Crown of Shadows - C. S. Friedman [80]
“Of course,” the demon confirmed. “What did you expect?”
From out of the shadows a human figure emerged, headed straight toward them. Damien moved to step aside, but Karril grabbed his arm and shook his head. In amazement he watched as the figure approached, its heeled shoes striking the floor silently, silver power lapping about its ankles. It was a woman, heavily made up and just a little past her prime. Her body was a parody of sexual attractiveness, from her aggressively protruding breasts to her incredibly padded buttocks, to the tight cinch belt which threatened to separate those two parts from each other. It was a surreal image, too grotesque in proportion to be human, too solid to be otherwise. When she had passed by, Damien looked at Karril in amazement. The demon was smiling faintly.
“Your former landlady, I believe.”
“What?”
“As she sees herself.” The brief smile faded. “Come on.”
They went down the stairs into the basement, a trial all its own; Damien tried not to think about where the stairs were, or what they were made of, just trusted his feet to the surging waterfall of earth-fae where he knew that stairs should be. He stumbled once, but otherwise it worked. At the base of the stairs was a place filled with memories so sickening that Damien felt the bile rise in his throat again just to approach it. (Could he vomit here, he wondered? Would it do any good if he did?) Through the smoky film that was a door he could see a glistening blackness, like an oil slick, that covered most of the floor. As the earth-fae flowed into it, it, too, turned black, and its passage sent ripples flowing thickly through the black stuff’s substance. Hungry, it seemed. Terribly hungry. Despite the door’s seeming barrier, a cold wind flowed from that place toward Damien, the first he had felt since true night fell. It tasted of blood and bile, and worse.
“Your perception,” the demon said quietly. “I only make it easier to see.”
He could feel the dark power sucking him forward like a rip tide, and it took all his strength to fight its drag. Though he would have guessed it to be inanimate, it seemed to be aware of his presence, and bulged at the end that was nearest to him. Slowly the oily blackness seeped forward over unseen floorboards, making its way toward them. Toward him.
“They didn’t expose it to the sun,” he whispered.
“I’m afraid they did.”
He stared in horror at the thing. His skin crawled at the thought of touching it again.
“They banished the Presence that had come for Gerald Tarrant,” Karril explained, “But they couldn’t erase its footsteps. That’s all this is, Reverend—a faint echo of what came here before.” He looked at the priest. “You’re still sure you want to follow it?”
He whispered: “Is that what we have to do?”
The demon nodded. “Gerald Tarrant probably took a more direct route, but his struggle left a path marked in his soul’s blood. That, and the residue you see here, are the only ways I know of to find him.” He paused. “Are you still sure you want to go? Because if you’re not, I would be all too happy to abandon this little pleasure trip, I assure you.”
For a moment Damien faltered. For a moment it seemed so impossible that he could survive this crazy mission that he almost stepped back, almost said the words, almost ended their doomed venture then and there. Had he really thought that he could stand up to a Power that even Tarrant feared, and emerge unscathed? The mere thought of touching this thing before him, no more than its residue, made him sick; how would it feel to plunge into it body and soul, without knowing if he ever would rise up again?
But then he thought of Calesta, and of the holocaust that demon had deliberately provoked in the east. He thought of Calesta’s plans for his world, and of what would happen to his species if the demon should ever triumph. And he knew in that moment