Redemption Song (Daniel Faust #2)(12)

I was no angel myself, after all, but sometimes I wondered just how far this relationship could go. I thought I was hoping she would change. I thought she was hoping I would. We were stubborn that way.

“What were you going to say?” she said, pulling back to look in my eyes.

“Beautiful,” I told her, and we kissed one more time.

The door at the end of the gallery didn’t have a guard. Just another keypad, its numbers glowing a serene blue. I watched as she tapped in the code.

“Six-six-six?” I tilted my head at her as the door slid wide, revealing another stairwell. “Seriously?”

“It’s a joke,” she said, mock-pouting at me. “Anyone who goes downstairs and doesn’t belong there won’t ever be coming back up again, so we’re not exactly worried about intruders.”

That thought did little to reassure me as we descended the stairs. The air down here was humid, musty, carrying the faint, strange scent of spiced and dried oranges. Four pillars of stone held up the ceiling, and a single candlestick made of serpent-scaled brass, about four feet tall, stood in the heart of the chamber. Someone had already come down before us to light the pillar candle, but it barely shed enough light to see the outer walls of the room or much of anything beyond the thick, shivering shadows.

At the foot of the stairs, Caitlin took my hand. Her fingers curled around mine, warm and firm, as she looked in my eyes.

“You’re nervous,” she said. “That’s understandable. Whatever happens here, Daniel, I will keep you safe.”

There was something else. I could tell when she was holding back.

“What is it?” I said.

“I want you,” she said, frowning, like a foreigner who had reached the limits of her English and couldn’t quite find the right words. “Do you understand? I…I want you.”

I reached out and touched her cheek.

“I love you too,” I said for the first time.

She pulled me into her arms, and we both pretended it was too dark to see the wetness in each other’s eyes.

Chains rattled in the darkness. Caitlin pulled away, letting go. “It’s coming,” she whispered.

First came the stench. It smelled like day-old roadkill on a summer highway, a maggot-pregnant corpse rotting in the heat. My stomach clenched in sudden revolt. Then, one slow limping footstep at a time, the Conduit shambled out of the shadows.

Whatever—whoever—it had once been, the hands of hell had twisted the man into something that turned my bladder to ice. The Conduit’s face was a mass of old burns, its eyes buried under scar tissue and his features obliterated save for its untouched mouth. Skeletally thin, it wore long robes of emerald silk that trailed behind it, finely tailored but caked with dried excrement. Chains trailed behind it as well, thick trails of solid gold that dragged on the flagstone floor.

They hadn’t shackled it. They’d cut out the middleman and simply pierced the bones of its frail wrists and ankles with the chains’ final links.

“Fear me,” the Conduit rasped in a reedy voice. “For I only speak the truth.”

“Why should we fear the truth?” I asked.

“Spoken,” it said, his sightless head swiveling my way, “like someone who doesn’t hear it very often.”

“We would hear the prince’s words,” Caitlin said. She held her hands out before her, palms up and fingers curled oddly, then lowered them again. A ritual gesture in an unfamiliar faith.

“And he would have you hear them. Daniel Faust, you are known to our prince.”

Caitlin took my hand. I nodded.

“He names you,” the Conduit said, “his enemy.”

Her fingers clenched.

“Excuse me?” I said. Not the most eloquent response, but I’d just been delivered a punch in the gut when I was expecting a box of chocolates.

The Conduit paused, its head tilted, listening to a voice we couldn’t hear.

“You have worked against us in the past,” the Conduit rasped. “Performed exorcisms for coin. Banished the prince’s lesser minions in the service of your personal greed.”

I shook my head. “Maybe you aren’t up on current events, pal, but I just saved your boss’s ass and the throne that ass sits in—”

“Daniel,” Caitlin said, a warning edge in her voice.

The Conduit let out a slithering, hissing cough. It took me a second to realize the creature was chuckling.

“Your service is noted, Daniel Faust, but it does not outweigh your insults, intended or not. You are not an appropriate companion for the prince’s hound. It would lead to speculations. Questions. Loose speech and whispers of disloyalty.”

“No.” Caitlin squeezed my hand hard enough to make my eyes water. Her voice was raw, straining with a fury barely under control. “No. My loyalty is unquestionable. My loyalty has been proven time and time again, as has my service. I have earned the right to choose my own consort. I have earned it with blood, and with tears, and with—”

The Conduit held up one hand, its chains rattling.

“And your prince recognizes your hard work, and he will happily reward you with your choice of gifts. But not this one. You are henceforth forbidden to associate with this man. Unless…unless the Faust were to perform a service for us. A proof of faithfulness, to show his good intentions.”