Page 126 of Reap & Sow

For a moment, Eda’s heart stopped too.

Ash-gray skin. Knifelike ears. A lashing tail and razor claws. Atop his head, two huge curling horns grew, each as thick as Eda’s arm. They arced downward toward his jaw—she was strongly reminded of a ram. When he bared his teeth, four white fangs gleamed in a wolfish maw. His perfect skin was lined with smoldering black burns where the net had caught him, bisecting an eyelid and the corner of his mouth. But the look in his eyes was most fearsome of all.

Eda spent years wondering at his true face. It was more beautiful and terrible than she could have imagined.

Tenelle stood weak and impaired, but she took a defensive stance, brandishing her sword with stalwart bravery. She shifted, displaying the footwork of a trained fighter.

Mr. Night did not smile or laugh at her hubris. He did not even sneer. All arrogance and lofty condescension had been blown away by the searing injuries to his person. He would kill Tenelle for this, Eda knew. What was she thinking? If this glyph trapped him, then Tenelle could surely retreat. Attack at a safe distance where he could not follow, with arrows and nets and colloidal silver…

Eda and Ben crouched behind a pew. The templehouse had all but emptied of anyone besides the Blades themselves, many of whom were keeping the riotous crowd at bay outside. The rest gathered warily about the dais.

To the side, Marshal Tiernan had Fane pinned beneath his knee. The bishop was screaming his innocence, red-faced. His cries went unheard.

Tenelle suddenly swung at Mr. Night. He jerked out of range like a coiled snake. Eda looked again at the silver Breakers scattered behind him. A Blade dared to cross the borders of the glyph, made to grab them—

Mr. Night threw a hand up without looking.

A fiend crawled through the rippling surface of the Gateway. The Blade tried to retreat, but the creature fell upon him, crushing him beneath its weight. It clamped its jaw over his screaming face. The other Blades ran forward to help.

Fane’s power over the fiends had expired with the completion of his Pact. They answered only to Mr. Night now. And they would kill anyone they could reach.

But he can’t kill me. Not until sundown.

Three more fiends spilled from the mirror and charged into the fray. It was a red and gray blur, beast clashing with man.

When no more came, Eda ran.

Ben called after her. She did not heed him, racing up the dais steps with her heart in her mouth, past the blurred bodies and flashing swords. She snatched up the silver chisel and hammer. Stumbled to the Gateway. In her peripheral vision, she saw Tenelle narrowly miss a strike from Mr. Night that could have decapitated her, sweat pouring down her face.

Eda’s blood roared. The carnage at her back was a mere thrum, as though she were underwater. She put the chisel to smooth obsidian, readied to strike—

Something knocked her off her feet.

She hit the ground hard. The hammer skittered away. Someone grabbed her by the throat and Eda struck out blindly with the chisel, hitting a bony shoulder. The assailant grunted with pain, but only squeezed harder as they crawled over her. Her vision cleared enough to make out Fane’s blotchy, snarling face.

“You whore,” he seethed. “You meddling, stupid little bitch. I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you!” His pupils were huge and black. Every muscle in his body tensed as he did his best to choke her, arms fully extended to keep his face beyond the range of her swings. The chisel clipped his chin once, twice. But he did not let go. Desperate, Eda drove it into his side. She felt skin break and give way. Heard him grunt in pain. But he gritted his teeth and bore it. Whatever genial mask of temperance Florian Fane once wore, it was well and truly discarded now.

The face of a monster, she thought madly. Darkness bled into the corners of her vision. Now everyone can see it.

Just when the pain in her lungs overcame all other sense, her arms falling lax and heavy, Florian was ripped away. Eda gasped. Coughed. Rolled to the side, desperate for air.

Mr. Night stood over her. He had Florian by the neck.

“You cannot kill me!” the bishop wheezed, clawing at the demon’s grasp. “I brought you three thousand years!”

“You did. And for this I might have left you be, Florian Fane, except you stood here, in your precious god’s own house, and called me a liar.” Mr. Night sneered. “Our Pact is finished. As is my use for you. But you may yet give something back to those who did your bidding so loyally, no? They are always hungry.” He held the bishop fast as a fiend approached, mouth dripping with pink drool. “After all…you did ask for fear.”

Fane saw the fiend. He screamed, thrashed, clawed, kicked. Mr. Night stood fast as rock and just as unmoved. He let go only when the fiend latched onto the bishop’s leg. Fane fell to the floor, howling like a struck pig. The fiend shook its head in delight. Blood flew. Another of the beasts, drawn by the struggle, bit into Fane’s shoulder. The two began to pull like scrapping dogs fighting over a bone. Flesh tore. Sinew snapped. The bishop’s screams became gargles, his eyes white and rolling in his head. Innards spilled free, and blood ran like rivers over the glyph’s glowing lines.

Eda did not look away.

Cool fingers hooked beneath her chin. Mr. Night tilted her face toward him.

“Eda!” Ben stood with silver sword in hand at the border of the glyph. His face was lined with terror.

Beside him, Tenelle was bleeding, her bad arm a dead weight. She yelled to the last of her soldiers, “Hold your fire!”

Eda wasn’t sure she could move. All her energy had been sapped by the struggle with Fane. If Mr. Night wanted to hurt her, what could she do to stop him? Their Pact bade him leave her unharmed, unless he wished to lose a thousand years in recompense. But was it enough to stay his hand? Fane had given him more.