by Marjorie Liu
Grant stayed silent. Jack reached for me, and I backed away. The armor rippled over my hand, pulsing in cold waves. That awful weight bearing down on my shoulders grew a little heavier, and inside me, below my heart, a stirring—the darkness, shedding its shallow sleep.
We were never asleep, whispered that voice, again. Simply waiting.
I breathed through my teeth and met Jack’s haunted gaze. “Remember what I said.”
His face crumpled. “No—”
But it was too late. The Messenger lunged forward to wrap her arms around him—
—and they disappeared. I wished very much I could follow.
Grant’s hand slid around my waist. Memories crashed. His touch, both familiar and strange.
“You should have left,” I told him, trembling. “I wish you had.”
Grant kissed the knuckles of his other hand and made the sign of the cross. Then he kissed the top of my head and pulled me near. “Life’s too short to waste on running. I won’t leave you alone.”
I swallowed hard, swaying. “I’m not the one who can die.”
“Then why is it you always tell me that I’ll outlive you?” Grant brushed his thumb over my mouth. “You and me, Maxine.”
I grabbed the front of his shirt, stood on my toes, and kissed him hard on the mouth. He tasted hot and sweet—familiar and new—and the darkness stirred a little more, rising, uncoiling to fill my skin. I could see it in my mind, encircling the second golden pulse that surrounded my heart, a pulse that belonged to Grant.
Our link, I remembered—a connection that bound us, into the soul. I could feel our bond, and him, burning through me, as though the sun lived inside my heart. I wondered how I could have forgotten anything about this man.
The Messenger had created bonds with humans to steal their energy. Grant also needed a source of power when he used his gift—but he didn’t have to steal it. Not from me.
Two hearts live, I thought, holding him even more tightly, digging my fingers into his shoulders.
Grant shivered, and against my mouth murmured, “I think we may be fine.”
I sensed movement overhead, and we pulled apart. Zee raged upward, against my skin. All the boys, screaming in their sleep. The darkness stirred again, but I did not push it away.
A single eye open inside my mind—its eye—and I thought, Yes, this time I need you.
They need you, said that sinuous voice, just a hiss in my mind, like a thought captured between dreams and waking. You are tangled in all those bleeding bones, and war- hearts. Your knots run deep as death, and the endless night.
“No,” I said, out loud. Grant glanced at me, but only a moment. Bodies dropped from the cut in the sky. My heart charged up my throat like I was going to turn inside out, and keep turning, and turning.
I counted dozens, maybe a hundred, falling through the sky—a cloud of silver bodies that cut through the mist like pale ghosts. I felt removed from myself as I cataloged all the alien details—long, naked limbs, flying hair, humanoid masculine bodies—until, closer yet, I saw the holes of their eyes; and closer, the sharp angles of their faces; until they slammed into the earth in front of us, so hard the world shook. Some landed in the conifers, breaking branches, but none of the demons fell—simply leapt, light as air, onto the ground to join their brothers.
Grant slid around me to stand at my back, watching the ones who landed behind us. My spine and chest began vibrating, like a tuning fork was pressed between my shoulder blades. His voice, rumbling so low I could only feel it. I flexed my hand, and the armor shimmered, white-hot, blinding—
—until I held a sword in my hand.
It was a familiar weapon. An extension of the armor itself. A chain ran from the pommel to my wrist; delicate as the blade, which was long and slender, engraved with runes. The metal gleamed with inner light—moonlight, starlight, icelight—and when I scraped the edge with my thumb, sparks flew. I felt good holding the blade. Better. Grounded.
I forced myself to breathe, slow and deep, and thought of my mother. My fearless mother.
She’d eat these bastards for breakfast. You can have them for lunch.
There were so many. Pale and gray as the dead, with silver hair that spiked high in bristled tendrils before falling into long, knotted braids. Wiry, gaunt, dressed in leather belts and little else. Their fingers resembled the tines of pitchforks and their faces were almost as sharp. Silver eyes and silver lips, and chains of chiming silver hooks, hanging from ears to narrow nostrils. Most of them lacked at least one arm, or chunks of flesh from thighs; and their fists were full of smoky parasites, Blood Mama’s children, who screamed and screamed.
They ate those parasites. Ripped heads off with their teeth, then tossed aside the smoky remains. I felt no disgust or pity while I watched them consume those lesser demons. Zee and the boys did the same when they could.
Except I wanted a taste, too. The desire hit me hard, in the chest, where the darkness rolled.
The demons watched us—perfectly, eerily still. Eyes glinting, faces hollow with hunger. Saliva trickled from their lips. I found them disturbingly human, or so close that I wondered at their origins. I wondered, too, what Grant saw when he looked at them.
I wanted to know why they hadn’t tried to kill us yet.
“They’re waiting,” Grant said, as though he read my mind. “Something’s coming.”
Something, from above.
A solitary figure dropped through the crack in the sky. I could tell, even some distance away, that he was larger than the other demons, who stirred and looked up, and jostled each other aside to make room. Cracking sounds filled the air, deep amongst the crowded bodies. I heard chewing, and remembered the humans that the Messenger had drained to death. I tried to feel pity for them, or even disgust, but the sounds of eating intensified, and the demons began fighting to reach that spot where I’d last seen the bodies. I watched, and all I felt was a strange pride, or pleasure: like a lioness watching her cubs feed.
I bit the inside of my cheek, then my tongue. Ruthless. Desperate. I tasted blood, and the sharp spike of pain was enough to shake me loose and bring me back to myself.
But I felt that pride, that pleasure, waiting like an iron cape ready to settle on my shoulders, in my heart. I felt it, so strong, just on the other side of me.
Not me, I thought desperately. None of that is me.
But it is under your skin, said the voice. So close. So close. We are so close.
The newcomer landed softly, despite his size: a giant, the ropes of his braided hair tied around his body like some strange armor. Silver glinted at his waist. He had all his limbs and was not missing chunks of flesh. Of all the demons present, he had meat on his bones.
He studied me. Just me. His eyes were green, a startling color against the dull gray of his skin. His long, deadly fingers tapped gently against his powerful thigh. He was thoughtful.
“Bring them to me,” he said to the others.
The words had hardly left his mouth before the demons swarmed—striking like vipers, with hisses and howls. The sword flashed in my hand, swung like a baseball bat arcing lightning against the demons that tried to slam me. Blood spilled. So did limbs. I did not look at Grant, but I heard him, his voice moving through me as it rose like a crashing wail of thunder, primal and inhuman. I concentrated on his voice. As long as he sang, he was alive.
And so was I. The boys raged against me, burning hot— and inside the darkness rose, filling my skin with its spirit flesh, shedding sleep as it blinked a lazy eye inside my mind.
I got knocked down. Twisted, as I fell, and saw Grant also on the ground, kneeling with his eyes closed, his hands clenched in fists. Sharp fingers hovered perilously close to his face, but the demons stood frozen, staring at him, mouths slack and their eyes rolling back in their heads.
Others, behind them, tried clawing over their bodies to reach Grant. Some turned at the last moment and attacked their own brothers, protecting him. Those who did w
ere torn down without mercy. More took their place. I could not imagine what it was costing Grant to control so many minds.
Fingers stabbed me and broke. Hair lashed like whips, harmless against my face. I kicked out, hard, swinging the sword—and the blood I spilled was crimson and beautiful; and so were the screams, and the fear I saw, and the unease that arose in faces that were hollow with ten thousand years of hunger. Zee raged, between my breasts. All the boys, churning with such heat and violence I felt as though the surface of my skin were made of lava.
Grant still sang. When I thought of him, the golden light of our bond flared hot inside my chest, surrounding the darkness. The thing did not flee, or flinch—but purred—and fed the bond part of its own spirit flesh.
Grant’s voice faltered.
All around him jaws snapped shut, and a collective twitch raced through those demons held by his rumbling song. I spun, burning on instinct, sword swinging—and hacked off the sharp hands and fingers that jerked down toward his vulnerable face.
I didn’t stop moving. I grabbed his arm and hauled him to his feet, tight against me. His breathing was harsh, his skin warm as fire. He pressed his lips against the back of my head, and his mouth stayed there.
And I started to laugh.
It was not my laughter. But it spilled out of me, triumphant and confident, and the sound had a physical shape inside my mouth, like a long tongue tasting the air; finding it delicious with blood, and death.
Hunger filled me. Aching, wild, hunger. Old, deep, and endless.
Grant stilled against me. The demons attacking us hesitated. I didn’t. I lunged forward and grabbed a one-armed, scarred demon whose black eyes were too human with confusion—and, for a moment, despair. The boys howled in my hand when I touched him, and my laughter deepened.
The demon gazed upon me with horror and screamed.
He was still screaming when he turned to ash. His arm dissolved first, blowing away like silver snow, then his shoulder crumbled and his feet, his legs, his torso falling, shattering on impact like soft glass, and his face was last—his jaw, his skull, his eyes staring at me as they faded, and formed lumps that scattered.
I tasted the echo of his screams, inside me, like wine: rolling each note on my tongue, tasting the layers of his terror, and finding them pure and good, and sweet. My fist was full of his ashes, and I lifted them and dribbled his remains into my mouth.
Part of me screamed, too—but the darkness rolled with pleasure, and when I mixed those ashes with my saliva and swallowed, it was not just my body anymore. I was a passenger. My mouth tasted like poison.
Every demon stood frozen, staring. I felt Grant behind me, but not his touch.
I looked for the giant, and found him standing a head above the other demons. His green eyes glittered, and his gaze did not leave my face as he walked toward us. The demons parted for him, and those who moved too slowly were knocked aside. On the periphery of my vision, I saw the dead being surreptitiously pulled into the horde. I heard more bones crack and the soft whisper of flesh tearing.
The giant stopped in front of us. He didn’t talk. He got down on one knee, pressed his long, sharp hand to his chest, and bowed his head. The other demons dropped to the ground without hesitation, following his example. Kneeling to me. Heads lowered. Eyes closed.
I stared at them, stricken, but the darkness rose in my throat with a smile that tasted like death.
“Forgive me,” rumbled the demon. “Forgive us all. We did not recognize you.”
The sword glowed, runes rippling over its surface, down into the armor around my hand. I thought it spoke to me, but all I felt was a heartbeat in the metal, then five more on my skin. Hearts, burning, inside my chest. Burning like my bond with Grant, which seemed so far away—as though, beneath my skin, my soul stood on a dark plain, watching his light with miles between us, miles and miles.
The darkness clawed into my mouth and breathed words on my tongue.
“Ha’an,” it whispered through me. “How stand the other Lords?”
“I do not know,” he said, chancing a look at my face. “We were in the second ring, and the break only reached as far as us. I know nothing of Draean, K’ra’an, or the others—but the Lady Whore still stands, and her children will feed our bellies until we may hunt.” He hesitated. “You freed us. We thought . . . perhaps, you were gone forever.”
“We are forever,” said the darkness. “But this is the dreaming time.”
The demon’s expression was surprisingly human. He frowned, like any man would who was confused.
“The veil is open, my Kings. These are but a fraction of the Mahati who are ready to serve you, should you but ask. All we beg for is food. A good hunt.” He looked past me at Grant. “The humans still abide, it seems. They will suffice.”
“No,” I said, and this time it was all me. The darkness rested in my throat, but it seemed content to let me speak that word.
“No,” echoed the demon, and anger flickered in his green eyes. “We have suffered, and you deny us?”
“This is not your world.”
“And it is yours?” His words were challenging, full of bite, and the other demons stirred uneasily.
I straightened, flushed with an anger that might have been me, or the darkness, but that felt righteous, strong. I stared that demon dead in the eyes, and knew—knew, in my gut—that I could kill him. With just a touch. A kiss.
The power of that knowledge felt too good.
His mouth snapped shut, and he looked away. “Forgive me.”
I walked toward him, stopping only when I would have touched him. I circled his body, staring from him to the rest of the demons. I glimpsed Grant, but looking at him made something in me burn, and the darkness flinched away—as did I. It was enough, though, to see his eyes: dark, fathomless, watching me like I was a stranger.
“This world is mine,” I said, and the darkness consumed my tongue, and added, “You are mine. All of you.”
“Forgive me,” he said again, shoulders rigid. “Of course, we are yours. The Mahati have always been loyal. But if the others go free, they will say what is already in my heart. We must hunt, or die.”
“Then you will die,” I said.
The demon—Ha’an—looked at me. And then Grant. Uncertainty filled his gaze, followed by hard defiance, and a determination so cold, so visceral, I felt it in my spine, in the pit of my stomach where all my fear huddled in a tiny, weeping lump.
“This is not right,” he said softly. “This is not what was. You are different, my Kings. And not just in your choice of vessel.”
He rose, towering. “Kill me if that serves your pleasure, but I am the Mahati Lord, and we are the last survivors. I will not sacrifice our lives—our lives, that have already been sacrificed in dignity and flesh—when I do not know if you can still be trusted.”
I waited for the darkness to speak, but it said nothing. And so neither did I. All I did was stare into the eyes of Ha’an—and smile.
The demon lord didn’t quite flinch, but whatever he saw in my eyes was enough to make him sway backward.
“Lead us,” he said, almost begging. “Please. If you do not, if you give us up, the other Lords will not rest until they take power. And we are not as strong as them.”
I said nothing. Ha’an backed away, shaking his head. “Only you can bind us. You, our Reaper Kings.”
I froze at the sound of that name. Zee twisted on my skin, a lurch that felt like a sob.
Thankfully, Ha’an had already turned away. He looked at the demons surrounding him, and the darkness watched them, too—filled with a different kind of hunger, a sensation like the rise of a car on a roller coaster, inching toward the crest of that first wild fall. The darkness wanted to fall. It wanted to hunt.
Ha’an glanced over his shoulder at me. “Three days is all I can give you, my Kings. Three days . . . or however long time is judged on this world. Then you will kill us, or lead us.”
Ha’an lea
pt upward, straight into the sky toward the crack in the veil. I did not expect him to fly, but he did so as easily as walking.
The other demons followed, carrying the dead. None looked back. I watched, unable to move or breathe, growing ever more light- headed as those silver-bullet bodies disappeared into the red haze of the open prison veil.
The darkness wanted to follow—or maybe I did—my heart wound so tight around that entity, I couldn’t tell what was me anymore. All I knew was that I wanted to follow the Mahati. I wanted to enter the veil and see the army amassed, and breathe the air, and touch those bodies that were mine, mine, mine to lead—
Hands touched me. I flinched.
Grant’s chest moved against my back. Breathing. He was breathing—and then, so was I. Deep breaths. I had been suffocating that entire time, I realized. Afraid to act like I needed air in front of a demon.
Afraid of myself.
“Maxine,” Grant said. He was shaking, I realized. Trembling.
“Don’t talk yet,” I breathed, and lifted the sword to my lips. I kissed the blade, and it shimmered like a mirage, and faded into the armor. I kissed the armor, then, too.
“Jack,” I said.
And we fell.
CHAPTER 12
THE women in my family kept journals. Not for self-reflection, but to teach from the grave.
My ancestor—an Englishwoman named Rebecca—wrote once about the Reaper Kings. No specific date, just a year—1857. She’d been in London, and was planning a move to Paris, followed by a journey to Africa. Ready to explore all those remote jungles where no white man could go.
She mentioned the Reaper Kings at the end, and only in passing.
We are, by necessity, lonely women, adrift, as it were, in shadows and violence. So it is no surprise, I suppose, that I wish to explore the dark continent that so many speak of with both superiority and fear. I do not fear, for I am protected; I do not feel superior, for I know the cut of being judged. We are all human, in all the ways that matter—but one would not know that for all the ways we become blind to each other, for the smallest trivialities.
