out there? Out there is the stuff. The real, tangible, loud-as-hell mortal world. I want to see the things that make the noises and see the sinners that will eventually end up under my hands.
I chuckle at the thought, the sound vibrating with a genuine, dark giddiness as I stride down the hall and grab the deadbolt—ready to fix Eden’s festering arm, and finally see the circus.
“No, wait!” she yelps.
My hand freezes on the doorknob.
“You can’t just... walk out there,” she says, rushing forward. “If you go out like that, someone is going to call the police. You have to act... normal. You have to act human.”
I arch a brow. “My grey is gone, and I am wearing knitwear and a shroud of cotton. How much more ‘human’ can one entity become?”
“It’s not the clothes, it’s the vibe,” she hisses, gesturing wildly at my face.
“Just… Don’t look at people. In fact, don’t look at anything.
Look at the sidewalk. Or your phone—wait, you don’t have one.
Just look at your feet and look slightly annoyed.
Like you’re thinking about your taxes or a sandwich you didn’t enjoy. ”
“You want me to pretend I am experiencing digestive disappointment?” I deadpan.
“Yes! Exactly! And for the love of God, stop moving like a panther. Humans don’t glide, Malachi. They... they trudge. They have joint pain and bad posture. Slouch. Give me a slouch.”
I attempt to lower my frame, rounding my shoulders into something more dithering and non-threatening, hunching my spine until the fabric of the undersized hoodie groans against my back.
It’s a pathetic performance—a wolf trying to shrink into the skin of a stray cat—but I hold the pose, letting her give me a once-over.
“Better,” she mutters with a nod, though she still looks like she’s about to vomit. “And if anyone speaks to you, don’t call them ‘mortal.’ Just grunt. Or say ‘how’s it going?’ but don’t actually wait for an answer. That’s the most human thing you can do.”
I maintain the exaggerated, miserable curve of my spine, letting my arms hang like dead weights at my sides. I pull my face into an expression of profound, soul-crushing boredom.
“Rounded shoulders, depressed face, grunting,” I drone flatly. “Is there anything else, my mortal goddess? Or am I quite alright now? You’re ruining my excitement with this curriculum of mediocrity.”
“No, no,” she whispers, fingers trembling as she fastens her coat buttons, “this is fine. It’s going to be fine. We’re just two people going to the pharmacy. A girl and her... cousin. Her very tall, very grumpy, silent cousin.”
I offer a low, nasal grunt in agreement, the slouch feeling like a physical insult to my spine. But as she reaches for the door, I catch the scent of her fear again. The cousin is going to the pharmacy. But the demon? The demon’s going on a field trip.