Blue was drawn elegantly along the beam. Such strange spell technology. There was nothing like it in the Realm. It made you so relaxed and dreamy, carried you so gently, up and up and up.
She reached the wall of the cubical chamber and passed through it as if it were mist. All the while Black John’s little cat-claw hand held hers.
The sudden glare blinded her and hurt her eyes. She gasped and jerked her hand away. At once Black John gripped her mind savagely and she stood stock-still, unable to move, unable even to close her eyes. Black John took her hand again and her paralysis broke.
Blue stood blinking tears from her eyes. She felt icy calm. The incident had taken less than a second, but she’d learned something. While the demon creature held her hand, he could control her actions gently. When she jerked her hand away, his response had been close to panic. Locking up her mind and body was an overreaction. He still had control, but it was a crude, brutal control.
Blue forced herself to ignore the pain in her eyes and think. The problem was nobody really knew much about demonic possession. Faeries of the Night had techniques and spells to guard against it, but even they didn’t know exactly how it worked. Henry was under demon control, obviously had been for some time, and nobody was touching him. Mr Fogarty had been possessed by a demon when he killed her father, but none of the creatures had been with him – touching him – at the time. Why did this thing need to touch her now? Henry and Mr Fogarty were both human. Perhaps it was different for faeries.
She wracked her memory to recall what exactly had happened to Pyrgus. He said the demons had jumped on him, so there’d been contact then. But had one held his hand after that? He hadn’t mentioned it, although that didn’t mean it didn’t happen. Besides, Pyrgus had been possessed while he was in Hael – the demons’ own world. It might work differently in Hael too.
No matter. She still thought she’d learned something. Here and now, the demons seemed to need contact to control her properly. That was knowledge she might use.
Blue turned her head, blinking the tears from her eyes. Her surroundings swam slowly into focus. She was in a strange metal chamber, lit by a pervasive violet glow. As her eyes adjusted, she could see the light was coming from a bank of huge transparent tubes, filled with slowly bubbling liquid. Floating inside were scores of naked babies, mouths open, eyes tight shut. To her sudden horror, she realised they were breathing the liquid. There was no way she could tell whether the babies were faerie or human.
‘Neither,’ Henry said, reading her mind. He was floating through the wall on another beam of blue light. Two of the black-eyed grey demons were following behind him. All three landed like thistledown.
When she looked at Henry, she was no longer looking at Henry. She knew that now. There was something else behind his eyes.
‘What are they, then?’ she asked angrily.
‘Hybrids,’ Henry said. ‘Part of our breeding programme.’
Our breeding programme? The creature speaking through Henry was a demon. Keep it talking. Talk might distract it. Besides, any information could prove useful.
‘Your breeding programme?’ Blue echoed.
The thing dropped all pretence of being Henry now. Even the voice changed, dropping to a low growl that sounded even more frightening for coming from a boy’s mouth. ‘For stronger stock,’ it said. Henry looked at her with cold, blank eyes.
Blue looked back at the babies floating in the tubes. Some were plump, some looked pale and sickly. All moved slowly in the liquid. Their hands opened and closed. A horrid realisation dawned on her.
‘Those are -’
‘Part Analogue, part Hael,’ the demon said. Henry’s eyes stared at her. ‘Now we begin the second phase.’
The silence was so profound it was as if all sound had been sucked from the room. A sick fear rose in her stomach. She was afraid to ask but had to ask. Her voice sounded hoarse, scarcely louder than a whisper.
‘What’s the second phase?’
The thing inside Henry contorted his lips into a smile. ‘A child of Hael born of a faerie mother.’ His eyes flickered to Black John, who squeezed her hand.
Blue tried to pull away and scream, but the paralysis fell on her again.