Page 58 of The Malevolent Eight

‘How long have you been holding this in?’ I asked Corrigan quietly.

He shrugged. ‘It’s been building up a while, I guess. Maybe if you’d let me give the speech back in that town where your little friend’s fellow demons were killing those Angelic Valiants—?’

‘Would the two of you please focus on the matter at hand?’ Galass asked. Her scarlet tresses were beginning to writhe and twist in the air again. We were all stressed, I suppose, but a blood mage having a panic attack invariably leads to the construction of a whole new graveyard.

‘She’s right,’ I said, and turned back to Tenebris. ‘I presume the Pandoral has promised Eliva’ren that once he’s opened a gate between this realm and his own, he’ll free her son and somehow get the two of them back to their own plane of existence before this one collapses completely?’

‘Aw, see?’ the diabolic asked, dripping with sarcasm. ‘I don’t know why people say you’re so slow, Cade. You figured out that a crazy woman obsessed with losing her child is willing to sacrifice an entire world just to get her mewling little brat back into her loving arms. I mean, the batty chick’s motives were positively inscrutable until you worked it all out. You’re a real fucking geni—’

I’d like to believe that it was his crass indifference to a mother’s suffering and the calamity it was going to cause all of humanity and every other species that lived on this plane of reality that led me to punch Tenebris in the face for the second time in a week. But the great scholars of philosophy and spirituality argue that ignorance of ourselves is the lock that bars the door to enlightenment and truth the key that turns only when we are willing to accept what it reveals.

So, yeah. I punched him because I was scared of what might soon befall my world, and because I was terrified it might well be my fault.

Also, I think I might have mommy issues.

Turns out, I wasn’t alone in that.

Chapter 32

Mothers

I rubbed at my knuckles, trying to take the sting away; I hadn’t considered that Shame might have made the bones in Tenebris’ nose stronger than human. Then again, back when I’d served as a Glorian Justiciar, my nose had been pretty much unbreakable, so I suppose I should take some satisfaction in the crunching sound when my fist collided with the diabolic’s proboscis.

‘You can change him back now,’ I told Shame.

‘All the way?’ she asked, which was unusual for her. She turned to Alice. ‘A diabolic has no particular need for actual horns when living upon the Mortal plane, do they?’

Alice’s shrug admirably conveyed her utter lack of concern either way. ‘Such powers a diabolic can wield upon this realm will not be affected. However, horns are not mere physical appendages on the Infernal plane. Their growth and unique designs develop with our particular affinities and achievements. The loss of those horns would considerably diminish his status among other Infernals.’

‘Hah!’ Corrigan laughed. ‘Give him little wiggly ones like pig-tails.’

My personal preference would have been for Tenebris to be stuck for the rest of his existence looking like a Glorian, only with significantly less bone density. Unfortunately, I’d made a deal with the Lords Devilish and even I wasn’t reckless enough to go back on it now.

‘Shame, turn Tenebris back the way he was.’

‘Knew you wouldn’t let me down, buddy.’ Somehow, his smirk managed to spoil even the perfection of his Glorian features.

‘Maybe make the horns a teensy bit smaller,’ I suggested.

I went to examine a defaced frieze that had long ago lost whatever magnificence it had once conveyed. The carvings were so obscured that I couldn’t even make out which god or goddess had once graced the curved stone wall. We used to have all sorts of gods in the Mortal realm, but those religions fell out of favour as our native folk magic evolved into a more sophisticated understanding of wonderism and we started encountering actual divine beings.

And may the Void take every one of those pompous, smug arseholes. Why should any of us worship gods who allow a baby to be stolen from its mother before she’s even held it in her arms?

‘It’s a terrible thing, taking a child from her mother,’ Galass said quietly, standing beside me. I had noticed she often did this when I was veering too close to introspection. She was watching my face, looking up at me with that empathy of hers that bordered on cunning, reminding me that one of the reasons blood mages become so dangerous when they lose their minds is that they are so damnably good at sensing the emotions of others.

I’d never understood why she insisted on wearing that silver sublime’s gown of hers. Why cling to the very symbol of perverse servitude into which she’d been born? Anyone else would’ve set the garment on fire– Corrigan had offered to on numerous occasions, although his motives were somewhat suspect. But Galass had never tried to escape her past, or hide from the world who and what she was. Maybe that’s why she was able to hold onto her sanity despite the sanguinalist magic coursing through her veins.

I used to be terrified that one day Galass would lose herself and it would fall to me to end her before she became the mass murderer she worked every day to prove wasn’t the inevitable destiny of all blood mages. Suddenly, a different terror chilled me.

If my time comes, if I lose control of this damned magic I’ve kept hidden from my friends, I hope it’s not you who has to put me down, kid.

‘Cade?’ she asked, detecting the change in me, though thankfully unable to actually read my thoughts.

I tried to form a reassuring smile, but some conjurations are beyond any of us. Fortunately, Corrigan came to my rescue.

‘Let’s not get all judgemental about removing children from the care of their mothers,’ he declared. ‘My own dear mamma tried to murder me in my crib.’ Tempestoral sparks bloomed between the knuckles of his right hand. ‘It’s not like I meant to keep blowing holes in the roof every time I wanted to be fed.’

There was a darker and even sadder story to his childhood, I knew, that he’d never told me, though I’d caught a glimpse of it months ago when I’d had to cast a nightmare bloom to keep him from killing Galass. The spell had forced him to relive the death of his wife when their unborn baby’s attunement to the Tempestoral plane had awakened too soon.

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