Studies in Demonolgy: the complete series

by Nichols, TJ

  Angus lifted an eyebrow. He had no plans to unleash another clean sweep. It had worked, hadn’t it? No one had said anything. Had it been for nothing? He pulled off the bandage, but the doctor removed the drip before he could pull it out. She shooed everyone out of the room and closed the door.

  Then it was just Terrance and him, and he sat heavily, unable to resist gravity any longer. He stayed upright but grabbed Terrance’s hand for security. “It worked? Is everything fixed? Tell me it wasn’t all for nothing.”

  Terrance stood between Angus’s knees. “The magic is returned. Already the ice caps are retreating. It might take a couple of years for them to fully regress.” He glanced down. “The World Council of Demonology wants to speak to you. Vinland is under martial law until elections can be held.”

  “What happened to the president?”

  “He’s been imprisoned. There’s not much news coming out. Peacekeeping forces have moved in. It could take years for us to have a home again.”

  But it was home. “And the college? The warlocks?”

  “Those that were close by were killed. They’re searching for the other head warlocks to arrest. You’re a hero and a villain. All magic users in New London died.” Terrance struggled to meet his gaze. “And in a few other cities too. There have been guards at the door, demon and human, in case someone wants to retaliate.”

  Angus sighed. He’d known there would be deaths, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to know the numbers. He should find out, but he wasn’t ready. Would they ban him from using magic? Had he been worse than the warlocks he’d been fighting?

  He cupped Terrance’s chin so Terrance was forced to look at him. “Why won’t you look me in the eye? Am I that awful?”

  Terrance helped him off the bed and to the window. The bed sheet fell away, and Angus didn’t bother to pick it up. At first glance his reflection in the glass looked much the same as he remembered. It was only when he looked closer and put his nose almost on the glass that he saw what it was that was freaking people out. It wasn’t that his eyes weren’t blue; it was that they were entirely black, like a demon’s.

  Terrance put his arms around Angus’s waist. “I’ll get used to it.” He kissed the back of Angus’s neck. “I guess when you told those assholes you were a mage, you meant it.”

  Angus smiled.

  “That was broadcast by the way. It all was.”

  “Even the fire?”

  “Yeah. And if I’d watched the footage before seeing you, I would never have expected to see you again.”

  “Did you see the magic?” Maybe it wasn’t just him.

  “No. But I saw your skin tear open.” He touched the ridges of the scars. “I saw the trees burst into flames and the ground shake. You didn’t step through the void so much as get swept into it. You were thrown all the way into the village. When they carried you to the doorway, to the mages, we thought that was it. You looked dead. You were cold to touch, and your pulse was barely there.”

  Angus leaned his head against Terrance. “Do you think they’ll let me walk out of here?”

  If they wouldn’t, he’d open the void and leave, despite knowing he was supposed to use a doorway. He had demon blood. Perhaps he needed to be in Arlyxia to finish healing.

  “Not a chance.” Terrance turned Angus to face him. “I’ll meet you at the Training Temple after?”

  “You won’t come with me?”

  Terrance shook his head. “No. I belong firmly on this side. I know that for sure now. But Saka is welcome to visit.”

  Angus kissed him. “I won’t be long.” He didn’t want to leave Terrance again, but he couldn’t force him to come.

  Terrance held him tight for a little longer, and Angus didn’t rush to pull away. He breathed deeply, knowing he was safe. Terrance’s arms were strong, and he’d always be there to save him.

  “The sooner you go, the sooner you come back.” Terrance pulled away.

  “You don’t mind?”

  “No.” He kissed Angus. “Though you might want to put something on before you leave.”

  Terrance opened up the drawer beneath the bedside table. A pair of bright blue pants and a cream shirt were neatly folded there for him. “Here.”

  “Thank you.” He should’ve known Terrance would make sure he had what he needed. The bells he wore around his ankle fell out of the pile of folded clothes.

  Terrance smiled. “Someone left them lying around. Your knives are in your room at the Training Temple.”

  Angus didn’t know what to say, so he hugged Terrance again.

  “Get some clothes on before I’m tempted to break the doctor’s orders and get you too excited.” But Terrance was smiling as he spoke.

  “I’m fine.” He wasn’t fine, but he didn’t want to worry Terrance or prompt the doctor to come back and tether him to the bed again.

  Terrance held him at arm’s length. “You wouldn’t say that if you’d seen yourself. Go for a visit but come back and rest. I’ll see you this evening?”

  Angus nodded. “I won’t do any magic.”

  “I’m not going to ask you to promise that. Magic is part of you… more than I ever realized.”

  “More than I ever wanted.” Angus pulled on the pants and shirt.

  “Do you regret it?”

  Angus closed his eyes. He didn’t want to think about the cold and fury of the magic within him. “I have to believe it was worth it. The worlds are in balance.”

  He would reckon with the rest later. Today he’d appreciate being alive. He put the bells around his ankle. “You sure you don’t mind me going?”

  “Saka will be anxious to see you. He couldn’t be here the whole time, but one of us was always here.”

  Saka would’ve had mage things to do. Angus gave Terrance another kiss and then opened the void and stepped through.

  The doorway was as it had been… almost. The stones were more uneven and slick with rain, and the pillars were a little crooked. He tipped his face to the sky. The rain was sweet and warm, the way he remembered, and his clothes were glued to him in moments.

  The soldiers at the doorway looked at him curiously at first. Then one of them took off running to the village, and Angus followed. If he walked carefully, the unevenness of his steps was almost unnoticeable, but running was out of the question, at least for the moment.

  Saka met him halfway, rain beading on his skin like crystals. He stopped and stared, and Angus closed the gap and hugged him tightly.

  It was a couple of heartbeats before Saka put his arms around him, but when he did, nothing else mattered. “Welcome back, Mage Angus.”

  Epilogue

  Where the forest full of corpses had been were only charred stumps. Angus walked through the grass and tapped his staff on the ground as he went, looking for the remains of his tree. In his pocket were two seeds.

  He stopped and turned, and Terrance and Saka looked back at him. They were all wearing coats and hats. Saka’s hat had horn holes. While the weather was warming, it was still cold.

  “It doesn’t have to be the exact spot,” Terrance said, his breath huffing out in a cloud.

  “No, but it should be.” His eyes hadn’t returned to blue, his blood type was still demon, and he still saw magic on this side of the void.

  It had taken nearly eight months to get a formal thank-you and pardon from the WCD—for using magic during the ban—and to be invited home to help put it back together. Saka had finally made contact with the Lifeblood tribes, or what remained of them. He was desperate to get home, and this would be the shortest route. This doorway would be the first in Vinland.

  Magic would be taught demon-style, where magic must flow and be rebalanced, and not like the Mayans’ blood magic. Somehow he had ended up in charge of that. For the last four months he’d been working with others to put Vinland back together.

  “I think this is it.” It was where he’d stood cuffed and cold and waited to be hanged. He pulled out the seeds and handed one to Terrance
. “You remember how to do this?”

  “Easy.” He leaned in for a kiss. “Gather a little magic.”

  Angus smiled. The three of them had done that before they came out. The scars hummed with trapped magic as he pressed the seed into the ground and reached for Saka’s hand. Saka held Terrance’s free hand, and the other hovered over the seed. Together they grew the trees that would form the doorway between Lifeblood and New London. It wouldn’t be open like the Mayan ones. Instead it would have a simple lock to prevent people from taking what they wanted from Demonside.

  Saka had been working with Iktan and Cadmael on different types of doorways.

  The trees grew and arched together, branches twining. Satisfied, Angus drew back and embraced Saka. “I’ll be back tomorrow to summon you and finish this.”

  “I look forward to it. Perhaps you could escape for a day afterward? The mages at Lifeblood would like to see you.”

  Angus glanced at Terrance, who nodded. “I’ll try.”

  Saka tore open the void, and the sweet, spicy air of Demonside wafted through. It was tempting to go through and feel the heat. He hadn’t crossed the void in weeks. Saying goodbye to Iktan and the demons in the village had been hard, but he’d needed to come back. Now that he was here, he wanted to see Lifeblood surrounded by forest the way it had once had been. But he didn’t take that step. They had to do it right and follow the new rules.

  The void closed, and Angus stared a little longer at the place where Saka had been standing. The grass didn’t remain flattened for long.

  Terrance took his hand. “Are you in meetings today?”

  Angus nodded. “We’re still settling some rules.”

  The countries that had turned against their magic users, killing or jailing them, were in trouble for violating the rights of magic users. Magic users were entitled to use magic, demon or natural, but only if they followed the rules set out by the Institute for Magical Studies. The college had never mentioned those rules, but that wouldn’t happen again. And people could no longer be forced into using demon magic.

  All magic had a cost. All magic left scars.

  “What are you doing today?” Angus asked.

  “Trying to get your mother’s chicken pie recipe for your birthday dinner.”

  “Good luck with that. Just let her make it.” She’d been trying to make up for what had happened, even though Angus would rather move on. He’d healed the cuff burns on his wrists and ankles when the pardon came through, but he still wore the mages’ marks. He liked the way people flinched when they saw him. He wanted them to see the scars and remember.

  Hand in hand they walked past the guards who protected the field. Around the edges people had left wreaths for those who’d been killed there. There had been memorials for those who’d died in Angus’s clean sweep. He’d given a formal apology, but he had no idea how many from the rugby field had survived. Their deaths were a heavy burden that he couldn’t forget. He still woke up some nights shivering as though cold and drawing magic to him. Terrance would hold him until the nightmare faded back to a memory.

  Slowly Vinland was starting to heal, at least on the surface, but some scars would take a lifetime to fade. He glanced back at the two trees in the field surrounded by the stumps. Some scars would never fade.

  Terrance tugged on his hand. “Come on. I’ll walk you to your office, Dean of Sex Magic.”

  Angus hated that title so much, and Terrance knew it. He grinned.

  “Stop it.” Angus shouldered him.

  “Nope.”

  “Next time Saka is here….” He leaned and whispered a few words in Terrance’s ear so the guards at the gate couldn’t hear.

  Terrance’s cheeks turned red. “That’s not possible.”

  “I think you’ll find it is. And you’ll beg for it.”

  “I don’t beg.”

  Angus lifted his eyebrows. “You keep telling yourself that.”

  “I ask. You on the other hand….”

  Angus shrugged. “I know when to give in.”

  They stopped outside Angus’s building. His office was on level three and had a view of the field.

  Terrance gave his hand a squeeze. “I’ll see you for lunch?”

  “Yes. Of course.” They always had lunch together.

  It had been months, but Terrance still found it difficult to let go. Angus didn’t push him away when Terrance held him a moment longer. With a final kiss, they pulled apart.

  If he’d known what summoning a demon would mean that first day, he liked to think he’d have still done it, but no one was that brave. He looked up at the building. They needed to finalize the rules before mages and priests could start teaching. He never wanted to be a teacher, yet here he was—no longer a warlock in training or a dangerous rogue, but a mage, and he wasn’t going to shirk that duty.

  So he carefully climbed the steps, knowing that no matter what he did, he had a home on both sides of the void.

  * * *

  Thank you for reading the Studies in Demonology series. If you have time to leave a review it would be appreciated as reviews are the online word of mouth.

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  Read on for an excerpt from The Witch’s Familiar.

  Excerpt

  The Witch’s Familiar

  This time Jude Sullivan had done nothing wrong. He’d know if he’d fried the circuits of a city or taken out a hospital’s electricity by accident. He hadn’t even been near a hospital in years. The worst thing he’d done all year was charge his car for free. Why pay for electricity when he could call it to his fingertips?

  Surely not even the Coven would give him a warning for such a minor misuse of magic?

  They couldn’t know about his trip to Vegas. Even if they did, he’d done nothing wrong. Nothing that would put the paranormal community in danger of exposure and start another round of witch trials—or worse. He understood why the Coven freaked out so easily, but what did they want? Him to stop using magic? As much as he’d feared it when his talents had first surfaced, he’d started to find uses for it. And it was cool being one of the few people who could call down lightning.

  He tapped his booted toes, unable to contain the nervous energy as he waited to be summoned into the Coven boardroom. These days, the Coven had the appearance of a well-run business. Their business being the management of the use of magic and the protection of all paranormals—and punishing those who didn’t conform. He forced out a breath. As much as he hated being summoned to see the board, they had protected him when his power had first manifested and he had shorted out a hospital. They hadn’t done it for him, though. They’d done it to protect every other witch. No one wanted to end up being dissected by overly curious scientists.

  Jude glanced at the other man waiting. What had he done? Or was he here for better reasons than an assumed screwup? Some came to ask for help. Some had debts to pay. He may not even be a witch. Maybe he was a shifter. The man didn’t look at him; he was staring at his phone, so Jude couldn’t get a look at his eyes. It seemed kind of rude to see if he had an animal aura around him when they hadn’t even spoken.

  This was a lot like getting called to the principal’s office, except there would be three witches on the other side of the table demanding an explanation instead of one cranky old principal who was tired of seeing Jude and telling him to keep his mouth closed so he wouldn’t get into trouble.

  This was his fourth visit to the Coven. He shouldn’t want to throw up at the mere idea of stepping through those doors, and yet something about being here always tightened his stomach and prickled his throat with heat. He’d never hurled on their nice carpet, but there was a first time for everything. He didn’t like not knowing why he’d been summoned.

  The secretary glared at him over the rim of her glasses, and he forced his toes to still. It was a pity he couldn’t calm his heart so simply or stop the sweat from forming and rolling slowly down his back.

  It was worse this time be
cause he knew he’d done nothing wrong. Nothing that would put anyone at risk.

  This was far worse than the first time when he hadn’t even known witches existed or that he was one. He’d thought the MRI machine had malfunctioned. But it was he who’d had the malfunction. His magic had burst to the surface and shorted the hospital. He’d been terrified.

  The Coven had brought him in and had given him a tutor so he could get his magic under control. Now he could feel the hum of electrons as they danced through wires and he could taste electrical storms. He liked them, as it meant he could stand on the roof of his apartment block and join in without anyone being suspicious. Most of the time, the only magic he could freely do was charge his phone and his car. He’d destroyed three cell phones learning how to do that. He stared at his hands. Having magic wasn’t as great as he’d thought it would be.

  He could cast basic spells, but he didn’t have useful skills. He couldn’t move objects with his mind, read minds, or control animals. They were the talents of different witches. Where once he’d have been called a storm god, now he was just a troublemaker.

  “Jude Sullivan.” The secretary stood. “They’ll see you now.” She opened the door to the boardroom. No phone had rung to alert her. She’d just known. It was creepy no matter how many times he saw that trick.

  Jude got up and wiped his hands on his suit pants even though he knew no one would shake his hand. He gave her a tight smile that she didn’t return, then he walked through the large double doors.

  Magic swept over his skin like a coarse brush. They were already examining him. He would be found wanting. He always was. Whatever they thought he’d done this time, though, he was innocent. He was almost sure of that.

  If he could walk out of the Coven unscathed, in a few more weeks his passport would be here and he’d be out from under their scrutiny. And somewhere else. Anywhere would be better. The doors shut behind him with a soft click, trapping him in the boardroom.