by Izzy Shows
My temper threatened to take hold of me, but I pushed it down. There was something about this being, this creature with no name for their species, that pushed my buttons in a way no one else could.
“I will do anything except bring her in,” I said. “It’s too dangerous. My brothers would destroy her the moment she set foot in Hell. I would not risk her life like that, and that is also why I will not interact with her ever again. Just being around her could rouse my brothers’ interest again, and I have only just managed to divert them from her.”
Mana nodded, with something akin to approval in their eyes. “Perhaps you possess a brain somewhere in there, though I must admit I am surprised by that.”
If they had been the type to laugh, I would have expected it then, but that was not their style.
“Very well. I will give you the spell you so desperately need.”
Relief washed through me. “Thank you. Thank you so much. I—”
“You may want to wait to thank me, young one,” they said, and again I saw humor in their eyes.
“What? Why?” I frowned.
“Because I do not think you can accomplish it. I will confirm for you that the words you used are accurate, and I will explain how to conduct the spell, for it is possible that you did not replicate that part properly—but there is something else, an element of the spell, that you are missing and are incapable of acquiring.”
“There is nothing I cannot acquire if I wish it,” I said, laughing. “Name it, and I will have it by the morrow.”
But there was a niggling doubt at the back of my mind. Blair had not had a physical element with her when she performed the spell on Lilith.
Amusement tinged their features. “Such arrogance, but not a surprise in one so young. It is empathy that you require.”
Fuck.
“And you begin to understand why the spell is beyond you. Your soul was not built for such a thing, flawed as your creator’s vision was. You will not be able to accomplish the spell. You will have to find a human who has the ability to do it for you.” They shrugged. “Anyone but Blair will do, I should think.”
I growled. “You know as well as I, that is not the case. Druxglieqfredhelic warned us about the spell, about the power it required. Blair thought he was wrong, that he was misinformed, because she thought that if one as untrained as she was, it must have been simpler than he thought. But you know the power she contains. There will not be a Wizard on Earth capable of performing that spell without it consuming their soul.”
“Then you will not accomplish your mission after all. It is all the same to us. Kill your soldiers instead. That will end the taint in them as well as any spell might.”
But I couldn’t do that. I had to cure them so I could cure Cassiel.
There was no hope.
Twenty-Two
What I lacked in empathy, I made up for with determination. Mana had taught me as much of the spell as they could, everything aside from the empathy element they said was crucial for the spell to work.
I had, in fact, gotten the words right. That was a small balm for my previously bruised pride, but I had also gotten some of the actual actions of the spell wrong. I hadn’t been seeking out the taint properly. It was much more complicated than I had originally thought. I wasn’t supposed to grasp it and take it from her; rather, I had to call it from her soul and into my own.
Thankfully, Mana had taught me the same purging spell that Blair had used, so I could remove the taint from myself before it could fully latch on inside of me. I had watched as Blair did that to herself, and it had been painful enough to watch her go through it without being able to assist her in any way.
However, the idea of going through that pain myself…well, that was fine by me. I knew no pain could compare to that which I carried inside of me, a knife constantly carving at my insides and leaving me hollow.
The trick was going to be actually getting it to work. I knew the mechanics of it now, but I knew deep inside that it was likely I couldn’t do this.
There was no teaching a demon, even a Fallen, the concept of empathy.
It was too foreign to us, too separate from our own natures, that “impossible” didn’t even begin to describe the difficulty of the situation.
But I was going to try this anyway. I didn’t have any other recourse. I doubted I could find a Wizard who had the power necessary and was willing to work with me. The Chancellor of the Order would likely have the raw power necessary, as well as the wisdom and learning required to withstand the spell and not allow it to consume him.
There was no way I could convince that man to work with me, though. As twisted as he was, he still had his own version of a moral code, and I didn’t fit into it.
It was either go find Blair, or do it myself, and I wasn’t willing to do the former.
I wasted no time in returning to Hell once Mana was finished with me, not wanting to overstay my welcome. To their credit, they had not kicked me out, and had even seemed to warm up to me after some time, but I knew better than to push them too far.
There would be no friendship between the two of us. There never had been, long before Blair, and there wouldn’t be now that she was gone.
Now, I stalked the halls of the Ruin, headed straight to the cells where the seven were quarantined. I would start with Jeziah again, because I was certain that a nephilim would be easier to cure than a cambion. They were stronger, after all. They would be better built to resist the taint inside of them.
Which was a terrifying thought, considering how far gone Jeziah had been. I hadn’t visited the six tainted cambions yet, but I shuddered to think how far gone the lot of them would be when I found them.
That was neither here nor there, though. I would cure Jeziah, and then it would only be a matter of scaling up to cure the cambions as well.
I said nothing to the guard when I reached her cell, for I did not have to. He opened the door without a word and shut it after I stepped inside.
“Miss me?” I asked with a pleasant smile on my face, doing my best to avoid the anxiety within me.
This had to work. Everything was riding on my ability to get this to work. If I couldn’t do this…
No, I wasn’t going to think about that, especially not here, not now. It was going to be dangerous, being so close to a tainted soul, especially if I was planning on pulling its taint into me. I could not have any weakness inside of me, otherwise it might be able to latch on to me.
And a tainted Fallen would be much worse than anything else you could imagine.
There was a small comfort, though, in that I would not be pulling the entire taint into myself in one session. It had to be done a small piece at a time, so as not to destroy the soul that contained it, just as Blair had done with Lilith. She had been as patient as possible, though admittedly she had rushed at times.
I was still amazed that Lilith didn’t hold that against her to this day, but rather was grateful that she had been saved at all. It spoke volumes about the hold the taint had over its host that she would be grateful for the pain Blair had visited upon the succubus.
“I did not expect you to return so quickly.” Jeziah looked up at me from where she was curled up on the ground, suspicion in her eyes.
Ah, so I had surprised the parasite inside of her. That was good.
“I have a feeling that is not the only thing you did not expect that will happen today,” I said, and this time the smile on my face was genuine. “I am going to cure you, Jeziah. Just as I promised you.”
A flicker of longing crossed through her eyes, and then she transformed in front of me from the broken woman into a raving creature taken by madness. She snarled at me, lunging forward and straining against her chains, clearly attempting to get to me and stop me from what I was going to do.
That was the parasite, then. It was afraid.
That only gave me hope.
I crouched on the ground just out of her reach and did my best to meet her eyes, tho
ugh she kept moving about.
“You will never do this. You will lose everything that you had ever hoped for. After we take this kingdom from you, we will take the woman,” she snarled, but her voice was not her own. It was as if a thousand voices were speaking at once, all from her throat.
I arched an eyebrow. “Impressive trick, but do sit still, and this will all be over soon.”
I would not allow it to move me. Not now that I had a plan in place.
Especially when I didn’t wholly believe in that plan. It couldn’t know about my doubts, or it would take hold of them, and that would almost certainly end with my destruction.
“Venite ad me portavit te salvari,” I murmured, keeping my voice low and soft as I extended my hand. I did not bring my energy to my hand as I had before, when I had searched inside of her.
Instead, I pulled. I called to her soul, urging it to reach out to mine, and visualized the darkness detaching from her soul in small flakes to fly across the space and into me.
There was a small flicker in the air between us, the only indication that anything had happened, and then nothing.
I ground my teeth together, deciding to take that flicker as encouragement. It was more than had happened the last time I had been here. I would get this to work. I had to.
Again, I called to her soul, to the taint within it, sending across the way thoughts of temptation and weakness, of power and greatness that could be held within my body rather than the weak one it currently called home. I tempted it with the idea of what it could have if it came to me.
Another flicker, but still, nothing came from her.
But that wasn’t the only indication that there was something going on here that hadn’t happened before. She was descending further and further into madness, quite literally foaming at the mouth. Her eyes had gone full red, no pupil to be seen, and she raked her nails against the air, trying to get at me.
With every word I spoke, she became more frenzied, while last time she had been perfectly calm, as if she had known then that it wouldn’t work, and now she recognized that something else was going on. That I was going to succeed.
That bolstered me, gave me hope that I was doing something right, that I was getting somewhere.
If the parasite inside of her feared I was going to succeed, then perhaps I would.
I just had to figure out what was causing that little flicker, and how to get the taint to come all the way across.
Empathy, Malphas. You have to have empathy, and that’s where you’re going to fail.
I gritted my teeth, defiance flooding my body as the thought crossed my mind. No, I refused to fail. I was going to do this. I was going to save my people.
If empathy was what it took, then damn everything. I was going to give it my best shot.
Closing my eyes, I inhaled deeply and forced my mind to calm so I could concentrate.
This woman is hidden somewhere inside of herself. Her soul is infected with an unnatural parasite that should never have been born. She must be in indescribable pain, hurting more than any victim we’ve ever tortured, with no hope. Open yourself.
To my great surprise, I felt pain shuddering through me, like it wasn’t entirely certain it should be there but it had no choice. Pain, but not my own. Pain, and a deep sadness for the woman across from me, for the life she’d had to live since the infection had set in.
I wanted to help her, not just so I could save Cassiel, but because she deserved a life free of that kind of pain, and I was the one who needed to give her that life.
And then I felt something strike my very soul. My eyes flew open as a small sound of pain escaped my lips, and I watched in a mixture of curiosity and disgust as black ichor flowed from her chest to mine.
It was working. The taint was moving from her to me.
It was bringing her a considerable amount of pain, though. She was sobbing in an entirely different way now, barely managing to get out the words to beg me to stop.
“Please…” she gasped, her features twisted, pain etched into every line on her face.
With my jaw set in a grim line, I continued on for another minute, drawing as much into me as I dared, and then allowed it to stop. She sagged back against the wall, tears streaming down her face as sobs wracked her body.
“How do you feel, Jeziah?”
She shot a look of hatred at me but said nothing.
I could understand that. Lilith had described the pain of the cure as nothing like anything she had ever felt before, and had told me that in the beginning, she had wanted nothing more than to kill Blair—except maybe for Blair to kill her so it would all be over.
Jeziah would hate me, but hopefully one day she would see that this had been the only way to save her life.
I stood, my limbs stiff, and swayed on my feet. I could feel the taint within me, swirling about my soul, and knew that I needed to purge it soon.
But that wasn’t what concerned me at the moment.
What worried me more than anything else was what the success of the spell meant.
Empathy. I had empathy. Feelings.
How could this have happened? When had it happened?
She did this to you.
Hysterical laughter bubbled up and out of my throat as understanding dawned on me. It was an infection I had feared just the other day, an infection of the taint causing me to feel, but Lilith had ruled that out.
I’d been wrong.
It was an infection, but not the taint.
That damned woman. Blair had infected me. With feelings.
Twenty-Three
The entire trip out of Hell and to my apartment, I didn’t allow the full ramifications of that realization to hit me, to really sink in. I couldn’t, otherwise I was quite certain I would lose my mind.
But as soon as I walked into my apartment and saw Lilith lounging on the couch with a book on her lap, it was as if the door I’d so carefully locked inside my mind swung open. As if it recognized that this was as safe a place as any to completely lose it.
You have feelings for that woman. Human feelings, the depth of which will break you into a thousand pieces.
And it was as if that knowledge was really enabling me to feel everything as I never had before—as if the denial I’d been living with had allowed me to dull the pain.
Now, it came at me anew, like a thousand daggers instead of just one, stabbing into me with a surgical precision and decimating every inch of my insides. My heart ached as if it had been torn from my chest and stomped on, and the cloud of rage in my mind was almost impossible to think through.
Rage that I hadn’t allowed myself to examine before, because it had been directed at myself. Rage that I had allowed myself to turn away from Blair, rather than fight for her. Rage that I had allowed my brothers to frighten me away from the woman I cared for—and that was the crux of it. I cared about her.
My lips twisted into a snarl as denial rose quickly within me.
No, I couldn’t care about her. That wasn’t my way. That was beyond the capability of a Fallen.
But you do. She’s affected you. The spell is proof enough of that.
“Malphas?” Lilith’s voice shocked me out of my thoughts and back to reality. I turned towards her and saw her looking at me with a mixture of confusion and concern on her face. “What’s wrong?”
Oh, God, I was going to have to say it aloud. That was going to make it all the more real, and I didn’t know if I could handle that.
I started towards her, then turned and paced back to the other end of the room. But there was nowhere to go, no escape to be had, so I walked back to the couch and stood there, trying to figure out what to say.
“You’re starting to scare me,” she said, closing her book and shifting on the couch so she was now sitting up straight. “What’s going on?”
“I…” But I couldn’t figure out what to say. I dragged a hand through my hair and grimaced, trying to find the words. “It’s not possible, so really, i
t’s not worth talking about.”
“Malphas, I’ve never seen you like this before! It’s as if…” She frowned, allowing her voice to trail off.
As if my feelings are magnified to a level that they’re actually visible?
The thought mocked me, but there was nothing I could do or say to refute it. Mana couldn’t be wrong; they had never been wrong in the entire time we’d been aware of them in the universe.
I dearly wanted to believe that they were capable of ineptitude, that they had gotten this one thing wrong, but I knew in my heart that they had spoken the truth. I knew it in the way my insides felt like they were dying, and all I wanted to do was storm out of this apartment and return to London, to take hold of that woman and never let go.
I fisted my hands at my sides to keep them from shaking, to hold myself in check, but I knew it was a tenuous hold at best.
“There is reason to believe…that I may have…developed the capability to… Well. To feel,” I muttered, unwilling to look at her.
She was silent for a moment before a loud peal of laughter rippled out of her, followed by another and another. I jerked my head up to gape at her and saw that she was doubled over, clutching her stomach as she laughed with carefree abandon.
“This isn’t funny,” I growled, wanting to insist that it wasn’t true, but the immediate surge of anger at her reaction told me I didn’t have a leg to stand on.
“Oh, yes, it is!” She gasped the words out, sitting up and stifling another giggle with her hand. “This is too hilarious. I can’t… Oh, my…yes!”
I glared at her, wanting to say something that would shut her up, but I couldn’t think of anything. Everything I had to say would only prove her point. If I really didn’t care, if I really didn’t feel, then her laughter wouldn’t affect me.
That thought made everything that had happened of late come into crystal clarity. Why I had reacted to my brothers in such a vehement fashion, why Cassiel’s infection had upset me, why I couldn’t seem to get Blair out of my mind.
None of it should have happened, but it all had because of her. And there was no way out of it that I could see.
