Devil's Gambit

by Nicholas Woode-Smith

  My sword. Well, what was left of it. I touched the blade. They were cool, wet from the rain and shattered into irreparable little bits.

  “You served me well. Now it’s just gonna be your brother from now on.”

  “Going to bury it?” Treth chided.

  “Shut up, Treth,” I said, unable to hide a bit of sadness. Maybe the blade shards did deserve a burial…

  I stood up and looked at the rock where the demon had been sitting last night. It was empty now. Didn’t expect him to still be here. But I did expect there to be some other sign of him. Pipe ash, litter, or at least footprints. But the only footprints and damaged shrubbery I could find were from me. Only my broken blade served to confirm that what had happened last night was not just my imagination.

  I sighed. “Got some time till class. Enough time to give the Citadel hell for locking me up here.”

  “Go easy on them.”

  “No.”

  Unlike last night, the door to the Citadel opened after one ring. I entered to the sight of a shocked Cornelius.

  “What the fuck happened last night?” I yelled, and immediately regretted as the man’s eyes widened like a deer facing down a werewolf.

  “I…uh…what…?” he stuttered.

  Maybe I should go easy on him? He gets enough shit from DuPreez.

  “I was locked up here last night with a fucking demon. Rang the doorbell fifty billion times and got no answer. This how you treat your employees?”

  I’m not one for sensitivity.

  “There…there was a lockdown last night…Kat,” he stuttered out, leaning back on his desk to support himself. My guilt at shouting at him and my anger at what I’d gone through was evenly matched and vying for dominance. “Demon…?”

  “A demon…yeah…” I contemplated swearing again. I let out a heavy sigh instead.

  “I’m sorry, Cornelius. Just…had a bad night.”

  “Did you sleep on the mountain?”

  I glared at him, then nodded.

  “What about the cable station?”

  “Closed. Not a soul in sight.”

  He approached me and tentatively put his hand on my shoulder. My glare didn’t put him off, so I gave up. I just hoped I could keep up my anger. Didn’t want to burst out crying.

  “I’ll find out who was supposed to be on duty last night. Will get him fired.”

  “Yeah,” I replied, simply. “Thanks.”

  “What’s all this racket?” DuPreez rumbled, entering the reception area.

  Cornelius stiffened. I responded before Cornelius found it necessary to do so.

  “I’ve got a lead, Mr DePreez.”

  “A lead? Mind enlightening me?”

  I waved away the request. I didn’t feel like telling this man anything in my current mood.

  “I’ll let you know through the appropriate channels at the appropriate time. For now, I must be getting to class.”

  I left the building before DuPreez could respond.

  “You sure know how to make friends,” Treth said.

  I grunted in response. Didn’t need more friends. Had a good bunch already. And why would I want to be friends with DuPreez? Well, I should have been nicer to Cornelius. Not his fault I was locked out.

  I channelled my residual anger into glares at the Whiteshield guards on duty at the top and bottom cable stations. At least the taxi got to the bottom station before I lost control and started shouting at the guards.

  I was cutting it fine to get to class. Was one of those less forgiving schedules today. Would need to drop my bags off at the Gravekeeper, it was en route, and then head straight to campus. No time to shower. As usual…

  ***

  Class was revision. Could have skipped it and showered instead. Would have been much more productive. Instead, I held my head up and tried to keep my eyes open as the professor went on about Titan mages and lawmancers. I was fortunate to be too tired to shout out. I was sick of damn Titan mages! Sick of them and the demon hunting them. I’d just been studying demons yesterday, and then one pops out and almost kills me. Last part was a lie, though, I felt. I’m sure that if that thing wanted me dead, I’d be dead. The sword was a show of power. The demon wanted me to know what it was capable of, I thought. But then there was all that weird stuff it was talking about. It sounded like it missed someone. All very peculiar, and as I was wrapping my head around it, I was pulled out of my reverie by the shuffling of students. The class had ended. I followed the mob like a zombie and was greeted by the almost vampiric visage of Trudie.

  “Hey,” she said. “Your cell was going to voice mail last night, but Andy said he saw you arrive on campus.”

  I gave her a hug. She returned it.

  “You look terrible.” She sniffed. “And smell terrible, but not as bad as usual. What were you doing last night?”

  I clung on, almost leaning on her for support. She was shorter than me and made a nice arm and headrest. I put almost all my weight on her, giving her a bit of punishment for the rude comment.

  “Camping,” I muttered. She snorted. Didn’t believe me.

  I let go of my friend and checked my phone. The screen was black. I tried to press it on. No dice.

  “You need to keep it charged,” Trudie said.

  “I’m not that technologically inept,” I grunted, fiddling with the device. In fact, I wasn’t technologically inept at all. I had helped Trudie with a lot of her computer stuff in the past.

  Trudie snatched the cell out of my hand and reached into her pocket, revealing a cable linked up to a power bank. She plugged it in and tried to switch it on. Still didn’t work.

  “What did you do to it?” she muttered, squinting at the dead device.

  “I didn’t do anything…”

  But a certain demon might have…

  “Kat break her phone?” Andy said, appearing behind me. I almost jumped. Almost.

  He walked to Trudie’s side and put his arm around her shoulders. I raised my eyebrow at that. Especially seeing that she didn’t flinch or even notice. She was too busy fiddling with my very dead cell phone.

  “I’ll take a look at it, Kat,” she said. “But until then…”

  She revealed a small cell from her pocket. “I’ve got a spare.”

  I accepted it. No point arguing. Trudie would expect it back after she had sorted out my cell. If it could be sorted out. Trudie opened up the back of the cell and took out its SIM card. I took it and inserted it into the new cell. I hoped the SIM was okay. Didn’t want to have to get a new number. At least I could easily download and log into the MonsterSlayer app. Couldn’t be without my bread and butter.

  “So, where did you camp last night?” Andy asked, arm still around Trudie’s shoulder.

  “Table Mountain,” I muttered, reluctantly. I’m not good at hiding my feelings. And my feelings towards Andy right now were irritation, resentment and a peculiar jealousy.

  “Table Mountain? Didn’t take you for a Titan Pilgrim.”

  “I’m not…”

  I looked around for an escape route. Didn’t find any but didn’t let that stop me.

  “Anyway, I gotta go.”

  I turned and walked away as fast as I could.

  “Kat!” I heard Trudie call, once I was quite a bit away. I winced but stopped. She caught up with me, which must have been hard. She was wearing heels while I was wearing boots.

  “What the hell was that, Kat?” Trudie spat.

  I almost sniggered at the rhyme but collected myself.

  “What was what? I needed to go. I have to look into this case…”

  “You know what’s what. You’ve been treating Andy like shit recently. You and Pranish, but at least Pranish can pretend to be nice. What the fuck is going on?”

  I sighed. I’d told Trudie my reasoning before. She didn’t agree with me. Andy had not helped find her when she’d been kidnapped by vampires. Trudie thought he’d done nothing wrong. That he couldn’t be blamed for having a life. I thought dif
ferently. If you didn’t risk something to save a friend, they weren’t really your friend.

  Trudie rolled her eyes and continued speaking before I could say anything.

  “Whatever’s got you acting like this, cut it. As you might have guessed, Andy and I are seeing each other now…”

  “That escalated quickly,” I tried to make it sound like a joke, but it came out sounding serious.

  “You are hardly around, Kat. Things happen when you aren’t in the room.”

  She frowned.

  “I know you dated a bit. My fault, really, but we’ve really hit it off recently. He’s a good guy, even if you don’t think so. So, please be nice. For my sake.”

  I nodded, slowly. Trudie took that as assent.

  “Thanks. I’ve got a class now. Will hit you up when I’ve got the cell fixed.”

  I waved her off and turned.

  Trudie and Andy. Dating. I didn’t know what to think about that.

  Chapter 9.

  Archives

  I put Trudie’s loaned phone to good use and phoned Cindy while taking a seat on a bench near Jammie Plaza. It was a lot more peaceful than a few months ago, when the necromancer, Jeramiah Cox, released a horde of undead onto my campus to punish me for breaking up his twisted plan to cure terminal illness and bring about socialised healthcare through turning everyone into zombies. There was a memorial set up in the middle of the plaza to commemorate those who had died. I tried not to look at it. I felt more than a bit responsible for their deaths.

  “Hey, Kat. What’s up?” Cindy answered. The SIM still worked, and my number was now assigned to this new phone.

  “Met a demon last night.”

  “Fun.”

  I heard a faint hum, a hiss and then a burst, like a fluorescent bulb bursting. Cindy swore, put down the phone and then picked it up again.

  “I hope this isn’t a bad time…”

  “No, no. It’s the perfect time now. New salt only coming in later today. A demon you say? Where?”

  “Table Mountain. Near the Citadel.”

  “This have something to do with your job with the Titan Mages?”

  “Was patrolling last night. Met a horned man who then broke my sword and sent me fleeing to sleep in a cave.”

  “Sounds like a fun evening. Can you describe this demon?”

  “Looked human. Smart, black suit. Modern-looking. Sharp features and black hair. Only discernible non-human trait were the black horns.”

  “No wings?”

  “Not that I saw.”

  “Could be hiding them or could materialise them at will…” Cindy contemplated, almost to herself.

  “Any ideas?” I asked.

  “There’re a lot of demons out there, Kat. What I do know is that the ones that take human form tend to be the most dangerous. I’d be careful.”

  “He admitted to killing the Titan mages.”

  The words were out before I could stop myself. That was meant to be classified information. But this was Cindy. I could trust her. I think.

  “Titan mages are dying?” she asked, doubtful, but with a hint of worry. I didn’t reply. She continued. “If you insist, then I’d look through the UCT libraries. There are some good records on demons of the Cape. I’d study them in depth. See if you can find any stories. Demons love narratives. Stories are powerful.”

  I recalled the spectral horseman of Tokai manor, who I still doubted was the actual ghost of Frederick Eksteen, but rather an otherworldly spectre linked to the myth of the Earthly ghost story.

  “Thanks, Cindy. I’ll look into it.”

  “Cheers, Kat. Let me know if you need anything else. And I must stress this again – be careful. Demons aren’t like the undead. They don’t play by our rules, or even their own.”

  We hung up.

  “Off to the archives, then?” Treth asked.

  “You have a problem with that?” I whispered. I didn’t want any other students thinking I was talking to myself.

  “Not anymore. This demon is a threat. An evil threat. He, or it, needs to be stopped.”

  “Good. We’re on the same page.”

  “Pfft…let’s go do some studying.”

  ***

  I found myself going deeper and deeper into the depths of the UCT library. Down spiral staircases, down dusty steps and into the cold halls of the archives. Students called this part of library “the dungeon”. They weren’t that far off. It was cold, congested and grey. I could easily imagine its multitudes of rooms, halls and vaults housing decrepit prisoners. Yet, somehow it was my favourite place on campus. Beyond the rows of revising students and the shelves that received more attention, were an abundance of tomes dating back to the 19th century, let alone pre-Cataclysm. It was as if I was staring back in time, smelling the musty, pleasant scent of the ages. It was a place where dust became wonderful and the silence allowed one to contemplate the epochs. I didn’t need to be a student of history to adore the dungeon. Anyone with any sort of sense would find themselves never wanting to leave this knowledge-filled, chilly hall.

  “It’s cold,” Treth said, a slight shiver to his voice. “Isn’t there any place in this subterranean prison with some form of warmth?”

  “Didn’t know ghosts could feel the cold,” I whispered, walking quietly past some students studying on the first floor underneath the more popularly visited parts of UCT library.

  “Ssshhh,” a studier hushed me, despite my whispering. I hunched and beat a hasty retreat towards a swinging utility door, down into the dungeon proper.

  “I’m not a ghost,” Treth said, when we were alone in the stairwell.

  “I could have sworn you said you were one.”

  Treth shrugged.

  “The quest to discover the true nature of my roommate continues,” I muttered. Treth snorted. Despite the awkwardness and acidic taste that my run in with Trudie and Andy had left, I found myself grinning at my spirit comrade.

  An end to the stairs signalled the end of my journey. There was an immediate bite to the air. No sun or heaters to keep this area warm. Only air conditioning and dehumidifiers to ensure that the troves of UCT’s literary treasures survived.

  “How does one traverse such a vast hoard?” Treth asked, hushed. He had only been here once before, and he had been in one of his rare silences.

  I quickly surveyed the room. I neither saw nor heard anyone that would think me mad.

  “Digitally,” I replied, whipping out Trudie’s phone and going to the UCT library’s website. Most of the library’s collection was listed on their public registry. I typed the keywords “Cape” and “Demons” into the search bar.

  After scrolling through some texts on sexual morality in the early Cape, I found a promising treatise – Cape Demons and Folklore.

  “781.5 A. C,” I muttered.

  “Hmmm?”

  “The catalogue number.”

  “What does it mean?”

  “It is the location of the book. How do you not know this? We started university at the same time. We both went through library orientation.”

  “I wasn’t paying attention.”

  “At least I’m being a dutiful student.”

  Treth snorted. He disagreed.

  I stepped into the dungeon proper and scanned the exposed shelves. Many of the spines had no text. They were too old for spine-text. The types of books where you had to look at the first page to find the title. I seldom came to the dungeon. My majors kept me above ground, among the recent history and undead studies textbooks. I felt a regret that that was the case. The smell of old books and the pleasant quietness of this place was enchanting. I could be lost here, if only for a while, and genuinely enjoy it. Even find solace within it. Alas, these books were kept so low underground because they were less relevant to the modern-day student. Only the most niche graduate student could be found perusing their archival halls. A shame, really.

  My meticulous studying of the library cataloguing system paid off, but the smell an
d beautiful hides of the countless tomes still delayed me from completing my task. Eventually, I twisted the vault-like handle on a row of shelves, creating a gap between two rows which my thin frame could invade.

  I followed the book numbers, decimal by decimal. Mythology, folklore, fantasy that some thought non-fiction. All of it was pre-Cataclysm, but as my run-in with the spectral horseman of Tokai had taught me, pre-Cataclysm stories could be just as important as what came after the Vortex.

  Finally, I found a red-bound tome with 781.5 A. C stuck on the spine. I retrieved it. The paper was fragile. That thin paper you often found in Bibles and psalm books. At least, the type of paper I remembered from church when my parents were still around to push me to go. I gave the book a sniff to take in the ancient scent and then started reading.

  ***

  Jan van Hunks missed his days as a pirate. Not all of them, of course. He didn’t miss the bouts of scurvy, the fright when a merchant ship was armed more than expected, or the brawls over loot, but he would have taken all that if he could have the freedom again. A pirate’s life was filled with terror, hardship and wanton acts of extreme violence, but it was free. Free from the blasted woman that Jan called his wife, at least.

  What was the problem if he wanted to smoke his pipe at home? It was his home! Paid for by him, with a little help from the Portuguese merchant fleet, of course. He had earned his retirement, fair and square. Bought himself and his wife a decent enough cottage at the foot of Table Mountain and had enough money to spare to live his life in frugal luxury till his arthritis, cannon-wrought tinnitus and perhaps an old privateer caught up with him.

  Until then, all Jan wanted was to swig his rum and smoke his pipe. But that harpy of a woman wouldn’t allow him even that simple pleasure. Said that the so-called putrid smoke clouded the house. No point in living in an area with such clean air if all he was going to do was pollute it with his acrid, albeit powerful, tobacco smog. And neither did she like his boisterousness after he partook of his rum – the pirate fuel. All in all, Jan was a second-class citizen in his own home.

  Jan had been a pirate in his youth, however. And pirates always find a way.