“Foul one,” I murmured, my blood thundering in my ears. “Why do you plague this daughter of Abraham?” I’d heard these words so many times I knew exactly what to say—just not, apparently, how to say it.
Because unlike Mordechai’s gently reproving recitation of recognition and rebuke, my question was spoken almost like a sneer, heavy with both disgust and a hint of glee. It sounded awful, even to me. No wonder the rabbi never let me speak when he conducted his solemn ceremony. No wonder he seemed angry every time I tried.
Still, I continued, mockery slicing sharp. Words Mordechai would never say, but that I couldn’t help but speak. “How far you’ve fallen, to choose such weary chattel as this? She’sdisgusting; you should do better.”
Behind me, Mrs. Klein gasped, but in that moment I loathed the wretched old womancowering in front of me far more than the demon infesting her.Iris. Poor, pitifulIris. She was weak and frail and pointless. Revulsion shuddered through me at her smell and at the sticky fluids that bubbled out of her, her rheumy eyes and swollen knuckles?—
I shook myself, hard. What was mydeal?
But I couldn’t stop. I wouldn’t stop. I would pry this weak and stupid human open and get at the creature inside her if it was the last thing I did.
“What is yourname?” I growled, trying to keep my voice low, trying to focus on the demon, only the demon, and not the woman it inhabited.
Iris, of course, heard me plainly. Or whatever was inside her did.
She froze like a rabbit against that stained wallpaper. Her heart thudded so hard beneath her thin ribs that I could hear it plainly, but I drowned out that sound with my own twisting, sneering abuse.
“Do you know what I’lldoto you for making me wait?” I hissed. “I’ll stretch you wide, rip you apart, turn your moments into lifetimes of agony—and you’ll thank me for it before the end.”
The old woman shuddered, and her breath became a shallow, guttural huffing as I continued, never letting up. Her fingers dug into the wall, her sobs rasped out. But she didn’t speak. Seconds lengthened and warped, taking on a life of their own. My words blurred into snarls I couldn’t even understand anymore—until, at last, something inside Iris shattered, pushing the darkness within her over the edge.
With excruciating slowness, she turned her head around to face me even though her chest was still pressed tight to the wall. The eye-popping display of flexibility was one I’d never gotten used to, no matter how many contorted bodies I’d seen.
Iris’s eyes were wild now, the pupils huge and black. Her face remolded, unnaturally smooth as her skin stretched over the harsh edges of her bones and sank into the hollows of her cheeks. In that moment, it was as if she had lost fifty years—or gained five hundred.
She screamed something at me then, a howl of rage that burst apart like rats flying out of a hole. A name—the demon’s name. It scraped across my mind like something half-remembered, forbidden. A name I knew, somewhere deep inside me. A name I recognized.
“Mammon,” she gasped.
Mammon. Of course.
Thick pleasure swelled up, and I reached out to the wall blindly, steadying myself as I leaned against it, my knees suddenly unreliable. But the moment passed as Iris turned the rest of the way to face me. Clarity returned, and slowly, steadily, I advanced against the stench, even as snot rained from her nostrils and vomit spilled from her mouth—vomit that was half bile, half blood—and?—
I finally reached the woman and put my hands on her shoulders, shaking her hard enough that her gaze snapped back to mine, her eyes liquid as the demon stood naked and writhing within the withered husk of her body.
Gripping a shoulder that was little more than a stick and ball, I moved my other hand up to Iris’s forehead and plastered it there, ignoring the sweat, the sticky fluid oozing down her chin.
“Leave this daughter of Abraham, Mammon,” I snapped. Not as Mordechai’s typical gentle suggestion, but as an order. A command. “Leave her and do not return. Else, I will hunt you without ceasing, and you shallneverknow a moment’s rest.”
Iris seized, vibrating violently in my grasp, and a chill ran through me. This shouldn’t be working this fast. Mordechai never connected so harshly, so quickly…
But I can.
Iris’s body slammed against the wall hard enough that I heard something crack like dusty crockery. She lifted her left arm, and it seemed to swell with putrid sickness, turning purple with the weight of rot and fever. Then her wrist bulged, and herhand snapped to the right at an awkward angle, the sound of a bone breaking as she screamed, her fingers splaying wide.
A cold wave rushed through and past me, leaving my skin icy. I didn’t feel afraid, though. For a moment, I feltglorious. The moment Mammon left Iris, an electric pleasure coursed through me—not just satisfaction, but something deeper, more intimate. A spinningwhumpof power that stretched out in all directions. I had battled evil, and I had won, and nothing—nothing—could stop me anymore.
Nothing could stop…us.
The thought came clear and strong, and for once, I didn’t fight it. Wehadwon. Together.
Magnificent, the voice whispered, and there was something almost reverent in it. Something that made my skin prickle with awareness.You weremagnificent, Delia.
My name in that voice did something to me I didn’t want to examine too closely. Made me feel seen in a way that was both thrilling and deeply, deeply wrong.
Then my brain came back online, and I remembered where I was.
A bone-shaking wave of panic flashed through me, icy nausea freezing all my thoughts, the disorientation so overwhelming that I jerked with real surprise as Iris fell forward into my arms.
