SIX
Daemon tucked his hands in his trousers pockets.
Then, remembering the gesture didn’t belong to the boy whose face
he now wore, he withdrew them and asked, “How do I
look?”
Tersa studied him,
looking confused in a way that worried him. The mundane world was a
fragile thing for his mother, more like an illusion she could
interact with than solid ground and living people. For Tersa, the
roads of the Twisted Kingdom were far more real.
“You look shorter,”
she finally said.
Did she see the
illusion Jaenelle had made or did she see right past the illusion
to a memory of the boy he had been?
*Are you sleepy? I am
sleepy. It is time for bed now.*
Daemon looked at the
shadow, the complex illusion that Jaenelle had made using Tildee as
the template. “Hush.”
The Sceltie looked at
him. Then she sneezed.
“Jaenelle talked to
you about this,” he said to Tersa. “Remember? I’m pretending to be
Mikal to catch the man who hurt Beron and Sylvia.”
Tersa nodded. “Yes.
You have to catch him so that the Mikal boy can stay with me
again.”
“That’s
right.”
She frowned. “And I
am supposed to pretend to be a weak female who is no threat to
him.”
“Yes.” He stepped up
to her and took her hands. “Darling, he is going to come here, to
your cottage. When he does, don’t get in his way. Let him come up
here, to the Mikal boy’s room. I’ll be here, pretending to be
Mikal, and I will deal with him. Do you understand?”
She nodded. “I will
let him come up and see the Mikal boy.”
*Are you sleepy? I am
sleepy. It is time for bed now.*
“I’ll warm up some
milk for you,” Tersa said. “You shouldn’t have a nutcake so late at
night, but it’s all right if it’s a special treat.” She walked out
of the bedroom.
*Are you sleepy? I am
sleepy. It is time for bed now.*
“Shut up,” Daemon
growled.
The Sceltie growled
back.
Rolling his eyes, he
reached for the mind of the woman who meant more to him than
anything else in the Realms. *If you had to stick me with a shadow
Sceltie, did you have to make it so realistic?*
Her laughter rippled
through the psychic thread. *Problem?*
*The dog is so damn
bossy! If she bites me for not going to bed . . .*
More laughter. *I’m
making a sacrifice too.*
*And that would
be?*
*It’s winter. You’re
not here at night. My feet are cold.*
He blinked. *You’re
sleeping with a fuzzy, eight-hundred-pound cat. Put your feet on
him.*
*I do, but he
whines about it. You
don’t.*
Kaelas came from
Arceria, one of the northernmost Territories, and lived in a den
made out of snow. Why in the name of Hell would he whine about
Jaenelle’s feet? He should be happy to have a cool spot since he’d
grown his winter coat and was staying in a room that was much too
warm for him.
Of course, sometimes
Jaenelle’s feet were breathtakingly
cold during the deep part of winter.
*Is everything all
right there?* he asked.
*Yes. Beron is asleep
and has Shuveen, Boyd, and Floyd with him.*
Shuveen was sensible
and would wake Jaenelle if Beron needed a Healer’s help. Boyd and
Floyd, on the other hand, were younger and pretty brainless most of
the time. However, those two could make enough noise to wake the
entire Hall if a stranger walked into Beron’s room.
*Get some sleep,
love,* he said. *I’ll see you in the morning.*
The psychic thread
faded.
*Are you sleepy? I am
sleepy. It is time for bed now.*
“Tersa is bringing up
warm milk and nutcakes. We’ll have our snack, and then go to bed.”
*Snack?* The shadow
wagged her tail.
Ignoring the illusion
that could fool the eye and, sometimes, even fool the sense of
touch, Daemon went to the window and studied the ground in Tersa’s
backyard. The snow was all churned up from the play of boy and dog,
but he didn’t think there were any fresh tracks.
Lucivar would know.
Jaenelle had taken
Beron’s memory of his attacker and brought it into a tangled web of
illusions. From there, she’d created a basic shadow—an illusion
that was a stationary imitation of a person. An artist came from
Amdarh and made a sketch of the shadow, and that was taken to a
printer. By the end of that first day, every village in the
southern part of Dhemlan had a copy of that sketch, and Daemon
hadn’t asked if some of those copies had found their way across the
border to worried men in Little Terreille.
He had sent an
official letter and a copy of the sketch to Little Terreille’s
Queen. She wasn’t a personal friend of Jaenelle’s, but his Lady
didn’t consider her an enemy either. So he’d given the Queen the
courtesy of sharing the information they had because there were
families around Goth who were also grieving the loss of
children.
We know your face. Witch’s voice had whispered
through the Darkness that first night. For the three nights since
then, Daemon had spent the hours between sunset and sunrise in
Tersa’s cottage, waiting, wrapped in a strong illusion that would
make even a demon-dead predator’s eyes see Mikal, the chosen
prey.
*Are you sleepy? I am
sleepy. It is time for bed now.*
Daemon sighed. It
could have been worse. If Jaenelle had made a shadow that had
Tildee’s real personality, he and the dog would be in a relentless
argument about bedtime by now—and he’d be on the losing end of that
argument, since the shadow wouldn’t see past the illusion spell
Jaenelle had created for him.
*Snack?* the shadow
asked.
He turned away from
the window, frowning. Why was it taking so long to warm up some
milk?
Tersa carefully
poured the warm milk into a mug and a small bowl. Her boy would
make sure the Mikal boy would be allowed to live with her. The
tangled web she’d woven after Sylvia left the living Realms had
told her that much. The grandfather was a good man, and he had been
a good father for the daughter. But he was not the right man for
her sons. Lives would be soured, and the love that existed now
would die if the grandfather took the sons. So the Mikal boy and
Tildee would live with her, and Beron . . . Witch knew best what to
do for Beron. She’d seen that too in her web.
She rinsed out the
pot and left it in the sink to wash later with the mug and bowl. As
she turned to get a plate for the nutcake, she saw the stranger in
her kitchen, standing close enough to touch.
She shrank back, a
response to the foulness of his psychic scent rather than fear of
his physical presence.
He grabbed her wrist,
squeezing until she flinched in pain. “Where is the boy?” he
snarled.
The boy? Wasn’t he
supposed to ask her about the Mikal boy? “The boy is
upstairs.”
“Show me.” He dragged
her out of the kitchen and down the hallway. Then he released her
wrist and gave her a hard shove toward the stairs. “Show me.”
She had promised
Witch that she would play out this game so that all the boys would
be safe. But something wasn’t right because this foulness was supposed to ask about the Mikal boy,
not her boy.
Her boy would
understand this confusion. He was playing Witch’s game
too.
“Show me where he
is,” the foulness whispered as it followed close behind
her.
Tersa climbed the
stairs and led him to the bedroom where her boy
waited.
It took all the
control Daemon had to stand still when that bastard shoved Tersa
into the bedroom. The shadow Sceltie began barking, but Jaenelle
had deliberately left out any commands to attack.
“You brat!” The
Warlord’s voice sounded hoarse, as if his vocal cords had been
damaged at some point and didn’t heal correctly.
Daemon stepped back,
drawing the Warlord farther into the room and away from
Tersa.
“You brat! When I’m
through with you, even your own brother won’t recognize
you!”
Tersa jerked as if
struck, but Daemon didn’t have time to wonder why because the
Warlord lunged, his hand reaching for where a boy’s arm would
be.
Instead of scrambling
back, Daemon stepped forward and clamped a hand around the
Warlord’s wrist. As Jaenelle intended, contact with another male
broke the illusion spell around Daemon. The release of her power in
the spell also broke the illusion around the Warlord.
Scars on the throat.
Hideous scars on the face. One cloudy eye.
A monster had
begotten a monster. As Daemon looked into the man’s clear eye, he
felt a stir of pity—enough pity that he decided it would be a swift
execution rather than the slow one a monster deserved.
“You came to hurt the
boy,” Tersa said, taking a step toward them.
Daemon glanced up and
saw rage and a terrible kind of clarity in his mother’s eyes. “It’s
done now.”
“You want to hurt
my boy.”
“Tersa . . .” He was
Black-shielded. There was nothing the Warlord could do to him and
nothing the man could do to break free of him. But Tersa might
still get hurt, especially now that she was standing directly
behind the bastard.
“Jaenelle says it is
like deboning chicken,” Tersa said in a singsong voice. “Just hook
two fingers around the spine and pull.”
No time to say
anything or do anything. One moment the Warlord was standing in
front of him, caught in a bone-breaking grip. The next . .
.
He felt the sharp
tingle of Craft as the bones of hand and fingers passed under his
grip. He tightened his hand to hold on to the man’s wrist, but
there was nothing but soft flesh, and the Warlord’s hand swelled
like a sausage casing when it gets squeezed.
Passing the bones
through flesh and skin, Tersa whipped the skeleton free. Then
witchfire, fueled by her fury, took the bones, charring them
black.
For that moment, the
blackened skeleton hung intact from her upraised arm. For that
moment, the Warlord stood there, his good eye filled with horror
and disbelief. Then the bones rained down on the floor like black
hailstones, and the muscles and organs collapsed in on themselves,
contained by a shapeless sack of skin.
Daemon stood there,
holding one wrist, too stunned to let go.
The eyes lay on top
of the fleshy sack, still staring at him.
He’s demon-dead, so he’s still in there, Daemon
thought as his gorge rose. His Self is still
in there and his mind is still aware.
Tersa dropped the
spine on top of the rest of the bones and frowned. “Jaenelle
doesn’t cook. Why would she know about deboning a
chicken?”
Daemon looked at his
mother. Then he released his hold on the Warlord’s wrist and ran
for the bathroom.
“I’m sorry,” Daemon
stammered. “I didn’t know what to do with it except bring it to
you.”
Saetan stared at the
skin sack filled with organs and muscles—and the brain. Daemon had
thought to put a bubble shield around the sack before bringing it
to the Keep. That was fortunate because the contents were starting
to drain from the orifices.
Considering what the
Warlord had done to his victims, it shouldn’t matter if the bastard
heard them or not, but the man’s mind had broken under the horror
of the punishment, so Saetan added an aural shield over Daemon’s
bubble shield, and then hid it all in a mist so that neither of
them had to look at it.
“I’ve walked the
Realms for over fifty thousand years, and I’ve never seen this
before,” he said as he walked over to the end of the courtyard
where Daemon stood.
“He told Tersa to
show him the boy, not the Mikal boy.” Daemon swallowed hard. “To
her mind, he threatened me, not the illusion.”
“And she
reacted.”
Daemon
nodded.
“And Jaenelle told
her how to do this?”
Another
nod.
His boy was looking
glassy-eyed and green, which matched how he was feeling. The speed
with which it happened and the grotesque result would have
unsettled both of them under any circumstances, but the feral
natures and the tempers of the women involved scared the shit out
of him. No matter what she’d told Tersa, Jaenelle had not learned
to do this by deboning a chicken.
If the Darkness was
merciful, he would never learn why or how his daughter had acquired
this particular piece of Craft—and he hoped with all his heart that
Daemon never learned why or how either.
“What do we do
now?”
Linking his arm
through Daemon’s, he led his son back into the Keep. “You’re going
to go home, take a sedative, and get some sleep.”
“Maybe I
should—”
“You’re the Warlord
Prince of Dhemlan, not the High Lord of Hell.” Saetan put enough
bite in his voice to clear the glassy look from Daemon’s eyes. “You
did your part in this, Prince. Now it’s time for me to do
mine.”
“And your part
is?”
“To sift through what
is left of his mind for the names of his victims before releasing
him to the final death. I’ll send you the list. I’m sure you’ll
know how to quietly pass on the information to the people who need
it.”
“What happens after
that?”
“He is demon-dead,”
Saetan said gently. “After his Self returns to the Darkness, the
meat will be left for the flora and fauna of Hell.”