Chapter XXII #2
“I give you no power over myself,” Elías announced, as instructed. He forced himself to look back up at the dry skin peeling off cheekbones, and those pits, the darkness that devoured all they stared at. “I reject your offer. Now tell me: What do you want?”
“I want you dead . Meddling busybody.”
If only the demon would tell him something he didn’t know.
“What do you want?” he repeated.
“The priesssssssst.”
A glee, a hunger, a fey crackle in the air. The demon lurched forward. Feet scarcely touched the ground; Alba’s ankles turned at angles they should not have, popping and cracking as the demon lifted its arms and reached for Elías.
The demon struck the boundary of the circle and wrenched back as if burnt. It hissed—not in pain, but long and low, with an anger so palpable, so searing, Elías was certain his hair might catch flame.
Then it laughed at him.
“You are weak ,” it said. “You will ebb and run dry. Patience is all I need,” it added, hissing: “ Patience .”
A ring of dread, echoing like a gong. It was right. He would run dry. Already he felt as if he clung to consciousness by fingernails that were shredded and bled; the abyss beneath him yawned ravenous and closer, ever closer.
He did not have much time. Could he ask one more question, before he turned the page and began to close this ritual?
“Where does your power come from?” he rasped. His throat was so dry, he felt as if he spoke through a mouthful of ash. “I demand that you tell me.”
Sinews flinched and twitched; its head snapped to the side, then rolled. Did resisting his question pain the demon? Good. He asked again: “Where does it come from?”
Its head lolled back; its arms lifted from its sides like a dancer’s, languid.
Then a cry burst forth: wet and weak, almost a sob, almost a mew, almost…human. It sliced through him, a hot knife meeting tender flesh.
“Alba?” Was she fighting to be free?
The demon’s neck snapped upright and it sprang forward, arms outstretched for him.
Coming for his throat.
Elías lifted his hand from El Libro de San Cipriano . His arms shook as if he had been pushing a boulder up a hill for hours; his shirt, soaked with sweat, clung to the low of his back.
He would not run dry. He would not allow Alba to suffer any longer. He held both hands before him, as if that alone could stop the demon.
It gave a strangled cry and fell back from the walls of the circle.
Elías shuddered as if it had flung itself bodily against him.
His teeth clashed together, crystalline sparks breaking wild across his vision.
He gasped for air—his lungs were empty, so empty, as if he had been flung to the ground from a height, and every one of his bones shook from the impact.
He breathed. And he braced.
“I will take you!” it howled. “I will punish you.”
He would not let it break through. Black dread was all he knew, all he felt, and that alone gave him the strength to be a wall to the demon’s battering ram. He did not know anything except this: He could not let it through.
Burning flesh seared his nostrils; bile swept up rotten from his gut, threatening to choke him.
He braced. He reached down, into the stone beneath his feet.
Rivers of mercury rose in reply. They flooded his veins as if through a cracked dam.
“Begone,” he roared. His throat was shredded flesh.
His cheeks were slick with wet—tears, or blood, or the demon’s spittle, he did not know.
It was brinier than sweat, hotter than his fear.
It lined his lips with tin and sulfur, stinging as if his mouth were an open wound. “I have had enough of you. Begone .”
A crack of a whip. A snap at the back of his skull, like the crack of bone, a muscular tweak that left his face throbbing with pain.
It had killed him. This was death.
He fell to his knees, a husk, bleeding from every orifice.
He lifted his head—blood slipped from his nostrils, pouring over his lips, dripping from his chin to his trousers. One circle of darkness appeared in his vision, then another, then another.
The taste of blood was warm and ironlike, salt and red.
“Elías.”
Sunlight streamed into the workshop. A blast of cold air from behind him—the door had swung open; the window shutters had fallen from their hinges and struck the ground.
Bright, clean, fresh.
Alba stood illuminated before him, bright as a saint. Her face: her own. Lashes and lips and cheeks flush with blood. Her chest was whole—her ribs were hidden beneath flesh, her clothing draped over breasts and waist. No mist. No gristle. No clacking teeth and lolling tongue.
Dark eyes, wet with tears. Lashes that caught them and held them like the jewels they were, glistening and shattering the light into a thousand colors.
Something dripped from his chin. Absently, he reached up—his fingers found wet. Warmth. When he drew the hand back, it was slick with blood.
Oh .
His hands flew to his face, searching for the source of the blood. His eyes? His ears? No—only his nose. Streaming as if it had been broken, but already the flow had slowed.
He was not dead. But the blood was real.
Also real: Alba stepping forward, out of the circle, on uncertain feet.
Falling to her knees before him. The workshop filled with the soft exhale of skirts.
With her breathing, and with his, hoarse and unsteady.
She reached forward for his hands. Hers were ice, his fire, and she dropped them as if scalded.
They fell, too heavy—then rested, palms up, on his thighs.
His fingertips were black. As if he had dipped them in ink or run them through soot. Smoke rose from his fingertips, leaving a hint of sulfur on the air.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
She was whole, but like him, her clothes were dark with perspiration. She shook. Her lips were dry; they had split in places, the seams bright with delicate lines of blood.
She shook her head. “We need help.”
Her voice cracked. He sensed what she was going to say before the words came. He was not surprised. He was relieved. He could have killed them both in his hubris, and she was right.
“We need Padre Bartolomé,” she said.