Indigo(88)

“There’s no such thing as partially releasing a demon,” said Megaira scornfully. “That would be like partially releasing a tiger. You open the cage, even a little way, and he’s going to muscle his way out. And no one’ll be able to stop him.”

“Oh? And what makes you such an expert? Got personal experience of demon wrangling, have you?”

“Can he hear us now?” Xanthe asked nervously.

“No, he can’t. Because I’m controlling him. I’ve shut him in his kennel. Just as I can let him out but keep him on a leash if I want to.”

“I still don’t like it,” said Selene.

Nora’s eyes flashed. “Jeez, you’re like a broken record. And one more thing…”

“What?”

“What makes you think I need your permission?”

Short of killing her, which they weren’t desperate enough to do—or at least, Nora hoped they weren’t that desperate—the Androktasiai could do nothing to stop her from going ahead with her plan. In the end, to shut them up, she told them if they didn’t like it, she’d become Indigo, use the shadows to slip away, and create the murder golem without their blessing. Faced with that ultimatum, Selene had at last reluctantly agreed to the idea, though only on the proviso that she and her sisters could supervise what she referred to as “the summoning.”

“You’re not to interfere, though,” Nora warned them.

“What if Damastes possesses you? What if you become him?” Megaira asked.

Nora hesitated. “Then you can interfere.” But after a moment she added, “He won’t, though. He’s not strong enough. And hopefully this will prove it to you.”

Twenty minutes later she was standing in the center of the floor in the main room of the empty apartment, facing away from the three Androktasiai, who were crouched against the wall watching her warily. She had told them she needed to concentrate to achieve equilibrium, and to gather her strength and resources—which was at least partly true—but what she hadn’t revealed was that she had no idea how to create a murder golem and would have to take instruction from the demon inside her before going ahead.

For most of the last twenty minutes, unbeknownst to Selene and the others, that was what she had been doing. She had been conducting an internal dialogue with Damastes, and like a teacher to a pupil he had been explaining the principles of creating what would ostensibly be a vehicle for his rage from a combination of light and shadow.

And blood.

Her blood.

Nora had been dubious about this last part, but Damastes had insisted it was the only way. Now, having finally been convinced, she was ready to proceed.

She stretched out her hands, and without turning to look at Selene and the others she muttered, “Don’t be alarmed by what you see in the next few minutes. I’m a willing participant in what will happen. It’s all part of the ritual.”

In the weighted silence behind her Nora imagined the Androktasiai glancing uncertainly at one another, tensing their muscles, gripping the hilts of their weapons. She tried to put all thought of them out of her mind and concentrate on the task at hand. Luckily the apartment was full of gloom and shadows, which was perfect for her purposes.

Twitching her fingers slightly, she drew threads of shadow toward her from the corners of the room, molding them even as they came. She had fashioned weapons from shadow before, on many occasions, and knew how to create blades so sharp they would open skin with the merest touch.

She created two such blades now, angling them so they hovered like a pair of black smiles over her outstretched forearms. For a second her attention drifted as she wondered how the slaughter nuns would react to the next part of the ritual—then she forced the thought away, tried to make her mind go blank. This was the tricky part and she couldn’t afford any slip ups, couldn’t allow herself to be distracted. Trying not to hesitate, she used her mind to flick the blades down and across the tops of her forearms, then instantly refashioned them, morphing them into semicircular bowls, which now hovered under her outstretched arms, catching the blood that wept from those wounds.

Only when this tricky bit of reshaping was complete did she allow herself to register the pain. All at once the cuts sizzled, as though hot coals had been laid across them. When the bowls were full she drew gauzy wisps of shadow toward her and used them to cauterize the wounds. Then she drew the bowls of blood together, combining them into one. It always amused her when pop culture suggested people might slash open their palms for some kind of blood sacrifice. She might have cut muscle or tendon, making the hands useless in a fight. No, this was simpler and cleaner.

Damastes had told her that murder golems were sculpted from air and light, and now that she had donated the blood that would both imbue her creation with life and also bind it to her, she set about shaping her creature. Using her shadow power, she began to untangle the light from the darkness, going about the task by reducing the complexity of it within her mind, couching it in terms she could understand and deal with. She imagined the darkness and the light not as a blended and inchoate mass, but as separate and defined objects. In her mind’s eye the darkness became a thousand tiny black marbles and the light a thousand tiny white marbles, which at the moment were mixed in together, creating an overall impression of grayness. Once she started to pick them apart, however, to shift them to their opposite sides of the room, their differences would quickly become apparent.