Forgotten Sea

Angels and their fucking explanations.

A great wave of love and despair swept over him. His head throbbed. He couldn’t think. The demon hammered iron spikes into his brain, punishment for his disobedience.

He could feel his skul splitting, his mind yielding, his identity failing and fal ing away like ice chunks dropping from a glacier, caving into the sea. Lost . . .

“Demon. You may call me Cudd. ” Iestyn shivered. Had he said that out loud? He licked his lips. “Inside me. In Norfolk.”

Lara’s back pressed the wal . “How?”

Cudd fed on her disbelief, fed on her fear.

“You know what they say.” The demon jerked Iestyn’s mouth into a grin. “Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas.

He real y shouldn’t have passed out on a dead man after our little al ey fight.”

“But in the car . . .”

“Wasn’t I clever?” Spinning, weaving, plotting, planning, 2

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biding his fucking time. “Or perhaps you were just very dumb. We wanted to get inside Rockhaven. Inside the wards.

Our merfolk friend’s shields provided the means. And you provided the way.”

Iestyn heard the demon’s words coming out of his mouth, his throat. He flailed inside his head, trapped inside his own body. He couldn’t move. His strength was drying up.

Like a beached whale, beyond help or hope of the sea.

“Zayin . . .” He forced the name through stiff lips.

Damn him, curse him, eat him. “Bound it.”

The demon’s spite flared. Like being in a box, blind, deaf, dumb. Hate it. Hate him. Hate.

Iestyn spasmed and went rigid.

Cudd shook his borrowed body like a dog, once more in control. “But I’m here now. I’m free. Thanks to you. The merfolk aren’t quite as attractive a target as the nephilim, of course. But stil , my master wil be pleased.”

“Why?” Lara asked.

Why didn’t she run? Run, thought Iestyn.

“Their wards have been nearly as inconvenient as yours. I must reward you for that. Although perhaps you won’t enjoy your reward. You’re such a good girl, Lara,” the demon crooned. “But that just makes it more delicious for me.”

Her face went white.

“No,” Iestyn said simply and stood.

This son of a bitch would not touch her. He would not touch her.

Not while he lived.

“Go,” he said clearly. “Get away.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I can’t leave. You need me.”

Need you to be safe, he thought. Need you to go.

“Get help. Get . . .” He searched through the haze of pain, the stink of decay and death rising from his brain. “Dylan.”

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But instead of moving away, she took a step toward him.

“There’s no time.”

No time, he accepted. No guarantees, no hope.

“Iestyn.” Another step closer. He could smel her hair, sweet as lilies over the stink of blood. He clenched his fists.

“Do you trust me?”

He met her eyes, deep shining gray like the sea at sunset or the sky at dawn.

“Yes,” he said.

*

*

*

Lara’s heart slammed against her ribs. Her stomach was trying to crawl up her throat.

She didn’t kid herself she knew what she was doing. But Simon wasn’t going to rescue her this time. Rescue them.

She knew the damage a thwarted demon could inflict on a reluctant host, wreck his body, scramble his brains.