She smiled unrepentantly.
He scowled and jerked his chin toward the door.
She turned to go, her steps graceful despite the clunky boots she wore. Shaking his head, he rose from the desk and approached the sigil. He stepped over the lines to the section he’d been working on and crouched beside the bowl of Raphael’s blood, picking up the paintbrush.
Suyin stopped at the door. “When’s tonight?”
He glanced back with a frown.
“I don’t understand how time passes here. Will it be dark out or do you mean in eight hours or so?”
“In eight hours.”
“But it won’t be night. So why would you—”
“In Hell, days are twice as long as on Earth, and nights are three times as long. But we track the passage of time the same way humans do.”
“But …” She scrunched up her face. “That’s so confusing? Why?”
He shot her a look. “Because in Hell, as on Earth, everything revolves around precious humanity. Now go, and don’t come back until eight hours have passed.”
The witch narrowed her eyes at him before finally slipping through the door. He didn’t move, listening to her footsteps until they faded away.
He looked back at the sigil. The prospect of working didn’t fill him with burning ambition and obsession as it always did. In fact, as he went back to repainting the lines, he barely paid attention to what he was doing.
Instead, he started planning how he would teach Suyin about her father’s work and whatever else she wanted to know. He’d never had a student before. The idea of passing on his knowledge had never occurred to him, but now that it had, he was oddly fixated on it.
Gamigin’s book was arguably one of the most important works in history, and as far as he knew, he was the only one alive who’d read and interpreted it correctly. He knew Heaven had been trying to get their hands on it, but he’d thus far thwarted their efforts.
He liked the idea of teaching Suyin what he’d learned. It would be a legacy of sorts.
You really are losing your mind.
“Don’t start with me,” he mumbled.
Legacies are human concepts. Perhaps you only hate humans because you wish you were one. Imitation is the highest form of flattery, as they say. And you’ve sure spent a lot of time pretending to be civil and humanlike since your little guest arrived.
“I said,don’t,” he snapped. “I don’t have time for this right now.”
You should fuck her, his mental voice whispered, doing a complete one-eighty.
He groaned. This was the last thing he needed.
Pin her down, chain her up so she can’t move, and then fuck her until she screams your name.
His groan was for a different reason now as his head suddenly filled with erotic images.
Then he blinked and looked at what he was painting. His hand had been unsteady, and the line was the furthest thing from straight.
“For fuck’s sake.” Any mistake in a sigil this powerful had the ability to render the entire thing useless, or worse, create some catastrophic side effect. Where was his mind today?
In the gutter, that’s where. And if you don’t get it out, you’re going to fail, and Lucifer will find and kill you, and then you’ll be dead, and you’ll never—
“You’re either berating me for being distracted or telling me to fuck the witch. You can’t have both. Which is it?”
His inner voice went suspiciously quiet.
Rolling his eyes, he dropped his paintbrush back into the bowl and stormed off to get a rag. The lines of each symbol had to be done without interruption. He’d need to repaint the entire section.
