Page 106 of The Herlequin: Pitch & Sickle 6

‘Take the scythe, Brother.’ The Herlequin’s breadth stole the light. The scythe dulled. ‘You suffer. Deliver yourself from your own misery. Redemption lies in that blade, ankou.’ The Nephilim had seemed large before. Now he was a mountain looming over Silas as he lay. ‘Take up the blade, Silas Mercer, before you do more harm. Give yourself the end no one else cares enough to give.’

Silas blinked, the sting of tears blurring the Nephilim’s horrid features, the hang of skin and rot of teeth, the crooked path of his nose. The creature was right. One simple strike and this would all be over. He would do no more harm. Pitch would truly be safe if there were not a fool stuck to his side. Silas felt himself sinking into the soil, the weight of his failures heavy upon him.

There was a momentary flicker, a sudden thought, delicate as the drop of an eyelash. What failures? What harm? He’d fought hard, he loved harder…his prince needed his oaf. And Silas needed to be at Pitch’s side like he needed…air to breathe.

Awareness set off bells that peeled alarm. This was all too familiar, this tug-of-war in his head. Silas shrugged his shoulders, tried to raise his cheek from the ground, lift his head despite the heaviness of tightly weaved despair. ‘Stop this. I need…’

Another wave struck, a tsunami too monumental to withstand. Silas dropped his head, tears burning as they fell. A new, fresh, bullying certainty took hold. The goddess had wasted her time dragging him from the depths that day in the loch.

‘The blade, ankou. Take it to your throat. End your misery.’

With a groan Silas reached and found the glasses at his fingertips, as though they yearned for his touch as much as he for theirs.

‘Bring forth your scythe. The power to end this lies with you alone. Bring on your demise, bring on peace.’ The Herlequin’s words ran like warm honey against Silas’s senses, no longer pernicious to hear. The seduction was undeniable, nimble and arousing as a lover’s touch.

Silas curled his fingers around the rim of one of the lenses, a soft moan escaping.

‘Quickly now, Silas Mercer.’ Sweeter than honey this time, so rich Silas thought he could taste the Herlequin’s words melting upon his own tongue. ‘Before those arrive who would steal your right to reprieve and your chance is lost.’

The scythe, new and pliant and willing, rearranged itself. It brought forth the compact, sharp, little blade he required, a simple wooden handle squat and perfectly snug in Silas’s palm.

He exhaled. Christ, what a relief awaited him, a final rest from so much endurance. He was exhausted…he was… Silas touched the edge of the blade to his throat, the metal icy, his blood warm where it spilled at once.

He was…

‘Now, deeper. Let your blood run, Silas Mercer.’

He was Silas Mercer. He was ankou. He was a hundred other curiosities.

But he was not ready to leave.

A brittle protest sought to rise to his lips.

‘Cut your throat, ankou.’ The Herlequin’s voice returned to its foul origins, cuspate as the blade Silas held.

The Nephilim pushed him, brutal now, impatient. And shockingly powerful. The creature’s physical strength paled alongside this…this murderous mindplay. Even as the clouds parted in Silas’s head, even as he realised this was the same game played earlier, when he’d thought for certain Pitch was dead, shaking off the Nephilim was like trying to crawl up from the deepest, darkest pit by his fingernails.

The weight of escape lay ten times heavier than the despair that had trapped Silas to begin with. He could not stop the press of his hand, the slow driving of the blade harder against his flesh.

He could not helpfeelingas though this was what he longed for. Even as his reasonable mind screamed for him to cease. The Herlequin had his claws deep.

Silas choked out a sound, gurgled his refusal, and all the while his blood ran faster. The cut widened.

Herein lay his true end, by the one instrument guaranteed to bring it about. And the Nephilim knew it. He could not kill Silas, just as Crane had said. But he could guide the ankou’s hand to kill himself.

A resolute and mournful note rang out. Nothing of death’s note or naming melody, but the deep thrum of a horn’s blow.

The burden upon Silas’s mind lessened by the tiniest degree, but it was more than enough. With a gasp he let his hand fall from his throat. The blade was rimmed with his blood, his hand shaking at the release, his arm barely able to hold him as he propped himself up.

The Herlequin shifted, his cloak swaying over the rot and dampness of the forest floor as he turned to peer towards the sound. The echo of the lone note clung to the treetops and soaked into the bark that peeled from the trunks.

The Nephilim turned back to Silas, his grievous face contorted with what might be fury, or concern, or exhaustion. A level of all three, Silas suspected. It was only now he could see the toll it had taken on the creature to bend Silas’s will. The tufts of hair upon his rondure head were damp with sweat, and he dragged in his breath through the narrow slit of his mouth. The Herlequin’s bloodshot eye sat amid a wreckage of barely human skin. He fixed it now upon Silas, like the blaze of a lighthouse beam.

They stared at one another, stuck in a stillness disturbed only by each of their laboured breaths. In that silence stretched endless questions, suppositions, and imaginings. What did this creature see when it peered at Silas? How much difference stood between them? And was there enough?

He couldn’t bear the roar of quiet considerations. Couldn’t chance the Nephilim finding a new way to poke at his fortitude again. That moment with the blade had been far too close for any comfort.

‘Do you need to run to your masters, Herlequin?’