The Demon's Librarian

by Lilith Saintcrow

  It was starting to look as if she’d had it easy in her room, being fed and watered. Just like the fatted calf, she thought with a shiver.

  Her knife kept buzzing. Demons everywhere. It was probably only a matter of time before they caught her.

  Will you stop it, Chess? Things are actually looking pretty good, they’re looking okay, why don’t you just relax?

  The candle had burned down almost to her fingers when she found something that could either be very good or very bad: a dead-end intersection with another tunnel, this one lit with ruddy torchlight. Torches meant someone used this corridor, which meant she had a higher chance of being discovered.

  For a few moments she simply stood in the archway, her eyes becoming adjusted to the relatively greater light. She blinked, then blew out her candle. Save it for later. If there is a later.

  She had to decide which way to go. She peered around the corner, looked each way. The featureless hall stretched in either direction, starred with the fuming torches, and she wondered if she was going to succumb to carbon monoxide poisoning from the flames. How do they ventilate this shit? The laughter returned, crawling up her throat and filling her mouth with bitterness. Who’s on first, What’s on second, I Don’t Know’s on third, and Chessie’s underground. Get it? Get it, Chess?

  “Shut up,” she whispered, and shivered. The shivers spilled up her back, cresting and flying down her arms, and her hands began to feel numb. The knife vibrated hotly on her hip. She wrapped her fingers around the hilt. A thin wire of strength slid up her arm. Caught. Like a rat in a trap.

  It brought up an interesting question: Did she draw the knife now despite its glow—or did she back up into the dark, mathematically-straight corridor behind her and hope to be overlooked?

  Unless, of course, the demon was coming up behind her. If she froze like a rabbit in a trap . . .

  I have nothing to lose. She stepped forward, turned to her left, and started to run as fast as her weary body would allow. And she saw, at the end of the impossibly long hall, like a gift, the last thing she ever expected to see.

  Stairs. Going up.

  Twenty

  Crimson, shot through with blackness. Moving on instinct, tucking his chin so the spider couldn’t get purchase to rip out his throat. The demon’s back broke with a sound like iron-laced glass shattering. He did not even recognize the sound he was making. A low, thrumming growl, the entire tunnel resonating to subsonic frequencies. Making a lot of noise. Lot of noise. Can’t be helped.

  The thing scrabbled weakly in his hands, already dying. It was a soldier demon. He’d already met one of the High Ones and was consequently bleeding again.

  It didn’t matter. He’d killed it, though it had damn near tried to take his spleen out the hard way. And once he’d killed it, he had to deal with the spiders. He had been down here a long time, an eternity, fighting, working toward the direction instinct told him would lead him to an exit. He needed to get out of here, go to ground somewhere. Lick his wounds.

  Traitor. Traitor. Someone had betrayed him, and he was going to make them pay eventually. But to do that, he had to keep moving. Keep fighting.

  His legs worked when he pushed himself forward, leaving the small hairless little demon writhing on the stone floor. It was the same type of thing they put in the human slaves, but past its pupae stage, with long sleek legs, compound eyes, and a caved-in nose. But still, it died.

  The other one clamped its teeth in his calf, but he was ready for that and stamped down sharply, heel becoming a battering ram, then reached down and snapped its neck. The bodies slumped around him, each one terribly battered; the spiders roamed in packs when they didn’t ride a human carrier. His breathing came hot and harsh, ribs flickering as he pulled in air tainted with death and demon.

  Who am I?

  He no longer knew. Or cared.

  It took him a few moments to wipe the blood out of his eyes. He leaned against the cold wall, his heart pounding and his body shrieking as etheric energy crackled, his fighting aura patching together the rips in his wounded body, forcing his skin to close and muscles to reknit themselves.

  Traitor. Kill the traitor. He stalked down the corridor, some part of him aware that he was seeing in complete darkness, heat and etheric force bouncing off the walls, acting as a kind of sonar to inform him of speed, direction, drift. There were torches lining the walls, but he was past using his eyes to see; they were merely blobs of heat, bouncing off the stone and showing him the way.

  A breath of scent drifted across his senses.

  Gold. Female. Young.

  Familiar.

  The bleak darkness in him stopped, a ceaseless spinning shifting its axis. Mine. He raised his weary head, taking a deep breath.

  She had come this way. Just who she was he wasn’t sure, but the deep well of instinct flooded over with possessive fury. Whoever that scent belonged to, he recognized it, and that made him temporarily able to think a little bit clearer.

  Just a very little bit. The thirst for revenge faded under this new priority.

  He smelled smoke, torches, the peculiar nose-stinging odor of others of his kind, ones that made a shiver of distaste fly up his spine. Them, the ones that smelled like danger; if he faced them in this condition he would die. Instinct told him this, clearly, unavoidably.

  She’s here. She was alive, not too long ago, passed this way, touched the wall here. Smell of burning fat . . . candle. Why a candle? Who knows?

  He was used to tracking, so a few breaths told him everything he needed to know. The scent of another demon lay over hers, one that chilled his breath and sank into his skin. Following her, something with blue eyes and long maggot-waxen fingers.

  He sensed them massing behind him. Why am I underground? Who am I?

  The name would not come, no matter how he shook his head, so he discarded it and moved on, ignoring the soft slipping sounds as his blood hit the floor. He would stop bleeding soon enough, but for right now he had to follow this trail as quickly as he could. He’d figure something out on the way.

  Mine, the blackness in him whispered. Mine.

  Mine, he agreed, and began to run.

  * * * *

  The stairs stretched, and the trail was fresher. He pushed himself up, up, each step a song of agony from the time his heel touched down to the time his leg tensed to carry him upward. He wondered how far below the ground he still was. His fingers trailed along glass-smooth stone, reading from each slight vibration how far back the pursuers were—and how far ahead his prey was. He was slowing, slowing, each step an agony, his feet bare and oddly damp against the stone. He was leaving bloody footprints.

  My name. Can’t even remember my name.

  It should have troubled him, but he was too busy forcing himself up to care. The golden scent in the air, beginning to falter, to be overlaid with the copper smell of devouring fear—that troubled him. The blackness inside him pulled swiftly on all the strings of etheric force it could reach, feeding strength into his weary muscles, but he was still only partly demon, and tired. Exhausted.

  Blackness lay like a wet blanket against his eyes, even though he could smell the torches left at the stairs’ bottom. He was operating on blind instinct, it could be deadly unless he could force himself to think.

  Mine, the blackness whispered, subsiding slightly.

  He blinked, his body moving smoothly, passed beyond misery into dumb endurance. Keep going. She needs you. Needs you.

  Or it was a trap. The thought rose foggily, but he felt something else: wind. Cool wind on his cheeks, touching his blood-crusted hair. The wind was freighted with scent. Trees, mud, the outside world. And water. And the faint, straining smell of gold, under a heavy screen of demon.

  Inkani, he realized, the word rising through deep, black water to whisper in his ear. Inkani A High One. Following her.

  His feet tangled together and he fell, heavily, barking his forehead on a sharp edge—a stair. Other sharp edges dug into his hi
p and heels, he lay stretched out on the stone stairs and blinked.

  All right, that’s enough.

  “I swear fealty to the Order.” The voice was ragged, hoarse. Cracked, bouncing off the stone.

  Who the hell’s that?

  “O, quam misericors Deus est; Justus, Justus . . . ” Coughing. He retched, tasted blood. Light began, piercing through his eyes again. Like a needle to the brain.

  Christ. It’s me. I’m talking to myself. Get up.

  “Misericors . . . ” A long, hollow moan.

  You’re the only one I trust. This voice spread soothing heat over his skin, like soft clean fingers touching his face. We’re partners, remember?

  It came back in a blinding flash, striking right through his eyes and into his brain like sunlight, that hated light that stole his strength. He remembered.

  Chess. Goddammit, Chess. An Inkani following her. Get . . . UP!

  Somehow it worked. He found his palms on stone, his tattered body mending itself as quickly as it could while he curved over, retching, shaking his head to clear it. “Ch-Chess . . . ” He coughed, tasted more blood, and bile. Goddammit. First make sure she’s safe. Then kill him. Kill the traitor.

  But first, make sure she’s safe.

  He found the strength to stand, and found that the stairs had ended. A low, glassine door stood here, he would have to duck to go through it. It might have been locked at one time, but right now it was shattered off its hinges. Something had hit it in a hell of a hurry.

  He also smelled sorcery. The familiar scent of her threaded through with smoky sorcery and water, wet earth, and crushed green things. Rain dripped off leaves, and there was a faint track that his dark-adapted eyes picked out with little difficulty. He smelled dawn coming, and the reek of blood.

  Late. I’m too late. He pushed himself forward, following the great gouges torn in the earth; the High One had its claws out and was running. She couldn’t match that kind of speed, she wasn’t a Drakul. She wasn’t even a full Phoenicis yet.

  Chess, Chess, just hang in there, sweetheart. I’m on my way.

  Roots reached up to trip him, but the old, tired flood of adrenaline gave him temporary speed. Still, when he burst out into the clearing he wasn’t prepared for what he saw. Two slim shapes, one much taller and one so familiar he knew it even in the stew of agony and instinct. Dark hair, tangled back, a pair of jeans, her pale hands both clasped around the hilt of a knife whose blade glittered a hard, hurtful, deadly blue.

  Her back was to a tree, and blood slid down the left side of her face. And in the air around her, stirring like golden feathers made of light, the beginnings of a mantle shone.

  He didn’t pause, his stride lengthening. He flung himself on the Inkani’s back just as he heard her scream his name.

  So that’s who I am, he thought, wonderingly—and then the demon turned, swift and fresh, and tossed out one six-fingered hand.

  The stunning impact smashed against him, hurled him back. He met something hard and felt a brief starry jolt of surprise before losing consciousness for a few precious seconds.

  When he struggled up out of it, he knew he was in trouble. The thing was too fucking close, too close, and it was reaching down, a smile tilting up its thin lips. Blue eyes glinted with unholy light. “The pup doess have teeth,” it chortled, and its claws swept down. Flesh parted like water, and he heard his own scream, like a wolf on the hunter’s spear.

  “Hey! Hey, you! Yeah, you! Blue-eyes! You sack of shit, I’m talking to you!”

  It was Chess’s voice, but subtly different. How? He couldn’t think of how. Christ, don’t attract its attention, sweetheart, just give me a second to get up and we’ll fix this. But his body wouldn’t obey him.

  The High One, wonder of wonder, paused. It straightened, and he wondered why he felt so cold. Pushed myself too far. Chess, get out of here while it’s busy with me, go. Please. His arms were turning to lead, so were his legs.

  “You are usseful, imrahir,” the High One hissed, its voice like the slow scald of boiling oil passed over shrinking skin an inch at a time. “But we can find otherss.”

  “Hey, pal.” She did sound different. Her voice was deeper, richer, and it hurt, scraping along his skin in a different way than the Inkani’s. A purely inimical way, with the dragging pain that told him sunlight was on him.

  Brightness against his eyelids. But it’s raining, he thought. And it’s not dawn yet.

  “You’re in my fucking city, Blue Eyes.” Chess’s voice deepened, but retained all its low sweetness. “And you have pissed off the wrong fucking librarian!”

  It rose to a screech then, the unearthly hunting-cry of a Phoenicis, hot wind flooding the clearing and screaming through the leaves. The Inkani screeched too, but the force of its cry was blasted away by a massive noise, as if every church bell, pipe organ, siren and foghorn in the world had rung at once into every microphone. His eyes flushed red as the light pressed against his face, light so intense he could see the faint traceries of capillaries in his squeezed-shut eyelids. The smell of burning amber and golden musk drenched the air, blotting out everything else in the world, and he heard a solid chuk sound, as if a blade had been driven into a side of meat.

  Bit by bit the light lessened. He heard harsh breathing, and a string of obscenities that made him want to smile. Damn, can that woman curse. But he was cold. Very cold. Oddly cold.

  “Ryan?” Her voice again, tired, without that deep edge of danger. The light was draining away, but he couldn’t open his eyes just yet. “Oh, God, no. Talk to me. Ryan? Ryan?”

  “The wrong fucking librarian,” he heard himself say, in an odd, dreamy voice. “That’s fucking beautiful, Chess.”

  She made a low, hurt sound, very much like a sob. Don’t cry, sweetheart. It’s all okay.

  “Come on, get up,” she said. “There might be more of them. Come on, we have to get up. Of all the goddamn places to come up out of those blasted tunnels, they have to pick the middle of a park. Come on. Please, Ryan. Please.” She sounded very close to a nervous breakdown, and the demon in him raised its weary head, suddenly very close to relaxing. “Please, Ryan.”

  I can’t. Christ, I’m dead. I can’t.

  I have to.

  The world tilted and swayed drunkenly as he struggled to obey her. “I’m glowing like a Christmas tree on crack,” she muttered. “Wonderful. Perfect.”

  “It’s y-your m-mantle.” Why am I stuttering? His tongue wouldn’t obey him. “P-p-protects y-you.”

  And then, he passed out.

  Twenty-One

  Her left hand was bleeding too badly from the demon’s claws to be of any real use and she had, par for the course, developed a black eye. At least she’d stopped glowing, mostly. Instead of sending streams of light in every direction she seemed to glimmer, a pale-gold foxfire glow hovering a few millimeters above her exposed skin. But she was exhausted, and the feeling of vital force bleeding out and away from her had been awful. She never wanted to do that again. Ever.

  Doesn’t matter. If they try to hurt him again, I’ll do what I have to do. Whatever that was, I’ll find a way to do it again. Whatever I did.

  Rage. The feeling had been rage; she’d found something inside herself cracking as the demon had bent over Ryan, intent on killing him. And then the light had come, and a hot fury drove her forward to spit the blue-eyed demon on her knife as it writhed.

  Chess shivered. Ryan was little help, he simply slumped against her, all of his weary attention taken up with staying vertical, and his dark eyes had a vacancy to them she didn’t like. He looked like hell, he was covered in blood and guck, and his feet were bare. The only clothing he had left was rags, and vivid pink, swiftly healing weals showed against his pale skin—at least, the parts of him that weren’t covered in dried blood. His wrists looked terribly swollen, and he moved jerkily, without his usual fluid, eerie grace.

  And to add insult to injury, her eyes seemed to have gone a little haywire. She saw thin
gs, like pale lines of force swirling through the air, the trees as columns of liquid light, each living thing seemed to have its own aura. If she didn’t concentrate on seeing the real world, everything started to look all wonky and glowy, connected with lines of blue or white humming energy. Ryan himself was a furnace of light, strangely geometrical and oddly alien. Maybe she had a concussion. It wasn’t out of the question.

  Quit it, Chess. You’re out of ideas, and there’s going to be more demons here soon. She struggled forward another step, her foot sliding in mud, the rain was pelting down now. The sky was gray in the east, but not enough to lighten any of the shadows under the trees. A park, for God’s sake. We can’t come up anywhere where I can possibly hail a cab—though who’d stop for us looking like this? And my purse is at home. And to top it all off, I’ve got a glowing-blue knife.

  She’d buried the knife in the Inkani’s chest, and the foul-smelling thing had damn near imploded, rotting right in front of her eyes. It was a good thing her stomach was already empty. Right now the knife buzzed in its sheath at her hip, and she was cold. Thankfully, it wasn’t the ice-in-the-marrow cold of an Unspeakable too close . . . but it was still chilly. And awful.

  Water slid down the back of her neck, she slipped again, and blinked back blood and water. Her head was bleeding again, she struggled to focus. Ryan swayed. He somehow managed to pull her back up to her feet. “Now would be a good time for a miracle,” she said, wishing she could look back over her shoulder. Her ass hurt, and the muscles in her thighs quivered with exhaustion from the stairs. The light in the sky was strengthening, but far too slowly.

  “Call . . . in.” Ryan’s voice was husky. His breath made a faint white cloud in the cold air.

  “What?”