The Space Between Read Online Free PDF Page A

my head and the air around us shimmers. It only takes the furnace a few scorching increments to reach full blaze. Then the hammering starts and anything that wasn’t built here or brought in on the shelter of someone’s body is going up in smoke.
    Around us, the puddle shrinks rapidly. It vanishes in a rush of steam, only to be replaced by the water that won’t stop pouring down his arms, and if he stays, it will soak his bloody shirt forever, like Beelzebub’s flies. Like a story that never gets past the first sentence. It will be what defines him.
    My sister Myra breaks from the crowd of Lilim. She comes picking her way across the thoroughfare with her eyes bright and hungry, her hands outstretched. Her fingers look like claws.
    “No fair,” she says, pouting decadently. “If Daphne gets to play with him, I want to play too.”
    “Get back .” Obie’s voice is sharp. It sounds like a whip cracking, and Myra retreats, skipping back with her fingers pressed to her mouth like a naughty child. The others squeal and duck away, laughing, but the damage has been done.
    The pain demons are stirring now, moving closer. One of the Eaters creeps up beside me with a wild, gleeful look. Her hair is tangled, matted with someone else’s blood, and when she reaches toward the boy on the ground, he grips my hand so tight I think he’ll never let go.
    “Lost Ones make the best toys,” she whispers, stroking his face. “Just enough angel in the blood to keep them lively.”
    Her teeth are long and jagged. She looks ravenous, like she’s never wanted anything more, and in that eager, hungry expression, I see an eternity of suffering.
    No matter how animated the common damned are when they come in, they all go dark eventually. Usually sooner, rather than later. An angel-boy is a different matter altogether. The simple fact is, he’s half-eternal and if this Eater or any of the other leering creatures on the walkway goes to work on him, he won’t break or burn out or go silent. They can make him scream forever.
    Suddenly, I’m sure that in another instant, they’ll start on him right here in the terminal, on the carved panel of temptation. They’ll brutalize and maim him and they’ll go on doing it. The Eater smiles a wide, festering smile and I hold on tighter, bracing myself for the scream.
    Then, without warning, the crowd shifts. There’s a rustle, a stepping-back, and the whole atmosphere changes.
    “What’s all this?” says a voice from the walkway and I glance up, nearly shaking with relief.
    Beelzebub is here, striding through the terminal in his polished wingtips and his work suit, surrounded by flies. His expression is mild, but Obie and Moloch both drop their eyes and stand at attention, and the Eater slinks back toward her cluster of friends, still casting hungry glances at the boy on the ground.
    “So,” Beelzebub says, clapping Obie on the shoulder. “Mind telling me what the fuss is about? Are we having a party?”
    “That kid on the floor,” Obie says, gesturing. His voice sounds hoarse. “That’s a Lost One, and these cannibals know it—they all know he might as well be one of us. He shouldn’t be here.”
    Beelzebub studies the two of us, crouched in front of him. I stare up, trying to communicate using my eyes, but his expression is inscrutable.
    Please , I say without words. Please, this is too awful. Don’t let it happen .
    His gaze is intent, sweeping over my upturned face, the boy’s bent head. For a strange moment, I think he’s going to reach down and pull us apart, but he only sets his weapons case on the portrait of Leviathan and straightens his tie.
    “Take him back,” he says. It’s directed at Obie, but he’s still looking at me. “Take him home.”
    His tone is loud and definite and for the first time, everyone in the terminal stops talking. The only sound is the low, repetitive strike of the hammers, a long way off.
    Beelzebub turns to face the crowd and they all stare