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‘I can’t abide it any more,’ I told Corrigan. ‘I just can’t.’
The first red and black sparks of his Tempestoral summonings flickered around his closed right fist. ‘Damn you to hell, Cade! You’re like a brother to me, but you know the score. Either you tell me how you’re getting us all out of here, or I’m making the same trade you’d make in my position.’
I turned away from Corrigan and the others before removing my coat and shirt. I realise it probably looked like an odd occasion for modesty, but I’ve never much liked people seeing all those circles within circles of Infernal sigils I’d accumulated on my chest these past three years. It was the history of my descent from a Glorian Justiciar to a mercenary Infernalist one bad deal away from being recruited into the damned.
‘What are you doing?’ Galass asked.
She tried to put a hand on my shoulder, but I shrugged it away.
‘Like the man says, I’ve got to get us out of here or he’ll trade us to the justiciars. So that’s what I’m going to do.’
‘But how?’
‘Same way I do everything lately.’ I took out the small bag of sand from the pocket of my trousers and began pouring a spell circle onto the cabin floor. ‘I’m going to sell a piece of my soul.’
Chapter 22
A Whole New Deal
It takes a lot to shock the moral sensibilities of a demon. If angelics are bred to be incapable of conceiving of choices beyond those that fulfil their moral purpose, the diabolics are imbued with a delight in what my old mentor– herself quite a fan of the concept– calledexistential perversity. Simply put, they love seeing the natural order turned upside down.
‘You have got to be fucking kidding me,’ Tenebris groaned, floating inside the spell circle I’d drawn on the cabin floor. He had one leathery-white hand clapped over his eyes, as if blocking out the view would make us go away. Who knew even a demon’s natural affinity for the perverse could be pushed too far?
Outside, two justiciars were banging on the wall, promising that our punishments would be ever-so-slightly less agonising if we gave up rather than forcing them to debase themselves by blasting open the door to get to us. They’re bound by their own system of rules to offer perpetrators the chance to find spiritual redemption by accepting their fate rather than fighting it, even if both options are equally horrible. It’s all about procedure with justiciars.
‘I have better ways to amuse myself than trying to make you laugh,’ I told Tenebris. ‘Now, do we have a deal or not?’
The demon was swaying wildly inside the spell circle as if caught in a storm,the result of the barely noticeable undulations of the barge on the river causing shifts in the sand forming the circle. ‘You wantme’– Tenebris pointed one clawed finger to the ruffles of the silk shirt he was now wearing beneath a very natty chartreuse silk coat– ‘to help’– the finger swung towards the angelic sitting on the bed, ‘that?’
Why must diabolics be such fucking melodramatics? ‘What I want is safe passage through the Infernal plane just long enough to get me, Corrigan, Galass, Aradeus—’
Mister Bones barked. Jackals have weird barks, in case I haven’t mentioned it up until now.
‘—and our jackal—’
While neither Infernals nor any Aurorals save angelics can tread upon the Mortal demesne without disintegrating into non-existence, there’s nothing stopping us entering their realms, given permission and a desire to suffer unendurable misery.
‘Andher,’ Tenebris corrected me, stabbing his forefinger at the angelic. ‘You want me to givethatpassage through one ofourdemesnes! And you want me to do it without six hundred and sixty-six of my brethren getting a taste of what I am sure is her very tasty Auroral flesh.’ He let out an exasperated breath. ‘Cade, buddy. . . you get what my job is, right? I mean, I do favours for you—’
‘You make deals with me,’ I corrected. ‘And I’m offering you my soul for it. Once this is all done, I’ll join your damned. Your bosses can rule over me for the rest of my existence if it pleases them. I’d think at least one of your Lords Devilish would jump at the chance.’
Tenebris bit his lower lip and gazed past the boundary of our realities to look at me with a kind of sympathy you really don’t want to see in the eyes of a demon. ‘I told you a long time ago, Cade, the more of your soul you give away, the less it’s worth to us. You’ve been playing this game too long. My bosses only let me make deals with you because they think it’s kind of funny, what with you once having been a—’
I flicked a grain of sand into the circle and watched him squirm. Sympathy only gets you so far. ‘And what did I tell you last time you said it out loud?’
If you’re wondering how it was possible that the others didn’t know what I’d once been by now, well, take a good look at me and the things I’ve done and ask yourself if you’d guess in a million years that I’d once been a Glorian Justiciar.
Tenebris threw up his hands in mock surrender, which looks especially mocking when the hands in question have razor-tipped claws growing out of them. ‘Whatever. The bottom line is that a diabolic’s role among the Infernals is to make deals that advance our interests among humanity. I get away with helping you out from time to time because it pleases the Lords Devilish to know that helping you screws with the Lords Celestine.’
‘So helpher,’ I said, gesturing to the angelic, who hadn’t spoken a word since I’d summoned Tenebris; she’d been sitting there watching him in confused fascination while Mister Bones nuzzled at her hand, pushing for her to keep stroking him. ‘Think how bad that will piss off the Lord Celestine who created her.’
The diabolic groaned. ‘We’re talking aboutan angelichere, Cade. Anything I do for her is going to get noticed. Questions will be asked. I’ll be forced to answer for this, and the people I answer to are going to start wondering if maybeI’mthe one being corrupted through my association with a former. . . with you.’
I gave that concern all the consideration it deserved. It took me just under a second. ‘Maybe you can remind them of what you did to a young sublime named Fidick. After that, you might casually mention how you turned a second sublime from a girl who,despite all the horrors she’d already experienced in her short, unhappy life,wanted only to keep her brother safe and innocent,into a fucking blood mage. That ought to clear up any doubts the Lords Devilish might have about your ethics.’
Tenebris looked stricken. ‘Cade. . . I swear to you, buddy, the attunement was already part of her. Even so, I didn’t want to awaken it. I begged the kid– Ibeggedhim– to rescind his offer.’ The diabolic turned a shoulder to show me the scars where Fidick had cast soul-burned sand through the circle and onto the diabolic’s flesh. ‘I held out as long as I could, but he didn’t give me a choice.’
You would think a demon– adiabolic, no less– would have delighted in the destruction of one soul and the corruption of another. So what did it say about the universe that Tenebris managed to look so. . . hurt?
