Page 123 of The Herlequin: Pitch & Sickle 6

The angel lay far out in a neglected field that stretched like a bland canvas around her.

Silas broke into a run.

He ran past where Lalassu was frozen in her last desperate act, brushing his hand against her raised hoof, whispering a soft promise he would return.

The churned earth had him stumbling but not slowing. The angel’s whispering notes dragged him on.

He dropped to his knees, his momentum sliding him the last foot to Sybilla’s side. There was warmth here, and the strange waft of sweet ashes found him. A smell reminiscent of an extinguished hearth, and yet tinged with foreignness at the same time. He shifted through dirt…and glass? It was as though a great chandelier had shattered beneath the Valkyrie, who lay with eyes closed, lips parted to show a hint of white teeth. Her chest did not move with rise and fall of breath. Her normally bone-white curls were turned jet black, her eyebrows singed away.

Now the drift of smoke and tang of ash made terrible sense.

‘Sybilla? Can you hear me?’ He dared not touch her. He feared she may crumble to the ash she reeked of, and he had no wish to learn what damage had been done to parts of her he could not see. It was grave. He knew that much.

Heheardit. Her song was more echo that real tune, a whisper of its regal self. Death was eating away at her melody, carving it into a shape Silas could barely recognise.

‘Not yet. I beseech you, not yet. For there is great need of her here. Leave her to me, awhile longer.’ He spoke with passion.

But there was no reply. Death had nothing to say, even to him, its servant. It left him to listen as it lured Sybilla, taking her where the simplest sparrow and mightiest angel all found themselves eventually.

Eventually. But not damned well now.

A fierce squall of defiance rose up within Silas. ‘Not yet, I say. I am the Lord of Death, and I say not yet.’

He snatched the ring from his finger, held the scythe tight between thumb and forefinger. He was not sure of what he was doing, only that he wanted it done.

He uttered his command.Keep her.

Another test of the new blade. Had he truly vanquished this scythe?

The answer came swiftly. The ring softened between his fingers, and the metamorphosis was done in the wink of an eye. From simple circle to perilous hook, the type that might dangle from the rafters in an abattoir. The pitchfork etching graced the curve, reminding Silas of why he defied the gods.

He clenched his fingers around the short shaft and raised the hook above Sybilla’s chest.

‘Forgive me, my friend.’ For Silas rebelled willingly, but he stole the Valkyrie’s choice. And had no idea what that might mean for them both.

Before he could falter, Silas plunged the tip of the hook into Sybilla’s chest.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

SYBILLA’S MELODYscattered, reminding Silas of the Morrigan’s ravens, all shooting upwards in a startled crescendo.

Silas sank the scythe deep, crushing it through bone and heated flesh. And held on for dear life.

There was chaos in the melody now, as though the notes split in two, scrambling to play over the top of one another.

Confusion radiated from the scythe itself.

For Silas sought to defy their goddess.

Izanami, the deity who took those purebreds who had died on a new year’s midnight toll and bound them in servitude for a desperately short year. Dangling life before her ankou like an unreachable treasure.

Though Silas despised Balthazar Crane, he understood the man’s desperation to survive. To die and then be forced to work within reach of the living was tantamount to torture.

But the gods had no thoughts for such small things.

Just as Seraphim had no regard for daemon princes, and rebellious angels no care for the monsters they conceived. And fucking hell, Silas was tired of it all.

‘Izanami,’ he shouted. ‘There is still time for her.’