Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

Petra flicked the old fashioned light switch, bathing the room in an artificial glow. Silas scowled. Her shine disappeared in the harsh light. Annoying.

She spotted him immediately, of course, but she didn’t scream. Instead, she froze there in the doorway, her hand hovering above the switch and her wide-eyed gaze locked on him.

He wondered what she made of the sight: a transformed demon, body larger and more monstrous than any other bipedal being, lounging on her bed and eating her food.

Lifting the bag of candy to his lips, he complained, “I liked the lights off.” His voice was deeper, more growl than human speech, but Petra seemed to understand him well enough.

In a measured tone, she replied, “And I’d like you to stop invading my spaces.”

He cracked a candy between his molars. “Nah.”

Petra’s attention dropped to the bag of candy in his hand. A strange ripple crossed her strained expression, a flash of intense emotion that passed too quickly for him to identify. “I see you’ve made yourself at home.”

“In this sad little room? Hardly.” He swept his disapproving gaze around the room, taking in her aged furniture, the lack of any luxuries, and the ornament on the wall.

It was a far cry from the luxurious home he’d purchased, and seemed like an odd fit for someone as radiant and powerful as Petra. Shouldn’t a woman who wore a crown at least have nice pillows?

He knew some religious orders, particularly Loft and Burden’s followers, preached various levels of asceticismand deprivation, but Glory’s Temple had never shied away from worldly goods.

“You can’t be here.” Petra snapped the door closed. Though her expression was stony, her willow frame nearly vibrated with tension. “There’s no reason for you to be here. If someone caught you?—”

Silas offered her a slow grin. “What? Afraid you’ll be judged for having a demon in your room?”

She would be. Oh, she would be. He could already see the headlines that would spawn. The scandal might even be enough to cost Petra her precious position as High Priestess.

Demons weren’t reviled, but they weren’t exactly celebrated, either, when thousands of years of superstition lingered like a cloud around their heads. Even non-religious people were likely to look askance at demons. For those who were religious, they were the children of Blight, god of disease and decay.

Over the years, he’d used that reputation to his advantage again and again — as well as all the other handy attributes that came with being more demon than witch. So what if the world was afraid of them? At least in his case, they should be.

A fully grown demon, mature and in control of his shadows, was nearly indestructible. They lived long, could survive even grievous injuries, and had strong, interconnected clans. In the UTA, they minded their own business, but on the European continent, whole swaths of territory were held by fierce, shadowed hands.

Silas didn’t have any grand ambitions on that score, and he wasn’t particularly sentimental, but he did have pride.

And that pride was delighted to think that many people would shudder with horror at the idea of Glory’s High Priestess, a witch blessed with power over her light, considered the living flesh of the goddess, being debased by his unworthy hands.

He expected Petra to scoff at the idea of sleeping with him, or perhaps confirm what he already knew about how sex between them would be viewed, but she didn’t.

Instead, she asked, “Did you disable the camera?”

The half-full bag of candy crunched in his suddenly tense fist. “’Course. Now, I’d love to know why you’ve been knowingly living with?—”

He didn’t get the chance to finish, because as soon as he’d answered her question, she marched up to the bed, snatched one of the water bottles, and threw it at his head. He dodged it easily, but even if he hadn’t, it would have bounced harmlessly off his shadows.

Petra had an impressive throwing arm, though.

“That’s not very nice of you, High Priestess,” he admonished her.

“Gods, if I’d known how much trouble you’d be, I never would have sought you out!” Her movements were quick, jerky, as she began to grab as much of the food as she could. “I just need you to spy on Antonin for me. I don’t need you here. I don’t want you here! Can’t you just do your job and leave me the fuck alone?”

His hackles rose as he watched her gather what food he hadn’t pilfered, her beautiful mask cracked to reveal not just anger, but real panic.

“Petra.”

“I have less than a week before he gets here. I don’t have time for your games. I don’t have time for anything. You think this is fun, but I’m the one living on the edge of a fucking knife. It’s not fun for me!” There was no screeching, but he might have preferred that over her breathless fury.

“I just need you to do your job, not break into my room and eat my food.” She spoke so fast the words began to blur together. A bag of pretzels tumbled from her overflowing arms. A low, wounded animal sound escaped her throat as she made a desperate grab for it.

It was with a great amount of alarm that Silas realized her eyes were glossy.

Suddenly, he was the panicked one. The animal part of him balked at the sight of her unshed tears and the way she frantically gathered her things, as if she feared he’d snatch them from her at any moment. It disturbed the logical part of him, too, because something about seeing the perfect, regal witch unravel over a packet of candy was… wrong.

Without thinking, Silas’s shadows spread, blanketing the bed and reaching for her. Petra made another animal sound, this one of pure frustration, as she tried to twist out of their reach. More snacks slipped from her grasp.

“Stop it!” she hissed.

Silas discarded his candy in favor of restraining her the good old fashioned way. Instinct compelled him to shed his shadows as he banded his human hands around her upper arms. Touching her skin to skin was like reaching into a beam of scorching sunlight: it burned, but it also felt good.

His voice was as sharp as a whip’s crack when he commanded, “Calm down.”

Petra’s shoulders rose and fell with the force of her breaths. She wouldn’t look at him but rather curled in on herself defensively. Wrappers crinkled where she pinched the packages against her chest.

Speaking in a strangled voice, she said, “You think this is all a game, but it’s not. This is my life, Shade.”

Grasping for some way to get the fun Petra back, he promised her, “I won’t eat any more of your candy.”

Petra let out a watery laugh and twisted, not to get away, but rather to sit on the edge of the mattress. He forced himself to let go of her. Gradually, her arms fell by her sides, allowing the snacks to tumble to the floor.

She braced her palms on her knees and dipped her head. Her eyes closed. “It’s not about the food.”

Silas eyed the packages on the floor warily. “Sure seems like it.”

“That’s—” She cut herself off in favor of taking a deep breath. “I don’t like people touching my stuff, that’s all. I get defensive.”

He could understand that. He usually killed people who touched his things. But there was more to it than that. It was written in the purple smudges under her eyes, the way she braced herself, as if she needed to lock her joints to keep from slumping to the ground.

This was not the woman who stood proudly before worshippers, giving succor and false promises of hope in the light of sunrise. This woman was… brittle.

He didn’t like it at all.

Disquieted, Silas threw his legs over the side of the bed and, careful to avoid the food on the ground, began to stalk around the room. Movement helped clear his head. Demons weren’t supposed to be kept pets, nor city-dwellers. They had too much energy, too much wildness. Even if they didn’t experience the volatility of the rut every year, they would have chafed under the restrictions of city life.

Mostly he did okay. Moving to a new place every few weeks helped. Controlled explosions of violence and lust did, too. His family attributed his tolerance to being half-witch, but he believed it was his unrestricted lifestyle that did it. After all, if he was never controlled by anything more than his own whims, what could a city do to rein him in?

But something about Petra’s little meltdown disturbed the animal in him. It pushed out, clawing for freedom, and made the bedroom seem even smaller and grimmer than it was.

Temper snapping, Silas demanded, “You don’t like me touching your things, but you’re fine with someone watching you sleep?”

Petra rubbed her eyes. She looked tired, her shine worn down by some tarnish he couldn’t see. “That’s different.”

“How?”

“It’s not your problem,” she replied, firmer. Petra opened her eyes to give him a pleading look. “Please, just do your job. I already promised I’d give you what you want.”

A niggling suspicion paused his stalking of the room’s perimeter. Eyes narrowing, Silas asked, “Is the entire cathedral under surveillance?”

“I believe so. That’s why I need your help.”

But it wasn’t the full story. That was clear enough. “Who’s watching?”

Petra’s expression went carefully blank. “I can’t say for sure.”

“But you have suspicions.”

“Yes.”

“And it’s not you, the woman who ostensibly runs this place.”

Petra’s eyes didn’t change, but the skin around her mouth went tight. “Was that a question?”

“You’re awfully blasé about having your most private spaces violated,” he observed, surprising even himself with the level of venom in his voice. Everything about this situation bothered him, and the more she spoke, the more certain he became that she was hiding something vital from him.

Nothing about her situation made a damn lick of sense, and that was completely intolerable.

A sweeping gesture drew his attention back to the mess of her caches spread across the floor by the bed. “Apparently not,” she dryly challenged. “But when you’ve lived with it for years, demon, you learn to adapt.”

“Were you gonna tell me about the surveillance before or after I attempted to rob Vanderpoel?”

Petra stood up from her bed. Without looking at him, she padded over to her plain dresser, its surface completely devoid of knick-knacks or keepsakes or accessories, and wrenched open the top drawer.

“You’re the best at what you do, aren’t you?” she mocked, shoulders shrugging beneath her blood-red robe. It slid down her arms, left bare by the simple pale blue blouse she’d changed into after the dawn service, until she could fold it and tuck it into the drawer. “I assumed you’d figure it out.”

It was impossible to resist the draw of her, he realized, and he didn’t want to even if he could.

Silas stalked across the room to press himself against her back. She stiffened, but didn’t turn when he grasped the edge of the dresser on either side of her, caging the witch in.

Speaking against her ear, he hissed, “Do you know why I’m the best, little goddess?”

Petra’s breathing slowed, as if she knew instinctively that any quick movement, any sign at all that she might bolt, would make the predator at her back pounce. “Because you don’t care who you hurt?”

“Because I always know when a client is lyin’ to me,” he answered. “And before you ask, yes, withholding the truth is the same as lyin’ when both will get a plasma bolt stuck between my eyes.”

“And what do you think I’m hiding, Shade?”

The urge to bite her was a living thing in him, a roar from the animal who wanted nothing more than to conquer the inscrutable creature it had captured. “Whoever bugged your office, whoever bugged your bedroom — they’re the one you’re afraid of.”

Petra remained stubbornly silent, so he continued. “Whoever it is needs to have more power than you, the highest ranking member of Glory’s Temple in the Protectorate. They need to have enough power to make you do nothin’ even after having your privacy invaded, day after day. Enough to make you afraid for your life. Enough to make you come to me.”

His mind raced with possibilities, filling the silence she refused to break with a thousand scenarios. Each one pissed him off more than the last.

Silas gradually drew his arms in closer to her sides, pulling the edges of her cage in. His right hand left the dresser to press flat against her stomach, drawing her back into his chest as he stooped over her, lips pressing against the shell of her ear.

“Is it the Protector, little goddess?”

Theoretically, there were at least a dozen, probably more, members of the Temple who had the power to keep the High Priestess of San Francisco on a short leash, but it was Antonin Vanderpoel, the ghost he couldn’t track, who sprang to mind.

He expected to feel her tremble, but he was quickly learning that he never really knew what Petra would do next. Instead of squirming to be free or shaking with adrenaline and fear, she relaxed her shoulders and the curve of her spine. For just a moment, she leaned her weight into him — trusting him, however unconsciously, not to let her fall.

“You’re wrong,” she answered, soft and flat.

Silas’s claws snagged in the fabric of her blouse. His voice went harsh, the syllables clipped, when he replied, “Then give me a fuckin’ name.”

Petra shook her head. “Not about that. About me being afraid of dying.”

“What are you talking about?”

She turned, ever-so-slowly, in his arms. When she tilted her face up, her eyes were no longer dull, but shone with razor-thin circles of pure white light around the pupils. “I’m not afraid of dying, Shade. There are much worse things that can happen in the world, and I’ve seen most of them.”

Petra said it with such frankness, such calm finality, that it made the unfamiliar weight of dread sink into his belly. “Something is wrong,” she continued, “not just here in St. Emaine’s, but in the whole Temple — and that man is at the heart of it. I’m not afraid to die. I’m afraid to fail. I’ve spent three years trying to get to him on my own, living under constant surveillance, so I’d really fucking appreciate it if you didn’t get me killed before I saw this finished, okay?”

She pressed a palm against his chest. He was so taken off-guard by her that he let her direct him back a step, allowing her to slip around him. Silas watched her pause at the scattered packages of food on the floor, before she reached out to snatch her discarded nightgown from the bed.

“If you want my witchbond, then you’re going to have to start taking this seriously,” she warned him, “because if Antonin gets his way, you won’t get it.”

“What does he want?” Silas demanded. “Power? Sex?”

Those were the usual suspects in cases like this, when a woman became desperate enough to hire him to deal with a man. Whatever the motivation, it wouldn’t save Vanderpoel from his wrath, but Silas was a man who liked to go into situations armed with every bit of knowledge he could.

Petra knelt to gather the food with one hand. Placing each package on the cabinet by her bedside, the one that hid Dooraker’s ashes, she arranged them with an unsettling gentleness. It was as if she were afraid that one wrong move would make the little packets of cookies and pretzels and trail mix disappear.

Secrets, he thought, dissatisfied again. Secrets on secrets on secrets.

“I wish I knew what the reason for all of this was,” she finally answered, head down and eyes fixed on her task, “but I don’t.”

“You’re in the center of the shit storm. How could you not know?”

“The center?” Petra paused. The golden curtain of her hair shimmered when she lifted her head to look over her shoulder. There was a dreadful sort of amusement in her expression when she told him, “Shade, whoever you think I am, I’m not. I’m no one. If I’m at the center of anything, it’s because I’ve made room for myself there, not because I’m the one pulling strings.”

The longer the conversation went, the more confused and annoyed he became. Silas ran a palm over one of his curling horns — a restless, anxious gesture he hadn’t done since he was a child — and then hissed with annoyance when he realized he’d done it.

“Why would you involve yourself in this, then?”

Petra remained in a kneeling position on the floor, her nightgown in one hand and an unopened packet of chocolate candies in the other. At any other time, he would have enjoyed the pose, the way she looked up at him from so far below, as if she wished to offer him a prayer from her pretty, sacred mouth.

But in that moment, her blue eyes cut right through him. They saw clean through muscle and bone to the wild, confused thing in him, the part that wanted nothing more than to get on its knees with her.

“Have you ever cared about someone so much that you’d risk everything for them?” It was a soft question, but the words landed like bolt shots.

Silas’s mouth went oddly dry. “No.”

Tal didn’t count. Not really. He could handle himself, and were Silas to die, he would continue on for millennia more. They had an unshakable bond, but it was different from the thing they both knew she spoke of.

His clan didn’t count, either. Against all good sense, they loved him. His aunts and uncles, his cousins, the dozens and dozens of little baby demons they seemed to pop out every year, about ten months after every rut. He felt enough for them to know it was in their best interest that he keep his distance, but would he risk everything for them?

No. The answer was obvious to him, but clearly not to her, so he asked, “Why would I?”

A small puff of air escaped Petra’s nose — the tiniest, softest, most heartbreakingly disappointed sigh he’d ever heard. “That’s answer enough. I guess there’s no point in trying to explain it to you. You’ll never understand it.”

Dissatisfaction came again, hard and mean, but Silas couldn’t rightly tell if it was directed at her or himself.