“It’ll work.” Eric had circled around to Aridon’s front and was nuzzling his shoulder like an animal. Aridon stroked the creature’s head. “What do you think, old friend,” Aridon murmured to the creature. “Are you ready to rest?”
“I still think this is a horrible idea.”
“Don’t you wish to die, too, someday?” He didn’t look at Diana, his full attention seemingly on the crazy one. “End this voided existence forever? Find rest?”
“We don’t know if we ‘rest’ at all.” Diana grimly spun the knife in her hand then sighed. “I could be damning him back to our previous existence.”
“Even if that’s so, he’ll finally renew.” Aridon gave her a strained smile. “And it’s not as though we don’t know how to escape that fate.”
Diana grunted and snarled down at the knife.
“Escape?” She whispered it so softly that only the dead silence of the room brought her words to Lita’s ears. “There’s no escape for us. We’re damned here or there, so it doesn’t matter where we are.”
Aridon rolled his eyes and looked down at Eric, who still resting on his shoulder.
“Eric? Is Eric tired?”
“Eric tired. Eric don’t like needles.” The creature twisted his neck around and looked at Diana. “Eric don’t like knives.”
“More observant than I like,” said Diana dryly.
Aridon ignored her.
“Aridon don’t like needles and knives either.” Stroke. Stroke. “But this is a special knife. It’ll help Eric rest. Are you tired, Eric?”
The creature sniffled and didn’t answer. Instead, pressing its face into Aridon’s shoulder.
“Eric? Do you trust Aridon?”
“Like Aridon. Sewers. Safe. Tired.”
“Will you let Diana help you rest?”
“Scared.” The creature suddenly wailed, making Lita jump. “Can’t move. Scared!”
“Eric, trust Aridon. Aridon made you safe before, right?”
Sniffle, sniffle. Shuffle. The creature glanced back uneasily at Diana and the knife. It whimpered pitifully.
“Aridon, you can’t reason with him.”
“We won’t try without his permission.”
“We could not do it at all.”
Aridon sighed and ignored her. “Eric. Do you like Diana?”
Sniffle. Nod.
“Do you think Diana wants to hurt you?”
This time the creature hesitated and looked back at Diana. “Diana. Sewers. Feed food. Pet.”
“Yes.” Aridon stroked the head. “Diana has always taken care of you, right? So has Aridon, right?”
Nod.
“Will you let Diana help you? Will you let her help you rest?”
There was a lot of sniffling before the creature abruptly turned and lunged at Diana. The creature nearly yanked Aridon onto his knees as the rope, still wrapped around Aridon’s back, pulled tight. While the creature clung to Diana’s legs, Aridon calmly pushed the rope off over his head.
“Diana! Eric like Diana. Sweets. Food. Sleep? Help?”
Diana looked at Aridon, lips pressed together. Without further permission, Diana swiftly plunged the knife into the creature’s back.
At first, the creature only shuddered and let out a single whimper. Then he held still.
At first, Lita wasn’t sure what she was looking at. Was she witnessing a freezing? Was he becoming a living statue?
Then the shadows seemed to move and spread oddly across the creature’s near naked body. Leaning even more forward, her face pressed into the slats of the railing, she realized it wasn’t shadow.
Eric’s skin was darkening. Blackening outward from the knife.
Diana carefully stepped out of the creature’s hold but he still didn’t move.
What?, Lita mouthed to herself. Bewildered.
I’d never heard of a freezing making the demons turn black…
The blackness spread until every inch of Eric’s hair and skin had become that color. Then, nothing. No sound. No movement.
Aridon stood up and pulled the knife from the creature’s back. Both of them jumped back, startled, when the statue crumbled and collapsed.
Lita’s heart thumped, her mind busily trying to grasp what had happened. Meanwhile, the demons stared at the crumbled heap of blackened sand and rock rubble.
“It worked.”
Dumbfounded, Diana got to one knee and ran her fingers through the sand. The remaining blackened stone didn’t disintegrate under her touch and she picked one of them up. Stroking it.
Aridon threw back his head in a maniacal laugh that made Lita cringe.
“It worked!” he crowed. With another laugh, he kicked the sand.
“Aridon!”
“Finally! Death is now an option for us. Rest, Diana. We can look forward to it now!”
Aridon flipped the knife in the air, catching it by the handle even as Diana flinched and reflexively reached out to catch it, too.
“It’s still foolish.”
“Why? You want the option as badly as the rest of us.”
“I do. But we still don’t know what we just doomed our friend to. And there are many, too many, who’d choose death rather than rebuild life.”
Aridon waved that away. “We don’t have to make it general knowledge. Or make it easy to get permission. What’s more important, is we can now keep the rogues in check.”
Diana stiffened.
“That’s what the freezing dorks are for,” she said quietly with a glance toward ‘Ward for the Frozen’. Then went back to watching him with narrowed eyes.
“Why would they fear those dorks?” He turned the blade around. Admiring its handiwork. “They know they just have to wait it out. They’ll wake up hungry and faint but nothing worse.”
“Aridon-”
“I can finally be rid of that pest.”
For a moment, there was no response. It was as though the word ‘pest’ were a shout for a crowd to ‘be quiet!’. Then Diana got slowly to her feet.
“So, that’s what this was about.” Diana growled low in her throat. “This was about Cheryl’s son.”
“The unnatural is an abomination.” Dismissively, Aridon began fitting the knife back to his belt. “One we should’ve been rid of, or frozen, or something, 200 years ago. Not allow it to mature and become increasingly dangerous to us.”
“The boy is not dangerous to us.”
Aridon sighed.
“You’re too soft, Diana. If you let the humans and the unnatural-”
Diana abruptly darted forward, kicking up blackened sand. Aridon blocked one of her hands but failed to block the other, which she used to snatch the knife from his belt. Then she danced out of reach.
“Diana Veran!”
She held the thing behind her back as she backed away toward the exit.
“You won’t be killing Cheryl’s son,” she said quietly. “Your obsession with him-”
“Wretched female! Give that back!”
He lunged toward her but wasn’t as skilled as the head of the enforcers. Diana neatly kept sidestepping out of reach.
“Your obsession will destroy you, Aridon.”
Breathing hard, fangs grown, and nose half transformed into something wolf-like, Aridon snarled at her. He crouched, ready to spring at her. The demoness hadn’t bothered with changing any part of her anatomy and watched calmly as he sputtered and growled.
“I’m hiding this,” she said flatly. “At least until the Brethren have had a chance to talk about it.”
Aridon laughed bitterly. “So, that’s your tactic,” he snarled. “You’ll go crying to the others to subdue me.”
“After 200 years, you’re still the only one who believes the boy is a danger.”
“He is a danger, voids it!”
Diana Veran calmly backed toward the exit, watching him as she left the room. Aridon snarled, turned to kick up more black sand as he grabbed the lantern, then sprinted after her.
“Diana!”
Lita stayed where she was. Listening to their voices fade down the corridor. Waited until she was sure they’d be upstairs and there was no glimmer of light at all.
Then she worked her way down the staircase, hand on the wall. It took an eternity for her to find a lantern, hung in the main corridor. When she did, she pushed magic into it and let the runes create light.
Cautiously, she entered the chamber and stood over the sand.
Half expecting it to reform and a demon to lunge at her.
He’s dead.
I just saw… a demon die.
It wasn’t possible, yet that’s what happened. Slowly, she knelt and picked out a couple small pieces of blackened stone, slipping them into a pocket with the no-smell.
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