But there was no miffed accusation in this feline’s stare. Her tail, which curled comfortably around her, had no annoyed twitching at its tip. She exuded peace.
She looked just like the cat who’d stared at him from a nearby roof some weeks ago. Just after he’d met Narcise.
Giordan realized belatedly that some of the weakness in his body stemmed from the presence of his Asthenia, positioned just-so in front of him. She sat just far enough away that he wasn’t breathless and paralyzed, but close enough that he felt the essence of her presence like uncomfortable waves.
And he realized that, until she moved, he could not escape from the alley.
“Scat!” he said with as much sharpness as he could muster; but at the same time, a wave of grief for his own fat, orange Chaton, roughened the back of his throat. “Move!”
The cat looked at him, her eyes intelligent and steady. And she didn’t move.
Even when he threw a stone toward her, she didn’t flinch. She hardly deigned to notice when the rock scuttled across the stones next to her.
Giordan looked up and saw the light blazing above in a perfect, cerulean sky. Hot and yellow and bright. The beams had begun to fill the alley in an ever-widening triangle of light, turning the stones lighter gray, glazing them with hints of yellow and rust, coloring the random tufts of grass green.
It was only a matter of time until the rays fell onto him; now they eased slyly against his breeches and filtered over the heel of his battered boot.
He pressed himself up against the wall, crouched in the corner, glaring at the cat.
“Move!” he shouted again, and looked for something else to throw at the stubborn creature. There was nothing. He managed to work one of his boots from his foot—a very long, difficult process in his weakened state—and when it finally came free, he flung it clumsily toward the thing.
It tumbled just behind her and she barely lifted her chin as it thudded onto the cobbles.
He began to heave himself to his feet, but at that moment, the cat decided it was time to move…and she sauntered toward him.
As she came closer, the rest of Giordan’s strength fell away. His lungs slowed their movements, his chest felt heavy and constricted and his muscles ceased to respond.
Giordan sank back onto the ground, leaning against the wall as the cat positioned herself directly in front of him. So close he could see the gray and black flecks in her unblinking eyes, and even the fact that she had whiskers in both white and black. Her ears were two perfect triangles sitting at the top of her head, and her fur was lush and long like cornsilk. He had a moment of madness and nearly reached to touch that soft fur.
Feeling ebbed from his body and he closed his eyes against the nothingness that swept over him. Blankness…something even beyond paralysis.
After a moment, he opened his eyes and saw the sun just peeking over the roof above him. Soon, it would be directly overhead, pouring into the alley.
He’d burn.
If the damned cat didn’t move…he’d burn. He had nothing to cover himself with, nowhere to hide.
“Go!” he shouted, but his voice was weak. And perhaps it even lacked conviction.
The cat, of course, didn’t move, and although she continued to watch him with those wide eyes, her expression was not haughty.
It was determined.
Giordan closed his eyes when he felt the first brush of the sun’s warmth.
It was an impossible juxtaposition of pleasure and pain…the warmth, as if someone’s hand brushed over him, warm and tender…and yet edged with sharpness, bespeaking of the agony to come.
He huddled against the building, curled up like a cat—or a fetus—pressing as close against the bricks as he could. But the back of his shoulder was exposed, the only part of him that he couldn’t keep in the shadow, and the sun’s rays inched inexorably closer until at last they seared into his sensitive flesh.
A wave of agony screamed through him and he realized from deep inside the white pain that it was coming from his Mark.
The light poured onto him, battling with the dark, undulating roots that branded him Lucifer’s. They writhed and screamed with their own pain as the sun burned and burned and burned.
The last thing he remembered was a light…bright and white and pure, burning inside his mind.
Clarity.
* * *
