Taming Demons for Beginners: The Guild Codex: Demonized / One

by Marie, Annette

  Blood ran down my arm. I quivered violently, panting for air.

  “Let me go,” I gasped. “Let me go!”

  Like Zylas, they ignored me. Travis was looking in every direction but mine, his shoulders hunched and face crumpled with indecision. Or maybe resignation.

  “Please,” I wept as my blood dripped steadily onto the floor. “Please let me go.”

  “Demon,” Vince called. “Your time is running out. Or rather, hers is. If you want her fresh and kicking, answer me now.”

  How could they talk about me like that? How could they throw me to the demon like a piece of meat? They were as evil as the creature in the circle. As heartless. As monstrous.

  “Travis, help me,” I begged through my tears. “Don’t let them do this!”

  Vince squeezed my wrist. He raised the blood-smeared knife again.

  “No!” I screamed, thrashing against the hands holding me. “The demon will never talk to you! He’ll never do it! Let me go. Just let me go!”

  Vince sliced the knife across my arm again.

  My scream shattered my eardrums. Blood ran. I was going to die. They were going to kill me. I would bleed out while they all watched—the three men, Travis, and Zylas.

  I should never have come to this place. Should never have talked to Zylas. My parents had warned me: stay away from magic.

  Adrenaline surged through me and I wrenched my entire body in a violent spasm. Hulk’s hands slipped. Tearing free, I flung myself away. My socks slid on the hardwood and I grabbed the podium for balance. As it tipped over, a heavy tome tumbled off and a flat silver pendant skittered over the hardwood.

  I surged past the falling objects toward the door—and hands grabbed my sweater. They hauled me backward. Spun me around. Vince’s cold face blurred in my vision, and the knife flicked upward a third time.

  Hulk threw me down. I hit the floor, the breath knocked out of my lungs. The flat pendant from the podium caught under my hand, the cold chain tangling in my fingers. My vision wavered with tears and panic and light-headed shock. It didn’t hurt anymore. That was probably a bad sign.

  “Last chance, demon. You have about ten minutes until she bleeds out. We’ll wait.”

  I lay on the floor, shaking, weak. Weak in so many ways. Useless. Pathetic. Too powerless for this world of magic. What use was knowledge? How would book-learning save me?

  Blood pooled under my arm, my racing heart pumping it out of my sliced veins. Zylas had wanted to see my blood. He’d gotten his wish.

  Behind me, Karlson and his cronies murmured as they waited, conversing like gentlemen at a party, cocktails in hand. Travis had retreated and hovered halfway to the door.

  In front of me, a foot away, the circle’s silver inlay gleamed faintly. I lifted my gaze to the darkness within.

  And looked into Zylas’s black eyes.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I stared into the demon’s obsidian eyes.

  Scarcely two feet away, Zylas crouched at the circle’s edge. The darkness inside swirled and eddied, revealing his shape in faint glimpses and flashes of reddish-toffee skin. The barrier rippled as he pressed against it, his dark gaze fixed on my face.

  Behind me, Karlson said something and his two associates laughed. They laughed. Too busy chatting, they hadn’t noticed that Zylas’s shadowy form was so close, pushing against the barrier, straining to reach me.

  Bloodlust rolled off the demon. I could taste it in the air, as potent as the coppery tang of my blood. Crouched in his prison, he silently, lustfully watched me die from inches away. If he’d spoken, if he’d said something to the men, could he have saved my life? Did he even want to?

  A monster before me. Three different monsters behind me. I was dying, and one of them would be my executioner. But which?

  Karlson and the others were trading my life for a demon contract. But was my blood enough to break Zylas’s resolve? Would he stay silent and hidden while I died in front of him, or would he give in so he could take my life himself?

  My arm trembled as I slid my hand across the hardwood, leaving a smear of blood in its wake. The barrier rippled more violently as Zylas pressed against it. The conversation behind me stuttered.

  My fingertips brushed the silver inlay.

  “What’s she doing? Stop her!”

  Footsteps erupted, vibrating the floor as the men scrambled toward me. Hands grabbed my ankles to tear me away from the circle. Zylas’s black eyes bored into mine.

  I wouldn’t give those bastards the chance to win. I would laugh at them as I died.

  I thrust my fingers through the barrier, my human flesh passing effortlessly into Zylas’s prison. His hand clamped around my wrist, cold and steely. His gaze held mine without faltering.

  He wrenched me into the circle.

  His strength tore my legs from the men’s grasping hands. I flew into the hellish night within the dome, my vision darkening, frigid air sweeping over me. Scents filled my nose—earthy leather, the tang of metal, and something smoky and aromatic, almost like hickory.

  I tumbled to a stop, my limbs splayed. An object jangled and clanked, the sound of metal hitting the floor. Hazily, my brain identified the orientation of my body—half sitting, half slumped, something supporting my back, solidity against my side.

  Zylas’s arm supported my back. Zylas’s chest pressed against my side.

  His cool hand closed around my sliced arm and squeezed. Pain flared hot and deep. A sob shuddered out of me.

  “Zylas,” I choked out, praying that somewhere in his demonic psyche he could find a shred of mercy. “Please kill me quickly.”

  “Is that what you want, payilas?” His husky whisper brushed across my cheek. His face was close, but I couldn’t see anything in the freezing darkness. Outside the circle, male voices buzzed angrily, the words jumbling in my ears.

  “I did what I could to help you,” I whimpered. “Please don’t make me suffer.”

  “What do you want?”

  My arm was on fire, blazing with agony, and I didn’t understand his question. My crumbling composure gave way.

  “I don’t want to die,” I sobbed, shaking and gasping.

  His hand squeezed harder and fresh torment cascaded through my nerves. “What do you want from me?”

  I couldn’t think. I didn’t know. One need, one primal urge dominated my mind—survival. I wanted to live. I wanted to keep breathing. I wanted to live and—and—

  And … what?

  Did I want to escape this circle? Did I want to face those men again? Did I want to survive them, only to face Uncle Jack’s fury? Did I want to fail to get the grimoire, to fail my parents?

  Tears flooded my cheeks. What I truly wanted was an ally. I didn’t want to struggle alone anymore, to fight alone with no one at my side, no one at my back. No one to step in front of me and shield me, as my parents once had.

  “Payilas.” His whisper demanded my answer.

  “Protect me.”

  I didn’t arrive at those words. They simply fell from my mouth, called out by his demand.

  His breath cooled the tears on my cheeks. “What will you give me?”

  My head was spinning. I didn’t know if I was staring into the featureless darkness or if my eyes were closed. My heart thundered with growing desperation.

  He was waiting, and through the overwhelming pain and fear, only one thing came to mind. “Cookies. I made you cookies before.”

  “Cookies?” His arm pulled me closer and his mouth pressed against my ear, his whispered command shuddering down to my bones. “Promise me your soul, payilas.”

  My soul? The floor rolled and tilted under me. “No … I can’t give you …”

  “Would you rather die?”

  “I … but I can’t …”

  “I need your soul, payilas.”

  “But I need my soul,” I insisted thickly, barely coherent but certain of one thing: my soul, whatever it was or whether I even had one, wasn’t something I was giving a
way to anyone.

  A harsh exhalation rushed through his teeth. He seemed to hang on something, his body rigid, his powerful hands bruising me with the tension in his grip. As the seconds slid past, my lungs heaved in shallow pants and my limbs tingled with growing cold.

  “Fine,” he snarled furiously. “I accept.”

  My pulse drummed in my ears. He accepted what?

  He released my arm and hot blood flooded my skin. His slick fingers pressed something flat and round into my weak grasp, then his hand closed over mine, compressing the cold disc between our palms. Pulling me hard against his side, he raised our entwined hands.

  “Now seal it.” His husky voice filled my head like the shadows that surrounded us. “Enpedēra vīsh nā.”

  I was beyond thought or decision, but my mouth moved, my tongue forming the alien words without my instruction. “Enpedēra vīsh nā.”

  As the last sound left my lips, new pain erupted—burning agony in my palm. The hard disc erupted with deep crimson light, shoving the shadows back. Zylas’s fingers, entwined through mine, gripped hard, preventing me from releasing the scorching metal. The fire tore down my arm and into my chest, ripping a scream from my throat.

  “What was that?” a voice outside the circle demanded, sounding far away. “Did you see that light?”

  “The demon is killing her and recharging its magic,” another voice spat. “Now we’ll have to wait for it to weaken again.”

  The light died and the burning heat in my arm vanished. Zylas’s fingers uncurled and I snatched my hand away, tucking it to my chest as I shuddered.

  “Now, payilas,” he crooned in my ear. “I need strength. How much heat can you spare?”

  “Heat?” I slurred.

  “Not much,” he mused as his cool fingers touched the base of my throat.

  My skin tingled—then cold hit me like a wave of arctic ocean. The heat sucked out of my body and I convulsed in a desperate attempt to get away. He caught my flailing arms—and his hands were warmer than my chilled skin.

  Crimson eyes glowed in the darkness.

  Zylas stood up, hauling me with him. Everything spun and I didn’t know where the floor was. His hand brushed my hair, then something thumped against my chest with the jingle of a metal chain. Hunching under the low dome, he pulled my back against his torso, his arms around my middle to support my trembling legs. The metal plate that protected his heart dug into my spine.

  “Stand, payilas,” he breathed in my ear. “All you must do is leave the circle. I will do the rest.”

  I shook violently, hypothermic, anemic, disoriented. “Leave?”

  “Yes.” His hands gripped my waist. “Are you ready?”

  No. No, I wasn’t—

  With an eddying swirl, the darkness in the dome melted away. Light blasted my eyes, half blinding me.

  Held by Zylas, I faced the fallen podium, the floor splattered with my blood. Beyond it, Karlson, Hulk, and Vince had frozen at my sudden reappearance. Travis sat against a bookshelf beside the door, hunched over his drawn-up knees. His mouth hung open.

  Zylas threw me out of the circle.

  As I flew forward, streaks of red light leaped with me, shooting all around my body and coalescing at my chest. I hurtled across the silver line and slammed into the floor on the other side, sprawling face down.

  I wanted to lie there and die, but not with the three monstrous men watching me. Trembling, I braced my hands against the floor. As I pushed myself up, the flat metal disc swung from the chain around my neck.

  Behind me, the summoning circle was empty. My head buzzed with dull confusion. How could it be empty? Where was Zylas?

  Crimson light burst from the pendant around my neck like spouting liquid. It hit the floor and pooled upward, as though filling an invisible mold—a human-shaped mold. Flaring brightly, the light dissipated to reveal a figure in its place.

  Zylas stood in front of me, facing the three men.

  Outside the circle. He was outside the circle.

  He lifted his arms away from his body and curled his fingers. His short claws unsheathed, doubling in length until they’d extended well past his fingertips.

  “Ahh,” he half sighed, half growled, his husky voice sliding through the silent room. “It feels good to move again.”

  Terror pulsed through the library.

  “It’s unbound!” Karlson roared. “Call your demons!”

  Vince and Hulk yanked silver pendants from beneath their shirts. Crimson radiance bloomed across the metal.

  Zylas’s tail lashed—then he leaped. Fast. A reddish blur. He soared over the podium, took a springing step, and landed beside Hulk. His hand flashed out, closed around the man’s pendant, and tore it away. The disc bounced across the floor.

  Zylas spun behind Hulk. The man pitched forward, blood spraying from his back in a sparkling wave. Zylas whirled across the man’s other side, claws flashing again. As he fell, Hulk’s throat disappeared, replaced by gushing gore. The man collapsed.

  Three seconds. It had taken Zylas three seconds to kill him.

  “Run!” Vince bellowed.

  Run, I thought vaguely. I should run too. My vision blurred in bright ripples. Pain jarred through me and I realized my arms had given out; I’d collapsed to the floor. This time, I didn’t try to rise. The temperature had plunged, the room so cold that frost sparkled across the floor, dancing in my fading sight. Men were shouting. Screams. Footsteps, thundering impacts with the floor.

  The sounds blurred too, mashing together until I couldn’t hear anything but the roaring blood in my ears. My body had gone numb. Was I shivering? Was I trembling? Was I still breathing?

  “Do not die, payilas.”

  I was lying on my back.

  A hand was pressed to my chest and heat was flowing into me.

  Another hand was pushing my bleeding arm into the floor as power crackled against my skin. My eyelids fluttered.

  Zylas was crouched over me. Crimson light veined his right hand and crawled across my chest, sinking into my body like water into sand. Under his other hand, the one crushing my arm, a two-foot-wide red circle glowed across the floor, its interior filled with shifting runes.

  At the edge of my vision, beyond the fallen podium, Hulk lay face down in a puddle of blood. Vince was slumped spread-eagle against a broken bookshelf, surrounded by scattered leather tomes and his head resting unnaturally on his shoulder. His dead eyes stared at the empty summoning circle.

  Red magic blazed around me. Concentration tightening his face, Zylas murmured rapidly, the words flowing in the rhythm of an incantation. Power coursed down his arm and flooded the spell. Luminous magic gathered in my bleeding wounds.

  His eyes, bright with power, caught on mine. Then he snarled a final command, electric heat exploded through his spell, and heart-stopping agony cleaved through my arm.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Robin,” Mom sighed as she dabbed ointment on my hand, “what have I told you about getting Daddy or me to help when you want to try something new?”

  I stared glumly at my sliced finger, tears brimming in my eyes. On the table beside me, an old book with its cover removed was splattered in scarlet droplets. A box knife lay beside it, abandoned when I’d cut myself.

  “I’ll teach you all about restoring books when you’re older,” Mom promised as she wrapped a bandage around my finger. “Let’s clean this up, all right?”

  I helped her gather the tools, and we carried them from the kitchen into her home office. Her dark ponytail bobbed with her lively steps, dark-rimmed glasses sliding down her small nose. Her blue eyes were just like mine.

  She opened the cabinet in the corner and set her tools in the bin—the same bin I’d “borrowed” them from. I added my armful, feeling guilty.

  She reached for the top shelf and lifted down a small object wrapped in crisp brown paper. “When you’ve mastered book restoration, you can help me with this.”

  She opened the wrapping. Inside wa
s a thick journal-sized book. A tarnished buckle held the ancient leather cover closed, and sheets of white paper stuck out the top, revealing glimpses of my mom’s loopy scrawl.

  “This book is very special, and someday, it’ll be yours. Before you inherit it, we’ll finish restoring and translating it.” She beamed at my awed expression. “It’ll be a mother-daughter project, just for us, and when you have a daughter of your own, you’ll pass this book on to her.”

  I frowned. “What if I don’t have a daughter?”

  She tweaked my nose playfully. “A worry for another day, Little Bird. Shall we find Daddy? He’s lost in yardwork again.”

  As she ambled out of the office, I blinked up at the cabinet, the secret, special book hidden on the top shelf.

  “Robin!”

  My cut finger twinged painfully. I held it up—and terror flooded me as red liquid spurted through the Band-Aid.

  “Robin!”

  Cuts opened on my thin arm, the three gashes pouring blood over the hardwood floor. I screamed—

  “Robin!”

  Hands shook my shoulders roughly. My eyes flew open.

  Amalia leaned over me, her face pale. The library lights blazed, illuminating the horrific scene. The empty summoning circle. Blood everywhere. Two bodies. I gagged on the stench of death.

  “Is she awake?” Uncle Jack’s shout made me jump. He appeared beside Amalia, his face splotched with pink and a vein throbbing on his bald head. “What happened?”

  I cringed back from his furious holler.

  He stooped, grabbed the front of my t-shirt, and yanked my torso off the floor. “Robin, where’s the demon?”

  “That’s your first question?” Amalia yelled. She shoved his hands away and put her arm around my shoulders, helping me sit up. “If you won’t ask if she’s okay, at least ask about Travis before the goddamn demon!”

  “Someone stole it,” Uncle Jack spat. “I want answers! Robin, tell me what happened!”

  “I—I heard noises in the basement, so I came to see and I saw … I saw the bodies.” My gaze darted to Vince and Hulk. “I don’t remember anything else. I think I fainted.”