Leah
“Dead?”I ask, lifting the match higher to look around me with a stab of apprehension.“Where’s the body?”
“There isn’t one,”Syrus replies.“There’s been a smiting here. Hence the smell.”
“You know you being inside my head doesn’t magically transfer all your knowledge to me, right?”I say.“What the hell is a smiting?”
There’s a spiky sensation beneath my skin and a sound like grinding teeth. Is he…bristling?“Not that I expect you to care, but we prefer it if you don’t use that word.”
“I’m repeating what you called it!”I say, bewildered.
“Sweet darkness. Not ‘smiting,’ I mean…‘hell.’ It’s the equivalent of calling Strata ‘the Mire.’”
“Which Vizmodeus does all the time,”I point out.
“Yes,”he says, and I can sense his red-brown eyes flaring.“But I don’t.”
“Hey—”I protest as his grip suddenly seizes my hand and shakes my wrist until the match goes out. I realize the flame had burned low enough that it was close to scorching my fingers. “Oh,”is all I say, blinking at the blackened tip for a few seconds.
He says nothing, but there’s a definitesmugnessto the way he lurks in my mind.
“All right,”I say, clamping down on my irritation.“Please could you explain what a smiting is?”
A ripple of approval runs through him, making my skin tingle.
“It’s a specific kind of demon death. One brought on by black magic. It takes a demon’s power and burns them from the inside out with it, until all that’s left is…”
“That,”I finish, staring down at the mark.“Can you tell how old this mark is?”
“It depends on the power of the demon killed. But they do fade eventually—it takes a year at most.”
“Okay, so do you think the ephilium tortured a demon to find a way to get past Infernum’s wards and then killed them?”
“It’s possible,”Syrus says, not sounding very convinced.“But it would be helpful to find out who has access to this building.”
I rise from my crouch and head to the front door. The lock twists open on this side, and I cautiously ease it open, not wanting to stride right out into a trap. I have to squint for a moment as my eyes adjust to the brightness, peering out onto the street beyond.
The building is located in a small side street in what used to be a bustling craftsman’s hub, from the looks of it. Many of its residents seem to have moved on, probably thanks to the bigger factories opening up in Pax’s main industrial quarter. The whole street is lined with similar workshops, mostly boarded up.
I step out into the sunshine, watching carts wheeling past the end of the street and people bustling around. My heart lurches a little. After just a week, it’s startling to be so close to people freely going about their day. Folk who are living their lives, not shackled by bonds they didn’t choose, chaining them to dangerous, demonic strangers.
While I’m staring at those people in the distance, Syrus’s presence slips deeper into my body, stretching out and up toward the surface of my skin. I expect Syrus to offer some snide remark about us getting on with the job, but he just sits there, and suddenly I feel too full, swollen and choked with a deep longing I don’t quite understand.
Neither of us says anything for a long moment. Eventually, Syrus brushes along the inside of my head to get my attention, the sensation like a finger running gently across my consciousness.
“The location seems deliberately nondescript,”he murmurs.“Whoever was here didn’t want their use of this building to lead back to them. What they obviously didn’t count on was the trail they left.”
“The trail?”I ask.
“Yes, the sulfur: it’s out here too.”
Now he mentions it, there is a faint wisp of it in the air, lingering beneath the other city smells. Syrus’s presence shifts, seeming intrigued by the prospect. But I’m thinking about what he said before—how humans can’t normally smell the sulfur from a smiting. Probably the only reason I can is because I’m bound tohim.
The possession is changing me. The idea sets my gut twisting.
“Stop fretting and follow that smell,”Syrus orders, giving the back of my legs a nudge to set them into motion.
I stumble forward, inhaling to catch the direction of the scent on the street.
