Azmos takes the knife. He swallows uncomfortably. “Do you really require a sacrifice when we are bonded by blood?” Azmos asks.
“Stop stalling,” she says. Her eyes are hungry, predatory. She licks her lips. I shiver. Blood thrums in my ears like distant drums banging without a rhythm. I put my arms at my sides, facing Azmos, my dagger on the side opposite of Vessa. I unsnap the sheath. Then I pull my sweater up slightly and curl my fingers around the hilt.
“Go on,” I say. The woman in scrubs’ gun has gone slack as she waits to see what will happen, but there’s still a gun trained on Gabriel.
Azmos gestures me forward with a flick of his fingers. I step toward him. He puts the tip of the blade beneath my chin, his eyes urging me to explain or act quickly. My fingers hold the dagger so tightly my hand might cramp.
Someone swears. It’s one of the swordsmen. At first I think he saw my dagger and that I’m dead. Plan foiled. Vessa will reach out and break my neck. But then I catch sight of Xanan. He walks in through the back room and drops the first swordsman to the ground before they can react.
“Moritas,” Vessa whispers in disbelief. “No, it’s not possible. They haven’t found you in this realm. How could they find me?”
“They did find me, Vessa,” Azmos says. “And I struck a bargain with this one.”
“You brought a Moritas here!” Vessa’s eyes widen as understanding dawns on her. “You’re working for them? Are you truly such a suicidal fool?”
“He’s not with them. He’s a friend of mine.”
Vessa spits. “Impossible. The Moritas live to destroy us. We are destined to be enemies. You’ve doomed us both.” She points at Xanan. “Stop him!” she orders. Both guns swing toward Xanan, who grabs the other guy with the sword and drops his body to the ground.
The woman in pink scrubs makes a strangled scream and fires her gun at Xanan’s torso. The bullet smacks him in the chest and he doesn’t even flinch. The other gunman shoots Gabriel in the arm before turning his gun toward Xanan. Gabriel grabs his arm with a groan of pain and collapses to his knees. In the chaos, I ease my dagger out of the sheath and hold it tightly at my side, hopefully unnoticed. The gunman is a terrible shot and misses Xanan except for once, when he hits him in the leg. It doesn’t slow Xanan down. Thankfully, Vessa isn’t that kind of demon, or she’d be near impossible to kill.
Vessa reaches out for Azmos, who dodges her fingers and steps backward, the machete swiping the air but missing her. I step in front of him. A brief moment of confusion crosses Vessa’s face and she opens her mouth, probably to ask what a mortal like me hopes to do. I don’t give her the opportunity. I take the smallest of shaking breaths, feeling tears hot in my eyes. This might very well kill Cam, too. But she has to be stopped.
I thrust the dagger into her chest. The blade scrapes against her bones as it sinks through her flesh. My palm is too slick with sweat and I lose my grip on it as she falls backward and then rocks forward, hitting the ground on her knees. She tries to speak but coughs and blood spatters from her lips. I was aiming for her heart, assuming it’s the same place as a human’s would be. I may have missed but I clearly punctured something vital.
The woman in scrubs drops her gun and throws up her hands. “I surrender!” she says.
Xanan grabs her arm and she falls dead to the floor with a thud.
Burly stares down at his boss in disbelief. He growls and turns toward me. Azmos holds up the machete and keeps him at bay until Xanan can bound across the room and grab him, and then he, too, drops to the ground with a thud.
Acid coats my tongue. The room smells like copper and sweat. My heart is still a jackhammer against my ribs.
Vessa sputters but pays no attention to her fallen guards. Her blue lizard eyes are glassy. But she’s still alive. She claws at Azmos’ jacket weakly as if scrambling for purchase. He stares down at her like he’s never seen anything so vile, but there’s hurt in his expression, too. Grief.
My boot slides on the slick marble floor and I nearly smack into the last gunman, who’s standing there, baffled and unsure as Xanan comes toward him. He frowns slightly, like I bumped into him on the sidewalk and he’s mildly annoyed. He’s in shock, I decide. I will be, too, soon enough. But right now, I only care about one thing.
I run back to Cam, my boots slipping on the bloody marble.
I feel for his pulse like we learned how to do in gym class last year. It’s faint but it’s there. His chest moves and up down almost imperceptibly. But he won’t wake up when I shake him or call his name. Tears run hot down my cheeks and splash onto his green shirt.
He’s alive for the moment, but only just.
Gabriel gets to his feet, cradling his wounded arm. He manages to get his sword back in his hilt and stumble to Azmos. Gabriel gestures to the machete in Az’s hand and says something in soft tones. Azmos stares at it like it’s a snake. Vessa is at his feet, the dagger sticking through her heart. She keeps trying to talk but all that comes out are gargling noises. Blood drips from her mouth and dribbles over her chest, a dark stain on the black corset.
Azmos raises the machete.
“No!” I call. They both look at me and then down at Cam. “He’s still alive. Can’t we…” I shake my head, trying to think. There has to be something. If all the magic in the world can’t save someone from this fate, what good is it? “We can trap her again, keep her alive so that Cam lives and—”
“Nicolette,” Azmos says. He sounds impossibly sad, worn down to his last nerve. “There is no way to save one who’s already dead. Not in the way you want.”
I stare at him. His words are like a riddle I can’t solve. And then he glances over at Xanan, a tall, pale vessel of death. Something passes between them, an unspoken argument. Xanan sighs and the air puffs out in front of him, a cloud of ice.
Xanan steps forward and bends down beside me. I cling to Cam and shake my head. Why bother to kill him now when he’ll die as soon as Vessa does? But Xanan doesn’t reach for Cam. He reaches for me. His cold hand settles on the back of my neck, ice on my spine.
“I cannot give him his life back,” Xanan says. “But I can offer him a different one. Moritas are, as I told you, wardens of death. We ferry souls to the other side. We keep the balance between realms. Cameron’s spirit belongs to the Spirit Realm now. But he can keep it if he becomes like me.”
“Do it,” I say. I don’t hesitate.
Xanan licks his lip ring and drops his hand. “You must understand. He will be like me. He won’t get his life back. He will only get a new existence, burdened with the duties of a Moritas.”
“But he’ll get to stay in this world. He won’t be dead.”
Xanan lets out a breath. It’s like an icy wind brushing against my cheeks. “Yes. But he won’t be able to go home. His human life will be over.”
I hesitate. Then I let out a breath. My insides feel as frozen as this room. But I look at Cam’s face, still in unconsciousness. I wish he was awake to make this choice. But then I picture him in a coffin. I picture his funeral. I can’t let him go, not like this. Any life is better than none. “Okay. Do it.”
I kiss Cam lightly on the forehead. His skin is hot, almost feverish. “I’m sorry,” I whisper to him. Because I am. I’ve never been sorrier for anything because I killed him and only a demon can bring him back. Xanan gently pushes me aside. I get up and stand with Azmos, who’s still holding the sword, keeping one eye on Vessa. She sputters and coughs. Gabriel puts his arm over my shoulders.
Xanan moves his hands over Cam’s body. He chants words in a language I don’t recognize. And then he bends over him and presses his lips to Cam’s. It’s not a kiss, not really, but it’s too intimate and I look away until there’s shuffling, some indication that the process is over.
Cam’s eyes flutter open. His skin has gone bone white. He sits up and adjusts his glasses, squinting. “What happened?” he asks. Vessa moans. He sits up and stares over at her. Then up at Xanan and back to me. “What are
you doing?” he asks. He reaches up to the top of his head where the butt of the gun clocked him and rubs it. The temperature in the room drops and I shiver. He pulls off his glasses and rubs his eyes. He puts them back on and frowns, and then pushes them up into his hair. “What did you do to me?” His tone turns frantic. He looks to all of us for an answer, from Azmos to the dying Vessa, and back to me. My lips part but I can’t form the words. I saved you, I think. We saved you.
“You are no longer tied to Vessa,” Xanan says. He claps Cam on the shoulders. Relief washes over his face until Xanan keeps going: “But you are no longer human.”
If possible, Cam goes even more pale. He looks sick and swallows hard. “I don’t understand.”
Xanan reaches down and helps Cam to his feet. “You’re a warden of the Spirit Realm now.”
“I’m what?” Cam demands.
“You’re alive,” I say, even though technically, that is questionable. “It was the only way.”
“But I’m a… demon?” The word is vile in his mouth. Ice moves down my throat. Acid tries to push past it. Cam hates demons. But he’s not dead. Surely that’s better. But then I remember when I asked him if he’d ever take Azmos’ deal and he said it would depend on what he’d lose. Invisible spiders crawl over my skin.
“You are what I am, Cameron,” Xanan says. This does nothing to comfort him. “Demon is just a word.”
I shiver and Gabriel shudders beside me. He’s gone a little pale, too, and he’s cradling his injured arm. He’s not like Xanan. He needs medical attention.
Cam shakes. Tears run down his cheeks but freeze mid-way and dry on his face. He rubs them away. His green eyes blaze and find mine. I force myself to face him and not to look away. “How could you let them do this to me?” he demands.
My jaw slackens. Because I didn’t just let them. I demanded it. “It was this or let you die.” I will him to understand.
He looks at his hands, caked with the ice of his tears. He stares back at me. “Then you should have let me die.”
He turns and storms out of the house. Xanan follows him without a word.
I swallow the lump in my throat. My body is still shaking.
Vessa garbles, a sickening, wet noise. She’s laughing, I realize, or trying to.
I reach for the machete in Azmos’ hand. He relinquishes it. I stand over her. I want to say something to impress upon her the damage she’s wrought. To make her understand how she wronged Mrs. Crane and Rayna, and how she murdered Cam and Anna, and countless others. How even those she saved from premature death were hurt by being forced to follow her orders.
But instead, I tighten my grip on the machete’s hilt and swing. The blade hits her throat. Blood bubbles up out of her mouth and spurts from the wound in her neck. It splashes over my coat and face. Azmos takes the hilt from my hands and lifts the weapon again. Vessa’s eyes are wide and bloodshot. She already looks dead when he chops off her head.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
None of us speak as we drag the bodies of her guards inside the front room and set the house on fire. We don’t talk as we make our way back to Seattle. At the ferry terminal, we hear rumors of a ferry in quarantine heading toward the dock. My phone has been out of battery for hours so I can’t check but later, when I get home, I’ll learn how a ferry was stopped and the CDC was called after fifteen passengers—Vessa’s guards, poised to take it over before it hit Bainbridge—suddenly dropped dead without warning. They will never solve that mystery. I can only hope they weren’t able to add anyone new to their ranks right before they all died.
Cam stands outside in the freezing cold of the second ferry deck, even as sleet starts to fall. Xanan stays with him. I make one attempt to bring him hot chocolate and speak to him, but the way he looks at me freezes my heart. His expression is full of loathing. If I ever thought he was mad at me before, this is a hundred times worse. This isn’t even anger. It’s sheer, unbridled hatred.
I spend the rest of the boat trip with Gabriel, who’s discarded his bloody trench coat. I’d helped him wrap his arm in bandages we found in the house’s bathroom and he also stole a leather jacket from the house before we set it on fire. We have no idea whose house it was, but it had to belong to one of Vessa’s guard’s. I’m sure that house fire will be yet another unsolved mystery. Maybe they’ll chalk it all up to a cult like with Heather Bancroft.
Azmos, Xanan, and Cam disappear somewhere once we reach Seattle. I wonder what the state of the warehouse is and if demons have property insurance. Gabriel, injured and tired though he is, insists on walking me home. I invite him up when we reach my building—I don’t want to be alone—but he shakes his head.
“I’m going to Myron’s. He and I need to talk. And I need to get this taken care of.” He holds up his injured arm. “I’ll be in touch. You take care, okay?”
I nod, trying to hold back the tears that threaten. There’s nothing left to take care of. I’ve broken everything.
I hold the tears back until I get into the apartment and shut the door. Then I collapse in the hallway and sob. Eventually, I get into the shower. I put on clean clothes. I open a can of Coke. I plug in my phone.
There are too many messages. Missed calls from my Dad, and from Sarah Walters, Cam’s mom. My heart sinks at the sight of her name. I text Dad saying my phone died but it’s back to life again, and that I’m sorry for making him worry.
He calls immediately. He yells at me because he’s been terrified. He’s called the house and gotten no answer. I apologize over and over, and then burst into tears again when he asks if I know where Cam is.
Dead, I think. Technically speaking.
“No,” I say. It’s true, after all. “I haven’t seen him since school yesterday.” Okay, that part isn’t true but what can I say? I can’t tell him the truth.
“Let Sarah know if you hear anything, okay? She’s panicking. I’m about to board my plane now.” He got an early flight back when Sarah called and he couldn’t get a hold of me. They had assumed we’d run off somewhere together or were holed up in my apartment, although Sarah apparently came and banged on the door last night. I lied and said I was at a friend’s house. When he asked who, I say Miranda because her name is the first one that comes to mind and he can check with Mel’s mom, making it a bad lie.
Now that Dad knows I’m okay but Cam is still missing, Sarah is going to be even more freaked out. But she would be either way, I tell myself. If he’d really died for good, he’d still be missing and gone.
She will never know it, but he’s better off this way.
If I had to pick between that and death, I’d choose the same as I chose for him. But I am not like Cam. We’ve always been opposites and maybe this is one more area where we differ. The full impact of it doesn’t hit me until I hear Sarah crying when she calls later that afternoon.
“I’m sure he’ll turn up,” I say to her. The words try to strangle me on their way out. It might be the worst lie I’ve ever told.
A week passes. Dad comes home and is determined to never leave again. I have to talk to the police. They find Cam’s cellphone, broken and shattered, in Pioneer Square. My last text messages to him from Wednesday night and Thursday morning are on his cell records but they only ask where he is, something a concerned girlfriend would text. I tell them he was going to come over and never did, so I went to a friend’s. Dad hires me a lawyer and I go home after refusing to give them my friend’s last name. “I don’t want to drag her into anything,” I lie.
I lie to everyone.
Melissa corners me after Spanish on Friday. “Are you okay?” she asks.
“What do you think?” I snap.
She bristles, smoothing her black pleated skirt. She’s dressed less Mad Hatter Tea Party and more like Goth Girl Goes to Business School. She speaks softly, not meeting my eyes. “I think that if you know anything about Cam, you have to tell them,” she says. By them, she means the police and our parents, everyone.
“I don’t know
anything.”
But I can see on her face that she knows I’m lying. After that, she mostly stops talking to me.
I tell so many lies. But at least they’re easy to keep straight.
The alternative is unthinkable. The alternative is telling the truth and being locked up in a looney bin or arrested as some kind of accomplice to his disappearance. The truth has never been my friend but now it’s actively my enemy.
I don’t see Azmos. I don’t try to find him or Xanan or Cam. And none of them contact me.
I retreat to my room every day after school. Because of the days I missed, I have Saturday detention and one more absence—excused or not—will be expulsion. So I drag myself from class to class like a zombie and do just enough to avoid getting kicked out. Dad picks me up and drives me to school. He doesn’t let me out of his sight but I don’t care. I have nowhere to go. Dad tries to get me to talk. He hugs me, buys my favorite ice cream. Tries to coax me out with Thai food and violent video games.
But it doesn’t work.
Cam isn’t the only one who’s been transformed forever. Cam isn’t the only one who’s gone cold.
EPILOGUE
Two and a Half Months Later
It’s Friday and I’m at the kitchen table doing homework, largely because tomorrow is my birthday (March 1) and I want to spend it on the sofa, rather than stressing over an essay. A special effects reality show plays on the television in the living room, visible but far enough away to be only a mild distraction. Not that it takes much. I’m supposed to write two thousand words about Hamlet and so far I don’t even have a thesis statement.
In the Demon's Company (Demon's Assistant Book 2) Page 19
