by S. M. Reine
“Oh.” He sat down hard on one of the couches, doing his very best impression of sullen and miserable.
“Would you like to help me with a potion to restore the wards on the outer wall? I have just one or two more things to do, but I would appreciate the help.”
Nathaniel brightened at that. “Sure.”
She led him through a narrow door and into her ritual space, which was little bigger than a closet. There was a table on the wall opposite the altar, where she had a collection of bowls and jars. “You’re Hannah’s son, so you’ve grown up with the coven in Colorado, haven’t you?” Ariane asked. He nodded. “Did you know that I used to be with that coven, as well? I joined when I was just a little older than you.”
“I’ve never heard about you,” he said.
She started opening jars. “I suppose they don’t talk about me anymore. That’s probably for the best.”
“What’s a touchstone?” Nathaniel asked. “I’ve heard people talking about it.”
Ariane’s hands stilled. “Touchstones are people, not objects. It’s…an elected position, so to speak.” She tipped her head to the side to study him. “Have you discussed soul links with Landon?”
He nodded, even though he had actually only read about them in Landon’s journals. The coven didn’t want him to know about that kind of magic. “It’s a way to enchant something using your soul as a battery. So people who become touchstones are used for big spells, like the Palace wards?”
“No, it isn’t always for mere enchantments. The soul of one man or demon is linked to each principle of the Treaty of Dis, such as the law of blood, or the law of order. As long as that man lives, that law is as firmly entrenched in the fabric of existence as the laws of physics.” Ariane held out a hand. “Dragon’s blood, please.”
Nathaniel handed her a bag of red powder. “I don’t understand.”
“When the Treaty was established, it required immense power to enact. Angels and demons walked on every plane, and forcing these creatures to their individual realms was a challenge.” She drizzled oil on top of her herbs and began to mix. “The first touchstones were gods.”
“And now?”
“Gods have better things to do. The honor is bestowed upon the mightiest of heroes, instead.” Ariane gave a wan smile. “Such as my husband.”
“Wow. Which precept does he uphold?”
“Nobody knows—not even Isaac. Keeping such things secret is meant to help protect the touchstones from assassination attempts.” She slid the bowl across the table. “Give this your blessing.”
She was testing him, in much the same way that Nathaniel had tested Elise. But he didn’t want Ariane to know what he could do. He didn’t want anyone to know what he could do.
He blinked innocently. “Blessing?”
“Never mind.” Ariane etched the symbols in the air over the bowl with her fingertips. There was a pop , and the air smelled like gunpowder. “I’m ready to restore the wards, I think. You must stay in the room while I work. If you’re discovered… I can’t imagine your mother would be happy if I let you get killed, would she?”
“I won’t go anywhere,” Nathaniel promised.
“Good boy.”
“I’m still hungry, though.”
Ariane gathered her supplies. “Very well. I’ll bring something back for you to eat.” He smiled and nodded. She stepped out of the room, and the door shut behind her.
Nathaniel counted to twenty, just to be certain that she was gone, and then he left, too.
James’s suspicion had been correct. Wearing the dead apothecary’s shroud was very effective at making him look like a demon. Unfortunately, he also smelled like a demon: bloody, stale, and a little sour.
He used a bottle of liquor to scrub the blood off of his face and clean his wounds, then bandaged his arm. He pulled the shroud over his head and took one more look at himself in the shard of mirror. He didn’t even recognize himself. He tucked a knife with a broad, triangular blade into his robes and ventured into Dis.
James kept his head down and moved quickly. He wasn’t the only human walking the streets, but he was the only one that wasn’t escorted. Even sheltered by the robes, he felt like he was being watched.
Dis was an immense patchwork of strange places. He crossed through the area that resembled Dubai, and then through the street that was like Chicago again, and a few other blocks where he couldn’t determine the influence. The Palace loomed in his periphery, and it felt like the grand tower was watching him, too.
The slave market was one of the oldest parts of the city, and there was nothing human about the buildings surrounding the square. They were made of black stone and jagged spires, like the Earth’s teeth biting at the dark sky. Independent security teams armed with swords and guns scrutinized everyone entering the district, so James hunched over, tucked his bandaged arm inside the apothecary’s robes, and kept his head down as he entered the slave market.
Demons were milling about as they waited for the next auction to begin. The hand on the clock at the head of the square was inching toward Saturday, and he tried to remember what day of the week it had been on Earth when he and Hannah were taken. Wednesday? But that gave him no context for how much time had passed. The clocks only marked the days passing on Earth, not the weeks.
James found a spot toward the back of the square and examined the iron structure that everyone was watching. It resembled a sleek metal gallows, but silver hooks hung from the bar over the stage instead of nooses.
A line of humans mounted the steps. Their wrists were jerked over their head by a brute, one by one, and they were suspended from the hooks. Another brute cranked a wheel, and the slaves were lifted off their toes. The man on the end was crying. His belly jiggled every time he sobbed.
“Help me,” moaned another man. “Please—someone help me!”
They were all in good condition, physically speaking. None of them had so much as a scrape on their bodies. For now.
Demons near the front of the crowd whooped and waved, but the ones toward the back seemed to be those actually looking to purchase; they were obviously the cream of Dis’s society, and they held signs with numbers on them, like James had seen at art auctions. They were all nightmares, incubi, mara—the beautiful, rich, and most human-like demons that could afford to cross between Earth and Hell and make a profit from it.
One succubus wore an A-line skirt, a white blouse, and a tan blazer. Aside from her four-inch heels and vivid red lipstick, she looked like she was more prepared to trade stocks than buy a slave. But when the robed creature on the stage called for initial bids, she was the first to raise her sign.
Each slave was sold quickly, one at a time. Within minutes, they were removed from the hooks, marched off the stage, and replaced with new slaves. The humans that had been sold were marched past a desk before disappearing behind the stage. James crept over to see why.
The desk was manned by an orange-robed creature with a muzzle like a goat. It was obviously employed at the Palace—the gold cord at its waist matched those he had seen on the judge and jury at his initial trial.
He glanced at the book it was writing in as he passed. James was better with written vo-ani than the spoken language, so all it took was a glimpse to realize that the goat demon was recording the buyers’ names. Or, more specifically, the sole buyer’s name.
More than a dozen humans were listed, and every single one had been taken to the House of Abraxas.
James waited behind the gallows for the next auction to complete, and then watched as the three slaves were received by a slender, colorless demon that wore a black suit and a house insignia on his breast pocket. The supervisor counted out cash—Earth cash, probably Euros—and handed it to a waiting nightmare.
Then he waved to a group of fiends, which led the new slaves down the street. Two of them were sobbing. One of them seemed to have lost the ability to cry.
James followed.
The slave market wasn�
�t far from their destination. They were taken to gates marked by the same insignia that had been on the supervising demon’s breast: the House of Abraxas. He could barely make out the vast, sprawling property beyond the sleek black walls.
He stepped behind the corner of a building to watch the slaves get lined up. He knew that he needed to go with them if he wanted to find Hannah, but the human slaves were being transported naked. None of them would have been permitted to wear James’s robes. He could deal with a few more hours of exposure, but the new slaves were also in good physical condition, and James was not. His left arm still had to be completely bandaged if he wanted to spare the wounds from infection. He was bruised, scraped, and dirty. He might pass as a slave that had already been put to use, but a new purchase?
Fortunately for James, when the gates to the House of Abraxas opened to let in the new arrivals, a few humans came out, as well. They were escorted by more fiends, and looked a lot like James. Dirty. Exhausted. Scared.
The slaves were taken away for a few minutes, and then returned sweatier and even more tired than when they had left. They were being exercised like a family dog, and the guarding fiends were obviously bored by it.
The next group of slaves taken out for their run was bigger than the last. Almost a dozen of them.
Time for him to move.
He ducked into the space between buildings and peeled the robes off. Just standing in the shadow of the building, utterly naked, was enough to make him feel like he was being dragged over the jagged rocks of the cliff.
James slipped in among the humans as they passed on their way to the gate. One woman looked askance at him, but the fiends didn’t react.
The metal bars jangled as the gates opened again. Another group of humans were led out. James’s group was prodded forward.
He barely breathed as they entered the House of Abraxas.
11
Elise was halfway across the city when she realized that she was being followed by a short, stooped figure in a hood. She turned left, and it turned left. She doubled back through an alley, and it was waiting for her when she emerged. Whatever the creature was, it was dogged—a fiend? Something sent by her mother, maybe?
She continued walking as though she hadn’t seen anything, and the hooded figure followed.
Elise occasionally glanced at the map that Ariane had drawn for her, but she discarded it when she saw the gates for the House of Abraxas approaching.
It was a sprawling, castle-like property, positioned on the highly defensible slopes of the mountain district. There was no way to approach from behind unless she wanted to hike up the mountain and jump down. A narrow road led up from the only entry point at the gates to a second, inner set of walls—the perfect place to ambush attackers. Of course, an intruder would have to make it through the outer walls first, which were marked with symbols of magical wards. The kind of wards that would blow anyone up if they got too close.
The House of Abraxas was more of a stronghold than a house. And judging by the number of fiends she could see teeming on the mountain, it was heavily occupied.
Fantastic.
A glance in the window of the shop behind her told Elise that she was still being shadowed. It spurred her into motion again, and she took a roundabout path to the gates, hoping that she could lose the creature following her.
It stayed a few yards behind her, never gaining, never slipping back. Persistent little bastard.
Elise turned a corner, jumped into an alley between two sagging shacks, and waited for it to pass.
A few moments later, the cloaked figure walked up to the mouth of the alley.
She grabbed her stalker by the throat, dragged it into the darkness, and shoved it against the wall. “Why are you following me?” she growled, lifting it off of the ground so that their faces were level.
Nathaniel smiled sheepishly from underneath the hood. “Hi.”
Elise dropped him. His feet hit the ground. He stumbled, but caught himself.
“Goddammit, Nathaniel,” she hissed, keeping her voice low so that the brute staggering past the alley’s mouth wouldn’t hear. “I told you to stay at the Palace!” She didn’t want to think about everything that could have gone wrong while he was following her—some demon sniffing out his human odors, a butcher dragging him to its shop—whatever. For fuck’s sake, he had walked straight through the slave market.
“Your mom left me alone in her room, so I left,” he said.
“You just…left?”
He straightened his robes, like being manhandled had offended him. “I had a good reason. That guy with the Union, Gary Zettel, he wanted me to give a note to Abraxas. I had to come with you so that I could deliver it. I promised.”
“A note? Why didn’t you mention that earlier?”
“I’m not supposed to let you see it.”
Elise pushed him against the wall again, ignoring his protests, and patted down his pockets. The Book of Shadows was in the left. The right had a folded piece of paper. She yanked it out of his jeans.
The stationary was thick and silky, like the kind used for wedding invitations. Elise hadn’t seen Zettel or Allyson give it to him—they must have slipped it to him when they were at the portal. The end was taped together and obviously hadn’t been opened by the boy.
Elise broke the seal and unfolded it. The UKA logo marked the top of the page, and the rest was covered by a symbol drawn with an unsteady hand. It wasn’t nearly as elegant as the kind of spells that James crafted, but it sparked with magic when she opened it to the air.
She clenched her fist on it, crumpling the edge. “You didn’t draw this? Zettel gave it to you?” Nathaniel’s head bobbed in a vigorous nod.
The Union could write paper magic.
Elise breathed a string of colorful curses as she looked at the spell again. It was different from James’s spells in other ways, too—it didn’t “speak” to her as clearly as his did, and the hard lines reminded her more of Alain Daladier’s idea of paper magic than James’s graceful swoops. Alain had mimicked James’s magic to weave powerful wards, which he had left behind at the dark gates in Reno. The Union must have found and deconstructed them.
“But this isn’t warding magic,” Elise muttered, glaring at the page, like she could force it to yield its secrets. “I need James. He could tell me what this is supposed to do.”
Nathaniel stopped her before she could put away the paper. “Let me see.” He held it up to the light, rotated it a few degrees, and squinted. “It’s just some stupid dimensional wedge,” he said, sounding disappointed. “You can use it to force a portal open. See this glyph?” He pointed at the edge. “That’s a redirect. This isn’t good enough to open any doors, but it can make a door stay open, and it can make it open to a different room…kinda. But it’s really blunt. There’s nothing pretty about the magic.”
Blunt and unpretty? Sounded a lot like Allyson Whatley’s work.
Elise tucked the spell into her bustier. “Next time the Union asks you to do something, tell them to shove it.”
“But they said it was just a note.”
“They lied to you.” She planted her hands on her hips and studied Nathaniel. “You’ve got the Book of Shadows fully stocked with spells, right?” He nodded and pulled it out of his robes. Where had he even found robes? She didn’t really want to know. “Any battle magic in there?”
“Not exactly, but I do have this,” he said, flipping to a page in the middle and showing it to her. Nathaniel’s magic made Allyson’s attempts at writing spells look like finger painting. It was gorgeous, full of light and color—and absolutely incoherent to Elise.
She pushed his hands down, glancing over her shoulder to make sure nobody had seen it. It wouldn’t mean anything to demons, but if a passing witch spotted it, Nathaniel’s Book would shine like a beacon.
“I can’t read it. Just tell me what it does,” Elise said.
“It throws the target into a random location elsewhere in this di
mension. Anything that’s attacking, no matter how big, will just…” He shrugged. “Pop.” A little bashfully, he added, “It will probably not throw the target into a pit of fire, but it’s hard to tell.”
Elise’s eyebrows lifted. “Remind me not to piss you off.”
Nathaniel beamed.
She could only imagine how James would have reacted if he had known that Elise was seriously considering taking a child into battle, but Nathaniel wasn’t just any child, and her options were limited.
“Okay, you can come,” she said, pulling his hood over his head again to conceal his face. “Stay out of the way and let me take care of the fighting. Don’t get killed.”
A cloaked figure appeared at the end of the alley. It was Hyzakis.
“That last part is going to be difficult,” he said. “The House of Abraxas homes almost three hundred demons.”
He leaned on a cane as he hobbled toward them, and the alley felt much darker for his presence. She expected him to be angry that she jumped out of the kibbeth, but he was smiling—like he was happy to see her there. She didn’t trust it.
“You again,” Elise said. “Great. What do you know about the House of Abraxas?”
His frog-like mouth spread even wider. “I know a few things. I know every single ward on those gates. I know that the centuriae have been patrolling the slums. I know that if you wait until the right time, there will be only one hundred demons in residence.”
“When does that happen?”
His watery eyes pierced her, like he could see through her skull and into her mind. “Why do you want to get into the House?”
“He bought a slave recently,” she said. “I want to get her back.”
“You’re not interested in killing Abraxas, perhaps?”
“Not even remotely.”
Hyzakis sighed. “Very well. Let me tell you a secret.” He leaned forward, and in a stage whisper, he said, “There are no wards on those gates. They are bound to Abraxas’s blood, and he has not been inside to renew them in months. If you enter when the tower chimes with Sunday’s bell, you can step inside and only have to evade a hundred of his army.”
