The Inner Circle: Holy Spirit (31 page)

‘
It’s not true,’
Seteal felt herself whisper inaudibly.

‘
What is it, Seteal?’
El-i-miir’s face hovered in her vision. ‘You have to tell me what’s
happening to you.’

‘
It’s . . .’ Seteal
wheezed, staring past El-i-miir to look Master Fasil in his smug
little eye. ‘It wasn’t my fault. You did this to me.’

‘
What’s happening to
her?’ El-i-miir’s face shrivelled into the distance. ‘It’s like
she’s delirious.’ She floated toward Fes, vanishing in and out of
reality as she went.

‘
I nah know much.’
Fes’s voice was too loud. ‘She was with Far-a-mael and whisps be
gettin’ in her. She’s nah been the same ever since.’

‘
Stop shouting,’
Seteal screamed, but no one seemed able to hear her.

‘
Sweetheart.’ Master
Fasil sat at the end of the bed. ‘I’ll take care of you. We’re
going to be parents.’

‘
Torrid,’ Seteal
squeezed out. ‘Go to torrid.’ She moved her fingers to her mouth
and bit hard at her fingernails until again she tasted
blood.

‘
Seteal!’ El-i-miir
rushed over and pulled Seteal’s hands away from her mouth. ‘Don’t
do that.’

Seteal kicked and moaned in her sheets,
the nausea in her stomach becoming painfully overwhelming. She saw
through a film of red. She was crying tears of blood.

‘
I’ve nah seen
anything like it,’ Briel’s voice rumbled fearfully.

‘
It be the madness,’
Fes whispered solemnly.

‘
All we can do is
keep her comfortable.’ Mistress Daorey trickled into the room, her
skeletal form rocking toward Seteal, driving her heart into her
throat.

Get it away! she screamed internally,
whilst failing to produce any words. ‘No!’ she cried, her eyes
locked on the strange old woman. Who was she? She couldn’t be
trusted! ‘No,’ Seteal moaned and pushed herself sideways in an
effort to escape. Rolling off the bed, she hit the floorboards with
a thud. El-i-miir and Ieane dove forward to catch her, but they
were too late. Now there was a splinter in her thumb. She’d have to
get it out. Briel picked her up and put her back to bed.

‘
She be terribly
hot,’ Fes said worriedly, dabbing her forehead with a wet towel.
‘She almost be too hot ta touch.’

‘
Oh,’ Seteal moaned,
having lost the ability to hold her bladder. Even through her
misery she felt terribly embarrassed. She lifted her head in
humiliation, but where she’d expected to see a pool of urine was
just more blood. ‘Please.’ She clutched El-i-miir’s dress and clung
to it weakly. ‘Please get me out of here.’

‘
I can’t, Seteal.’
El-i-miir stroked her hair. ‘You’re too sick. You have to
rest.’

‘
Not out of here,’
Seteal moaned. ‘Out of here,’ she slapped at the desecrated body
that imprisoned her. ‘Do something. Get me out.’

‘
I’m so sorry,’
El-i-miir murmured with an expression of remorse before hurriedly
backing out of the room.

Seteal was removed while fresh sheets
were laid out. Fes cleaned her up and put her back in place.

‘
Get this out of
here.’ Fes snatched a wriggling, scratching, clawing Seeol out of
Seteal’s collar by the wing and handed him to Briel. ‘The last
thing the girl be needin’ right now be another curse.’

‘
No,’ Seeol shrieked,
clearly anguished by the separation. ‘Seteal. Seteal.
Seteal!’

‘
Come on,’ Briel said
without compassion as he crossed the room to toss the owl out the
window before quickly slamming it shut.

Seeol, Seteal tried to call but heard
nothing other than a wheeze in her throat. ‘See . . .’ she failed a
second time, before breaking down into tears. She wanted him back.
He was hers. She’d found him first. She couldn’t say why she wanted
him back . . . but she did. ‘Seeol,’ she finally choked out, but
Fes pushed her back down and continued dabbing her face with a
towel.

‘
Seteal!’ Seeol cried
repeatedly, his voice dulled by the glass.

‘
It’s only an elf
owl,’ Seteal whispered defeatedly as she tumbled into sweet and
merciful unconsciousness.

*

El-i-miir entered Seteal’s room
and closed the door for no other reason than to repeatedly pace its
length. The others had left long ago, thinking it best not to crowd
the room, but if there was anything El-i-miir could do to ease
Seteal’s pain, she had to try. She shuddered now to think how cruel
she’d been to her just days earlier when she’d tried to force
Seteal’s reinvolvement in the war. Such an act was almost
indistinguishable from what Far-a-mael had done a year earlier.
This wasn’t Seteal’s war. It never had been.

‘
Focus,’ El-i-miir
snapped at herself, turning her attention back to Seteal’s aura,
only to shudder at what she saw there. The colours moved lazily.
Most of them where dark and ugly hues ever-threatening to turn
black. Sludgy reds slithered across cold purples and sickening
olive greens. Beneath it all was a dirty brown that churned and
frothed within the others. Seteal’s aura was very sick
indeed.

Raising her hands before her, El-i-miir
gritted her teeth and took a deep breath. At first, the air above
her fingertips seemed only to be bending slightly, before tendrils
of soft light made their presence known. The light danced through
the air as El-i-miir encouraged tendrils of her own aura to make
their way into Seteal’s. The initial contact was such that at first
El-i-miir pulled away with a woozy stomach. But after taking a
steadying breath, she again burrowed into the dark.

Sharp bands of red were coiled around
and around Seteal’s aura, ever-tightening their hold. El-i-miir
reached for the red light but snapped away when she felt a sharp
barb stinging all the way through and biting into her finger at the
other end. Far-a-mael’s anchor was so complex that she doubted
she’d be able to sever it without sacrificing a decent portion of
her own soul.

Moving her hands through the air as
though she were parting heavy curtains, El-i-miir watched as her
light split Seteal’s aura open allowing her to gaze upon the deeper
layers. She was looking for the smaller aura that should’ve been
there . . . but it wasn’t. Within Seteal El-i-miir found only the
kind of darkness that she often felt around Seeol. Perhaps this was
how Seeol had come to be, El-i-miir mused. Perhaps a whisp had
penetrated his mother’s soul so that she too would pass on the
evil. Somehow being affected so young gave the whisp a better
footing, causing it to merge entirely with the unborn.

Digging deeper, El-i-miir soon
found herself overwhelmed by an impending sense of doom. A face
flashed repeatedly through her mind: Seteal’s rapist. She moved
deeper, finding herself in an almost unbearable vacuum of sorrow.
How did Seteal go on living this way? Reaching further still,
El-i-miir struck a solid black wall. She tried to pull back, but
something had taken hold of her light and refused to let go.
Panting fearfully she pulled, but failed again to snap away from
the aura. There was a burning sensation in her finger that slowly
spread through to her hand and along her arm.

With a desperate gasp, El-i-miir
severed the connection and the pain began to subside. There was
something warm on her face. Touching it tentatively, El-i-miir
discovered blood trickling down her chin. She looked at Seteal in
true fear for the first time and raced out of the room. There was
nothing she could do for her friend but pray like everyone
else.

CHAPTER
Twenty-Three

The Sufferers

‘
Stop your fussing,’
Teah urged from the doorway. ‘You mustn’t be late for your own
coronation.’

‘
The whole thing
seems a bit silly to me,’ Ilgrin muttered as he fiddled with the
elaborate collar folded over his nape. He spun around abruptly and
almost tripped over his trailing scarlet cape. ‘They already know I
have his blood. I’ve held the crown before plenty of
witnesses.’

‘
It doesn’t matter.’
Teah chuckled, taking Ilgrin’s hand and dragging him from the room.
‘You wouldn’t rob the people of their rituals, now would you? They
just want to meet their new Devil.’

‘
Oh, I know, I know,’
Ilgrin grumbled, following Teah through the tree and out onto a
balcony grown from the side. A din of satisfied cries filled the
air as Ilgrin raised his hands and bowed to the countless thousands
that’d gathered in the trees below. Others flew in loops above him,
cheering and dancing through the air.

‘
You must kneel.’
Teah put a hand on Ilgrin’s shoulder and pushed him to his knees.
Trumpets blew fitfully as an elderly silt made his way onto the
balcony dressed almost as elaborately as Ilgrin. Behind him trailed
two younger men, a tray stretched out between them with the horned
crown balanced on top. The old man placed a copy of the Holy Tome
on a small bench at Ilgrin’s right hand, before turning to stare at
him. ‘Put your hand on it,’ Teah whispered.

‘
Oh.’ Ilgrin jolted
and laid his hand flat against the ancient book.

‘
Long ago we’d given
up hope that the old ways would come back to us.’ The old man spoke
with an unexpectedly strong voice. ‘We were wrong. Here before us
we have the true descendent of Sa’Tan who was ordained as the first
Devil by Maker himself. As it has always been: why should we pull
apart that which Maker has made sacred? I bless you once.’ The old
silt turned a flask sideways over Ilgrin’s head so that a
sweet-smelling oil dripped into his hair. ‘I bless you twice.’ He
repeated the action. ‘I bless you thrice.’ He repeated the action a
final time. ‘The crown,’ he said softly and the two men made their
way passed him to stand before Ilgrin. ‘Arise Sa’Enoch, the one and
only Devil of Hel and all of Hades, and receive your
crown.’

Standing slowly, Ilgrin reached
out tentatively and placed his hands on either side of the crown.
The crowd of observers cheered ferociously at the confirmation
they’d been holding their breath for, but none more so than when
Ilgrin lifted the heavy ornament and placed it atop his head. ‘Is
that it?’ he whispered over his shoulder.

‘
Not quite,’ Teah
replied from her place in the corner.

‘
You must address
your people,’ the old man said, flabbergasted by Ilgrin’s
ignorance.

‘
Address them?’
Ilgrin gaped in surprise. ‘What should I say?’

‘
Swear to protect
them to the best of your ability or something,’ Teah hissed
worriedly.

‘
My people . . .’
Ilgrin trailed off distractedly, a droplet of oil having fallen
from his hair to splash on his arm. ‘Angels and demons alike . . .’
Again he trailed off, finding the spot where the oil had landed to
be unbearably itchy. He scratched at the spot, only to realise that
it didn’t feel oily at all. His head snapped back and he stared up
into the sky in time to see a flash of purple lightning snake its
way through the clouds. ‘A storm is coming.’

He turned to Teah, a second droplet of
whisp rain hitting his cheek and draining his face of warmth.

‘
Oh torrid.’ Teah bit
her lip. ‘It couldn’t be worse timing.’

‘
Well, how do you
normally deal with it?’ Ilgrin said in frustration, his eyes
remaining locked on the threatening clouds above.

‘
We need angels.’
Jakob burst onto the balcony, causing a myriad of silts to call out
in consternation.

‘
A Sa’Tanist this far
up the tree?’ The old silt’s jaw worked up and down. ‘This is most
unorthodox.’

‘
He’s right,’ Teah
nodded at Jakob. ‘It’s the only way to prevent the storm from
destroying the entire legion.’

‘
We’ve got you,
Teah,’ Ilgrin clapped his hands together.

‘
She won’t be
enough.’ Jakob swallowed nervously. ‘A globe requires the presence
of a hundred angels at least, placed strategically throughout the
legion.’

‘
She’s all we’ve
got,’ Ilgrin replied through gritted teeth as the sky rumbled and
purple lightning began weaving about in the distant trees. ‘She’ll
have to do.’

‘
Not necessarily,’
Teah replied. ‘Angels are very good at hiding. We’ve had to be in
order to survive.’ She cast a dirty look at the robed old silt.
‘They’ve never quite been able to crush us.’

‘
So there are
others?’

‘
They call themselves
the occult,’ Jakob interceded. ‘An underground network of angels
that look out for each other.’ He hesitated. ‘I’ve long suspected
that Teah might know how to reach them.’

‘
How very insightful,
Jakob,’ Teah said as she moved along the balcony.

‘
Then it’s true?’
Ilgrin said, the relief evident in his voice.

‘
The occult exists.’
Teah frowned. ‘But we are very few and the others are not likely to
help you. They’re scared for their lives.’

‘
Please, Teah.’
Ilgrin took the woman’s hands. ‘I’ve felt what whisp rain can do
and Far-a-mael has stolen all of Hel’s angels.’

‘
I’ve felt what
demons can do,’ Teah murmured. ‘I like you, Enoch. I really do, but
. . . do I trust you? I don’t know if I can do that.’