Bereft

- 66 -

As Darius finished adjusting various levers and the machines keeping Strauss alive whirred to a halt, the wasting man inhaled a wet, rattling breath. His milky eyes fluttered open to waver first upon the shadowed demon, then upon me.

"You," he rasped.

I rose from the chair and stood at Strauss' bedside. "Me," I responded.

His cracked lips worked together, pulling and tugging the exaggerated wrinkles crumpling his face. I expected him to yell for security or to fling insults, but the elderly cultist surprised me by beginning to cry. Fat, unabashed tears leaked from the corners of his creased eyes and pattered upon the starchy pillow.

"You've come to take me, then?"

I tilted my head and allowed my fringe to fan across my eye. "Take you?"

Strauss coughed. Darius moved in the peripheries of my vision, either watching for nosy nurses or wandering doctors. "God sends his angel for me."

I laughed. I couldn't help it. "You think I'm an angel?" I said, glancing at Darius to see the Sin smirk. "Oh, old man, you have to be delirious."

"The devil, then," Strauss grumbled. "It'd be the devil. The devil sending his messenger. Ah. He'd send it in your guise, I'd surmise. Send up a messenger looking for all the world like the girl I let that demon kill."

Strauss thought I was dead. Had no one from the Exordium told him I was alive? Had they bothered? Or was the man simply losing what sense he had?

"I called it up from Hell, I did. I confess. I killed you." Strauss wept and reached for my hand, but I didn't let him touch me. "Demon? Angel? Does it matter? Does it matter in the end?"

Strauss watched me, waiting for an answer. I felt Darius drift closer, a heated shadow somehow managing to displace the thrown sunlight away from himself. My lips pursed into a thin line. "Well, you know what they say about the devil you know...."

"Show me mercy, specter," Strauss wheezed as he made another grab from my hand. I retreated from the bed, backing into Darius. "Show me...mercy...."

The final cultist of the Exordium was fading fast. His eyelids were sagging as his chin was jostled by the weak rise and fall of his thin chest. He didn't have long.

"I have already given you what mercy I am capable of," I said as I turned from Strauss before he took his final, rattling breath. "Don't ask for more than you are due, cultist."

It was warm outside the hospital, but the first meandering winds of autumn were making their presence known. They roved over the hilltops and spilled over the lot in generous gusts of air scented with sage and oak. Brown leaves skittered upon the asphalt and swirled about our feet as me and the Sin of Pride and I walked toward my car.

My hands were shaking. The Exordium was finished. Our contract was complete. My story was at an end.

I stopped walking, unable to take another step. The pavement was scalding beneath my tennis shoes, heat rising through the rubber soles to singe my feet. I thought of inane things—of how I had left the coffee pot on at home, how I hadn't taken out my laundry or sorted the mail. I absorbed every detail of the world surrounding me and wished I could stay here, that I could take it all with me.

The Sin of Pride paused to glance at me, puzzled by my hesitation. "Sara?"

I was not afraid of Darius. Afraid of the unknown, yes—but of Darius? No. The Exordium had given me pain, torment, doubt, and had taken my life, but Darius had given that life back to me, if only for a short while. The Sin had shown me an underside of this world I had never known of before. That underside wasn't always pretty or wondrous, but it was exhilarating. The Sin of Pride rescued a jaded, angry girl and urged her to become an ardent, inquisitive woman.

I did not begrudge him my life or my soul. I hoped he took both and escaped Verweald before Balthier came hunting for him. I hoped he found a new host who gave him an easier, longer contract that allowed Darius to live in Terrestria and afforded him time to discover what he wanted to do with his immortal existence.

"Just do it," I whispered as I fisted my hands at my sides. I stared at the ground, seeing that I had stepped in gum, of all things. I was going to die in faded jeans with gum on my shoes. Wonderful. "It's fine. Just—."

Darius' touch brought my head up. I hadn't seen him approach.

His expression was inscrutable, lost to thoughts beyond my conception. "I've come to a decision," the Sin muttered. His left hand folded upon my jaw, his thumb cupping my exposed throat. Though Darius didn't place pressure upon my neck, it became increasingly difficult to breathe as my anxiety throttled me.

I wouldn't be afraid in my end. I had been afraid for most of my life, afraid of silly things, afraid of risks and afraid of being myself. I would be bold at the end of my life. I wanted to be bold.

"I achieved vengeance for your sister," Darius continued as though he couldn't see my visible resignation or my shivering. "I killed the man who paid for her death and the men who orchestrated it—but their attempt upon your life had nothing to do with the Exordium. Nothing to do with you. I have achieved nothing for you." The Sin's right hand rose from his side to graze my wounded ribs, somehow managing to ameliorate the ache. "I am not going to claim your soul, Sara Gaspard. Not yet. Not until I complete the contract I agreed to when I saved your life."

I inhaled, tasting ash and brimstone upon my tongue. The wind rose again. "But—." He couldn't possibly mean—?!

The sun caught Darius' crimson eyes and blazed with his resolve. "I am going to kill Balthier."

* * *