And now she was going to bring him back.
DAMNED IFYOUDO,DAMNED IFYOUDON’T
THE MOTHERFUCKER HAD THOUGHT OF EVERYTHING.
The following morning, Belial sat alone in his bedroom and reread Murmur’s letter for the hundredth time. After he’d received it the day before, he’d pocketed the piece of paper and returned to his brothers in the living room.
He’d sat in stunned silence and listened to them debate what to do about a problem that no longer mattered. Sensing something was off, they’d asked him repeatedly if he was okay, and he’d had to reassure them that he was fine, just tired, stressed, blah, blah, blah.
Because Murmur had specified in the letter that he couldn’t tell anyone.
That fucking letter had told him he couldn’t do a lot of things, in fact.
He couldn’t hesitate to fulfill the request—a clause he had already pushed the limits of. He justified it by telling himself he needed to take time to ensure he understood every aspect of histask before acting, but he could feel the terms of the contract tugging at the edges of his mind, and he knew he couldn’t put it off much longer.
He couldn’t ask for help, even if he didn’t tell the person what he was doing. He couldn’t ask someone else to do it for him, which left out using one of the ninety-seven remaining favors Naiamah owed him. He couldn’t injure himself or provoke someone into injuring him to avoid doing the favor. The favor was still valid in the event of Murmur’s death. And if Murmur wasn’t dead, Bel couldn’t kill him—for fun or out of spite.
When Belial had first agreed to owe the favor, he’d stipulated that Murmur couldn’t ask him to do anything that would put him or anyone he cared about in danger. Murmur had justified it in the letter by saying that his task in itself was perfectly safe. Any danger that followed—and there was a hell of a lot—would follow after the completion of the task. Since Belial hadn’t specifiedindirectdanger, there was therefore no violation.
No matter how carefully he read the contract, he couldn’t find a single loophole.
But one thing that struck him was the careful wording of the conditions in the event of Murmur’s death. Because it almost sounded like the Necromancer expected himself to be dead.
Good, Belial thought. Because if he wasn’t dead, Bel was going to kill him after this. He’d known what he was getting into when he’d agreed to owe Murmur two unspecified favors. He knew it better than anyone. Some of the shit he’d forced Naiamah to do over the years still made him feel guilty when he thought about it now, centuries later. But he’d never expected this. He’d underestimated Murmur. By a lot.
He’d always suspected the Necromancer was up to something big, but this … What Bel was about to do would change his life as he knew it. In fact, it had the potential to change thelife of every single being in Hell. And he was sure Murmur had been planning that all along.
The underworld war that Belial had been trying for millennia to avoid? Murmur wanted to kick-start it. And once Bel did this task, he would have. Whether or not he was dead, the Necromancer would succeed in his objective. And what a legacy to leave behind.
Hell was about to face a shitstorm of biblical proportions.
And Belial would be at the center of it.
It took Suyin sixteen hours of nonstop work to finish preparations for the spell.
Her entire living room was stripped bare, and she’d scrubbed away every scrap of evidence that she’d ever done magic there. Then she’d begun drawing the necromancy sigil and collecting the necessary ingredients.
There was a bird cage by the window with half a dozen pigeons in it. That was the part she felt the worst about. The spell required a death sacrifice of some kind, and Murmur’s grimoire had recommended any number of animals. But not only was Suyin not keen on killing a goat or a sheep, she didn’t want the large amount of blood those animals were sure to have spilling all over her apartment.
So after doing careful research in Murmur’s books, she’d determined that she could swap one large sacrifice for several smaller ones. Pigeons were populous enough in this city, and the world wouldn’t miss a few of them.
A baited trap on the roof of her apartment building had made the process easy, and she’d gotten all the birds she needed throughout the course of the day while she was busy with the rest of the prep.
But damn, she felt sick every time she looked at the cooing birds, awaiting their fate in blissful ignorance. She vowed thatafter this she would feed pigeons for the rest of her life to make up for it. Murmur could pay for the bird food.
As for him, she’d washed the blood from his skin and combed the tangles out of his hair. Even though she knew he couldn’t feel it, she put a small pillow beneath his head and covered him with a blanket, leaving his face uncovered so he appeared to be resting.
Just resting. Yeah right. This is fucked up on too many levels to count.
Though his wounds remained and black veins still spidered out from his eyes, his body still showed no signs of decay, and she figured it never would. Apparently, though a demon with a soul could die by having it removed, their body still wouldn’t disintegrate without hellfire.
She figured Murmur must have guessed this would happen, which was why he’d left her the way to bring him back. He always thought of everything.
After the long, sleepless night, she straightened from staring at the book on her desk, grimacing as she stretched her stiff back and felt it crack. She looked around the room and then back down at the book, and her eyes widened as she realized she was actually ready. She’d gathered all the supplies and triple-checked that every part of the sigil had been executed properly.
Now she just needed some extra manpower. Orwoman-power, as it were.
Prepping the spell was only half the battle. To actually do the casting, she would need to focus with great intensity, visualizing the sigil in her mind with such clarity, there would be nothing else in her thoughts. She would also need to chant the Sheolic incantation Murmur supplied in the grimoire, over and over, with increasing intensity.
