The Iron Bells

by Jeanette Battista

  Chapter Thirteen

  I have to wait until the middle of the night to go and see Patrick again. It's touch and go since I'm out after curfew, but it’s the only time I can guarantee that I won't run into Ryland or Dham or anyone else that might want to tag along with me, and the guards and people in the halls will be few.

  I've left the Key underneath the floorboard in my room. I don't want to be caught out with it and I certainly don't want to risk the Inquisition getting hold of it. I am wearing my rosary, tucked safely in the pouch around my neck. Even though the demon is bound inside the circles, I don't want to be totally unprepared in the unlikely event he should escape.

  I have my lockpicks with me. I can only imagine Ryland's regret in teaching me if he knew what I was using this particular skill for now. I take the torch in my teeth and hold it steady while my hands get to work with the tools. In a few moments the lock snaps open and I remove it and the heavy bar from the door. I check one final time down the corridor, then let myself inside.

  The room looks to be exactly as it was the first time I saw it. The two pentacles, one inscribed on the ceiling and one on the floor, contain the young man strapped to a heavy wooden chair by thick ropes. His head turns to follow me as I make my way around the perimeter of the room, close to the earthen wall.

  "I was wondering if you'd come back," the demon says conversationally, as if we're only discussing the weather and not possibly negotiating its freedom. Its voice is even less like Patrick's than before. I wonder what else could be going on in his body the longer the demon is inside it.

  "I've been a little busy." I decide to stand directly opposite him, facing him head on. Anything else would be a position of weakness; it would look like I was afraid to confront him.

  "Have you given any further thought to my predicament?" He sounds curious, but detached, as if he couldn't care one way or another whether I can free him of the binding.

  "I have." I swallow, mouth suddenly dry. "Has anyone come by to see you since we last spoke?"

  He closes his eyes as though weary. "Yes. There is someone who brings me food and water every day or so."

  "What about the people that brought you here? The person that performed the binding? Have you seen them?"

  He gives me a questioning look. "It was only one person that performed the binding, and yes, he has been by."

  My stomach twists into a knot. I can only assume that Ryland is the only one who knows about Patrick and this demon right now since there are no guards posted and no one else is visiting. That will make busting him out a little easier. "Did you recognize the rituals he used?"

  "No. I have never been bound in this manner before." He's silent for a moment, eyes raking over me. "You are awfully full of questions, aren't you?"

  "Do you want me to try to get you out of this or not?"

  "From what I understand, sweetness, you're just as invested in this venture as I am." His smirk is repellent. He could never pass for Patrick, not to someone that knows him.

  I sigh and lean against the wall. It's too early to be verbally fencing with a creature that probably has eons of practice. "Do you have a name I can call you, or should I just call you bummonkey?"

  His eyes go wide and he rears back as far as his bonds allow. Then he laughs, a deep rumbling chuckle so different from Patrick's laugh that I jump in surprise. He trails off after a few moments. "You are surprising, human."

  Bully for me. I adore being surprising. "Amaranth."

  "Pardon?" He raises an eyebrow.

  "My name is Amaranth."

  The smile fades. "For my kind, names are power. I will not tell you my true name."

  I frown. So names are jealously guarded among demon-kind. I wonder what kind of power knowing a demon's name grants? Still, it makes no difference to me; I have no intention of keeping this thing around in Patrick's body. "Bummonkey it is then."

  "Trick."

  "Beg pardon?"

  "You can call me Trick. Should be easy enough for you to remember."

  I stare at him carefully, trying to decide if he's playing with me, but he appears perfectly serious. Finally, I shrug. "Trick then." He nods at me in acknowledgement. I release the breath I wasn't aware I was holding. "So back to the question of who bound you…"

  Trick cuts me off. "His name was Ryland."

  I can almost feel the blood freeze in my veins. It takes me a second to find my voice. "You're sure?" Demons lie, that I know, but he wouldn't know who or what Ryland is to me to be able to play some kind of game.

  He nods. "I heard him mentioned by name when I was captured and I recognized his voice when he was in here performing the ritual." His eyes narrow. "Is this really that important?"

  "Yes. If Ryland did perform the ritual, then you've told me who I should search. He must have a copy of the ritual somewhere and maybe I can find a way to reverse it." This is a longshot at best, but it is the only plan I have right now.

  "Are you a magician?" Again the eyes pass over me, more calculating this time.

  "Um, no." I purse my lips as if the idea is very distasteful to me. I wouldn't be a magician if you gave me all the money in the world. These days it’s a death sentence. The Inquisition hunts down or recruits any magicians it finds, and that’s if they get to the magician before the general public. Magicians aren’t looked at with favor ever since the gate that allowed the demons access to our world was opened by one. "But it's the only shot I've got, so I'm going to try."

  He looks thoughtful, as if he just considered something. "I am confused by you."

  "That makes two of us."

  He shakes his head. "No, no. Don't be a ninny." He meets my eyes, and it is all I can do not to look away. He makes me uncomfortable, especially because this meeting has not gone at all the way I had expected. Trick was practically…likeable. But that wasn't right. It was an act, it had to be. Demons were monstrosities, enslaving those they possessed. Trick may possess charm but that didn't mean he could be trusted.

  "Do you have any idea how difficult it is to properly cast something like a reversal spell?" He sounds skeptical.

  "Obviously not." I want to bang my head against the wall.

  "It isn't something to be undertaken lightly."

  "Not to be rude, but DUH."

  He ignores me. "You need a powerful will to control the forces you're going to be conjuring up. You must be absolutely sure of yourself and what you want the outcome to be."

  Terrific. I'm sure of absolutely nothing. "Why are you bothering with all of this Introduction to Spellcasting?"

  His eyeroll takes my breath away with its derisive perfection. "Because, you simpleton, you could do far more damage to me than you can comprehend if you get even the slightest syllable of the incantation wrong--not to mention the damage you could do to yourself. And as much as I'd enjoy watching you implode or suchlike, I enjoy my existence far too much to jeopardize it."

  "You're concern is touching." I can't believe I'm considering trusting a demon, but at the same time I can't deny that I feel drawn to him.

  He smiles. "Isn't it just?"

  "So teach me."

  Trick looks relaxed. “Why should I tell you anything?” His voice is curious more than challenging.

  “Then why should I free you?” I scoff. “You want me to cut you loose after what you and your kind have done to humans? To the world?”

  Trick leans forward, at least as far as his bonds will allow. “And what have we done, exactly? Treated humans for a mere fifty years the way that you have treated my kind for millennia?”

  I rear back, afraid of the hate in his voice, the venom in his words. He’s changed mood so quickly; there’s none of the charm left in him now. “I don’t…”

  “Where do you think all of those symbols and spells came from? How do you think the knowledge of the gate came to be? It is the enslavement of spirits that brought about all of this!”

  I recover my voice. “So all of this is just what? Revenge?
A way to get back at the miserable humans?”

  Trick smiles and his eyes hold no humor, just dead blackness, like a shark’s. “Treat us like slaves and we’ll use what we learned from it.”

  We glare at each other for the space of a few moments. Finally I say, “Now what then? You’ve won. We’re in shambles. I think you’ve taught us our lesson.”

  Trick barks out a laugh, hard as whetstone. “You are joking, right? Do you actually think that if we just went away tomorrow that you lot wouldn’t start making slaves of us all over again?”

  “So destroy the gate yourselves and all of the knowledge to conjure you or whatever. You’ve already made a fine start.”

  He looks amused, like a professor might look at a particularly eager but dim pupil. “That kind of knowledge doesn’t just stay hidden. There will always be someone greedy enough or power hungry enough, or even just stupid enough, to seek it out.” He looks at me thoughtfully. “And if it was found again, can’t you imagine what our imprisonment would be like?”

  I shift uncomfortably. I can imagine only too well what angry, vengeful humans might do or order be done to a summoned spirit. But I say nothing, unwilling to admit the demon might be right.

  Trick continues. “We can’t leave. And we can’t trust you to use the knowledge responsibly or to honor your word. So we have to stay until the last of you are dead and gone and you are no longer a threat.”

  I think of Patrick, evicted from his own body. “Forgive me if I don’t feel sorry for you.”

  Trick’s grin is feral. “Forgive me if I say the same to you.”