It was not difficult. They were everywhere here, and eager to serve. Before the Androktasiai had time to realize what she was doing, she slipped into the nearest and began to move effortlessly along the shadowpaths.
She felt like a bird riding the thermals. Her choices were so instinctive it was as if her route had been preordained, as if some inexorable force at her destination were dragging her toward it, reeling her in. There was a sense of timelessness. Her journey felt both leisurely and instantaneous.
Then she flowed into corporeality once again, her physical senses rising to the fore, the weight of blood and bone and muscle settling into place inside her envelope of skin. She was Indigo, and then she was Nora. Although it was dark, she knew instantly where she was.
She was in the bathroom adjoining Sam’s room in the hospital. She paused a moment in the dark, leaning forward to listen for any sounds on the other side of the door. Hearing nothing, she wrapped her hand around the cold metal of the handle and slowly turned it. She pulled the door open a crack, wincing as it creaked, and peered out through the gap, ready to become Indigo again in an instant, to flee back into the shadows if need be.
Sam’s room was in semidarkness, the blinds drawn. The sound of deep, slow, even breathing told her he was asleep.
She pulled the door a little wider and stepped forward. Now she could see him lying in bed, the gloom giving his unruly dark hair and the white pillow that framed it a murky, soft-focus fuzz.
She stepped closer still, and as she peered at his familiar face, relaxed now in sleep, she felt her jagged edges softening, a sense of calmness fold around her like a soft blanket, or a hug. Sam was not exactly handsome, but he wasn’t ugly either. He had what might be called a homely face, but one made attractive by the laugh lines around his eyes and mouth, by the gentleness in his almond-shaped eyes—when they were open, that was.
Right now his closed eyelids looked soft as moth wings in the dimness—so soft she had to fight an urge to lean forward and kiss them. As she took another step forward, disturbing the air, he stirred, as though detecting her presence.
Or maybe, she thought, he was subconsciously detecting the presence of the demon inside her. Perhaps it disturbed his peace like an ominous shadow glimpsed beneath the glassy, unbroken surface of a calm sea. Although Damastes was quiet inside her, she could still feel him there. She sensed that he was aware of her confusion and fear, and that he was taking pleasure in it.
She made a conscious effort to block him and was reassured to find that, even in her weakened state, she still could. With the lid on the box firmly closed, she allowed herself to think more freely about her agreement to create a murder golem for Damastes’s use. Giving him any amount of autonomy was a huge risk, but with Selene and her sisters talking about turning themselves into suicide bombers, Nora didn’t see she had any other choice. She needed to rescue the Edwards children—whatever their parents were, they themselves were innocents in all of this—and one way or another, she needed to stop Rafe.
It was imperative, though, that she not allow Damastes complete autonomy. Somehow she had to find a way to keep the murder god on some sort of mental leash. The last thing she wanted was to set Damastes free on an unsuspecting world. She would willingly die before she allowed that to happen.
Pushing these thoughts aside, she relieved her pressure on the lid of the box once again and sensed Damastes pushing back out into the light, clearly irritated that she still had the strength to shut him down.
Shielding secrets from me, are you? she heard him growl in her mind.
She kept her reply light, casual. Not at all. You were disturbing my friend’s sleep, making him restless.
She almost imagined him snorting huffily. That wasn’t my doing, girl.
Nora didn’t grace him with an answer and sensed him sinking back into a torpid resentment. In the bed, as though something of her internal exchange with the demon had seeped once again into his dreams, Sam groaned and became restless, his head turning from left to right on the pillow. Though his eyes were still closed, his lips parted with a wet pop. His voice was thick, slurred. “Hello?”
Nora froze. Ridiculously she felt like a child on the verge of being caught out doing something naughty. The natural thing would be to go to the bed, stroke Sam’s hair, soothe him with a few gentle words.
But she was reluctant to do that. She didn’t want him to know she was here—though she couldn’t exactly say why. Perhaps because she didn’t want Damastes to get so close to him? Perhaps because she didn’t want to get drawn into explanations? Or perhaps because she was ashamed of her recent actions and was fearful that Sam would see right through her mask and be shocked or disappointed in her?
His eyelids fluttered. He frowned. Although his lips were still moving, he made nothing but small, inarticulate sounds.
Then he suddenly became still, as though he was on the verge of waking and knew someone was in the room with him.
Softly he said, “Nora?”
Taking fright, Nora instantly became Indigo and twisted like smoke toward the block of shadow between the chunky little bedside cabinet and the wall. By the time Sam sloughed off the caul of sleep and opened his eyes, she was gone.
*
“Where the hell did you go?” Selene said.
Her face was the first thing Nora saw when she returned and emerged from Indigo’s shadow. The slaughter nun was glaring at her, as were Xanthe and Megaira, the latter’s eyes narrowed suspiciously.
“She was with him,” Megaira said, startling Nora. Then she realized the slaughter nun meant Damastes, not Sam. “He controls her. I don’t like it.”
Nora was glad of the spark of anger that Megaira’s malice roused in her. “He doesn’t control me. I control him.”
“So where were you?” Selene asked. “Why disappear like that?”
“It was not cool,” muttered Xanthe.
Nora blinked at her. “What is this? Mean Girls?” When her comment met with blank looks, she sighed. “Look, I needed some time on my own, all right? Time to think. I … I went to see Sam. My … friend. He’s in the hospital.”
Megaira still looked suspicious. “What use is he?”
“He calms me.” Nora flushed. “I don’t expect you to understand.”
Selene put a hand on Nora’s arm. “But you’re back with us now? You’re focused on what we have to do?”
Nora nodded. “I … have a proposal. You won’t like it, but it’s an alternative to getting yourselves killed.”