The Outlaw Demon Wails th-6

by Ким Харрисон

  We'd come up to a set of imposing wooden doors. There were two uniformed men beside it—demons, by their eyes—looking bored and stupid. They probably had stupid denizens in the ever-after just like everywhere else. Behind us was a rising angry mutter that I recognized from when I tried to sneak thirteen items into a twelve-item-only line.

  "Docket number?" the more brilliant of the two asked, and Al reached for the door.

  "Hey," the other said, coming to life. "You're supposed to be in jail."

  Al grinned at him, his white-gloved grip tightening on the wooden handle, which was intricately carved in the shape of a naked, writhing woman. Nice. "And your momma wanted you to have a brain," he said, yanking the door open and slamming it into the guy's face.

  I danced backward at the ensuing uproar, but Al took my upper arm and strode forward, nose in the air, buckled shoes snapping, and velveteen coattails swaying. "You, ah, have a way with civil servants," I said, almost panting to keep up. I wasn't about to drag my feet. I'd stormed a few offices myself; you had to move quickly to get past the red-tape-loving idiots and find someone intelligent enough to appreciate the nerve of barging in. Someone dying for an interruption and the chance to procrastinate. Someone like…I peered at the nameplate on the door Al stopped before. Someone like Dallkarackint. Jeez, what was it with demon names?

  Wait a sec. Dali, Dallkarackint…Was this the guy Al had wanted to throw my dead body in front of?

  Al opened the door, shoved me in, then back-kicked the door shut to block out the uproar storming up the hall behind us. I felt a tweak on my awareness and wondered if he'd locked it. It was a thought that grew more plausible when the pounding on the door stayed pounding and didn't turn into a big ugly demon with a broken nose.

  Squinting, I caught my balance in the…sand? Shocked, I looked up as what had to be a fake breeze smelling of seaweed and burnt amber shifted my hair. I was standing in hot sand in the sun. The door had become a small changing hut, and a boardwalk ran from right to left to the surf-soaked horizon. Stretching into the almost green water was a canopy-covered dock. At the end was a large platform on which a man sat behind a desk. Okay, he was a demon, but he looked like an attractive fifty-something CEO who had brought his desk with him on vacation instead of his laptop. Before him in an upright deck chair was a woman in a purple sari. The scrying mirror on her lap flashed in the sun angling under the canopy that shaded the desk. His familiar?

  "Wow," I said, unable to look at everything at once. "This isn't real, is it?"

  Al straightened his crushed velvet and pulled me onto the boardwalk. "No," he said as our heels clunked on the wood. "It's casual Friday."

  My God, the sun sliding under the awning is even warm, I thought as we found the dock and started down it. I suppose if one was a demon and had unlimited power, why not put the illusion of the Bahamas around you at the office? Al yanked me forward when I lagged to see if there were fish in the water, and I yelped when I felt a cascading shimmer cross over me.

  "There," Al soothed, and I shoved his hand off me. "Now don't you look proper? Must wear our best when before the court."

  My pulse quickened as I realized I was wearing my usual working leathers, my hair back in a scrunchy and my butt-kicking boots on my feet. The purple scarf around my waist was new, though. "If you're trying to make nice-nice, this might not be the best way to do it," I said to Al when the guy behind the desk leaned back in annoyance as he saw us and the woman took her hand from the mirror.

  "Relax." Al pulled me further into his burnt-amber scent as we came to a respectful halt on the round rug laid on the rough planks before the desk. "I'm supposed to be exiled this morning. They would have been disappointed if I didn't do something dramatic."

  A puddle of gray in the sun-soaked dinghy tied to the dock moved, and my gaze shifted.

  Oh, God. It was Trent. He looked washed out and thin as he bobbed on the fake tide in the sun, and when he saw me, hate filled his bloodshot eyes. He had to know I was here to rescue him. Didn't he?

  The demon behind the desk sighed, and my attention shifted to him. Somehow he looked right out here in the cool, Brimstone-scented, breezy shade of the canopy, his desk perched over the water with a coffee cup and a stack of files on it. Flip-flops poked from under the dark mahogany desk, and his Hawaiian-print top showed a wisp of hair at his chest. Setting his pen down, he gestured sourly. "Al, what, by the two worlds colliding, are you doing in my office?"

  Al beamed as the demon recognized him, pulling himself straight, tugging the lace at his wrists, and scuffing his shiny-buckled boots on the planks. "Elevating your status, Dali, dear."

  Dali leaned back in his chair and glanced at the woman silently waiting. "Before or after I sling your ass to the surface?" he said in a bothered tone, his fast voice rough. His eyes flicked to me, and his lips pursed briefly. "You don't have anything left to elevate anyone. And killing her before the courts will not excuse you from teaching her how to spindle line energy and let her run about with no compulsion to keep her mouth shut."

  "Hey!" I said, not wanting that to stand without correction. "I was under compulsion to keep my mouth shut. So was Ceri. We were under lots of compulsion." Al gripped my arm and dragged me back a step as I added, "You've no idea the amount of compulsion we were under."

  "You misunderstand, my most honorable ass-kisser," Al said, jaw clenched at my outburst. "I'd sooner die before giving Rachel Mariana Morgan to the courts. I'm not here to kill her, I'm here to demand that the uncommon stupidity charge against me be dropped."

  My shock at the honorable-ass-kisser comment was pushed away by the thought of a law against uncommon stupidity, and I wondered how we could get one. Remembering Trent, I nudged Al.

  "Oh, yes," the demon added, "and I would ask that my student's familiar be released to my custody. Busy day planned. We could use his help. Must get him trained up, up, up!"

  In the dinghy, Trent pulled himself up and sat on the bench, his motions slow as if he was in pain. There was a humiliating red ribbon about his neck. I wondered why he wore it, but upon seeing that his fingers were red and swollen, I decided they weren't letting him take it off.

  Dali pushed his papers away and glanced at the woman. "I appreciate your efforts to weasel out of a hundred years of community service, but you've nothing left. Get out."

  I turned to Al, seeing his complexion take on a new hue of red. "Community service? You told me they were going to banish you to the surface."

  "They are," he growled, pinching my elbow. "Now shut up."

  I fumed, but Al was already facing Dali. "I've taken Morgan as a student, not a familiar," he said. "It's not illegal or uncommonly stupid to teach a student how to spindle line energy. I simply didn't think it was worth mentioning…at the time."

  Dali's eyes widened. On the floor, Trent's hatred grew directed, and I winced. This was looking really bad, and I'd have done anything to have been able to explain. Smiling, Al looped his arm in mine. "Try to look sexy," he muttered, poking me until my back stiffened.

  "Student?" Dali blurted, both hands going palms-down on the desk. "Al—"

  "She can spindle line energy," Al interrupted. "Her blood can twist demon curses. She took a human as a familiar before I broke the bond."

  "Common knowledge," the demon said, pointing irately. "You said something about status. Give me something I don't know, or get the hell onto the surface where you belong."

  Al took a worried breath. His face never changed, but I was standing so close, I felt it. And somehow, that was scary. Exhaling, Al nodded once, as a student might to an instructor. It was the first show of respect I'd seen from him, and I grew more frightened yet. His gaze flicked to the woman with the scrying mirror, and Dali's eyebrows rose.

  The older demon pressed his lips and gestured for her to leave. She silently stood, set the mirror on his desk with disgust, and then vanished in a pop that was lost in the sound of the wind against the water. "This better be good," Dali grumble
d. "I rent her by the hour."

  Al swallowed, and I swear I could smell the faintest hint of sweat on him. "This witch can be summoned," he said softly, an arm behind and before him. "She can be summoned through the lines by way of a password." Dali made a puff of air, and Al added in a louder voice, "I know this because she stole mine and was summoned out in my stead."

  Dali leaned forward. "That's how she escaped?" He turned to me. "You stole Al's summoning name? Voluntarily?" he asked. I opened my mouth to tell him it was so Al would leave me and my family alone, but Dali had returned his attention to Al. "She was summoned out? How did you get out, then?"

  "She summoned me in turn," Al said, his voice dropping in pitch. "That's what I'm saying, old man. She integrated her password into our system well enough for it to be used in summoning. She can invoke demon magic. She accidentally made her boyfriend her familiar."

  "Ex-boyfriend," I muttered, but neither was listening.

  "Now are you going to hand me a shovel so I can dig my way out," Al said, "or are you going to banish me to the surface and throw this pretty little ball of chance against the wall of elf-shit and watch it shatter? None of you have the finesse for this. Newt, perhaps, if she were sane, but she isn't. And would you trust Newt not to kill her? I wouldn't."

  Dali's eyes narrowed. "You think…," he mused.

  "I know," Al said, chilling me with what he might have said, and my gaze flicked to Trent, listening in the dinghy. Damn it, Ceri said I wasn't a demon, but this…looked really bad. "She is my student," Al said loudly. "I already made the deal; she's mine. But I want her free of Newt's mark to prevent any—misunderstanding. All I want from you is to serve as witness and to set up a safe place for me to do a deal with Newt."

  Fear jerked me straight. He's going to do the deal now? With me here? "Ah, wait up, boys," I exclaimed, backing up until Al gave me a withering look. "This is Newt we're talking about, right? No way. No freaking way!"

  Ignoring me, the demon behind the desk hesitated nevertheless. He reclined with his fingers steepled against the colorful pattern of flowers on his shirt as the wind ruffled his hair, and I was suddenly struck with the memory of me asking Edden to throw me a preserver to get myself out of my personal crapfest just last year. Damn, were we that much alike, Al and I? Using what we had and scrambling to stay alive?

  "Call her," Al said as he picked a tin of snuff from an inner coat pocket. A whiff of Brimstone came to me as he delicately sniffed a pinch. "Newt doesn't remember shit about Morgan, but she knows she forgot something. She'll give me the witch's mark in return for her memory, and when she finds out Minias wiped the knowledge from her, accident or not, she'll bloody kill him. That leaves three knowing." His smile grew devious. "Three is a very stable number."

  "What about Trent?" I questioned, thinking this was getting more complex than I'd dreamed it would be. "The deal was I get him."

  "Patience, itchy-witch," Al muttered between his teeth as he smiled at Dali and put an arm over my shoulders. I shoved his hand off me and glanced at Trent. He had to have known this was all to get him free and that he wouldn't really be my familiar. But his look was one of pure hatred.

  The older demon shifted in his chair, and when our eyes met, I stifled a shiver. In a sudden motion, Dali reached for the scrying mirror. Setting it before him, he smiled wickedly at Al. "I'll see if she's cognizant this morning."

  My pulse hammered, and my palms sweated. Almost immediately Dallkarackint's brow furrowed in worry, cleared, and then he smiled. "Al…," I whispered, backing up as I remembered Newt's utterly unbalanced, powerful presence tearing apart my living room and mastering three blood circles as she searched my church for who knew what. "Al, this isn't a good idea. This really isn't a good idea."

  He huffed and grasped my shoulders, forcing me to stand beside him. "You asked for a bloody miracle. Who did you think I'd have to go to for it? Be a good girl and don't slouch."

  I fought to get free of his grip, my motions stilling when Newt's androgynous shape misted into existence, bald and barefoot, her high cheekbones flushed and her brows raised in question. She wore a robe that was somewhere between a kimono and a sari, matching Minias's usual outfit, but hers was a dark red, billowing and lightweight. Her eyes were completely black, even the whites, and I remembered the touch of her hand on my jaw and how she had searched my face the first time we had met, comparing me to her sisters. Mouth dry, I tried to get Al between us, not caring if I looked scared. I was.

  She slowly turned, her black gaze going from the bobbing dinghy to the ornate desk. "Dali," she said. Her voice had a smooth but masculine edge to it, and the demon took his hand from the mirror. Her attention shifted to Al. "Algaliarept?" she questioned. "Shouldn't you be making a sun shelter about now?" And then her eyes fell upon me.

  "You!" she said, stepping forward with a vehement expression and her finger pointed.

  Heart pounding, I pressed into Al. Funny how he seemed so much safer now.

  "Newt, love," Al soothed, a black haze enveloping his extended hand, and I felt the tension almost crack. "You look marvelous. Don't muss your dress. She's here for a reason. Don't you want to hear it before you tear her head off?"

  Newt hesitated, and as my pulse hammered in my ears, she graciously sank back into the deck chair Dali's secretary had been in. Dali was still behind the desk, but he was standing now. "Your familiar has something that belongs to me," she said almost petulantly. "I'm assuming you're here to sell her. Trying to buy space in the zoo, are you?"

  Dali cleared his throat and came around his desk to offer her a tall glass of what looked like iced tea. It hadn't been there a moment ago. "Al is trying to weasel his way out of debt and thinks it will take that mark the witch owes you," the older demon said as he leaned against his desk, ankles crossed in a subtle show of submissiveness. "Be a dear and sell it to him, love."

  She had taken the drink, the ice tinkling faintly as she set it on a round wicker table that showed up the instant she took her hand from the glass. "Since Al wants it, the answer is no."

  Al took a step forward, leaving me to feel exposed. "Newt, love, I'm sure—"

  With a glance, she stopped him. "I'm sure you have nothing—love," she mocked. "You sold everything down to your rooms to bribe for a late court date and post bail. I'm crazy, not stupid."

  My jaw dropped, and I warmed. "You did what?" I exclaimed. Great. I was the student of a destitute demon. But Newt was now looking at me, and I backed up a step.

  "She has something of mine," she said. "She wears my mark. Give her to me, and maybe I'll buy your rooms back for you."

  At that, Al smiled. Kneeling before her, he took up her drink. "What she has is a memory of you two meeting, of what you learned and no one else but I figured out. Give me the witch's mark," Al whispered as he handed her the glass, "and I'll tell you what that is. Better still, I'll keep reminding you when that bastard Minias doses you into forgetting it—again."

  The glass in her grip cracked, and an amber bead of liquid formed and rolled down the side. It was followed by another. "Minias…," she almost growled as she set the glass aside, her jaw tight in anger and her black orbs terrifyingly intent.

  Her gaze fell on me, and I went cold. She stood, and Al casually backed up to get between us. "Yes or no, love," he said, putting me behind him.

  "Yes," she whispered, and I yelped, shaking my foot when it gave a twinge.

  Al steadied me, but his intake of breath shook at our success. "You put it on your foot?" he asked me.

  "I didn't have a choice," I said, knees weak. He had done it. That fast, he had gotten Newt's mark switched to him. Now all that was left was to return his name for it, and I'd be free of the mark completely. This is working, I thought, glancing at Trent, who was watching in numb shock.

  "Tell me what I forgot," Newt said, eyeing me with suspicion.

  Al smiled. Laying a finger beside his nose, he leaned into her. "She can invoke demon magic," he said, holding up a finger
to forestall Newt's snort of anger. "She has made a human her familiar, though I broke that bond."

  "It had better be more than that, Al," she intoned, starting to look pissed as she drew away from Al and looked out over the fake water.

  "She stole my name and made it her own."

  Newt turned to face him, her expression empty.

  "And she was summoned out under it."

  Black eyes going wide, Newt sucked in her breath. "I killed my sisters!" she said, and my brief elation at getting her mark shifted to Al twisted into fear. "She can't be kin!"

  "Oh, she's kin," Al said, chuckling as he pulled me to him, his grip tightening as I struggled. "Kin born not of us but of the elves. Stupid, stupid elves who forgot and fixed what they broke. You figured it out, and Minias stole the knowledge from you for long enough that I could realize it, too, and get her first."

  "She should be mine! Give her to me!"

  But Al shook his head as Dali tensed behind his desk, the demon smiling as he breathed in the scent from my hair. I let him, numb and bewildered. Kin? Witches really were kin to demons? It went against everything I'd been taught, but damn it, it made sense!

  I jumped at a soft pop of displaced air. Minias burst into existence, his sandaled feet on the old wood. He was wearing his purple robes, and I fingered my belt, starting to think that was the color demons dressed their familiars in when they were pleased with them. "Newt!" Minias exclaimed, drawing back when he realized who else was here, giving Trent barely a glance. "What are you doing here?" he questioned, then paled at her venomous look.

  "You made me forget what she is," she whispered. "Come here, Minias."

  Red, goat-slitted eyes widening, Minias reared back and vanished.

  "Wait!" I shouted, then turned to Al. "I need him. You promised me Trent!"

  Al's expression at my outburst was one of pure disgust, and when Newt turned to me, I wished I'd kept my mouth shut. "You want that elf for a familiar?" she asked.