Grudgingly, I take the proffered jacket and slip my arms into the wide sleeves. I hate how when his warm scent of hickory and musk reaches my nose my body tingles all over.
Whatever he did to me the other night—whatever power he has over my desire—must have a lasting effect.
Kincaid nods approvingly, and we leave, boots crunching over the gravel drive toward the gangstermobile.
There’s no driver tonight, I notice as Kincaid slips into the driver’s side and grumbles a flustered, “Get in,” when I hesitate.
I do as I’m told, buckling my seatbelt.
“What did you say?” I ask Kincaid. He’d spoken, but I hadn’t heard him.
He starts the car and regards me coolly. “I didn’t say anything.”
His gaze darts to the backseat for a second, and I whirl to find the staff from Tori’s shop laid out across the backseat, partially unwrapped from its silver-threaded gray blanket.
My heart stammers, and I grip the seat beneath me as if it’s a floatation device and this plane is going down.
The rip of fabric is only background noise to the ever-rising tide of whispers clotting the air in the car. They press in on me, crushing my chest and my windpipe. Trying to suffocate me.
Kincaid exclaims something that sounds like a curse and peels my fingers from the seat where chunky, yellowed foam is spilling out from beneath the leather.
“C-cover it,” I beg, shivering as a swift chill fills the car, seeming to burrow into my bones. I wrap Kincaid’s jacket tighter around myself, convinced I can see the puff of my own breath in the air.
“Please,” I croak, moving my icy fingers up to cover my ears, but it doesn’t help. The voices aren’t coming from the staff, I realize. Not exactly. Maybe the thing is causing them, but they’re inside my head.
Kincaid twists in his seat, and I squeeze my eyes shut, readying myself to flee.
I can’t do this.
I can’t stay in this car—not with those voices whispering unintelligible words so loud I can’t hear my own thoughts. Not while they suffocate me.
“There,” Kincaid says, and tugs my hands down from my ears, his bright eyes searching mine in the dark. “It’s covered.”
I’m panting hard, and I can’t seem to stop. The boot on my windpipe has lifted, and I suck in air like there isn’t enough in the whole world to sustain me.
Kincaid is still holding my hands I realize as the last of the whispers fade. His thumb brushes over my knuckle, and I pull away, jumping at the sensation.
He searches my eyes. “Na’vazēm?”
I nod. “I’m okay.”
Hands returned to the wheel, Kincaid visibly relaxes, and from the side, I watch his Adam’s apple bob in his throat. “If you were anyone else, I would kill you for doing that to my car.”
I barely hear what he’s saying. Mouth agape, I silently gasp as his skin, stained inky black up to his elbows begins to return to his normal shade. The dark shade retreats down his arms like wisps of smoke beneath the surface of his skin until it’s gone entirely.
“What are you?” I ask him after we’ve pulled out from the driveway and onto the road. The tension in my shoulders and the roil of acid in my belly has returned, and I need a distraction.
I half expect him not to answer. He hasn’t any other time I’ve asked, but after a beat of silence, he does.
“I think you already know the answer to that question, Na’vazēm.”
I wiggle in my seat and unroll my window just an inch to get some air. “You’re a lord of Hell.”
I try to state it matter-of-factly, like it doesn’t scare me. Like Tori did when she saw him in her shop. Instead, it comes out pitchy.
“I know that already. You said you’re one of seven of them.”
Which is just…insane. I don’t even think the mortal world knows about the seven lords of Hell. I’ve definitely never heard of them.
“Then what’s the question?”
I’m not really sure how to ask what I want to know. I know he’s a lord of Hell. I know his true name is Asmodeus. What I don’t know is what it is he becomes when his skin turns black and he sprouts horns and a tail.
“Never mind,” I mutter, thinking maybe it’s best not to know.
The city passes us by in a blur of darkness peppered with small pockets of light. For a city that once held over three-hundred-thousand people, it’s eerily quiet now that the Diablim have taken it.
There are so many less of them then there ever were of us.
Them, I correct myself, feeling ill at the thought. I am not mortal.
I am the them I fear.
I peer at Kincaid and grit my teeth.
If he isn’t them anymore, then that makes him and me an us.
We are Diablim.
I repeat it in a whisper to myself so low I’m certain Kincaid can’t hear over the rumble of the ancient engine. “I am Diablim.”
No matter how many times I say it to myself, it never feels more right. It never fits.
“How much further?”
“Not long.”
My heart spurs into a gallop, and I try to settle myself by counting to three and trying to retreat to my safe place inside. It works, but not as well as it usually does.
Kincaid readjusts himself in his seat. “Have you noticed a difference?” he asks, and I quirk a brow at him, not catching on to his meaning.
“Since you’ve ceased taking the pills,” he clarifies. “You should be noticing a great many changes by now.”
I cringe, knowing without the need to ask exactly what he means. It takes me all of a millisecond to tie it all together. I already suspected it was the pills I had to blame.
Or rather, the lack of them.
“I heal faster,” I admit. “My head is clearer. It was always like my thoughts had to wade through maple syrup before, but not anymore.”
“What else?”
“I think maybe I’m stronger, too. Or, I don’t know, maybe that’s just because I’m not being starved or tortured anymore.”
Kincaid flinches.
It really could be either, but I know that I shouldn’t have been able to run quite so far the night the daeva attacked me. Not after eating so little for so long, and certainly not after barely sleeping and all the horror of finding myself on this side of The Hinge. Since I stopped taking my daily doses, I’ve gradually gained more energy. More alertness. Last night, I even noticed how well I seemed to be able to see in the pitch blackness of my room with the shutters drawn.
Almost like it was daylight.
I had to cover my head with a pillow to sleep.
Kincaid is right, things are changing, and even though I feel better than I ever have before, I can’t say I’m pleased to know the diviner was right about me.
“That’s good. It means the poison is leaving your system. I’d give it a few more days for it to fully leave your bloodstream.”
…giving my Diablim blood the chance to shine.
He doesn’t say it, but it’s implied.
When the awkward silence falls again, I find myself eager to fill it. Every mile of pavement we chew is making me more on edge and soon, I’m going to be at risk of staging a breakout, which is decidedly against our bargain.
A shuddering breath leaves my body as I speak. “Your cat,” I ask, blurting the first thing that comes to mind. “Does it have a name?”