“You’re not Jack,” I said, unnerved. Even more so, when he looked at me, and I saw a flash of anger so profound it verged on insanity.
“Actually,” he said softly, “I am.”
I stepped back as the old man rose gracefully from his chair, his blanket slipping away to the floor. The butler moved in, stooping to pick up the blanket, but froze when the other man touched his back, ever so slightly. The butler’s face went carefully blank, but that was enough. He was, I suspected, one of those fools who had fallen through the gate into this prison. And fuck only knew what he’d been put through for however long he’d attended this old Aetar, who my grandfather said was in love with pain.
I glanced at Zee, who watched him with careful, narrowed eyes. “He’s lying.”
But the demon gave me a brief look that chilled me to the bone. “He is not. He believes.”
The old man laughed, ever so softly—standing behind the butler, who had finished picking up the blanket and stood there, holding it to his chest.
“Of course I believe,” he said, holding my gaze, all while he ran a thick, strong hand down the back of the butler’s neck. “I was Jack, I am Jack, I am what he threw away, all those years ago.”
I swallowed hard. Raw and Aaz were prowling around the room, sniffing at the walls. No sign of Grant or the Shurik, which frightened me. I fought to keep my mask on, though, to be strong, unbreakable. “I don’t understand. You’re the Devourer. You’re not him. You can’t be.”
The old man’s smile deepened—God, he looked like my grandfather, even his eyes—and I watched in horror as he reached around the butler and sank his hand into the man’s chest. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing at first, it didn’t make sense, but I stared at his hand, slipping through flesh like it was water, pushing in deep until even his forearm was embedded. The butler turned ice white, bottom lip trembling, but he did not make a sound.
I lurched forward, intent only to make it stop—but the old man yanked his arm out with a flourish, and blood sprayed across my face. The butler collapsed, blood pooling around him. In the old man’s hand was a human heart. Which he offered to me.
When I just stared at him, unmoving, he shrugged and took a deep, wrenching bite from it. Blood ran down his chin. Blood dripped on the white floor. Blood stank up the air and made me sick.
“My kind go crazy sometimes,” he said, after a hard, slow swallow. “We’re made of little more than light and energy, so to say we lose our minds is a bit inaccurate. And yet, more accurate than anything else. We lose our minds, young Hunter. Or we become more of ourselves in ways we never dreamed.”
“My husband came here,” I said.
“Your husband is still here,” he said, crouching over the butler, “and you can kill me, but you won’t. Not until you’re sure I can’t help you. Such a sorry predicament you’ve put yourself in.”
The butler’s limbs twitched, as if waking from a nightmare. I wasn’t surprised he was still alive. I said, “You orchestrated this.”
“I was awakened,” replied the Aetar, looking up from the butler to study Raw and Aaz with the calculated eye of a butcher measuring meat. “When my lesser half used our crystal skull to spy . . . he found me instead. That brief moment of shared essence not only allowed me to see inside his life, but it established a link that I used to slip outside my bonds. It was not easy, I admit. I could not often take advantage of it. But it was rather useful, for a time. Long enough to set things in motion.”
He met my gaze. “You, for instance.”
“You’re not Jack,” I whispered.
“I am,” he whispered back. “Just not the part he wanted.”
The old man lunged at me. I was expecting an attack, but nothing so fast. I couldn’t see him move, just a blur, then impact. He was faster than the boys, even.
I slammed into the floor, breath knocked out. Dek and Mal reared, breathing fire, snapping at the old man. Raw and Aaz clung to him, tearing at his limbs, ripping him to pieces like he was made of tissue paper while Zee stood over me, spiky hair bristling, snarling with rage. And all I heard was laughter, his cold, delighted laughter, filling the air. The more they hurt him, the more amused he seemed—and I realized that all the boys were doing was giving him pleasure.
My right hand glimmered, power surging through the armor. But before it could transform into a weapon that I could use, the world around us broke. Those white walls, that perfect marble—all of it cracked. No earthquake, no shaking—just a fracture that grew with each heartbeat, splitting apart the room. Heat burst against my skin, crackling over me like I’d just been shoved into an oven. Smoke filled the air.