Chapter 56 – You Can Go to Hell

First, Valentina carefully helped Innogen up the stairs to the bedroom. Then she would deal with the ring.

Upstairs, she gently covered Innogen and placed her mangled hand on a pillow.

“I have to go back downstairs and take care of the ring,” Valentina said. “Just for a moment. I’ll be right back.”

Innogen nodded without saying a word, and Valentina brushed the sweaty strands of hair from her face and kissed her on the forehead, tasted the salt on her lips. Then she went back downstairs.

Valentina walked past Faustus, who had settled back into the chair, stepped up to the desk, and picked up the ring.

The searing hatred emanating from the small object in her palm was truly unnerving. But it seemed to her as if there was also a frantic, desperate quality to it, a tugging and testing, as if the demon knew its prison had been weakened.

“Put it away.” Vyxara’s voice in her head was serious, almost sharp.

“I’m thinking,” Valentina replied silently.

“I know what you’re thinking, and the answer is no.” The sharpness didn’t waver. “Listen to me, Valentina. Narzoz isn’t like me. He has fed on the suffering of myriads of humans, and his nature has been shaped over millennia by torment and malice. His hatred for anyone who tries to subdue him is absolute and irrevocable. It would be a never-ending war of attrition in your life, and he would spend every second looking for a way to destroy you. Just like he managed to destroy Johann, or rather, helped Johann destroy himself.”

Valentina twirled the ring uncertainly between her fingers.

The temptation was there, of course it was. A second demon, bound and at her disposal, who would have to obey her in everything, that would be a weapon of terrible power. And a part of her, the part that had come to appreciate having power over the past few years, wanted the ring desperately. Wanted to make use of Narzoz.

Just as she had originally wanted to make use of Vyxara, back then, three years ago, when she had gone into the forest to summon a demon. Her plan had been to bind a demon to a pendant, just as Narzoz had been bound to a ring. Back then, she had wanted to use that demon’s power and knowledge to gain an advantage, no, to compensate for an advantage that all those rich and noble students had and she did not. And the demon was supposed to be her tool for that.

But no, she thought. Tool was actually the wrong word. A slave. A demonic slave.

And then the cat had run through the circle, and everything had gone wrong, and Vyxara hadn’t ended up in the pendant, but in Valentina instead.

If the cat hadn’t been there, if the ritual had worked the way she’d planned, then Vyxara would have ended up in an object that looked exactly like this ring did through the Sight. Compressed and filled with hatred, always searching for a way out and for revenge.

And Valentina would never have known what it’s like when a demon whispers a funny thought or an erotic fantasy into your mind at three in the morning, or tells you to pull yourself together when you’re on the verge of breaking down, or congratulates you with a mixture of mockery and secret pride when you’ve accomplished something difficult.

The difference between what she had planned and what she had gotten was the difference between slavery and something like a partnership, however strange and unusual it might be. And that was all the difference in the world. She didn’t want to be a slave owner.

Besides, one demon in her life was more than enough.

“How do I destroy it?” she asked Vyxara in her mind.

The relief that radiated from Vyxara to Valentina after that thought was moving.

“The binding structure is basically a bankreizh, with which you already have a bit of experience. At its core, it is a self-dual geometric configuration that exists simultaneously in both orientations and is therefore the only thing capable of holding a demon in place at all. The Martyr is quite a clever bastard, I have to give him that. The structure of the bankreizh within the ring is already damaged. If you apply pressure at the weakest point, but only on the inverted structure, not on your side, of course, that should be enough to shatter it completely and open the way back to the infernal realm for Narzoz.”

“Show me where.”

“Here.” Vyxara directed Valentina’s perception to a specific point in the binding geometry, where hairline cracks were forming, like in a thawing sheet of ice over a pond. “Start there. I think a single, sharp impulse from an inverted pattern should probably suffice.”

Valentina looked at Faustus. “Do you have any of my Corrupted Essence left?”

Faustus pulled the nearly empty vial from the pocket of his tattered cloak and handed it to her without a word.

Valentina uncorked it and, under Vyxara’s guidance, let the last remnants of the oily, iridescent liquid flow into a demonic pattern, directing its effect precisely to the spot Vyxara had shown her.

At first nothing happened, then suddenly, with a loud crack, the ring broke and the inverted side of the bankreizh dissolved.

For a single, terrifying moment, Valentina saw through the Sight how Narzoz unfolded.

Impossible limbs stretching into directions that shouldn’t exist. Hundreds of eyes, hundreds of maws, a seething, churning mass of inverted Essence pouring out of the shattering prison. And in that split second, before the demon seeped back into the infernal realm, no hatred radiated from it anymore.

The only thing that remained was surprise. A boundless, unbridled, overwhelming, and utterly bewildered astonishment.

Then the demon was gone, as if it had never been there. The two halves of the ring lay dead and slightly deformed in Valentina’s palm. Through the Sight, they were still recognizable as corrupted, but also recognizably empty, like a discarded snail shell.

“What did you just do?” Faustus asked. There was unease in his voice, and he had instinctively leaned back.

“I sent the demon back to hell.”

Faustus stared in amazement at the destroyed ring in her hand and then at Valentina. His gaunt face showed both respect and a hint of fear.

“That was the right decision,” Vyxara said in her head. “And you should know… if your ritual had worked back then…” A brief silence. “I prefer what we have.”

“Me too,” she thought.

For a very brief moment, the bond, the mutual understanding between them, was stronger than ever. But they didn’t have time for such sentimentality right now.

“Quite right,” said Vyxara, and dry sarcasm returned to the mental voice. “Now that we’ve sufficiently assured each other of how grateful we are for one another, we should take care of the corpse, your lover’s shattered hand, and the fugitive criminal who looks like he hasn’t eaten in a week.”

Valentina almost laughed, but that would probably have frightened Faustus even more.

Instead, she just sighed, clapped her hands, and looked him straight in the eye. “Let’s get rid of this body.”

Valentina knelt down next to the body, pulled the key from Johann’s doublet pocket, and handed the key to Faustus along with the two halves of the broken ring.

“You should probably put the ring next to him on the nightstand or something,” she said. “It should look as if his bankreizh had completely failed and he was alone when it happened.”

Faustus nodded and stood up. “All right. I’ll take care of the other stuff too, as we discussed.”

“Oh Martyr,” she said blushing as she realized something. “Maybe you should also make sure there’s no… no hair of me or anything like that left in the bed, the Illumination-“

“Stop worrying. I’ll make sure no traces of you are left behind.”

“I… thank you. You’re right. Come back afterward. I have bread and cheese so you can grab a bite to eat… and then we probably need to talk.”

“Yeah, yeah, I will.” Faustus bent down, slid one arm under Johann’s shoulders and the other under his knees, and hoisted the corpse up with a groan. The blanket was hanging down on one side, and Valentina hurriedly tucked it in before anything could slip out. Faustus put the heavy body over his shoulder, staggered briefly under the weight, regained his balance, and looked at Valentina.

“Lock the door behind me.”

Then he went downstairs and Valentina followed him, opened the front door for him, and watched for a moment as his dark silhouette disappeared into the empty Pinfeather Lane. Then she locked the door.

Suddenly, it was eerily quiet in the house.

“Go wash up and tend to your wounds,” Vyxara said. “You look terrible.”

“I have to heal Innogen!”

“And you can do that much better if you can see properly with both eyes and if one of them doesn’t look like an overripe plum.”

Sighing, Valentina went into the kitchen, poured cold water from the pitcher into the bowl on the counter, opened a small bottle of Distilled Essence to weave a quick water-purification pattern to kill all the tiny creatures in the water, and then washed the blood from her face. The water turned pink. Her lower lip was split and throbbed with every touch. The cut above her eyebrow had stopped bleeding, but the edges were still gaping, and her left eye was so swollen that she could indeed barely see out of it.

She healed the worst injuries just enough to finally stop the bleeding, close the gaping wounds, and reduce the swelling around her eye enough that she could see halfway again. Then she hurried back upstairs to Innogen.

When she entered the bedroom, Innogen was still lying exactly as she had left her. Only her eyes had closed, but she woke up immediately when Valentina entered the room.

“Val… you look better.”

“You’ll feel better soon, too.” Valentina sat down on the edge of the bed and carefully took Innogen’s left hand in both of hers. “Let me take a look at that.”

In the light of the Essence lamp, the hand looked even worse than before. Four fingers were broken. The little finger and ring finger in two places each, the middle finger in three, and the index finger in four. The skin was dark purple and badly swollen, and the fingers jutted out at angles that made Valentina’s heart ache.

She reached for her bottle of Distilled Essence and set to work.

She found that setting splintered fractures was one of the most demanding uses of Leb, since she had to locate the fractures lines individually and, in a sense, mentally map the fragments before she could guide them back into the correct position. It wasn’t easy to place the Leb pattern precisely along the fracture lines so that the bone would heal without misalignment and without leaving any numb areas. If a bone healed crooked, it had to be broken again and the process started over, which Valentina wanted to spare Innogen at all costs.

Valentina worked thoroughly and didn’t rush, which was difficult, since every minute Innogen had to endure this pain tormented her as well.

At some point, she realized she was crying. Innogen said nothing, but simply looked at Valentina, who could barely bear to look her in the eyes.

“I know it hurts, but you have to stay still,” Valentina sobbed as she reached her index finger, where the four fracture lines were particularly close together.

But Innogen was brave. She flinched only once, when a bone fragment that had been stuck very firmly finally slid back into place with a nasty sound. Innogen pressed her lips together, but she didn’t make a sound.

It took over an hour. When Valentina finally finished the last pattern and set the now-empty bottle on the nightstand, Innogen’s fingers were straight again and the swelling had already subsided significantly. The hand was still discolored and would take days to heal completely. Her fingers would likely remain stiff and tender for a while, but the bones were properly aligned, and Valentina was certain they would heal completely.

She took Innogen’s restored hand, lifted it to her lips, and kissed every single finger, one after another.

Innogen let her. Then she said softly, “Why did this happen, Val? What… what have you gotten yourself into?”

There was exhaustion in her voice, and fear, and also concern that clearly wasn’t for herself.

Valentina swallowed. “Please just rest now. Faustus will surely be back soon and I have to talk to him, and then we’ll talk tomorrow in peace. For as long as you want.”

Innogen looked into her eyes for a long time and then simply nodded.

Valentina pulled the blanket over her again and leaned down to kiss her on the forehead, but Innogen pulled her further down. Their lips met and the kiss lasted just long enough to say everything that words couldn’t express at that moment.

Then Innogen let her go, and when Valentina looked back at the door one last time, Innogen’s eyes had already closed again.

She closed the door as quietly as she could and went downstairs.

“She’s strong,” said Vyxara.

“She shouldn’t have to be strong,” thought Valentina.

“In an ideal world, yes. In the world we actually live in, it’s better to be strong.”

Doubtful, Valentina went downstairs to the kitchen and waited for Faustus.