My Beautiful One

43. Keep moving

I stared at the locked door of the training room, and even if I didn't have a demonic rune disabling my speech, I would have been lost for words. Lilith, the mother of demons, had fought me, won, turned into me, and then gone to convince Sebastian to summon Lucifer.

For a moment, I let myself be foolishly happy.

I actually managed to convince Sebastian not to burn down the world! I thought, letting the corners of my mouth tilt up into a smile even though it split my lip. That, or he loves me enough to drop his plans to be with me. Either way, it's awesome.

But unfortunately I knew that that awesomeness didn't matter anymore now that Lilith was in the picture. She was probably, as I sat against the wall of the training room and fought to remain conscious, in Sebastian's room enticing and encouraging him; telling him that killing billions of people was just fine, and raising the most evil demon of all time would have absolutely no repercussions.

Or worse. I thought grimly. Who knows what she's doing with my body to get what she wants?

An image materialised in my mind of Lilith in very scanty lingerie, draped all over Sebastian with that disgustingly fake sweet smile on her face -my face- while saying: Oh I do love watching people scream as they burn. It made me angry, and also embarrassed at the thought of the mother of demons passing me off as some kind of harlot. Honestly, who knew what she could make him do. Demon women managed to seduce angels, for Raziel's sake, which is the reason there are faeries!

I shook my head in disgust, and immediately regretted it as a bolt of pain shot through it. Gritting my teeth against what felt like I'd been struck by lightning, I looked around the room for where I could find the closest stele. Lilith had been monumentally stupid in choosing to lock me in this room. Yes, the door might have a very good lock plus three assorted bolts, but anyone on the inside could just use a stele to open the door.

Maybe she thought I would die before I could get a chance to open the door. Or iratse myself to the point of being functional enough to even get there.

The thought made me shudder. Maybe I really was that seriously injured, and I had spent a good chunk of the last few minutes of my life just being annoyed that a demon had been using my body to seduce my boyfriend (or whatever Sebastian was to me, we'd never actually discussed it). It made me feel petty and shallow, so, banishing all thoughts of Lilith from my mind, I assessed my body.

One long cut on my right upper arm, split lip, bruising on my chest, possible concussion, and multiple lacerations on my back. I thought as I searched myself for injuries. So I'm not going to die. God, she really was stupid to leave me here.

So I hadn't entirely managed to get thoughts of Lilith out of my head. That wasn't such a bad thing, as it motivated me to keep moving and the anger kept my mind off the pain.

Heaving myself to my feet, it became apparent to me that I'd gotten other injuries: cuts on my feet from being dragged out of Sebastian's room. With any luck, if he wasn't so infatuated with the fake me that he had practically no brain left at all, Sebastian would notice the bloody footprints leading down the corridor and notice that something was up.

In any eventuality, it wouldn't do good to be overly optimistic and count on Sebastian guessing. I had to do this on my own; I was fighting against myself after all.

I found a handful of steles wrapped in leather at the bottom of a crate of unnamed seraph blades, and tried not to go overboard on the iratses. I didn't know a lot about runes, or if there was a limit to how many you could have at once, but the relief they brought was almost addictive in how quick and complete it was, so I allowed myself three.