Page 74 of Infernium

Groaning, I shook my head. “You honestly think there’s nothing inside of him, not a speck of goodness, that would keep him from harming me?”

He shrugged and rubbed a hand across his jaw. “I cannot answer that, except to say, he has buried his needs for far too long. A demon who has been trampled by the weight of virtue will inevitably become resentful. Violent. Unpredictable.” His eyes flickered like a flame on that last word.

“So, why hasn’t anyone come for him ifone does not leavethe knighthood?”

“The Noxerians forbade Zorreth’s crusade. They thought him a fool.”

“Noxerians?” I asked, trying to recall if Jericho might’ve mentioned them.

“The most powerful demons in the infernal realm.”

“And they were against Zorreth because …?”

“A half-breed with too much power at his fingertips becomes a threat. There were twelve knights of the order at his beck and call. Each one with a rare and unusual gift.”

In other words, the Noxerians probably wanted Zorreth dead. So why they would arrest Vaszhago for having carried out his murder was a mystery. “Jericho controls lightning.”

“Arodcan control lightning. He can harness the power inside him through vitaeilem.”

“What does that mean?”

His lips curved to a half-smile. “If he were so inclined, he could destroy all of Nightshade as easily as waving his hand.”

“Jericho said there were others like him. Half demon and half angel. Do they have that power?”

“No.”

“And what is your rare and unusual gift?”

On a huff, he lowered his boot and twisted the chair back around, pushing it back beneath the table. “I have shared enough for today. You have company.”

“What?”

“Miss Ravenshaw?” The sound of Vespyr’s voice was a distant echo, and I guessed her to be in the organ room.

“Up here!” Eyes locked on Vaszhago, I called out to her and, a minute later, caught sight of her purple hair as she made her way up the stairs toward the library. It was once she’d fully ascended that I noticed what lay snuggled in her arms.

“Camael?” I pushed off my window perch and met her at the top of the staircase.

“Found her in my room. Snoopy thing was pawing at something under my bed. Have you been here all morning?”

“Yeah. Vaszhago and I were just–” I glanced over my shoulder to find he was no longer standing there. Frowning, I turned further, not catching so much as a wisp of his tabard. Weird. “Well, he was there a minute ago.”

“Careful around that one.” Her warning had me twisting back to face her, and she dumped my annoying little death trap into my arms. The cat meowed, seemingly happy to see me, like she hadn’t almost lured me to a concrete nosedive just minutes before. “Heard the guards talking about him at the prison. Seems he has an appetite for humans. I know you have that whole curse thing, but … he’s tricky.”

Hopefully, his balls being torn off for eternity was enough of a deterrent. “Thanks for the heads up. And by the way, you don’t have to call me Miss Ravenshaw.”

“Oh. Okay.” The smile on her face withered to a frown. “Enough of that, Osiris. She was definitely not being paternalistic.”

“What?”

With a sheepish smile, she stuck out her elbow, as if to prod something that wasn’t there. “He likes to use big words. Doesn’t often get their meaning right, though.”

“Who?”

“My shadow. Osiris.”

I made a subtle lean to the side, finding nothing or no one behind her.

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