He cleaned up the area, but instead of recommencing, he let his eyes wander up and scanned the bookshelves before him. He was pretty sure he’d put Gamigin’s other grimoires in that section, but maybe he ought to check? He’d also written a book of his own that recorded his learnings from Gamigin more concisely. He’d been sick of reinterpreting Gamigin’s ramblings every time he needed to refresh his memory. Suyin would likely be interested in that as well.
Maybe he’d just grab the books quickly so he could stop thinking about it.
Stepping carefully out of the sigil, he crossed the room and climbed the ladder to one of the upper sections. He pulled thebook he sought from the shelf, but before he could climb down again, his eyes caught on another grimoire.
Hm.Suyin might want to read this one too.
He pulled it from the shelf.Come to think of it …There was another book …Right here, yes …He definitely had to show her this one.
And so it went.
Three hours later, Murmur was buried behind a stack of books as tall as Suyin, and he’d completely forgotten about the unfinished sigil on the floor.
Suyin ate from her dwindling food supplies for dinner. She’d meant to ask Murmur to send his minions to Earth for her again, but she’d gotten a little distracted by all the life-changing revelations he’d dropped on her.
She was half demon. A Cambion. A creature considered a myth.
Her father was a demon. Not an eccentric man who’d suffered from delusions because of an unhealthy fixation with Sheolic magic. He was a powerful, genius demon who’d written a grimoire so packed with groundbreaking information that it took another powerful, genius demon to decipher it.
When Suyin thought of her mother lying to her about who he was all those years, not even telling her the truth on her deathbed, a wave of hurt and anger rolled through her. But at the same time, she understood it. She wouldn’t have made the same choice, but she understood it.
Throughout her childhood, whenever Suyin had asked for details about her mysterious father, her mother’s responses had been vague. Sometimes she had refused to say anything at all. But Suyin had always understood that her mother loved her father deeply, and her reticence came more from a place ofgrief, from holding a memory close to her heart that was too precious and painful to speak aloud, than from any attempt to keep her in the dark.
Had Fay and Gamigin known what would happen if he was killed? Had they known about Lucifer’s prison? She didn’t think so, but she did know that Gamigin escaping Hell and fathering a hybrid child was very against the rules, so they must’ve known there was a possibility of him being caught.
No wonder Fay had been so silent and closed off in her grief. Her husband, whom she’d loved enough to have a forbidden child with, had been murdered. Had he been killed before her eyes? Or had she witnessed him being caught and dragged back to Hell, holding on to some vague hope that he might somehow survive, only to finally be forced to give up and accept that he was gone forever?
Suyin would never know the answers to those questions. But knowing what Gamigin was now, she was surprised at how little it affected her beliefs about the man he’d been.
She trusted her mother—though it would take her some time to release her resentment over her lies—and had always seen her as a source of strength and inspiration. Fay had been strongly principled and steadfast in her beliefs. She had survived losing the love of her life and moving her infant daughter to a completely new country and culture. She had taught Suyin everything she needed to know about being a blood-born witch, while remaining a source of comfort and security for her. Even learning about her mother’s dishonesty could not tarnish Suyin’s gratitude for what she’d given her.
She firmly believed that if Fay had loved Gamigin enough to have a forbidden child with him, then he was worthy of it.
It fit with what Murmur had told her about demons evolving. Yes, demons started out as cruel, heartless harbingers of evil, but they could evolve souls and become something more.And Gamigin had. He’d become so much more that he and Fay had fallen in love and had a daughter.
Her heart ached to think about the tragic end to their story. Gamigin’s only crime was to want to better himself and be a husband and father, and he’d been killed for it, leaving Fay heartbroken and Suyin fatherless.
And he wasn’t just dead. According to Murmur, his soul was trapped in an inescapable prison, his energy feeding the High King of Hell’s power—the one who had killed him. And the prison was so terrible it had made Murmur scream that bone-chilling scream when he saw it in his dream-vision.
She remembered what he’d told her about it.We can never escape. There is nothing but endless black and the never-ending draining of our energy. The despair and hopelessness … It’s far worse than burning alive.
She had to free her father’s soul. Not only because he didn’t deserve to suffer through that, but so he could reunite with her mother. Life had forced them apart, but they would be joined again in death. She wouldn’t rest until Murmur’s spell was done. There would be no peace for her until Gamigin was free.
Yet despite her tragic conviction, there was also closure to be had in finally learning who her father was. Who she was.Whatshe was.
A Cambion. The product of powerful magic. Not some floundering witch with an inexplicable ability, but someone special, unique. Possibly the only one of her kind. The more she tried to wrap her head around it, to assimilate this revelation into her identity, the more she found herself bursting with questions for Murmur.
How fortuitous that she had come here—though she would never tell him that lest he become unbearably smug. Murmur was the only one who could come close to answering the unanswerable questions she had carried throughout most of herlife. He was a veritable fount of knowledge when it came to her father’s work and her own inconceivable existence.
Her plans had changed so many times since arriving in Hell, she’d forgotten where she’d started. But she was nothing if not adaptable. Now, there was no way anyone was killing Murmur. Not until he finished the work he was trying to do. And if she found a way to escape right now, she wouldn’t even consider taking it. Rather, she would bleed herself out several times over if it made his spell work.
Funny how he’d resisted telling her what he was doing with her blood, but now that she knew, she was infinitely more motivated to help him.
But first, she needed answers. And Murmur was going to give them to her.
A few hours passed, and her anticipation grew until she couldn’t stand waiting for another minute. Unfortunately, it hadn’t been even close to eight hours since she’d left him upstairs.
Then again … she’d basically thrown his rules out the window lately, and he didn’t seem to care. He wasn’t even trying to be scary anymore. He would just glare or roll his eyes at her, maybe flick his tail or point a claw in her face, but that was it.
