The Trouble With Demons rb-3

by Lisa Shearin

  I was almost too disgusted to move. Almost.

  The demon flung it right at us.

  “Incoming!” I yelled. I ducked and pulled Phaelan with me.

  The glob splattered on the wall behind us, sizzling coin-sized holes in the brick. Coin-sized holes that could have been in us. The demon reached in and reloaded.

  We weren’t going to be here when that hand came out.

  Vegard nearly sliced a demon in half with his ax. The demon healed. Immediately. One second he was almost in two parts, then he wasn’t. Vegard coolly noted it and put his ax back in its harness. When he’d sheathed his weapon, his hands glowed incandescent white.

  Change of tactics. One of the things the Saghred had done was to make me a fast learner when it came to magic. I didn’t have to tap the stone, just use the power boost the Saghred had given the abilities I already had, letting me save my skin without risking my soul.

  Phaelan was darting and weaving, trying to get in close enough to take out that demon’s hands before the demon could take out more ammo.

  “What the hell are you doing?” he shouted.

  I kept my eyes on Vegard’s glowing hands. “Learning.”

  It was the same concept as a lightglobe, times a thousand. Basic magic, multiplied into something lethal. I looked down at my hands and concentrated. Considering that two dozen demons had us pinned down, I did my concentrating real quick. I had almost conjured a respectable flare of light when one of the demons roared.

  I damned near jumped out of my skin. “Son of a bitch!”

  I tried again, this time through gritted teeth. The teeth gritting must have helped, because in the next instant, I was lobbing fireballs along with Vegard. Mine weren’t as big as his and didn’t glow as bright, but they made up for it in tenacity. These weren’t flames the demons could drop and roll to put out. It was sticking to them-and burning. Saghred-enhanced magic was saving my biscuits once again.

  The elven mage was struggling weakly to drag himself out of the middle of the street. A demon blocked his way. He was taller than the others, his skin darker, almost purple. The mage looked up, eyes wide with panic, and said something I couldn’t hear.

  “Vegard, cover me!” I yelled.

  I didn’t wait for a response. Rage fed the fireballs in my hands until I could feel the heat. I ran toward the mage, hurling the fireballs at the demon as one clawed hand locked around the mage’s throat, claws piercing his flesh, pulling him to his feet and tearing his throat out doing it. The demon simply raised his free hand, and one of my fireballs ricocheted off of it and came right back at me.

  I swore and ducked. The fireball hit the wall behind me and burned straight through the brick. Seconds later, I heard flames crackling from inside. Crap.

  The demon was staring at me, his eyes yellow with a vertical slit for a pupil, like a goat. But unlike any goat I’d ever seen, the demon’s pupils glowed red.

  A familiar fire bloomed in the center of my chest. The Saghred. I silently went through a litany of curses. I did not need this now. I braced myself for the surge of Saghred-spawned power that was coming. Power that would consume me, force me to fight it rather than the demon. Power that was going to get me killed just like that mage.

  Nothing. No surge, no force, nothing. What the hell?

  The demon smiled slowly, the tips of his needle teeth visible. I desperately called my magic for another fireball. Not a spark. All the fire I had seethed in my chest. It wasn’t white-hot and raging; the stone’s power wasn’t fighting to get free. It burned bright, warm, welcoming.

  For the demon.

  The demon looked at me, unclenched his hand, and negligently tossed the dead mage aside. Then he stepped back and bowed deeply and respectfully.

  “We are honored by your presence,” he told me.

  Then he cloaked, invisible to all but me, and with one leap was on the wall like a big purple spider, the talons of his claws and feet clicking and gouging chunks out of the bricks as he scuttled around the corner, right over the clueless heads of a crowd that was forming at the end of the street.

  I knelt over the mage. His dead eyes stared sightlessly at the sky as blood pooled and spread beneath his ruined throat.

  I heard murmurs from the far end of the street. Most of the people had just arrived, waiting until the fight was over to come out of hiding.

  I was kneeling over the mage, his blood on my hands. They were looking at me, grim-faced, angry, and accusing.

  “Murderer!” someone yelled.

  Oh shit.

  Chapter 2

  Running sounded like a real good idea. As a Benares, I’d been taught that there’s no shame in running, only in being caught.

  I ran, but not to get away from the mob. I ran to catch a murdering bastard demon. I didn’t know if it was what they thought they’d seen me do, or the fact that I was running straight at them, but the mob who’d just called me a murderer got out of my way. Vegard shouted for me to stop. I ignored him and kept going; he’d catch up. He always did. Phaelan was already beside me. What I was after didn’t make any difference to my cousin; I’d found trouble and he wasn’t about to miss a second of it. When all this was over, I needed to have a long talk with Phaelan about his mental stability.

  While I was at it, I might want to check into my own. Tall, naked, and purple wasn’t trying to get away from me; he wanted me to follow him, and I was obliging him. That wasn’t healthy, mentally or otherwise. But I didn’t have any choice. He was back on the street, running through innocent bystanders and heading toward campus. There were hundreds of young magic users there; some knew how to defend themselves, but most hadn’t learned yet. I had to take him down before he got there. Problem was, I had no freaking clue how.

  The demon knocked people aside and slashed others with his claws. I didn’t even need to keep the demon in sight; I only had to follow the grisly trail of fallen and bleeding people.

  “What are we chasing?” Phaelan panted. He’d sheathed his rapier. Smart man. Crazy, but smart. The street was too crowded, and he didn’t have a target. I did.

  I dragged some air into my overworked lungs. “Purple demon,” I rasped.

  “You can see him?”

  “Yes!”

  “You sure?”

  I had plenty of responses to that, but didn’t have time or the breath for any of them. If we survived, I could always smack Phaelan later.

  What I thought were ridges on the demon’s back unfolded into a pair of batlike wings, and the thing went airborne above the people crowding the narrow street. I swore, and ran faster.

  I caught sight of him again where the maze of buildings emptied into an enormous city square bordered with coffee-houses, pubs, bookstores-places students liked to go between classes. The kids called it the Quad. If the demon wanted victims or hostages, he’d just found hundreds to choose from.

  It was a sunny day, midmorning, and the beginning of the semester. The Quad wasn’t just full; it was packed. Hovering above it all, his leathery wings keeping him about ten feet over the unsuspecting students’ heads, was my quarry. The kids felt the whooshes of air from his wingbeats and looked up and around in confusion. They had no clue what was right over their heads and I didn’t want them to know. With knowledge would come fear, and with fear could come a stampede. That did not need to happen.

  The demon looked at me and grinned, exposing a mouthful of needle-fine teeth, and gestured with spidery fingers at the bounty spread below him. His for the taking, and the bastard wanted me to know it.

  Unless I stopped him.

  So that was it. He wasn’t trying to get away; he wasn’t even trying to snatch a student for a snack. Though he wouldn’t mind taking one with him for later. He wanted me to fight him, and he wanted me to use the Saghred to do it.

  No way, no time, no how. And especially not here. I didn’t believe in collateral damage.

  The demon knew. He shrugged elaborately, his lips split into a feral grin, and he dov
e into a group of students.

  I screamed the word I rarely used except in cases of extreme rage and near-death experiences. That word and the half a dozen armed Guardians who’d caught up with me made the kids around us scatter in a panic.

  The demon was snatching up students, taking them about a dozen feet into the air and dropping them on the crowd below. The kids couldn’t see him, but they knew their classmates weren’t jumping and falling by themselves. Some of the ones he dropped landed on other students, knocking them to the ground; others he dropped landed unmoving on the cobblestones. All of them were in danger of being crushed underfoot if the students stampeded.

  I felt Vegard and his boys pulling together some serious kick-ass magic behind me. It got the demon’s attention, as he dangled a young student by the scruff of the neck. A pretty, dark-haired human girl. I recognized her. Katelyn Valerian, the archmagus’s granddaughter.

  The demon looked at me.

  And then he roared and materialized in all his demonic glory in the middle of the Quad.

  The students’ screams were deafening as they panicked and ran-or tried to. There were too many of them and too little open space. I didn’t blame them for running, but I also didn’t want to be trampled. I wanted that demon.

  Someone beat me to it-and that someone wasn’t Vegard.

  I knew that voice.

  A rich baritone of staggering strength and power pierced the chaos, his spellsong dark and discordant, the notes booming and harsh. A long-fingered hand extended above the crowd toward the demon, fingers spread, helping him focus his spellsong.

  Piaras Rivalin.

  Oh no.

  Piaras had just turned eighteen, but the young elf had the pipes and talent of a spellsinging master. Youth and lethal skill were a dangerous combination. Piaras’s voice was a weapon; he was in college to learn how to control it. Last week he’d inadvertently knocked out half the Guardians in the citadel. Right now, the kid had that demon-a demon that had his girlfriend’s life clutched in his claws-tacked to a piece of sky like a bug pinned to a board.

  The demon snarled and tried to break free, but Piaras held firm. He’d reacted instinctively without realizing what he had bitten off. He knew now. His normally pale face was strained with effort, his lean chest rapidly rising and falling, struggling to keep air in his lungs to keep that spellsong going. He spotted me, his large brown eyes relieved and imploring at the same time. Poor kid had never seen a demon before. Now he’d caught one and had no idea what to do with it.

  That made two of us.

  I didn’t know what I could do to help, but I wasn’t going to let him down. I’d think of something.

  The students who had been sitting at the cafй table with Piaras had knocked over their chairs and scrambled out of the line of fire should that demon be able to strike back. All of them ran except for one young goblin student-Talon Nathrach. Piaras’s friend. The son of a more-than-good friend of mine, Tamnais Nathrach.

  Piaras’s expression turned from fear to fierce determination; the demon’s sharp features contorted with raw hatred. If Piaras’s spellsong faltered, that demon would fry him where he stood-or rip his throat out like that elven mage.

  No way in hell or anywhere else.

  Vegard swore and kept his fireball in readiness, but didn’t launch it. I knew why. Interrupting another magic user’s spell with one of your own was potentially deadly for anyone in the general vicinity-especially the spellcaster. Piaras was in enough danger without me or Vegard making it worse.

  Piaras’s song held the demon immobile, but the thing was strong enough to snarl and tighten his grip on the back of the Katelyn’s neck, puncturing the girl’s skin with his claws. Katelyn screamed. Piaras snarled and redoubled his attack.

  Talon hissed a low countermelody in Goblin to run under Piaras’s spellsong, merging seamlessly into his spell. The unwholesomely handsome goblin was a spellsinger and dancer at Sirens, his father’s nightclub. I had thought his songs were limited to making the clientele horny. Apparently I was wrong. Piaras’s spell held the demon; Talon’s spellsong told the demon in no uncertain terms what was going to happen to him unless he let Katelyn go.

  Piaras and Talon were both scared to death, but they were doing what needed to be done, and damned if they weren’t doing a fine job. I’d worry about how they were doing it later. But they couldn’t keep it up for much longer.

  Vegard extinguished the fireball and carefully stepped into the area beneath the demon and the dangling girl.

  Phaelan swore under his breath.

  “Miss Valerian,” Vegard said, “I’ll catch you; you’re going to be fine. Just try to relax.”

  “Good luck with that,” Phaelan muttered.

  I elbowed him in the ribs.

  The big Guardian’s voice was calm and commanding, but most important, he pitched his voice low, carefully avoiding vocal conflict with Piaras and Talon’s work.

  I stood there feeling worthless, desperately trying to come up with a way to help without making matters fatally worse.

  With visible effort, the demon unclenched his fingers, letting Katelyn fall into Vegard’s waiting arms. Vegard pushed her in the direction of a coffeehouse. The demon’s thin lips stretched in a mockery of a smile. He had wanted to be rid of her; now he could focus all of his attention on Piaras and Talon.

  Steel weapons wouldn’t work and neither would fireballs. Dammit. Those kids couldn’t hold him all day.

  “Can the boys let him go and dive for cover?” I asked.

  “He’d roast them before they could blink,” Vegard said. “We need a demon trap.”

  “So get one!”

  “I’ve sent Dacan, but he won’t be back in time.”

  A voice brushed against my mind, its familiar intimacy like a caress of dark silk against bare skin. I didn’t need to see him; I knew who he was.

  Tamnais Nathrach. Goblin dark mage, former chief shaman for the royal House of Mal’Salin, ex-magical enforcer to the goblin queen-but right now, Tam was a really pissed-off father whose son was in mortal danger.

  “Get behind the demon where he can’t see you!” Tam commanded. “Quickly! He can’t turn while the boys still have him.”

  Tam and I had spoken mind-to-mind many times, but never like this. Never this close. Tam wasn’t just speaking to me; Tam was inside of me.

  “How… What the hell are you-” I blurted out loud.

  “Just do it, Raine!”

  Vegard glanced sharply at me.

  “It’s Tam,” I told him.

  We had a demon on a rampage; Tam was a dark mage. It was clearly a match made in hell. I didn’t know what he could do to help; but whatever it was, I was all for it.

  “Tell Talon to stop,” Tam ordered. “Then you can take the demon from Piaras.”

  “I can what?”

  “I’ve fought demons before.” His words came in a rush. “I can work through you; tell you what you need to do.” Silence. “Raine, my power is your power.”

  I froze, thoughts running in panicked circles in my head. I knew what Tam was saying, but worse yet, I knew what he meant.

  Last week, when I’d used the Saghred to keep innocent people from being slaughtered, Tam and his potent black magic had been right there with me. We’d worked together, combining our power, doing what had to be done. That had earned us both a lot of unwanted attention and accusations. That six lives had been saved didn’t mean a rat’s ass to our high-ranking accusers.

  “Raine!”

  “I’m here,” I snarled. My breathing was shallow and rapid. What I was about to do through Tam-with Tam-scared me more than the demon did. I didn’t like being scared; it pissed me off. Tam was asking me to unleash some demon whoop-ass, and I had no idea how.

  Piaras was weakening; the intensity of his notes wavered. The demon howled in gleeful anticipation.

  “Tell me. Now!”

  Tam did, and I understood. I didn’t have the skill or experience to do it, but Tam
did. He told me what to do, and if I used his power, I could.

  In theory. I hated theories.

  “Find a mirror, thick glass, something you can force him inside of,” Tam ordered.

  Mirrors were too dangerous to keep out in the open, but several of the shops had glass in their windows, diamond panes. I didn’t need Tam to tell me that wouldn’t work. Then I saw them. Some of the kids had gotten an early start on their drinking. They’d run, but they’d left two bottles of wine behind. Two empty bottles-with corks. Let’s hear it for partying college students.

  “Would a bottle work?” I quickly asked Tam.

  Silence and some fast thinking. “Yes. Is there a stopper of some kind?”

  “ Cork.”

  “Get it.”

  I snatched a bottle and cork off the table. The demon saw and laughed, a deep rumbling that vibrated through my chest all the way down to my toes.

  “You are no demon master.” He smiled, slow and horrible, and held out a clawed hand. “Come to me, elfling, and I will let the young ones live.”

  “Shove him in!” Tam growled.

  “And just how the hell am I-”

  “Visualize him flowing into the neck of that bottle and it will happen.”

  I froze. “Do I have to hold the bottle?”

  “Yes!”

  Dammit.

  “Tell the boys to release him.” Then Tam’s voice turned imploring; Tam didn’t implore anyone. “Raine, I will help you. You can do this. We can do this.”

  I felt as if I were about to step off a cliff. I swallowed. “Talon, stop.” I tried to keep my voice calm and rational. “Ease your song away from Piaras and run.”

  The kid looked at me as though I had lost my mind.

  I wasn’t entirely sure I hadn’t.

  “Trust me.”

  Talon hesitated, then carefully did as I said. He’d seen me in magical action before.

  “Let him go,” I told Piaras. “I’ve got him.”

  Piaras couldn’t believe what I was telling him to do. His song faltered and the demon thrashed and lunged. I swore. He thought I was going to use the Saghred. The kid was going to hold that demon and get himself killed to protect me from that damned rock.