The Demon’s Surrender (13 page)
Read The Demon’s Surrender Online
Authors: Sarah Rees Brennan
“I think you’ll be Nicholas Ryves,” said Alan. “You made that lie true for me. You’ve answered to the name, every time I called. I know who you are.”
“Do you know what I am?”
Demon
, thought Sin, but she did not say it. Even Alan did not speak, just shook his head and waited.
“I can’t make a plan,” Nick said slowly. “I can’t save anyone. All I can do is kill. I’m a weapon. And if I can’t be your weapon, I’ll be someone else’s.”
“What are you going to do?” Sin asked.
Nick tilted his chin, baring his throat to Alan for a moment, as if that was a response.
“Be careful,” Alan murmured, as if it was.
“You’re one to talk,” Nick said. “For nine minutes tonight, I thought you were dead already.”
He sounded perfectly calm about that, but he had counted the minutes. Sin couldn’t quite put the two things together, not in a way that made any sense.
Nick turned his eyes to her, blank but still demanding, like staring into an abyss that stared back. Sin met his gaze, refusing to let him read anything from her face again, and his eyes bored into her for a moment.
Then he turned away. He left the kitchen, and a second later, the door of the flat slammed shut.
Alan got out his phone and called Mae.
“I think,” he said, “you might want to expect a guest fairly soon. Let me know if your aunt Edith sees him and calls the cops. I’ll come bail him out eventually. Yes, Cynthia and the kids are safe here.”
He raised an eyebrow at Sin. She shook her head.
“She’s already asleep,” Alan said without missing a beat. “Yeah, it’s been a long night. I’ll let her know you want to talk to her.”
He turned the phone off.
“What do you think Nick’s going to do?” Sin asked.
“I don’t know,” Alan answered. “I’m trying not to think about it. If I don’t know, I can’t tell Gerald. Besides, it’s only fair for Nick to have some secrets, considering my—entire life.”
“Yes,” said Sin, thinking of how she’d thought the demon might lash out, even at Alan, the way Nick’s hand had felt at her throat. “You’re certainly the problem child.”
She sagged against the kitchen table. Alan could see through any show she might put on. There was a certain freedom in knowing that, in simply stopping.
She was so tired.
“You really should take my bed,” Alan said. He gave her a beautiful, plausible smile. “You’ve had quite a night of it. You need your sleep.”
Sin didn’t mention what Alan had gone through tonight. Instead she backed away from the table, going for the sitting room and the sofa there, and paused at the kitchen door to say, “I do need my sleep. That’s why I don’t want an angry demonic alarm clock going off at me.”
“I can handle Nick,” Alan told her.
“No doubt,” Sin said. “I can handle the floor.”
Alan got up and limped over to her. The limp wasn’t usually so obvious, but then, he must be even more tired than she was. Sin looked away so she wouldn’t have to see it, closing her eyes and leaning her head against the door frame.
When she opened her eyes, she saw that had been the wrong thing to do. There were faint bitter lines around Alan’s mouth.
“Some horrible things have happened to you tonight,” he said in a level voice. “I’d just like for you to have a bed.”
“And what about what happened to you?” Sin asked. “Oh, that’s right. I forgot. You don’t think that counts, because it’s you.”
She stopped leaning and backed away from him, through the door into the other bedroom. She crooked her finger at him and summoned up a smile. “We can share. I don’t mind.”
She moved backward without a glance behind her. She might not have the Market anymore, but she was still dancer enough to move gracefully, no matter where she was. She backed up without missing a beat until the backs of her knees hit the bed, and then she sat.
When she looked up, Alan was standing in the doorway.
“I do mind,” he said.
“Right,” Sin said, and her fragile calm broke like a rope snapping beneath her feet. “I wasn’t offering anything more than sleep, you know.”
Alan went scarlet to his eyebrows. “I didn’t think you were.”
“I wasn’t,” Sin snarled, and she leaned her head in her hands. She wanted to cry, but her eyes felt like hot hollows in her face. She hadn’t cried in a long time.
She heard Alan crossing the room, never able to be light on his feet. He sat down on the bed beside her and touched her arm, just brushing it with his fingertips, as if he didn’t want to presume.
“Cynthia,” he said. “Okay.”
“I wasn’t,” Sin insisted, and was almost sure she was telling the truth: She was so tired, and she might want comfort, but that was no way to get it. She ground the heels of her hands against her closed eyes until they hurt.
“Cynthia,” Alan repeated, putting so much effort into his beautiful voice that it cracked, the whole façade cracked, neither of them quite good enough at their roles to make them true. “It’s okay.”
“What’s okay?” Sin demanded. “Nothing’s okay. I let the Market down. I should have known that since getting to you wasn’t working, they would come after us. I should have worked it out!”
“I should have—,” Alan began, but she interrupted him fiercely.
“They’re my people,” she said. “Not yours. I was the one who knew Lydie had magic, and I should have protected her. I was meant to be a leader, I was meant to take care of her, and I failed!”
She still could not cry, but she was shaking suddenly, hard, bone-jarring shaking, her whole body betraying her. Alan took hold of her elbow carefully, always gentle, and Sin turned to him blindly and locked her arm around his neck. She buried her face in his collarbone, gritted her teeth, and shook and shook.
“Cynthia,” Alan murmured, and rocked her for a little while, stroked her hair. She could feel it going electric with static, curls rising up to wrap around his fingers. She wished she could tie him down somewhere, keep him just like this, just for her. “Cynthia.”
She let him go and leaned back, stretching onto his pillow. She kept hold of his arm, pulling him toward her. “Come here,” she said. “Lie to me.”
Alan lay down beside her, a little awkward pulling up his bad leg onto the bed. His hand in her hair wasn’t awkward, anything but, fingers slow and light as the rays of the moon on her skin, drawing a curl back from her cheek. She reached up and took off his glasses, snapping the earpieces closed with her teeth, and smiled at him as she slid them onto the bedside table.
He was gorgeous by moonlight, hair and skin turned a hazy golden color, his eyes starlit-night blue and so sweet, so deep, pools you could drop your heart into and lose it forever.
“Cynthia,” he murmured, fingers still brushing her cheek, making her shiver. “I’m not lying.”
Sin closed her eyes and tucked her cheek into the curve of his neck and against his pillow.
“Yeah,” she whispered. “Just like that.”
8
Burning Wishes
S
IN WOKE WARM AND SAFE, THE MORNING SO EARLY THAT THE
rays of light falling across the bed just seemed like paler shadows. She had a hand curled around the front of Alan’s shirt, anchoring him close beside her. The blankets were heaped over her, Alan’s breath was slow and regular against her hair, and Sin felt no inclination to move whatsoever.
She tugged Alan a little closer. He made a drowsy inquiring sound.
Sin gave a sleepy hum in response.
Her hum wavered and died away in her throat when Alan’s fingers brushed her ribs. She hadn’t really registered before that her shirt had ridden up, but she did now.
Alan’s hand slid along her side, moving smooth and sure from cloth to skin. His gun-calloused fingers lingered at the hollow above her hip, and Sin realized that Alan had definitely woken up with a girl in his bed before.
She rolled a little toward him easy as a cat being stroked, and at that point Alan woke up all the way, yelped, and fell out of bed.
Sin would’ve laughed, except for the small stifled sound Alan made when he hit the ground.
She levered herself up on her elbows and said sharply, “Are you all right?”
“Fine,” Alan bit out, white around the lips, and she hated his stupid leg for ruining something that should have been ridiculous and warm. If it hadn’t been for that, they would both have laughed; if it hadn’t been for that, she would have noticed him before, the same way the other girls who had been in this bed must have.
“Your leg,” she began. “Is it—”
“Cynthia,
leave
it!” Alan snapped.
There was something furious and humiliated about the tight line of his mouth. If she had been another girl, someone who hated his leg less, he wouldn’t have been this embarrassed.
He grabbed at the bedpost with unnecessary force and hauled himself gracelessly to his feet. Sin closed her eyes, imagining how it would be if she knew her body was guaranteed to fail her.
“I apologize,” Alan told her stiffly.
Sin blinked her eyes open. “What?”
Alan was staring with great interest at the wall. “I didn’t know it was you,” he said. “Well, I did know it was you, but I was half-asleep, and—”
Sin blinked again as the fact that he was being a gentleman about not quite groping her sank in. She began to smile.
“That’s all right,” she said, and rolled back on the pillows, making a space. She glanced up at him through her fallen hair and asked, amused and inviting, “Are you getting back in?”
“Ah,” Alan said. “No. I have translations to do. And you—” He reached out then, not for her but for the blanket, which he pulled up over her shoulder. “Cynthia,” he said. “Just rest.”
Rejection number one hundred and fourteen—but who was counting—should have stung more, but his voice and the way he drew up the blanket were gentle, and she could stand to get more sleep.
Sin cuddled in under the covers. She was asleep again almost immediately. She stirred automatically every now and then, her hand reaching for the kids, but as soon as she surfaced from sleep she knew things were taken care of for now. For now, she could rest.
Every time she woke she glanced over at the little desk by the window, where Alan sat with an old scroll and a sheet of notepaper, occasionally scribbling something. His face in the morning light was serious and absorbed. The sound of the pencil on paper was like a whisper, shushing her back to sleep.
The last time she woke up, her eyes snapped open to the sound of Toby fussing.
Alan was standing up, hip propped against the desk, the baby in his arms.
“Shh,” he said, commanding and coaxing at once, his voice very low. “Shh. Let your sister sleep a little longer.”
Toby stared at him, mouth working doubtfully for a moment, then decided to grab for Alan’s glasses and laugh. Alan echoed the laugh back at him, the sound turning into music and the sunlight pushing warm gold fingers through Alan’s red hair.
It was a revelation.
Alan mattered. He meant something to her, and that meant he could hurt her. Considering the evidence so far, it meant he was going to hurt her.
This was another terrible problem, on top of all the others.
She had no idea what she was going to do, but she could sleep for just a little longer.
She hadn’t slept like this in more than a year.
She woke up with the demon hanging over her, blank eyes on her face.
Sin whipped a fist around hard, aiming for his stomach. He grabbed her wrist, and she twisted and sat up in bed. “What do you want, Nick?”
“Mavis on the phone for you,” he said, and dropped his mobile phone on her pillow.
“Mavis?” Sin asked.
“Definitely not,” said Mae. “Smack Nick around a little for me, would you?”
“Anything for a friend.”
“So I was wondering what shoe size you are.”
Sin rose from the bed, unwrapping the sheets from around herself as she did so. She realized only when she saw Nick’s raised brows that she’d unwound them slowly, with a little dramatic gesture. She raised her eyebrows back at him and turned her back.
“I don’t understand.”
“Look, all your stuff got burned to ashes last night,” Mae said. “I’ve got a ton of clothes and things I’m going to bring over. Also I’m going to buy you some shoes.”
“I don’t want charity,” Sin said flatly.
“It’s practicality,” Mae volleyed back. “We’re allies, right? Allies need to be able to leave the house. For that you need shoes. So tell me your shoe size, because I’m financially irresponsible and if you don’t I’ll buy a whole bunch of different size shoes.”
“Mae—”
“I’m in the shop,” Mae said. “I’m getting ready to waste the world’s shoe resources!”
Sin told Mae her shoe size and hung up. She was going to have to work out a way to pay back Mae as well.
She turned back to Nick.
“Thank you for the phone,” she said. “And for letting us stay.”
“Alan’s letting you stay,” Nick said.
“Okay,” Sin said. “Why aren’t you at school?”
“Why aren’t you at school?” Nick echoed.
“Uh, my uniform burned up. When my home exploded into flames.”
“So did mine,” said Nick. “When I tossed a lighter into my wardrobe. Tragic, really.”
Sin rubbed the center of her forehead. “Where are Toby and Lydie?”
“Alan has the baby, and he brought the girl to school. He went by to pick up Mae and they’re coming back here to make some sort of plan.”
“What sort of plan?” Sin asked apprehensively.
“I don’t know, I’m not any good at plans,” Nick said. “Well, I’ve got a stage one: Kill some people. After that you’ve lost me.”
“Stage two, kill some more people?” Sin asked. “Stage three’s a bit of a mystery to me as well.”
There had always been Merris to think of strategies and long-term goals. There had always been things Sin had to deal with immediately: She’d never really thought about making plans. She liked to act.
But where was Merris, and what was she supposed to do now?
Mae could make plans. But Sin loved the Market more. She knew she loved it more, and that meant she should be able to do something.
“I’m going to go practice the sword,” Nick said. “Since stages one and two are all I can manage, I’d better get them right.”
“There’s somewhere we can practice?”
“Roof garden.”
“Give me a second,” said Sin. “Can I use your phone again?”
Nick shrugged and made for the door. He only paused to say, “See you on the roof.”
Sin sat on the bed in her sports bra and jeans, and made calls to all the pipers, potion-makers, and occult bookshops in London that she knew.
She’d always looked down on dancers who danced outside the Goblin Market. They had no partners, no fever fruit, nothing to safeguard people outside the circles if the dancers got possessed, and nothing to offer the demons when they came.
Sometimes demons took their lives. Sometimes they would be satisfied with hurting the dancer, sharing one of their bad memories, tasting human pain and trying to plant a doubt or a desire in them so one day the demon could persuade them into possession.
It was a terrible gamble.
The money was good, though. Sin had always thought dancers who went it alone were greedy.
Maybe they were just desperate.
One woman asked her if she was sure, her voice trembling slightly. Sin told her she was quite sure.
She might not know how to plan. But she could act.
She had to sit for a minute after she made the last call, her arm linked around her knee. She tried not to think.
The phone went off in her hand. She answered it automatically.
“Nick?” said a strange man’s voice.
“Who is this?” Sin demanded.
The line went dead.
There was a roof garden on top of Nick and Alan’s building. A roof garden where they grew cigarette butts and concrete.
Sin bounded up the couple of steps to where Nick stood outlined against the chilly steel blue sky. He’d pulled off his shirt and thrown it on the ground; Sin noticed the flex of muscles in his arms and chest as he feinted, lunged, and withdrew. They’d lost a good dancer there.
They’d lost a better one with her. Sin cast off her own shirt and began to warm up wearing jeans and her sports bra, doing some shoulder rolls and ankle circles, and then started on hip flexes. With her knee on the floor and her arms over her head, she pushed her hips forward and counted heartbeats.
When she switched to a calf stretch, Nick tapped her on the back of her knee with his sword. Sin glanced at the talisman, glinting and swinging from his bare chest, and up to the challenging curl of his mouth.
She grinned back and he swung, and Sin bent over backward on her palms to avoid the blade. It cut through the air, the edge skimming an inch above the line of her hips. Sin rolled away as Nick’s sword lifted, and then dodged as he swung. She went weaving around the silver blur of his blade, rolling over and under it, capturing it in the arch of her arms and leaping over the bright barrier.
“Stop dancing around,” Nick said, baring his teeth at her.
She let her arms dip low, crossed at the wrist, as the blade flashed forward. She caught the blade just above the hilt, just before the point touched her stomach.
She grinned back at him. “I never do.”
They disengaged and she spun away: He lifted the sword and she swung out from it, her fingertips on the blade as if it was her partner’s hand. The cold air felt good against her hot skin now, and her muscles were all singing to her.
Nick advanced on her, bringing his sword up and around. Sin did a split and sprang back to her feet when the sword had already passed her. She retreated a step, and the inside of Nick’s arm hit the small of her back.
He stopped and looked down at her, as if he had only just noticed she had turned his sword practice into their dance.
There was a flash above them, almost like a spotlight. Standing out against a pale empty sky, with not a cloud or a murmur of thunder, was a brilliant silent stitch of lightning.
They both stood staring at it for a moment, their faces lifted.
“Did my phone ring while you had it?” Nick asked.
Sin said, “Yes.”
“I have to go,” Nick told her. He disengaged and went for the steps down to his flat, sheathing his sword as he went.
He left Sin with his shirt at her feet and her head tipped back to stare at the sky.
Only a magician could send a sign like that.
She was still staring when Nick’s phone went off in her back pocket.
Sin answered warily, waiting for magicians, and got a reminder that she had plenty of problems that were all her own.
The woman at the occult bookshop, the one with the worried voice who’d asked her if she was quite sure, had clients lined up for her already.
“You don’t have to do this,” she said.
Sin said, “I’m on my way.”
She met Mae and Alan coming into the flat.
Mae frowned. “Is this no-shirts festival day?”
“Every day with Nick is no-shirts festival day,” Alan said absently, but he was frowning too. “Where are you going?”
