The Demon's Apprentice

by Ben Reeder

  King laughed and turned his back on me. “Fuck you, warlock,” he said over his shoulder. “I don’t gotta accept no challenge from you.”

  “Coward!” The word hit him like a brick. I turned to Shade as she continued, “You’re too scared to face him. I’ll make sure the rest of the pack knows you ran from a challenge.”

  “Shut up, bitch,” King snarled. “Only Pack members got the right to challenge. He’s just a dumbass human who insulted my honor.”

  “What honor?” Alexis snapped. “You turned us and use magick to slap us down when we act like the wolves you made us into. You hide behind us when it suits you, but now it’s your honor that’s all insulted? I am Pack, Dominic King,” she said as she stood up beside me, “and I say you're weak. I say you’re afraid to face a normal human.”

  “He ain't normal, bitch,” King replied. He turned to face me. “You wanna challenge me boy? Okay, I’ll take that challenge. And after I kill you, I’m gonna find your family, and I’ll kill them, too.” He crossed the room as he spoke, and ended up right in front of me. “You think you can handle the price for losing to me?” he planted his finger in the middle of my chest.

  I raised my hand and let the hatred flow. I mouthed the activation word, and black fire flickered to life around my fingers. “Touch me again, and I’ll rip your arm out of its socket. Threaten my family again, and I will incinerate you.”

  He snarled at me, but his finger came off my chest, at least. “Big words,” he said. “We’ll see if you can back ‘em up. Tomorrow night, midnight. At the camp. The bitch knows where it’ll happen.” He turned and walked to the window, then slipped through it into the darkness.

  “And don’t call her a bitch!” I called after him.

  “What the hell was that all about?” Collins lowered his pistol.

  “Chance just backed King into a corner, and very likely ensured that he is going to have the shortest apprenticeship ever,” Dr. Corwin said in exasperation. “However, he does have a fighting chance, this way. A very slim one, but better than if he’d let him walk out of here.”

  “Is he gonna have to fight this guy?” Collins sounded unsure of himself. Everything he’d just seen went against the way things were supposed to go in the cowan world. Kids weren’t supposed to have to fight grownups. Werewolves were supposed to stay safely on the TV screen or in scary books, not chase you through the woods at night.

  “Yes, Officer Collins, he is. To the death, most likely, in a codified, sanctioned duel.” He turned to me, and his eyes turned hard. “You’d better be right about your accusation, Chance. Unless you have some kind of proof, King can refute your challenge. If he does that…no one can help you.”

  “I’ve got proof, Dr. C,” I said slowly. I pulled the baggie with the hair and claw sliver in it out of my satchel. “All it’ll take is a quick poppet spell to prove that it was either King, or one of his pack.”

  “You’re betting your life on this, Chance. You’d better be right,” he countered as he took the baggie from me.

  “I’m betting my mom and my sister’s life on it, sir. I’m really right. I’m sure of it.”

  “Then we have a lot of work to do. From what I’ve seen, you’re not much more than a cookbook sorcerer.”

  “Hey!” I protested. “I can cast spells without a focus or a circle…well, a couple, anyway.”

  “You can’t be serious about letting him do this!” Collins interjected. “I got King dead to rights on assault at least, and I know I can make a case for a lot more with Miss Cooper’s testimony.”

  “After what you saw tonight, do you actually think you could bring him in?” Dr. C asked flatly.

  Collins face went tight and his hands balled up into fists, but he didn’t have an answer other than that.

  “Can I kind of ask a question here?” Wanda said quietly, reminding us that there were still people in the room who weren’t mages, cops, or werewolves.

  “You kind of just did,” Dr. C pointed out with a wry smile.

  “Then I’m going to ask a few more. Why does this Conclave want to kill Chance; what do you mean, warlock; and just who or what the hell are you, Dr. Corwin?”

  “I’m afraid you two already know too much, Wanda. If I answer your question, you’ll only be drawn into this even further. You should probably go home now, and forget everything you just saw tonight. Convince yourself that none of what you saw was true, and that there’s a rational explanation for all of this. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll walk away now, and never look back,” Dr. Corwin said. As much as I hated to, I had to agree with him.

  “Screw that!” Lucas said vehemently. “This guy knows who we are, and I smarted off to him. We’re as ass-deep in alligators as anyone else in this room. We deserve to know the whole truth!”

  I raised an eyebrow at Dr. C; Lucas had a point.

  “Some of it…isn’t my secret to reveal. Chance, it’s up to you if you want to tell them the whole story.”

  “The whole story would take too long. My father sold me to a demon named Dulka when I was seven, as part of their agreement. Dulka did his bidding, kept him rich, laid and powerful, and I did Dulka’s dirty work for him so that the Conclave couldn’t come after him for anything. Nothing got traced to a demon, since it was me doing the work, technically by choice. He also made me recruit souls for him. I made him more powerful, and I learned a lot of black sorcery while I did it.”

  “How did you helping him…recruit…make him so powerful?” Lucas asked.

  “Even a part of a mortal soul is very potent, since it’s supposed to be infinite. If he got a person to the point where they had given too much of themselves to him, they’d do anything for him. After a while, when you’ve lost too much of your soul, you don’t care about right and wrong, and you can’t really feel anything good. You’ll do anything for a little happiness, or even something that seems like it. Once I had enough of their soul stripped from them, I would point them to Dulka, and they’d offer him anything he wanted. Then, he could make a deal, and their soul was his.”

  “But, if a soul is infinite, how do you get ‘enough’ of one?” Wanda asked me.

  “What’s lost from a person’s soul can heal, but it takes time. I kept them giving it up too fast for it to restore itself.”

  I stopped then and waited for their reactions. Wanda looked like she had a thousand more questions for me, and I could see the wheels spinning behind Lucas’ eyes. I looked to Shade, and saw a kinship in her eyes. We’d both been used, and we’d both been scarred by it. We understood each other. I looked over to Dr C, but he’d already seen this through my memories.

  “Last Friday night, I escaped.” Such a simple thing to say, and it didn’t really cover how big a deal that was. “I blew up part of a school in the process.”

  “Truman High School…you really did that?” Wanda asked.

  “I can’t believe what I’m hearing!” Collins exclaimed.

  “No familiar has ever escaped from his master before. Chance, what you did was unprecedented, and supposedly impossible,” Dr. C said after a moment. “I’m afraid the Council will take a somewhat less…compassionate view of your plight. If you were truly unwilling, in their eyes, you would rather have died than do his bidding. So we’re on our own in dealing with this.”

  “Nothing new,” I said with a bitter smile. “Not for me, anyway.”

  “What about your scars, dude?” Lucas asked quietly.

  “Mostly Dulka’s work.”

  “That’s…that’s…evil!” Wanda blurted.

  “Demon. Go figure!” I said sarcastically.

  “Neither one of you should have had to suffer like that!” Wanda finally sobbed. Lucas took her in his arms and let her sob into his shoulder.

  “She’s right, you know,” he said to us, over her head. “And this Conclave? They suck if they think you’re a bad guy, Chance. What about you, Doc? What’s your story?”

  “The Conclave sent me here to look for S
ydney’s killer and act as his replacement. He was also looking into reports of a warlock who had been released by his master. But Sydney and I are part of the Conclave that doesn’t suck. Neither one of us agreed with the High Council’s decision to execute all warlocks.”

  “Oh. Well, that was kinda normal and boring compared to Shade and Chance,” Lucas said skeptically. “Listen to me! You’re a wizard, and that’s normal and boring compared to the tale of woe my friends just told me. How screwed up did my life just get?” Wanda gave a hiccup of a laugh from his shoulder and turned to face us, her eyes damp, red, and puffy.

  “Sir, you called Chance a warlock, but you said you were a wizard. What’s the difference?” Shade asked.

  “A warlock is generally someone who uses dark forms of magick, like the Infernal magick that Chance was taught by Dulka, or certain kinds of necromancy, among others. It’s also a term the Conclave uses for people who break the Laws. As for me, a wizard is a ranking among magi. Like a Jedi Master is to a Jedi Knight.”

  “So, you’re like, one step from the top of the heap?” Lucas asked.

  “Two, actually, but that’s a conversation for another time. Right now, we have a very serious problem on our hands. In case you’ve all forgotten, Chance has a challenge to deal with tomorrow night, and you can bet that Dominic is going to do everything he can to stack the deck in his favor. Which means we have to do the same thing, only honorably.”

  “If he’s gonna cheat, why can’t we?” Lucas asked.

  “One thing you have to learn about true magick, Lucas, is that breaking rules can have serious consequences. Your word has to be good. You can’t cheat, and you can’t break your promises. It’s part of the price of a wizard’s power. When you work magick, the universe listens to you. If your words and your actions match, it keeps listening. So, you have to behave honorably and keep your promises, Chance. That doesn’t mean you can’t be clever, but you have to avoid lying if you can.”

  “Do I have to tell the whole truth?”

  “There is a subtle difference between telling the truth and not lying. It’s a good bet he’s going to try to limit you in what you can do, but keep as many of his own advantages as he can. We’re limited in what we know about a challenge among Weres. I need some time to do some research and check some references, and you kids are probably expected home soon. Can you make it back here tomorrow?” He looked at us, all of us, expectantly.

  Wanda and Lucas blinked in shock for a few seconds, and both nodded.

  Collins’ face didn’t change, but he nodded. “I can’t believe I’m even thinking about doing this,” he growled.

  “It’s the only way you can stop him, Officer Collins. I think that’s important to you.”

  “I want this guy brought to justice. I’ll be here.”

  “My parents are gone most weekends anyway,” Shade said softly. “I just have to be there early to get ready for the game.”

  Dr. C looked to me.

  “My mom has some market thing she wants to go to tomorrow morning. I can come after that,”

  “The Farmer’s Market,” Wanda said. “This is the last weekend they’re holding it until spring. My mom’s going, too. Lucas and I can meet you there and give you a ride.”

  “All right, then. You four go home, and I’ll see you here tomorrow,” Dr. C dismissed us. We all got up, even Collins, but Dr. C stopped me on the way out.

  “We still need to talk a little, Chance.”

  “What about?” I asked, as Lucas pulled the door shut behind him. Dr. C came up and put his thumb on my chin. With a gentle pressure, he nudged my chin to the right a little and examined the left side of my face. My cheek felt swollen and hot, and it was probably turning a really ugly color by now.

  “First off, we need to take care of this. I’m no healer, but I can lay a glamour on it to hide it.” He made a little gesture with his other hand, and I felt the gentle tingle of magick slide over my skin. “Second, I just need to make things official. As far as I am concerned, you are my apprentice, Chance. I will do my best by you, to teach you and guide you on your new path. Will you accept me as your teacher?” He hesitated for a half a heartbeat before he said the last word, and I knew he was avoiding using the word ‘master’ for my sake. I couldn’t say it or hear it without feeling like I was back on my knees in front of Dulka, and there was no way I could deal with that.

  “Yes, sir. I’d like that.” I thought for a second before I spoke again, “You’re defying the Conclave for me, sir. That could get you killed right along with me.”

  “I’m willing to take that risk.”

  “You’ve seen inside my head. You know they’re not too far off the mark.”

  “They’re farther off than you think, Chance,” he said cryptically. “Go home. Be fifteen for a few hours. Come back tomorrow, we’ll deal with the big life and death things then.”

  Chapter 16

  ~ Chance favors only the prepared mind. ~ Louis Pasteur, 19th century alchemist

  Morning came all too soon, as far as my body was concerned. A night spent on the floor made all of the bumps and bruises I’d collected the day before ache even harder, and my muscles had stiffened up overnight. Between the “football tryout” during the day, the werewolf attack after school, the heavy duty spell-slinging, and the second close encounter with the pack that night, I felt like a mile of bad road. By the time we got to the Farmer’s Market, I felt kinda human, but I wasn’t going to win any beauty contests.

  The Westside Farmer’s Market was a collection of colored awnings over the back ends of trucks and vans, set up in the parking lot of an old factory on the western edge of the city. Even though we were here just to kill some time, I decided to do some shopping. As I passed one of the tables, I caught a glimpse of a pair of eyes gazing out from beneath the bumper of the truck backed up to the awning. I kept my gaze moving and tried not to start in surprise, but I was almost certain that it was a brownie. Some farms had them, and some of them even knew about them. Even if they did, though, they never mentioned them to strangers.

  I moved on, checking out the stalls as I went along, looking now to see if anyone else had been accompanied by their hearth helpers or garden fae. Once I started looking, I could see dozens of fairies and pixies going by. A couple of the stalls had groups of pixies flying overhead, either chasing off the more mischievous fairies or doing business with other pixies, since the fae didn’t care about the market’s time table. If you were there late, you just had to catch up. I knew that domestic fae tended to regard any garden or field they lived in as much theirs as the humans who tended it with them, so in their eyes, anything harvested from it was as much theirs to trade with as it was the humans’.

  It wasn’t long before I found a promising-looking stall. Even from halfway across the market, I could see the glow of pixie wings hovering over it. The hand-painted sign over the front of the green awning read “Dandry’s Herbs & Sundries” in cheerful, bright green letters, with plants and flowers sprouting through the words. The table itself was covered with small baskets filled with herbs, all neatly labeled, in nice, straight rows. The little guy behind the table hummed happily to himself as he set out the baskets, his round face creased with a contented smile. He looked up at me with bright blue eyes and included me in his happy smile for a moment.

  I felt the pull of his eyes: the pull only a mage would have. We both looked away, then I saw his gaze slide back to me, his eyes taking on the slightly unfocused look that meant he was aura-gazing me. After a moment, his chubby little face went pasty white, and a fine sheen of sweat broke out on his forehead. In one quick motion, he ran his hand through his thinning brown hair and stood up straight, though it looked more like he was cringing from me, somehow. It was times like this that I hated being me.

  “I don’t want any trouble,” he stammered.

  “Me, either,” I sighed. “I was interested in buying a mortar and pestle.”

  “B-b-b-b-buying?” he stuttere
d, sounding like a motorboat.

  “Yes, sir, buying.” If I had floored the little guy by not threatening him, then I just about gave him a stroke when I was polite.

  His jaw fell open, then shut, and his eyes went wide. “I…I don’t understand,” he finally managed. “You’re not…you look like a…”

  “A warlock, I know. It’s a long story, but really, I’m just here to buy some stuff, okay?”

  “Um, sure. But can you wait until the market opens? It’s only a couple more minutes, and if you’ll just let me know which one you’d like, I’ll put it back for you!”

  “That’s fine, I can wait.” I smiled and stepped back, and he just stared at me, like he wasn’t sure he could believe what he was hearing.

  “It’s too damn early to be awake on a Saturday,” Lucas said, as he and Wanda came up beside me and started eying the little stall. It didn’t take a genius to see him making the mental list of things he wanted to buy. Wanda’s eyes wandered over the growing array of stuff that Dandry was carefully setting out, too. She had on what looked like a pair of overalls that turned into a ragged skirt. Her only other concession to practicality was the wedge heels on her platform ankle boots, with a pair of black and red striped socks that came up to her knees. Under the overall bib, she had on an artfully slashed Love ‘N Chains t-shirt. It was the pigtails that made me do a double take.

  Lucas wore his denim coat and jeans, with a t-shirt that read, “Morning comes too early in the day to be good!”

  When a fourth shadow fell across the table, I saw Dandry go ashen again, and his smile faded. I looked to my right to see a skinny man in a black western shirt, black pants, and black cowboy boots, standing beside Wanda. His greasy black hair was laid back along his skull in lank strands, leaving his narrow, pallid face exposed in all its pockmarked glory. The only favor he did the world was in growing a thin, scraggly mustache that hid about a square inch of pasty-faced ugly; okay, so he wasn’t doing the world a big favor. His hands twitched at his sides, and he watched Dandry like a cat about to pounce on a slow, fat mouse.