“That’s some promise,” I said to Dread. “Too bad it’s not true.”
Dread shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. The fear of death is worse than death to most people.”
That cut too close to home for me, so I shut up. The video went to a different shot, inside a laboratory. Dread stepped into the arched opening of the ERI machine. I sat forward as the machine hummed. But this time, instead of the fuzzy aura, his outline looked hard-edged, as if the energy filled him rather than surrounded him. The ERI showed three-dimensional cuts of Dread compared to other people. The human aura formed a shell around their bodies, while Dread’s body was filled with colors that were shifting much faster than the humans’, brighter and more sharply defined.
At the very center of his torso burned a soft, white orb. His core, his essence—captured in all its pulsing glory by the machine.
“We look different.” The implications crashed in on me.
“Demons carry our energy within. It’s our substance; we’re spirit formed into flesh.”
“But when I look at you, you have an aura, just like humans do!”
“That’s the radiant energy that our eyes can see. For humans, their biophysical processes emit the aural energy, whereas for us, we are nothing but energy held together by our core.”
On the video, Dread was smiling compassionately, his trademark preacher’s smile, looking as harmless as he could.
“I have been transformed into spirit form. You can be, too. Come find the truth.”
The video ended abruptly, trailing off into a series of screen-sized numbers. “What happened? What’s next?”
Dread shrugged. “It’s still in production. We need a number of other things before it’s ready for release.”
“You’re not going to show people that. You’re proving that you’re different, a demon.”
“No, Allay, I’m filled with the spirit,” Dread corrected. “A holy man who will live forever, set free by the truth. Amen.”
“You can’t be serious.”
Dread leaned closer. “Science has caught up with us, Allay. We knew this would happen eventually, ever since machines began looking inside of people. It was only a matter of time before our differences were discovered. The ERI has done it. Every demon we put inside shows the same vessel-like quality. Humans look like they’re wearing col orful blankets. Someday very soon we’ll no longer be able to hide. We have to dictate the terms under which we make ourselves known.”
My mouth opened. “You’re going to turn us into saints?”
“It’s safer than being demons. You don’t know what it’s like being the brunt of a witch hunt. But if we position ourselves on the side of angels, we have nothing to lose and everything to gain.”
“How so?”
“People will do anything for immortality. Even without proof, without anyone ever actually defeating death, our truth-speakers give the Fellowship their ten-percent tithe and complete allegiance. They trust us. All of this,” he said, gesturing to the complex of buildings around them, “is nothing compared to what we—what you—could have.”
“Me? What do I have to do with this?” I wanted to run away just thinking about it.
“As a possessed human, you’re unique. You can prove you were human, but now you’re different. You have a past, pictures from when you were a child, report cards, immunization records, friends and family who will testify about who you are.”
That sounded even worse. “I’m not that person anymore.”
Dread lifted one shoulder. “It’s not my idea to bring you into this. I told Vex that I should be the first demon to expose myself. I’ve built my credibility for the past thirty years, especially after I became prophet of this church. I put together this video as a proposal for how I’d go about it. But Vex thinks the problems in my backstory, the fact that I sprang out of nowhere, would lead to wide-scale doubts. It could ruin everything if the real truth about demons became known. So he wants a possessed human, you, Allay, to be the first demon who comes out.”
“You say that as if all I have to do is kiss a girl at a party! Even with that machine of yours, people are going to think it’s a trick, computer generated, manipulated to look different. No one will believe it.”
“Everyone will believe it. First you have to prove we’re different. Then comes the indisputable scientific proof.” Dread got up and went over to the wall. There was a Fellowship cross hanging there. He unhooked it and spun it lightly in his hand. “Have you noticed how sharp the edges are, Allay? We say that’s because the truth cuts like a knife.”
Suddenly the way he was holding the cross made it look like an axe.
“We have to kill a demon publicly so everyone can see you come back to life,” Dread explained. “We have to make it perfectly clear that you’ve survived what a human can’t, so it has to be as dramatic as possible.”
I put both hands to my neck. “You want to cut off my head?”
11
I got up and cautiously backed up the aisle from him. “You must be out of your mind.”
“Spoken like a true human.” Dread rolled up his sleeve, sliding it past his elbow. “Watch this.”
He expertly twirled the cross- axe in his hand, then swung it hard at his outstretched arm. The blade cut through his wrist, hardly snagging on the bone, striking off his hand. A spurt of dark blood shot out after the falling hand plummeted to the floor.
I almost choked, my stomach clenched so hard.
Dread was shaking, his body reacting to the trauma he had inflicted on himself. But he was smiling throughout. Blood streamed out of the blunted end of his arm, pouring onto the crimson rug. He dropped the axe and clenched his fist around his arm, cutting off the blood flow; he grimaced only when some drops splattered on his fine white shirt.
My hands were over my mouth. The sharp alcohol scent of demon blood was strong.
Even standing back, I felt the shock wave of pain radiating out from him. But within a few moments, a ghostly hand appeared where flesh had once been. I looked from it down to his splayed fingers on the carpet. They were becoming smoky and insubstantial.
It took only a few minutes, and the hand on the carpet faded away in front of my eyes, while Dread’s hand returned to normal. Only by squinting could I see the blood on the red carpet. But the smell still filled my nose.
Any humans who saw it would doubt their own eyes. That was what I wanted to tell myself. I could hardly believe it, and I had seen too many serious injuries heal on my own body.
“See?” Dread asked. “Being beheaded is easy—you don’t feel a thing.”
“How do you know? Have you ever been beheaded?”
He gave me a look. “I’ve been told by reliable witnesses.”
“That’s what I thought. What if it kills me?”
“Impossible. When you die, your core becomes impenetrable to protect your essence until your body can regenerate. That’s why you can’t kill a demon’s body and then steal his life force.” He smiled. “If it makes you feel any better, I’ll go first. You can lop off my head and see how it works. A few minutes of discomfort are a minor price to pay for what we’ll gain.”
“Power. Over people.” I crossed my arms.
“Power to make their lives better. Power to help them find their own path, and free them to follow it. Vex and I have been planning this for a very long time, Allay. We never meant to move this fast—we barely have a million members now. You can join the church, and we’ll raise you through the ranks to become one of our leaders. You’ll be publicly associated with the Fellowship, and then when we’re ready, we can launch the Revelation.”
I shook my head, at a complete loss for words. It was inconceivable.
Dread knew I wasn’t buying it. Undaunted, he wiped the cross-axe down with his handkerchief and neatly hung it back on the wall. He rolled down his sleeve and put his coat over his healed arm.
Then he tilted his head. “Vex is coming.”
I hadn’t felt Vex’s signature in a few years—a halting sense, as if walls had sprung up around me, blocking all momentum. His signature was a strength when it came to dealing with other demons. They couldn’t help but be affected by it, and it tended to slow them down enough so they listened and usually obeyed. Glory’s demons followed her because of her charisma and charm, while Vex compelled his line into obedience, controlling them through money and influence.
Naturally he had an ulterior motive in helping me.
I would have preferred some time to absorb everything Dread had told me about their plans, but he took me straight down the hall and into a giant loft on the top floor. It was directly above the guest loft, which was a little unsettling. It was different from mine, very modern with shiny black wood floors and brushed- nickel panels on the walls. There were two raised platforms, one supporting a white grand piano and the other had a long glass table with twelve chairs around it. The décor was formal, obviously made for entertaining, with touches of whimsy in the decorative clocks and artwork from various eras. There wasn’t much of a kitchen hidden behind a hanging bamboo screen along the wall.
“Is this Vex’s place?” I asked.
“No, mine.”
And Lash’s
, he didn’t add. But he didn’t have to.
“Who plays the piano?”
His jaw clenched. “My wife.”
I didn’t mind giving him a dig, not after his little performance with the axe. Dread was closed off to me again, his shields buttoned up so tightly that I could barely sense the annoyance he was feeling at my questions.
The door to the hallway opened and Vex walked in. He looked like all the other young slackers who went skateboarding on the steps at Union Square with their pants hanging too low and their beards scraggly. His brown hair fell into his eyes and iPod earphones were slung over his shoulder.
I took a deep breath as Vex’s signature served to counter Dread’s sensation of sliding, canceling each other out nicely. Perhaps that was one reason they made such a good team.
“Hi, Allay. I’m sorry to hear you’re having some trouble.” His apologetic grin gave the impression of including me in the joke.
I stared at him. “Funny, nobody ever told me you owned the Den.”
“You came to the city to be under my protection. What did you think that entails?”
So much for calling Michael to confirm the bad news. “I didn’t know everything I was agreeing to when we made our bargain. Did you always plan to chop off my head to cement your religion?”
Vex raised his brows at Dread. “What did you say to her?”
Dread held up his hands to slow things down. “I gave her all the facts, like you wanted. She deserves to know that I offered to be resurrected, so she doesn’t have to do it. I still think that’s the best way to go, Vex. I know how to deal with the media, with the kind of intense questioning we’re going to be faced with.”
“It’s time for you to leave, Dread,” Vex said flatly. Dread almost protested, glancing at me as if he didn’t want to leave me alone with him. It seemed possessive, the way he was reacting.
“I’ll see you later, Allay,” Dread assured me, almost as if we had made plans to get together for dinner. But we hadn’t. Could his solicitousness be a consequence of his opening up to me? Or did he have his own plans for me? That was something to deal with later.
As Dread left his own loft, I realized I had plenty of proof that the two old partners were definitely at odds with each other.
I stared at Vex. “Are you going to answer my question?”
Vex grinned as if he were enjoying himself. Dread’s little outburst didn’t seem to bother him a bit. “You weren’t even born when I started the church, Allay. But of course I always intended to feature a possessed human in my Revelation.”
“Why not take Dread up on his offer? Or some other demon, if you don’t trust Dread anymore.”
Vex didn’t rise to my bait about Dread. “I’ve thought of this from every angle, and there’s too much risk in using a demon. If it’s discovered that we’re fundamentally different from humans, that we exist as a separate species, we’ll be hunted down systematically and destroyed.”
I scoffed at that. “There’s no way humans can kill us.”
“They can lock us in a box and never come near enough for us to touch them.” For the first time, his expression was grim. “Believe me, Allay; you don’t want that to happen.”
He was remembering his years of imprisonment by Bedlam, kept ready for consumption whenever his essence was needed by his progenitor.
“We have to provide proof that you were once human, evidence that will satisfy everyone. We have to make it ir refutably a religious miracle, in the name of all that’s good. People will flock to us once we show them they don’t have to die. We’ll bring spirituality back from the dust. We’ll give people faith and hope again.”
“Admit it, Vex. You were looking for a possessed human, and there I was. That’s why you wanted me to come to New York.”
“Honestly, I didn’t expect you to last very long, Allay. No one did. And I wasn’t ready to launch the Revelation ten years ago. We’ve experimented some, making possessed humans specifically for this purpose, but they all went insane and had to be extinguished. The difficulty of the transition has long been a problem. Hybrids are notoriously unstable. We think you survived because you were young, but not too young. A blank slate is most easily written over.”
“Thanks,” I said sarcastically. I wasn’t going to tell Vex that I was convinced the madness overcame humans because demons can’t sleep. That had almost been my undoing. For the first few years, I tried over and over again to sleep. I would lie down and rest, meditating until I thought I was almost drifting off. It got to where I could do that for hours, but ultimately it never satisfied my yearning for sleep, that blessed unconsciousness. To leave everything behind and wake to a new day—you don’t know how important that is until it’s gone. Now I lived with continuous, never-ending awareness. Humans can’t handle that. Shock had told me that sleep deprivation isn’t just a physical problem—it’s physiological, a need of the mind as well as the body.
