I blanch. That seems pretty poisonous to me—and to think I came this close to trying to swim in it. There’s no way I wouldn’t have accidentally swallowed some of the water, and then…
I would’ve really been stuck here.
If you sell your soul to a demon, they don’t actually collect on the contract until you die in Strata. Then, instead of heading to the Blessed Isles or wherever you think good people go when they die, your soul winds up here.Righthere, it turns out.
“So the people in the water,” I say, my throat dry, “they’re all humans who made deals with demons?”
A sneer forms on his features, and I’m surprised I’ve not seen that expression on his face before. I kind of expected it before now. It makes sense for a demon lord to be disdainful.
“I’m constantly amazed by how little humans bother to know about what those deals entail. It’s as if you’re either all afraid you’ll be too tempted if you actually have the facts or—” The sneer deepens as he shakes his head. “Or you’re afraid you’ll back out if you know the ugly truth. But there are no excuses for willful ignorance.”
He steps forward, putting himself between me and the water’s edge. I wait, finding myself as still as if he’d taken control of my body again.
“When a person signs the contract and drinks from the waters of the lake, they become linked to this realm. Then, when they die, they leave their human body in Strata, and their soul finds its way to this lake. The transformation process that follows can take a year or two—sometimes longer. Eventually, those souls are reborn into new bodies. Demonic ones.”
I blink at him, then look out at the water. It’s the sort of idea I’ve heard before—that your terrible punishment in Infernum might involve becoming a monster yourself—but like so much with this realm, I’d never really thought about how that would play out. It’s more…peaceful than I envisioned, the gently lapping water nothing like the fiery pits some tales conjure up.
“So all demons were once human?” I ask quietly.
“No,” he says abruptly. “Most are conceived and birthed here to demon parents, but demons don’t have the same gift for fertility humans do.” That sneer is back again. “The Morphos is how Infernum keeps its population up. Mireborn, we call them—the new demons who are born from the waters.”
The Mire, that’s what Vizmodeus called Strata. I suppose that’s all the human realm is to them. A swamp filled with beings who are beneath them. And yet we’re not so inferior that they won’t happily trick us into sharing their existence.
The idea of it taps into something raw and sensitive inside of me, turning quickly to anger.
“That’s why you call them soul snares,” I say, not caring about the hardness in my voice. “The demons who go to Strata to make the deals. Because they lure in desperate, vulnerable people and then trap them.”
“And you’re in charge of it all,”I add in my mind, making sure he hears me.
“Yes,”he replies, tilting his beautiful face to meet my gaze. Because heisbeautiful, there’s no denying that. It’s one of the fucked-up facts of life—cruelty rarely stains people’s outsides like it does their insides, even when it comes to demons. It means that when he smiles at me it’s a cold, sharp thing that nonetheless makes my breath catch.
“The irony doesn’t escape me,”he says, drawing the words out so they stroke across my mind.
I have no fucking idea what he means by that, and before I can ask, a noise comes from across the lake, drawing my attention. It’s a horn blowing from one of the boats, a low, mournful note that bounces against the foot of the mountains and echoes back to us where we stand on the shore.
Syrus glances up, apparently considering the fires burning in the sky. “I thought the ourani were especially bright today. It seems we’ll have a rising after all.”
“Who’s on those boats?” I ask, my anger cooled by the flutter of nervousness in my stomach.
“The lake keepers. They watch over the rebirthing souls. Look.”
I do, because he seems genuinely interested in showing me what’s going to happen. It’s at least a change from the intense boredom he radiated before. The boats are splitting up now, one heading toward the eastern side of the lake, the other toward us.
Ripples undulate from where its bow breaks the water, but there’s more movement between it and where we’re standing. About ten yards from the shore, the lake’s surface begins to swirl in increasingly frantic eddies. Tentacles of shadow rise up from the depths like an ink-drenched squid, churning up the surface until it froths and foams. Then out of that submerged chaos come distinct forms, moving closer to the shore until their heads breach the surface.
Four demons rise from the lake, water running in rivulets down their faces and bare torsos. The one in front, a male with skin the color of coal and horns curling from his forehead, tilts his head back to gasp. He climbs out of the water, falling to his knees on the wet sand as he breathes in deep lungfuls of air.
Syrus moves toward him, bending to place a hand on the demon’s shoulder.
“Welcome to Infernum,” he murmurs, just loud enough that I catch it.
The demon looks up at him. His eyes are wide, disoriented, but he nods. By now the boat has reached the shallows, and several demons dressed inloose clothes of beige linen disembark, slipping over the gunwales to land in the water with a splash. They wear satchels at their side and wade over to join us as well as the other risen demons who are now just reaching the shore.
“Yealey,” Syrus calls to one of the lake keepers, holding out a hand. The keeper pulls something from his satchel and passes it to the Lord of Malice, who shakes out what appears to be a robe, draping it over the horned demon’s shoulders and helping him to his feet. The other keepers are doing the same to the remaining demons, covering their nakedness and murmuring words of assurance to them.
“The keepers will take care of you now,” Syrus says to the horned demon, guiding him gently toward Yealey, who addresses the new demon in low, reassuring tones.
I look away. The new demons seem so vulnerable that I feel like I’m witnessing something intimate. I feel a presence beside me and know it’shimwithout looking up. I focus instead on the hellcat who has retreated to the foot of the mountain and is now currently cleaning herself in that prim way only felines can.
