“Jace!”
Seth’s voice brought him back to reality. Jacen found himself an inch from the dead man’s face, as though poised for a kiss. Ready to let something crawl inside his mouth.
“Shit fuckingfuck—” He scrambled back and staggered to his feet. “Where did it go?”
From halfway up the stairs, Ilusha called, “I don’t sense anything.” “You passed out,” said Seth. “I wasn’t about to let you get yourself possessed.” He started to help Jacen up but hesitated. “You’re not possessed, are you?”
“I’m a telepath,” Jacen spat. “I would know. An insensate like you would not, which is why I told you toget back.”
He all but shoved Seth in front of him, making him go first, and followed him up the stairs to the observatory tower. He slammed the door behind them.
“Fuck,” Jacen said again. Then, to Seth: “Hold still.”
Seth was stunned enough to comply without question. Jacen held his palms an inch from either side of Seth’s face and closed his eyes. He searched the perimeter of Seth’s consciousness, scanning for any trace of a demonic intruder, and did not explain himself to the others until he felt certain all was well. He found nothing.
He rounded on Ogden. “How long has that man been dead?” “Since before dawn,” Ogden replied.
Out the window, the eclipsed sun lay low on the horizon. An involuntary laugh escaped Jacen. With each passing day, he understood less of the world, everything he had taken as truth slipping out of his grasp.
“That’s impossible.”
“Now that we’ve established you were mistaken,” said Ged, “whatisit?”
“I have no idea.” Jacen turned to Ogden, who remained pensively silent. “What did you think we would find?”
“A demon,” said Ogden. “I was right.”
The old bastard was lying and not even expending the effort to do it well. At the very least, he’d been omitting critical information. But it occurred to Jacen that Ogden knew Ysira—Seth had offered to walk her back to his clinic after her release from Guard custody. If Ogden and Ysira were friendly, it stood to reason he wouldn’t want to reveal everything in front of Ged. So, Jacen let the matter drop for now.
Ged sat at the stone table, deep in thought with his chin propped against his fist. “If the man is dead, can we split open his skull and dig the demon out?”
Ogden scowled.
“If it doesn’t want to be found, it won’t manifest,” said Jacen. “It will have blended with his brain matter, impossible to identify without extradimensional senses.”
“What if we pulp itsbrain matter?” Ged mimed the action, knocking his fist against the table. “Set it on fire? Won’t it have to come out to save its own life?”
This time, Ogden answered for Jacen. “That won’t work.”
Ged Semira had not, in his lifetime, encountered many obstacles he couldn’t overcome with brute physical force. He exchanged a look with Seth, the brothers aligned for once in their discomfort.
Seth said, “We can’t burn it, we can’t pulverize it—what, then?” “Only extradimensional energy can kill a demon,” said Jacen. “I’d say we wait for it to weaken and die on its own, but that . . . doesn’t seem to apply for this one. Ordinarily, we would return it to the Church, and the Council would entrust it to the gods. But—” The knot in his stomach tightened.
“That would invite a lot of questions we’re not prepared to answer,” Seth finished for him, with a sigh.
“You need to lock that body inside a box,” Jacen said to Ged. “Seal the cracks. Bury it somewhere deep. Send three people to do the job, and make sure there’s always at least one standing at a distance, justwatching.When they’re done, they need to check their equipment, their clothing, every unwashed crevice and orifice on their bodies. Do you understand?”
“Consider it done.” A cloud of emotion swirled around Ged: frustration, determination, and—squirming beneath it all like a shameful secret he was trying to bury—fear. He cleared his throat. “It’s imperative that you search the archives. Find mymaps—and find any information on rare demons. Anything at all that could tell us what we’re dealing with.”
Jacen mustered a nod. The prospect of breaking into the Church’s most restricted records made him sick to his stomach, and he hadn’t the faintest idea as tohow.But he was in this now. Whatever lay at the end of this road . . . it seemed he was doomed to meet it.
“We have another problem.” Seth pointed down the stairs. “Neither Akkani nor the High Lord would be using a demon to spy on us. This couldn’t be them.”
“Who, then?” Ged asked.
“That’s the question, isn’t it?” Ogden murmured. “Who, indeed.”
11
