I could hear him swallow. "The darkness isn't caused by the absence of light, but by the presence of something else. Something that, believe me, you don't want to see."
Yeah, except that dying in the dark didn't sound all that appealing, either. I grabbed him before he could get away, crushing that expensive sleeve ruthlessly. "What. Is. It?"
"I told you—"
"Casanova! There is a very good chance there are children down here. What the hell is out there?"
He didn't answer, just shone the flashlight at the ceiling. The walls in this section were dark wood, but the ceiling was painted white, picked out along the edges in gold scrollwork. The thing was hard to see, as it was also bloodless white. It was clinging to the ceiling upside down, head cocked to one side, watching. It was like a parody of a child, small and half formed, glistening wetly across all its surfaces. It looked blind, with no glimmer of eyes under the skin stretched tight across its sockets, but its head turned toward me unerringly.
"Cassie." It spoke in Pritkin's voice. It sounded sympathetic. "If you don't run, I'll kill you quickly, and I'll leave the kids alone."
I swallowed the noise that wanted to crawl out of my throat and made a quick weapons assessment. Mine consisted wholly of a couple of misbehaving knives, since I'd lost my purse somewhere along the line. Not good. But there was a whole line of weapons in the hands of the suits of armor lining the corridor. They looked as lifeless and empty as museum pieces, but were actually part of the security system.
"Casanova," I said very carefully. "Order the guards to attack it."
"I can't." He shook his head frantically, looking more panicked than I'd ever seen him.
"What do you mean, you can't? If you let me die, Mircea will kill you."
"And if you aid her, I will," the thing on the ceiling said, as if it was part of the conversation. "It is difficult, serving two masters, isn't it? I warned you it would become awkward one day."
"Two?" I finally got it. "That's Rosier, isn't it?" Casanova nodded dumbly. "You're not supposed to be back yet," I told the demon accusingly. Hadn't Pritkin said it would take at least a couple of days for him to recover? It hadn't been that long, had it? With all the time-hopping, I wasn't sure, but I didn't think so.
The thing tilted its head the other way—why, I don't know. It didn't have any eyes so it couldn't have been to see any better. "Well, I'm not at my best," it finally said.
I looked over at the twitching Casanova, who was going to collapse at any moment. "Go," I told him. "Help Pritkin. Do not let Nick get out of here and do not let him talk to anyone. I'll deal with this."
"You'll deal with this?" Casanova stared at me with no expression, like he just couldn't find one that fit.
"Yeah." I looked up again. It was gruesome, but it was small. I decided I could take it. "I already killed you once."
"Ah, yes, so you did. But then, that would be why I brought friends," it said mildly. Casanova fled.
"Friends?"
"Servants of a colleague who owes me a favor. My boys are good for many things, but killing is not really their forte. Now, usually I would make this relatively quick," it continued. "But after the other day, I am afraid I will have to break my habit. A little matter of prestige. You know how it is."
"Sure." Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something small and glowy emerge from the stairs.
"Now hold still, because this is going to hurt like a bitch."
"Right back at you," the pixie said, and threw her tiny sword like an arrow. It hit the thing square in the not-eyes, provoking a shriek of mingled pain and rage.
I twisted my neck around and saw Françoise running down the stairs toward me, looking more than a little frazzled. Her dress was torn in three different places, one of which was oozing a widening stain, and her eyes were huge. Radella, darting around in the air in front of me, looked okay, however. Human weapons might not be able to hurt a demon, but it looked like the Fey had more luck.
I turned around to face Rosier, feeling somewhat calmer. Only to see pieces of the darkness peeling away from the floor, from the corners and from the walls, all along the corridor. I still couldn't focus on any of them, but I got the feeling that Casanova had probably been right: I didn't want to.
"Uh-oh," the pixie said unhelpfully.
"What's going on?" I asked, and Françoise broke into a rapid stream of French that I didn't have the time or the ability to translate. "Radella!"
"We've been trying to get to the children." She gestured toward the end of the hall. "That thing has half of them trapped in the kitchen."
"Are they all right?"
"For now. The staff is protecting them, but they won't hold. Not if those things attack."
"But Fey magic works on demons!"
Radella zoomed in front of my face, her own furious. "Yes, and if I had warriors to work with instead of cooks, it might even be enough! As it is—"
"What are you saying? You can't break through?"
"We stormed the back door. I managed to get past their forces, but the witch almost got herself killed. And I can't do much alone."
Billy Joe floated down through the ceiling. "We got another problem," he said quickly, not even pausing to chew me out for leaving him with this mess. "Our buddy over there sent some of his boys upstairs. They're there now, with the kids. And I have no power against demons, Cass."
He, Françoise and Radella were all looking at me, and after a stunned second I realized that they were waiting for instructions. Like I was supposed to know how to get us out of this. And Agnes would have, I thought grimly. Maybe even Myra would have had a few ideas. But I had nothing.
"I have a proposition for you, pixie," Rosier gasped. I looked up to see that he had worked Radella's sword loose. What was left of it dropped to the ground with a clatter. It wasn't much more than a hilt—the rest appeared to have been eaten away, like with acid. "Leave now and I will waive retribution for your misguided actions."
"I may have a better offer," I said quickly.
Radella looked from the remains of her sword to me. "It better be a good one, human!"
"How would you like to have the rune? Not just to cast, but permanently? It only takes a month to recharge after each use, so you could have as many children as you want. Your friends could even…"
I trailed off because she had gone motionless, as if all the bones had suddenly liquefied inside her skin. She looked for a minute like she'd had the air knocked out of her, but then she licked her lips, slow and precise, and looked at me with a drowning expression in those huge lavender eyes. "What do you want?" It came out as a whisper.
"Find a way to get the kids out and it's yours."
"Are you deaf? I already told you, there is no way!"
"Can the demons follow you into Faerie?"
"What? No! Or if they did, they wouldn't last long," she said with an evil smile. "But how does that—"
"Go back into the kitchen and summon the portal. Take the kids into Faerie, then return with them once it's safe."
"And how do I do that? Even assuming I could break through the lines again, I'd need a death to power the portal. And your ghost told me—"
"You'll have it."
"What?"
"No way, Cass. Stop right there." For once Billy sounded deadly serious. Which meant he was quicker on the uptake than Radella.
"There will be a death," I told her. One way or the other. "Does it matter which of us it is, me or that thing?"