Page 69 of Hexbound

The demon who wore Noah smiled, a thin, faintly menacing shape. With his hands clasped behind his back, he paced, eyeing Sebastian like a tasty morsel. "Noah's inside me, locked up nice and tight. I'm kind to him, Sebastian. He graciously agreed to host me in his body and such can be rewarded."

"I'll bet."

The demon cocked its head again. "What reason do I have to lie?"

"What reason do you have to tell the truth?"

Those eyes were frighteningly intelligent. "Ah," Not-Noah said. "It's like that, is it?" With an odd blink, his expression shifted. Noah swam to the surface in bits and pieces, his brow slackening and his mouth softening. That hazy look was back—perhaps it had never been the opium, but the man itself.

"It's all right, Bastian," Noah said, smiling his slightly crooked grin. "It's not like I'm locked in here. And he takes the cravings away, makes it a little easier to deal with. Let's me out whenever I want a girl, or an ale, or a night on the town."

The face shifted sideways. That was the only way to explain it. Not-Noah was back, and Sebastian felt ill.

"What do you want with me?" he rasped.

An eyebrow cocked, but it almost seemed as though the gesture was a deliberate act: like the demon knew how it should react and produced the motion, but didn't precisely feel it. "I'll speak plainly then, as you're clearly a man who cannot be fooled. I want the same thing that you want."

"My mother dead?" he sneered.

"Precisely."

Sebastian froze, his heartbeat ticking in the silence. "I thought she was working for you?"

"She does," the demon replied, pacing slowly in front of him. "I need her services for a little longer, whilst I deal with... a slight problem."

A problem? Sebastian's mind raced, then the answer appeared. What else could his mother want but to cast down the Prime? "You want my father killed."

"Did you know that they once thought to control me?" The demon mused. "The Prime, his friend Tremayne, and your mother. They made relics to bind me tight and force me to their will. And then when your father realized how dangerous I was, he forced me back into another world. I have been waiting a long time to have my revenge on them."

"You're working with Tremayne and my mother," he pointed out.

"Drake's powerful," the demon admitted, its lids obscuring its eyes thoughtfully. "When I tried to come back last year, he trapped me within the recesses of the Earl of Rathbourne's mind. There is a possibility that I could defeat Drake—not in this body, certainly—but perhaps...." The way the demon was looking at him made him feel ill again.

"Over my dead body." It was the only thing that had ever, in some ways, belonged to him, and even then, not often. Not with the controlling sclavus collar around his throat.

But the idea of giving himself up completely....

"No. Not you. You and I do not match very well. It pleases me to take another."

"What about Noah? And who?"

"Noah is weak. His body can scarcely hold me and my presence is... eating him up from the inside. That's not fair to poor Noah, and nor does it suit me either. I want what was promised to me."

"Rathbourne?"

The demon smiled. "We are already linked, he and I, and he holds the power to sustain me. Kill his soul-bound companion, and he is putty in my hands."

"What happens to Noah?"

"He gets his body back, without the issue of the addiction. It has paled by now."

"Then why do you need me?"

Blink. "Because you are powerful, Sebastian. You are the one person who can go up against your father and survive, because he does not care to kill one of his sons."

Sebastian wasn't entirely certain about that. The Prime had chosen Rathbourne over him as the house collapsed, and left him bleeding on the floor.

"Think about it," the demon mused. "I bear no grudge against you. Indeed, we could find ourselves allies, if you wanted to accept my bargain." It smiled. "Neither your mother nor your father have done very well by you either, after all."