The demon-bond we shared allowed us to communicate silently, if we were close enough; distance interfered with the process. If we were too far away from each other, we would be met with silence.
Acheron couldn’t enter the circle; being a demon prevented him from crossing the outer boundary. It didn’t mean he couldn’t affect the sorcerer, just that most of his options tended to be on the extremely violent and petrifying side, likely resulting in a dead sorcerer. If the sorcerer died, the Minoras was free, leaving us to deal with a hungry, unbound demon. A recipe of nastiness that put us back on the menu.
I needed the sorcerer alive…at least for now.
“May have something to do with the angry demon waiting to shred him the moment he steps out of that circle,” I answered. “This is a revenge-cast. Tell him to shut it down and we can help him. If not, we leave him to the demon. Convince him.”
I refocused on the Minoras when I heard a scream from behind me.
“What are you?” screamed the sorcerer, scrambling away from Acheron, but staying inside the circle. “Stay away from me!”
“You know how you’re scared of that demon over there?” Acheron said with a smile. “I’m the thing that scares the demons.”
Acheron had partially revealed his true-self. Most human brains couldn’t process the image of a true-self without short-circuiting and driving the person insane instantly. A partial reveal would frighten, but not push a mind to insanity—just scare the person shitless. Great.
There was no way the sorcerer would leave that circle now. That left Plan B.
I hated Plan B.
The Minoras turned to face me now, fully engaged. It sensed the immediate threat and acted accordingly. In its mind, the sorcerer could wait.
I was the appetizer before the meal.
“What are you?” it asked, turning its body. The six claws raked the ground. “You are not Brood.”
“I’m the thing creatures like you fear.”
“I fear nothing.”
“Wrong answer.”
I leaped.
The night embraced me in its caress, and for a few silent seconds, hanging suspended mid-air, I felt peace. I landed on the Minoras, claws first, and shredded through a layer of scales. It howled in pain and anger.
Then it lunged.
I jumped back and rolled away from a deadly swipe. It snapped its head around, attempting to bury razor sharp fangs in my side. I raked its eyes and clawed its side. With a howl, this one more anger than pain the demon lashed out, slamming a fist into my midsection.
I landed several feet away and rolled, the pain of the blow a dull throbbing in the back of my mind. It pounced forward, landing next to me. I punched it in the ribs and nearly broke my hand. It whipped its tail around preternaturally fast. I ducked under the mace-like appendage and caught a back kick in the chest with a whomp sound escaping my lips.
I landed hard and bounced a few times before catching my breath again.
“Ouch,” I grumbled, getting back to my feet. “I felt that.”
“We don’t have all night,” Acheron said in my head. “Its presence will attract others soon. Finish it.”
“Easier said than done,” I answered. “You want to try?”
“And deprive you of a sense of accomplishment? Hell forbid.”
The scales were becoming a nuisance. I let my hands transform into claws again, and slowly licked my lips, heightening my sense of smell.
I ran forward.
The last thing it expected, but welcomed, opening its maw in anticipation. I slid under it at the last possible moment and buried my claws in its neck, striking its vulnerable spot.
It howled one last time as thick, black ichor poured from the wound. I slid away, barely avoiding its claws, and got slowly to my feet as it stumbled away. It collapsed several meters away before disappearing in a small blaze of demonflame. I kicked dirt over the napalm-like substance, making sure it was completely out before walking over to Acheron.
“I don’t think he’s convinced,” Acheron said, pointing at the sorcerer. “Says he’s never leaving the circle.”
“Drop the circle,” I said, my voice low. “Do it…now.”
“Are you insane?” the sorcerer said. “Do you know what that is next to you?”
I looked over at Acheron who smiled and waved.
“You cast a circle with the express purpose of exacting vengeance,” I said. “You put hundreds, if not thousands of lives in danger. Drop the circle…or you get the same treatment as the demon…the other demon.”
“No,” the sorcerer answered, bolder now that the Minoras was gone. “You can’t touch me as long…”
I ran into the circle and grabbed him by the neck, careful to make sure my claws were retracted. I didn’t want to accidentally perforate his neck.
“As long as what?” I asked, squeezing until he wheezed, turning several shades of pink. “Did you think I was a demon?”
He nodded.
“Mistakes like that can get you killed,” I said, shaking my head. “Are you planning on summoning more demons?”
He shook his head vigorously.
“Damn straight you won’t,” I said, punching him square across the jaw with my free hand. He passed out immediately. I dropped him to the ground outside of the circle, where he crumpled, unconscious. I stepped over to where Acheron waited. “Call OSA and have this idiot picked up.”
OSA—the Order of Supernatural Affairs, or Bears, as they were called, were the ruling magical police force in the world. They were formed a thousand years ago, with various branches dealing with different aspects of sorcery and the supernatural all over the world. The only group older than the OSA was The Seven, who’d been around since the Unveiling.
“Did you kill him?” Acheron asked, looking down at the sorcerer. “You know the Bears don’t like it when we use excessive force.”
“He’s alive for now,” I said. “Can’t say how long he’ll remain that way if he casts again. I’ll recommend an ablation of his casting for his own safety.”
Acheron nodded and pulled out his phone.
“Order of Supernatural Affairs, please,” he said into the phone. “Yes, I’ll wait.”
I stepped over to the circle and broke the outer boundary with my foot. Something about all of this was off. There was no way this third-rate sorcerer should have been able to summon a Minoras. An imp, maybe—if he was lucky—but not a Minoras…unless he had help.
I examined the circle again and my blood turned to ice.
We had a problem.
THREE
“Acheron, over here,” I said, still crouched over the faintly glowing circle. “What do you make of this?”
Acheron stepped over to where I was and looked into the circle. He formed an orb of demonflame and held it high to get a better look at the summoning circle in the darkness. The demonflame was for my benefit. My night vision was exceptional and only exceeded by carpenter bees. Acheron’s night vision made me, and the bees, appear blind by comparison.
No one escaped a demon in the dark.
I rubbed my nose as the acrid stench of demonflame hung in the air. There was no way I would ever get used to the odor of rotten eggs and burning meat mixed together. It was an assault on my heightened sense of smell.
“What, exactly do you see?” he asked, peering into the circle. “These are typical sigils.”
“You don’t see it?” I asked, tracing the odd sigil in the dirt next to the circle. “There’s a symbol in here, nested into the others. This one.”
Acheron looked down at the symbol I had traced and his face darkened.
“Are you certain?” he asked. “This is the exact symbol you see?”
I nodded my head.
“It’s hard to see, because it’s hidden behind some of the others, but it’s there,” I said. “You really can’t see it?”
“No,” Acheron said, his voice low and dangerous. “That concerns me.”
“What
kind of sigil is this?”
“That’s not a Black Cleaver sigil,” Acheron said, suspending the flame in the air above us to get a better look at my tracing. “That appears to be a powerful, ancient design, highly volatile. Far too dangerous for a novice sorcerer to know, along with that incantation he was mangling.”
“Did you make out what he was saying? The parts I caught practically guaranteed he was going to be shredded.”
“He would have been…if we had allowed him to finish.”
“Why do they do this?” I asked, mostly to myself. “Summon demons, I mean.”
“The awareness among humans has always existed,” Acheron said, slipping into professor mode, and pushing his glasses up on the bridge of his nose. “The fascination with the unseen and supernatural is practically a feature with them.”
“There’s nothing wrong with searching for something greater than yourself,” I said. “In many cases it makes us humble, wiser. It helps us grow and become enlightened.”
Acheron gave me a soft golf clap.
“It can also be twisted, perverted, and turned into a form of control and evil,” he added. “Most of the religions humans pursue and create are a form of control. More wars have been fought in the name of deities than I care to remember.”
“But you’re a demon,” I said. “Doesn’t that mean some of them were right?”
“You do realize that demons are considered demons because we are fallen?” Acheron asked softly. “You know what we’re fallen from?”
“A great height?” I answered with a grin. “And you, in particular, landed on your head? Explains plenty, actually.”
“Otherkin humor is just as bad as demon humor,” Acheron answered with a small smile. “Angels…we are considered fallen angels.”
“Is that true?” I asked. “Were you an angel?”
“Demons and angels are just names for beings that are unknown to humans.” Acheron answered, waving my words away. “Things the human mind cannot comprehend.”
“I’ve never met an ‘Angel’. Are they like demons, but with manners?”
He shook his head with a sigh.
“All it means, is that they don’t understand what I am,” he answered. “Even science, if sufficiently advanced, can appear to be magic. Most religions are ancient, rooted in traditions questioned by no one, just blindly followed. What some call demons, others call angels. It’s all made up and artificial. Humans trying to understand what their brains can’t possibly comprehend.”
“Was that just a long winded way of you saying ‘I don’t know’?” I asked. “It’s okay to admit you don’t know something.”
“I worry about you sometimes,” he said shooting me a glare. “Humans have always delved in areas that don’t concern them. They like to poke the dark…they just don’t like it when the dark pokes back.”
“Almost every demon I’ve met—present company excluded—has tried to kill me,” I said, crouching down in the circle. “I never had the opportunity to reach out and understand them. They were too busy trying to shred me.”
“That’s about right,” Acheron said with a nod. “Seems humans and Brood have more in common than they know.”
“That’s a scary thought.”
“I know.”
I traced the ancient symbol with my finger, burning it into my memory.
“What are you doing?” Acheron asked, concerned. “Don’t touch that. You don’t know where it’s been.”
“I’m storing it”—I tapped my temple—“in case I need to use it later,” I said. “You said it was powerful. Sounds important, possibly useful.”
“I also said it could be highly volatile and dangerous,” Acheron added. “Did that part not register? Especially if I can’t see it. That means…”
“It was hidden,” I finished. “Someone didn’t want demons to see this sigil.”
“Demons, or just me?” Acheron said. “This feels off.”
“That’s why we’re looking into it.”
“Again, what part of dangerous are you not understanding?” Acheron said. “If someone masked the sigil, its presence in this summoning circle was deliberate.”
“Exactly,” I said. “Dangerous, highly volatile and powerful, sounds like it can come in handy at some point.”
“I strongly advise against using that sigil,” Acheron cautioned. “It may have been used in this summoning, but that doesn’t make it safe. It almost got him”—he pointed at the sorcerer—“painfully killed.”
“I know,” I said with a slight smile. “That’s the whole point. Whoever helped him out knew it was volatile and dangerous. That’s information I can use later.”
“I don’t like it,” he said. “Especially the part about you being the only one seeing it.”
“That’s why we get paid the big money,” I said. “We take on the impossible cases.”
“Paid? I don’t get paid except in aggravation.”
“Then you are due a bonus,” I said, looking down at the sorcerer. “And this case is going to pay you in spades.”
“I think,” he said, stepping back, while staring at me, “you are more dangerous than that sigil. Ancient, unknown sigils are to be avoided, not stored for future use—or in your case, abuse.”
“Someone helped him,” I said, keeping my voice low. “They knowingly gave him this sigil. They knew it would summon something too powerful for a novice sorcerer to control, much less survive. This was almost a murder by proxy.”
“Or they could have been erasing their tracks. Unleash a Minoras, kill the summoner in the process, and wreak havoc on the populace.”
“Destroy the circle,” I said, stepping away from the summoning circle with a nod, “before the OSA gets here. No need to complicate this further.”
“Who would gain from this?” Acheron asked as he destroyed the circle with a burst of demonflame. “Do we know who he is?”
“This smells like Cleavers,” I said. “Except I don’t see any of their usual work. The havoc and destruction is their M.O., but not the demon summoning. Could be they’re getting smarter, operating at a distance, using middle men, or victims in this case.”
“If the purpose of your organization is under scrutiny,” Acheron said, “the best way to justify your existence is to create a need for your services.”
“Unleashed demons means we need Black Cleavers?” I asked. “That seems way too methodical, too forward thinking, for them. They don’t come across as this clever. Some of them barely survive dispatching the demons.”
“Some may be stumbling fools, but not all. The gravest error would be to underestimate them.”
“I don’t underestimate anyone or anything that presents a threat. It’s just been my experience that most Black Cleavers are about as bright as a sack of bricks,” I said, sneezing because of the demonflame. “Put that thing out already.”
“Some of their leaders are quite cunning,” Acheron said, dousing the flames with a motion of his hand. “Don’t let the foot soldiers deceive you; Flint is brilliant.”
“Still, it’s a risky move,” I said. “Flint wouldn’t risk this kind of exposure. The OSA would stomp on the Cleavers if they felt they were consolidating power.”
“He would take the risk…if it couldn’t be traced back to them,” Acheron said. “The sigil is part of a larger set and…is something that would get lost in the larger design of the circle. I didn’t see it. It’s very likely no one else would have either.”
“Unless you knew what to look for,” I said. “What are you saying?”
“This was a test of sorts,” Acheron said, looking around. “It’s possible this was a dry run. Imagine inserting a sigil like that in a major summons.”
“That wouldn’t be murder by proxy…”
“No, it would be murder on a massive scale,” Acheron answered. “You need to report this.”
“No,” I said. “We still don’t know enough. Why was I able to see it?”
“We know
enough to know that this is dangerous. You need to inform The Seven.”
“Not yet,” I said, looking at the unconscious sorcerer. “He may know more. Who was he trying to attack? Who gave him the sigil and that incantation?”
“None of that will matter if Victoria finds out you withheld this information from her,” Acheron said. “Especially if she finds out you can see this sigil when a Demon Lord couldn’t. That would bring up all sorts of questions…uncomfortable questions.”
“You will not tell her about that,” I said, my voice hard. “By your bond. Say it.”
“By my bond I will not tell her you could read that sigil when I couldn’t,” he said, his voice strained by the compulsion. “You could have just asked, you know.”
“Sorry,” I said. “Last thing I need is for The Seven to examine me again.”
“A simple request would have sufficed.”
“Can’t take that chance,” I said. “What if they get their hands on you and try to get information?”
“Kidnap me for interrogation?” Acheron mocked. “You do realize I’m a Demon Lord?”
“I’ll tell her…eventually,” I said. “You know how The Seven get: it gets classified, and immediately, we’re off it.”
“The Seven will not be pleased,” he answered with a head shake. “Especially Victoria.”
“You say that like I should care.”
“You should. She only happens to lead one of the most powerful sorcerous organizations on the planet,” Acheron said. “I’d say that bears some consideration.”
The Seven were a different entity altogether. Even though they were called The Seven, no one really knew how many they numbered. Some said the hundreds, others said there were thousands of them. However many they were, they had an excellent PR team.
This was a group of secret sorcerers operating worldwide outside of the OSA, answering to a different set of authorities. They were an ancient, sorcerous black ops group that managed to convince the world they didn’t exist.
It was the group that let me become an Otherkin.
“I don’t,” I said. “It didn’t matter when I was human, and it certainly doesn’t matter now.”
They Bite: A Nyxia White Story (They Bite-A Nyxia White Story-Book 1) Page 2
