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

by Marie, Annette

  A black shape appeared among the shadows, drawing closer. Two points of crimson glowed—demonic eyes.

  Zylas stalked down the alley, irritation radiating off him with each gliding step. And under his arm …

  Amalia hung from his arm like an oversized sack, her hands scrabbling vainly at his wrist. Her hair was a wild tangle, her face pasty white beneath her makeup.

  Zylas swept over to me and tossed Amalia onto the ground. She hit the pavement in her third painful impact of the evening, a gasping whimper rushing from her throat. She shoved onto her hands and knees—and Zylas stepped on her back, flattening her. Her sharp cry echoed off the alley walls.

  Leaning his weight on her, he grabbed her hair at the scalp and bent her head back to look into her terrified face.

  “Listening, hh’ainun?” he snarled. “The payilas wants your help, so you will help her. If you don’t, I will take you apart piece by piece by little piece. Sounds fun, na? Or would you rather help her?”

  Amalia’s mouth moved but no sound came out.

  He pulled harder on her hair. “Answer or I will decide for you.”

  “Zylas!” I shrieked, breaking my horrified silence. “Let her go!”

  His glowing eyes didn’t shift from Amalia’s face.

  She whimpered weakly. “I’ll help. I’ll do whatever you want.”

  “Smart hh’ainun,” he crooned, opening his hand. He stepped off her and folded his arms expectantly.

  I stared at him, then at Amalia, my limbs quivering. Her teary glare burned with hatred as, wincing and cringing, she gingerly sat up.

  “I—I didn’t tell him to do that,” I choked. “I didn’t, I swear.”

  Her mouth trembled as she fought back tears. Sucking in a breath, she straightened her spine. “I dropped my backpack. I need to go get it, then we should find a hotel.”

  Just like that, she was tough-Amalia again, pretending nothing had happened and a vicious demon wasn’t one word away from ripping her apart. I wished I had half her backbone.

  “Okay,” I mumbled, climbing to my feet.

  Amalia got up far more slowly, each movement triggering a wince. Without the contract, without Zylas’s promise, he could have done the same to me. His interpretation of “protect,” whatever it might be, was all that kept me safe from his strength, his claws, and his merciless brutality.

  He watched me, arms folded, tail lashing impatiently.

  I was bound to him. He was my demon. And if I couldn’t control him, he would kill a lot of people before he and I landed in an early grave.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Amalia scrubbed both hands over her face, then dropped them into her lap.

  “Let me see if I’ve got this right,” she said. “You were feeding the demon in the library because … I still don’t understand your reasoning, but whatever. You were feeding it. Travis saw you.”

  I nodded.

  “This afternoon, while we were out, Travis took you downstairs and Dad’s clients were there. Travis had made a deal with them.”

  I bobbed my head again.

  “And then …” She took a deep breath. “And then you made a contract with the demon to save yourself.”

  “Yes,” I whispered, not minding that she’d skipped over the worst part.

  We were sitting side by side on a stiff bed, heads bent together to hear each other’s quiet murmurs over the blaring television. This was the first motel we’d found and we’d checked into the double-queen room thirty minutes ago. Amalia had cleaned and bandaged her scraped elbows and knees with the first-aid kit from the front desk while I told her the whole story.

  “You couldn’t have had much time to lay out a contract,” she muttered, picking at a tear in the skirt of her dress. “You definitely missed a few key clauses.”

  “What are the key clauses?”

  “There are a lot. What did you include in your contract?”

  “Well, he …” I fidgeted with the infernus’s chain around my neck. “He has to protect me.”

  “That’s vague. What else?”

  “In exchange, I’m supposed to … make him cookies.”

  She stared at me expectantly, waiting for the joke’s punchline. “Are you serious?”

  “I was bleeding to death,” I mumbled in embarrassment. “It was all I could think of.”

  “You’re supposed to promise the demon your soul when you die.”

  “Why would I give him my soul?”

  “Don’t you know what the Banishment Clause is?” When I shook my head, she sighed. “Okay, so once a demon is summoned to Earth, it can’t return to its own world—except with a soul it’s bound to. When you die, the demon is supposed to use your soul to escape our world. The Banishment Clause is crucial to a contract because without it, your demon is set loose when you die.”

  “Zylas wanted my soul, but I said no.”

  She huffed. “The demon must’ve been more desperate than you to agree to that. What else did you negotiate?”

  “That’s it.”

  “No, I mean, what other clauses did you two agree on?”

  “None.”

  “What do you mean, none?”

  I shrugged self-consciously. “He protects me in exchange for baked goods. That’s … that’s the whole contract.”

  Horrified disbelief twisted her face and she turned toward the room’s opposite end. I followed her gaze.

  Zylas was crouched on the dresser, his tail swishing back and forth in front of the drawers. His nose was an inch from the wall-mounted TV, his head tilted. As we watched, he leaned sideways to peer behind the screen, trying to figure out where the picture and sound were coming from.

  “Protect you,” Amalia whispered with a shudder. “You know a proper contract is about fifty pages long, right? You have to cover every possible scenario or the demon will find a loophole. Did you even define what ‘protect you’ involves?”

  “No. He says he gets to decide what it means.”

  Shivering again, she lowered her voice to a whisper. “Do you realize that demon doesn’t have to obey you? It can do whatever it wants, as long as you aren’t hurt in the process. I don’t understand why it isn’t already on a killing spree.”

  Zylas’s tail lashed, thudding against the dresser. He peered around the other side of the television.

  “I explained to him how I’d be executed if the MPD found out I’m in an illegal contract,” I told her. “I think that’s why he’s behaving so well. If he draws attention to himself, it would put me in danger.”

  “And putting you in danger would violate the protection clause,” Amalia murmured. “That’s a good sign.”

  “What happens if he violates a clause?”

  “Demons never violate their contracts. The magic binds them somehow. You can violate it, though. If you do, the contract magic weakens, so make sure you bake that bastard all the cookies it wants.” Her face hardened and she leaned close to whisper in my ear. “You’d better keep that demon one hundred percent convinced you can’t survive without me.”

  I nodded earnestly. If Zylas decided Amalia wasn’t necessary anymore, he’d kill her.

  She sat back against the headboard. “All right, first things first. You’re an illegal contractor, which means you’re officially a rogue and—”

  Crunch.

  Zylas, still crouched on the dresser, now held the television, which he’d ripped off its wall mount. As a crappy made-for-TV movie blared from the speakers, he studied the television’s back, then tore the cord out. The sound cut off and the picture went dark.

  Amalia continued as though we hadn’t witnessed anything out of the ordinary. “You’re a rogue, so your best bet is to find a rogue guild and—”

  “Wait,” I interrupted. “Doesn’t Uncle Jack have a system for forging his clients’ paperwork? So they can be legal contractors?”

  “Yeah, but he uses special forms that his MPD contact has prepared, and without those …”

  She t
railed off as I jumped up. Zylas paused midway through prying the plastic backing off the TV to watch me dig through my suitcase. I pulled out my cantrips textbook and flipped it open. Taking the folded papers, I closed the book on the copy of the grimoire page and handed Amalia the forms.

  She unfolded them, her expression incredulous. “How did you…?”

  “Uh …” Admitting that I’d considered blackmailing her father seemed unwise.

  “Whatever,” she sighed. “This is good. We can register you as a legal contractor, but you’ll also need to join a guild with a Demonica license.”

  “A Demonica license?”

  “Yeah.” She unplugged her phone from the wall charger and pulled up an app. “Guilds need a special license to have Demonica members. Most guilds don’t bother with it—they don’t want contractors. Let’s see … guilds with a license …”

  I recognized the MPD app on her screen. Along with making and enforcing laws, the MPD required anyone with magic to join a guild by eighteen years old. Guilds provided support but also monitored their members, helping enforce the rules and laws.

  Since I wasn’t a practicing sorceress, being a guild member was kind of like having a gym membership I never used. I paid a monthly fee and scheduled an annual checkup every spring, but not all guilds were that passive. Some were tight-knit communities, some were weekend clubs, and some were businesses with members doubling as staff.

  “Okay,” Amalia said. “There aren’t many around here. Your options are the Grand Grimoire, Odin’s Eye, M&L, the Crow and Hammer, and the Seadevils. That’s it.”

  “The only one I recognize is M&L.” That guild was also an international bank—the same one my father had worked for. They employed a lot of mythics, and most of us did our banking with them.

  “You don’t want to join M&L. They’re sticklers for rules, and I think they only take Demonica mythics for security jobs. Let’s see … the Seadevils guild has one contractor and the Crow and Hammer has none. That’s no good. You’ll need to blend in.”

  Unease churned in my gut at the thought of transferring to any of those guilds, but this was my new reality. Until I could get rid of Zylas, I had to accept I was a contractor. An illegal one.

  “So that leaves the Grand Grimoire and Odin’s Eye—oh, but Odin’s Eye is a bounty-hunting guild. You’d never get in, and you want to stay far away from bounty hunters anyway. It’s gotta be the Grand Grimoire. They’re a Demonica guild, so you’ll blend right in with the rest.”

  “Okay,” I mumbled.

  “Let’s get this form filled out and—” Her phone beeped loudly. She tapped the screen and read something, her full lips pressing into a grimace. “The MPD just sent out the alert.”

  “What alert?”

  “For an unbound demon. Took them long enough. You sent in that tip hours ago. They must’ve lost the demon, but now they’ve located it and they need the combat guilds. See?”

  She held out her phone, the message displayed in bold text.

  MPD Emergency Alert: --CODE BLACK-- Suspected unbound demon active in your area. All CM assemble at GHQ ASAP. NCM take shelter. PROCEED WITH UTMOST CAUTION.

  Unused to MagiPol acronyms, it took me a moment to parse the whole message. Combat mythics were to assemble at their guilds, while non-combat mythics should take cover. With that alert, every mythic in the city now knew about the escaped demon, and they’d be either terrified or preparing to face the creature’s unchecked magic in the hope of killing it. I squirmed, painfully aware of my role in the demon’s escape.

  “Anyway,” Amalia said, tossing her phone onto the mattress, “let’s get these forms filled out. Dad made me do his paperwork all the time, so I have the MPD guy’s email memorized.”

  We busied ourselves filling out the form while Zylas systemically gutted the television. Amalia scanned the paperwork with her phone, sent it off, then stood and stretched.

  “As soon as we get confirmation that he’s inserted your paperwork into the system, you can apply to the Grand Grimoire. You need to move fast or it’ll look suspicious.”

  I nodded. “Thanks, Amalia. I would’ve been screwed without your help.”

  Her gaze darted to Zylas. “None of this will save you if your demon doesn’t behave as if it’s properly contracted. That part is for you to figure out. I’m going down to see if the front desk guy can recommend any late-night delivery options.”

  Giving Zylas a wide berth, she swung the door shut behind her. I sighed, figuring she wanted to get away from the demon more than she wanted to visit the front desk. Unconcerned by her absence, Zylas snapped a chip board out of the TV’s innards and examined it from every angle.

  “Having fun?” I asked him dryly, flopping onto the mattress.

  He tossed the board into the gutted television and hopped off the dresser. Gliding over to the bed, he looked down at me, his dark pupils constricted to slits in the yellow glow of the bedside lamp. I wondered if he wanted to break me open and examine my insides the way he had with the television.

  “You have a plan?” he asked in his strange accent.

  “I think so.”

  “Join a guild? Blend in?”

  “You were listening?”

  His hand closed over the front of my sweater and he pulled me upright. My head spun from the sudden movement—and my breath caught when I found myself nose to nose with him.

  “You expect me to behave?” He sneered the word. “I must be obedient? What is the difference between surrendering my will and pretending to?”

  I cringed back but he didn’t release my shirt. He towered over me, his upper lip curling to reveal his sharp canines. “I have to, Zylas. It’s the only way to—”

  “What if I refuse to behave, payilas?”

  Alarm shot through me. “You—you have to protect me!”

  “I decide how.” His unsheathing claws pierced my shirt with a tearing sound. “I did not give you my will.”

  My pulse thundered in my ears. “Zylas … what do you want?”

  “Ih?”

  “Back in the circle … you asked me what I wanted and I said protection. But what do you want? I know it isn’t cookies.”

  “I wanted your soul, payilas, but you would not give it to me.”

  I let out a slow breath. “You want to go home.”

  Without my soul, he couldn’t escape this world. When my death released him from the contract, he’d be set adrift here. Though he’d escaped the circle alive, he now faced a human lifetime spent babysitting a helpless girl, then however much longer wandering my world until he died or someone killed him.

  “I’ll find a way for you to return home.” Only after I’d said the words did I stop to consider them—and the magnitude of the offer I was making.

  Zylas went very still. Watching me. Waiting.

  “There has to be a way for demons to get in and out of this world,” I plowed on. “If there wasn’t, how would the first human have learned how to summon demons?”

  “You think you can discover this?”

  “I can’t promise I’ll succeed, but I promise to try.” I stared up at him anxiously. “It’ll take time—a long time, maybe years.”

  “Years,” he scoffed. “What do you know about those, payilas of twenty years?”

  “What do you know? You can’t even tell me how old you are.”

  He leaned down, his warm breath brushing my cheek, and I recoiled. He moved with me until I tipped over and landed on my back. Bracing a hand on the mattress, he tapped the infernus under my sweater.

  “Our contract is sealed.” His red eyes drilled into me. “But you will promise to find this—a way I can return home?”

  “I promise to try my best.”

  He searched my face for a sign of deception. “Then I will try to … behave … so the hh’ainun zh’ūltis will think I am obedient.”

  I hadn’t picked up many of the demonic words he peppered through his speech, but that one was easy: stupid humans.

>   “Deal,” I said. “Now would you get off me?”

  “Why? I am not hurting you.” As though to prove his point, he pushed a hand into my hair, his warm palm against my cheek.

  I grabbed his wrist to yank his hand away—assuming I could—and the sensation under my palm belatedly registered in my brain. My eyes popped wide and I shoved myself up.

  My sudden movement startled him and he released my hair. I caught his arm and ran my palm from his elbow to the strap that crossed his right shoulder, then pressed both hands to his bare stomach below his leather-and-plate chest armor.

  “You’re warm!” I exclaimed. “Even warmer than me! Your skin was so cold before. Are you sick? Do you have a fever?”

  “I do not know those words.”

  “Are you ill? Unwell?” Warmth radiated from his skin into my palms. His temperature had to be at least two degrees higher than mine. “Are you supposed to be this warm?”

  “Yes. I recovered vīsh in the light. Outside.”

  “You … you powered up your magic in the sunlight?” I realized. “That’s what you were doing after healing me … before you set that other demon loose. Why did you do that, by the way?” I added, my tone hardening.

  He shrugged dismissively. The motion caused his abdomen to tense under my palms—and I realized I still had my hands pressed firmly to his bare stomach.

  His bare stomach of hard, taut muscles that could put any non-demonic man to shame.

  I snatched my hands away, heat flushing through my cheeks. He didn’t seem to have noticed—or didn’t care—that I’d been touching him in a way human females did not touch human males they weren’t intimately familiar with.

  His face appeared in front of mine, a curious frown tweaking his lips. “What is wrong with your head? Your skin is changing color.”

  “It’s nothing!” My cheeks, of course, grew even hotter. “I’m fine.”

  “Na? But why—”

  “It’s nothing!” I scrambled across the mattress to the bed’s farthest edge, then rolled onto my side with my back to him. “I’m tired. I need to sleep.”