The Daemon Device

by Jeri Westerson

  “By the power of the Great Ones, the Ancient Ones, I shall place my assistant into a trance. I must ask you all to be very quiet, for the spirits who will keep her asleep are very shy. Will you do that?” The crowd nodded, exchanging glances with one another eagerly.

  “Mingli.” She looked at him and he spoke quietly. “Relax. Let the spirits guide you to sleep. Let yourself go. Close your eyes.” Her eyes beseeched for only a moment, but then she closed them. He wished he could have explained but there was no time. Instead, his spread fingers caged her face, gently stroking. She would not be put to sleep. She would be aware and he hoped she would soon understand.

  “She is asleep,” he said, voice low and even. “Watch. Watch carefully what the spirits allow me to do.” He knelt at her feet, grabbed her ankles together, and lifted her up parallel with the floor. Slowly, he let them go and she stayed, floating, resting only on the broom.

  The audience gasped. Yes, it was a good trick, even with his connivances, which he didn’t have with him. They didn’t realize that, at the moment, it was the best trick they’d ever seen.

  He had been swift and clever because while he had lifted her, he had reached within her skirts and grabbed her gun. As heart-stopping as it had been for him, he admired her all the more for her failure to make a movement or a sound at the inexcusable intrusion. Quicker than anyone could see, he placed the gun in her hand, concealed by her draping skirts.

  “The spirits will uphold her,” he said in that same mesmerizing tone. He grasped the broom and yanked it away. And still she floated there without benefit of anything but magic.

  The audience applauded softly.

  But Leopold wasn’t done. With a flourish of his hands, a flash and a cloud of smoke covered her, and suddenly she had disappeared. He looked to the back of the crowd even as their applause grew furious and saw her reappear at the top of the stairs, aiming her gun at Waldhar, who had been stealthily climbing them. No one looked at them, their eyes were all on Leopold. But he watched as Waldhar raised his arm and swatted the gun away. His fist came up again toward her, but she blocked it with her arm. She fell to one knee, clearly hurt by the blow.

  Waldhar pushed her aside, nearly dumping her down the stairs, but she had the presence of mind to stop herself from tumbling all the way.

  He was getting away. Leopold had no choice.

  He yanked back his sleeve, pulled out a knife…and hesitated. It won’t work. He won’t come. He had effectively dismissed Eurynomos. He had all but said the words of abjuration. It meant that not only would the daemon not come, but he couldn’t come. Even if he hadn’t said the exact words, was the meaning still clear? Had he permanently barred Eurynomos from aiding him?

  But even if that were not so, would he come? He won’t. Was there time to find another daemon, one he wasn’t as certain of? He had to try, had to put his anxiety aside. For only a confident and certain heart could summon daemons at all.

  He slashed the blade downward, not knowing what to expect. His mind couldn’t help but picture Eurynomos as he cried, “Ani mitzavehl l'cha lachshof et atzmecha!”

  A pause.

  He won’t come. But something like a prayer also passed silently over his lips.

  The floor erupted in fire and smoke and a daemon emerged from the flames, tall, horned, terrifying. Eurynomos. A look passed between them before he grabbed Leopold’s arm and healed him before Leopold keeled over from the loss of blood. The daemon looked around, taking in the crowd, and falling into character.

  “You summoned me, Master?”

  “Yes. Stop that man!” He pointed to the gallery at the top of the stairs, where Waldhar had stopped in midstride. But instead of the terror Leopold expected to see on his face, the man wore a wide grin. He quickly drew an object from inside his coat, a glass orb with brass fittings on each axis, twisted something on it, and held it forth. It immediately burst with white light so bright everyone screamed and looked away.

  The crowd had already fallen back with cries and exclamations when Eurynomos appeared. But now complete panic ensued.

  The light seemed to grow brighter, painfully so. But the pain was not just in the looking at it. Leopold clutched at his chest. Something was drawing on him, tearing at him. At first he thought his heart would burst from his breast, but then in another horrifying moment, he realized it was his magic. His magic! Some force gripped it as if it were a living thing and yanked it painfully from him, ripping his insides as it went. He fell to his knees with the agony of it and screamed. Fighting against it was useless. He could not draw the magic back. And then his ears filled with more howls and screams, but it wasn't from his own throat or that of the scattered crowd, but instead it came from his wrist, from the mark. He looked down. The tattoo writhed and slithered along his arm, the Eye blinking and narrowing. Every ounce of magic was ripping from him and he was powerless to stop it.

  And when he looked up to Eurynomos, beseeching with his eyes for the daemon’s help, he beheld a sight even more terrifying than the tattoo upon his wrist.

  Eurynomos fought. He seemed to be caught within a whirlwind of color and light. His mouth opened in agony but there were no sounds but the rushing of wind and the howling from Leopold’s wrist. The beast stretched, elongated, almost tearing apart. Leopold reached for him but the terrible wind cast him back to the floor.

  Eurynomos and his whirlwind slid across the checkered floor toward the stairs. He was the wind, a red wind whirling and shrieking until he stretched so long he was indistinguishable from it and simply shot up the stairs. The red wind darted forward toward Waldhar and suddenly collapsed into the orb, roiling in red clouds but now perfectly silent.

  Leopold collapsed, his tattoo stationary once again, the sounds quelled.

  Waldhar calmly placed the orb back into his coat, strode across the upper gallery, and through a door.

  Suddenly at his side, Mingli sat on her knees, cradling him. All the others had fled, including Waldhar’s goons.

  “My God, Leopold!” she cried. “My God!” She helped him to his feet and held him as he stumbled out the door. They stood on the threshold, panting, gaining strength, before they descended the stairs to the street.

  Leopold looked into her eyes and saw fear there for the first time. Was it for him? For the display with the daemon?

  And Eurynomos! What had happened to him? His heart contracted with dread.

  “Look,” she said and pointed.

  A glow filled the skies of London. But it was not a fire. It shimmered and danced more like the Northern Lights. Mingli seemed to know what it was just as Leopold was beginning to understand. It wasn’t the Northern Lights. It was coming from the direction of the fair.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  WALDHAR’S PERSONAL AIRSHIP launched from his roof and before Leopold could even find a hansom, the man was halfway to the fair. Leopold paid the cabby extra to get them to Battersea as fast as possible. The whip was not spared.

  “By the way,” said Mingli, holding her hat straight on her head. “I managed to decipher the scroll. It is a dēng mí, a lantern puzzle.”

  “What in blazes is a lantern puzzle?”

  “During the Festival of the Lanterns, my people create these riddles and fortunes. The riddles are supposed to be hard to puzzle out, as difficult as fighting a tiger. That is why some are called wén hu, a ‘literary tiger’.”

  “So…what does it say?”

  “The riddle goes something like this: He devotes his life to caring for the house. His mate always follows wherever his master goes. A gentleman sees him and goes away. A villain sees him and bad luck follows. Who is he?”

  “He devotes himself to caring for the house. A servant? No. His mate…” Leopold rubbed his chin and was suddenly embarrassed by the feel of the stubble. He dismissed it to figure out the riddle. “A gentleman sees him and goes away but a villain brings bad luck. A gentleman…” He snapped his fingers. “I’ve got it. A gentleman sees it and knows the master is
away and will return. A villain sees it and breaks into the house. The mate is a key. Therefore, the answer is a lock!” But as soon as he said it, his elation faded. “A lock.”

  “That’s quite an extraordinary coincidence, is it not?”

  “I do detest fortune tellers,” he grumbled.

  “But it begs the question; why would the old sorceress give me this scroll? We already knew about the Lock.”

  “Yes. Just twisting in the knife, perhaps? Being unhelpful to the white man?”

  “It’s not as simple as that. I paid a coin. An enchanted coin. She had to tell me the truth.”

  “A truth we already knew.”

  “Yes.” She sat thoughtfully again, her glove’s finger getting a gnaw once more. “But there might be more to this truth than we know.”

  The mad ride of the carriage stopped in the woods as instructed. After the hansom left, he and Mingli crept through the forest’s edge as night fell around them. Mingli’s gun was in her hand again and Leopold swallowed hard.

  “Miss Zhao, I feel I must apologize for, er…for…retrieving your gun…earlier…”

  She flashed him a grin. “You’re just full of surprises, Mr. Kazsmer.”

  “I didn’t mean…that is, I knew you would need your weapon…”

  “No scolding necessary, Leo. And no recriminations on your part, certainly.”

  “Yes, well. Thank you.” He pulled his Webley from his coat.

  “And you are armed as well. Good.”

  “My magic seems to have left me rather abruptly,” he said.

  “I meant to ask…”

  “Whatever that orb was it stole my magic and somehow captured my friend.”

  “That was your daemon friend?”

  “Eurynomos.”

  “If I know my daemon lore, he is called the Prince of Death…and gnaws off the flesh of those in the Otherworld.”

  “He has always told me this was merely bad press.”

  “Indeed.”

  “I trusted him with my life. I…used to.”

  She stumbled over a root and swore softly. “I wish we had a lantern. ‘Used to’, you say?”

  “We…had a falling out. In truth, I never expected to see him again. It was only because of the dire circumstances that I called upon him tonight. Frankly, I didn’t expect him to appear. His presence usually fills me with magic and it lasts a great deal of time. But that orb that Waldhar used, it…drained every last drop.”

  “I felt it too.”

  “Yes. Yes, your own tattoo. Did it…were you…”

  “I felt as if something were tugging on me, draining me.”

  He nodded when they made it to the edge of the wood and looked down into the fair. Its gates were locked up, the great electrified archway dark. But strange light pulsated from the largest tent. “Eurynomos must be freed,” he said quietly. “No matter what I might have felt before. He doesn’t deserve whatever fate Waldhar might have in mind.” He tightened his grip on the Webley. “Shall we?”

  She nodded once and he led the way downward. Once they were near the gate, Mingli started to look for a way around it, but Leopold shook his head. “I have other tricks up my sleeve that don’t involve magic. Remember, I had an unusual upbringing…in a Gypsy camp.” He retrieved his lockpicks from his waistcoat pocket and held them up with a smile. He handed her his gun and knelt at the lock. He examined it and chose his picks, inserted them, and worked them around until he felt the pins fall into place. With a soft click he pushed open the gate with only the merest of squeaks from the hinges.

  “A useful talent,” she said.

  He took his gun back and secured his picks. “The main tent?”

  She nodded and followed him.

  They moved stealthily down the vacant avenues. The smell of saloop and roasted peanuts still permeated the air, but also a strange odor of decay wafting on the breeze, that ineffable something that spoke to him of the Otherworld. Which might very well mean that the gates had already been opened.

  He didn’t want to think of it, but he had to form a plan as to how to close it and he hadn’t a clue how. He glanced at Mingli. His instincts had always been to go it alone. After his father was killed—or had seemed to be, he reminded himself—he had never allowed himself to trust another living soul to be put in any similar situation. But here was Mingli who had suffered at least as great a fate as he had. And now Thacker, a seemingly helpless ghost, but yet another friend, Raj, was tutoring him in ways Leopold never knew the automaton was familiar with. And, of course, his oldest friend, Eurynomos. He had garnered a little band without even trying.

  Mingli was standing beside him. Could he really trust her? Ah, but that was moot, for he feared he already did. Certainly with the fragility of his heart. A stupid foolish thing to do, but nevertheless…

  “What shall we do once we get there?” he asked, surrendering something with the asking.

  “We shall have to find the means to destroy that device.”

  “Without magic?”

  “It would appear so. Luckily enough, I have a bomb.”

  “What?”

  She smirked at him. “I have a bomb. I anticipated such an event and made preparations. A timed device. Small but efficient.”

  “Why Miss Zhao, I could kiss you.”

  Her smirk turned to a genuine smile. “Later.”

  He smiled himself at the implication. Now more than ever, he hoped there would be a “later”.

  They turned the corner and beheld the main tent. Light streamed from every crevice in the canvas, from the topmost peaks to its lashed sides. A glowing, pulsating light and a deep vibrating sound.

  There were no guards stationed outside. They were no longer needed.

  Leopold crept closer until he was standing at the tent’s entrance. He used the nose of his gun to gently push the tent flap aside. He was glad of the thrumming sound, for it drowned out his gasp and that of Mingli’s beside him.

  The Daemon Device, that huge structure of iron and brass glowed and chugged with energy. A door had opened in its metal side where there had been none before. A doorway of light. And through that doorway, two by two, Waldhar’s army of golems marched. Solemn, expressionless, they trudged from the Otherworld, still dripping from the mud in which they were made and lined up in a vast array of battalions. Men in oilskin coats and black vulcanized gloves hovered above on a catwalk, either looking down at the forming army or at their clipboards or checking the gauges and dials on the device itself.

  He checked on Mingli. After all, she was a woman and might be horrified and too frightened to continue. But he needn’t have worried. Frightened she might be—indeed, he certainly was!—but she was made of sterner stuff than the rest of her sex, for she wore just as a determined look upon her face that he surely wore himself. Her fingers tightened on her gun.

  Leopold looked for ways to get closer to the device but it was out in the open in the center of the tent, and though he never saw any guards there were plenty of men in those oilskin coats wandering both on the catwalks above around the device and on the floor, supervising the growing number of golems. Some were being directed to a gangway that led to the dirigible in the tent.

  They would simply have to circle the long way around and look for an opening. Leopold signaled to Mingli to follow him, and he edged to the open space, keeping to the many crates surrounding it and stalking through what shadows they could find.

  “Halt!”

  Leopold turned.

  A man dressed like one of the dirigible sailors stood behind him holding a very large gun. “Waffen fallen lassen.”

  “I believe he would like us to drop our weapons,” said Mingli, matter-of-factly.

  “I shouldn’t like to do that,” said Leopold.

  “Jetzt!” the man insisted stridently, jutting his gun forward.

  “I say,” said Leopold, gently setting his gun to the floor and raising his other hand. “These Saxons only seem to have one volume: Loud.�
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  “It is because the language itself is so punctuated with exclamation marks,” she went on, putting her gun down as well.

  “Gehen!” said the sailor. “Und verstummen!”

  “Did he just tell us to shut it?” asked Leopold.

  “I’m very much afraid he did.” She turned to the man. “I don’t think that’s very polite.”

  If Leopold had blinked he might have missed it. But Mingli abruptly pulled up her skirts, spun, and snapped her leg out, striking the sailor in the face with one boot after the other in rapid succession.

  The gun flew out of his hand and Leopold leapt up and snatched it out of the air, just as Mingli elbowed the man sharply in the throat. He lay on the floor insensate or possibly dead. Leopold couldn’t muster the energy to care which.

  “You’re quite nimble,” he said quietly, retrieving their guns from the floor, and pocketing the sailor’s.

  “Long practice. You use magic, I use my body…in various ways.”

  “Indeed,” he muttered, cheeks burnished.

  Quickly, they moved away from the body and around the crates. And there, standing alone, was von Spiegel.

  Leopold scrambled forward. Von Spiegel put a finger to his lips. “Oh, Mr. Kazsmer. You must be very quiet.”

  “Professor. I must say, I don’t know what to make of you.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Kazsmer. Truly sorry. You don’t know how much. But…I was forced to do what I did. I even switched off your automaton friend, for I sensed he was more than a machine.”

  Anger rose but he quickly quelled it. “Why, Professor?”

  “Because I needed you to make the Lock.”

  “You summoned Ogiel!”

  “I know. I am so sorry. You see, I worked for Waldhar for many years. It was fascinating work, studying daemons, harnessing their power. It was I who came up with the idea of the Daemon Device, but once I understood its power and how it could be twisted to be used for a villain like Waldhar, I tried to destroy the plans.” He stopped, looking imploringly at Leopold. His face was pained, revealing the layers of grief and disgust…before he burst into laughter. He covered his face and shook his head. “Oh, dear me. I just didn’t know how much longer I could go on with it.” He sighed out the last of his laughter and stood with fists at his hips. “How tiresome von Spiegel is. Truly. Yes, he did try to stop Waldhar. He truly did. But I’m afraid…I’m very much afraid that I had to kill him a long time ago. He was getting far too close.”