The scythe was still in him.
James stood with both hands on the haft and Azrael's broken blade buried under Turiel's ribs, and watched the last of the red go out of the floor. Channel after channel went dark, out to the walls, until there was nothing left moving anywhere in the hall.
The pressure lifted all at once.
He had not known how much of it there had been until it was gone. It was like taking off a pack he had forgotten he was carrying. Then the ordinary sounds came back one at a time. Finn's boot scraped on the stone. Maeve was breathing in short ragged pulls. Something among the demon corpses was still burning with a small dry crackle. Several metres to his left, Ciara's knee hit the floor.
His head swam. He had died, and come back, twice in his life now, and the second time was not easier. It was only quicker.
He did not let go of the scythe. He watched Turiel's face and waited.
Nothing in it moved.
*Finished,* he told himself, and believed it a second later.
