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Chapter One Hundred Sixteen

CARMINE

Luna is in my arms, safe with me.

Skibidi skibidi skibidi

Charles is dead or in stasis.

Skibidi Ohio rizzler skibidi

Amon is babbling nonsense in my head to calm himself. Getting captured by a vampire, even with consent, is distressing for a demon. It’s not like possessing and controlling a human. They’re stuck inside a body they have no power over.

Nonce nonce keysmash pompatus

Shut up for a minute , I tell him with a loud thought. His noise is making it harder to think. We’re in a cinderblock hallway with no carpet and motion sensor lights, and I forgot whether I was supposed to go forward or back.

Jabberwocky gyre gimble mimsy

Luna twists out of my arms and lands on her feet like a cat. “Am I the only thing standing still?” She shakes the bees from her head, then looks at me a little sideways. “Are you all right?”

Slythy toves nyaa cheugy

Shut up!

“Yes. I’m fine.”

“Where are we going?”

Skibidywocky keysmash keysmash

“Shut up!” I tell Amon. Luna’s chin tilts and the space between her eyebrows gets tight. Shit. I said that out loud. “I’m sorry. I have Amon… for his fire… inside… and he’s an irritant.”

“Let him go.” She walks to a door with a metal bar across the middle.

“That’s not how it’s done. We control them until we sleep and they…”

Quuxing corge en grault, Waldo Fred! Plugh!

“…they escape.”

“I’m here to get the knife.” She smacks open the door to a stairwell. I think I know it from the plans, if I could just get my bearings. “Is this the way?”

“Wait.”

“Down seems right.” She’s already going down the concrete stairs.

I follow her because it’s the simplest thing my mind can think to do.

“We have to go now.” Her little orange boots tap on the steps.

“Charles won’t follow. He’s too fucked up to send his made guys.

Who knows when we’ll be this close again?

I mean, it’s right here.” She stops at the landing and looks up at me. “I think.”

“I think.”

She comes back up the steps to me. “You really can’t let him go?”

“His fire. I need it.”

The demand to hold it is overwhelming. I haven’t housed a demon in a long time, and now I remember why. It makes you stupid. The stolen power becomes the center of the mind’s universe.

The gostak distims the doshums let me go

“For what?”

“It’s mine.”

It’s not. Her face melts from curiosity into compassion.

She touches my face. “Look at me.”

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“ Di finibus et malorum, ” I whisper old words I argued about a long time ago. I don’t know what the argument was or what those words mean anymore. Not knowing quiets his voice, as if he’s trying to listen.

“Let him go, Carmine. I can’t get the knife without your help.”

She puts my palm to her cheek, and I brush her eyelashes with my thumb. She wants me to let him go. I don’t need fire. I don’t need a knife. I need to make her happy.

Let me go.

I ignore him and breathe. She breathes with me. Her cheeks tighten under my hands when she smiles. When her gaze steadies, I kiss her. Only then can I taste her particular sweetness. It’s all I want. Her taste. Her smile under my hand. Her eyes on me and only me.

When I want nothing but her, I let go.

She gasps gently as if she feels him leave.

“Ow.” There’s a pinch in my shoulder and a sharp ache in my side. I let my hand slide away from her face. I reach under my jacket and find the bullet that the muscles of my shoulder are pushing out. I let it drop in her hand, then retrieve the one from my waist.

“Wow.” She cups the bullet. “It’s warm.”

“Keep them as a memento.” I give her the second one and she puts them both in the dress pockets. “Come on. I know where to go.”