Rachel Aaron - Spirit’s End

“You’re welcome,” Eli said, hurrying after her. “Now let’s go. If we’re not back by the time Josef is done thrashing the Lord of Storms, I’m going to have to listen to him and Miranda whining about waiting on us. Frankly, I’d rather be eaten by a demon.”

Nico smiled at that. She waited until he reached her, and then they jogged together up the ridge path toward the steep switchback trail to the peak. When they reached it, they began to run full out, climbing the steep path as fast as they could until, at last, they stood before the entrance to the cave at the very top.

Eli stopped and bent over, clutching his knees as he panted. Nico wasn’t winded at all, but she stopped as well, staring at the wall of darkness that waited beyond the cave’s mouth. No light penetrated the shadows beyond the stone lip. Instead, the blackness seemed to press outward, lapping at the edges of the door like overflowing water.

“You sure you can do this?” Eli said, glancing at her as he straightened up.

“I already have,” Nico answered, striding forward. “Come on.”

Eli took a deep, final breath and followed her into the dark.

The shadows swallowed them the second their feet crossed the threshold. Eli remembered the seal at the last second, and he caught Nico’s arm just before she stepped into it. She stopped at once, her bare foot hovering just above the circle carved deep into the stone, the physical edge of the demon’s prison. Nico jerked back at once, and her eyes locked on the figure sitting at the center of the Lady’s seal.

As before, the darkness here had a strange quality. Though there was no light, Eli could see clearly, and what he saw made him frown. The man sitting in the middle of the seal wasn’t the one he’d spoken with weeks before when he’d come here searching for hints of how to find Slorn. That time, the demon had been a young man, little more than a boy. The person smiling up at them now was middle aged, a man who would have been handsome if not for his caved-in cheeks and the deep circles below his eyes. The voice, however, was exactly the same.

“Well, well,” the man said, drawing each word out in that terrifying double harmonic that still haunted Eli’s dreams. “Look who’s come home. It is good to see you, daughter. You’re looking well.”

Nico stiffened. “I’m no child of yours, demon,” she said. “And this was never my home.”

The man shook his head with a tsking sound. “You wound me,” he said. “How cruel. Cruel and stupid. Is that any way to talk when you’re here to beg a favor?”

Nico’s eyes widened, and the man’s face split into a grin far too wide for normal human muscles. “Oh yes, I know what’s happened,” he said. “Not being of this world, I couldn’t feel the Hunter’s death, but I didn’t need to. I can taste their joy, just as you can.”

Nico looked away.

“Come now,” the demon said. “You’re one of us now. Surely you can feel them.” He raised his hand, pointing up with one thin, dirty finger. “They’re getting close. I’d say we’re down to minutes before the first cracks appear.” He dropped his arm, and his horrible smile grew wider still. “If you have an offer, dearest, you’d best speak it quickly.”

Nico began to shiver, and Eli grabbed her arm. “I’m the one making the deal, demon,” he said, holding her steady.

The demon’s grin fell, and he gave Eli a skeptical look. “A deal from the swindler?” he said. “Eli Monpress, the great con man? This I have to hear.”

“Even I can’t pull a con on a deal this simple,” Eli said. “We need you to help us break down the wall the Shepherdess has placed over the Between. In return, we will break the seal on your prison.”

The demon leaned back on his bony haunches. “That’s it?”

“That’s it,” Eli said. “Tit for tat.”

“And what happens after I break this wall?”

“I don’t know,” Eli answered, his voice deep and sincere. “But if we don’t break it, we all die. Given those odds, I’m willing to take a chance.”

“And what if I betray you?” the demon drawled. “After all, you have to free me first. How do you know I won’t just eat you whole and rush to help my long-lost brothers tear your world apart?”

Now it was Eli’s turn to smile. “Because you don’t want them here any more than we do. Demons are predators, and I never met a predator who willingly shared his territory. You may be a prisoner here, but you’re locked in with the food while they’re outside starving. If the shell breaks, the demons will charge in and eat everything, and then you’d all be out of luck, starving and alone in the infinite dark. You don’t want that, do you?”

The demon stared at him for a long second, and then he stood up with a jerk. The man walked forward, his legs moving like a puppet’s as it stepped to the edge of the seal, stopping just before his bare toes touched the line. This close, Eli could smell the decay of the human body the demon wore like a skin. The man’s empty eyes were inches from his own, close enough that Eli could see the shadows twisting and boiling behind them.

“You see more than a blind human should,” the demon whispered.

“But I’m right, aren’t I?” Eli said, smirking in the demon’s face. “Now, are you going to help us or not?”

Slowly, the demon’s mouth turned up again into that too-wide grin. “I am your loyal servant,” he said, his dual-tone voice purring in his throat. “Set me free and I promise I will do whatever is necessary to preserve the shell. And that’s a promise you can trust, just ask my little girl. She knows how seriously I take my obligations.”

Eli didn’t give him the pleasure of looking at Nico. Instead, he glanced pointedly at the seal’s edge, right beside the demon’s foot. “You’d better stand back.”

The demon shrugged. “Wouldn’t matter if I did. My true self is below the mountain, and I was tired of this skin anyway.” The horrible grin grew wider still. “Besides, it shouldn’t take much. This seal was always barely enough to hold me. A little more pressure and the mark will crumble, but be quick.” The shadowed eyes flicked up to the ceiling. “Not much time.”

Eli smiled back with his best professional smile before turning to Nico. She was huddled beside him, staring hard at the seal at their feet.

“Can you do it?”

Nico nodded. “Move against the wall and cover your ears.”

Eli obeyed, pressing his back against the stone and plugging his ears with his fingers.

Nico watched until he was in position, and then she stepped up to stand where he had been, face-to-face with the grinning monster in the human skin. She glared at the demon for a second, nostrils flaring, and then, without warning, she dropped, her fist flying toward the edge of the seal.

When her knuckles struck it, the whole mountain rang like a gong. The sound rattled Eli’s bones and knocked his teeth. Forgetting his ears, Eli clutched his chest. He could feel the vibrations in his lungs, turning his chest into a solid, quivering mass. Just when he thought it couldn’t get any worse, Nico punched her fist down again.

This time, her hand landed with a sickening crack. At first, Eli thought she’d broken her fingers, but then he saw that it was the floor that had cracked. All at once, the great circular seal began to glow. Both demons hissed at the light, and the smell of burning skin filled Eli’s nostrils. But it lasted only a moment. As soon as the light flared, the Lady’s seal began to splinter.

Cracks ran fast as falling water between the intricate lines, splintering the Shepherdess’s beautiful pattern into chaos. Each crack was as loud as a breaking bone, and the combined effect drowned out even the gong-like ring of the mountain below. The sound was so enormous Eli stopped trying to keep it out after the first seconds. Instead, he lay against the wall and let it flow through him, gritting his teeth as he waited for the end.