Page 44 of The Death Wish
‘Stop.’ He slammed the door shut. ‘You are giving me a headache. I’m here, damn you.’
He turned around and was promptly assaulted.
A squeaking blot of vibrant yellow and blue, hurtled at him at a rate of knots. Scarlet flattened themselves against his cheek. The wisp kissed him, butterfly wings touching at his skin, before darting into his hair, and wriggling about like a mad thing.
They had taken to this ridiculous behaviour on the ride from the cockaigne. Leaving their guarding duties alongside the simurgh to make a further tangle of Pitch’s hair, and pepper him with those weightless kisses. He’d grumbled and cursed and shook his head of course, hoping that no one took any notice of the smile he sought to wipe from his lips. He was certain Silas had noticed–of course the blasted ankou would have done–but he had said nothing of it.
‘Scarlet, that’s enough.’
The wisp settled a little, but remained in his hair. Pitch strode over to the bed, where the curtains had been closed around the four-poster. Each pillar was utterly covered with runework. He swept the curtains back, and the simurgh lifted its head, dusk-pink crest rising, golden beak raised and topaz eyes watchful, but not alarmed. The creature’s colours had a greater vibrancy now, far more so than on the journey, where their dullness had concerned him. That dullness remained upon the damaged feathers though, with no visible improvement there; those upon the wing and the creature’s neck, which had been stripped of their vivacity by Gabriel’s meddling. The Cultivation was not self-repairing, Pitch’s hopes to the contrary were all but faded now.
The simurgh’s intense gaze had Pitch’s meal stirring unpleasantly in his belly. Or perhaps it was the wine. He’d drunk far too much. But he’d hoped to dull himself for more than just goodbye.
‘So, you wish to return to me.’
The simurgh said nothing, of course, it neither could, nor needed to. Pitch knew the purpose of his summons. His overfull stomach roiled.
‘You could have fucking well given me greater warning. I would have left that last potato.’ He made light of a situation that was anything but.
Scarlet chittered at him. Pitch grabbed the wisp from his hair, causing Scarlet’s cheerful humming to morph into a tiny screech. ‘I want you to stay back, do you hear. Everyone shall be pissed off with me if anything untoward happens to you. Never mind me, of course.’
Scarlet stood on stubby little legs on his palm. Those wretched, wide-open eyes the creature insisted on giving itself stared at him vacantly. Scarlet crooned, a sound intolerably close to sympathetic.
‘Go on,’ he tossed his hand, forcing the wisp to fly. ‘Get away until I say it is safe.’
Scarlet did partly as ordered. Putting a few feet between them, crossing tiny stubby arms as it fluttered. Pitch interpreted it as meaning it would go no further. But he was not going to waste anymore time arguing. Besides, if this went wrong, it might be useful to have a messenger who’d gather help.
Pitch winced at the thought. What the blazes had happened to him? Fierce warrior of the Hellfield who hadn’t given a fuck about his own legion half the time, now reliant on a creature no bigger than one of his balls to race off and cry for help if the need arose. Help thatwouldarrive. But this growing reliance on assistance was dangerous.
A flaw to be flaunted by enemies.
Pitch was vulnerable if he did not take care of things himself. And ifhewere vulnerable, so would Silas be in turn.
He stalked closer to the bed. The simurgh rose to its feet, or rather, foot. One claw still curled up, blackened and useless. The Cultivation stretched its wings, the way of someone waking from a decent night’s sleep.
‘Well? Go on then.’ He glared, adding a touch of flame to his gaze. ‘You shall have to lead this. I have no idea how to put you back.’ Another roll of the stomach came at that, and a sense of the empty place inside him flexing. A terrible combination of feelings, really. ‘Do what you must, and know that I’m not pleased with it in the slightest.’
But it made sense. They could hardly ride out with the simurgh sitting upon his shoulder.
The bird stretched its swan-like neck, and arched its expanded wings. Truly, the creature was beautiful, even with its blemishes and colour-drained scars. But it was also fucking big. And he had not forgotten how agonising it was, to have it torn from him. Before his fears took too great a hold, Pitch stretched his hand towards the Cultivation.
‘Do it. Get on with it. Return to me.’ Was it that simple?
The answer seemed to be no. Unblinking topaz pinned him, the creature resettling its wings. Making no move towards him.
‘Fuck’s sake, just do it, will you?’ Before he lost his nerve. He reached for the creature.
The simurgh made a disconcerting noise, like the distant bellow of a bull. There was such power there, despite the sound’s faintness. The simurgh’s tail lifted and fanned out, the myriad of pastel colours mimicking the spread of a peacock’s tail. The Cultivation shifted back, hopping on its one undamaged leg.
The tips of its fanned tail tilted forward, and down.
Like spear tips aimed toward an enemy.
Realisation brought a twisted smile to Pitch’s lips. ‘You don’t want this either, do you?’
But amusing as it was, the simurgh’s reticence was also exasperating. He was not going to beg for the wretched, fucking thing to come to him, but nor could he leave this room without their rejoining. He knew it as certainly as he knew that if he delayed too long either Sybilla would return, or Silas would come looking for him. And he was in no mood for anyone, especially Silas, to see him writhing about, with feathers sticking out his damned gob. If that was how this bloody process played out.
‘Get on with it. You may have all the freedom you want, once we get you to the Sanctuary.’ For the first time, he allowed himself to toy more thoroughly with the idea that perhaps…just perhaps…his part in this would end once the simurgh was delivered to the Sanctuary. That his freedom was not the illusion he’d always imagined.