He was also the source of that uneasy sense of trouble I'd felt earlier—only it wasn't coming from the stranger himself, but rather from the area immediately around him. It was as if the air were so repelled by his presence that it violently recoiled.
And the air wasn't the only thing repelled. The Dušan crawled around my left arm, its dark eyes spitting fire, as if it wanted nothing more than to be free from the flesh that bound it to attack the man who stood before us.
A man I wasn't about to face unarmed.
I imagined Amaya in my hands, and she appeared in a blaze of purple fire, her normally shadowed blade so bright on the astral field it was almost impossible to look at her.
Hey, you. I projected my mind voice so hard it shook the very foundations of the buildings around us. Leave that woman alone.
He didn't unhand her. Didn't react in any way that I could immediately see. Then, slowly, he turned his head in my direction.
He had no face.
Where there should have been eyes, a nose, and a mouth, there was nothing. It was as if his features had been wiped clean. It was totally and utterly blank.
Impossible, I thought in disbelief. It had to be a trick of some kind. Had to be.
Go away. His voice was little more than a whisper, crawling around me like a dead thing.
I shivered and gripped Amaya harder. Maybe you didn't hear me the first time. I said, leave that woman alone.
I heard.
Then do as I say or the sword I bear will sever your ethereal head from its body.
I didn't know if that was possible, especially after Adeline saying you couldn't actually die on the plane. But my sword was from neither the real world nor the astral one. She was born of a demon's death, and was far more than mere steel. She had a life of her own, a serious hunger for blood, and she could destroy demons and spirits as easily as she did flesh. Surely it wasn't such a stretch to think she could also kill someone on the astral plane?
The stranger raised his featureless face, oddly looking like he was sniffing the air even though he had no nose. After a moment, he said, As you wish.