Page 45 of A City of Smoke and Demons
Lira grinned. ‘Not just demons. Werewolves, vampires, hags … the usual. But the biggest focus has always been demons, in preparation for the Devil’s return to the earth.’
‘You really believe that’s going to happen?’ Analise asked. She set her cup down; her fingers started trembling, so she shoved them in her pockets again. ‘I mean, it’s nothing new to me, but the nuns hardly spent their days preparing for the apocalypse.’
‘No, I guess they didn’t,’ Lira said. ‘But the Church has always known this day would come. That’s why the Order was created. It was a group of monks originally, and gradually spread across the known world.’
‘With the whole world to choose from, Asmael picked London,’ Analise mused. She sighed. ‘I never should have left the convent. I had a place there, even if it didn’t feel like much. I was never going to be a nun, but at least, there, Ifitsomewhere. I’ve never actually realised that until now.’
‘Life isn’t easy for any of us,’ Lira said. ‘Jem especially. He had to fight to get the Gendarme to accept him because, no matter what they tell you, a halfbreed oriental isn’t who most people in this city want guarding their backs.’
‘And you?’ Analise asked quietly.
‘Owning a bar as a woman is hard enough, let alone …’
‘I’m sorry,’ Analise mumbled. ‘You know none of that bothers me, Lira. It never has. I don’t care where your ancestors came from or what colour your skin is. I’m … unsettled and angry and …’
‘I know. I get it, I do. I’ve been angry half my life. I was an angry girl living in a white, middle-class neighbourhood where those who could afford it had servants that they treated like pets. Jem is lighter than me, takes after our father more, and it was easy for him, until people realised he wasn’t as white as them. That’s why, even though I tease him for it, I’m glad he has Tobias—because Tobias doesn’t care.’
Analise chewed her lip. ‘The symbol Ezra has on his arm, what is it?’
‘A foo dog,’ Lira said. ‘A guardian. It’s a lion actually, not a dog. And Ezra is an idiot. They’re supposed to be in a pair, one male, one female. They’re often statues, and placed either side of the front door of a house. The male protects the building itself while the female protects what is inside it.’
‘He said your uncle made him get it.’
‘A tattoo, yes. A foo dog specifically? No, that was all Ezra.’ Lira rolled up her sleeves. Curling around each elbow was an intricately drawn foo dog. ‘He should have gotten two. Like I said, idiot.’
Companionable silence fell between them, before they decided to go in. At the door, Analise paused. ‘Lira,’ she began. ‘What was he like, as a child?’
She didn’t have to say who she meant. Lira looked thoughtful.
‘He smiled a lot. He was happy, I suppose, but more serious than he is now—less shit jokes.’
Analise snorted. ‘I find that hard to believe.’
‘He and Jem were always together. After he lost his parents, once the shock of it wore off, Jem said he changed. Ezra’s jokes are his mask, Analise. If everyone is laughing with him, if he is always smiling, no one has any reason to ask if he’s alright. But,’ she added, her brows turned down, ‘there is only so long someone can wear a mask before it slips right off their face.’
Analise fidgeted with her cup. ‘I think I liked him, Lira. I don’t know if I can forget what he was, or forgive him for it.’ She sighed. ‘I guess I’ll have to learn to live with it—with him.’
Ezra stared at the cross nailed to the wall of his room. He hated that fucking cross, the serene judgement from a wooden face. He judged himself harshly enough—he didn’t need a carved idol to help.
He always knew his past would come back to haunt him, especially once Jem locked him up with a death witch. It was exhausting, spending his life constantly on guard. Jokes and the innuendo were easiest—they were his safe space. While Analise was scowling at those, there was no chance he’d have to experience the moment when she realised who he was.
He’d shown her the man he wanted her to see, the man he wanted her to like. Ezra Tarrenfire, boxer, gangster’s lackey. If he’d shown her Ezra Ives straight away …
But that wasn’t who he was anymore either. Ezra felt like some fantastical chimaera-like creature, and sometimes, even he couldn’t tell which parts of him were truth and which were fiction. He felt like Icarus, flying too close to the sun, about to be swallowed by the blinding light of the truth of himself.
It came out anyway, like he always knew it would.
He didn’t expect how much it hurt to see such hatred on Analise’s face. It was a different sort of pain from the one he experienced in the ring, the pain he actively sought and used to steady him.
This pain tore his guts out. It was a slap in the face, an I-told-you-so for allowing himself to feel. It had gotten him nowhere and would possibly get him a knife in the back. If he could punch himself in the face, he would.
The further he was from people at the moment, the better. Whenever he closed his eyes, he saw Analise’s face, and if not hers, it was the shadowed face of the honey-voiced man from his dreams. Agnes was beating at the back of his brain more than ever.
Ezra twisted himself in knots trying to see this demon mark on his shoulder, convinced Lira was full of shit, but when he’d managed to angle himself in front of the mirror in the right way, there it was. The skin was raised, like it was branded into him, and he had no memory of what happened for it to be there. Only fools made deals with the Devil, and he wasn’t a fool.
Lira knocked on his door earlier, telling him again that he was not to leave the club and neither was Analise. She’d put her hands on her slim hips and given him such a Jem-like glare that if he hadn’t known they were related, he’d have been able to guess.
‘Look after her,’ she’d said, her gentle voice not matching her face.
