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‘What thefuckwere the Lords Celestine thinking?’ I asked her. ‘Infernals can’t pull off resurrections on their own, which means your old bosses participated in this atrocity.’
She let the wide-eyed gaze and furrowed brow speak for her.
Corrigan, marching up on my left, had a more practical question. ‘How do we kill it?’
He’d spoken quietly but his words sent ripples through our little company. Galass spun around, scarlet hair whipping up around her head like a bloody halo, hands already outstretched. I could feel the veins rising on my neck. Alice summoned her mystical whip-sword and added her own snarl to the hissing of the blade writhing in her grip. She was on our side, though, which improved our odds considerably– until Aradeus,principled piece of shit that he was,drew his rapier and took up position beside Galass and Fidick.
‘I’ll not be party to the butchery of children,’ he said.
Fuck you for being so honourable,I thought,and fuck you twice for reminding me I’m not.
The cause of our mutiny decided it was time for more enlightened minds to prevail. ‘You’re all scared,’ Fidick said, gently pushing aside the hand Galass was using to keep him behind her. ‘Please, there’s no need.’
‘My mother used to tell me not to be scared,’ Corrigan said, one of his more catastrophic Tempestoral spells igniting around his clenched fist, ‘every time Grandfather turned up in the middle of the night to beat the two of us half to death until he finally passed out. He always looked so peaceful after he was done. Serene. Like you.’
Fidick looked down and shook his head sadly. I couldn’t say for sure whether it was from staring at the bodiless heads of the dead and desecrated Glorian Justiciars, or perhaps because he’d been hoping his genitals would have come back with somewhat more impressive dimensions. ‘I’m not here to hurt you, Corrigan Blight. I’m not here to hurt any of you.’
Damn straight, you aren’t,I thought. I brought my fingers back out from my open shirt. I had enough mind-and-soul-crushing Infernal spells ready to make this kidwishhe’d ended up in Hell instead of crossing me. Shame made an awkward gesture with her open left hand. At first I thought it might be a spell, then I recognised it as a very old sign of prayer. It struck me as funny that even exiled angelics turned religious when things got tough.
‘What is your mission here, Abomination?’ she asked, repeating the gesture of prayer a second time and then a third. ‘Why did the Lords Celestine violate their own edicts to grant you this unholy life?’
Fidick smiled benignly at her, as though she were a child raising a nervous hand in the classroom because she was worried her question was so silly it would get her in trouble. Her question wasn’t silly, though– but it wasn’t complete, either.
‘Why did the LordsDevilishallow it?’ I asked.
Alice and Shame, both of whom understood the broad principles of Auroral revivification better than any of us, stared at me aghast.
‘The kid’s deal with Tenebris included his soul,’ I told them. ‘That was the price for the murder spell he used to execute Ascendant Lucien, and for the blood magic awakened in Galass so she could protect herself.’
‘But if the Lords Devilish bought his soul. . .’ Aradeus began, his glance now shifting to the boy. No doubt he was now wondering if he’d put himself on the wrong side.
‘He couldn’t have been swapped with the jackal without the express consent– no, thecollaborationof the Lords Devilish,’ Alice said, her upper lip curled in a snarl that made me nostalgic for Mister Bones.
‘Care to explain why the Infernals have become so cooperative?’ I asked Fidick.
The boy folded his arms across his chest. It was almost endearing. ‘Come on, Cade,’ he said. ‘The Lords Celestine kept going on about how clever you were. Hazidan Rosh’s finest student– the keenest investigator of all the Glorian Justiciars. Is such a simple question truly beyond you?’
The others were watching me again. I, in turn, stared at the charred heads of my former comrades. Poor bastards. They’d truly believed the forty-two wonderists who’d gone ahead of them had been decoys to give the Seven Brothers a false sense of security. But a con– a really good con– always misdirects the targettwice. Fidelity, Dignity and the rest of their justiciar squad had been the second misdirect.
And us? We were both the endgame and the biggest suckers of all.
When I turned around, I could see Madrigal, the goat chamberlain, was still standing at the top of the stone stairs leading into the fortress. When I walked back up to him, he flinched, but stood his ground.
‘How many like you are inside the keep?’ I asked.
‘However many the brothers need. Sometimes they create more of us from among the creatures of the hills. When they have no more use of us, they send us away.’
‘Are they kind to you?’ Galass asked from below.
The goat man looked unsure how to answer that. ‘They are masters, we are servants,’ he said finally.
I did a stupid thing then: I reached out a hand to him. With no less awkwardness than the brothers had, he shook it, and as he did so, I leaned in and whispered, ‘Find an excuse to get the other servants out of the keep tonight.’
Corrigan shot me a look that would have killed me on the spot, if such a thing were possible.
Madrigal’s lips parted, revealing great big clenched teeth. ‘You’ll die,’ he said. ‘And our circumstances will not improve.’
‘Good thing I’m not dying for your sake, then,’ I replied.
