Her fingers came up, touched the computer screen. Left little smudgy fingerprints in their wake.
It was a picture of a beast, inhuman, with many legs, rising from the depths of an ocean.
She heard James swallow.
Dee clicked on that page and up popped an info site on Lovecraft.
For a minute, neither of them spoke.
“Old gods,” said Dee quietly. “A burrower is a type of old god.”
James laughed nervously. “But—but this is fiction, right? I mean, I read that ‘Cry of Cathalhoo’ thing when I was in high school. The only thing I remember was that everyone who learned about the creature ended up being murdered by some cult. Oh, and Lovecraft was kind of a racist.”
Dee pointed at the computer screen. “You mean ‘The Call of Cthulhu’?”
James blinked, unashamed. “Literature was never my thing. Name three Impressionists, and then you’re allowed to criticize.”
“Fair point,” Dee said, unable to hide her smile. “But I mean, think about it. The Daemon said that this wasn’t the first time demons had revealed themselves. What if… we aren’t the first generation of heartless?”
James considered. “That would explain a lot about Bosch’s paintings.”
“There are tales going back thousands of years about deals with demonic creatures,” said Dee. “Faust, Rumpelstiltskin, meeting creatures at crossroads, even blues singers claiming to have sold their soul for talent.”
James looked impressed.
“But the thing is, the demons of today aren’t buying souls. They want limbs—which they make into homunculi, and use to destroy the voids.”
She gave James a steady look. She trusted him. “I saw something,” she said quietly, “the first time I was in a void. At the hospital. It was only a moment—and it didn’t look entirely like that picture, but it wasn’t… well, it’s not entirely off. And when we were in that last void, when I saw the homunculus—it had something in its hand. A freshly bleeding leg-like thing.” She leaned forward. “Is there anything you haven’t told me? About what happened in Rome?”
She wasn’t sure what to expect. Perhaps he would look offended or angry, or maybe he would push his chair away from the table and stride out of the library. But he did none of those things. His shoulders slumped, and he let out a breath.
“Rome wasn’t like Portland,” he said quietly. “I wasn’t friends with anyone in my troop. We were simply all thrown together, told what to do and how to do it. The Daemon kept us on a tighter leash; we all lived in the same apartment for a while—except for the Daemon himself. He just popped into the kitchen when he needed us. It was… well, it was one of the best times of my life—but also the worst. I spent my days painting like I’d only ever dreamed of, and I started getting attention, but then at night me and the three other heartless would be in dark alleys, kicking rats out of the way as we tried to find voids. And for a while, it worked. But things… didn’t go well.
“We lost one guy inside a void. Something…grabbedhim. I never saw what it was. I was in the mouth of the void, keeping it open. The girl who was with him swore she saw a monster, but she wouldn’t—or couldn’t—describe it. I would’ve gone back for him, but the charges were set and the timer was ticking down.” Something like shame crossed his face. “Another girl decided that the knitted hearts were the key to the Daemon’s power, so she dissected hers. But the moment it unraveled, she just died. Like Cal. You saw what happened.
“After that,” he said, “there were only two of us. The last girl’s two years were up, and she got her heart back. I saw the Daemon do it—that’s how I know it’s possible. He just… pushed it into her chest. Like popping a socket into place. And then I was the only one left, and the Daemon said that Italy wasn’t a territory he needed to worry about anymore. He said Portland was the new hotspot, and he told me we would be going there instead.
“When I got to Portland, the Daemon had already made his deal with Cora. Then he recruited Cal, and then it was the three of us for nearly two years.” His mouth twitched. “That is, until that void opened up in a hospital.” He regarded her almost fondly, as if this twist of fate had been a welcome one.
But she barely heard the last bit; her attention was elsewhere.Nearly two years.
“When is your deal up?” she asked. She wasn’t sure if she was relieved or frightened to know that he wouldn’t always be heartless with her.
James’s smile seemed to vanish. “Soon enough.” He turned his attention back to the computer screen. Without meaning to, Dee had left the page open on a painting of what must have been Cthulhu. It was a roiling mass of tentacles and teeth, frozen forever in the act of rising from some great depth.
“Old gods,” said James quietly. “Here’s the thing I’d like to know. If demons are, well…evil, then how bad are the things they’re fighting against?”
TWENTY-SIX
Dee had never skipped school before. She’d never gone on a road trip with a boy, never slept in a hotel room with anyone besides her parents.
Turned out, it wasn’t all that scandalous. That night, they found a boutique and bought overpriced clothes—which James insisted on paying for, saying that the painting of Dee at the river would keep him fed for a year, so he was indebted to her. It was roundabout logic. “I’ll accept that,” she said, “but only if I get to pick out your clothes.”
He agreed.
And they walked out of the boutique wearing clean and vaguely vintage clothing. She’d put him in jeans and a cashmere sweater, and his orange jacket was shoved in the bottom of their shopping bag. He looked—well. He looked good.
They bought Chinese takeout and brought it back to their room, ate it while watching yet another cooking reality show. Dee fell asleep before it was even ten, the TV still flickering in the background.
