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Veraxia looks like she’s about to throw herself through the window just to escape the awkwardness. “My Lady, I am so sorry. He is a liability. He is clearly unstable. I will take him back to the Oubliette immediately and have his tongue removed to prevent further—”
Satan holds up a hand to shut her up, and exhales hard, the room warming back up from ‘absolute zero’ to ‘pleasant summer evening in a volcano.’
“Quiet, Veraxia.”
“But—”
“I said quiet. This is exactly what I need. Someone who sounds like them. Someone who can blend in without setting off every holy alarm from the Vatican to the Bible Belt. I’m offering you a position, Malachi. I want you to work for me. Directly.”
My eyebrows shoot up.
“You’ll be stationed at the intersection,” She continues. “Working between the First Division—my personal district—and the mortal realm, where you will have permanent residency.”
My heart skips a beat. Permanent residency? I could be with Eden. Not as an accidentally-summoned demon, not as a nightmare she has to hide away from her boring sister, but as a... person. A guy. A domestic, grocery-shopping, spider-killing, tax-paying boyfriend.
Saints below. Is that the right word? Boyfriend? Boyfriend?
Yep. That sounds right. I’m going to be a boyfriend.
“And regarding the… aesthetics,” she adds, waving a hand at my current, battered state. “You won’t be using a standard-issue Ninth Division shell. First Division vessels are bespoke. Matter-woven. They don’t sit on top of your essence; they fuse with it. Think of it less like a hazmat suit, and more like… a tailored Italian suit.”
It’s the single greatest sales pitch I’ve ever heard, and I’m vibrating so hard I think I might actually be glowing.
“So, Administrator,” She asks, leaning back. “What do you say?”
The answer flies out without any hesitation.
“Fuck yes.”
Chapter 42
Malachi
The ink is still wet. No, not ink. My own arterial blood, mixed with pulverized celestial gold and the distinct, sulfurous spit of Satan herself.
The contract is sealed. The soul is leveraged. The job is mine.
Now, I just need a body.
I’m standing in the First Division, and it is aggressively, violently beautiful. It doesn’t look like the Ninth at all. It looks like the inside of a Faberge egg designed by a manic depressive architect with a gold fetish.
It’s disgusting. It’s perfect.
“Hold still, sir.”
The Flesh-Weaver is a fussbudget of a creature. He looks like a butler who swallowed a goat, complete with spiraled horns and a mustache waxed into points. He’s fluttering around me with a tape measure, tutting at my dimensions.
“We need to reduce the shoulder width,” he murmurs, pins clamped between his sharp teeth, pulling the sinew tight across my back. “Humans find this silhouette... aggressive. Intimidating. It suggests a history of violence.”
“I have a history of violence,” I snap, swatting a wandering caliper away. “Keep the width. She likes the width.”
The Weaver sighs. “Very well. Vanity it is. And the eyes. We’ll make them brown. A soft, non-threatening colour. Standard issue for the ‘friendly neighbor’ archetype.”
“Make them dark,” I correct him, staring at my own monstrous reflection in the gilded mirror. “And keep the height. If I have to be shoved into a meat-suit, I am not being a short human. I refuse to look up at anyone.”
“You are making this very difficult, Malachi,” the Weaver complains, sketching something on a pad of skin.
A middle-manager from Demon Resources materializes at my elbow holding a slab of obsidian. “Let the Weaver work. We have administrative matters to discuss.”
