The heavy stone walls of the church were more appropriate to a fort than to a temple of God. Rupert needed it to be both but knew that, for him, it couldn't be either. He found a seat at the back before the service was due to begin without stopping to sign the registry. His clothes, the tweed he'd returned to after rejoining the Council, wouldn't raise a second glance. Nothing identified him as Randall's wild, bohemian friend. Nothing identified him as Randall's killer.
Mozart's Requiem charmed the air as the church filled. Rupert mused over the parallels, certain that no one else here would appreciate them: a gifted young man, misunderstood by those who'd raised him, who'd died tragically and far too young. The music, instead of celebrating Randall's life, invoked memories of his death, memories not of Randall but of the demon he'd become, memories of Eyghon breaking free of the circle, memories of the spell Rupert had cast to destroy the demon, and memories of what had come after. Wrenching his thoughts off that track, Rupert closed his eyes and focused on the music. His mind wouldn't still. He wondered who had selected the Requiem. It was an unlikely choice for Randall's working-class parents. Perhaps the priest had made the selection for them as a kindness, not forcing more choices on the family in their time of grief.
Randall's parents walked down the aisle slowly, painfully, as if their very bones ached. The mother's head was turned toward her husband, and Rupert could see little more of her than a babushka and what was likely her best coat. He felt vaguely relieved he couldn't see her face. He wasn't sure he could stand her grief. The father's anger was easier to handle. The man's eyes were red from crying but fury blazed from his brow. The one time Rupert had seen a bullfight, the bull, wounded by a half-dozen lances, had tried but failed to rise. Rupert saw that same look on the old man's face, not an acceptance of impossible odds, but a hopeless raging in the face of them.
Over the priest's consoling tones, Rupert heard a sound like that of water dripping from a faucet. It was quite persistent, drowning out even the words of the service. Rupert scanned the church, searching for the source. He stopped, staring at the altar. Blood flowed down from the cross, the tiny drops giving way to a trickle, a stream, and finally to a flowing river. The blood, stinking and coppery sweet, poured through the nave, splashing in waves over the pews. It flowed over him, past him, and then every trace of blood was gone. Rupert could hear the service again but what he saw was something quite different. Randall's mother had fallen backward onto the pew. Blood spurted from a gash in her throat. The father sat, staring straight ahead, covered in gore. The priest, still speaking, looked as if he'd just taken the worst beating of his life. His face, black and blue, was swollen beyond recognition. "Oh God no." Rupert didn't bother to close his eyes. Eyghon had been forcing such images into his mind, replacing Rupert's day-to-day life with vision of gore and blood and pain ever since the night that Randall had been killed. A woman sitting in the pew before him turned and shushed Rupert. Her blue eyes glared at Rupert, admonishing him from behind the bleached bones of her skull. Rupert dug his hands into his legs as he forced himself to stillness. You can't make me flee, he told the demon in his mind. If I do run, screaming, from this funeral, the Council will find me, they'll tie me to Randall's death, and they'll kill me. You'll lose your only anchor to this world.
Rupert forced himself to sit through the service. Bolting wouldn't do any good. He couldn't run from what was in his head. But still, the moment the service had ended, Rupert found himself fleeing the church. Keeping his steps down to a fast walk, he strode between the roily water of the Thames to his left and a sooty industrial park to his right. Five blocks and one bridge fell behind before Rupert stopped to lean heavily against a chain link fence. Rupert looked down, expecting to see his hands dripping with gore, but that was one illusion Eyghon had never given him even though, or perhaps because, that was the one illusion that would have truth to it.
My priest. Rupert shuddered as Eyghon's guttural voice filled his mind. Eyghon's words brought forth images of unholy and forbidden rites, of himself laughing as the demon crawled under his skin.
"I'm. Not. Yours."
Eyghon's laughter thundered through his thoughts. You were. You are. You always shall be.
I'm not yours. The words, unspoken this time, had lost their force. He had dedicated himself to the demon. They all had. He'd never expected that Eyghon would get loose. He'd been so stupid. He should have known that Eyghon would escape. He hadn't even prepared for the eventuality. He'd created a spell on the spot, one that had destroyed the host and had driven Eyghon from the physical plane. Against all expectations, the spell had worked, but it'd had one unforeseen side-effect. It had left Rupert open. The demon had forged a connection between them. It was always there now, in the back of his mind, manipulating and scheming. Rupert had tried dozens of banishing spells. Nothing had worked. Nothing could work. Nothing could ever dislodge Eyghon from his mind.
He'd returned to the Council in desperation, hoping they'd have some method of banishing the demon. It wasn't until that final moment, when he'd been on his way to confess his sins, when he'd been climbing the weighty stone steps leading up to Council HQ, that he'd remembered what the Council did to humans infected by a demon. Death, in comparison, would have been a blessed relief. He'd rejoined the Council but had kept his secret to himself.
Eyghon's mocking laughter brought Rupert back to the present. The woven wire of the fence felt cold against his hands. "I could still tell them about you," he snarled. "It is my duty." He'd taken the afternoon off to attend the funeral, but the Council never closed. He could go now.
They would keep him alive to study the link, extracting data with spells, with sharp and bright instruments. They wouldn't sedate him. It might mar the data. Once they were satisfied they'd gotten everything they could, they'd dissect him, leaving him lying there on the table, helpless, feeling them tearing away his life, inch-by-inch.
"Tomorrow," he told the demon. "First thing."
Eyghon laughed in the back of his mind.
