Lord of Shadows (The Dark Artifices, #2)

Emma flung herself sideways, away from the flickering shadow. She landed on the overturned altar and spun around to see a rippling horror rising in front of her. It was scarlet-black, the color of blood—it was blood, formed of clotted, sludgy scarlet, with two burning white eyes. Its hands ended in flat points like the tip of a shovel, each with a single black, curved talon protruding from it. The talons dripped with a thin, lucent slime.

It spoke. Blood poured from its mouth, a black slash in its scarlet face. “I am Sabnock of Thule. How dare you stand before me, ugly human?”

Emma was surprised not to be called Shadowhunter—most demons knew the Nephilim. But she didn’t show it. “How personal,” she said. “I’m hurt.”

“I do not understand your words.” Sabnock slipped toward her. Emma edged backward on the altar. She could feel Julian somewhere behind her; she knew he was there, without looking.

“Most don’t,” she said. “It’s a burden, being sarcastic.”

“Blood drew me here,” it said. “Blood is what I am. Blood spilled in hate and anger. Blood spilled in frustrated love. Blood spilled in despair.”

“You’re a demon,” Emma said, holding Cortana out, straight and level. “I don’t really need to know why or how. I just need you to go back where you came from.”

“I came from blood, and to blood I will return,” said the demon, and leaped, talons and teeth bared. Emma hadn’t even realized it had teeth, but there they were, like shards of red glass.

She flipped backward, somersaulting away from the creature. It hit the altar with the sound of fluid smacking against something solid. The world spun around Emma as she turned. She felt utterly cold down to her bones, the freezing calm of battle that slowed everything in the world around her.

She landed, straightening. The demon was crouched at the edge of the altar, snarling. It leaped again, and this time she slashed at it, a swift upward thrust.

Cortana met no resistance. It slid through the creature’s shoulder; blood splashed onto Emma’s wrist and forearm. Slimy, clotted, foul blood. She gagged as the thing spun like a tornado, whipping out at her with its glassine claw. They twirled across the floor of the church in a sort of dance, Cortana flashing and gleaming. It was impossible to wound the thing—hacking and slashing at it only opened up a temporary gap, like a dent in water, that closed up immediately.

She didn’t dare take her eyes off the demon long enough to look around for Julian. She knew he was there, but he felt farther away, as if he’d gone to the other side of the church. She couldn’t see the distant, flashing star of his seraph blade, either. Jules, she thought. A little help now would be good.

With a frustrated growl, the demon charged again. Emma swung, an overhead two-fisted slash, and the demon howled; she’d smashed a few of its teeth in. A sharp pain lanced up her arm. She twisted the sword, grinding it into the demon’s head, breathing in the pleasure of its screams.

Light exploded into the world. She staggered back, her eyes burning. A square was opening in the roof above, like the sunroof of a car peeling back. She saw a shadow against the sun; Julian, perched on one of the church’s highest rafters, and then the sunlight speared down through the gap and the demon began to burn.

It shrieked as it burned. Its edges blackening, it staggered back. The room stank of boiling blood. Julian dropped from the rafters, landing on the altar: His stele was in one hand, his seraph blade in the other.

She held out her free hand, the one that wasn’t clasping Cortana, toward him. He knew what she wanted, without asking. The seraph blade arced through the air toward her like a firework. Emma caught it, spun, and drove the blade into the weakened, burning demon.

With a last shriek, it vanished.

The silence that came after was stunning. Emma gasped, her ears ringing, and turned to Jules. “That was awesome—”

Jules flung himself down from the altar, grabbing the ichor-smeared seraph blade out of her hand. It was already starting to warp out of shape, choked with demon blood. He hurled it aside and grabbed Emma’s hand, flipping it over so he could see the long scratch that ran from the back of her palm up her forearm.

He was stark white. “What happened? Did it bite you?”

“Not exactly. I sliced myself on its teeth.”

He ran his fingers up her arm. She winced. It was a long and narrow cut, but not shallow. “It doesn’t burn? Or sting?”

“I’m fine,” she said. “Jules. I’m fine.”

He stared at her for a moment. His eyes were fierce and tearless in the harsh light from above. He turned away without another word and stalked down the aisle of the church, toward the doors.

Emma looked down at her hand. Her wound was quite ordinary, she thought; it would need to be cleaned, but it wasn’t anything out of the usual in terms of injuries sustained in battle. She slid Cortana back into its sheath and followed Julian out of the church.

For a moment, she didn’t see him at all. It was as if he’d vanished, and all that was left was the view from the church. Green fields fading away into a wash of blue: blue sea, blue sky, the blue haze of distant hills.

She heard a cry, thin and faint, and ran toward it, toward the graveyard where headstones thinned and faded by time tilted back and forth like a pack of scattered playing cards.

There was a loud squeak. “Let me go! Let me go!” Emma spun around and saw the grass moving; the smallest piskie was wriggling madly, pinned to the ground by Jules, whose bleakly cold expression sent a shiver through Emma.

“You locked us in with that thing,” Julian said, his arm across the piskie’s throat. “Didn’t you?”

“Didn’t know it was there! Didn’t know!” squeaked the piskie, twisting under Julian’s hold.

“What’s the difference?” Emma protested. “Julian. Don’t—”

“Necromancy happened in that church. It tore open a hole between dimensions that let a demon through. It could have ripped us to shreds.”

“Didn’t know!” the piskie whined.

“Who didn’t know?” Julian demanded. “Because I’ll bet anything you did.”

The piskie went limp, boneless. Julian pinned it with a knee. “The lady said to tell you to go there. She said you were dangerous. Would kill faeries.”

“I might now,” said Julian.

“It’s all right, Jules,” Emma said. She knew the piskie wasn’t the innocent, childlike creature it appeared to be. But something about seeing it twist and whimper made her feel sick.

“It’s not all right. You were hurt,” Julian said, and the cold tone in his voice made her remember the look on his face when Anselm Nightshade was led away. Julian, you scared me a little, she’d said at the time.

But then, Nightshade had been guilty. Clary had said so.

“Leave him alone!” It was another one of the piskies, wavering palely in the grass. A female piskie, judging from clothes and hair length. She waved her hands ineffectually at Julian. “He doesn’t know anything!”

Julian didn’t move. He stared icily down at the faerie. He looked like a statue of an avenging angel, something blank and pitiless.

“Don’t come near us again,” he said. “Speak of this to no one. Or we will find you, and I will make you pay.”

The piskie nodded jerkily. Julian stood up, and the piskies vanished as if the ground had swallowed them up.

“Did you have to scare them so much?” Emma said, a little hesitantly. Julian still had that frighteningly blank expression on his face, as if his body was here but his mind was a million miles away.

“Better scared than making trouble.” Julian turned to her. A little of the color was coming back to his skin. “You need an iratze.”

“It’s all right. It doesn’t hurt that much, and besides, I want to clean it first.” Iratzes could heal skin over any wound, but sometimes that meant sealing in infection or dirt.

Concern flickered in his eyes. “Then we should go back to the cottage. But first, I need your help with something.”

Emma thought of the broken altar, the spilled blood, and groaned. “Don’t say cleaning up.”

“We’re not going to clean the church up,” said Julian. “We’re going to burn it down.”

*