Chapter 17 #2
The demon laughed, harsh and grating. Ghose withdrew a flask from the pocket of his antique suit and toasted Malachy with it. “To Necromancers who won’t stay dead.”
He tossed back his mangled head, and Malachy imagined slashing the knife glinting on the nightstand across the demon’s exposed throat. With that knife, Malachy could sever the grisly thread holding the mismatched halves of Ghose together and bathe them both in a baptism of blood.
The best he could manage was another half-step forward, straining against the sticky sap of time magic.
“I killed Moneta,” he gritted out. “She killed Ishtar. Together, we’ll kill you.”
“Och, lad. Still as cocky in this century as you were in the last. Moneta and Ishtar were expendable.”
The demons had just been another head on the hydra of Alastair Ghose’s vengeance.
Ghose brushed a fallen lock of hair from Cora’s face. A keening sound rumbled in Malachy’s chest as he fought to reach her, a few steps and a lifetime away.
“There is one last thing I require.” Ghose traced the puckered seam bisecting his slightly staggered halves.
“The Queen of Rot sewed together this patchwork body with a needle of iron and a thread of Fate woven from Clotho’s Spindle.
But half my spirit, scourged from your betrayal, lad, remains in Death. ”
Only the dregs of his memories remained of the so-called Queen of Rot, but the memory of the masquerade ball in the British Raj scalded Malachy. The masked woman had taken Clotho’s Spindle from his unresisting hands and used it to resurrect a monster.
“This is how it shall be, lad. Your Necromancer will make me whole once more. She will resurrect the missing half of my spirit you so cruelly severed. Death’s scales must be balanced, as you know. A life for a life. So she'll kill you. ‘Tis only fair.”
The words drove the cold stake of reality into Malachy’s heart.
This was the shape of his death, then—falling back into his old role not as an apprentice but as an accomplice to dark magic and a demon; offered as a sacrifice on the altar of Ghose’s ambition.
Malachy could not fight against it any more than he could the sticky time trap that held him hostage.
A trap that was beginning to weaken.
The tick of the Doomsday Watch had nearly reached the end of its sixty second countdown. The tips of his fingers could now move normally. His knees unbuckled, his limbs loosened, but he remained still as time resumed its flow, waiting.
“I’ll not risk what little you left with me on chance.
I know you, Mal. I made you. Your cleverness, your cold hate.
You were poor Irish trash when I found you.
Less than nothing. I made you everything you are.
Lest you make the mistake of thinking you’re cleverer than me, know that we hold the key to your ruination, lad.
I can drain the magic from your veins with a sliver of the Ruination Stone.
With a shard of Sephrinium, I can force you to live your final moments as a shell of yourself, as you forced me to live as a shell of myself. ”
The Ruination Stone, the Tribunal’s magic-draining weapon long lost to time, was in the demon’s clutches. The Sephrinium bullets Malachy had been shot with last winter had been of the demon’s manufacture.
Ghose had been playing a long game and was several steps ahead.
When the Doomsday Watch ticked its last, Malachy hurled himself at the time demon, but Ghose was faster. As if in slow motion, Malachy watched helplessly as the demon slipped away.
Time resumed with a start.
Cora sat up in bed. “What’s wrong?”
Malachy whirled, eyes wide, breaths fast. Only a moment had elapsed for Cora, where he had gone from hungrily admiring her to looking sick.
A terrible realization struck Malachy in the demon’s wake. The precious illusion had shattered, and regret surged where hope had flowed only a minute before.
Though his fingertips ached to touch her, he would never be so careless with her life again. Everyone close to him had a target painted on their back. He had learned that awful lesson eight times over before with Ghose. His chest tightened; an old, deep heartache.
The safest place for Cora was away from him, and at more than arm’s length.
“Mal? You’re worrying me. What’s wrong?”
“I have been so fuckin’ selfish.” He ground the heels of his palms into his watering eyes. “Can’t believe I let it get this far. Can’t let it happen again, no matter how much I want to.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The—” Demon lodged in his throat like a half-swallowed pill.
“Ghose. He was here. Just now. He stopped time and made threats that were far from idle. Moneta and Ishtar hurting me through you was just the start. Jesus, look at how much you’ve already suffered because of me.
When—if—I take down Ghose, there will just be another enemy, and another. I can’t risk losing you, Cora.”
The covers she had been clutching dropped to her waist, but his gaze did not stray from her stricken face.
“What are you saying, Malachy?”
“I won’t jeopardize your safety again. I care too much to risk hurting you. You deserve to feel safe, and you never will with me. I… We can’t be together.”
Devastation crept over her features slowly. The tightness of shock crumbled into understanding. A flash of anger, and finally bitter resignation. She covered herself and looked away. “Oh.”
Heart breaking and hating himself, he gathered his clothes and left.