The Demon's Librarian

by Lilith Saintcrow

  “Steady, Malik.” Ryan pulled the door open. Chess flinched as yellow light from the hall fixtures flooded in. “They’re planning on driving us out through the front door. Sloppy.”

  “Are you sure it’s the front door they’re planning on?” Paul dragged the door closed behind them and ran to keep up, Ryan’s long strides eating the distance. “Chess, goddammit, put the knife away.”

  “That’s my house,” she heard herself protest. “They’re in my house!”

  “Everything in there can be replaced, one way or another. You can’t.” Ryan reached over, grabbed her wrist, and shoved her hand back into her bag. “That’s better. Remember the rules, Chess? Move with me, stay behind me, don’t grab my arm. And run when I tell you to.” He was going the wrong way down the hall, toward the utility door instead of toward the door that led to the main stairs.

  “Kibbik.” Her voice was high and thin. “Roams in packs, smells of copper and the burning of charcoal. According to Morelly, vulnerable to garlic crushed into a paste; Delmonico scoffs at the idea—”

  “We know what it is,” Paul hissed. “Shut up.”

  “Leave her alone.” Ryan’s hand was bruising-hard on her arm, he all but dragged her. “It’s her way of coping.” He actually kicked the fire door off its hinges, the heavy door crumpled as if made of paper. “It’s okay, Chess. Just keep close.”

  “Scavengers,” she whispered. The knifehilt was slick against her palm, her hand trapped in her bag. Her teeth chattered as Ryan pulled her down the stairs, she honestly couldn’t tell if her feet were even touching the steps.

  “There’s a High One out there.” He sounded grim. “You’ve read about them if you’ve read Delmonico, the siafeaine. The Unnamed.”

  “The Unnamed?” Her voice bounced off the stairwell walls, it was oddly silent otherwise. Ryan made no more sound than a hunting cat, and Paul moved very quietly. “There’s one of those out there?”

  “There is. It’s why you’re so cold. Now be quiet, for God’s sake, sweetheart.”

  Quit calling me that. The flood of irritation swept through her, slapped her into thinking again. The Unnamed. Big, tough, unstoppable, another one of those “if you meet these, run and kiss your ass goodbye. Or in O’Mailey’s words, “Make thy peace with God, hunter, for thou wilt face Judgment soon.” Wonderful. “How do you kill one of them?”

  Ryan dragged her around a corner, his feet barely brushing the steps. “You don’t. You get the hell out of here with Paul and leave it to me.”

  “Ryan—” Paul sounded as breathless as she felt. “You can’t—”

  “If I’m going to die, I’m going to die protecting her,” he replied shortly. They reached the last flight of stairs, he slowed and glanced down at Chess. “You go with Paul if I tell you to. Clear?”

  I am not leaving you to face an Unnamed alone. The words rose up, and she wondered why exactly she’d think something like that at a time like this. But she felt a burst of panic just under her breastbone when she thought of him facing down the worst type of demon—a demon that looked like a tall, thin humanoid with pale skin and incandescent eyes. Most demons were ugly, but the books couldn’t agree if the Unnamed were ugly in a particularly beautiful way, a way that induced nausea—or if they were beautiful. Beautiful enough to warrant the worship some of them had received from human cults of spilled blood and flayed flesh.

  The idea of a pretty demon made a hysterical laugh rise under her breastbone as Ryan stopped between one step and the next right inside the utility door. “I mean it, Chess.” He looked like he did, too; his eyes flashed and his mouth drew into a thin line when he wasn’t speaking. “No heroics. You get on your bike with Paul, and you get the hell out of town.”

  She shook her head, mute. Not going to, she thought. Her fingers tightened inside her bag, the hilt of her knife slipping in sweat.

  Ryan didn’t argue, he simply let go of her arm and ghosted to the utility door. He cocked his head, listening, and Chess clenched her jaw to keep her teeth from chattering. Her demon-hunting bag lay heavily against her hip; her fingers still curled around the hilt of her knife. The blurring, buzzing, prickling sensation of the knife reacting to demons jolted up her arm, now that she had time to pay attention to it. Her heart pounded thinly, and her mouth was dry. Creeping cold spilled through her arms and legs, she swayed.

  Paul caught her arm, kept her upright. He said nothing, watching Ryan. There was no trace of superciliousness or arrogance. Instead, he looked like a professional waiting for the right moment, having done everything he could and commended his soul to God.

  She winced inwardly. Why do you think of things like that at a time like this, Chess? Jeez.

  Then she began to hear little soft sliding sounds.

  Gooseflesh prickled up her back. The sounds were too quick and light to be human. She’d never before imagined that the sound of footsteps could be terrifying in its inhumanity. Her eyes locked on Ryan’s shoulders, his quarter-profile as he listened intently causing a funny flutter just under her ribs. It’s going to be okay. He’s here.

  Ryan held up his hand. “Alley’s clear,” he mouthed. “They expected us out through the front, didn’t know about this door. Cover Chess.”

  “Locked and loaded, baby.” Paul sounded serious. There was a double click—hammers, on guns, drawn back. “No fucking Inkani’s going to get his mitts on your girl, Drakul.”

  Up the stairs, there were little tapping sounds. Creaking. A snarl.

  Ryan tore the door open and moved out. Paul pushed Chess in front of him. Darkness folded around them, the darkness of an alley where night came early, the last light fading from the cloudy sky. Cold caressed Chess’s entire body, cold and the spilling terrible weakness she’d felt before. The alley slipped by in a blur, Ryan stopping to herd them through a door in the apartment building opposite, a door he simply wrenched open as if it wasn’t locked. Metal pinged and hit the alley floor; it had been locked. The deadbolt glinted in the dim light as Paul dragged her past. “Ryan, she’s passing out or something.”

  “Might be the High One.” Ryan sounded thoughtful. They were in a long, dimly lit hall, doors opening off on either side. “This should bring us out on the street, and we’ll have a fighting chance to get out.”

  “We like getting out. Getting out’s good.”

  “Getting out safe’s better.”

  “Well, nobody’s disputing that.”

  They sound like they’re at a party. God, get me out of this. I promise. No more fried food. No more extramarital sex. At least, not without love. Her brain kept veering like a frightened rabbit. A utility corridor, she realized. This was storage space or a utility corridor, just above the basement in the building next to hers.

  The relief that came from solving that one simple puzzle was short-lived. The cold robbed her arms and legs of strength. She could barely keep up even with Paul dragging her. The prickling up her arm from the knife was the only thing keeping her on her feet; a warm wire of strength flooding up her arm and into her chest. She took a deep breath. Darkness swallowed them, she stumbled, and Paul’s hand curled around her shoulder, held her upright.

  “Um, Ryan? We can’t see.”

  “It’s all right. It gets better in a little bit. Just keep moving.”

  “Just keep moving, the man says.” Paul spoke under his breath, and Chess began to get the idea that the banter was for her benefit. If there was a chance they would be overheard, Ryan would have insisted on silence. Instead, they were lightening the situation. Making jokes. Gallows humor.

  Her teeth chattered until she clenched her jaw. It was cold, the type of cold that stole into her marrow like frozen lead, making her arms and legs heavy. There was something else, too; something that teased at the edges of her mind, something she should remember, some important thing she wasn’t thinking of.

  “It’s getting colder,” she whispered. “We’re getting nearer to it. It was c-cold in the t-tavern t-too.”

 
“It was? Don’t worry, Chess. Everything’s well in hand.”

  Don’t worry, he says. I’m thinking I should be worrying right about now.

  “Ryan—” This from Paul, whose hand suddenly bit into Chess’s shoulder.

  “Hang on a second.” There was a sound, soft and scraping, then a jingle. Chess stopped short, her breath coming in shallow sips. “Everyone involved in this is forgetting one damn thing.”

  “What?” I sound breathless. The cold bit into her bones, her knees turned to water, and Paul held her up with an arm around her shoulders. It’s so cold. So cold.

  “I’m part demon,” Ryan said, calmly enough. “And I’m not stupid. Something’s wrong.”

  A faint edge of light appeared, a slice of dimness widening as he swept the door open. “Besides, there’s something else. Something doesn’t smell right here.”

  “What the hell do you—” Paul sounded like he’d been punched.

  And that was when all hell broke loose.

  Chess screamed as something boiled through the door, a wave of coldness so intense it burned. Then Paul shoved her aside, into the doorjamb, and there was the roar of gunfire. But it sounded wrong somehow. She couldn’t quite think of why. A long, howling scream, Ryan yelling her name, and a warm hand closed around Chess’s left wrist, giving a terrific yank that almost dislocated her shoulder. Her knife suddenly blazed with hurtful blue radiance, there was a confused flurry of motion as whatever had her arm let go. Chess’s knees hit the floor with a grating shock.

  A terrific impact smashed against her right hand, knocking the knife away; it skittered uselessly on concrete and Chess looked up, dazed, into Paul’s dark horrified eyes. What did he . . . Why? He’d kicked her, kicked the knife right out of her suddenly numb right hand.

  She heard her own horrified gasp and a low sound of pain that sounded like Ryan’s. Another sound, awfully familiar, as if a fist made of concrete had just hit a heavy bag. But the other low sound of pain she heard told her it wasn’t a heavy bag, it was Ryan, someone had smacked him a good one.

  Paul held the gun, and it was pointed at her. “Don’t move, Chess.” His lips were pulled back in a rictus of a smile, white sharp teeth gleaming in the sudden flare of crimson torchlight. “They want you alive. It’ll all be over soon.”

  Eighteen

  Darkness.

  It was not the mothering darkness of night, the dark that called a hurtful flower of strength out from his demon half. No, this darkness was different. It closed around him like the steel jaws of a trap. He simply existed for a while, floating in the blackness, struggling to remember something very important. Something he had to do. The word came slowly, rising from the depths.

  Chess.

  Where was she? He had to find her.

  Then the pain came, rolling in a great wave over him, and he returned to consciousness with a jolt. Red agony around his wrists, weight against his shoulders, he could barely breathe. His ribs felt like they’d been smashed in, and anklets of fiery pain closed around his ankles. He was hanging, and that told him what he needed to know even as the demon half of him felt others of its kind drawing close.

  He forced his eyes open, a millimeter at a time. The light stung him, ruddy torchlight, fire straining and smoking against the choking breathless smell that was a High One. Salt stinging his eyes, too, sweat and warm blood, he felt the hot trickles from gaping holes in his chest. Four of them, nicely grouped.

  Chess. Where is she? And the second thought: Who? What happened? They shot me, shot in the back, I remember that. But there was nobody behind us, I was certain of that Nobody except—

  “I think he’s coming around.” A familiar voice.

  What the fucking hell?

  Metal clashed as he stirred, unable to stop himself. He lifted his head, one slow screaming inch at a time. Stinging in his eyes, a rivulet of something warm running down his throat from his ear, his shoulders shrieking with rusty iron and broken glass.

  He hung, his ankles loaded with weighted chains that crackled with etheric force. The black lightning of demon sorcery crawled over the cuffs at his wrists, too, shackling even a Drakul’s strength.

  Then another voice, a voice that slid along his skin like tiny, frozen, razor mouths, their bite so cold it didn’t hurt for the first few seconds. A sibilant, soft, evil voice. “He iss traitor to hiss kind.” It was a High One. An unspeakable demon, a foulness on the face of Creation, one of the lords of hell.

  And it was speaking to Paul.

  The light ran through him. Paul and an Inkani.

  What have you done? Jesus Christ, Paul, what have you done? It was impossible. Im-fucking-possible.

  His mind began to work again through the screaming raw agony of pain from his wrists and shoulders. He was trained to function even through this blinding misery.

  Paul had been gone from the rendezvous for days. The room had been rented out, a trap left for Ryan. Once the Inkani realized there was a potential in town, the High Ones would have come. They had been hunting down potentials for centuries and were damn good at it. They’d probably been alerted by the killing of the skornac and the golden scent that even then was following Chess around.

  She was valuable, a potential so close to becoming a full Golden. The closer she was, the more powerful their Rite of Opening would be, and the more High Ones they could bring through to lord it over the skins.

  But Paul didn’t know she was a Golden!

  No, he hadn’t . . . but the books. The books would be valuable to the Inkani, to be used against the Malik. The sheela and the head librarian both stank of sorcery, and one of the library volunteers had been an Inkani dog. The demons had been trying to find the library for a long time, and Paul had taken himself off to strike a deal, certain the two women he suspected of knowing the cache’s location would stay right where he wanted them, guarded by the dumb, faithful Drakul.

  But first Paul had to find a demon who would listen, and then he had to bait and set the trap for Ryan. Once he found out Chess was the potential the Inkani were searching for, Paul had struck an even better deal. It all made sense now. And Paul had plenty of time to call in Chess’s location while she was in the shower and Ryan was on the roof, checking the neighborhood.

  Not only that, but the Malik flooding in to protect Chess would be walking blind into a trap full of the worst demons around. There would be horrible casualties.

  “I know you can hear me.” Paul’s voice, soft and bored. “Come on, Ryan. Wake up.”

  “Usselesss.”

  “You don’t know him.”

  At least he still respects my abilities. His mouth was desert-dry. He opened his eyes further, straining.

  The torchlight ran wet over stonekin-carved, fluid stone. It was a high arched chamber, proportioned subtly wrong. The chains hung from a hook at the very apex of the ceiling, and he knew without looking that the weights dangled into a circular shaft cut in the middle of the floor. The floor itself was sloped toward that maw, which would be floored with sharp iron spikes.

  Sloped down, so that the blood would flow into the hole itself. It was a drakarnus, a torture chamber, built for one thing. Killing a Malik—or a Drakul—slowly.

  One sharp, panicked burst of thought—Chess, where is she, are they doing this to her?—and then control clamped down, the often-tested control of a Drakulein in who the dark inheritance of demons ran stronger than most. He raised his head still more, and saw Paul. The man’s sandy hair glowed in the crimson light, and he looked very pleased with himself, wearing the smile he usually wore after a long night spent with someone female. He was even wearing fresh clothing—that is, if you could call the long, dark robe clothing; it was an Inkani outfit. His dark eyes gleamed.

  He looked, of all things, satisfied.

  Think, Ryan. Quit flailing and think. They won’t hurt her, she has to be whole for the Rite. They need her whole and perfect for their dirty work. Think, goddamn you!

  Next to Paul was a thin,
attenuated shape, and the growl rose in Ryan’s chest. He couldn’t help himself.

  The High One blinked its fathomless blue eyes. It looked like a human; that was the worst part about them. Wide blue eyes, a sweetly-curved mouth, and a shock of dark hair matted into dreadlocks, each fat strand bound with writhing, silvery etheric force. The bladed cheekbones were subtly wrong, as was the shape of the nose, and the creature was corpse-pallid. Its six-fingered, wax-pale hands hung loosely by its sides, and it wore plain, dark, unornamented breeches and a simple shirt. The clothes did nothing to hide the essential alienness of the being, the way its joints moved with horrid oily grace, and how the air itself seemed to cringe away from it.

  A killing smile hovered on the demon’s lips. “Ah, the pup growlss. Mayhap it hath teeth.”

  Warm salt dripped into Ryan’s eyes. The burning in his chest was slender, silver-coated ammunition, deadly to demonkind. Malik ammunition. He would heal from it, his human half doing what his demon half could not—but slowly. Too slowly. “Paul.” The word was a stone in his throat. “Where . . . is . . . she?”

  “Safe. For now.” Paul was literally beaming. “All the women you want, Orion. Think of it. Money. Slaves. We can have it all. We’re on the winning side now, Drakul. Maybe after they’re done with the Rite you can have what’s left of her. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

  Oh, you son of a bitch. There won’t be anything left of her once they finish. You know that. His eyes threatened to close, he forced them open. His fingers were insensate wood, swollen and useless, the weights strapped to his ankles robbed him of leverage. And he heard the soft drip, drip, drip of his own blood, coating the iron spikes below. “Malik.” It was as close to accusation as he could come, with his cracked lips and swollen tongue. The pain drove red-hot pokers into his side, but he’d had worse. Much worse. Chess. Where are you, sweetheart? Christ. A traitor Malik . . . why?

  “I’m tired of being a loser,” Paul said. “Tired of rooftops in the rain, of cheapass hookers and ice-cold Malik bitches. Sick of doing what I’m told. You are too. I know you are, I see it in you. You’re stronger and faster than any Malik, and they treat you like crap.” He leaned forward, his tone dropping, becoming confidential. “Come on over to the winning side, Ryan. It’s better that way. They’ll even give you the librarian, after they’re finished with her.”