Pale Demon (The Hollows #9)(109)
Author: Kim Harrison

Al took a frightened breath, his eyes fixing on mine. It hurt, almost, and I wanted it out of me.

"Let me in," he said, seeing the pain in me, and I closed my eyes, unable to refuse.

I started to cry as he took my soul and lifted me out of the collective, leaving only the memory of the afternoon at the Petrified Forest. Carefully he peeled back bits and pieces of the construct, freeing little parts I hadn’t known were attached to it, the shape of a rock that I’d seen before on the beach, the color that was akin to a sunset when I was ten, the caw of a rook that sent shivers down my spine-I’d heard it before at camp. Al carefully drew the associated memories back, taking my soul from the construct to leave something that could be made real.

Slowly the pain lifted as I was made whole, and still he looked, making sure nothing was left. "I think," Al whispered, "I think I got all of her. I’ve not done this before. Oh God, I hope I got all of her." I felt him turn. "Newt. The word to fix it-" And then his voice cracked. "Memoranda," he croaked out, and I felt a ping through me as the thought severed completely.

Things that must be remembered, I translated silently, waiting for the rising crest of imbalance, but nothing came.

And then, though my eyes were shut, I knew that every single demon who had been in Dalliance was with us. I hadn’t brought them in; Al had moved my memory to them. It was fixed. It was real.

As one, the demons cowered, crying out as the cool night of Mesopotamia vanished and was replaced in a blink with the hot reality of the Arizona desert in June. "My God!" I heard one say, but most were silent with awe.

"Dali!" Al shouted, his thick-fingered hand cupping my head as he held me to him. "Did it take? Did I do it right?"

"We’re here, aren’t we?" the older demon called back, and I blearily looked, seeing the jukebox standing beside the memory of my mother’s blue Buick. The trunk was open, and there was a picnic basket inside. I hadn’t thought of the basket. Someone else had. I’d made something that the demons could twist to their own reality. I’d done it.

"A picnic," Newt said, snapping a red-and-white-checkered blanket out right there on the side of the road. "What a splendid idea. Dali, you must remember to give Rachel royalties every time someone uses this, seeing that she’s still alive. I’ll be watching your books. Us demonesses must stick together."

Demoness. I’d done it. I was a demon. Yay me.

My head fell onto Al’s chest, and I whimpered, my hands balled up as I tried to keep my eyes open. At the outskirts of my vision, I could see the demons standing on the edge of the drop-off, throwing rocks to see how far the illusion went. Fists on his hips, Dali stood between me and Newt, gazing at clouds that somehow never seemed to cover the sun. Newt had sat upon the blanket with a bucket of fried chicken and a wineglass.

Al jiggled me up into a more comfortable posture. "She’s not well. I’m taking her home. Anyone still think she’s not a demon?"

"I’m fine," I slurred, clearly not.

"No!" Ku’Sox shouted, and my pulse hiccupped. "It was Newt! Newt made it!"

My eyes opened, then squinted. "Screw you. I’m a demon. Deal with it." Oh God. I’m a demon.

"Don’t be tiresome," Newt said coyly. "I don’t remember the sun. Or colors…like this."

She had cried. The tears were gone now, but she had cried when we’d been alone. I think she did remember, and it made her crazy. Was I going to go crazy, too?

"Al?" I warbled, feeling it all come down on me. "I don’t feel so good."

Immediately he held me closer, his warmth doing nothing to stop my shaking.

"Take her home," Newt said, having left her blanket to shade me with her own body. "Her construct stretches the entire breadth of the collective. It’s only hampered now by the size of Dalliance."

"She filled the entire collective…" Dali breathed.

"The whole thing. You could walk for most of a day and not run into the wall. I’d suggest we make this our new wallpaper, even as bright as it is. At least we could all fit in it."

"Al," I whispered, feeling the world start to spin. Shit, I couldn’t go back. This was for real. I was going to spend the rest of my life here. Under the ground. Away from the sun. Every day exactly the same, surrounded by beings who had lived too long, trapped in their own hell. If I turned around fast, would there be barren wall behind me?

I was passing out. I felt it happen as if in slow motion, parts of my brain turning off, the horizon growing dark, and noises becoming dull. There were congratulations to Al even as he struggled to put space enough between us and them to jump out. Ku’Sox raged until someone shoved him in the trunk. The last thing I remembered was someone, Dali, I think, kissing the top of my hand as I slumped in Al’s arms.

"Welcome home, Rachel Mariana Morgan," he said, his goat-slitted eyes holding a new, dangerous light. "It’s a pleasure to finally meet you."

Chapter Twenty-Six

The dry hush of sliding coals woke me, and I jerked, clutching to me a black blanket smelling of Brimstone. I didn’t sit up since I was warm and comfortable, a hazy lassitude still heavy on me as I lay against the gently curving bench surrounding the central fire in Al’s kitchen. I’d fallen asleep here before, but this felt different.

A dim light glowed on a new honey-colored slate table set before the smaller hearth. Al sat before it, his back to me as he chanted. At least I thought it was Al. It didn’t look like him, but it didn’t look like Pierce, either.

Al had been in my head. He’d made my thoughts real. He’d seen me down to my soul, and I’d seen nothing of his…and he’s…humming?

The masculine figure was taller than Al by quite a bit but narrower, lacking the wide shoulders that I was familiar with. Short red hair pretty much covered him in a curly pelt where it showed past a lightweight black shirt and trousers. Muscles were well defined, with a long strength rather than heavy bulk. A shiny ebony hardness just above his ears might have been horns, and by God, I think he had that same prehensile tail I’d seen before when he’d threatened Treble.

"Al?" I croaked, putting a hand to my throat when the sound came out rusty.

The gravelly chantlike words cut off, and he spun, a ley-line doodad clattering until it fell off the table and he caught it with a long-fingered, double-jointed hand. A wash of black ever-after coated him, falling away to reveal the more familiar vision of Al, though he still wore that pair of casual jammies and had a surprised look in his red, goat-slitted eyes. The mirror he’d been looking into he slammed to the table, facedown, covering up the pentagram and glyphs he had scribed on the new slate table.