“Yes.” Slate's expression tightened. “I'm grateful that so many Beneathers volunteered to help us repair the damage. We're very lucky.”
“But?”
“But I have a bad feeling, sweetheart.” He glanced down at me, his silver eyes turning an odd bronze in the faux sunrise of the Zone's automated lighting.
For a second, he looked like a stranger.
I shivered. “What do you mean?”
“I feel as if...” Slate made a derisive sound and shook his head. “Never mind.”
“Tell me, Slate,” I insisted. “Secrets can hurt us.”
Slate sobered. “You're right. It's not a secret, El. I just feel as if the other shoe hasn't dropped. Killing Gargo was too easy.”
“You call that easy?” I chuckled.
“He was a God.” Slate's expression didn't lighten. “I keep feeling as if we're missing something.”
“Gargo is gone,” I said firmly. “If he wasn't, we'd know. He'd make it violently clear that he survived and he'd make sure I was the first person to know it.”
Slate grimaced. “I suppose you're right. Gargo hated you above all others.”
“You can't win them all,” I said flippantly and winked at him.
I finally got a chuckle for that.
“There's just one thing that keeps bugging me,” Slate said. “I remember you telling me about the time when you were Faenestra.”
“Which one? When I was originally the Goddess or when I was reunited with the other half of my soul and it tried to take control of me?” I teased.
“The latter. Faenestra made your body immortal—truly immortal as no other Beneather is—by simply inhabiting you.”
I nodded as my grin faded. A small knot of fear was inexplicably forming in my gut.
“It was her soul that gave you immortality,” Slate went on. “But you cut her away and put her in a prison of Darc's magic.”
“Yes, we did. She'll never come back.”
“Are you certain?”
I hesitated. There had been a moment recently when rage had threatened me, and I thought that Faenestra might rise inside me, reborn through the memory of her in my soul. The memory of myself.
“Honestly, I can never truly be free of Faenestra because I am Faenestra,” I admitted. “I'm different from her only because of my experiences. When I cut her away, I was removing the part of my soul that had been left stagnant in a prison. Maybe I might have been able to sway Faenestra into becoming as I am but that would have taken centuries and I didn't have that kind of time.”
“But if she could be swayed, you could be too. What if something happened to change your heart or your perspective? Would you become Faenestra again?”
“If I'm not vigilant, it's possible.”
“And what about Lucifer? You said that you had to stop him from letting the Devil back in when he rescued you from Petra. Will Lucifer always have the potential to become the Devil again?”
I paused. I had trapped Faenestra in a prison but I'd merely released Lucifer's Devil after I removed it from him. What happens to a God soul after it's severed and set free? A God soul is pure energy and energy doesn't die, it merely transforms. So, where did it go and what did it transform into? At full power, a God can become spiritual and move about at will then create a physical body when necessary. But what about a piece of a God?
I knew that I was diminished when I was separated from Faenestra and that had led me to believe it would be similar for Lucifer. I had experienced a sort of split-personality effect when she was inside me, and my personalities could interact with each other. It had been much the same for Luke and his Devil, but I'd never considered that Lucifer had split himself, whereas I had been cut apart by others and evolved into someone new through my experiences. Did that make a difference? I assumed that the Devil had simply dispersed—sort of a spiritual death—without the rest of its soul to anchor it but now, I wasn't so sure. We saw evidence that Lucifer could become the Devil again, just as I had the potential to become Faenestra, but I wasn't sure why or how. Was Lucifer struggling because he had it in him to be the Devil or had the Devil never left?
“Luke may have the taint of the Devil inside him,” I whispered. “Or the Devil could be haunting him.”
“What does that mean, Elaria?” Slate growled as he turned to fully face me.
“It means that I didn't catch the Devil when I removed him from Lucifer,” I confessed. “I drew him out and released the magic. I never considered that it could survive outside of his body, cut off from the rest of his soul. Magic needs a host.”
“But a God soul is more than mere magic,” Slate said grimly.
“Yes.”
“Now you see what's been eating at me.” He took my hand as if for comfort. “We didn't imprison Gargo's soul either.”
“Lucifer just forced it out of Poseidon.”
“Yes.”
“And he wasn't even severed. We killed his body but released his soul intact.”
“Yes.”
“Fuck me,” I whispered.
“If Gargo's soul is still floating around the Zone, we're all fucked, sweetheart.”
Chapter Two
“Slate!” Binx, Slate's brutish younger brother, came stomping into our bedroom like a bull looking for a matador.
I was just emerging from my dressing room, in one of the chic dresses Slate stocked the racks with. Yes, he likes to pick out my clothes; it's a habit that started early in our relationship and one which we both let continue because it adds some spice. Hey, if a guy wants to buy me clothes and they happen to be of the quality Slate prefers, I'm all for it. Go ahead, call me a kept
