Page 84 of The Death Wish

All at once, Silas could stand it no more.

‘Scorch me if you like, your majesty, but I am going to help you.’ He spoke sternly, and the nearest candles fluttered dangerously, bending to near horizontal upon their wicks. His shadow cast over Lucifer, darkening the rings of fatigue beneath his eyes. Silas eyed the disturbed candles, and a deep satisfaction swept over him. His body hummed with energy; with power his goddess had made sure was filled to brimming. With Lalassu’s loss, and Pitch’s distant state, Silas had sunk too deeply into grim thought, losing sight of what was most important.

He was not powerless. Far from it.

Silas took Lucifer’s arm. The heat was immediate, searing and intense, and vastly disconcerting. Silas’s breath quickened. The candles fluttered once more. But he held fast, and the burning sensation lessened. ‘We shall take all day if you insist on this senseless independence. Give me your weight. It is no challenge, I assure you.’

They locked in a brief, silent battle, one where Lucifer held himself rigid, as unyielding as he could make himself. Scarlet came between them, darting straight up to Lucifer, and landing a swift, tiny punch to the end of his nose, following it up with a chittering tirade.

‘Good gods.’ Lucifer sagged, covering his ears. ‘If it will shut you up, I’ll let the blasted ankou throw me over his shoulder. Foolhardy, creature.’

The moment he slumped against Silas, Scarlet’s high-pitched admonishment ceased. Peace reigned, and Silas’s ears rang. But the clever little wisp looked suitably pleased with themself as they returned to Charlie. And well they should. They had given the king an excuse he desperately needed. An ability to accept aid, without saying a word.

And Christ, how he needed the aid.

The king was solid, no doubt–built like a war hammer, where Pitch was the leanness of a small sword–but there was an added heaviness to the daemon that alarmed Silas. Lucifer’s naming melody had always been faint, as though it did not deem Silas worthy of listening to it, and had always been laced with notes of grief; but there was a new chord present now. One forlorn and frightening. Silas shifted his fingers, and heat pulsed from Lucifer’s body; striking out at Silas’s touch, as though seeking to remove him.

Silas drew his breath. Lucifer looked at him. The daemon was tall, and it was not much of a raise of his head needed to meet Silas’s eye.

‘What bothers you, ankou? This help was your fool idea.’

Silas frowned, trying to fathom the melody that played. Deathnotes, perhaps? But if so, they were like none he’d known. And this was a King of Daemonkind, with Silas an ankou of the purebreds. Did Izanami’s reach include such creatures as Lucifer? Or did another god of death hold sway in Arcadia?

‘You are greatly harmed.’ That much Silas was certain of.

‘Say no more, ankou.’ The faint hint of flame burned in Lucifer’s eyes. ‘I am not your concern. Focus on the prince. See him through.’

Silas nodded, shifting his fingers again as the king burned with this strange fever.

Their party carried on, Lucifer muttering every once in a while under his breath, his weight growing heavier and heavier.

When they entered the next room, Jacquetta was already at its far side, standing in front of another set of doors.

Gold was a highlight in this room too, of course. It was there in the thick roped cords that held back velvet green curtains, and there too, in the gilded edges of the furniture. Lucifer exhaled heavily, and leaned them towards the blazing hearth, where amassive painting took up all the wall space above the mantle. The scene depicted an angel, shrouded in flowing white, with tightly curled gold hair and golden wings stretching, upon a black horse whose mane held hints of midnight blue. The angel carried a sword, ready to strike down at a fearsome dragon that menaced him from the ground.

‘St George and the dragon,’ Lucifer said, hoarse as though he’d smoked a pipe all day. ‘He gifted me one very similar, though there is armour worn in mine.’

‘Ah yes, the final version,’ Jacquetta said. ‘He took a long, long while until he was satisfied enough to send it to you. I tried to warn His Grace that purebreds needed more sleep than the painter was afforded, but he’d not listen. The chap would no sooner finish one piece than His Grace decided on a different appearance. The poor sod was painting day and night, until exhaustion claimed him.’

Silas winced. ‘The artist died from overwork?’

‘I did suggest we allow him to leave when the man started to babble and couldn’t keep water down, but I’m afraid my advice fell on deaf, divine ears. His Grace easily forgot those who surrounded him did not hold a strength of his magnitude.’

Pitch’s laughter was bitterness personified. ‘Oh, you don’t say.’

He stared up at the painting, and the emptiness in his expression frightened Silas.

‘Do you recognise the painting?’ Silas watched him, searching for any sign that memories pained him. But he was closed off in a way that Silas had not known since their very first meeting.

‘No, only the arrogance. The light curls do him no favours.’

Lucifer grunted, as transfixed as Pitch appeared to be. ‘I disagree.’

Jacquetta hummed where she stood. ‘My lord could manage any shade, really.’

‘I preferred his hair pale,’ Lucifer said, pressing his free hand to the mantle.

‘Yes. He knew that,’ Jacquetta said.