Page 127 of The Fulbourn: Pitch & Sickle

‘You cannot succumb, Vassago.’

It would be far from all right if the idiot got any closer to an inferno that must already be far more than his skin could handle. Pitch tried to shift himself, thrust his hip so he might shake the man off, but Edward was persistent. And strong.

‘Heed your master,’ he whispered, leaning in close. ‘Stand down.’

Those same words again. Spoken on a wretched clifftop once, now here, in the bowels of the Fulbourn.

But if Pitch stood down now…if he let go…they would all perish.

‘Fuck, Edward…Raph…stop.’

But neither the man nor the angel listened.

The lieutenant swept his arm around Pitch’s waist and touched a hand to where the tattered corset covered over the halo’s mark.

A white-hot shock bolted through the daemon’s body. He went rigid, back bowed.

And the wildness shrank into the depths. Scuttled back into its cage.

Heeded its master.

Pitch exhaled hard, buckling forward, the flames stuttering above him. But he had the reins again now, and there was no tug upon them, no fight to be had.

Edward nodded, the specks of vermilion in his gaze washing away and leaving tired smoky hues instead. His eyes rolled back in his head, and he collapsed into a limp pile.

‘Pitch, what’s happening?’ Silas. Looking for answers. For hope.

But Pitch could give the ankou neither. For at that moment the Sanctuary renewed its assault. A death rattle. The last lock on the Morrigan’s seal, perhaps, shutting them in here. A place worse than any oubliette or abaddon, for those at least had an entrance to cry out to.

The pressure was tremendous, forcing his knees into the earth. An unpleasant crack came from his right arm as bone snapped. Blots of darkness formed around the edges of his vision.

And the beast was nowhere to be seen. Pitch was in control, but with that control came a lessening of his power. His strength had waned. He was no longer a titan, just a burdened daemon who was likely about to be crushed into the cracks and crevices of the Sanctuary.

Silas’s voice reached him. As though it came from the furthest end of the labyrinth’s most cursed corridors. ‘Pitch, stay with me.’

There was the most brilliant blast of turquoise, all the beauty of the ocean, and another voice. Right at his ear. ‘Well done, boy. But best you put that fire away now.’

His thoughts filled, bizarrely, with images of frothing pints and red wine. Pitch sagged, and the blazing torrents he commanded slithered and slipped and shrank until it was only his nails that glowed.

A pressure wrapped around his waist, firm but comfortable.

He had the oddest vision then too. That of the face of an enormous red fox, his snout as long as Pitch’s broken arm, eyes the size of dinner plates at their centre and tapering off to fine points. The vast animal leaned in close, its breath cooling against his parched skin.

He felt himself lifted from the ground, pulled from the burrows that had formed around his knees as he sank beneath the weight of trying to save them all. He dangled there, peering down through weighted lids at the fox’s broad back.

This fox was friend, not foe. He’d have bet his withered cock on it.

‘Take Silas first,’ Pitch mumbled.

‘There’s no first or second,’ the fox told him, black lips pulling back over chalk-white canines. ‘I’ll take you all at once. No time for dallying.’

The kitsune’s voice was no different from when he’d heard it last.

Mr Ahari had been in his human form then, of course. And Pitch had been seated by the fire in The Atlas, drinking wine while Silas ate a disgusting-smelling concoction which he claimed was delicious. Pitch had no wish for any more fire today, but by the gods a slice of pie would be wonderful.

‘Strawberry,’ he slurred.

‘Out of season I’m afraid.’ The fox’s grin was mildly terrifying, but Pitch had never been fearful of Mr Ahari, so would not start now. ‘Now, little one, you next.’