Page 84 of A City of Smoke and Demons
‘A path,’ she murmured. ‘These arteries connect the heart to the circulatory system, and the vagus nerve connects it to the nervous system, and the brain. To stop a heart, I’d want to go in via either one of those I suppose, and to restart it … I don’t know. I don’t knowhowthis is supposed to work, Ezra.’ Analise took a deep breath. ‘Stopping a heart is easy. I pull life from it, somehow. I can feel it, collect it, and pull it out. To restart a heart,’ she paused, looking at him, ‘your heart … I have to work out how to give that lifeback, and I have never done that—except with the rat.’ She exhaled sharply. ‘Maybe what I need to do is stop the signal from the brain that tells the muscles of the heart to contract.’
Ezra didn’t speak for a long moment. ‘Take that glove off.’
‘What for?’
‘Just take it off.’
Confused, Analise did as he asked. He reached over and took her hand, threading his fingers between hers. Neither of them spoke. They just stared at the pieces of a dead man’s heart spread out before them.
Until he saw Analise in the flesh, Ezra thought the image that lived behind his eyes had grown from a drug-induced garden. Her face wasn’t always there, it would appear every now and again, like a pulse of light, then fade, leaving him wondering if he’d imagined her. That night he’d found her in Lira’s pub left him questioning what was real and what wasn’t. But the feeling of her flesh on his, her body beneath him—that had been real.
But that moment felt like it didn’t belong to him anymore. The fucking Devil put her face in his head. Did that mean what he felt for her was a lie? Had the Devil managed to manipulate his emotions as well?
Ezra shook his head. He had absolutely no way of knowing. He’d been a fucking tool for the Fallen One, a pawn in a game he didn’t understand and didn’t willingly partake in. Even though he hadn’t remembered meeting the Devil, he’d done what he’d been asked.
He’d found a death witch.
Most people couldn’t control how they died, but maybe Ezra could. The fact that Analise didn't want to kill him was proof shecared about him. He needed to convince her. He could hear the ticking of a clock with his face on it, and couldn’t spend the rest of his life hiding in the Canem Club, hoping whatever tricks the Order had at their disposal kept him free of the Devil's clutches.
This would be easier if Analise still hated him.
He didn’t think he could convince her to do it for science, or to sate her own curiosity, so maybe it was time to be the arsehole she once believed he was.
Could he hurt her? Be aloof and indifferent to her, objectify her? Use her? He was selfish enough to do it. It didn’t mean he had to enjoy it. It meant she had to believe him enough to be willing to experiment on him.
He found her in her usual seat in the main bar. Light eased through the window, painting her in dusty gold. She was reading a newspaper, turning the pages slowly. A cup of tea rested by her elbow.
‘Do you want to know how many death witches I caught?’ he asked bluntly.
She didn’t raise her head. ‘Not really.’
‘At least fifty, maybe more. I lost count after a while.’ He sat opposite her, leaning back in his chair and resting one leg over the other.
‘That’s a lot,’ Analise commented mildly. The paper rustled as she turned another page, but he could tell she wasn’t reading.
‘They weren’t hard to find,’ he went on. ‘They made it easy, like they wanted to be caught. Perhaps they’d worked out there was no place for them anymore.’
‘Hmmm.’ Analise picked up her tea and sipped it.
‘You know what I liked the most about hunting them down? The hunting part. Really, they weren’t much more than animals.’
‘Stop.’
‘Why? It’s the truth. Don’t you want to hear the truth?’ he asked. ‘You want to know why I touched you, really? It was alittle experiment of my own, see? I was intrigued to find out if there truly was a woman beneath the animal.’
Analise closed the newspaper. ‘I know what you’re trying to do, Ezra. You think if you make me angry, I’ll do what you want. It might have worked once—but now, I know you don’t mean it.’
He stared at her, vision wavering. ‘You don’t know me.’
‘I know you’re scared,’ she said gently. ‘And scared people do desperate things, or so I’m beginning to understand.’
Ezra said nothing.
‘We’ll find another way,’ she promised.
‘What other way, Analise?’ he shouted, sitting forward abruptly. The words tore from his throat, shocking the both of them. His voice echoed around the bar, filled with anger and pain and fear, and he didn’t care if she knew how he was feeling.
‘You heard what Lira said,’ Ezra mumbled, sitting back again. His fingers curled into fists where they rested on the table.
