Oh, yes, Erik knew.Because he’d heard the same promises and blandishments from that terrible lipless mouth, and still did.Thrumming in his chest, creeping through his subconscious, claw-tipped nails scraping lightly at the folds of his mortal brain.
Let it happen, the god whispered.She deserves it, the little maggot-whore.Look at what she’s done—look at how she’s treated you.
It would have been easy for Ignatius to give him and Jake the right sectors of Islington to clear, safely away from noticing a potential.Many of the gifted moved frequently, anyway, minor precognition keeping them one bare step ahead of the monsters.
And if Erik and Jake returned early to find empty halls, Ignatius could always say he’d sensed something outside the temple.After all, they were a small frontline outpost, forgotten, perhaps discarded.Which meant he’d probably murdered his first potential well over a decade ago, before the war heated up and the frontier temples were ordered to fall back.Maybe there was even a treacherous control liaison somewhere, but at the moment that wasn’t Erik’s problem.
This was, now that he saw the whole pattern, very much what Ignatius would do.Waiting with unholy dry patience, year upon year, biding his time and clearing potentials—or, even worse, simply tagging them for the shadowbeasts, standing back, letting the inevitable proceed.
And Erik and Jake had suspectednothing, even though Sons were to watch a Father carefully—and he was supposed to return the favor.
Had Ignatius thought he might actually be able to bring Liv in and escape examination, somehow redeem himself?Erik hoped that was the case and that the entire charade back in Islington hadn’t merely been the spider humming softly as he readied the web, knowing a stronger potential was a better, more pleasing meal to the god.
A fullliraiwas best of all, of course, a ticket straight to the Mad God’s forgiveness and high esteem.
Erik drove forward, slipping between nightmarish unclean, clearing a surprise-clicking patch ofjana-spiders with a single leap, extending again to spring between two musk-rotten goatmen already baying with excitement, a group ofdagoisuddenly realizing danger had found them and raising a thin warning scream.
Hislirai’s pulse came again, but it was fading, as if she were wounded.The god gibbered inside Erik’s head, trying to slow him down, distract him.
No, fuck no, just let me get there, just let me get to her?—
Both knives out, rising like a hawk and a deep coughing sound of effort escaping his chapped lips, Eriksoared…
…and asarnaki, with more presence of mind than its fellows, hit him from behind with a shattering crunch.
My Favorite Son
The world narrowedto a knife hanging above her, its claw-sharp point swelling with a pregnant drop of tarry black.The slice on Liv’s hip burned, poison eating at silk and flesh; the metal cuff clasping her ankle hurt too, a deep drilling pain.
They’d managed to get at least one chain on her, yes.But she had Ignatius pinned too, and a lifetime of stubbornness rose inside her, holding the invisible force steady.He strained against it, the thing in his flesh shoving at her control with clumsy, flaccid fingers, the touch sending hot spears of loathing through her.
The other monsters were muttering, a rising growl, and if they all decided to walk up the steps and help themselves buffet-style she was looking at a very short, very messy end to her entire existence.
Liv didn’t think these guys only ate the meat, so to speak.Especially since she couldsee, in some strange way, how the god had cored Ignatius like a fruit, pouring into the empty places and yanking at muscle-strings to move a puppet.Seen with that strange inner vision, Liv was a smear of rainbow flame guttering but not yet doused, the monsters a swirling mural with occasional sickening fungus-flashes showing under a punky, rancid glow?—
Corpselight, that’s what they call it, and that’s why.
—and Ignatius was a creaking, swelling tumor of vile, violent yellow, a single crimson eye at its crest as he strained against thin, pulsing ropes of light.
Was that what the ancient Dreamers had done?Chained a god in some forgotten hole or just banished him from the physical world?Either way, no wonder he was pissed.
How much longer can I keep this up?Liv’s hold slipped another fraction; the knife jerked, dipping downward.Once it plunged into her chest, she suspected she’d lose the ability to hold him off—but she didn’t think she’d die right away.
No, she was wretchedly certain it might take a very long while, and she’d scream through the whole process.The thing, this mad god, wouldeather screams.
Several things happened at once.
A high metallic ringing and a crunching noise like a stack of potato chips smashed all at once, the sound run through huge speakers until it could break bones.The monsters, their famished cries halted for a brief moment, spun madly inside in a bubble hollowed out under a human city, the tangled passages around it meant to confuse any pursuit or penetration but well known to things creeping in darkness, hiding from the sun’s glare.The knife quivered again and sank a handspan; Liv’s throat burned because she was making a low guttural noise of effort as well, her gaze locked with Ignatius’s.
Or maybe it wasn’t Ignatius anymore.The thing inside him had swallowed any remaining vestiges of humanity, and it leered at her, its lips moving rubbery as more foam dripped.
I killed your mother, little bitch.I ate her right… the fuck… UP.
The attack came out of nowhere, filthy unseen claws burrowing into her own head despite the hot smoking pain it caused the god, touching something inimical.
Immunedidn’t meaninvulnerable, after all.
It leered, it gibbered, it whispered, it keened, and Liv Stellack almost,almostlost her hold, her mental fingers growing clumsy.Kidnapped, dragged around like a sack of produce, sedated, dumped in a hole, terrorized beyond belief, she stared at the thing that wanted so badly to kill her, and a strange peace folded through her bones.
