The Elliott demon leaped.
The pain was beyond anything Jonathan could ever have imagined. He felt it in his body and in his soul, felt it echoing in parts of him he did not know he had, strange deep wells within himself. But the physical quickly became the least of his torments. The Elliott demon tore at his body—his arms, his legs, his chest, his face, his withered sex, brutalizing him in every way his family had brutalized everyone else—but it also raped his mind, flooding those images back at him, making him relive every sin performed by the Perry and Whitby Houses for two thousand years, every indignity, every cheat, every slight. Hale, healthy, and not possessed, he might have simply grieved his family’s weakness, but in that close and terrible space flooded with pain, Jonathan
lived
those horrors, each and every one. He was Perry. He had not yet joined with the demon, but the demon was nothing more than the collected consciousness of his House. And the demon was evil—pure, terrible evil. And as Jonathan writhed in the dark, he knew with sickening clarity that so too was he.
He woke from his terrible trance at a nudging, an insistent poke.
“Come,”
the demon rasped.
“I am dying. The Elliott has nearly taken me. I kept you there to punish you, to make you feel what you made me feel, so impotent and trapped, but now I am too weak to claim you. Give yourself to me, last of our House. Give up your glory to me and know your energy will be the last that it fights, your endurance the last thing it consumes of all that we have been.”
Jonathan said nothing, and he did nothing. He only curled tighter within himself, pushing the demon out as much as he could.
“Yield!”
the demon cried.
“You fool, you cannot beat it any more than I can, and the death he offers you will be terrible compared to the compassion I will show you.”
Here, at last, Jonathan felt a spark rise within him again…of anger.
“The compassion you showed so many others?”
“They were not of our House,”
the demon hissed.
“They were not worthy.”
“I have known nothing from our House but torment and pain and death. Any goodness I knew came from all those you dismiss as so unworthy.”
He pulled himself tighter and tighter and tighter, until he was nothing more than a speck of dust, hard and fast inside his body’s skin.
“I would rather die by inches over a thousand years at the Elliott’s hand than give one moment’s allegiance to you.”
The demon roared and beat against him, trying to break him down, but Jonathan knew this foe too well, knew it even better than it knew itself. He held fast, waiting, simply waiting, then felt the beating stop. The Elliott demon made a final strike, and in a rush Jonathan felt their places shift: the demon, alive now only by tatters, fell into the narrow prison in the scar inside Jonathan’s thigh, and Jonathan himself slid back into the full presence of his skin.
He faced the Elliott as himself now; he wore his own wounds, and he controlled his own hands, aching and bloody as they were. The first thing he did was drop the sword; it clattered against his toes, but he didn’t flinch. Bleeding, shuddering, shaking, every bit of him throbbing, he only stood as straight as he could before Andrea’s untouched face. But he was standing.
“I am ready,” he said.
Andrea smiled and touched his cheek. “You, I would almost like to keep. You did not harm this body. You betrayed my House inside it, but this body went willingly. You protected us and gave her an easier death than the others would have taken. And you worked so hard to save the traitors to my House—not because they worked against me, but because you loved them. And yet you were not done! Even now, here at your last hour, you will not submit to your House, the darkness you carried without submitting as your father did before you. Even with all the pain you saw me deliver to it, which you know I could give to you.” She leaned forward and kissed his cheek. “Thank you, Jonathan Perry. For this you have earned an easy death. I will cherish you, as so many of my House have done.”
“No.”
Both of them turned toward the sound; Timothy stood in the doorway calmly, his hands resting lightly on his hips.
No
, Jonathan wanted to cry.
Not you too.
Andrea’s head lifted, surprised. Then she smiled and waved at Timothy. “Yes, I’m sorry, I quite forgot you. I thought you would have run by now.” Her face fell. “Oh
no
. You aren’t coming to die stupidly and nobly in a vain attempt to save him, are you? But you have heard, and now you see! Look at him! He is ravaged! He is only standing because I took such care to leave those muscles undamaged!” She pouted. “I wanted you to
tell
them what you had seen. How can you do that if you are dead?”
“Look at me,” Timothy said. “Look at me, daemon. See me.”
The demon did, blinking in irritation. Then it faltered and drew back as if it were seeing Timothy truly for the first time. “
No
.”
Timothy came calmly forward. He was unarmed, but he moved with ease and quiet command, more than Jonathan had ever seen in him before. “I claim the right of equerry on behalf of Jonathan Augustus, Lords Perry and Whitby, and I hereby submit myself to accept his punishment in his stead.”
“
No
,” Jonathan croaked, blood foaming on his lips as he forced his injured throat to speak.
“No,” the Elliott said, but it was whispering now, almost whimpering. “It cannot be. You are lost. This is a trick—it cannot be.”
Timothy lifted an eyebrow. “You deny me?”
Now the demon was panicking. “No! No, I—” It shimmered, then shifted back to Hamilton Elliott. “No. I would never deny you, my Lady.”
Timothy nodded. “Good. Then I repeat, I submit myself in place of Jonathan Augustus—”
“But you can’t!” The demon was back to Andrea again, shrieking in her girlish voice. “You can’t! You are
the Lady
!”
“Yes,” Timothy said, his voice going dangerously soft. “And you have taken my Lord.”
Lady
? Jonathan thought, growing dizzy now.
Lord
? But he did not speak, only listened.
“The Lord was broken,” Andrea’s voice whispered. “So many pieces!”
“The Lord cannot be broken, only temporarily separated from himself. He came back to me on his own, came together on his own, and you took him from me.” Timothy’s eyes began to flash, and Jonathan thought he must be hallucinating, because they seemed to be glowing as well, the dark pupils radiating a soft, rich gold. “Your insolence will not be tolerated.”
The demon was back to Hamilton again. “But my Lady, I protected you! I kept you safe! I kept all your children safe!”
“You kept them from death, which has kept them from life. You have made them wraiths. You kept me prisoner, the aspect you could catch, and you made me wait in the darkness, listening to their cries, unable to help them.”
“I kept them safe—”
Timothy waved his hand angrily at the windows. Jonathan startled as they all flew open at once, and he shrank as he saw, at long last, the ghosts—all of them, thousands and thousands and thousands of them, hovering in the air. The room seemed to expand to accommodate them yet stayed the same size at the same time. They were legion, these ghosts. But they were terrible things—jagged and wan and pale, their faces dull.
Wraiths
. Jonathan shuddered. Worse than wraiths. They were nothing, nothing but shells. No emotions. No hopes. No fears. No hungers. No desires.
No life. No love.
“This is what you have made them,” Timothy hissed. “You have called them back to this world by your ascension, by your coming through the door that I have opened, but there is no life left.
This is all that you have saved
. They are nothing but darkness now.”
“Timothy?” Jonathan croaked. “What—” He coughed, then could speak no more.
“Hush,” Timothy said to him gently, then turned back to the demon again.
But the demon had seized on the distraction. It was Smith now, and it pointed gleefully to Jonathan. “I have done what I was meant to do.
I
alone have protected you. This one is of the House that betrayed you. His blood is mine.
That
is law.”
“You must first drink mine,” Timothy said, “As I have now twice told you.”
“No!” Jonathan cried hoarsely.
“You must obey the law,” Timothy went on, ignoring Jonathan. “All the laws, the mortal as well as the divine. To do otherwise is to become a betrayer yourself. And then what will you do?”
“But you will destroy me!” the demon cried.
Timothy’s eyes glittered again. “Yes. I will give you death. You have enjoyed life; now you must taste the darkness again and return to the cradle. Then you may be reborn.”
“But not as this! Not like this!” the demon cried, and then it shifted to Charles.
Timothy went rigid with anger, and the emotion seemed to pulse like fire against him. “You will not wear his skin before me.”
“I am a better Lord than he would be!” Charles’s voice cried out. “I am stronger! I am more intelligent! I am—”
“You are foolish and small,” Timothy said sharply. “Worst of all, you have no heart. You have suffered nothing. You have only controlled and manipulated the suffering of others. You are ego and vanity. Even in his darkest days, his lowest moment,
even then
he was ten thousand times greater than you are now.”
The demon was sobbing. “I only did what I was made to do!”
“Yes,” Timothy agreed with some empathy. “Yes, you did. And now it ends.” He held out his arms. “Take it. Take my blood, and you will at last be free, loyal servant.”
“Thirteen!” the demon wailed. “
Thirteen
!”
“Yes,” Timothy said. “Come. It is time.”
“
No
!” Jonathan cried, and he tried to reach for his friend to stop him.
But he could not move, and so he could only watch. The demon was still weeping, but it came forward like a little child. As it walked it became one, small and sobbing. It rubbed its eye with the back of its hand, blubbering, drooling, wailing, but it went to Timothy without hesitation, growing smaller and smaller as it went.
Timothy knelt down before it, and as Jonathan watched, he saw his friend begin to change. He blinked, knowing it could not be real, but as he stared at Timothy, he saw him change, back and forth like a flickering star: man, woman. Man, woman. When the squalling infant that the demon had become crawled before him, Timothy knelt down and lifted it gently from the floor. The infant screamed, and then it sharply bit Timothy’s thumb.
Timothy did not flinch, but as he rose he changed one more time. He smiled as he lifted the now tiny babe squalling into the air, holding it high above his head. Except Timothy’s head was now a mass of dark, wavy hair, his waist was narrow, and he wore a great golden dress that looked as if it had been woven out of stars.
Timothy laughed, then brought the baby down and kissed it. The baby laughed too, a soft, sweet coo, and it reached for the shining Lady’s face. Jonathan saw a veil appear, swathing them both, and then they burst into a pulsing and blinding ball of light, and they were gone.
Jonathan, bleeding and dying, was alone.
Chapter Sixteen
D’lar
Lord
The Lord is the masculine incarnation of the Goddess and the Consort to the Lady.
He does not end life; he cannot.
He cannot create life alone, but neither can life begin without him.
In the beginning, there was darkness and nothing more.
The darkness swelled and pulsed, a silent heartbeat in the Void. There was no sound, no breath, nothing but that heartbeat filling the space, rising and falling, marking the slow, silent beats of Time. There were no stars, no planets, no animals, and no people. No angels. No demons. No spirits of life or death, for there was no life and no death: there was only this. On and on, endless, forever it beat: no variation, no alteration of even the slightest measure, just beating without sound. For what would measure in a human life as millions upon millions of years, the universe did nothing more than keep Time.
And then it didn’t.
Why did it stop? Why did it change? Some say the darkness exploded, sending life into fragments out into an ever-expanding universe. Some say it gained consciousness. Some say it gave birth to itself. Some say it was nothing more than a compressed rock blowing itself apart, that life had never been intended by anything and was little more than an accident. As many stories can be told to explain the origin of life as there are grains of sand on all the worlds in all the universes put together, but they all trace back to this point, to this place, to this moment, when a small human male appeared, naked, disoriented, and terrified in the dark.
A lone man staring at the womb of Life, a pulsing heart in the darkness.
As he hovered there, staring at it, the pulse began to take physical shape, almost as if to please him. And it
did
please him—it was the most achingly beautiful thing he had ever seen. The pulse of Life was all rolling clouds and softness, curling into itself like a womb. It was dark blue and pink, but sometimes it glittered gold too. As it rolled toward him, the edges closest to the man illuminated slightly, then faded again as they rolled away. The man smiled. He didn’t know who he was or why he had come here, but he no longer cared. He could stay forever, looking at this. He loved the pulsing clouds on sight, loved them with a depth and calmness he didn’t know he possessed.
He smiled at the pulse of Life, and he reached for it.
The darkness swelled around him, and there was a loud, angry crack. Now there was sound. It crashed around him, pushing against his ears, reverberating inside his body. He could
hear
the heartbeat now, the heartbeat of the universe:
thu-thump, thu-thump, thu-thump
, on and on and on in perfect, measured Time. But he heard something more as well: a whisper curling beneath the edges, sliding out with the undulations of the great womb. It was a voice, soft and sweet, and it was speaking to him.