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“Give me a name!” He plunges the hot poker into the demon’s thigh.
The demon shrieks, moving his mouth, trying desperately to form words. Lucifer withdraws the poker and throws it back to the hearth. The demon, sweating and shaking, looks up at Lucifer with glassy, terrified eyes.
“It was—” His voice cuts off in a strangled sound and he coughs. He wheezes for a moment, then tries again. I glance at the witch’s face. I’m not confident about my interpretation, but if I saw that expression on a spider-octopus-anemone-cockroach, I would think it looked worried.
“Name them!” Lucifer roars, mere inches away from the thing’s face.
“Your Highness, if I may—” the witch begins, but he cuts her off.
“You may not! Name your employer, assassin!”
The only answer the demon can give is a series of gurgling noises. He’s foaming at the mouth, his eyes rolling back in his head. He starts to convulse, shaking the table and making the witch’s tentacles undulate. It’s over in moments. The demon, dead once more, lies limp on the table.Lucifer turns his glare from the demon on the table to the witch restraining it. She meets his gaze unflinchingly.
Lucifer snarls. “What happened?”
“The curse clings to his life spark,” she blanches, a frown twisting her lips. “His intention to name his employer triggered it again.” Her tentacles are already unwinding from the body, resetting her supplies.
Lucifer slams his fist on the table. “You said that could not happen!”
“I said I had never seen it,” she corrects him patiently. “It would take a stronger curse than I have ever seen to do it.”
Lucifer pushes away from the table and stalks back and forth across the room. His scowl is dark and deep, his eyes carrying flickering firestorms. “Again,” he tells her.
“I will bring him back,” she says slowly. “But I must caution you. Every time this curse is activated, he slips farther away from the living world. With every iteration, the reanimation process will be more difficult, and less likely to succeed.”
Lucifer stops pacing. He tilts his head slightly, setting his shoulders in that particular way that shows he’s pulling at a problem from all sides.“Understood,” he says. “Do it.”
She begins her ritual again. It takes longer this time, and seems to take more of her energy as her movements become slower and more deliberate with each passing minute. Eventually he comes to again, the witch once more holding him in place with her tentacles. He isn’t whimpering or shrieking anymore. He just looks tired.
“How many times must I die before you understand?” His voice is raspy and weak. “I cannot tell you what you want to know.”
“Perhaps not,” Lucifer huffs. “But there is something you can tell me. No, don’t speak. I will ask the questions. You will answer them in simple terms, thinking only of the question itself and not the implications of the answer. Can you do that?”
The demon half-closes his eyes and coughs a scoffing little laugh. “Truth serum training,” he says. “Never saw this application on the syllabus.”
“Then you understand. After retrieving Sophia from our quarters this evening, where were you going to go? Tell me your intended movements.”
I hold my breath, waiting for the gurgle. My body tenses as the demon begins to speak.
“I was going to walk across the palace to the far side of the magic wing. Then I would have taken the results of my venture to the vestibule. There I would have left the results to be dealt with. From there, I would have gone to the lower kitchen to eat, then up to my quarters—”
“Enough,” Lucifer snaps. “Which vestibule?”
“Magic side,” he says. “Between the wizard council chambers and the entrance.”
“Excellent,” Lucifer murmurs. From where I stand, I can see his hand move toward a dagger gleaming dimly on a nearby shelf. “Remove your bonds, witch.”
She slithers all of her parts off and out of the way in an instant. The demon started moving when Lucifer gave the instruction, and is halfway off the table before the witch is clear. He’s not fast enough—Lucifer passes the blade to his other hand, catching the demon in the throat mid-air. Every ounce of the demon’s weight lands on the blade and it protrudes out the other side. With a gesture faster than sight, Lucifer splits the demon’s head from its body. The two pieces land heavily on the floor and the head rolls, its dead eyes wide and staring.
“He’s finished,” Lucifer mutters.
I can’t seem to make myself feel bad about that.
Chapter24
Lucifer
Sophia looks a little nauseated,which is to be expected, but she hasn’t flown into hysterics or catatonically shut down.Good.I need her clear-headed and composed for what we’re about to do.
