The Hearts We Sold(71)

He nodded.

But rather than defuse the tension, his cool voice seemed to ignite Cora’s fury. “You son of a bitch,” she snapped. “We were nearly killed by… by I don’t know what the hell that was, but it nearly killed us—it smashed several of the hearts in the vault, and all you have to say is that we did well?”

“What would you have me say?” said the Daemon mildly. “‘Congratulations, young humans. You did not die.’ Would that suit you?”

“What was that thing?” This time it was Dee who spoke. She came forward and stood before the Daemon. He gazed at her, and something in his face changed. He looked at her with something like respect.

“It was not supposed to be here,” he answered. “You remedied that. For which I must thank you.”

“But what was it?”

The Daemon did not answer.

“Tell me what the thing was,” she said evenly. Dee met the Daemon’s eyes and did not look away.

Something had shifted between them. He looked at Dee, then at the creature’s corpse, and she knew, she just knew that the fact they had slain it made them something more in the Daemon’s eyes. They had proven themselves… well, not equal to him, but they weren’t helpless, either.

The Daemon’s eyes glittered. “You may call them what you like. People have had many names for them over the years. Personally, I have always preferred ‘burrower.’ Quite an apt description. They delve through space, carve little holes that ought not to exist. As for where it came from, it came from where I did,” he said. “Stars die, worlds die with them. Some of us find new places to reside. My kind can stitch reality like so much thread, but those creatures are burrowers, immortal mouths and stomachs leaving holes behind. They are what we have been fending off for thousands of years, since we escaped to this place. They are devourers, and while you may not trust my kind, believe that we have the same interests as yours. It would serve neither humanity nor my people to see their like enter this world.”

“You’re not demons,” said Riley. “You’re aliens.”

Cal was right, Dee thought. A pang went through her; she would have liked to tell him.

The Daemon tilted his head. “Whatever title you give us, it is of no consequence. What matters is that we are here, and we share the same desire as your species. To remain on this planet, to quietly exist. That is all we desire. Our world died thousands of years ago, but we searched and found this one to our liking. We are good neighbors to have, on the whole. We prefer to keep to ourselves, save for when our needs coincide with humanity’s. And our needs do coincide—trust me on that. You may think an arm or a leg a difficult thing to give up, but it is a small price to pay. The burrowers are not like us. We may change reality if we wish it, but they do so… well. They would tear this world asunder if we let them. They care nothing for the inhabitants of this world; they will devour every living thing, if allowed.” He tilted his head, in a distinctly not-human way. “That is why we take the measures we do.”

“The hearts,” said Dee. She remembered how that creature ignored the people in favor of the hearts in the vault, of how it tore into them. “They—they eat them?”

“Burrowers and their like feed off of emotion and memory,” agreed the Daemon. “They themselves cannot feel—and the voids they create to enter this world are incompatible with human emotion. Your hearts register too strongly to those little gateways—you are recognized as alien and pushed out.”

“This cannot happen all the time,” said Riley. “If—if there were always aliens trying to break into this dimension, we would know.”

The Daemon smiled approvingly. “That is correct. The burrowers only attempt to enter this world on occasion.”

“Occasion?” repeated Cora.

“When stars die,” he said, “the burrowers need a new place to live. They try to push through, every so often. These smaller voids, imagine them as foreshocks. They precede the larger quake. Soon, many thousands of creatures like this one will make a true attempt to push through—there will be several… larger voids. Placed throughout the world. Portland will be one of the places where a large void appears.” His gaze drifted among them. “You will go into that void and close it.”

“Just us?” asked James quietly.

“If you’re asking if there will be more heartless, the answer is no.” The Daemon spoke flatly. “There was a troop in Seattle… but no longer.” He slid a cool look at the human hearts. “I should probably dispose of some of those, now that I think of it.”

Cora choked.

“As for other servants,” said the Daemon, “my colleagues are less than confident in your skills. Likely, they will send their own homunculi into the void. Ignore them—they are… less effective than you are. But the homunculi will fight back, and they will draw the attention of any stragglers, so that will be to your advantage.”

“Why?” asked Riley. “Why are we more effective than homunculi?”

He seemed to consider the question. “I assume you heard about the explosion in Seattle? Well, that is what happens when a homunculus’s unsteady hands cannot set off charges at the right moment.

“You are smaller, smarter, and the burrower will only take notice of you if you hurt it. I learned some time ago that ripping the heart from humans would allow them to enter a void.”