Twilight's Dawn

through flesh and skin, Tersa whipped the skeleton free. Then witchfire, fueled by her fury, took the bones, charring them black.
    For that moment, the blackened skeleton hung intact from her upraised arm. For that moment, the Warlord stood there, his good eye filled with horror and disbelief. Then the bones rained down on the floor like black hailstones, and the muscles and organs collapsed in on themselves, contained by a shapeless sack of skin.
    Daemon stood there, holding one wrist, too stunned to let go.
    The eyes lay on top of the fleshy sack, still staring at him.
    He’s demon-dead, so he’s still in there , Daemon thought as his gorge rose. His Self is still in there and his mind is still aware.
    Tersa dropped the spine on top of the rest of the bones and frowned. “Jaenelle doesn’t cook. Why would she know about deboning a chicken?”
    Daemon looked at his mother. Then he released his hold on the Warlord’s wrist and ran for the bathroom.

    “I’m sorry,” Daemon stammered. “I didn’t know what to do with it except bring it to you.”
    Saetan stared at the skin sack filled with organs and muscles—and the brain. Daemon had thought to put a bubble shield around the sack before bringing it to the Keep. That was fortunate because the contents were starting to drain from the orifices.
    Considering what the Warlord had done to his victims, it shouldn’t matter if the bastard heard them or not, but the man’s mind had broken under the horror of the punishment, so Saetan added an aural shield over Daemon’s bubble shield, and then hid it all in a mist so that neither of them had to look at it.
    “I’ve walked the Realms for over fifty thousand years, and I’ve never seen this before,” he said as he walked over to the end of the courtyard where Daemon stood.
    “He told Tersa to show him the boy, not the Mikal boy.” Daemon swallowed hard. “To her mind, he threatened me, not the illusion.”
    “And she reacted.”
    Daemon nodded.
    “And Jaenelle told her how to do this?”
    Another nod.
    His boy was looking glassy-eyed and green, which matched how he was feeling. The speed with which it happened and the grotesque result would have unsettled both of them under any circumstances, but the feral natures and the tempers of the women involved scared the shit out of him. No matter what she’d told Tersa, Jaenelle had not learned to do this by deboning a chicken.
    If the Darkness was merciful, he would never learn why or how his daughter had acquired this particular piece of Craft—and he hoped with all his heart that Daemon never learned why or how either.
    “What do we do now?”
    Linking his arm through Daemon’s, he led his son back into the Keep. “You’re going to go home, take a sedative, and get some sleep.”
    “Maybe I should—”
    “You’re the Warlord Prince of Dhemlan, not the High Lord of Hell.” Saetan put enough bite in his voice to clear the glassy look from Daemon’s eyes. “You did your part in this, Prince. Now it’s time for me to do mine.”
    “And your part is?”
    “To sift through what is left of his mind for the names of his victims before releasing him to the final death. I’ll send you the list. I’m sure you’ll know how to quietly pass on the information to the people who need it.”
    “What happens after that?”
    “He is demon-dead,” Saetan said gently. “After his Self returns to the Darkness, the meat will be left for the flora and fauna of Hell.”

SEVEN

    A week after No Face had been destroyed, Saetan walked into the sitting room where Sylvia was reading, and sat down in a ladderback chair next to her wheeled chair.
    “It’s time for us to talk,” he said.
    She marked the page in her book and set it aside. She’d known this was coming, but she hadn’t expected it to come this soon. Even with the heartache and worry about her sons, there had been comfort in his presence. She felt the drag of daylight as soon as the sun rose, and went to bed to avoid the drain in her power. She would wake for a moment when he joined her later in the morning, and then sleep again, cradled in his arms, until they both rose at sunset.
    “It’s hard for the living to let go of the dead, and it’s hard for the dead to let go of the living. That’s why my rules about interaction between the living and the demon-dead are so strict, and that’s why I’m so harsh when those rules are broken.”
    “Did you live by your own rules, Saetan?” She knew the