A low growl rumbled from the demon and I realized she was about to strike. I fumbled for a weapon, forgetting that the whole point of this exercise was to demonstrate non-weapon weapons. I focused on my hands, and felt a sense of comfort when the familiar itching began. I waited as long as I could, allowing the demon to get closer in order to give the power time to build. Unfortunately, she surprised me by leaping through the air and clawing me with those knife-like nails. Blood dripped down my arms, which only seemed to embolden her. I struggled to break free, but her grip was too strong. She leaned back and opened her powerful jaws, ready to take more than her pound of flesh. Those teeth were as lethal as her claws. I summoned every ounce of strength and pushed my elbows up and out. The demon was so shocked by the unexpected movement that she let go and jumped back far enough that I was able to throw up my hands.
“Non-weapon weapons, coming right up!” I yelled, as energy blasted from my palms. I sent the pishacha demon head over heels until she hit the main spire. She bounced off and back to her feet, giving her vein-covered head a quick shake.
Barris cupped his hands around his mouth. “Did I mention they’re resilient?”
He didn’t need to tell me that. I could tell by her indefatigable posture. She bared her teeth and shrieked.
“Okay, so you mean business this time. I hear you.” My wings flapped in the breeze as I felt a surge of adrenaline and the pounding of a headache.
The demon charged. Pain burst from my forehead as blue fire streaked toward her. Flames enveloped the demon and her veins cracked open. Black goo laced her body as she swatted and punched the air, desperate to douse the blue blaze. The rest of her form disintegrated and the remaining pillar of salt scattered in the wind.
I turned toward the spire, still hovering in the air. “Was that what you wanted to see?”
Their mouths were agape. I flew back to the hatch and followed Barris inside.
“Well, that was certainly impressive,” Elder Bahaira said. She seemed to be grasping for words of praise. I was pretty sure I’d terrified her. “Well done to you, too, Barris. An excellent simulation.”
Barris gave a modest bow and we returned to our seats.
“What’s the difference between her hand blasters and her cyclops power?” Sage asked.
I gave her a sharp look. “Can we please use different terms for them?”
“What’s wrong with hand blaster?” Barris asked. “It’s very sci-fi.”
“One is scary blue flames and the other is a hard energy push,” Zeph said. “I can do something similar to the energy push because of my control over air.”
“But where do the scary blue flames come from?” Sage pressed. “Is that shakti demon power?”
“How hot must it be to disintegrate things that quickly?” Zeph asked. “Did you see your grandfather disintegrate anybody when you were in the Nether?”
“No,” I said, but that didn’t make him any less threatening. I recalled the tortured shades I saw in the palace. The king had his own brand of power and it was positively frightening.
“Maybe the blue fire was given to her line when they were given the Nether throne,” Rylan suggested. “A gift from the gods.”
“I don’t believe so,” Elder Bahaira said. She seemed uncomfortable by the direction the conversation was taking. “You know what? I seem to remember that Aldo made dumplings for lunch. Who’s hungry?”
An abrupt change in topic to food? Yep, she was definitely hiding something, not that I was surprised. It seemed that the Elders had taken up secrecy as a sport. What more could they possibly be hiding and why would they bother at this point?
“My stomach is rumbling,” Barris said. “Any chance we can get a jump on those dumplings? I don’t want to be fed after Spire 6. They’re bottomless pits. There’ll be nothing left for us.”
Elder Bahaira suppressed a smile. “Fair enough. Come then. We’ll get you all fed and watered.” She waved a hand, urging us to follow as she headed for the door. I glimpsed the relief in her eyes as my kenzoku filed out of the room, forgetting all about their burning question—pun intended.
As I passed by, our eyes locked and I saw the mixture of guilt and concern reflected there. She’d always been the weak link in the Elder chain. If I pressed her hard enough, I could probably break her silence…
“You’ve really come into your own recently,” she said, her voice slightly quavering. “I can’t help but feel a twinge of pride.”
My resolve softened and I opted not to push for answers right now. There was enough unease and distress to go around. No matter what she was hiding, we were on the same team. That much I knew.
“Thank you, Elder Bahaira,” I said with a reassuring smile, and left to join my kenzoku for lunch.
Chapter Eight
With neither the phenex demon nor the volcano dragon panning out as leads, Rafe and I decided to return to New Hope to see whether we could look for details we might have missed the first time around. I didn’t relish the idea of going back and seeing the destruction again, but it seemed like the right next step.
“Do you really think we’ll find evidence this time around?” Rafe asked. We’d landed on the corner of what had been Main Street and Bridge Street. The town was eerily silent. Not even a creak or groan from unsettled buildings.
“We already have more information than when we started,” I said. “We know we can rule out the Great Marquis.”
“Don’t remind me.”
“How are your burns?” I asked.
Rafe pushed up his sleeve and showed the healed skin on his arms. “Good as new.”
We walked along Main Street. The bodies had been removed, which somehow made the scene even creepier. We reached the canal bridge and noted the playhouse, still standing intact.
“It’s like a beacon of hope,” I said. Not that anyone could see it. The barricades were still up and no one was allowed near the town.
“I wish I’d brought you here before this happened,” Rafe said. “I think you would’ve enjoyed this town.” He gazed at the water trickling beneath the canal bridge. “Would have been romantic.”
“Well, it’s certainly not romantic anymore,” I said. “Unless you’re Sage.” Her idea of a moonlit walk was through a cemetery.
We continued past a row of decimated shops. A lone figure sifted through the rubble in an ankle-length skirt and white blouse. Her hoop earrings glinted in the sunlight.
“Madam Maxine?” I called.
The psychic straightened and turned toward us. I noticed a wicker basket beside her. “Thank Goddess, it’s you two. I worried I was about to be mistaken for a looter.”
“This whole area has been quarantined,” Rafe said.
She put her free hand on her hip. “Do you think that’s going to stop me? I want to see if there’s anything left of my belongings. I still have a business to run.”
Now that was dedication.
“How can you sort through all this without…?” I wanted to say ‘falling apart’ or ‘puking your guts out,’ but couldn’t manage to finish.
“My whole life was here,” Maxine said. “If I want to keep going, I need to salvage what I can and move on. Waste not, want not, and all that malarkey.”
“I’ve been told the police have threatened to shoot anyone who trespasses,” Rafe said.
Maxine blew a raspberry. “The police are keeping their distance. They don’t want to be anywhere near this place. They’re too frightened of radiation in case it was some kind of nuclear fallout. No one’s buying the volcanic ash story, not unofficially anyway.”
“Is this where your place used to be?” I asked, surveying the area. It was difficult to tell which buildings used to stand here. There was little evidence of them now.
“Yes. I’d like to find as many items as I can. The thought of starting from scratch is too overwhelming.” She continued to survey the debris and poked at the rubble with her foot whenever she thought she spotted a flash of color.
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“Are there any items you’d particularly like to find?” I asked.
“My candles would be nice, though I’m sure they melted in the heat.”
Candles seemed fairly generic. “Were they special?”
“Everything in my place was special,” she said sharply. “Do you know how many heirlooms I had?”
I recoiled slightly. I hadn’t meant to upset her. “I can’t imagine how you must feel. I’ve never had an heirloom.”
“I realize not everybody gets hand-me-downs that they use in their line of work,” she said. “My family was special that way.”
“It isn’t that,” I said. “It’s because I didn’t know my parents. I was…adopted.”
Maxine blanched. “Wow. Am I the worst or what? I hate to sound ungrateful. Good Goddess, I escaped with my life and I’m complaining about things.” She closed her eyes for a moment. “Can you imagine being the only survivor of a disaster like this?”
No, I couldn’t. Then again, I’d been lucky to escape death several times in my short life, so we had that much in common.
“Can I help you find anything?” Rafe asked. “I have a knack.”
I looked at him sideways. “Do you?”
He shrugged. “It hasn’t really come up.”
“I don’t know. There was that missing Book of Admissions…” I smiled.
“I appreciate the offer, but it’s easier for me to search,” Maxine said. “I don’t even have a complete list in my mind. If I see something familiar, I’ll grab it and decide if I want it later after I clean it off.”
My gaze shifted toward the river. “When did they remove the bodies?”
“A unit came yesterday,” Maxine said. “I’ve been watching. They wore those hideous hazmat suits.” Her lips quivered. “It was tough to watch, but I did. I don’t envy those people, carrying out entire families.” Her chest expanded and contracted. “They’ll have nightmares for the rest of their lives.”
“And you won’t?” I asked.
“Oh, I will,” Maxine said, “but I’m used to nightmares. You can’t have the Sight without seeing a lot of things you’d rather not, both asleep and awake.”
I could relate to that, though I’d actually lived through some of my nightmares.
“Are you still staying with your nephew?” I asked.
She nodded. “Any port in a storm, right?” She looked at us. “I guess you’re no closer to finding out what happened or you wouldn’t be back here now.”
“We had a lead, but it was a dead end,” I said.
She shifted her basket to the other hand. “Maybe I can help.”
“Did you find something in the rubble?” I asked hopefully.
“No, but I’m a psychic,” she said. “If we do a session together, maybe I’ll get a vision.”
Rafe seemed keen on this idea. “Where can we do it?”
“Follow me,” she said, and then seemed to think better of it. “On second thought, it would be faster to fly.”
Rafe did the honors. I flew beside him as Maxine guided us to her temporary accommodation. We landed on the front lawn of an old Victorian-style house that had seen better days. The burgundy paint was chipped and one of the windows was missing a set of shutters. The wooden planks on the wraparound porch dipped in the middle, as though a piano had rested there for a long time. Three Greek letters were painted on the door.
“You’re staying in a fraternity house?” Rafe asked.
“My nephew lives here with a few of his friends,” Maxine explained. “They’re allowing me exclusive use of the basement until I can make other arrangements.”
“That’s nice of them,” I said.
Rafe shot me a quizzical look, which I didn’t understand until we entered the house. The foyer was a tangle of clothes and sports equipment and I noticed that the soles of my shoes stuck to the floor as I walked. The basement door was straight back to the left and we managed to get there without seeing anyone, although I heard the distant sound of a television.
The steps to the basement weren’t any better than the foyer floor. The squeak of our shoes continued all the way into the basement until we reached a frayed area rug that housed a ping pong table littered with red plastic cups.
“I take it they don’t own cleaning materials,” Rafe said.
“I think it’s a competition to see which one can outlast the others,” Maxine said. “The problem is they keep inviting friends over and making it worse instead of better.”
“They’re not coming down here while you’re staying here, right?” I asked.
Maxine waved a dismissive hand. “They’re respectful of my boundaries, just not of how clean those boundaries are.” She laughed. “To be fair, I could clean in exchange for staying here, but I feel like wallowing in filth is a rite of passage all people of a certain age should endure.”
I felt a deep sense of gratitude for the cleanliness of the academy. The Elders wouldn’t have stood for living in squalor. At the very least, they would have taught us a spell to take care of the mess ourselves. It might be lazy, but it was better than nothing.
Maxine maneuvered around the ping pong table and arrived at a step ladder where a crystal ball was carefully positioned. She stroked the transparent ball with affection. “This has been in my family for generations, so I was thrilled to rescue it from the rubble.”
“You come from a long line of psychics?” I asked.
“It’s been the family trade for as far back as we have records,” she said, raising her chin a fraction. The moment the proud words escaped her, the memory of recent events seemed to shine in her eyes. “Well, we had records. I’ll try to write down everything I remember. Luckily, I have excellent recall.”
“Are you seeing clients down here?” I asked.
“Most of my regulars lived in New Hope,” she said. “The few that came from other towns have asked me to travel to them.”
“Not easy without a car,” Rafe said.
“Logan—that’s my nephew—he drives me when he’s available,” she said. “We work around his school schedule.”
“Sounds like a good kid,” Rafe said.
“He’s wonderful,” Maxine said. “Despite what the state of the house suggests.”
“Have you seen anything about the incident in your visions?” Rafe asked.
Maxine snorted. “Incident is such an interesting word choice. I say incident to mean the time I cursed at my sister-in-law for rooting for the Giants instead of the Eagles.” She gave us a dark look. “We never, ever do that on this side of the Delaware River.”
“I don’t mean to diminish the severity of what happened,” Rafe said. “I’m sorry.”
She gave him an earnest look. “I know you’re not being dismissive. You’re here, aren’t you?” She pulled an ottoman closer to the ladder. “To answer your question, no. I haven’t seen anything related to the atrocity. Then again, I’ve only used the crystal ball for client readings since then.”
“You haven’t been curious?” I asked.
Maxine paled. “Perhaps, but fear trumps curiosity in my book.”
I understood. I wouldn’t want to relive the horrors either and yet, here I was, about to ask Maxine to do exactly that.
Rafe shifted uneasily. He looked as uncomfortable as I felt. “But you’re willing to do this for us now?”
“Not for free. A girl’s got to eat. And I only take cash now. My credit card machine is kaput thanks to the incident.” She offered Rafe a small smile.
The Watcher dug into his pockets. “I have money. I think we can work out a deal.” He pulled out a few bills. “Will this be enough?”
She snatched the money without a second glance and tucked the cash into her cleavage. “Works for me. Pull up a beanbag chair.”
I turned around and noticed a soft chair in the shape and design of a baseball. Rafe nabbed one that resembled a basketball. We sat around the stepladder like it was the most normal thing in the world. Maxine hurried to
the wall and plucked a candle and a match from the shelf.
“It smells like pumpkin spice but it does the trick,” she said, setting the candle carefully on the top step of the ladder. “All my good candles…” She stopped and inhaled. “Well, you know what happened to those.” She struck the match and lit the wick.
Rafe inhaled. “Smells nice.”
“Reminds me of lazy autumn weekends at my grandparents’ farm,” Maxine said. “I liked to spend my days outside with the animals and then help make dinner in the kitchen. Grandma always had a scented candle lit.” She smiled at the memory.
“If you want to make me dinner after this, I won’t object,” I said.
Her laughter was short and abrupt. “These days, I order a lot of pizza.” Maxine rubbed her palms together and tried to focus. “If you wouldn’t mind being silent now, so I can concentrate.” She held up a finger. “Oops, almost forgot.” She tugged a phone free of her back pocket and hit the screen. Music blared from the small device and Maxine’s fingers worked quickly to lower the volume. “My nephew borrowed it last night,” she said sheepishly.
“I don’t recognize the song,” I said. The tempo was so peppy that my feet began to bounce off the floor, a far cry from Elder Alastor’s preference for classical music.
“Vintage Madonna,” she said. “Helps me get in the right mindset.” She pushed up her sleeves. “Quiet now. Background noise only.” She stared into the crystal ball and gently pressed her hands against the surface. The music continued to the next song, this one equally energetic.
Rafe and I exchanged curious glances. Maxine wasn’t anything like I expected. She began to rock back and forth on the ottoman, not quite in time to the music.
“Ask your first question,” she commanded. Her voice was lower now, more serious.
“Who attacked New Hope?” I asked.
Maxine cocked an eyebrow. “This isn’t Jeopardy. You need to ask in a roundabout way.”
“Is New Hope the first step toward a supernatural war?” I asked.
Demonspawn Academy: Trial Three Page 7
