Unknown - Scorched

The Avatar.

“You’re back in the Castle,” Mac said.

“I am the Castle,” she replied. Her voice was husky and low. She folded her hands in her lap. The bangles on her wrists—gold, silver, copper, and metals he couldn’t name— jingled as she moved. “You see me as Atreus made me, but in truth I have no physical form.”

It made sense. Witches built sentient houses. The Castle was just a big house, conscious in much the same way. The Avatar was its sentience. More complex, more powerful, but the principle was the same.

“Very good,” she said, even though he hadn’t spoken a word.

“If you’re here, is Sylvius all right?”

“He will be fine.”

Mac didn’t want to look away from the Avatar, but he looked down over the balcony railing, anyway. He wanted to check on Connie, but couldn’t find her in the milling crowd below.

“She is unhurt,” the Avatar said.

Mac looked up, mildly irritated. He felt a beat behind the conversation.

“You want to know why you were involved in this battle,” the Avatar said, making it a statement.

“That would be nice.”

“It is a very mortal need. Why is so important to the short-lived. The simple answer is that I needed your strength.”

“And the longer and more satisfying answer?”

The Avatar shifted, her bracelets making a clinking sound. “The Castle—I—was failing. Sylvius had just come into his powers and was old enough to release me without suffering harm himself. You were there, and your demon was in a mutable state.”

“So it was you who changed me?”

“I took your dormant infection and made it active again. I switched you from a soul eater to a fire demon. Fire demons are much more useful for raising power, and I needed power to complete the spell.”

Mac’s mood went black. “So the time was right and I was convenient. That’s it.”

The Avatar gave a half smile. “I knew you were the one the moment you spared Bran’s life, right before you met Constance. There is a line you will not cross, one that keeps you from surrendering to darkness. You are someone who has a will to help others. You held on to that despite how the demon changed you. No other demon would risk death to save a teenage incubus from a roomful of guardsmen and sorcerers. Everything you are or ever have been destined you to save me and those who dwell here.”

That sounded a lot like the hellhounds’ prophecy. Lore had been right. “You mean I was just a pawn of destiny?” he said dryly.

“There is always free will. You could have not saved us. You could have let us all perish.”

“But instead I did my bit.”

“And I appreciate it,” she added.

“Good to know. So you got your spell. Can I go home now?”

She looked perplexed. “Home? You’re a wandering spirit.”

Mac began to feel sick. “Spirit?”

“You gave your life so that I could be free.”

A wave of desperation surged through him. He was dead. He couldn’t be dead. He slapped a hand to his chest, but he felt real enough. The bench felt hard and uncomfortable beneath him.

“You feel what you expect to feel,” said the Avatar. “Just as you see me because your mind needs an image to talk to.”

Mac licked his lips. Or thought he did. Whatever. “You said Sylvius is all right. How come he got to live and I didn’t?”

“Sylvius was two beings in one. Me, and his father’s son. There’s only one of you.”

Mac looked over the railing again, trying to catch a glimpse of the kid. He caught sight of Connie instead. She was leaning on Caravelli, starting to sob. She’s found out. She knows I’m gone. That should be me holding her.

“But you can’t.” The Avatar sounded vaguely perplexed, as if he were being slow. She didn’t look so relaxed now.

Mac swiveled to face her. “Look, you turned me into a monster. A killing machine. I did terrible things to fulfill your spell. Soul-destroying things.”

“That’s true.” She didn’t sound very worried about it.

“You owe me for that. You turned me into a murderous monster.”

She leaned forward, not exactly angry but definitely intense. “Yes, as part of the spell to restore me, you killed a great many guardsmen. You paid for those deaths with your own life. Isn’t that atonement enough? And wasn’t it in a good cause?”

Mac didn’t say anything more. How do I argue with a pile of stone?

The Avatar put a hand on his knee. It felt cold, heavier than a woman’s hand should have been. “Very well. You died in my service. I acknowledge my debt to you. What would you have me do? Do you wish to return to your human life?”

Mac lifted his head.

“Can you do that?” Mac heard the hope in his voice. Hope for everything he’d lost—his job, his family, his friends. He could see himself back at his desk, dirty coffee cup and files and more work than was humanly possible to accomplish stacked before him. It looked like heaven.

And there was more. He could keep October mornings. The smell of coffee. Dogs. Going for a run in the rain. He wouldn’t have to die, a wisp of nothing fading into the dark.

The Avatar gave an apologetic smile. “It is difficult to remove a demon symbiont from its host. It is harder still to keep that infection from returning. I would have to set safeguards in place to limit your contact with the supernatural world. If you were human again, my doors would be closed to you. You would find the supernatural community outside your reach.”

On first hearing, it sounded like a small price to pay. Mac looked out over the cavernous gloom, the small figures below lit by the fire from the lake. It was a macabre scene, like something from a medieval painting of hell.

Then he felt the Castle’s words like lights going out in his heart, one by one. No supernatural community meant no Holly. No Caravelli, or Lore, or Sylvius. He could have his old life, but it would be without those friends who had been there for him, demon or not. Worst and most terrible: No Connie. He would be doomed to live without her love.

Mac felt his limbs growing cold. Was that death, or just sadness?

“Does a human life not please you?” asked the Avatar. “Is there a door number two? One where I get to be a white hat?”

She sat back, turning the bracelets around and around her wrists. The long, pale hair fell over her face, and she was silent for so long Mac thought she had lost interest in him.

Mac slouched against the balcony rail, looking out over the cavern. When the Avatar spoke, he jumped. His thoughts had wandered away—down to Connie, and Holly, and all those who had fought beside him that day.

“Then would you serve me?” she asked. “You were a guardsman in your old life.”

“I dunno. Doesn’t sound like your guards are all that happy.”

“They fell into despair because I was gone. In truth, it was my absence that killed them. Not your sword or Atreus’s mad spell of fire.”

Mac turned to face her. She sat, looking up at him. Her expression was earnest.

“I want to make amends.” She lifted a hand, and let it fall with a jingle. “The few guards that remain are good men, but they’re lost. They need someone to lead them. Someone stronger than they are, like a demon.”

Mac’s heart sank. “Demons destroy. We’ve been down that road already.”

“I’ll make you the demon with the badge that helps people.”

“That makes no sense.” He could feel despair seeping into him, cold and gray.

“Yes, it does. It was as a demon that you looked after Constance, and loved her, and gave her the strength to grow into her own power. She’s her own woman now, servant to no one. You rescued her son, twice. You carried Reynard to safety. You put the events in motion that saved Lore’s people. You have high ideals, and the demon gave you the physical strength to live up to your own standards. The creatures of the Castle need human compassion, but in a form that matches their own.”