The Trouble With Demons

Chapter 4

Mychael and I were inside the conference room; four Guardians were outside the conference room. Piaras was being taken under Guardian protection back to the safety of the Fortune. Talon was being escorted back to Sirens, Tam’s nightclub. The conference room door was closed. So it was just me, Mychael, and enough tension and sizzling magical leftovers to fill the rest of the room. Cozy.

Like an increasing number of his men, Mychael was wearing full battle armor. For Guardians, that didn’t mean clunky, shiny plate mail. Mychael’s armor was steel and then some, and sleek was the best way to describe it. Matte finish, dark gray, and custom fit-Mychael’s armor conformed to his leanly muscled body almost like a second skin. No armorer was that good; there had to have been magic involved when it was forged.

I made myself stop staring at Mychael’s conformities and helped myself to a chair. “The reason you’re rushing those boys out of here wouldn’t happen to be named Carnades Silvanus?”

“It would.”

“Shit,” I spat.

Mychael nodded. “That’s why I made sure I got here before he did.”

“You know for a fact he’s coming?”

“Without a doubt. And Piaras and Talon not being here will cause two less complications.”

I raised an eyebrow. “So that’s what you’re calling me now? A complication.”

Mychael pulled up a chair and sat facing me, mere inches separating us. He almost smiled. “You don’t think it fits?”

“Oh, it fits. I just think you could’ve done better. Carnades has got some downright colorful names for me.”

“Carnades has more time to think than I do.”

“And plot,” I reminded him. “Don’t forget the plotting and scheming.”

Carnades Silvanus was second only to the archmagus in terms of position on the Conclave’s Seat of Twelve. The archmagus had the top spot and absolute authority over the Isle of Mid and everyone on it. Last week, Archmagus Justinius Valerian had nearly been assassinated. Until the old man recovered, Carnades had gone from second in command to sitting in the big chair, and he was determined to turn his temporary promotion into his permanent job.

When Mychael didn’t respond, I thought I’d just cut to the chase. I had a knot in my stomach, but I went for casual and leaned back in the chair, tipping the front legs off of the floor. “Since I was there, I know what happened. I won’t even pretend to understand any of it, but-”

“More demons have been spotted across the city,” Mychael said quietly.

I swore. “Blue and naked?”

“The very same.”

“Any more purple ones?”

“No Volghuls-not yet.” His tone indicated that he didn’t expect that good fortune to last for long. His lips curved up in a tired grin. “I hear you made quite an impression in the Quad.”

I snorted. “At what? Finding a wine bottle?”

Mychael’s blue eyes gleamed. “Vegard came right out and called you magnificent; he said you didn’t give one inch of ground to that monster.”

“I didn’t know it was an advance guard to a freaking horde of demons.”

He chuckled. “It wouldn’t have made a bit of difference. If you’d known, you wouldn’t have budged out of sheer stubbornness.” In a blink of an eye, his good humor was gone. “There have been five Dagik sightings in the past two hours.”

“Dagik?”

“A species of demon. The blue ones,” he clarified.

“Oh. There’s probably more than five; they’re cloaking. We had over two dozen in that street with us, and they were cloaked until I hit one of them in the head with a brick.”

I got the treat of seeing Mychael momentarily speechless. “You hit a Dagik in the head with a brick?”

“It wasn’t an entire brick, just a chunk. And it wasn’t like I had a choice. I couldn’t get Vegard or Phaelan to believe I saw anything, so I figured pain would make the thing drop its cloak.” I tried a grin, though I didn’t find anything funny about what had happened in that street. “Turns out I was right. Then Vegard gave the rest of them a dirt bath. Then everyone could see them.”

The corner of Mychael’s mouth quirked in a quick smile. “So I heard. Vegard is a very resourceful man.” The smile vanished. “Do you know why you were the only one who could see them?”

“The way my luck’s been running, it’s probably a Saghred thing.” I paused. “Did Vegard tell you what Piaras and Talon did?”

“He mentioned it.”

I proceeded to do more than mention it. I told Mychael what they’d done, what Ronan Cayle had deemed Piaras qualified to handle, and exactly how I felt about all of it.

“Ronan came and spoke to me before he started those lessons,” Mychael told me. “He told me the results of his testing. He was right to start Piaras where he did.”

“He could have been killed-or worse.”

“Raine, Piaras wants to be a Guardian. There will always be risks, and some of the biggest risks can come during training. Every precaution is taken to protect-”

“But accidents happen,” I snapped.

“Yes.”

“And inexperienced kids can get in over their heads.”

“Unfortunately, also yes. Raine, it was Piaras’s decision.

He’s eighteen; he’s a man now. His decisions and choices are his own.”

Mychael was right and I knew it. But just because I knew, it didn’t mean I had to like it. I didn’t say anything; I let my glare do my talking for me.

“I didn’t come down here just because of what happened in the Quad,” Mychael told me. “Though there’s a good chance that they’re related. I needed to talk to you. The containment spells around the Saghred have been decreasing over the past few days.”

My stomach tried to do a flip. “How?”

“The only explanation we can find is that the stone is absorbing them. The Conclave’s best spellweavers haven’t been able to restore them.” His blue eyes were intent on mine. “Have you experienced anything unusual?”

“Unusual?” I resisted the urge to laugh. “As opposed to my normal, everyday contact with the thing? And seeing naked, blue demons in the middle of a crowded street in broad daylight?” Don’t forget the flying purple one over the Quad, my gloom-and-doom pessimist reminded me. My stomach flip turned into full-fledged queasy.

“Raine, it’s important. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t.”

I took a breath and slowly let it out. “Okay, I was in the street, lobbing fireballs at the purple one, the Volghul. Suddenly it was like the Saghred got a whiff of that thing and decided to say hello.”

“It wanted you to use it against the Volghul?”

“I wish. I couldn’t make another fireball if my life depended on it, and it did. I figured the Saghred was gathering up its energy for the usual-the white-hot, raging command to kill. That’s not what I got. The rock was burning, all right; it was downright warm and welcoming-for the demon. That’s when the Volghul bowed to me and said he was ‘honored by my presence. ’ ” My voice felt the need to get louder, and I let it. “Just what the hell is that supposed to mean?” I shot a glance at the still-closed conference room door and lowered my voice to an outraged whisper. “I thought the Saghred was a goblin rock.”

“The goblins were simply the most recent to possess it.”

Wonderful. “So what you’re saying is that the demons could have had their collective claws on it at some point.”

Mychael nodded. “The recorded history of the Saghred only dates back about a thousand years.”

Crap. “And those were goblin records.” I was all too familiar with them; I’d read them myself in my ongoing effort to rid myself of the rock. “Let me guess: demons aren’t big on keeping journals.”

“It’s highly unlikely.” Mychael leaned forward, resting his elbows on his armored knees. His hands hung loosely. He wasn’t wearing gloves, and the backs of his hands were scored with deep scratches. Demon claws.

I grimaced. “Mychael, shouldn’t you get those taken care of instead of talking to me?”

“Talking to you is more important.” He glanced down at his hands and smiled a little. “They look better than they did. I’m a healer, remember?”

“Aren’t demon claws poisonous or something?”

“Not a Dagik’s. I’ll be fine.”

He said that as if I were the one in bad shape.

“Has anyone inside the Saghred been talking to you?” he asked.

I knew who he meant. Sarad Nukpana. A goblin, the blackest of dark mages, and a proverbial mad genius. He wanted the Saghred and me to wield it for him. Thanks to me, he was trapped inside the rock. Thanks to him, I was now at the top of the goblin king’s most-wanted list. But Nukpana hadn’t been the one speaking to me.

“I’ve been dreaming about my dad,” I murmured.

My father, Eamaliel Anguis, was an elven Guardian whose soul was trapped along with thousands of others inside the Saghred. He’d been the stone’s protector until about a year ago when the Saghred decided to turn its protector into its next meal.

Mychael’s voice was low and controlled. “What kind of dreams?”

“Just talking kind of dreams.” I held up a hand, stopping his next question. “No, I don’t remember any of them. And no, I haven’t felt manipulated by ‘evil forces.’ ”

“I didn’t imply that you were.”

“Then you’re the only one on this island who wouldn’t think so.” I sat up, the front legs of my chair slamming into the floor. “That demon had himself an audience when he said he was

‘honored by my presence.’ I think Carnades won himself a dozen or so more converts to his Lock-Up-Raine Club.” I ran my hand over my face; it came away with dust from the dirt storm Vegard had kicked up. Great. “And the Volghul said that if I came to him, he’d let Piaras and Talon live.”

Mychael went dangerously still. “He wanted you?”

I waited a few heartbeats before answering, a little taken aback by his intensity. “He didn’t tell me what he had in mind, and I didn’t ask. From the look on his face, he was going to enjoy it and I knew I wouldn’t.”

The air around Mychael flared with power. It was magic, definitely lethal, and its target was that purple demon. Then in a blink of an eye, the aura was gone, clamped down tight by the sheer force of Mychael’s will, only to be replaced by something more primitive, more male.

“Are you all right?” he demanded.

“Shaken up, but he didn’t lay a claw on me.”

The power still flowing from him swept over my skin, and I forced back a shiver of pure sensation.

Mychael realized what he was doing and resisted touching me, even though not touching me seemed to take as much effort as not going after that demon. “Raine, I want you to come back to the citadel with me. You’re not safe on Phaelan’s ship.”

I’d stayed in the citadel since arriving on Mid a few weeks ago, but the past few days I’d been on the Fortune. The accommodations Mychael had provided for me had been luxurious, but with guards posted outside my door, a gilded cage was still a cage. My family doesn’t do cages very well.

“Mychael, I’m not safe anywhere, and you know it. Vegard never leaves my side, but if it makes you feel better, post a couple more Guardians, though with literally all hell about to break loose, I doubt if you can spare them. I may not be any safer on the Fortune, but I’m happier. If I can’t be safe, I’ll take happy.”

Mychael sat back and raked his hand through his hair. I knew I’d been one exasperation right after another since the day we’d met.

“I won’t allow myself to be locked up,” I told him.

“I would never lock you up. You know that.”

“If I went back, you wouldn’t let me leave, so what’s the difference?”

“You’d be alive.”

“Possibly.”

“No, definitely.” Mychael said it as if he dared Death to defy him.

“Mychael, I can’t let you-”

“Can’t let me what? Protect you? Save you? Keep the next Volghul from carrying you off? Dammit, Raine, I won’t stand by and-”

He took my hand and the shock of his magic raced up my arm. My breath exploded in a hiss, not of pain, but of every nerve ending suddenly and sharply aware. The air was crisp and alive and filled with scents magnified a hundredfold: the wood of the chair and table, the metallic tang of Mychael’s armor and weapons, and his unmistakably masculine scent. My magic surged forward to meet his, matching him, giving as good as I got. Our magics coiled and twisted, weaving us together, and I was keenly aware of his every pulse, every muscle, the surging of blood through his veins.

And he was just as aware of me-all of me. I was transfixed as his eyes darkened from sun-kissed tropical seas to ocean depths. As his power filled me, I saw what he’d done to the demons that had ambushed him and four of his men. When my magic rose to meet his, Mychael felt what I had done to that Volghul.

And he knew that Tam and I had done it together.

That thought broke whatever hold our powers had on us.

I pulled my hand away, dragging air forcibly into my lungs. “What the hell was that?”

Mychael’s eyes were like twin sapphires. “Magic most potent.” His deep voice was rich and vibrant; it was his spellsinger’s voice. He wasn’t doing it on purpose; it was simply remnants from the power that still roiled within him.

I was about to say “no shit” to his assessment, but the memory of what Tam and I had done froze the words on my lips.

It was my magic that had focused Tam’s power, and my magic that had just surged into Mychael. The Saghred hadn’t had a thing to do with either one.

I felt my hands start to shake and I let them. At least they knew what to do next. “What did you do?”

In response, Mychael tentatively reached out to touch me, but stopped when the air between us crackled with static. The sensation ran up my spine like a warm hand in a velvet glove. Damn, but that felt good. Too good. I held the breath I’d just taken and flattened myself against the back of my chair.

“Stop,” I managed. “No touching.”

Mychael slowly pulled his hand back.

We had touched more than each other’s hands before, but absolutely nothing like this had ever happened.

In that exact instant, Mychael had the same thought; I felt the echo from it flicker inside my mind.

My own thoughts skittered in panicked circles. “I can hear you thinking.”

Mychael sat unmoving. “It’s fading, but I can sense your thoughts, too.”

Damn.

“I agree,” he said.

I hadn’t said it out loud. Double damn.

“Anything like this ever happen to you before?” I asked him.

“Never.” Mychael’s eyes were on mine; they were slowly returning to their normal color. “Was this similar to what happened with you and Tam?”

I hesitated before answering. “Yes… and no. Yes, my magic felt the same as when Tam and I bottled that demon.” I paused. “But Tam didn’t feel anything like you.”

“I’m not Tam.” Mychael’s voice was deeper, huskier.

I swallowed. “I noticed.”

The air between us thickened, and then crackled with pent-up magic, among other things. With visible effort, Mychael pushed back his chair and stood. He put a few steps between us, then turned and leaned against the conference table, crossing his arms over his chest. To avoid temptation, get away from what tempts you. The paladin was back and he had a job to do.

“What happened with Tam in the Quad?” he asked.

“You just saw what happened-”

“Only flashes of image and sound.”

I told him everything, starting from spotting the blue demons in the street, to the elven mage’s murder, to the Volghul.

“I’ve never taken down a demon,” I said. “Tam said he had, so he told me how to channel his power.” I stopped. It took me more than a few moments to say what I didn’t want to acknowledge, let alone admit. “Tam and I seem to have some sort of connection since what happened last week.”

Mychael nodded, his expression grim. He knew only too well what had happened.

Six spellsingers had been kidnapped and held in a prison block deep under the elven embassy. They were intended as sacrifices to feed and reactivate the Saghred. There was a chance that Tam and I could save them, but only if we worked together. The Saghred had wanted to get its figurative hooks into Tam, and saving those spellsingers had given the rock a taste of Tam’s black magic. What we’d done had torn down the magical barriers between us. Tam had said that we weren’t separate anymore. Until today, I hadn’t realized what that meant.

And now, with a single touch of his hand, Mychael’s magic had merged with mine, and we could hear each other’s thoughts. It was only for a few intensely intimate, breath-stopping moments-but it had happened. It was similar enough to what had happened between me and Tam to scare me, but the Saghred hadn’t stepped in to join me and Mychael. It was only the two of us. Mychael was white magic; Tam was dark-it could be as simple as that, but I didn’t think so. Nothing the Saghred ever did was simple.

I blew out my breath. It was a little shaky. “What’s happening to us?”

Mychael’s face showed no emotion. He knew that “us” included Tam. “I don’t have an answer, but we will find one.”

“Best plan I’ve heard all day.” I stood; I couldn’t sit still anymore, either. “Vegard said that Volghuls are advance guards for a legion of demons, and implied that we have ourselves a Hellgate opening on the island.” I didn’t mention that Tam had told me the same thing in my mind. If Mychael didn’t know, I didn’t need to tell him. “What does it take to open one?”

“Dark mages using the blackest of magic.”

I didn’t take my eyes off Mychael’s. “You have suspects?”

“I do.”

I met his response with silence. He knew one of the names I was thinking-no magic-linked mind reading necessary.

“It wasn’t Tam,” I said quietly.

“I know that.”

“Others won’t be so sure.”

“I know that, too.”

“Carnades despises goblins,” I said. “Especially ones as powerful as Tam.”

“Tam’s not the only dark mage on this island,” Mychael said. “I’m ashamed to say it, but more than a few of the Conclave’s mages and the college’s professors practice black magic. The vast majority of our mages and faculty want nothing more than to do research or teach. But some can’t take the temptation of that much power. Practicing black magic is illegal, but that doesn’t stop experimenting behind locked and warded doors. If they’re caught and convicted, they will be executed.”

“You’d think that’d be a deterrent.”

“The punishment is harsh, but it has to be. I’m responsible for the safety of thousands of students, mages, and citizens on this island. No one, or no thing, will endanger the people I’m sworn to protect.”

One of those people had gotten himself endangered right onto a slab in the morgue.

“Sedge Rinker said the dead mage was the chairman of the demonology department.”

Mychael nodded. “Professor Laurian Berel.”

“Those demons wanted something and they were convinced the professor had it,” I told him.

I didn’t know what “it” was, but recent near-death experiences had taught me that when bad guys wanted something, things would generally go to the lower hells in a handbasket if they got their hands-or in this case, claws-on it. And considering that the bad guys were demons, that trip to the lower hells could be literal.

“The professor said he didn’t have it,” I said, seeing the scene replay itself in my head, complete with the professor getting his throat ripped out. “And I believed him. I didn’t know this Professor Berel, but from what I saw, he didn’t strike me as the type to give his life to protect something.”

“He wasn’t.”

“But he must have known what it was; otherwise, he couldn’t have said that he didn’t have it. Unfortunately he’s dead, and the demon that killed him is stuffed in a bottle.”

“Some of his colleagues aren’t,” Mychael reminded me.

I jerked my head in the direction of the cells. “You’re going to question the blue ones out there?”

“I am. If they don’t know anything, I’ll have to let the Volghul out of the bottle.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“It might be necessary. And since I’ve interrogated demons before, and I am the paladin of this island, it’s my duty to do it. But if I did have to interrogate the Volghul, I couldn’t do it here. Sedge has top-notch shields and wards on his cells, but they’re nowhere near strong enough for a Volghul. I’d have to take him to the demonology department for that.”

“Let’s hope the blue ones are talkative.”