The Devil You Know (Brimstone Angels) by Erin M. Evans

Author:Erin M. Evans [Evans, Erin M.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9780786966042
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast Publishing
Published: 2016-10-04T00:00:00+00:00

PART VII

BLOOD

14 Alturiak, the Year of the Shadows (1358 DR)

Vaasa

• • •

Given the way Alyona’s ghost yanked toward the door, Bryseis Kakistos knew before he called out that Caisys had returned. She focused all her attention on the dish before her, pulling Alyona nearer.

“Bisera? Are you in?”

Bryseis Kakistos pursed her mouth at the name. She had stopped using it half a decade ago, but five years of telling Caisys to stop had thus far had no effect. Change the name, Shetai had said. Change who you are. Bisera was a girl, an innocent. Bryseis Kakistos might reshape the world.

She didn’t look up from the pool of blood in the silver dish before her. “What did you find?”

His boots scuffed the floor as he entered her study. “Rakshasa. A fairly potent one. But I don’t think he’s all too keen—”

“They don’t need to be keen,” Bryseis Kakistos said. “They need to be accessible.” Caisys sat down on the stool beside her, leaning against her worktable with a carelessness belied by the way he didn’t so much as brush any of her equipment.

“Whose is that?” he asked, nodding at the blood in the dish.

“Titus’s.”

“He came around? That’s surprising. Who’d he come from?”

“A devil by the looks of it. My guess is Eighth Layer, perhaps even Mephistopheles, but a long way back. I’m still narrowing it down.”

Caisys gave a low whistle. “Well that’s good news. Another link down. What’s left?”

“If I’m right? Rakshasa,” she said. “Yugoloth. Demodand. And an evil god’s avatar, although I’d rather have at least two. We’re close, very close.” She had six other tieflings, six other bloodlines. Titus made the seventh—she the eighth. She added three drops of a tincture to the blood, sending dark swirls through the redness.

Demons, devils, night hags, rakshasas, fiends of all stripes—every one of them bred tieflings eventually. Regardless of the ways their traits differed, the way their ancestors repelled one another, the way their blood would sometimes boil when spilled into another’s, they were all called tieflings and they all suffered for their ancestors’ indiscretions or ill luck. They all were forced to hide, to separate themselves, to suffer the punishments that other races felt that they’d earned, just for being born.

“Are you ready to give me yours?” she asked Caisys.

He smiled at her, and despite herself, Bryseis Kakistos felt a flood of warmth pour through her body. Her sister’s ghost leaned nearer, as if trying to touch Caisys’s face. “What if I don’t want to know?”

“Telling you isn’t a necessary step,” Bryseis Kakistos said. “Besides, you can’t possibly pretend we don’t all already know what the answer is.”

He leaned a little nearer. “What’s that?”

Alyona’s embarrassment fluttered through the edges of her thoughts as Bryseis Kakistos cast a sidelong glance at the so-called merchant. “If you aren’t descended from a succubus—and fairly recently—I will eat your wagon.”

He smiled, baring bright, even teeth. “I do hope that’s a euphemism. You never told me what you found in your blood.”

In the silver dish, Titus’s blood deepened, darkened, a pool of shadows.

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