Chapter LII
LII
Beyond the lights of the lodge, the darkness was complete. All of Sarmodel’s tricks had fallen away, spent, and I was left with only my human senses as I lurched through the blizzard after the Beast.
That’s far enough, said my Guest.
I stopped, panting wetly, and glanced back at the Bow and Brace. I took the flask of brandy from my belt and removed the stopper.
They . . . they won’t see?
What does it matter? They’ll be dead before morning.
I froze there for a moment, staring at the open flask in my hand. My fingers were so cold I could barely feel it.
Do it, Sebastian. Quickly!
I paused a heartbeat longer.
Do you love me? I asked.
I felt Sarmodel’s tendrils curl through me like a new layer of nerves.
He twined around the impenetrable center of my being, the impossibly deep core of anima in which the many years of my life were distilled like honey.
He pressed hard against my immortal soul, like a claw dimpling the surface of a throbbing vein.
Oh yes, my love. He said my name—my True name—and it was like a hot kiss over my heart. Forever and ever, world without end.
I closed my eyes and drank the flask dry.
The brandy burned like wildfire across the rubble of my teeth. I swallowed it in desperate gulps and waited.
In moments, it began to affect me, filling my blood with fire. My vision clouded. My limbs were heavy. I fell to my knees in the snow.
Seconds later I felt the alcohol dissolving my centers of reason and will, a delightful release that seemed to tip the world on its head. The core of my being—that sacred, inviolate vault housing my soul—was thrown open.
And, sensing freedom at hand, he came to me.
The mandrill. The painted baboon. He loped through the darkness toward me, untroubled by the blizzard. His yellow grin was murder and mirth in equal measure.
Do you love me?
He came so close that I could smell his musky stench. Our eyes were level and he placed his forehead against mine, staring into me with tenderness and hunger.
And then, just for a moment, I caught a glimpse of him.
This was the real face of the demon who shared my body.
Not the baboon with its garish visage, nor the man-child, nor the bodiless companion and sometime mentor I knew.
His Truth was far, far worse and it blackened my mind.
Even now it is like a hole burned through my memory.
I could not resist him. I was beginning to drift, my gaze losing focus. His smile grew. Then his fingers were in my broken mouth, pulling it wider and wider until I was nothing but an open bag of meat, and he climbed up inside me.
For a second I was utterly still, victim to an awful paralysis. But then I felt my limbs begin to stir under the direction of a new master.
Sarmodel was a Guest no longer, and he put his new body to use.
What rapture.
What mind-breaking anguish.
Unlike the publican, I was permitted to scream during the transformation.