If so, it wasn’t working on me—more’s the pity.
The days were starting to run together, but I knew I’d been in Hell for a bit more than three weeks. I’d made two more attempts to get through the portal. The last attempt had been the best yet, but I still got the distinct impression that if I tried to push my whole body through, I’d get stuck halfway.
For that reason, last night’s insomnia session had been devoted to thinking about whether or not I should contact Nigellus and ask him to bind me. In a prime example of wishy-washiness, I’d decided to give it a few more days, arrange for another mass feeding, and try one more time on my own. If there was no noticeable improvement compared to my last attempt, I’d run up the white flag.
The way I saw it, there was no overwhelming reason why I needed to be able to leave right away. And while I was willing to trust Nigellus if it came down to it, I wasn’t exactly in a hurry to sign away the part of my soul that wasn’t already deeded to a certain undead English asshole.
The sun was low in the sky, and I was stirring a pot of the rice-and-lentil dish that seemed to be a staple here. Dad was dozing in his chair, but he startled me by jerking awake with a small gasp.
“Whoa,” I said. “Easy there. Did you have a bad dream?”
But Dad wasn’t looking at me. He was looking over my shoulder, at the far corner of the room. I turned to follow his gaze. My eyes fell on Myrial, who had popped into existence inside the small hut without any warning or invitation.
Again.
TWENTY-ONE
THIS WAS THE FIFTH time the demon had shown up unannounced since I’d arrived, and it was seriously grating on my nerves at this point.
“You could materialize outside and knock,” I pointed out helpfully. Then I cursed as a glop of rice detached from the spoon I was still holding and fell to the floor.
Myrial was in her female form, as she had been for every visit since the first one. She waved an airy hand. “Dear, we’re family. I didn’t realize you expected me to stand on ceremony.”
I mentally counted to ten.
“Myrial, I’m not trying to be rude. But it upsets Dad when you pop in like that.” Deep breath. Let it out. “And given that my kitchen skills aren’t the best to start with, doing it while I’m standing in front of a boiling pot is just asking for trouble. Now, why are you here?” And how soon can I convince you to leave?
“It’s your father I’m here about, dear,” Myrial said, as though I was somehow behaving unreasonably. “It’s been nearly a month. You need to make a decision about getting him some real help.” She gestured. “Look at him.”
I looked at him. Then I looked at her again.
“And by real help, you mean a soul-bond,” I said flatly. “I’ve already told you that I’m not ready to do something so... irreversible. Besides, he’s improving on his own.”
Myrial raised her eyebrows and waved a hand at him. “Is he?” she asked in a wry tone.
“Yes he is,” I snapped. “He responds to people sometimes, and I’ve seen him make decisions on his own about small things, like which food to eat first, or where he wants to sit.”
Myrial crossed her arms. “I find it interesting that you’re so resistant to something that could potentially make him whole again within minutes.”
I set the pot away from the flames and crossed my arms to mirror her. “And I find it interesting that you’re so set on doing this. You’re supposed to be immortal. Why would a measly month matter so much? What’s in it for you?”
Myrial looked offended. “He’s family. Of a sort, at least. Though I am starting to wonder if there’s some reason you don’t want him in full possession of his faculties.”
My temper flared, at least in part because the words hit too close to home. I’d reached a sort of peace with the current circumstances. There was no way Dad and I would be able to live together peacefully in a tiny two-room building for weeks on end if his mind and personality were intact. As it was, our relationship was more of an idea than an actuality. I took care of him—with the generous help of other people—and he didn’t say horrible or hurtful things to me.
He didn’t say anything to me.
But despite what Myrial was implying, that wasn’t the basis for my resistance to the soul-bond. It probably made me a hypocrite since I was contemplating just such a bond for myself, if that was what it took to be able to travel from Hell to Earth. But I trusted Nigellus... mostly. And I didn’t trust Myrial.
Myrial had ruined my grandmother’s life.
Myrial was the reason my father and I were in this mess in the first place.
If a demon-bond really did turn out to be the only way to heal my father’s mind, then I’d find another demon to do it.
“I don’t appreciate your implication,” I said, feeling the last vestiges of civility in the conversation start to slide away. “The answer is no. The answer has been no from the start, but you still keep coming back.”
A calculating look came over the demon’s face, and I felt the back of my neck prickle.
“Are you so certain you speak for your father’s soul?” she asked.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.
Myrial smiled sweetly, disappearing and reappearing in front of my father’s chair in the next instant. She’d switched to her male form at the same time, becoming a face from old photo albums.
“Darryl,” said my grandfather in a wheedling tone, “I can help you. I can undo what the Fae did to you... make it just like it never happened. I only
