She looked pleased I’d managed to put two and two together. “A powerful one. He fancies himself the leader of the Meibion Avagddu.”
Great. Sworn enemy of the Cerddorion and humans alike. And I’d hitched a ride with him. “He told me he was my cousin.”
“Do not trust him. Whatever Pryce says, he means harm—always. Remember that.”
I needed to read up on this other branch of the family, so I asked Mab for a book about the Meibion Avagddu. To my surprise, she told me my lessons were done for the day. “Your only text will be The Book of Utter Darkness. Your study of it can proceed only as the book is forced to reveal itself to you.”
It would be a lot easier if I could just get the Cliffs Notes. “How do I force it?”
“Not through effort. ‘Force’ was the wrong word, perhaps, because the things we associate with physical force—violence, weapons—have no power over the book. Rather, they feed it. You, yourself, must become such that the book can no longer resist you.”
“That sounds awfully Zen for a demon fighter.”
The corners of Mab’s mouth twitched in a tiny half-smile. “Binding the Destroyer to yourself was the first step. And that part is done; you need not deepen that connection. Now, you must focus on purity.”
Purity. That shouldn’t be too hard. Kane was absorbed in his case and Daniel, except for that one heart-thumping kiss, kept his distance. Anyway, both of them were on the wrong side of the Atlantic.
Mab noticed my blush. “I don’t mean physical purity, Victory. You must be purely yourself. That’s the simplest thing in the world, yet not as simple as it sounds. You bear a Hellion’s mark, and you’ve put your own mark upon the Hellion in turn.”
My heart sank. “It’s a lost cause, then. I’m contaminated.”
“No. The Hellion’s essence marks you, it’s true. But in the marking were the seeds of your purity. Only because you’ve been marked can you gain real purity.”
Whoa, definitely Zen. As in making your head hurt if you tried to make sense of it.
She reached over and patted my hand, then stood. “Now, spend the afternoon as you wish. Sleep if you like; you may find the book drains you. Take a walk. Or go visit Mr. Cadogan at the pub—but keep your distance from Pryce. Would you like Jenkins to drive you to the village?”
“No, I don’t feel up to socializing. But a walk sounds good.”
“That’s fine. I’ll see you at dinner, then.”
I lifted my jacket from the peg by the kitchen door and stepped out into a damp, gray day. Turning up my collar, I thought about what I had to do: Keep from dreaming, read a book written in a language I didn’t understand, and become pure through contamination. Piece of cake.
18
THE SUN STRUGGLED TO PUSH THROUGH THE CLOUDS AS I crossed Maenllyd’s sloping back lawn, heading toward the woods behind the house, where a public footpath would take me across neighboring fields and through more woods. The wind rattled tree branches and carried a scent of damp earth. The air was warm enough that yesterday’s powdering of snow had vanished.
As I walked, I tried to figure out what Mab meant about being pure. I climbed a stile over a stone wall to follow the path through a field, scattering a flock of sheep as I went. As the sheep broke and ran, I thought about how they were effortlessly pure, each one true to its nature as a sheep. The color of this animal’s fleece or whether that one had a long nose—none of that mattered. Each was simply what it was.
Well, hooray for the sheep.
Easy for them. No matter how much I tried, I couldn’t be pure. That polluting Hellion essence was inside me, an ugly, permanent blot on my soul. Like a stain that would never come out no matter how much you scrubbed. I was marked by the Destroyer’s essence, and now I’d learned that essence was the Morfran. Those rages I’d suffered for ten years—yeah, “spirit of destructive hunger” described them perfectly.
I was polluted by the very thing I hoped to defeat.
You must be purely yourself. The burden of Mab’s words weighed on me like some kind of metaphysical backpack loaded with metaphysical bricks.
Forget it. I gave up thinking about purity and focused on recent events. Three zombies were dead, killed by the Morfran. Difethwr seized on our bond to invade any dreamscape where I was, using me as a lens to focus the Morfran, to send it after the last zombie I’d spoken to before I went off to dream-land. For now, thanks to Mab’s tea, the zombies were safe. But Mab said the tea was only a stopgap. We had to find something more permanent.
Preferably something that didn’t involve being pure, because I sucked at that.
“Hello, cousin.”
I whipped around and slammed him in the chest with an elbow strike before I realized it was Pryce. He grunted and staggered back, a hand on his chest. Two seconds ago, I’d been alone on the path.
“Where in hell did you come from?”
“In a manner of speaking, you could say that, yes,” he gasped.His answer made no sense, but I wasn’t going to ask for an explanation. I wasn’t going to apologize, either. He shouldn’t have snuck up on me. Anyway, Mab said to avoid Pryce, and that was my plan. I moved past him and kept walking. A moment later, he fell into step beside me.
He wore gray trousers and a black cashmere sweater—no coat—and he carried a carved staff, using it as a walking stick. His shiny black shoes weren’t exactly hiking boots, but his feet seemed to glide over the trail.
“Go away,” I said. He didn’t reply, keeping pace at my side. Short of running down the trail like a crazy woman, I couldn’t do much to avoid him. I just wouldn’t talk to him.
But Pryce wasn’t interested in talking. He didn’t say a word. We came to a place where the footpath crossed a country lane. I turned right, onto the road. Half a mile along was another path that would take me back to Maenllyd. Pryce turned with me.
I stopped and faced him. “What do you want?”
His face was all innocent puzzlement. “Same as you, I’d imagine. I’m out for a walk.”
“Well, I’m out for a solitary walk. So you can take a hike. But not with me.” I started down the lane, away from him. Immediately he was beside me again.
“You do speak English, right?” I said.
“There’s no need for enmity between us, cousin. I’d prefer we were friends.”
“I’m not your cousin.” I walked faster, but he kept up with me.
After several tense, silent minutes, we reached a gate in a low stone wall—the entry to the footpath back to Maenllyd. I turned to tell him again to get lost, but he spoke first.
“You’ve begun reading The Book of Utter Darkness.”
“How do you know that?” I thought of my demon mark’s reaction when I touched the book. “Did your pet Hellion tell you?”
He grabbed my arm, digging in his fingers. “Difethwr is no one’s pet. Make no mistake about that.” His dark eyes pulled at mine. “Things that happen in Uffern—what you call the demon plane—are within my purview. That book, stolen by your aunt, belongs to Uffern. I’ve allowed her to keep it because I was waiting for you to find it again. It’s more than ten years since you last touched it.”
Ten years since the night my father died. The pain hit me as raw as it had that night. I leaned against the stone wall. I pictured my father, crumpled in a heap on the library carpet, his body so still. He looked unhurt, but the Destroyer’s flames burned inside him. My fault. It was all my fault. He’d died trying to protect me after I’d taken down that damned book. Mab didn’t understand how hard it was for me to read it now.
Pryce’s hand rested lightly on my shoulder. I wanted to push it away, but the contact felt good—solid, comforting. When I didn’t move, the hand settled a little more firmly. At that, I did shake it off.
“Mab doesn’t understand,” Pryce said.
Could demi-demons read minds? Or maybe he knew what it felt like to lose someone. I searched his face. It was hard to read; his grim mouth and eyes gave nothing away. But I didn’t detect any malice there. He wanted to be friends, he’d said. Maybe he meant it. To overcome centuries of hatred, someone had to make the first move.
Maybe Mab didn’t understand everything. Pryce didn’t seem hostile. He’d given me a lift when I was stranded at the train station, and he hadn’t even hit back when I nailed him with my elbow. I’d talk to him, cautiously. Maybe I’d learn something. He held the gate open, gesturing me through with his staff. We started across the field.
“So, you’re a demi-demon?” Great conversation starter, Vicky.
“I prefer the term Meibion Avagddu, the Sons of Avagddu.”
“You mean the Sons of Utter Darkness.”
He shrugged. “My ancestor didn’t choose his name any more than you chose to be called Victory.”
True. My father had given me that name, thanks to a prophetic dream he had before I was born. But I didn’t want to talk about me. “You said the Destroyer is no one’s pet. What’s your relationship with it?”
“The alliance between Hellions and the Meibion Avagddu is as old as our kinds. We cooperate to our mutual benefit.”
“Hellions don’t cooperate with anyone.”
“With anyone human, you mean. Hellions, like the Meibion Avagddu, are sworn enemies of humankind. That makes us natural allies.”
“And it makes you and me natural enemies.” I was a demi-human, after all.
His smile was tight, private. “After Gwion stole the potion, Ceridwen wanted to destroy the cauldron, and with it all Hellions. You can’t blame them for hating her—and the descendants she favored. But there’s no need for my branch of the family to be at war with yours.”
“That’s not what the book says. Do the words eternal enmity ring a bell?”
“What does ‘eternal’ mean, really? Not much. Times do change.” His dark eyes drilled into mine; it was like staring into the depths of a cave. “Wouldn’t you prefer reconciliation?”