21. Lucy
Lucy
I don’t believe any of it until Midnight’s expression grows cold and she shrugs. One dismissive movement proving she wasn’t who I thought she was.
She wasn’t open to listening.
She wasn’t open to forgiving me.
And she wasn’t open to understanding why I forced her hand.
My expression morphs, the brightness in me dims as my lip curls into a snarl.
“I will never be yours again, Ignatius. I’m not coming with you.”
My runes glow. The symbols glimmering to life in a golden burst. The air around me vibrates and fizzes. My posture stiffens, my features darken.
I shift between Ignatius and Midnight, my brow creasing.
The angrier I become the hotter my chest grows and the brighter I shine. The air sizzles with heat and power.
One moment my eyes are narrowed, seething hatred pooling in the space between the three of us, and the next I flicker.
The throbbing power shifts and morphs. I’m swimming in an ocean of it and I slip. My head bobs under the water and I’ve lost grip of my limbs.
Panic.
Tight chest.
Pins and needles everywhere.
“She’s losing control,” Midnight barks at Ignatius. “Do something.”
He lurches towards me.
Fuck him. I dart away. But my body radiates too much light. The heat in the room blazes like solar flares, sweat runs down my neck.
Ignatius feints left. I lunge into the gap, but he’s quicker and I am still bobbing under the water of powers I can’t control.
He flings himself at me, knocking us to the ground and slaps silvery handcuffs on my wrists.
The heat and light and runes instantly wink out.
I lie on my back panting. There’s a pause. It’s thick and globulous.
Still lying, I laugh. “I can’t believe I thought you’d come to rescue me. That you actually might forgive me. I should have known…” I turn to face Midnight. “Ten years you’ve held a grudge against your ex. Why would I be any different.”
There’s a flicker of hesitation in Midnight’s expression. But I’m not falling for her shit again.
“How fucking pathetic am I?” I snarl.
Now she chooses to look at me, her gaze is violently intense, as though she wants to tell me a secret. I’m not listening. Not anymore.
“I hope he takes your soul anyway,” I spit the words as potent as the poisonous glares she’s giving me.
Ignatius pulls himself to standing and hauls me up by the handcuffs. I hiss as they dig into my wrists, instantly making my skin red.
“You know…” Ignatius drawls and wipes the back of his hand over his forehead, mopping up sweat. “Lucy darling has a good point. You do owe me a soul.”
I tense, my shoulders stiffening.
“We made a deal,” Midnight says and folds her arms, the picture of arrogance. Oh, what a mistake she’s made. She underestimated him, thought he wouldn’t trick her. Too bad.
“Did we? Do you remember shaking on it? Did you see any entropy moths?” Ignatius’s voice is full of delighted malice.
Midnight’s expression falters and I almost feel bad for her.
“You made a deal, Ignatius, fair and square.”
“I believe you’ll find we made an amendment. An addition, a clause, if you like.”
He huffs out a cold laugh and drags me across the floor. I wriggle and kick trying to get out of his grip, but my runes won’t fire up, and I still don’t know how to control them. Whatever is in these cuffs has snuffed them out.
Ignatius leans into Midnight’s personal space. “You’re right, I did make a deal. Your girlfriend’s life for your soul. I even gave you ten years together. Rather generous of myself.”
“Fuck you. You said if I handed Lucy over, you’d give me my soul back.”
He shrugs, nonchalant as if this isn’t life and death. “Funny, there doesn’t seem to be a record of that. Just some small print in an old contract. That’s the trouble with small print, easily missed.”
“Ignatius,” she growls his name.
“Did you think I was serious? That I’d actually give up a soul that’s proven to be a useful asset? Demonsake, Midnight, have you learned nothing about me in the last decade?”
“You can’t renege. I won’t let you.”
He holds my cuffed wrists up. “And what’s a little reaper like you going to do about it?”
“This city runs on contract law. You can’t go back on it.”
I hang my head, shaking it. She’s forgotten all the basics from her first term at Finis.
“Ora City runs on demonic law,” I breathe. “And an initial contract always needs to be fulfilled.”
Ignatius cocks his head at me and nods, approving.
“This city runs exactly how I fucking tell it to. You will never be free of me, Midnight. I will never give you up, never set you free until I’m good and ready to.
Your lover girl here isn’t the only one tied to me.
You are too. What a delightful pair you make.
Too bad she no longer wants anything to do with you. ”
Ignatius is not gentle with me.
He yanks me by the cuffs through the House Inferos corridors and down the stairs.
He’s so rough that I trip on one of the steps, and he doesn’t bother to slow down to let me up.
I kick my legs at his. He stumbles as my foot gets caught in between his stride and he bashes his knee against the marble tiles.
The hiss he releases is severe enough I realise I made an egregious error. I thought it would give me time to get up and walk dignified by his side, even if I am his captive.
But he’s furious. Canyons carve his skin and he looks older than he ever has. The rage animates his face, each line a trembling reminder that in his mind, I fucked up.
In his eyes, I’m a traitor.
“You left me,” he snarls.
“You trapped me,” I spit, not caring that I am pouring fuel on his temper. I refuse to back down. Refuse to bend and cower, no matter the consequences.
“I made you, daughter.”
“And I am tired of you using that as a threat. So unmake me, Ignatius…” I raise an eyebrow at him as his top lip curls.
He snatches at my hair and yanks me forward, dragging me by my locks instead of the cuffs.
I yelp and then descend into laughter as I realise his dilemma. “Oh, that’s right, you can’t unmake me, can you? You still want to use me.”
That earns me a vicious tug on my hair as he throws me out of House Inferos’s door and into the courtyard.
My head clunks against the ground, my vision woozy and swimming.
He leans down into my face. “I still love you, Lucy. But test my patience and I’ll show you there are fates far worse than the underworld.
Think carefully about your next moves. I can make this tolerable for you, and we can get back to some semblance of father and daughter.
Or I can take exactly what I want from you and leave you to the wraiths. ”
“Go to hell. I can fight back this time. You might not have let Midnight out of her contract, but mine is long gone and I assure you, I will spend every second of life I have left finding a way to make you pay.”
He sniffs and runs a hand through his dishevelled locks. “From your chains? Good luck with that.”
I spit on his shoes.
His eyes fall from my face to the gob of saliva on his overly polished designer shoes.
The sense of satisfaction is short-lived though. He slams his fist into my jaw, and everything goes black… and my mind fills with memories that belong to an angel.
I wake uneasy. It’s odd holding a piece of someone’s soul. I’m not sure I’m enjoying it. Every time I close my eyes, images of her life drift through my mind. But it’s patchwork and I can’t put them into an order.
I know she’s angry. Gods, is she furious. There was a lover. And a repeating image of her and Interitus stood in front of a mirror.
I knead my temples trying to push the memories away. A sticky cold slithers into my muscles. My jaw aches where my father hit me. My scalp is the same, a throbbing ache that is so much more than skin deep. I assume he continued to drag me across the courtyard by my hair while I was unconscious.
Bastard.
I push myself up into a sitting position. “Fuck,” I mumble as I take in my surroundings.
While my handcuffs are gone, they’ve been replaced by some with longer chains fastened to the centre of a cell floor. I’ll be able to move in a circle and that’s it.
The stone walls are jagged and damp. There is a single iron-barred window at the top of the cell that lets in dribbles of moist morning air and I suspect a mean draft at night. The sliver of sky I can see is grey and misty, but I can’t discern much else.
I peer into the corridor. It’s dark despite having multiple sconces with flames flickering in them.
They do nothing to warm me. My clothes are torn, my skin grubby and the runes on my skin painfully quiet.
Now that they’re silent, I realise how much the rhythmic thrum in my cells kept me company. At the end of the corridor is a sculpture carved into the wall rock. It’s just like Finis only inverted: Prima.
I must be in the dungeons of Church Mortis.
“IGNATIUS,” Arcadius booms somewhere in the distance. He’s pissed; his growl makes my chest vibrate.
I scoot to the cell bars and push my face as far between the iron as I can. But it’s no good. There’s too much gloom and they’re too far away for me to see.
But I can hear.
“Have you been to the city?” Arcadius growls.
“No. I’ve been rather busy.”
There’s a clunk that sounds distinctly like a slap to a jaw. Clothes ruffle. Someone clears their throat.
“If you’d allow me to explain, we have Lucy,” Ignatius says.
Arcadius is in on this, too? That fucking bastard.
“That means shit when there are angels eating more mortal souls than ever and causing such catastrophic Veil tears, I’ve had to dispatch half the demonic council out to the city along with half the remaining professors to repair the increasing number of them.”
“I understand. But we have Lucy now.”
This time, the thud is so audible I cringe at the crack.
“I don’t give a fuck whether you’ve found all the gods themselves, Ignatius. We are losing control of this city. Do you really want to be left with that reputation? Fix it. I want progress in forty-eight hours.”