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“Oh, great,” Edward drawls. “Ambrose is the hero again. Why not give the rest of us a turn?”
“I couldn’t have done it without you.” Ambrose kisses my nose. “All those magic lessons with the witches have paid off.”
“I can’t believe I did that.” I’m exhausted. I feel like a facecloth wrung out. I turn to ask the priest what exactly it was that we just did, and scream again as Father Maxwell slumps to the ground.
“Priest!” Björn drops his sword and hobbles to his side. His leg looks really bad. The Viking lifts the limp priest and slaps his cheeks.
Father Maxwell’s head lolls to the side. His eyes flutter open. “I’m sorry,” he chokes out. “I’m so, so sorry…”
Pax folds his arms. “You’ve got some explaining to do.”
“It’s as I told you, this demon has been closing in on me.” Father Maxwell curls into the fetal position, wrapping his arms around himself. “When we Lazarii perform our magic, we reach one hand into the world of the dead. The more we do it, the more it weakens the veil – the barrier around us that separates the Living world from the underworld. And demons…they sense these weak points. This is why the Order of the Noble Death seeks to control our magic. They don’t want to risk having demons unleashed upon the earth.”
I think about Jack the Ripper. “Except the ones they control.”
Dani found that the revenants may be able to return where ‘the Veil is weak’ without a master. But we didn’t know that demons could get through the thinned Veil, too.
“Precisely.” He shakes his head. “Although not even the Order would risk raising a demon such as the one we just banished. This is all my fault. I could feel the Veil weakening around me, and I promised myself that I wouldn’t touch the magic again. But a teenage boy brought his little sister to see me. She’s dying of leukaemia. Asix-year-old girl. I have the power to heal her. How could I refuse?”
I drop to my knees beside him. I get it. I don’t know how to refuse, either. Haven’t I brought back the people I love? And I would do it again and again to keep them with me.
But wecan’t. Not if we’re risking unleashing a beast like that.
“I’m sorry that I brought this down upon you,” the priest wheezes. “But when the demon came through the Veil and attacked me, I knew I was too weak to stop it on my own. You were the only Lazarus powerful enough to help me make the trap. Thankfully, it appears that we acted quickly. Ambrose is bruised, but he will heal, and none of your friends is hurt—”
“Not quite no one,” Pax says in a sad voice.
We turn. Pax stands over Björn. The warrior has fallen to the ground, his body too weak to even clutch at his leg, which is surrounded by a thick black mist. His face is screwed up in silent agony.
“He’s been touched by the demon. I can’t heal him.” Tears brim in Father Maxwell’s eyes. “The Veil around me is like a cheese grater. The demon could slip through again, or one of its brothers or sisters. You must do it, Bree.”
“And bring my own personal demon? No thanks.”
He shakes his head. “The Veil is not so weak around you. This is necessary. Björn will not heal without resurrection magic. He will be taken by the demons. He will become one of them.”
I glance down at Björn, at the mangled, blackened mess that is his leg, and the thick mist spreading up his thigh. Black smoke pours from the wound where the fire-tongue wrapped around him.
I place my hands over the wound, and I go to the place where the witches taught me once more. I’m weak, exhausted, but I find myself back with my dad and that pot of red paint.
The cords appear – the pieces of Björn’s life unfurling from him as the wound takes his life from him. I collect the severed ends of his silver strings and twist my fingers, knitting them back into his flesh.
As I do, the wound closes over, and the black smoke disappears. Björn rolls over and gets shakily to his feet. He and Pax embrace.
“Don’t ask me to do that again,” I say.
“I won’t.” Father Maxwell blinks. “That’s the problem. You will find your own reasons for using this power, Bree. That is the curse of a Lazarus. It won’t be long until the demons come for you.”
40
Bree
“What will you do now?” I ask Father Maxwell as we stagger back toward the village. He leans on Björn, unable to walk by himself.
“It’s dangerous for me to be outside the wards of All Souls,” he says. “The Order will hear of this, and they will come after me. But I won’t stay idle. I have my books. I have Saint Ekaterina’s writings. I will find something that will help us to strengthen the Veil so that this cannot happen again.”
“That would be ideal.”
He clasps my hands. He’s trembling. “I’m sorry, Bree. I’ve brought all of this trouble down on your head.”
