“Did you have to—you know, command them?” Cordelia asked.
“No.” Lucie sounded as if she were a bit surprised herself. “They wanted to help. All right—here we are.” She stopped at a spot near the cemetery’s back wall. There was nothing notable about it to Cordelia, but Lucie seemed sure of herself. She raised her witchlight and said, “I suppose there’s no reason to wait. Go ahead, Daisy.”
“Here?” Cordelia said. “Now?”
“Yes. You’re standing in exactly the right place.”
Cordelia took a deep breath and drew Cortana. A ripple of power passed through her arm, followed by joy: it was clear Cortana still wanted her, still chose her. How she had missed this: the match of the sword and the wielder. It gave off a faint golden glow, a beacon in the demonic darkness. She raised her other hand and drew the blade across her palm. It was so sharp that she barely felt it as her skin opened. Fat drops of blood pattered onto the ground.
The ground shuddered. Lucie’s eyes widened as a blackened glow, like a hole in the night itself, appeared, and the Mother of Demons emerged from it.
She wore a gown of silver silk, and her feet were shod in slippers of the same silver material. Her hair was coiled around her head in braids the color of hematite. The black, shining scales of the snakes in her eyes glittered as they darted back and forth, taking in the scene before her.
“Really,” she said, sounding annoyed. “I had hoped that after you killed the Blackthorn woman, it would give you a taste for blood. I did not hope it would be your own blood.” She glanced around—at the graveyard, at the sky full of rolling gray-and-black clouds. “Belial has rather outdone himself, hasn’t he?” she said, with a sort of reluctant admiration. “I suppose you want me to do something about it, and that’s why you’re bothering me?”
“Not quite,” said Cordelia. She could feel her heart pounding. She bit the inside of her cheek. She would not show Lilith fear. “I think you will find what I have to say interesting.”
Lilith was looking at Lucie now, the serpents of her eyes licking the air with lazy tongues. “And I see you brought a friend. Was that wise?”
Lucie glared. “I am not afraid of you.”
“You should be,” Lilith said. She turned back to Cordelia. “And you. You have waited rather too long, paladin. Belial is close to the completion of his plan. I will have no use for you then, and I will not be pleased about it. Besides, I’m not going to send you out of London now. This is where Belial will come, when he is ready.”
“I didn’t call on you because I want to leave London,” Cordelia began. “I—”
“You called me because Belial has taken your lovers from you,” Lilith sneered.
Cordelia gritted her teeth. “James is my husband, and Matthew is my friend. I want them rescued. I am willing to be your paladin—I am willing to fight in your name, if you will bring them back from Edom.”
Lilith’s smile flickered. “I could not go to Edom even if I wanted to. They are beyond my reach. As I said, you waited too long—”
“Perhaps you cannot set foot in Edom,” said Cordelia. “But you could send me there.”
“Are you trying to negotiate?” Lilith sounded amused. “Oh, paladin. The knight does not ‘negotiate’ with her liege. The knight is the liege’s will made flesh. Nothing more or less.”
“Wrong.” Cordelia raised Cortana in her hand. It seemed to blaze, a torch against the night. “I am more. And you are not as powerful as you think. You are bound, Mother of Demons. Bound and trapped.”
Lilith laughed aloud. “Do you really think I would be so foolish as to allow myself to be bound? Look around us, child. I see no pentagram. I see no circle of salt. Only a bare ground of dirt and rock. What power would bind me?”
Cordelia looked at Lucie, who took a deep breath.
“Rise,” Lucie said. “I do not command, only ask. Rise.”
They shot upward from the ground, beams of silvery light that resolved themselves into translucent human figures. Dozens of them, until Cordelia felt as if she stood among a forest of lighted trees.
They were the ghosts of young women—young and shabbily dressed, with sad, empty eyes, though whether that was because of their lives or their deaths, Cordelia could not have said. There were a few transparent men scattered through the crowd as well, most of them also young. They stood with spectral hands linked, forming long lines that intersected and bisected each other to create the shape of a pentagram. In the center of the pentagram stood Cordelia—and Lilith.
“These ghosts are loyal to me,” said Lucie. She had positioned herself a few steps outside the pentagram. Cordelia could see the illuminated figures of the ghosts of Cross Bones, reflected in Lucie’s eyes. “They will remain in this pentagram formation as long as I ask. Even if I leave, you will be trapped here.”
With a hiss, Lilith spun and struck out at the nearest ghost—but her hand passed through the spirit with only a crackle of energy. Her face twisted as fangs snapped from her mouth, her hair turning to a sleek fall of scales. Her silver slippers had dropped away; from beneath the hem of her gown a thick coil, a serpent’s tail, protruded. “If you do not release me,” she hissed, “I will tear Cordelia Carstairs limb from limb and shatter her bones while she screams. Do not think I cannot do it.”
Lucie paled but stood her ground. Cordelia had warned her that this was what Lilith would say; she had not also said that there was every chance Lilith would do as she threatened. Lucie was safe outside the pentagram, and beyond that Cordelia did not care: this had to work. For James, for Matthew. It had to.
“I don’t think you’ll kill me,” Cordelia said calmly. “I think you’re cleverer than that. I am your paladin and the bearer of the blade Cortana. I am the only one who can give Belial his third wound and end him. I am the only one who can get your realm back for you.”
“You are still negotiating.” Lilith’s fangs sank into her own lower lip; blood dripped down her chin. “You say you want to kill Belial—”
“I want to save James and Matthew,” Cordelia said. “I am prepared to kill Belial. I have the will and the weapon. Send us to Edom. Myself and Lucie. Send us to Edom, and I will reclaim it for you by dispatching Belial. Before he takes London. Before he takes James. Before he is unstoppable.”
“That’s all you want? A chance to save your friends?” Lilith said, her voice thick with contempt.
“No. I want an agreement that when Belial is dead by my sword, you will release me from your service. I will no longer be your paladin. And I want your word that you will not harm me or my loved ones.”
The snakes had vanished; Lilith’s eyes were flat and black, as they had looked in the mural. “You ask a great deal.”
“You will get a great deal in return,” Cordelia said. “You will get a whole world.”
Lilith seemed to hesitate. “Your friends are still alive in Edom,” she said. “They are being held in Idumea. The great capital of Edom, where my palace stands.”