Demon

The dark smile changed, transformed itself into a terrible glare. “But mine is. And that is all I am concerned about. I’m tired, Clay. I came back to you, not because I wanted to, but because I was compelled to. I played a game with you, and for the game to end I must finish it. So here I am. And this is all I have for you and all you will get from me, for I know very well how my own story shall end. Oh, there’s more for you, a bit more, but this is the end as it pertains to you and me. My tale has given way to yours. Don’t you see it, or are you still blind, you idiotic human? In the end, as I have said, it has always been about you.”

“No.” I said, my emotions heating to a roiling rage. “I don’t see at all what this has to do with me. And without that, it has no ending. And without an ending, it can’t ever be published. So there’s some truth for you!”

“That doesn’t matter.”

“What do you mean it doesn’t matter? That was your aim all along!”

“No.” His mouth curved, revealing white teeth. “It wasn’t. I told you I needed to tell you my story. Yes, I knew you would write it. I knew your ego would find the opportunity irresistible. But my goal all along has been to tell you my story.”

“Just to be heard? Just to ruin my life?” I was shaking now.

“How long do you expect to live, Clay?”

“What?”

“I hope not very long.”

My heart was beating erratically. He glanced at my chest, as though he could see it through my flesh.

“That heart of yours has outgrown its casing. It happened a long time ago. You’ll go to the doctor in a couple of days, and he probably won’t even properly diagnose it. But here, what’s a trifle to me? I give you a parting gift: restrictive cardiomyopathy.”

I blanched. “What? What is that?”

“Look it up. You’re handy that way. Be sure to inform your doctor, or he might well miss it or, more likely, dismiss it as an anxiety disorder. It doesn’t really matter if he does. The only thing that could possibly save you by now is a transplant.”

Sweat trickled down my sides inside my sweater. “Why? Why did you do this?”

“Because this is your life, Clay: fleeting, ephemeral, and insignificant except for one thing, that El loved you. And you have missed it. Missed it all, completely. And now, look at you. Sweating, worried about your life, your story. Did you expect to live forever? Did you think this day would not come? It had to, if not in this way then in some other. I’ve done you a favor!”

“What favor?”

“Still blind!” His eyes flashed with an evil I found both horrible and horribly mesmerizing. “Look around you! Open your eyes! In telling you the truth about yourself more clearly than anyone ever hears it, I have shown you a choice that was before you all along. But no, even now you cannot see it.”

“What choice?”

In the sandwich shop the demon had been incensed, but here before me now, I knew the purest hate in the universe was leveled, in this moment, at me.

“The truth, Clay! In the end I have told you the truth—a truth that, having heard, you are now doubly accountable for. Yes, if you become one of them, those shining souls, what can I do about it? But reject the truth even by refusing to decide, and reap the consequence you rightfully deserve. Do you hear that? That is accountability. It is the sound of hell, calling for you! Having had such an extravagant gift offered you, your rejection can only result in damnation far greater than that of those to whom it was never offered.”

His lips pulled back from his teeth. “This then, shall be my singular consolation, my bitter solace: that when you die—and the time will be soon—there will be at least one of El’s precious clay humans more damned to hell than I!”

I gaped as he got up. This time it was I who grabbed his wrist. But he shook me off as though I were an insect.

I fell back. “Where are you going?”

“I have an appointment,” he growled. And he strode out into the black night, the light of the moon blue in his hair.

I STAGGERED HOME, HEARTSICK—literally—knowing he was right. But knowing, also, what I needed to do.

I had come to the end of the story only to find that it was no story at all. That my childhood training in the stuff of myth was a living and breathing reality.

That indeed, there was a monster.

Just not the one I thought.

EPILOGUE

Kat,

Here it is, in its entirety. I need you to believe me when I tell you this story is true—true, and double-edged. As you read these pages, do so knowing they will force a decision from you, one that was in front of you even before you held them in your hands.

I want to talk when you are done. If, by chance, something has happened to me by then, bury the pages, burn them, publish them—it doesn’t matter. As I said, the choice is there whether the others read it or not.

In the end I don’t know what was more poisonous—his story and my obsession with it, my vacillating belief, or Lucian himself.

He’s gone. He’s accomplished what he came for. As for me, I need time to think and to make my