Chapter 17 #2
“I don’t care what happens to anyone else,” Murmur said, to convince himself as much as Suyin. “If I die, it’s irrelevant to me.”
She frowned. She didn’t like that answer, he could tell. She probably wanted him to save the world and all the little puppies and kittens too.
But instead of chastising him, she said, “Your vision is of your soul being trapped. That means that if you fail and die, your spell has also failed. So if you don’t care about anyone else, you should at least care about that.
If you show me what exactly it is you’re trying to do here, I could try to continue your work even if you do die. ”
His brows rose. “Besides the obvious fact that it would take you centuries to be even close to powerful enough to attempt this spell, why should you care what happens to my soul, or the souls of any dead demons for that matter?”
“It’s not just the souls of random dead demons. If everything you told me is true—”
“It is.”
“—then it’s my father’s soul. I’m almost as motivated as you are to break them free. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to sleep at night again, knowing my father’s soul is trapped in an inescapable prison in Hell.”
“You never knew him. Why should you care?”
“I don’t need to know him. He’s my father. My mother loved him, and that’s enough for me to know he was a good person. He doesn’t deserve this.”
“Fine.” Murmur waved a hand. He was done arguing against something he’d already wanted to do. “You win. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”
Her eyes lit up, and her spine straightened. “Really?”
A funny lightness took hold of his chest, but he ignored it with a scowl. He’d given in far too easily, and he knew it. But he didn’t have the energy to keep fighting her and the part of himself that wanted to give her what she wanted.
“Yes,” he growled, “but not until tonight, when I’ve finished my work. And stop looking at me like that, or I’ll change my mind and throw you back into the dungeon.”
She rolled her eyes. The little witch rolled her eyes at him again.
“Now, get out.” He dismissed her with a flick of his claws toward the door. “I have work to do, and you have proven to be the worst kind of distraction. Funny, because I distinctly remember you swearing to remain silent and keep out of my way at all times.”
She smiled unrepentantly.
He scowled and jerked his chin toward the door.
She turned to go, her steps graceful despite the clunky boots she wore. Shaking his head, he rose from the desk and approached the sigil. He stepped over the lines to the section he’d been working on and crouched beside the bowl of Raphael’s blood, picking up the paintbrush.
Suyin stopped at the door. “When’s tonight?”
He glanced back with a frown.
“I don’t understand how time passes here. Will it be dark out or do you mean in eight hours or so?”
“In eight hours.”
“But it won’t be night. So why would you—”
“In Hell, days are twice as long as on Earth, and nights are three times as long. But we track the passage of time the same way humans do.”
“But …” She scrunched up her face. “That’s so confusing? Why?”
He shot her a look. “Because in Hell, as on Earth, everything revolves around precious humanity. Now go, and don’t come back until eight hours have passed.”
The witch narrowed her eyes at him before finally slipping through the door. He didn’t move, listening to her footsteps until they faded away.
He looked back at the sigil. The prospect of working didn’t fill him with burning ambition and obsession as it always did. In fact, as he went back to repainting the lines, he barely paid attention to what he was doing.
Instead, he started planning how he would teach Suyin about her father’s work and whatever else she wanted to know. He’d never had a student before. The idea of passing on his knowledge had never occurred to him, but now that it had, he was oddly fixated on it.
Gamigin’s book was arguably one of the most important works in history, and as far as he knew, he was the only one alive who’d read and interpreted it correctly. He knew Heaven had been trying to get their hands on it, but he’d thus far thwarted their efforts.
He liked the idea of teaching Suyin what he’d learned. It would be a legacy of sorts.
You really are losing your mind.
“Don’t start with me,” he mumbled.
Legacies are human concepts. Perhaps you only hate humans because you wish you were one. Imitation is the highest form of flattery, as they say. And you’ve sure spent a lot of time pretending to be civil and humanlike since your little guest arrived.
“I said, don’t,” he snapped. “I don’t have time for this right now.”
You should fuck her, his mental voice whispered, doing a complete one-eighty.
He groaned. This was the last thing he needed.
Pin her down, chain her up so she can’t move, and then fuck her until she screams your name.
His groan was for a different reason now as his head suddenly filled with erotic images.
Then he blinked and looked at what he was painting. His hand had been unsteady, and the line was the furthest thing from straight.
“For fuck’s sake.” Any mistake in a sigil this powerful had the ability to render the entire thing useless, or worse, create some catastrophic side effect. Where was his mind today?
In the gutter, that’s where. And if you don’t get it out, you’re going to fail, and Lucifer will find and kill you, and then you’ll be dead, and you’ll never—
“You’re either berating me for being distracted or telling me to fuck the witch. You can’t have both. Which is it?”
His inner voice went suspiciously quiet.
Rolling his eyes, he dropped his paintbrush back into the bowl and stormed off to get a rag. The lines of each symbol had to be done without interruption. He’d need to repaint the entire section.
He cleaned up the area, but instead of recommencing, he let his eyes wander up and scanned the bookshelves before him.
He was pretty sure he’d put Gamigin’s other grimoires in that section, but maybe he ought to check?
He’d also written a book of his own that recorded his learnings from Gamigin more concisely.
He’d been sick of reinterpreting Gamigin’s ramblings every time he needed to refresh his memory.
Suyin would likely be interested in that as well.
Maybe he’d just grab the books quickly so he could stop thinking about it.
Stepping carefully out of the sigil, he crossed the room and climbed the ladder to one of the upper sections. He pulled the book he sought from the shelf, but before he could climb down again, his eyes caught on another grimoire.
Hm. Suyin might want to read this one too.
He pulled it from the shelf. Come to think of it … There was another book … Right here, yes … He definitely had to show her this one.
And so it went.
Three hours later, Murmur was buried behind a stack of books as tall as Suyin, and he’d completely forgotten about the unfinished sigil on the floor.
Suyin ate from her dwindling food supplies for dinner. She’d meant to ask Murmur to send his minions to Earth for her again, but she’d gotten a little distracted by all the life-changing revelations he’d dropped on her.
She was half demon. A Cambion. A creature considered a myth.
Her father was a demon. Not an eccentric man who’d suffered from delusions because of an unhealthy fixation with Sheolic magic. He was a powerful, genius demon who’d written a grimoire so packed with groundbreaking information that it took another powerful, genius demon to decipher it.
When Suyin thought of her mother lying to her about who he was all those years, not even telling her the truth on her deathbed, a wave of hurt and anger rolled through her. But at the same time, she understood it. She wouldn’t have made the same choice, but she understood it.
Throughout her childhood, whenever Suyin had asked for details about her mysterious father, her mother’s responses had been vague.
Sometimes she had refused to say anything at all.
But Suyin had always understood that her mother loved her father deeply, and her reticence came more from a place of grief, from holding a memory close to her heart that was too precious and painful to speak aloud, than from any attempt to keep her in the dark.
Had Fay and Gamigin known what would happen if he was killed? Had they known about Lucifer’s prison? She didn’t think so, but she did know that Gamigin escaping Hell and fathering a hybrid child was very against the rules, so they must’ve known there was a possibility of him being caught.
No wonder Fay had been so silent and closed off in her grief.
Her husband, whom she’d loved enough to have a forbidden child with, had been murdered.
Had he been killed before her eyes? Or had she witnessed him being caught and dragged back to Hell, holding on to some vague hope that he might somehow survive, only to finally be forced to give up and accept that he was gone forever?
Suyin would never know the answers to those questions. But knowing what Gamigin was now, she was surprised at how little it affected her beliefs about the man he’d been.
She trusted her mother—though it would take her some time to release her resentment over her lies—and had always seen her as a source of strength and inspiration.
Fay had been strongly principled and steadfast in her beliefs.
She had survived losing the love of her life and moving her infant daughter to a completely new country and culture.
She had taught Suyin everything she needed to know about being a blood-born witch, while remaining a source of comfort and security for her.
Even learning about her mother’s dishonesty could not tarnish Suyin’s gratitude for what she’d given her.
She firmly believed that if Fay had loved Gamigin enough to have a forbidden child with him, then he was worthy of it.