The Demon’s Surrender (24 page)
Read The Demon’s Surrender Online
Authors: Sarah Rees Brennan
As if it wasn’t his voice.
She opened her eyes and saw Alan’s body lounging in the doorway, with an easy grace Alan had never possessed. He was standing in a little pool of ashes, looking like he’d been swimming in that burning river. Ash covered his clothes and made a filthy halo around his head.
He gave them both a sunny smile.
“Usually it takes a few days before they get around to the bargaining,” the demon continued. “But you may have noticed, your boy’s quick. Such an interesting mind.”
Nick’s head had reared back. He looked more nightmarish than the other demon did, his eyes black holes in a mask so white it blazed.
“Do you want to know why bargaining with demons almost never works?” the demon asked. He strolled into the kitchen, moving in fluid, easy strides.
Seeing the loss of the limp she’d always hated was almost too much for Sin. She wanted to be sick.
He circled Nick’s chair, but Nick sat there like a stone. The demon roved over to Sin. She pressed back hard against the counter.
“How about you, princess?”
That was what made her realize what should have been obvious long before. Of course, what other demon had served the Circle so well that he deserved a reward like this? What other demon wanted revenge like he did?
What other demon would have followed Nick home?
“I don’t know, Anzu,” Sin said between her teeth.
“Humans are so rarely eager to offer us what we want,” Anzu murmured, the curve of Alan’s mouth like a scimitar. “Everything.”
He was standing very close now. She was glad he smelled like ashes and blood, not like guns.
“But your boy, your Alan—” Sin flinched, and Anzu’s smile broadened with delight. He pushed his face closer to hers, as if he could scent out weakness. “
Alan
,” he repeated, but she didn’t let him see her flinch again. “Well. That’s exactly what he offered. Not like Liannan’s deal, sharing a body for privileges. Just unconditional surrender. His voice, free access to his mind, a promise not to fight, total cooperation.”
She made herself breathe in measured, controlled breaths. She held her body still and did not speak, and Anzu lost interest in her, moved away and back to his real target.
“Interesting how quickly he gave up, don’t you think?” he asked Nick. “Really, it’s as if he was used to being the slave to a demon already. As if he never had a soul to call his own.”
Now that Anzu had turned away, Sin moved quietly, heading for the bathroom. She was going there to wash her face; she had always intended to do that, it was nothing to remark on.
As soon as she was in the bathroom she slid the lock on the door closed, even though she knew it would not keep a demon out.
She leaned against the bathroom door, fished her new phone out of her jeans pocket, and called Mae. The phone rang and Sin was still in control, she was, but her body felt as if it had been frozen in those moments where Anzu leaned close, and now it was turning to water. Her legs simply would not hold her up. She slid, the door still at her back, to the cool tiles of the bathroom floor.
When Mae answered the phone, Sin said, “You have to help me.”
“Anything,” Mae said. She’d obviously been crying; she was no good at modulating her voice to conceal it, but a stuffed nose didn’t impair Mae’s determination at all. “I’m so sorry, Sin. I’m so—Alan was one of my best friends. Anything I can do, I will.”
“He has a plan,” Sin whispered, and wiped her brimming eyes with the back of her hand. “Anzu’s the one possessing Alan. And he’s here, he’s gloating to Nick, he can talk. Alan gave him his voice, he’s not fighting him at all.”
Mae’s voice was choking up even more. “Oh God, Sin. God.”
“But you know why he’s doing it,” Sin said. “You see.”
Her manipulative liar, her endless schemer, did not do things without a reason. He was managing his own possession.
“He’s buying himself time,” Sin said. “The body will last longer if he doesn’t fight. He’s buying us time, to save him. He’s got a plan.”
Even saying the words, mentioning the possibility of saving him, made her feel dizzy. It was a fairy tale, it was ridiculous; everyone knew possession was a death sentence. Everyone knew it was worse than that.
“Sin,” Mae said, her voice gentle, “if he’s got a plan, Anzu knows it by now. Alan’s plans won’t work anymore. He can’t scheme his way out of this one.”
She had known that, really, all along. The blinding realization of what Alan was doing had dazzled her for a moment, that was all. The thought that he was still somewhere in there hoping had made her hope too.
But there was no hope.
Sin leaned her head back against the bathroom door. “I know,” she said. “I know.”
Mae said, “We have to think of a plan ourselves.”
15
Brothers in Arms
T
HE KNOCK ON THE FRONT DOOR CAME ALMOST IMMEDIATELY
after Mae spoke. “Mae,” Sin said, low. “Are you at the door?”
Just as low, though the demons were not there to hear her, as if Sin’s fear was infecting her, Mae whispered, “No.”
Sin cut off the call, leaned her forehead against the phone, and boosted herself to her feet. She shoved her phone into her pocket, unlocked the door, and threw it open so hard it hit the wall, because otherwise she would have stayed cowering in the bathroom.
A moment later, she wished she had.
She’d stepped out between the possessed bodies of the people she loved. Anzu and Liannan were standing in the hall. They had been looking at each other, but now they were both looking at her.
Liannan stood there with the red hair streaming down her shoulders snarled with ash, a bright, sharp smile on her face.
“Merris?” Sin whispered, because it was not night yet. It was daytime even if it was daytime in hell, and that was who should be in this body.
And Merris answered, black starting to bleed from the ash in her hair, staining the red and spreading.
“Thea,” she said, using the Goblin Market nickname for her instead of the severe “Cynthia” she usually preferred.
Sin felt a great bound of hope in her chest, as if she could fling herself into Merris’s arms like a child and expect to be saved, just like that. As if it could be that simple.
But Merris’s hands had nails that glimmered strangely sharp, and there was still red in her hair and a wild strangeness to her face.
“Liannan?” Anzu asked, and he sounded uncertain.
“I’m here,” said Liannan, her voice changing again, lifeless and flat, all the humanity leached out. “But it is technically her turn.”
“Technically?” Sin whispered.
Liannan smiled. “Our boundaries are more fluid these days.”
“It’s disgusting that you have to sully yourself like this,” Anzu said.
“I don’t know,” said Liannan. “All that screaming gets tiresome after a while, don’t you find?”
Sin wouldn’t have thought she could look away from Liannan lest she miss a moment when she might turn into Merris, but she found her head turning helplessly to look at Alan’s face.
“No. I enjoy it,” said Anzu, and used Alan’s mouth to smile. “Especially now.”
Liannan moved past Sin, her hair brushing whisper-soft against Sin’s shoulder, and stood beside Anzu. She reached up and drew her fingernails down his cheek, deliberately drawing four bleeding lines.
“I do not think this was a particularly good idea,” she said. “The city’s on fire. So I see he’s taking it well.”
The trails of blood moved across Alan’s face, drawing a pattern as if the demon was going to play noughts and crosses in blood across Alan’s skin. Then a shadow fell across the blood.
Nick stood in the kitchen doorway, his hands on the door frame as if he was blocking the way.
There were three demons standing close enough to reach out and kill her, and the kids were only a door away.
“Liannan,” said Nick, “you’re not welcome here.”
“But the city’s burning,” Liannan said. “It’s beautiful. I know you’re put out that Anzu stole your pet, but we are all together at last. Let us cheer you up. Let’s take your bad mood out on the humans. We could go to the Tower of London and get those executions started again.”
Nick stared at her blankly. Liannan turned away from Anzu and toward him, reaching out a hand. He didn’t flinch back, and she didn’t touch him: He’d known she wouldn’t. They were comfortable together, with the ease of long familiarity.
“I’m sorry too,” Liannan told him. “Alan was lovely. But he’s gone now. Let’s go out and choose you a new one.”
“Why don’t you get out?” Nick asked. “You’re boring me.”
“We could—”
“I have a headache tonight, dear,” Nick drawled. “I didn’t ask you to come. I could have gone to find you any time in the last month, Liannan, but I didn’t. Can’t you take a hint? I don’t want you here.”
“I want to talk to Merris,” Sin said into the silence after those words.
The demons looked at her, as if they were distantly surprised she dared to speak at all. Anzu moved toward her, and a warning, animal impulse at the base of Sin’s spine told her she was in danger.
“No,” said Merris. “Don’t touch her.”
She reached past Anzu and took Sin’s wrist, and Sin let her despite those lethally pointed nails. Merris drew her into the sitting room, leaving the others out in the hall.
Merris sat down on the sofa, gracefully crossing her legs. Her whole body looked younger, Sin saw with a dull sense of shock, her legs strong, their muscles taut. Dancer’s legs.
“What is it you need, Thea?” Merris asked, and her voice was gentle, for Merris. It would have been reassuring, aside from everything else.
Sin sat on the very edge of the sofa and uncurled her hands from their fists.
“You’ve changed,” she said softly.
“Well,” Merris said, and smiled a small secretive smile. She did not look at all displeased. “I suppose I have.”
“You’ve been away from the Market a long time,” Sin said. “Were you at Mezentius House?”
“At first.” Merris’s tone was dismissive. “I put a friend of mine in charge there. I was not going to simply abandon my responsibilities.”
Her hands had been veined but strong once, gnarled at the back like old tree trunks but still moving gracefully to express herself. They were smooth now. Sin had liked Merris’s hands the way they were. The Market had been safe in Merris’s hands. Sin had, as well.
“What about the Market? Were you just going to leave it up to Mae?”
“Oh,” Merris murmured. “She’s come out on top already, has she?”
She did not sound in the least surprised. Sin gritted her teeth.
“She hasn’t come out on top. I’ve been thrown out of the Market, but they haven’t chosen her as a leader. They all thought you were coming back, and I want to know what’s going on,” she said between her teeth. “I thought—you said Liannan was whispering to you, and you had to silence her, and now you’re letting her out during the day!”
Merris smiled faintly. “I started whispering back. We started whispering to each other. When I was young, I was a dancer.”
Sin nodded.
Merris raised an eyebrow. “Oh, you’ve heard the stories. But you never saw me dance. I was better than your mother ever was, I was better than you ever will be. I danced in Goblin Markets around the world. The most beautiful songs played in the Goblin Market today, Cynthia, they were written for me. Do you want to know why I was so good?”
In Mezentius House, Sin had thought about not being able to dance anymore. She’d pictured being hurt, being wrenched out of the world she knew, and when she’d escaped unscathed she found it even harder to look at Alan, or anyone else who couldn’t dance.
She’d always known that she would have to stop dancing one day, but something about Merris’s voice made her picture it now: more than half her life, not able to dance a real dance, the true dance, under the lights of the Market.
Merris said, “I never cared about anything else. And then it was over.”
The word
over
was crushing in Sin’s mind for a moment, and then she thought,
Never? About anything else?
“I had to find something else to do, some other way to be part of the Market,” Merris said. “And I found a way. I founded Mezentius House, and I made the Market bigger and brighter than it had ever been before. But when I went away with Liannan, I went dancing. And I was better than ever.”
“It’s the demon,” Sin got out. “But I’ll get the pearl, and I’ll bring it to you. I will.”
“I’m going to go around the world,” Merris said. “I only have so many nights to do it, but I’m going to visit every Goblin Market there is, and dance one more time. If you could do what you loved best in this world, would you let anything stop you?”
“Yes,” Sin answered. “If people needed me.”
“And that’s what has always been wrong with you,” Merris said tenderly. “That is why you will never be a true artist. But you come so close. I cared about the Market, I cared about turning a profit and building up the magic, but I was never able to care much about any one person. You were different. You almost reached perfection, but you were never quite disciplined enough. The children, your school, those visits to your father—oh, I knew about those. You were never focused. Not enough to sacrifice everything else. You were such a disappointment. But somehow, I don’t know how it was, exactly. Somehow I cared more about you than I ever did about anyone before.”
Sin turned away, back hunched, trying to bear the onslaught of the words. She felt the touch of Merris’s hands on her face, smooth and young, and looked up into demon eyes.
“If I’d had a daughter, I would have wanted her to be like you,” Merris murmured. “But just a little better.”
It wasn’t Merris’s fault. She was possessed, and a lie could not pass her lips any more than her eyes could change back to gray.
Sin had tried, as hard as she knew how. She’d never wanted to disappoint Merris. She’d always tried to balance in a place where she could be both like her mother, beautiful and carefree, and like Merris, the ideal leader.
All these performances, and nobody had ever really appreciated them except one person, and now he was gone. Alan was gone and Merris was going, and Sin knew the only thing she could do was protect what was left.
Sin swallowed. “Will you go back to the Market?” she asked. “Will you check that everyone’s all right? Will you talk to Mae? Please.”
Merris stood up from the sofa. Sin did not dare look up, in case she saw Liannan intent on going dancing through flames and death. She kept her head bowed until her neck ached.
She felt Merris’s lips touch her forehead, gently.
“For you,” she said, “I will. But I won’t stay.”
Sin looked up into those black eyes. “I’ll get the pearl,” she promised again. “I’ll bring it to you. You’ll see, then. The demon will be quiet, and everything will be the same as it was before.”
Merris smiled, pitying and a little scornful. “Child,” she said. “That never happens.”
She left, her back straight, her body strong and lithe and young. Sin watched her go and told herself that she would get that pearl, she would, and once the demon was silenced, Merris would come back.
She tried to forget the kiss good-bye.
“I’ll go with Liannan,” Anzu said from the hall, and Sin looked around to see Nick grab his arm.
“That’s not Liannan right now,” Nick told him. “And you’re staying here.”
The door closed behind Merris, and Anzu rounded on Nick. “Oh I am, am I?”
Nick’s eyes narrowed. “Yes.”
“Great,” Anzu said. The air seemed to glitter around him, molecules crystallizing with his icy rage. “What do you do for fun around here? Oh wait, don’t tell me, I know!”
He spun and slammed open a door. Sin was on her feet with her heart in her throat and her knives in her hands before she realized that he had gone into Alan’s room and not Nick’s.
She sheathed her knives immediately. She couldn’t show concern, she couldn’t give him the idea that it might be fun to play with Toby and Lydie. She had to hope he had forgotten or was at least uninterested in the fact that they were there.
Anzu emerged from the doorway again almost at once. He was carrying a sword.
Sin had forgotten they’d stowed all Nick’s swords in there, away from the kids.
Alan had never had the balance to use a sword effectively, so it was like seeing the smooth, easy new walk to see his body wielding a blade with careless ease. The sword shone in the dim hallway. Its point was aimed at Nick’s heart.
“Come on,” Anzu said softly.
The steel edge pierced the cotton of Nick’s T-shirt, just touching. One shove of the blade, and Nick would be spitting blood.
Nick moved, not backward but sideways, drew his sword, and brought it around in a tight, vicious circle. Anzu only just raised his blade in time to meet Nick’s, and there was a ring of steel that echoed through the little rooms.
Sin couldn’t see Nick’s face as he followed up on his strike, moving in and forcing Anzu’s blade back.