“But why would Murmur do that?”
“Who the fuck knows what that creep gets up to? But …” Bel looked out the window. “I felt them. The demon souls. They were miserable. And Murmur freed them. I could almost respect him for that.”
“Maybe that’s what he was really trying to achieve.”
Bel shook his head. “Guess we’ll never know, seeing as he’s probably dead now.”
“Yeahhh, about that.”
They all looked over as Meph’s head popped into the door-frame, and the rest of his body followed shortly after.
“I couldn’t help but overhear this highly stimulating conversation as I walked in the front door,” he said. “And I came because I have some news to deliver.”
“What,” Bel growled, already sure he wasn’t going to like it.
“Murmur isn’t dead. Well. Hewasdead. But he isn’t anymore.”
“What?” Ash, Raum, and Bel said simultaneously.
“Yeah, I just got off the phone with Iris. Suyin enlisted her and Lily’s help in a resurrection spell, and they actually pulled it off, those crazy bitches. They necromanced the Necromancer right back from the dead.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“Nope.” Meph shook his head. “Wish I was.”
Forget respecting Murmur. Bel wasn’t free from his goddamn second favor. He wasn’t free of the fucking virus of a demon that kept popping up at all the worst times and making everyone’s life difficult. Never mind the sense of relief Bel had felt after completing Murmur’s final wish.
“I’m gonna kill that zombie freak,” Bel snarled. “And this time I’ll make sure he stays dead.”
Murmur awoke to unfamiliar smells. And quiet. The quiet was so penetrating, it stirred him from rest. It was so quiet, it felt somehow loud.
His body was surrounded by softness and warmth. The air smelled fresh, and there was a subtle scent surrounding him that was both familiar and comforting.
But thequiet. There were no screams. No voices. No fingernails scraping against the chalkboard edges of his mind. Those screams had been his constant, undying companion for millennia—as far back as his memory extended. The sudden absence of them now was disconcerting, to say the least.
He opened his eyes, frowning at the white ceiling above him for several seconds until it finally sank in where he was. He turned his head and confirmed it.Suyin’s bedroom.But how …?
It hit him in a rush. He’d beendead. He was dead.
Wait,washe dead?
He sat up, blankets falling to his waist, and looked around. No, he couldn’t be dead. This was definitely Earth, and he was definitely alive. He lifted his hands and stared at them. He saw the same familiar palms darkening to black fingertips and claws. He held out his arms and studied them too. They were the same. Familiar. Free of scars despite the countless times he had carved into them to draw his blood for magic.
Everything about his body was familiar—the weight of his horns atop his head, the feel of his hair loose against his bare back—and yet something about his body felt decidedlyunfamiliar.
But then he realized it was because the mind that occupied his body was different.
His thoughts were quiet. Clear. When he closed his eyes andconcentrated on his breathing, everything else fell away, save for the sensation of his chest rising and falling.
He breathed in deeply, and suddenly, emotion tightened his throat.
The very act of drawing breath felt like a revelation. The silence was liberation.
His eyes popped open. He shifted to the edge of the bed, pulling the blankets off and taking a moment to feel the cool floorboards beneath his feet.
When was the last time he’d felt something like that? The screaming of tormented souls in his mind had blocked out all else, and his body had existed in a perpetually deadened state. He’d never felt much of anything … untilshehad come along.
He stroked a hand across the blankets, noticing the softness of the duvet cover and marveling that such a texture even existed. He thought of how the blankets had felt against his skin, the weight of them pressing down, trapping him against the mattress.
