Chapter Forty-Eight
I scramble to my feet, heart thundering.
The demon’s shadow engulfs me. An elongated head swivels toward us, a pond-weed tangle of hair covering most of the grayed face except for a pair of lambent, pupilless eyes.
“Wh-who are you?” I stammer.
The mouth parts, revealing rows and rows of jagged, broken teeth. From behind the rotting fangs emerges a voice, deep and throaty, like something pulled from the bottom of a swamp. “A name is a precious thing. You won’t be getting mine.”
The voice rattles through me—a storm in the trees, a gale against a window. I have the sudden certainty that this being could end my life as easily as blowing out a candle.
Niccolo mouths, Demon! and falls into a flawless bow. “Could we borrow your boat, signore? We need to go deeper into hell.”
I bow as well, a half second late. Being respectful has only occasionally gotten me in trouble, while being disrespectful has caused me trouble more times than I can count. “Thank you for sheltering us from our enemies.”
“They want to devour you.” From between the demon’s horrible rows of teeth, a long, forked tongue appears.
I gasp and wrench backward, but some unseen force holds me fast, anchors my feet to the dock.
My chest heaves as the tongue gets closer, caresses my cheek.
A coldness like I’ve never felt before slithers through me.
With a moan, I sink to my knees, exhausted.
The tongue snakes back into that awful month.
“I want to taste you too.” A deep verdant light pulses behind those grayed-out eyes.
“The devil used to feed us, but now he keeps all the tastiest morsels for himself. We’re starving.
” A chorus of yowling screams agrees from the shore. “Will you feed us?”
My soul screams when those fathomless eyes lock onto mine. I let out a long, slow breath and try not to let it overwhelm me. “Will you let us take your boat if I do?”
Niccolo gasps, his golden light flaring. “You can’t.”
I don’t know if what I’m asking for is possible. Dante went to hell. Aeneas went to the Roman underworld. But these were just poems—stories I very much assumed weren’t real.
The demon licks its lipless mouth. “Such fear.” A reptilian tail slashes in the water below, swirling it to a froth. “Such life.” It inches closer, slitted nostrils quivering.
If we don’t act soon, the demon will. There’s nothing we can do to stop it if it decides to devour us. Nothing except for—
“Bargain with me.”
My head whips toward Niccolo. “No!”
My brother ignores me. The demon has gone stone-still, the ancient words stopping its creep. “My soul for your boat. Then”—his throat bobs—“then you can eat me when I bring it back.”
I force myself up on shaky legs, grinding out another no. My brother can’t do this. I won’t let him. This is my journey, my task.
I’m the one who’s supposed to save him.
Niccolo cups my face. His heat shocks me, sends strength ricocheting through me. Not the warmth of a body, but the warmth of a soul, his love blazing like a shooting star through the cold. “I couldn’t help you before. Let me help now. I can’t die here, remember? Only the devil can unmake a soul.”
I can’t hold back a whimper. “It could eat you forever.”
His mouth tips into a smile. “Like I said, they get bored. Eventually.”
The demon shudders with want. A pleased hiss pushes through its teeth.
“To feast on you? Yes, yes, I accept.” Before we can move, its tail riots from the water.
The pointed end spears into Niccolo’s side.
He doubles over, coughing blood. The demon yanks out the barbed tip and laps my brother’s blood from it as I scream.
“I’m fine,” Niccolo says through gritted teeth. “See?”
Where the mortal wound was, there’s nothing, not even a rip in his clothes.
The nothingness is almost as unsettling as the blood splattering the dock.
Breathing hard, and trying to rein in my terror, I step into the boat and reach up to help Niccolo in.
The demon grabs his elbow, faster than a snake. “Not you. Only the dead can journey down the river.”
Niccolo’s brows become narrow slashes. “I’ve been here for ages!”
The demon lifts its hand, its webbed fingers pulling on a sleek golden thread. It runs from Niccolo’s glow across the dock, through the horde of cat-demons, into the gray city back where we came from.
“That wasn’t there before!” Niccolo says.
The demon gives the thread a firm tug. My brother stumbles back, gasping. “Your soul is lost, but you are not yet dead.” It grins a predator’s smile. “You can’t go deeper into hell.”
Niccolo makes a soft, helpless sound, eyes sliding to me.
My brother, lost in two worlds. But how?
“You’re a demon, yes? Why couldn’t one of you possess my brother’s body in Florence?”
The demon considers me thoughtfully, a pantomime of a smirk on its inhuman mouth.
“His attachment to earth is too strong. He could not let go enough for one of us to take him. He remained anchored there, even as his soul was summoned here.” It flicks the golden thread savagely.
The force knocks Niccolo to his knees, but the thread doesn’t fray.
“I cannot break it. Only the devil possesses such power.”
The struck thread vibrates like a liuto string. Not a song, but a single sweet note echoing strangely across the water. The cat-demons fall silent and cock their heads. Niccolo quiets it with a hand, glancing nervously at them.
My gaze latches onto the empty space of this Niccolo’s knuckle. How curious for his ring to be missing when the rest of him is here. I think of the ring on the stranger’s hand, how often he twisted it. My heart thuds unevenly. Surely something so small isn’t enough for an entire soul to cling to?
“The ring I gave you. I think it’s your anchor,” I whisper.
Niccolo had offered it to me when he left. What if I had taken it? Would he have been lost forever? The old fear of getting it wrong swirls in me like smoke. I take a deep breath and let it out, let it go.
This isn’t about what could’ve happened, but what did happen.
My brother is lost but not yet gone.
He can still be saved.
Niccolo throws back his head and laughs. “It’s not the ring. It’s you, Virgil. You’ve always been my anchor. In any sea, through any storm.”
The words settle in the deepest, softest part of me. My brother couldn’t leave me even when he tried. Tears fill my eyes.
Niccole moves to wipe them away. As his hand crosses the dock’s edge, the demon hisses, and green sparks crackle along the wood.
They leap and burrow into his skin like worms. Niccolo winces, but he doesn’t back off, doesn’t stop thumbing away the dampness on my face before taking both my hands in his.
“You’ve got to go. Demons aren’t known for their patience. ”
I nod, even as my belly fills with lead.
A brother for a brother. A soul for a soul.
“One more thing.” He drags me closer, expression stern. “Why did you kill yourself to come here?” His face crumples with sadness. “ ’Tis a sin, Virgil. You might be stuck forever. You had to know I wouldn’t want you to do it.”
A question with so many answers and not enough time. My brother is already fading, his color going pale.
“There’s a boy.” I swallow, the truth making me tender. “I had to save him because I love him.”
His grip tightens. Behind him, the river demon heaves itself onto the dock, no longer mostly human but broad and scaled. Its eyes burn a horrible, fervent green. “What’s his name?”
“Leonardo.” Gold trembles through the air. “The Medici want him to paint for them.”
Niccolo leans his forehead to mine, the pressure softer than a kiss. “If anyone can stop this, it’s you.” Hell’s pale light burns through his ghostly form now. “I love you, Volpacchiotto.”
“I love you too, Volpone.”
His fingers squeeze mine one last time. “Be careful. Don’t curse our bloodlines for generations.”
“I won’t,” I whisper, voice thick with tears. “Our sisters would never forgive me.”
My brother shoves the boat as hard as he can.
I don’t see the demon lunge.
But I hear Niccolo’s screams.
I curl in on myself and cover my ears, knowing he wouldn’t want me to listen, trying to hold back my cries, knowing my fear and horror will only bring more demons closer.
Niccolo is gone.
I’m alone.