could never come again—the phantom of the girl who had taught him mercy, long ago, only to have her own fate undo all her gentle teaching? He’d thought every spark of mercy was dead in him now, but he hadn’t been able to kill the girl. And then, the unexpected: the hamsas.
A human marked with the devil’s eyes! Why?
There was only one possible answer, as plain as it was disturbing.
That she was not, in fact, human.
15
THE OTHER DOOR
In the vestibule, Karou fell to her knees. Breathing hard, she leaned into the coil of Issa’s serpent body.
“Karou!” Issa gathered her into an embrace that left them both sticky with blood. “What happened? Who did this to you?”
“You didn’t see him?” Karou was dazed.
“See who?”
“The angel…”
Issa’s reaction was profound. She reared back like a serpent ready to strike and hissed, “Angel?”All her snakes—in her hair, around her waist and shoulders—writhed along with her, hissing. Karou cried out, her wounds wrenched by the violent motion.
“Oh, my dear, my sweet girl. Forgive me.” Issa softened again, cradling Karou like a child. “What do you mean, angel? Surely not—”
Karou blinked up at her. Shadows were closing in. “Why did he want to kill me?”
“Darling, darling,” Issa fretted. She pulled away Karou’s sword-slashed coat and scarf to see her wounds, but the blood was heavy and still flowing, and the light in the vestibule was dim. “So much blood!”
Karou felt as if the walls were swinging in a slow arc around her. She was waiting for the inner door to unseal, but it didn’t. “Can’t we go in?” Her voice was faint. “I want Brimstone.” She remembered how he’d picked her up and held her when she came in bleeding from St. Petersburg. How she’d felt perfect trust and calm, knowing he would fix her. And he had, and would again….
Issa bunched up Karou’s blood-soaked scarf and tried to stanch her wounds. “He’s not here right now, sweet girl.”
“Where is he?”
“He… he can’t be disturbed.”
Karou whimpered. She wanted Brimstone. Needed him. She said, “Disturb him,” and then she was losing herself, drifting.
Falling.
Issa’s voice, far away.
And then nothing.
By and by, flickering images like badly spliced film: Issa’s eyes and Yasri’s, close, anxious. Soft hands, cool water. Dreams: Izîl and the thing on his back, its bloated face the brown-purple of bruised fruit, and the angel staring straight at Karou like he could ignite her with his eyes.
Issa’s voice, hushed and secretive. “What can it mean, that they are in the human world?”
Yasri. “They must have found a way back in. It took them long enough, for all their high opinion of themselves.”
This was not part of the dream. Karou had come back into consciousness like swimming to a distant shore—effortfully—and she lay silent, listening.
She was on her childhood cot in the back of the shop; she knew that without opening her eyes. Her wounds stung, and the smell of healing salve was pungent in the air. The two chimaera stood at the end of the aisle of
bookcases, whispering.
“But why attack Karou?” Issa hissed.
Yasri. “You don’t think…? They couldn’t know about her.”
Issa. “Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous.”
“No, no, of course not.” Yasri sighed. “Oh, I wish Brimstone would come back. Do you think we should go and get him?”
“You know he can’t be interrupted. But it shouldn’t be long now.”
“No.”
After a fraught pause, Issa ventured, “He’ll be very angry.”
“Yes,” agreed Yasri, a tremor of fear in her voice. “Oh, yes.”
Karou felt the two chimaera looking at her and tried her best to appear unconscious. It wasn’t hard. She felt sluggish, and pain blossomed across her chest, arm, and collarbone. Slash wounds to keep her bullet scars company.
She was thirsty, and knew she had only to let out a murmur for Yasri to scurry toward her with water and a soothing hand, but she kept silent. There was too much to think about.
Yasri had said, “They couldn’t know about her.”
Know what?
It was maddening, this secrecy. She wanted to sit up and scream, “Who am I?” but she didn’t. She feigned sleep, because there was something else
nudging at her thoughts.
Brimstone wasn’t here.
He was always here. She had never before been granted admittance to the shop in his absence, and only the extraordinary circumstance of her nearly
