Page 51 of The Fulbourn: Pitch & Sickle

Silas winced at the idea of one such as Pitch being owned by anyone at all. He kept as close as he dared without touching the prince. The daemon still shook with the rigours of his dream. His nightmare.

‘What then do you make of his words?’ He kept his voice low, aware of their petite audience. Tilly was sorting necklaces and laying earrings in their pairs. The set Pitch had been wearing, glittering diamonds and sapphires, took pride of place at the centre of the assembly.

‘Gods, I don’t know. So much of it is different to the memory I’ve held so long. Some is the same…Seraphiel appeared suddenly, right in harm’s way, catching me unawares.’ Silas knew this well enough. Pitch had been paralysed with fear at the graveyard where they met with the skriker, when he thought he’d struck Silas with his flame and made the same fatal mistake again. ‘And I’ve always believed I was so intent on destroying the Nephilim, so possessed by the need for a kill that I ignored all else, that I heard nothing but my own rage. But I heard it all. And the monster was long dead in this dream.’

Silas itched to touch Pitch, provide a little comfort, but he curled his fingers into his palms, aware of the great weight carried by the prince.

‘Dreams are masters at contorting the truth,’ he said, gently.

‘And at revealing it.’

‘You think…the events of your dream are real?’

‘Perhaps.’ Pitch ground the heels of his hands into his eyes. When he looked up his eyes had returned to some semblance of calm, honey-brown, the vibrant natural green still hidden. ‘The greensward stirred some of your memories. Well, for me I think the watch is doing the same. There is something I haven’t told you about the soirée.’ Silas tensed, but nodded and waited. ‘When that moron cracked my head on the desk it loosened more than my back teeth. I recalled some of my time at the angel’s Sanctuary…all of it rather unpleasant.' He hesitated, and god it was a struggle not to reach for him. ‘Seraphiel cast his magick upon me there. But not some piss-weak incantation to make a more manageable warrior of the Berserker Prince, as he had Enoch believe. This was cultivation, raw…savage…magick that he sent to where my flame is most deeply embedded. I remembered how fucking painful it was when he touched me, how his magick plundered me, how foreign it felt as it worked its way through to the flame. I thought I knew what it was to burn, but I was quite wrong. Do you recall what my dear sire said, that day in your cottage? That Seraphiel made a monster of me?’

It was hard to forget. ‘I do.’ Silas placed his hand on Pitch’s shoulder. The prince was trembling. ‘But he was very wrong, Pitch.’

The daemon glanced away. ‘You’ve not seen the things I’ve done, Silas. I was the Berserker Prince long before Seraphiel showed interest in me. My flame has always tested me, pushed at the limits of my control and escaped it often.’ Pitch shook his head. ‘Seraphiel knew this when he came to me, talking of tasting forbidden fruit, of wanting to fuck me simply because Enoch forbade the union of high angel and daemon. I was hardly going to deny him. His desire was intoxicating, or I was intoxicated…I’m not sure which now. But he didn’t just want me to bend for him when he called…he wanted far more. I see it now, he had designs, just as Satty said. He wanted my flame. He coveted the wildness within me for his own means. And though I do not knowwhatSeraphiel has done to me, I know for certain that it has been done.’ Pitch touched at his belly, looking every inch as sickened as he’d done with the Gu. ‘Never, in four hundred years, has it been so overwhelmingly difficult to control my flame. Without the amuletum I doubt…’ The prince raise his head, his anguish evident. ‘It fights me, constantly. Seraphielhasmade me his monster, Silas. But it is not in the way Lucifer believes. I think I am a vessel…a part of a monstrous whole.’

‘Oh god, Pitch…’ Silas tried to pull the prince close but he met firm resistance. He took his hand from Pitch’s shoulder, searching desperately for anything that might dull the knife-edge of this line of reasoning. The angel’s violation was appalling, beyond comprehension, and it came on top of all else Pitch had endured.

‘I am glad he’s dead.’ The words flew from Silas. ‘It is nothing less than he deserved for the way he’s treated you.’

‘But what am I left with, Silas? He’s gone but his curse is still with me. His wish is still my command, for here we are…running after whispers.’

To see Pitch so desolate cut at Silas like nothing else. The lump in his throat made it difficult to swallow, his eyes stung with the press of unshed tears. Christ almighty, what awful things he wanted to do to that bastard of an angel.

Then Silas saw a light in the miserable darkness. He touched his fingers to Pitch’s chin, making sure he had the daemon’s full attention. ‘Do you know what isnotyour burden to carry? His death. Seraphiel’s own manipulations are to blame for that. What happened that day cannot lie on your shoulders alone, for you were not yourself. The angel saw to that. Weknowthat now.’

Pitch sucked in his breath, parting the full pink lips Silas had explored so well last night. He wrapped his fingers around Silas’s wrist. Holding on as though the world were suddenly spinning.

‘You may be right.’

‘I know I am right.’ Silas leaned down and brushed a kiss over the prince’s lips, resting his forehead against Pitch’s brow, letting the words he’d spoken sink in. Hoping the daemon might believe them as fervently as Silas did.

Tilly chatted with her reflection, oblivious to the enormity of the hushed conversation. Silas tucked a strand of Pitch’s tangled hair behind his ear.

‘What do you wish to do?’ he said quietly. ‘Are you ready for the Fulbourn or would you rather some more time?’

Pitch shook his head. ‘What point in a delay? Nothing has truly changed. I have another memory, a tiny piece of an angelic puzzle, but I am no less a pawn in this game because of it. At least now there is some explanation for this intolerable chaos inside me.’

The child cooed at herself, admiring the earring she held to her ear. The least sparkly of the entire choice on offer, a teardrop of amber which clipped to the ear by way of a single gold leaf.

‘Pretty,’ she declared.

Silas helped Pitch to his feet, securing the sheet about him and steadying him as he sat on the edge of the bed. The daemon was deep in his thoughts, and didn’t utter a word. Silas gathered up the blanket and draped it around Pitch’s shoulders, noticing the way the daemon still trembled.

A small vision in white ran at the prince. Pitch pulled his arm from the blanket and balled his fist.

‘No!’ Silas cried. ‘It’s Tilly.’

The daemon froze, his knuckles mere inches from her face, his eyes ablaze. But the child did not flinch.

‘Why is it in front of me?’ Pitch hissed.

The amber earrings dangled from her tiny earlobes, their weight dragging them long. Her cheeks were ruby red, a thin line marking where she’d slept upon a seam on her pillow. Pitch shooed her away, but the little girl smiled at him and pulled herself up onto the bed.

‘What is it doing?’ Pitch leaned against Silas as she wriggled in alongside him. The child reached for the daemon.