"I'd be hesitant to call that exchange with Mica pleasant." I scraped at a droplet of wax on the arm of my chair.
"You ought to allow a man to retain his conceits, Mr. Sykes."
The slight smile on Harper's lips sank back to a flat line. "It wasn't pleasant. It shouldn't have been. I gave her my word that Roffcale would be safe in my care... He should have been safe."
"Yes, he should have been."
Both Harper and I looked up at the man who stepped through the doorway. I stared at him for several moments longer than his sudden entry deserved. It was strange to be startled, not by his silent appearance, but by the familiarity of his face and voice. He, too, seemed taken off guard by the sight of me.
I should have known from the moment I tasted the air in the room. The scent of conjuring melted with the musk of his sweat and the camphor oil he rubbed into his skin to give it a golden sheen. It was the singular essence of Nickolas Sariel.
He had hardly changed, despite the years. His eyes were still the color of opium poppies. His hair was like fire, winding through streaks of smoky red, yellow, and white. His black nails had grown longer, but they still gleamed with the same carefully filed edges.
I saw him take in a quick breath of the air as he stared at me. He would have expected to smell fresh ink and the must of old books lingering on me. But I was no longer the man he had known, and the scents of my body had become far more bitter.
"Belimai?" He whispered my name as he came closer.
There was an instant when I wanted to say yes. But a stinging pain flared through the prayers engraved into my skin.
"No." I glanced down at the wax spattered arm of my chair. "I'm afraid you've mistaken me for someone else. I'm sorry."
That was all I had to say. Sariel would not allow himself to ask a second time. He immediately turned to Harper.
"So, Captain, Mica tells me you want my help."
Harper paused for a moment, looking between Sariel and myself. We said nothing. Harper shook his head and pressed on.
"I need you to reach Joan if you can."
"Are you asking me to use my powers as the presiding officer of Good Commons? Or were you thinking of something less in keeping with the law?" Sariel crossed his arms over his chest. "Because if it's the latter, I want you to understand that the price runs very high. I won't work for free, not for you."
"You're not the first devil I've dealt with." Harper gestured to me but Sariel didn't look. "I'm aware of the going rates." Harper reached into his jacket and dropped several gold coins into Sariel's hand.
I couldn't help but wonder where Harper was coming up with all the money. Perhaps Talbott was financing him. That, or he was bankrupting himself. It bothered me that I didn't know his nature well enough to decide if he would use another man's money or only his own.
Sariel studied the coins in his hand, then shook his head. "I was thinking of a little more, Captain Harper."
Harper handed Sariel more fistfuls of coins. Harper went through every one of the pockets of his coat and even gave Sariel his watch and chain. He did it in a matter of a fact manner. If there was any expression on his face, it might have been that look of slight amusement that seemed to pass over his lips at the strangest times.
"That's all I have," Harper said at last. "If you want more, you'll have to wait until I'm paid at the end of the month."
"All I wanted was everything you had." Sariel piled the coins on the table without even counting them. I counted them. He had taken almost ten times what Harper had paid me.
"I'll hold the summons here." Sariel pushed the door shut.
He walked around the table twice, moving the candles until they formed a series of circles within each other. He whispered softly to himself as he walked. I recognized some of the words from the curses he used to spit out behind teachers' backs at St. Augustine's reform school.
"...Ashmedai, your flame." He swept his hands over the outer ring of candles and the wicks lit up. The flames skipped like stones across water, lighting circle after circle of candles. "Sariel, father of my bloodline, your power..." Sariel went on.
The flames of the candles began to burst up into geysers of fire. Sariel continued circling. His eyes were open but not focused.
He whispered words so quickly that I could hardly catch more than hisses of his breath. Each time Sariel let out another string of incantations, the flames surged up, forming a rolling mass of blazing fire.
I couldn't help but glance at Harper. He sat still, watching Sariel with his fingers steepled and pressed against his lips.
"Lucifer, light bearer, lord of wisdom." Sariel came to a stop only a few steps in front of me. He raised his arms, then slashed the long talons of his left hand across the open palm of his right hand. A deep furrow of blood gushed up. Sariel thrust his bleeding palm into the fire. A scent of searing camphor choked the air.
"Show me this woman," he hissed as the tongue of fire surged up over his hand. "My will is greater than even your own." Sariel grasped a single flame and lifted it up above the rest.
"Show me," he commanded.
Suddenly the candles dimmed to mere sparks. The single flame in Sariel's hand leapt up to a blinding white heat. It twisted and rolled, growing larger and brighter. Slowly it formed the soft curves of a woman. Smoke rolled and wound over her, adding shadows and dark hollows to her luminous flesh. She floated above Sariel's outstretched arm, gazing out at the empty corner of the room.
"Joan." Harper came to his feet and stepped up to the edge of the table.
As the woman turned I studied her face. She was beautiful. Her dark eyes were wide and luminous. Her black hair had been pulled down and hung in long curls around her torn clothes. Her mouth moved, but only a curl of white smoke poured out. She looked frightened.
"Is she alive?" Harper demanded.
Sariel said nothing. His eyes were clenched shut as he concentrated. Tremors of strain passed through his arm. Slowly he nodded his head in answer to Harper.
"Where is she?" Harper asked.
"There's a man...a Prodigal..." Sariel pushed the words out between tight gasps of air. "He's dead...like the others...There's blood and broken glass everywhere...Someone else..."
Suddenly I felt the air change. An acrid bitter scent, like scorched limes, burst through the air. I knew the smell. It was demonic fury. At the same moment a ripple of darkness passed through the image of Harper's sister. Something black burst from inside her and exploded outward.
I lunged forward, throwing my body over Sariel's. He crumpled under me as I felt dozens of tiny blades slash through the back of my coat and shirt. The razor edges knocked me forward as they drove deep through my coat and skin. I stumbled down to my knees. I smelled my own flesh searing. A breathless shout of agony escaped me. Fires burst up along the edges of my torn coat.
Then suddenly a stinging wetness splashed across my back. The horrific burning stopped. I gasped for a breath and tasted something metallic. Liquid poured down my back, mixing with my blood. In a circle around me, glittering black slivers fizzed and melted into the pool of liquid.
"Are you all right?" Harper knelt down beside me.
"What did you do?" I asked, still too shocked to guess. From the stinging and the metallic smell, I should have known.
"Silver-water," Harper said. "I always carry a few vials with me, in case things get ugly. I'm sorry if it stung you, but I thought that would be better than what seemed to be happening."
"Yes, I think so," I said.
Beneath me, Sariel opened his eyes and swallowed slowly. He coughed and I moved aside so he could sit up. He pulled himself up-right and then leaned back against the wall. For several minutes he simply stared up at the ceiling and took in slow steady breaths.