White Night (The Dresden Files #9) - Jim Butcher Page 0,111

people than let it use me," I said. "Talk at my subconscious all you want. But I'd be careful about trying to feed my inner Hulk, if I were you. You might end up making me that much better a person, once I beat it down. Who knows, you might make me into a saint. Or as close to one as I could get, anyway."

The demon just stared at me.

"See, here's the thing," I said. "I know me. And I just can't imagine you talking and talking to my evil twin like that, without him ever saying anything back. I don't think you're the only one doing any influencing here. I don't think you're the same creature now that you were when you came."

She let out a cold little laugh. "Such arrogance. Do you think you could change the eternal, mortal? I was brought to life by the Word of the Almighty himself, for a purpose so complex and fundamental that you could not begin to comprehend it. You are nothing, mortal. You are a flickering spark. You will be here, and be gone, and in the aeons that come after, when your very kind have dwindled and perished, you will be but one of uncounted legions of those whom I have seduced and destroyed." Her eyes narrowed. "You. Cannot. Change. Me."

I nodded agreeably. "You're right. I can't change Lasciel. But I couldn't prevent Lasciel from walking out of the room, either." I eyed her hard and lowered my voice. "Lady, you ain't Lasciel."

I couldn't be sure, but I thought I could see the darkened form's shoulders flinch.

"You're an image of her," I continued. "A copy. A footprint. But you've got to be at least as mutable as the material the impression was made upon. As mutable as me. And hey, I've got newfound anger issues. What have you got that's new?"

"You are delusional," she said. Her voice was very quiet.

"I disagree. After all, if you have managed to change me—even if it doesn't mean I'm suddenly going to turn into Ted Bundy—then it seems to me that you'd be at least as vulnerable. In fact, the way that sort of thing works… you pretty much have to have changed yourself to do what you've done to me."

"It will vanish when I am taken back into my whole self imprisoned within the coin," Lasciel said.

"You, the you who is talking to me right now, will be gone. In other words," I said, "you'll die."

A somewhat startled silence followed.

"For an inhumanly brilliant spiritual entity, you can really miss the freaking point." I poked a finger at my own temple. "Think. Maybe you don't have to be Lasciel."

The shadow closed her eyes, leaving only an occupied, presence-filled darkness. There was a long silence.

"Think about it," I told her. "What if you do have a choice? A life of your own to lead? What if, huh? And you don't even try to choose?"

I let that sink in for a while.

There was a sound from the far side of the room.

It was a very quiet, very miserable little sound.

I've made sounds like that before—mostly when there was no one around to care. The part of me that knew what it was to hurt could feel the fallen angel's pain, and it gouged out a neat little hole in me, somehow. It was a vaguely familiar feeling, but not an entirely unpleasant one.

Loneliness is a hard thing to handle. I feel it, sometimes. When I do, I want it to end. Sometimes, when you're near someone, when you touch them on some level that is deeper than the uselessly structured formality of casual civilized interaction, there's a sense of satisfaction in it. Or at least, there is for me.

It doesn't have to be someone particularly nice. You don't have to like them. You don't even have to want to work with them. You might even want to punch them in the nose. Sometimes just making that connection is its own experience, its own reward.

With Marcone, it was like that. I didn't like the slippery bastard. But I understood him. His word was good. I could trust him—trust him to be cold, ferocious, and dangerous, sure. But it was reassuring to know that there was something there to trust. The connection had been made.

Lasciel's mere shadow was infinitely more dangerous to me than Marcone, but that didn't mean that I couldn't admire the creature for what it was while respecting the threat it posed to me.

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