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“Look,” Nick snapped “I told you, I know everything Stop playing games I know that Alan isn’t my brother I knohat you’re capable of, and I knohat I’m capable of I knoho I am” He took a deep breath “I know you’re my father”
There was a long silence Everyone had drawn in their breath, and there was nothing in the room but dead air Nick could not look away from Arthur’s face Black Arthur looked surprised, but after a hed
“That’s what you know?” he asked “And ould it matter to you who the father is?”
Nick stared “What?”
“Why would you care who the father of the body is?” Arthur asked, eyes glittering and lingering on Nick’s face “What does it matter? The body’s just a puppet Don’t tell me you haven’t felt it”
The roo descent, the s full of grayness Nick felt for an instant as if they were poised on the brink of a much colder world and perhaps had already started to fall He looked at his hands in the slanting yellow rays shed by the lamps and saw the chalked lines of the circle below He remembered the House of Mezentius, and a possessed man trapped in a circle just like this one
“You are a demon I called into my son,” murmured Black Arthur “You never had a father or a brother You never had a heart”
His gaze stroked possessively up and down Nick, and Nick finally understood why Black Arthur looked at hi at an object, one that he had created and wanted to use
Nick knehat he meant to Black Arthur now
Arthur sain, slow, brilliant, and terribly amused
“Did you really think you were human?”
15
Nothing Human
“I — YOU’RE LYING,” NICK SAID “YOU’RE LYING DEMONS CAN’T live in the world that long The bodies don’t last”
There was a clock so time to pieces with a sharp knife Nick hadn’t heard it before, hadn’t been aware of ti until now He needed Arthur to speak immediately and tell him that it was all a lie
“Of course that’s true,” Arthur said thoughtfully “That was always the probleive a body to a demon and a feeeks later, it’s all worn out and you’re back exactly where you started I found thatand so, of course, did the demons”
The deht Nick, and looked over at Anzu Anzu was already looking at hiainst the flaic, and Nick stared into his night-dark eyes and knew it could not be true
Then he wondered why Anzu had black eyes, when usually demons had eyes that ater-clear De human bodies Thomas in the House of Mezentius, and the dead woman in this house, both had black eyes Nick knew that the possessed had black eyes, had always known that, and he had looked into the ether
Anzu’s eyes were a e
Nick looked at his father’s eyes, and then looked at hisbut blue, blue, blue Nick’s own eyes were an endless, cold black
“The problehting The soul and the de over the same bone,” Arthur said “I knew there had to be a way around that Have you ever heard the superstition that a child’s soul enters its body with its first breath?”
Nick looked away from him and found he could not look at Alan He looked at Mae and Ja behind Alan, and saw that Mae’s face wore an expression of horrified disbelief When she met Nick’s eyes, she flinched
Jamie looked upset, but he did not look surprised Nick recalled Ja that Nick reminded him of someone Of course He should have remembered that Jamie had looked into a demon’s face before
He wrenched his eyes away
“The derant the his son a bedtiive a deinable I kneorth any sacrifice”
Nick’sat the floor and playing with her char through the chains
“I started to collect pregnant women,” Arthur said calmly “I had them taken and kept here, but you cannot understand how difficult it is to open a way from the demon world inside a woman’s body Too many of the women became possessed and died I had to invent a charm to keep them safe from possession”
Muer, and this tiht the light It was the sy clear It marked Mum as forbidden territory to the demons
“The wo their bodies to the deot sick None of thenant, and I realized what I had to do I kne strong she was”
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“Look,” Nick snapped “I told you, I know everything Stop playing games I know that Alan isn’t my brother I knohat you’re capable of, and I knohat I’m capable of I knoho I am” He took a deep breath “I know you’re my father”
There was a long silence Everyone had drawn in their breath, and there was nothing in the room but dead air Nick could not look away from Arthur’s face Black Arthur looked surprised, but after a hed
“That’s what you know?” he asked “And ould it matter to you who the father is?”
Nick stared “What?”
“Why would you care who the father of the body is?” Arthur asked, eyes glittering and lingering on Nick’s face “What does it matter? The body’s just a puppet Don’t tell me you haven’t felt it”
The roo descent, the s full of grayness Nick felt for an instant as if they were poised on the brink of a much colder world and perhaps had already started to fall He looked at his hands in the slanting yellow rays shed by the lamps and saw the chalked lines of the circle below He remembered the House of Mezentius, and a possessed man trapped in a circle just like this one
“You are a demon I called into my son,” murmured Black Arthur “You never had a father or a brother You never had a heart”
His gaze stroked possessively up and down Nick, and Nick finally understood why Black Arthur looked at hi at an object, one that he had created and wanted to use
Nick knehat he meant to Black Arthur now
Arthur sain, slow, brilliant, and terribly amused
“Did you really think you were human?”
15
Nothing Human
“I — YOU’RE LYING,” NICK SAID “YOU’RE LYING DEMONS CAN’T live in the world that long The bodies don’t last”
There was a clock so time to pieces with a sharp knife Nick hadn’t heard it before, hadn’t been aware of ti until now He needed Arthur to speak immediately and tell him that it was all a lie