My Demon Warlord

by Carolyn Jewel

  Nobody expected Sessani to agree, and nobody wanted her to have enough time to mount an attack in response. Her window for agreeing to terms had to be wide enough to be fair and narrow enough to hamper her if she decided to mount an attack.

  Tau was going inside, targeting one of the human men who hadn’t yet manifested. It was someone Vahid knew well enough for Tau to target. Once inside Tau would set wards for them to use as markers and to link together. He’d also fuck up anything and everything that would result in a likely compromise of Sessani’s defenses.

  During that brief decision period for Sessani, others would sanitize the approaches to the compound. Once the deadline passed, Tau would have full discretion to take over Sessani. If that wasn’t possible, Gray and Durian had the sanction. Xia, Alexandrine, and Carson would sever as many magehelds as possible as quickly as possible.

  Kynan’s contribution was to do what he’d done in Bodega on a significantly larger scale. Why fight at all if you could take out the major players from a distance? The strategy required teams in place early, and sufficient time for Kynan and Tau to set up enough wards to be interlinked. If it worked the way he hoped, they’d have reconnaissance inside the compound and a means of dead-dropping their enemies before Sessani understood what was happening. With Winters’ help, they should be able to pinpoint and bring down the magehelds, too. Clean and bloodless. If it worked.

  If it didn’t, regular teams would roll in for a more traditional assault.

  Nikodemus was never one to delay. Once the basic plan was finalized, Nikodemus called in more of his sworn. They would be tasked with constructing the wards Kynan needed. Once they had mastered the technique, Nikodemus sent them north to Humboldt and Trinity counties to lay down the required framework around Sessani’s compound.

  Security worked double time making sure arrivals and departures were dampened, confirming that all electronics communicated over encrypted connections, and that network traffic was seeded with enough disinformation to be distracting and confusing to anyone who managed to tap in. Telos had a team on its way to set up a rogue cellular network. Those who needed to sleep did so only enough to stay alert. The kitchen saw a steady supply of food and beer.

  Vahid, it turned out, caught on fast. Before long, he was teaching other kin how to make the wards and confirm they could be brought into the planned mesh. He even built a demo mesh for others to link with and get familiar with. All props to him, his contempt for the women was under control.

  At noon the following day, Harsh Marit, who had arrived early that morning, made the call to Sessani. The witch, it turned out, was no longer interested in an alliance with Nikodemus. The room fell silent while Harsh paced, his headset flashing blue.

  “Disappointing, Ms. Sessani,” he said with soothing calm. “Your objection is noted. However, Nikodemus is extending his territory and will incorporate the whole of Trinity County. Including, we have discovered, your residence.” He listened for a while, an amused expression on his face. “I regret if you believed that was a point of negotiation. It is not.” He smiled slowly. “Yes. It’s possible he will be unable to do so. But should he succeed, you will have six hours before your compliance with the rules, as I have explained them, will be forced.” He listened. “Thank you. Have a good day. You have my number, should you wish to reconsider.”

  “Well,” Nikodemus said when Harsh disconnected his call. “That’s that.”

  “She thinks you’re bluffing.”

  Nikodemus spread his hands in a gesture that said he didn’t care what Sessani thought. Which he did not. Carson, standing behind Nikodemus with a hand on his shoulder, worked her phone with her other hand. “Text sent.”

  That was the go-notice to Telos, head of the IT team. In the next few minutes Sessani’s communications, inbound and outbound, were going to be monitored.

  “I’d guess she’s calling her Russian friends now,” Harsh said.

  Nikodemus slouched on the sofa. “They’re in Bakersfield.” The point being that even if her allies left right now, they weren’t going to get to her in time. His phone pinged, and Nikodemus glanced at the screen. “Telos is done.” He stood, his eyes glowing silver. “Ready?”

  Twenty seconds later everyone in the house felt the change as he extended the northern borders of his territory into Oregon and eastward to Nevada. Easy. Not the slightest sign of effort, and no discernable weakening at the farthest points. Two days ago, it wouldn’t have been that easy. He clapped once. “Let’s get going, people.”

  Carson tapped her phone. “All teams deployed.”

  Hayfork, the nearest city to Sessani’s compound, was a four-or-five-hour drive north. They’d need another hour or so to get into position and set up. In five hours and forty-five minutes, Harsh would call Sessani again to confirm she hadn’t changed her mind. In six, they’d start enforcing the rules.

  Kynan’s team consisted of Winters, Vahid, and two other sworn, and they were in Hayfork in just over four and half hours because Maddy had a goddamned lead foot. They picked up sandwiches and headed into the forest, right up to the warded perimeter of Sessani’s compound. Any closer and they risked having Sessani or other magekind inside discover them.

  Just as Vahid had said, her compound was in the middle of prime marijuana-growing land in a national forest. She’d moved here before the growers did, but once they came, she used the cover of armed and dangerous narcos and shared their motto of booby trap everything, shoot fast and first, and don’t bother with questions.

  Winters had communications for this op. Her night-vision headgear included full audio-visual so she could monitor the readout and emergency audio. The kin were locked in with her, and they were all in share mode so they’d know what she was getting and vice versa. Once the five of them were in place, she tapped the clicker on the earpiece and sent an encrypted packet over the subnet Telos had put in place. One click meant they’d arrived at their designated area.

  Tau was already inside and keeping dark until he had Sessani under his control or the assault was underway.

  Winters stayed snug up against Kynan, which was standard procedure for human-demon teams. The more solid and baked-in their shared links, the better, especially if they got separated. Familiarity would make it easier to reconnect later. Before, he’d always had to be careful, and now he didn’t have to. The ease of their link floored him. Maddy reached for Vahid’s hand, and though he hesitated a moment too long, he took her hand. Kynan kept an arm around her. Winters and Vahid would be in the thick of it. The other two would be along for the ride when he tried out his ward. They were backup in case something went wrong, and they needed someone else to manage the primary ward and connections.

  Ready?

  She nodded.

  He set up the ward that would act as the bridge and tapped in the way he had at the Bodega house. Tau had been busy inside the various buildings that made up the compound. He’d laid down dozens more wards than Kynan had expected. At first, even with all the open links, there was nothing, not even a whisper. The silence lasted so long he started the countdown to Plan B. Then, a tsunami of information hit.

  Winters pressed a hand to the middle of his back.

  As before, it took a while before he could make sense of the flood of data through the wards. Winters’ prior experience with his meshed wards meant she could help immediately. Vahid caught on quickly, and then it was just a matter of the three of them sharing mental space and sorting and identifying the information. He hooked the other two in so they’d be able to take over if necessary.

  The information coalesced until they held the entire compound in one huge multi-dimensional compilation, with physical, psychic, magical, and the emotional layers. As always, when he and Winters shared like this, it was as if he’d had magekind powers all along and just hadn’t realized it. She moved closer to him, and moments later Vahid did, too. He and Winters had done this before, sharing magic, working together in a high-pressure, high-danger situation.
If he resented sharing a connection with a witch, he kept it to himself.

  Vahid’s information had been solid. Emotions inside were tense and on edge, and several of the over one hundred magehelds were looking for an out. Some were flat out confused about what was going on. Good. The fifty-some humans ranged from completely nonmagical to strong enough magic users to pose a threat. Most were clustered in a series of buildings to the west, but there were smaller groups scattered throughout. Tau had set wards around these buildings.

  To the northeast, a more open structure housed five humans, all of them trained mages or witches, each surrounded by anywhere from seven to thirteen magehelds. He figured the cluster of thirteen belonged to Sessani.

  More than a hundred magehelds were inside the compound. Given that Nikodemus had pulled their part of the state into his territory, all of them were on alert. Over a dozen enslaved demons patrolled the interior perimeter of the compound with more outside. Because those magehelds would be unable to sense free kin, two trained magic users were also outside the compound, each with their personal bodyguards.

  Kynan’s group fed information to the others, giving them access to the mental and psychic map of the compound, its inhabitants, and the location of everyone outside. Time expired, and they listened in silence to Harsh’s call to Sessani. The conversation was short. After Harsh disconnected the call, Nikodemus gave the signal to go.

  Two seconds later, Kynan sent the first wave of dead drops through the wards.

  CHAPTER 28

  So much magic rushed through the wards that Maddy wondered whether she would end up burned out like a copa addict. The dead-drops Kynan had pushed through the wards rolled through the compound, and shouts of dismay and alarm rose up from inside. The center of Maddy’s chest reverberated with the thud that came with someone nearby being dead-dropped.

  Through the wards, they saw, felt, and heard everything going on inside the compound. The amount of information was overwhelming, but they quickly learned to find and follow specific threads rather than attempt to process everything at once.

  Go! The command to react while the dead-drops were active came from Nikodemus and flowed out through all the connections between team members. Maddy stayed tucked against Kynan’s back. Other kin moved toward the compound. Vahid startled when Gray and Carson went hot in their shared links. Gray slipped behind one of the witches patrolling outside. Carson positioned herself to the side of the magehelds, a risky but necessary move.

  Kynan reached out to Vahid, calming him with a touch to the shoulder.

  Seven times in five seconds, Carson severed the bodyguards, freeing them from their enslavement. At the same time, Gray brought down the witch with a touch. Xia and Alexandrine handled the other patrol.

  Kynan patted Vahid’s shoulder. Your first go-on, and it’s a big one.

  Nikodemus was a calming, soothing presence amid the burn and churn of an operation with so much at stake. Kynan’s hand smoothed along Maddy’s side, and he brought her closer, physically and psychically.

  Practically speaking, there was no difference being sworn to Kynan instead of Nikodemus, except it wasn’t the same at all. The world was different. She was used to the pull of watching out for Nikodemus, but this thing with Kynan? She was wired in a way she’d never been with Nikodemus. She felt the same compulsion with Kynan, naturally, the same loyalty and sense of obligation. With Kynan, those other bonds made the connection far more intimate than her oath to Nikodemus had been.

  The magehelds outside the walls were now freed and the two witches dead dropped and under control. Nikodemus’s kin swept in to prevent the newly freed from endangering the operation, unintentionally or otherwise. Inside, magehelds went down as the dead-drops rolled through the connections between the wards. Moments later, Kynan sent another pulse into the networked wards. The air popped and sizzled.

  All magic not connected to Nikodemus was suspended.

  “Fuck me,” Kynan said. The words were triumphant. “They’re down. All of them.”

  “Did you doubt it?”

  “Not much.”

  She stroked his back. “I didn’t at all.”

  Every one of the demonkind or magekind not connected to Nikodemus by oath lost access to their magic. Tau, the only magic user left standing in the compound, became a beacon of psychic energy.

  The wards had taken down over a hundred demonkind without much effort. On the heels of this, a wave of energy came through from Nikodemus into the compound, immobilizing all the magic users and demons, including those temporarily freed by the dead-drops of the magekind and any who remained bound because the magekind who held them were not present.

  Teams moved in at a run, with Carson, Xia, and Alexandrine at the front. Nobody knew how long Kynan and Nikodemus would be able to hold the dead drops. The work of permanently severing the magehelds began. Nikodemus, Iskander, and Durian headed inside.

  Maddy and the others with Kynan remained in place until the last of the magehelds had been severed, a process that took the better part of an hour. She and Vahid fed energy through Kynan, but it wasn’t until toward the end that she sensed he was near a limit. Whenever she thought he couldn’t possibly maintain his hold on the wards or continue to push his magic through them, waves of energy pulsed through him, generated from his dead sworn.

  At last, Nikodemus sent word that they had control of the compound and everyone in it. Kynan disengaged from the wards and sat hard, partially shifted into one of his true forms. Maddy and Vahid stayed close, equally drained. Kynan’s eyes whirled through a range of colors, and the markings on her forearms shifted in tempo. She dropped to her knees beside him and held his face between her hands. He lifted his head, and they connected directly, just the two of them. Their past was gone. Exploded. Not what he’d intended her to see. She poured as much of her power as she could into him.

  “Yeah.” He said that word out loud, but between the two of them there was more.

  Us. As soon as we’re alone.

  Flashes of brilliant orange and gold lit his eyes. “We’re good now,” he said.

  “Yes, we’re good.” Her headset chirped in her ear.

  “Winters,” Nikodemus rapped out. “Check in.”

  She sent a tap over the device to acknowledge the request.

  “We need you and Kynan in the compound.”

  “On our way.” She signaled to Kynan. He set a finger to the controlling ward he’d made. A shimmer of light appeared on his finger and spread upward. They left the other two kin guarding and monitoring the ward.

  The wildlife inside the magically dampened perimeter remained eerily silent. On their way to the compound, they passed a handful of newly freed kin who had elected not to stay or who were incapable of deciding. As they passed, each one of them bowed to Kynan, fingers pressed to their foreheads.

  The gates to the compound were askew. One side of the ironwork had melted into shapeless lumps on the ground. They headed down a path to an area carved out of the forest and hidden from the view of normal humans. The prickle of the still-dissolving remnants of Sessani’s magic turned the air hot and humid. Twelve feet overhead, a layer of disturbed air roiled like storm clouds.

  Before long, the path opened onto hard-packed dirt that surrounded the buildings they’d all seen through the meshed wards. Freed kin stood, sat, or lay on the ground in various stages of recovery. More were inside the buildings. A dazed demon came alert when they passed. He bowed to Kynan as so many were doing, but he took one look at Maddy and growled, full-toothed and venomous. Vahid shouted a shade too late. The former mageheld, partially in nonhuman form, leapt at her, clawed hands outstretched.

  He was fast and silent, he had that going for him, but honestly, this sort of thing happened all the time when magehelds were severed. She didn’t flinch even though his claws came within inches of her chest. The former mageheld slammed against the wall she put up and hit the ground hard. Immobilizing him, she crouched and stroked a hand along his s
narling face, aware of Vahid gawking. She hoped he wasn’t disappointed she hadn’t been injured or killed.

  “Listen up,” she said to the demon on the ground. She waited until she had his attention. “What happened to you here is an abomination. We have ended it. Right now you probably hate witches more than anything, but I promise you, I am not your enemy.” She let him feel her oath to Kynan, and his eyes widened. “My name is Maddy Winters. I am sworn to the warlord Kynan Aijan”—the words sounded foreign, but they came with a fierce joy. “We are loyal to Nikodemus.”

  The former mageheld snarled at her, but his response was a general statement, not another futile attempt to kill her.

  “You’re new. We get that. Don’t try it again.” She patted his cheek. “Not with me or any of the other witches and mages sworn to Nikodemus. The outcome won’t make anyone happy. Blink if you understand.” When he blinked, she released him and stood, hand extended to him. “We all need help from time to time.” Slowly, distrustfully—she didn’t blame him for his reluctance—he placed his hand in hers. They both pretended he didn’t need the help. It was a manners thing.

  Kynan touched her shoulder. “Let’s go.”

  “Of course, warlord.”

  To their immediate right, a bunkhouse-style building contained a number of vanilla humans. The doors gaped open, hinges broken, the wood shredded in places. Not far from there, a school bus painted camouflage-green sat with the door open. Humans were inside, women and children ranging from infants to teenagers. From what she could tell, most of the children were boys.

  Xia exited the bunkhouse with a dark-skinned woman at his side. Not a magic user and six or seven months pregnant. His fingers touched the back of her elbow, and he gripped a bulging canvas shopping bag in the other. The woman’s wrists and ankles were bandaged, her skin tinged gray.

  He acknowledged Maddy with a nod. Xia was taller and more muscular than Kynan, and nobody who wasn’t an idiot ever mistook him for kind or pleasant. His attention shifted among her, Kynan, and Vahid. “We need to talk. Give me a minute?” he said.