Learn About Loss (Ghosts of the Shadow Market 4)

This was Sister Emilia's first time encountering a Greater Demon. She held the sword she had forged herself in one hand, and Brother Zachariah's warm hand in the other. If it had not been for those two things, she knew she would have turned and fled.

"Is that human skin?" she asked, her voice wavering.

Whatever the suit was made of, it had the glazed, slightly cracked appearance of poorly tanned leather. It had a pink, blistered look to it. And yes, she could now see that what she had thought was an odd flower poking out of the boutonniere was actually a mouth pursed in agony, a cartilaginous lump of nose sagging over it.

Belial looked down at the stained cuff sticking out past the sleeve. He flicked a speck off. "You have an eye, my dear," he said.

"Whose skin is it?" Sister Emilia said. Her voice was steadier now, she found to her great relief. It was not so much that she wanted to know the answers, as that she had found quite early on in her training in the Iron Citadel that asking questions was a way to discipline your fear. Taking in new information meant you had something to focus on besides how terrifying your teachers or your environment was.

"A tailor I employed," Belial said. "He was a very bad tailor, you see, but in the end he has made a very good suit after all." He gave her and Brother Zachariah the most charming smile. But in the mirrors all around them, his reflections gnashed their teeth and raged.

Brother Zachariah gave every appearance of calm, but Sister Emilia could feel how tight his grip had grown. She said, "You're friends with him?"

We have met before, Brother Zachariah said. Silent Brothers do not choose the company they keep. Though I will confess I find yours more to my taste than his.

"Hurtful!" said Belial, leering. "And, I fear, honest. And I only enjoy one of those things."

What is your business here? Brother Zachariah said.

"No business at all," Belial said. "This is purely fun. You see, they turned up some adamas in the caverns underneath Ruby Falls. A small vein of it in the limestone. Do you know that people come from all over the country to gawk at Ruby Falls? A subterranean waterfall! I haven't seen it myself, but I hear it's spectacular. I did play a few rounds of Tom Thumb golf though. And then gorged myself sick on the famous salt-water taffy. Had to eat the taffy seller afterwards to get the taste out of my mouth. I think there's still a little stuck in my teeth. Chattanooga, Tennessee! The slogan should be Come for the Adamas, Stay for the Salt-water Taffy! They could paint it on barns.

"Did you know there's a whole city underneath the city of Chattanooga? They had such terrible floods over the last century that finally they built over the original buildings. The old buildings are still there, underground, hollowed out like rotten teeth. And sure, everything is on higher ground now, but the floods still come. It washes away all the limestone, and what happens eventually? The foundations will crumble, and everything will be washed away in a deluge. There's a metaphor there somewhere, little Shadowhunters. You build and you struggle and you fight, but the darkness and the abyss will come one day in a great tide and sweep away everything that you love."

We didn't have time to tour Chattanooga, Brother Zachariah said. We're here for the adamas.

"The adamas! Of course!" Belial said. "You people kept such a tight grasp on the stuff."

"You have it?" Sister Emilia said. "I thought it was death to demons, just the touch."

"Your ordinary sort will just explode, yes," Belial said. "But I am a prince of Hell. Made of sterner stuff."

Greater Demons can handle adamas, Brother Zachariah said. Though my understanding is that it is agonizing to them.

"To-may-to of agony, to-mah-to of ah-gony," Belial said. His reflections in the various mirrors wept tears of blood. "Do you know what causes us pain? The one who made us has turned his face from us. We are not allowed before the throne. But adamas, that's angelic stuff. When we touch it, the pain of our absence from the divine is indescribable. And yet, it's the closest we ever get to being in its presence. So we touch adamas, and we feel the absence of our creator, and in that absence we feel the smallest spark of what we once were. Oh, it's the most wonderful thing you can imagine, that pain."

Brother Zachariah said, "And God said, I shall not retain Belial within my heart."

A sly, wounded look came over Belial's face. "Of course you, too, my dear Brother Zachariah, have been cut off from the ones you love. We understand each other." And then he said something in a language that Sister Emilia did not recognize, almost spitting out the awful, hissing syllables.

"What is he saying?" she said. She thought that the room seemed to be growing hotter. The mirrors were blazing brighter.

He's speaking Abyssal, Brother Zachariah said calmly. Nothing of any interest.

"He's doing something," Sister Emilia hissed. "We have to stop him. Something is happening."

In all the mirrors, Belial was swelling up, the suit of skin bursting like the skin of a sausage. The mirror versions of Sister Emilia and Brother Zachariah were dwindling, shrinking and blackening as if scorched by the heat of Belial.

Knock-knock, Brother Zachariah said.

"What?" Sister Emilia said.

He said again, Don't pay any attention to Belial. He thrives on it. It's not real. It's illusions. Nothing more. Demons won't kill those they owe a debt to. Knock-knock.

"Who's there?" she said.

Spell.

Sister Emilia's throat was so dry she could barely speak at all. The pommel of her sword was blazingly hot, as if she had her hand in the heart of a forge. "Spell who?"

If you insist, Brother Zachariah said. W-H-O.

And when Sister Emilia understood the joke, it was so very ridiculous that she laughed in spite of herself. "That's terrible!" she said.

Brother Zachariah looked at her with his expressionless, sealed-off face. He said, You didn't ask me if Silent Brothers had a good sense of humor.

Belial had stopped speaking Abyssal. He looked incredibly disappointed in them both. "This is no fun," he said.

What did you do with the adamas? Brother Zachariah said.

Belial reached down into the neck of his shirt and drew up a chain. Dangling on the end of it was an adamas half mask. Sister Emilia could see his skin go red and then grow raw and festering and yellow with pus where the mask touched him. And where he touched the mask, the metal flared up in coruscating ripples of turquoise, scarlet, viridian. But Belial's expression of proud indifference never changed. "I've been using it on behalf of your precious mundane folk," he said. "It strengthens my power as I strengthen its. Some of them want to be people other than themselves, and so I give them the illusion of that. Strong enough that they can fool others. Other people want to see something that they want, or that they've lost, or that they can't have, and I can do that too. There was a young man the other day--a boy, really--he was to be married. But he was afraid. He wanted to know the worst things that might happen to him and the girl he loved, so that he could prepare for them and go on bravely. I hear he wasn't that brave after all."

"He put out his eyes," Sister Emilia said. "And what about Billy Doyle?"

"That one, I think, will have a remarkable life," Belial said. "Or else end up in a lunatic asylum. Care to wager which?"

There shouldn't be a Shadow Market here, Brother Zachariah said.

"There are many things that shouldn't be that are," Belial said. "And many things that aren't that might still be if you only want them enough. I'll admit, I hoped that the Shadow Market would provide better cover. Or at least a warning to me, when your kind showed up to spoil my fun. But you weren't distracted at all."

Sister Emilia will take the adamas, Brother Zachariah said. And once you've given it to her, you will send the Market away because I ask it of you.

"If I do so, will that cancel out the favor that I owe you?" Belial said.

"He owes you a favor?" Sister Emilia said. She thought, No wonder they stitch up the Silent Brothers' mouths. They have so many secrets.

It wi

ll not, Brother Zachariah said to Belial. To Emilia, he said Yes, and that is why you need not be afraid of him. A demon cannot kill one it is indebted to.

"I could kill her, though," Belial said. He took a step toward Sister Emilia, and she raised her sword, determined to make her death count.

But you won't, Brother Zachariah said calmly.

Belial raised an eyebrow. "I won't? Why not?"

Brother Zachariah said, Because you find her interesting. I certainly find her so.

Belial was silent. Then he nodded. "Here." He threw the mask at Sister Emilia, who let go of Brother Zachariah's hand to catch it. It was lighter than she would have expected. "I imagine they won't let you work it, though. Too worried I might have corrupted it in some way. And who is to say that I didn't?"

We're done, Brother Zachariah said. Go from here and do not return.