He’d avoided the Sentinels since the day he’d ripped through the apartment. He didn’t want to face their inquiries. They’d asked him to stop killing paladins, but he’d rather gnaw off his own arm than let the paladins think for a single moment that they were safe from him. They would be unhappy with him, but he didn’t care. Valac had invited him to the surface to kill. No one was allowed to dictate how or when he did it. He wasn’t one of them. He was a monster, and monsters didn’t take orders. They didn’t stop killing just because someone asked them to.
Now, he was in a sprawling cemetery with a trio of black souls. One was pinned to the grass by his power, his wounds weeping crimson, while Ashmedai sucked the sins from the other. Until he’d come to the surface, he hadn’t known that doing this would kill a living human. In Hell, drawing on the black energy of a damned soul hurt them, but they were already dead. He’d never seen the effects of his appetite on a living soul. It was… very satisfying.
Other demons circled them in the shadows, drawn by the scent of terror and blood. An arleth, camouflaged in the darkness, growled impatiently, while a skinny crex watched him from its perch on top of a nearby headstone.
“You may have them,” he said slowly, testing each word, “when I’m finished.” He’d been practicing his speech during the daylight hours when he couldn’t hunt, speaking aloud to himself, sounding out each word. He wasn’t sure why, since he had no one to speak to. But he was determined to prove to himself that—in this small way, at least—he wasn’t so different from anyone else. He could speak, even if there was no one around to hear.
The crex whined, its slender tail lashing from side to side.
“Please,” the prone paladin whimpered, struggling uselessly. “Please just let us go.”
Ashmedai laughed. “Why? You show us no mercy.”
The man’s face twisted with disgust. “Because you’remonsters! You kill people!”
Ashmedai grabbed the human’s face, his claws digging in. “I eat sins, stupid human. Only kill sinful.”
The human’s eyes bugged. “No! No, that’s a lie!”
“You sin with every breath,” he went on, then jerked his head at the begging crex on the headstone. “Have a taste, friends. But do not kill him. Or I will kill you.”
“No! No!No!” The words fell away as his protests became screams of pain. The crex and arleth demons gurgled happily as their teeth and claws sank into the meat of the human.
“Shut him up,” Ashmedai said, and one of them covered his mouth to muffle his sounds.
He bent over the third one, grabbing his head and lifting his face. The sin tasted like ash and went through him like sand in a sieve. It did nothing to nourish or satisfy. It wasn’t what he truly wanted.
But he couldn’t have what he truly wanted.
With a snarl that sent the crex and arleth skittering away, he grabbed the shuddering human and lifted him, sucking the sin from his twitching and whimpering body until there was nothing left.
When he raised his head, the arleth had fled, but the crex studied him, wearing a smile on its eerily human-looking face. Solid black eyes blinked up at him, and it clacked its flat teeth together as though in anticipation. It was hoping he would find more humans to share withit.
Another presence joined them abruptly, and Ashmedai turned to find Valac standing amongst the headstones nearby, his violet eyes striking in the shadows. The dark tendrils of his power undulated on his bare arms.
“We would like a word,” Valac said, sparing a brief glance at the bodies and the crex hovering beside him. At the behemoth’s attention, the crex fled into the night.
Ashmedai turned away. “No.”
“No?” Valac repeated.
“Nothing to say.”
“We had an agreement. You would stop killing?—”
“I was made to do this,” Ashmedai said. “I will not stop.”
There was a thoughtful pause. “Your language is improving.”
Should he say thank you? Somehow he didn’t think so. “I will kill who I wish.”
“You agreed to a temporary cease?—”
“They deserve this!” he snarled, whirling around.
“Because they hurt him?” Valac guessed. Too soft, too understanding, his inhuman eyes filled with sympathy that Ashmedai didn’t want or need.
He turned away. “Because they sin,” he responded coldly.
