by R. L. King
First things first, though—before he could do anything else, he had to get there.
He continued the incantation, filling his mind with both the image of the demon’s name and thoughts of control, binding, cooperation. The most important part was that his resolve couldn’t waver: these kinds of rituals were as much about mindset as they were about actual practice. That confidence was one of the most difficult things for apprentice mages to learn, and the reason why most of them didn’t progress beyond the basic levels of the Art. If you couldn’t convince yourself that you had control over the forces you were trying to manipulate, how could you ever convince some powerful being to do your bidding? He cleared all extraneous thoughts from his mind, focusing his confidence. The demon would answer his call. He could bind it and keep it controlled. No doubt was permitted.
The incantation was reaching its end now—the point of no return. Without taking his eyes off the space reflected in the mirror, he gripped the knife, lifted it, and sliced the blade across his palm. When the blood welled up, he turned his hand over and dripped it into the chalice, where it joined the other reagents he’d already prepared.
Almost immediately, the mixture began to bubble and smoke. In the periphery of Stone’s vision, it rose up out of the chalice, both on the table in front of him and in the mirror image. In a few seconds, he would know if he’d cast the first part of the spell—the part to do the actual summoning—properly.
The reddish smoke rose and swirled higher, taking up a larger volume of space than suggested by the small amount of material in the bottom of the chalice. For a couple more seconds the smoke in the real world moved in perfect synchronization with the smoke in the mirror, but then the two began to diverge.
The real-world smoke drifted toward the mirror, and the mirror-smoke slowly formed into a humanoid figure, rising up out of the mirror-chalice. Soon, all of the real-world smoke had disappeared, sucked through the mirror to join its reflected counterpart. Stone gripped the table, heedless of the pain in his hand where he’d slashed it, focusing all his will on the figure.
The smoke coalesced more, shifting and forming into a more coherent humanoid figure—tall, male, its slim, sinuous naked body covered in something that suggested fur. Its fingers ended in sharp claws. It glared at him with burning red eyes and then reached out, tentatively tapping at the other side of the “window” formed by the mirror. Its lips curled around words, but no sound came through to the other side.
This was the crucial time. If Stone couldn’t bind it in the next twenty seconds or so, he couldn’t be sure he could keep it under his control long enough to send it back. He kept his gaze locked on the demon’s eyes and continued reciting the words of the binding incantation, booming out the pseudo-Latin words in a strong, confident voice.
The demon pounded harder on the mirror with both fists, continuing to fix Stone with a stare as sharp and wicked as the knife he’d used on his hand. The mirror rattled in its frame, shaking the objects on the table like a tiny earthquake. The knife walked its way to the edge of the table and crashed to the ground; Stone ignored it, keeping his grip tight and his focus fixed. He repeated the binding ritual, even more forcefully than before, keeping the demon’s name firmly fixed in his mind’s eye. Sweat ran down from his forehead, but he ignored that too.
And then, suddenly, the demon stopped pounding. It took a step back, lowered its hands to its sides, and regarded Stone as if he were a particularly interesting specimen under a microscope.
“What do you want?” it asked in a growling voice. It didn’t speak English, but it didn’t have to. The fact that Stone could understand its voice in his mind told him that the binding had succeeded.
No time to cheer now, though. That was just step one—the step he understood. Everything from here on would be uncharted territory.
“I want you to take me to your former boss,” he said. “Open a way for me to your plane, and take me to where he is.”
“You don’t want to meet him,” the demon said. “He’ll kill you.”
“Not if I kill him first,” Stone said. “Don’t argue. Do as you’re told. Open the way.”
The demon appeared to fight the compulsion again, but after a moment it let out a very humanlike sigh. “Fine,” it said. “Hey, I’m all for killing that bastard. I’ve wanted to do it for—oh, a few thousand years now. But I’m warning you—you’ll regret it. He’s in a bad mood. Seems some annoying mage is getting in the way of his plans.” He shot a sly, sideways glance at Stone.
“How unfortunate for him,” Stone said. His voice hardened. “Stop stalling. Open the way.”
“Can’t blame me for trying,” it said. It took a step forward and made an elaborate gesture, tracing some kind of sigil in the air. A burning line followed its finger, each bit of it fading out after a couple of seconds. When it finished, it reached out its clawed hand, pushing it through the mirror and into the real world. “Take my hand,” it said. “I’ll pull you through. Make it fast—I can’t hold this for long.”
A part of Stone wanted to turn and run, to get the hell out of there, and certainly not to touch that calloused red hand with its long, gnarled fingers and pointed talons. This is stupidity, the wise part of his mind told him. If Grace had been here, she’d probably be grabbing his other arm and trying to drag him out of the room about now.
But then he thought of all the nameless, faceless victims of Archie’s mad little plan. Of Dennis Avila, who’d been guilty of no more than too much curiosity about the intriguing object he’d dug up on his job site. Of Johnny Cheng and the two Stanford students, all three dead because of Stone’s involvement. Of all the people who might be on the chopping block if he didn’t stop Archie: Mortenson and Hubbard. Laura. Jason and Verity. Grace Ruiz.
When he stretched out his hand to grasp the demon’s, his arm didn’t shake, and his gaze didn’t waver. “Do it.”
Chapter Fifty-Three
The demon gripped his arm, digging its claws in, and pulled hard. Stone felt his feet leave the ground as he was dragged across the table. There was a brief, disquieting sensation of utter nothingness, and then he crashed face-first into hot, arid ground.
He quickly scrambled to his feet, looking around. The ground, as dry and cracked as if it hadn’t seen water in decades, stretched out for what looked like miles in every direction, flat and otherwise featureless. Far off in the hazy distance, dark mountains rose. The sky was a nauseating shade of salmon pink, two suns hanging red and swollen high above. He took a couple of experimental breaths: the air was as hot and dry as the ground, and tasted of dead things, but at least it was breathable.
The demon stood a short distance away, watching him, its long arms crossed over its bare chest. Its long, thin, furred face wore a calculating expression.
“Take me to Archie,” Stone said again. “I don’t want to stay in this cesspool any longer than I have to.”
“Just hold on,” the demon said, raising a hand as if admonishing a child. “Like I said, I’m down with killing that arrogant motherfucker. But we can’t go yet. We have some things to take care of first.”
“What things?” Stone shifted to magical sight, just to make sure his magic still functioned here. The demon didn’t have an aura, but his own aura blazed its familiar purple-gold, dimmed a little by the reddened sky. He’d have liked to take more time to look around—even if this was the home of demons, it was still another plane of existence, and therefore interesting—but that would have to come later.
“You can’t just walk into his place. He’ll rip you to shreds. And once we leave here, seeing what this place really looks like will put your tender little human mind through a food processor.”
Stone wondered where an extradimensional demon had learned about food processors, but that hardly seemed relevant at the moment. “What are you talking about? This place is dead boring.”
“It’s bor
ing here,” the demon agreed. “It doesn’t stay that way.”
“So why warn me? Why not just let me walk into it with my eyes open?”
The demon shrugged. “Like I said, if you want to take him out, I don’t mind helping you out for a while. And anyway, you summoned me. You bound me. If you don’t know how this works—”
Stone did know how this worked—at least the way he’d done it before. Summoned creatures almost always did their best to get out of the summoner’s control, and usually kill him in the process if they could get away with it, but as long as they were bound, they couldn’t do anything to actively harm the summoner. “All right,” he said carefully, “what do you have in mind?”
“This is sort of an—antechamber,” the demon said. “Someplace you can relate to. But if you want to get to—what did you call him? Archie? That’s…weird, but whatever—you have to be able to relate to everything. I can help you with that.”
“How?” Stone asked suspiciously.
“With an illusion. Sort of an overlay, to make the place comprehensible. A reality translator, you might call it.”
“What sort of an illusion?” Stone didn’t like this at all. Being forced to perceive things differently than their true nature went against every instinct he possessed.
“That’s entirely up to you.” The demon grinned, showing yellowed fangs. “Everybody’s different. I won’t even know what you’ll get, because it’s all coming from your own mind.” It reached into a pocket (which was even more unsettling, given that it was naked and shouldn’t have pockets) and pulled out a black knife. “It’s not safe here. You and I might be best friends until we take out Archie and I can figure out a way around your binding spell, but everything else here wants to slice you up and eat you with a side of fries. That’s part of what the illusion is for—it not only tweaks the settings so you can understand the place, it also makes it so everything else here thinks you belong.”
“Even Archie?” Stone asked.
“That’s the plan.”
“Well, I suppose I don’t care whether he knows I’m here. Once I’ve found him, I want him to know I’m here.”
“Well, then, it sounds like we’re on the same page,” the demon said. “And this way, maybe you can get a little closer before he catches on. So, what do you say?”
Stone still didn’t like it, but he didn’t see an alternative. As long as the binding remained solid, the demon couldn’t hurt him if he stayed sharp. He’d just have to keep his guard up and make sure nothing slipped. He could say he trusted the demon as far as he could throw it, but that wasn’t accurate. If sufficiently motivated, he could probably manage to pick it up and toss it a few feet—and he didn’t even trust it that far. “What do I have to do?”
“I need to put a mark on you,” it said. “You have two choices—I can either carve it into your skin, or you can wear it on a chain around your neck, under your shirt.”
Stone glared at him. “Why would you think I’d trust you to carve anything into my skin?”
“Hey, I didn’t think you’d go with that option, but I offered because it’s safer. If it’s carved into you, nobody can remove it unless they cut your skin off. And if they’re doing that, you’re in a lot worse trouble than losing your disguise.”
“Just the same, I’ll take my chances with wearing it,” Stone said. “You’re not getting near me with that knife, so you might as well put it away.”
“Suit yourself.” The demon stowed the knife back in its skin-pocket and pulled out something else, which it offered to Stone.
He examined it in the demon’s palm: it was round, black, about the size of a half-dollar coin, and featured a complex sigil carved into its shifting surface. It made him a little uncomfortable to look at it directly, but not as much as Archie’s sigils had. It hung at the end of a slender, sinous black chain that lay in the demon’s hand like a tiny coiled snake.
“Put it on,” the demon said. “You wear it next to your skin. It will take effect once it’s in place.”
“Do I have any control over what this ‘reality translator’ looks like?”
Again, the demon shrugged. “Who knows? It comes from your subconscious. I hope you have lots of dirty little secrets,” it added with a leer.
“Let’s get on with it,” Stone said. “You’re stalling again.” He grabbed the pendant from the demon’s palm while doing his best not to touch its skin. After another moment’s hesitation, he put the chain over his neck and stuffed the pendant beneath his shirt.
Instantly, his chest erupted in white-hot pain, and his brain with an explosion of horrific, discordant images. He yelped and staggered backward, crashing to the hard ground and clawing with frantic urgency at his chest. He pulled the pendant free and yanked it back over his head. “What the hell was that?” he yelled, leaping back to his feet and flinging the thing at the demon. The pain faded as soon as he had the pendant off, except for a few vestigial twinges, but he felt as if he’d just awakened from the worst nightmare he’d ever had. For a moment he could just stand there, panting and glaring.
The demon, oddly, looked as confused as Stone did. “That’s not supposed to happen,” it said. “You got something else under there? Lift up your shirt.”
Stone did as he was told. As soon as he had it pulled up, the demon recoiled in disgust, pointing. “What the hell, man? Get rid of that thing! No wonder the symbol fucked you up!”
Stone glanced down at what the demon was pointing at, but he already knew. Grace’s crucifix hung there against his chest, its faint glow visible even without magical sight. Damned—or I suppose it ought to be blessed, in this case, he thought wryly—if the thing wasn’t doing something after all, even for an avowed heathen like him. He shook his head. “Sorry. It stays. We’ll need an alternative solution, I guess.”
The demon shifted from foot to foot, looking uncomfortable. “Just keep that thing covered up if you insist on wearing it,” it said, shuddering. It thought for a moment, then bent down, picked up the pendant Stone had thrown at it, and studied it for a moment. “I can make it into a bracelet,” it said at last. “It won’t work quite as well for making your reality all rosy and squeaky-clean if it’s not as close to your heart, but hey—you’re a mage. You should be able to handle a little weirdness in your life. Anybody ever tell you you’re a pain in the ass too? If I didn’t want to take down that bastard so bad, I’d tell you to go fuck yourself, binding or no binding.”
“Just get on with it,” Stone said. “I want to get this over with as much as you do.”
“Yeah, yeah, give me a second.” The demon focused on the pendant in its hand, and after a moment the snakelike black chain began to shift and morph. “There. Wear the symbol over the underside of your wrist, where your pulse is.” It tossed the new item at Stone.
With its black snakeskin strap and round symbol, it now looked like a strange wristwatch. Stone slipped it on and settled the symbol as the demon had directed.
This time, there was no pain. Instead, an odd crawling sensation immediately began working its way up his arm. When it reached his head, a gray fog rose in his vision, obscuring the demon except for a faint, indistinct outline.
“It’ll get weird for a second,” the demon said. “Just roll with it. It’ll be over soon.”
The gray fog grew thicker, submerging sight, sound, even the sense of standing on solid ground. For one uneasy moment, Stone felt as if he were floating in a vast nothingness, as something big and impossibly dangerous approached him with slow, inexorable resolve.
Just as he was about to say something, the fog receded, sinking back into the ground much more quickly than it had risen.
“Well, that’s a new one,” the demon said. “Wouldn’t have expected that.”
Chapter Fifty-Four
Around Stone, everything had changed.
The arid landscape with i
ts sickly pink sky and pendulous, blood-red twin suns now resembled nothing more than an idyllic English countryside at twilight: thick copses of trees and overgrown tangles of undergrowth sprang up on either side of the narrow lane Stone now stood in the middle of, all spread under a cloud-choked, dark gray sky. The whole thing, bounded on both sides by waist-height hedgerows, meandered up a gentle hill and then disappeared over the rise. The only things that looked out of place were that the ground-covering vegetation and the trunks of some of the trees looked weird and twisted, and the hedgerow seemed to have been attacked by some kind of blight, leaving intermittent bare, dead patches along its length.
That, and the demon.
It still stood there—or at least Stone was pretty sure it was still the demon—but no longer was it red, naked, or covered in fur.
Now it looked like a skinny, rat-faced boy of perhaps thirteen, dressed in a navy-blue blazer and dark gray trousers. A blue-and-black-striped tie hung untidily around his neck, and the embroidered crest patch on the jacket’s breast pocket depicted the same symbol Stone wore on the bracelet the demon had given him. The boy eyed Stone, head tilted, but said nothing.
Stone looked down at himself. Instead of the black T-shirt and faded jeans he’d been wearing before, he was now dressed in a uniform identical to the one the demon wore, complete with sigil pocket crest. The snakeskin bracelet with the symbol on it was now a wristwatch. His arms and hands looked thinner, and when he took a step forward, he stumbled.
“Careful,” the demon-boy said. He now sounded like a teenager whose voice hadn’t quite settled into its adult tones yet. “The height change takes a little getting used to. But we need to get going. We can’t stay here long.”
“Where are we going?” Stone asked, and was surprised to hear his own voice sounding higher than normal as well. “And what the hell have you done to me?”
“Not my fault,” the boy said. “Like I said, it’s your subconscious. I guess you had some deep-seated school-days issues. Come on. I hope it’s a co-ed school, at least,” he said with a salacious eyebrow-waggle, and started off down the road in the direction of the rise.
