by Kim Harrison
Orchid’s wings clattered as she rose up and down, landing herself on the sugar packets. “See?” she said as she helped herself, apparently feeling as if she deserved it now. “I told you! But does anyone listen to a pixy? No-o-o-o. We’re apparently too small to have a brain.”
Ulbrine stood, his expression haunted as he watched Rick slowly rolling away. “I knew nothing of this,” he said, and Professor Thole scoffed. “Kal, I’m disappointed.”
With an ugly snarl, Kal leaped at Ulbrine. Rynn Cormel was faster, yanking Kal back into the cushions and pinning him there with a ring-bedecked hand as Ulbrine backed up, appalled. “You hypocritical bastard,” Kal seethed, but Trisk was having a hard time finding any joy in it. Ulbrine had been using them both, betraying Kal now to try to save his own skin.
Ulbrine edged farther away, and the Weres gave the elven dignitary a disgusted look. “This is the first I’ve heard of this atrocity,” Ulbrine insisted, but clearly no one was buying it. “You have my apologies.”
A high laugh chortled out as the door closed behind Rick. Kal pushed Cormel’s hand off, hatred in his eyes as he stared at first Ulbrine and then Trisk. Even as relief filled Trisk, it left a tiny spot of worry that began to grow. This wasn’t over yet.
“So,” Ulbrine said, his voice holding a forced joviality, “if you’ll allow us. Dr. Cambri, Dr. Kalamack, and I need to get to a lab and figure out how to stop the plague.”
“Burn the Angel tomato fields,” Trisk said, having no intention of going anywhere with him. “Destroy all products made from it. This year’s. Last year’s. Everything. When there’s no more carrier, the virus will die. In the interim, don’t eat them. That’s it. I made sure Dr. Plank’s virus couldn’t kill an Inderlander, even with a massive overdose.”
Piscary’s hands were steepled, his attention fixed on Ulbrine as the man scrambled to find a way to come out of this without smelling like dung.
Professor Thole shook his head. “Are you saying the plague began because of an elven power play?” he said, both hands flat on the bar as he leaned over it. “Half the human race dead or dying, us on the verge of being exposed, all because of an elf’s greed? Please tell me you wouldn’t allow an entire species to vanish to hide the blame of one man?” He looked at Ulbrine. “Or is it two?”
Still on the stool, Trisk put her back to the bar, feeling confident with Daniel behind her. “In Kal’s defense, I truly believe his only intention was to discredit my work so he could claim my other research. I don’t believe he wanted to start a plague. It was an accident due to his impatience and using species he was unfamiliar with. If he’s guilty of anything, other than Rick’s murder, it’s pride.”
Kal turned his anger from Ulbrine to her, and she wondered if she’d gone too far. The only thing worse than starting a plague on purpose was being stupid enough to start it by accident. And Kal would rather be thought of as ruthless than ignorant. Professor Thole, though, was nodding. Trisk could almost hear his thoughts: Foolish, prideful elves. It wasn’t on purpose. It was an accident.
“This is beyond reason, Ulbrine,” Colonel Wolfe said. “I call for your abdication from the enclave.”
Ulbrine’s eye twitched. Behind her, Professor Thole sucked in his breath as if slapped. Trisk’s knees buckled as someone—probably Ulbrine—yanked on the nearest ley line, taking in a huge amount of energy.
“Down!” she shouted, shoving Daniel, who fell whooping to the floor behind the bar. Orchid flew away, inking a black dust. Daniel rose up, shocked to find himself safe with Professor Thole behind his circle. Pulling hard on the line, Trisk took a breath to invoke her own protection circle. She was Ulbrine’s largest thorn. It was her his magic would come for.
Then Ulbrine was on her, shoving her into her still-forming barrier, breaking it.
“Get off!” she cried as they hit the floor together, then gasped as she slammed into the inside of his larger circle. She slumped, Ulbrine half on her. His eyes shined with hate, and his hands went around her throat. She was trapped in here with him, a master of elven magic.
“You fool,” he rasped, and she screamed as pain arced into her, becoming her entire world. “You will all die here, and everything will go on as before.”
“Aaaaaaaaagh,” she gasped, clawing at the hands around her neck, the gold of her necklace feeling like ice against her fingertips. She couldn’t say a spell, couldn’t even think one, the pain was so bad. He was an expert of what she dabbled in, and she could do nothing. “Galllllaak,” she tried again, eyes bulging. Black sparkles gathered at the edges of her sight, threatening to swamp her. Pain and a lack of air were going to kill her. Behind Ulbrine, she could see Rynn Cormel hammering on the barrier, but nothing would come through. It was strong enough to hold a demon.
Demon . . . It might be too late. The sun could be up. With a desperate need, she stopped trying to fight, patting passively at his hand as if wanting to speak. And like the proud fool he was, he eased up, letting a slip of air into her. “What?” he said as she sucked in the air gratefully in huge gasps.
Eyes watering, she looked up at Ulbrine’s self-satisfied smirk, wishing she could tell Daniel to go hide somewhere. It was going to get really ugly in here really fast. “Algaliarept,” she rasped, and Ulbrine’s eyes widened. “I summon you.”
36
Ulbrine’s hands sprang away from her neck. Horrified, his gaze went to the barrier over his head and back to reassure himself it was still there and that a demon wasn’t materializing in it with them. “Y-you . . .” he stammered, clearly knowing she had summoned a demon without a protection circle. “What have you done?”
Eyes watering, she sucked in air. His aura-tainted barrier hummed so strongly, it was almost an ache in her skull. “Probably killed us all,” she rasped, hand on her throat. The sun would be up soon. All she had to do was survive until Algaliarept was pulled back across the lines—unless the sun was already up and it was too late.
But with an almost inaudible pop, a dark blot materialized in the center of the room.
Trisk sat up, her skull and back tingling where they’d touched the inside of Ulbrine’s barrier. Above her, Rynn Cormel straightened. The barstool in his hand slowly touched the floor, no longer hammering on Ulbrine’s circle. Orchid hovered above him, and Trisk followed the pixy’s attention to the haze sending out tendrils of smoke as if searching for the limits of its prison.
“Mother pus bucket,” a gray voice echoed into the silent room. “I am . . . loosed?”
“Stop!” Professor Thole jerked Daniel close, as if he might break the circle they were in.
“Hey!” Daniel shouted, his word of affront seeming to ripple through the haze of nothing in the center of the room, pushing it into something that almost had a shape.
“I am loosed!” a voice boomed, and as the Weres backed into a corner, the black swirled, grew, and became . . . a demon. “Felecia Eloytrisk Cambri!” The grotesque form had goat-slitted red eyes. They were the only thing she recognized. “Have you called me to bargain?”
Orchid’s dust turned a frightened black, and the pixy darted to hide in the ornately carved hearth surrounding the fireplace. “My God,” Trisk whispered. Algaliarept’s form had no skin, the striated red muscles bulking up and relaxing as he watched the Weres scramble for cover. She’d never seen him in this guise, but it was obvious it was Algaliarept.
“You should be so lucky,” Algaliarept said, but his attention shifted when Piscary rose, Rynn Cormel ghosting to stand at the old vampire’s side. Flat, blocky teeth grinned with ill intent as Algaliarept breathed deeply, nothing but a homespun loincloth between him and the rest of the world as his flayed body leaked blood to pool on the floor.
“No one summons me free of a circle and survives to see another sunrise this side of the ley lines,” Algaliarept said, and Trisk’s nose wrinkled at the reek of burnt amber.
“Hold, ancient worm!” Piscary all but hissed. “You may be immortal, but even a god dies without his he
ad.”
“I have no issue with you, vampire. Let me take my prey and go,” Algaliarept said, a haze coating him for a brief instant. It soaked in to leave elegantly embroidered linen and a dusky skin, taut with a wiry strength. His head expanded, a muzzle and pointy ears forming. With a shaking shudder, the Egyptian god Anubis stood in Piscary’s living room. The jackal-headed monstrosity licked his long muzzle, a throaty laugh bubbling up and over sharp teeth.
Piscary growled, the elegant man vanishing under a thousand years of instinct. Hunched, his hands made into claws, he advanced with an unreal grace. Hate scented the air with vampire incense. Behind him, the Weres began creeping to the door.
Algaliarept followed Kal’s attention to them. His long face split into a tongue-lolling wolf grin. “Lentus,” he said, his voice thunderously low, brushing the edges of the audible range, like an elephant’s inaudible rumble.
“Move!” Colonel Wolfe shouted, forming a living front as Mrs. Ray bolted.
“Look out!” Trisk shouted, and the woman turned, her eyes wide in panic as she slid to the floor, her heels hitting the door as a black ball of loosed energy hissed over them. It slammed into the old oak panel, and a black goo spread, creeping out as if alive.
Colonel Wolfe exclaimed in disgust, the sound evolving into a high-pitched howl as he brushed at his front. A drop of black had hit him, and it had begun to burn.
The demon’s laugh seemed to push upon the very air, darkening it in bands of ripples spreading from him in waves. Licking the spittle from his lips, Algaliarept turned to the undead vampire and performed an elegant bow of invitation.
With a silent fury, Piscary leaped at him, a long hand snagging a floor lamp even as he was in the air. It swung in a fast arc, smacking into Algaliarept’s raised palm when the demon put his entire hand over Piscary’s face. Still laughing, he shoved the vampire across the room.
Cormel was half a second behind, the cord from the lamp in his hand. As Algaliarept watched Piscary skid across the floor and slam into the wall, Cormel spun the cord around the demon’s thick neck, wedging it above the elaborate collar of gold and stones.
Snarling, Piscary launched himself at the jackal-headed god, bowling him over with his sheer will. They hit the floor, crashing into the coffee table and shattering it. Standing above them, Cormel tightened the cord, trying to strangle the demon.
Trisk stood. Ulbrine’s circle hummed over her head. Choking the demon wouldn’t work. Algaliarept need only vaporize and reappear.
“What were you thinking?” Ulbrine said. “You killed them, all of them. God knows why. Help me hold my circle until the sun rises.”
She stared at him, lips parted. “Why do you think I summoned him?”
Ulbrine froze, fear widening his eyes. “You summoned him to make a trade? With me?” he said, and she recoiled, amazed he could think her so foul. Her intention had been to create a distraction to get his hands off her neck. Surely a member of the enclave, a professor at the university, and an undead master could together dispatch a demon. But seeing the horror and sudden fear on Ulbrine’s face, she knew she’d made a mistake.
“A trade?” Algaliarept said, and Cormel called out a warning as the demon was suddenly not under him anymore, having dissolved into a gray fog that solidified behind the vampire.
“We can work something out!” Ulbrine shouted in fear, still believing her intent had been to give him to the demon. But his attention jerked behind her, and he ducked when Rynn Cormel crashed into the bar beside them.
Now you want to work something out? she thought bitterly. Coward.
“Stay in your circle!” Professor Thole exclaimed as Cormel put a hand to his head and fell down, unconscious. Beyond them, Piscary wrestled with the Egyptian god, Algaliarept’s jaws snapping inches from the incensed vampire’s face as they rolled into tables and artwork.
“Fight!” Orchid shrilled, darting in and out, her tiny sword scoring on the jackal-headed god and making Algaliarept snap at her like a dog. “All of you! Alone you will be picked off. Attack together, or we all die! Has peace made you so tame that you’ve forgotten how to battle?”
Grunting, Algaliarept shoved Piscary from him and swatted at Orchid. The vampire howled as he flew across the room. Arms splayed, he hit a chandelier before falling to the floor. Piscary levered himself up, dazed as he slipped back down to one knee, struggling to focus.
“You summoned me for a trade?” Algaliarept said. “Mar-r-r-rvelous!” The demon dissolved into a mist that re-formed as his usual crushed green velvet frock and blue-tinted glasses. He eagerly paced forward, peering at Ulbrine cowering behind Trisk. “A member of the enclave?” he rumbled, tugging his white gloves tighter. “I amend my earlier words. I misjudged the depth of your determination, Felecia Eloytrisk Cambri.”
Trisk’s own fear swelled. She wanted to survive, yes, but she didn’t want to be known as a demon practitioner to have done it. She’d be a pariah among her people. There was a beating at the door as Piscary’s children tried to get in, and then more screams when that black goo slipped through the cracks and began to burn whoever it touched.
“Well?” Algaliarept asked Trisk, and she blanched. “I must hear the words, little bird.”
“I didn’t summon you to take him. I . . .”
Algaliarept’s thin lips curved into a smile as he looked at the imprint of Ulbrine’s fingers on her neck. “Are you sure?”
Why isn’t the sun up yet? Behind him, Orchid darted to Professor Thole and Daniel for a whispered conversation, her dust pooling on the surface of Thole’s circle.
“Shove him into his circle and give the worthless sod to me,” Algaliarept said, not looking as he flicked a sparkly ribbon of black at Piscary. It wound around the vampire, tripping him to the floor, where he writhed and cursed in what sounded like Hebrew. “I promise you’ll be . . . safe.” Algaliarept grinned, tapping on the circle between them to make dimples of stress ripple out. Ulbrine’s hand tightened on her arm. “Or don’t you trust me?” The demon’s eyebrows were high as he looked at them over his glasses, a curious quirk to his expression. Checking his watch, Algaliarept tugged the lace at his sleeves out. “I’ll even make sure your name gets on your research.”
“In return for Ulbrine?” she said, and Ulbrine’s grip on her arm tingled from the force of the ley line he was channeling. “It hardly sounds fair. You wanted my soul before.”
Algaliarept snickered as he turned to look behind him at Kal and the Weres. “Black suits you, my dear. Suits you so very well. Giving me the worm beside you will make you halfway again to being mine, soul included. Think of it as me letting the fruit mature on the vine. And in the meantime, I can pay my rent.”
“Dr. Cambri,” Professor Thole whispered in horror, and Trisk’s face warmed even as she denied the jolt of knowing he might think she could do such a thing. To do such evil was a power in itself.
“So . . . do we have a deal?” Algaliarept gave Piscary a sideways glance to make sure the vampire was unmoving before turning back to her, his goat-slitted red eyes eager. Orchid was with Piscary, whispering in the old vampire’s ear. “Tick-tock.” Algaliarept brushed the lace at his throat. His gaze landed on his gloved hand and the dull gold ring on it. “The sun waits for neither vampire nor demon.”
“Don’t you dare,” Ulbrine said, sweating.
“Why not?” she snapped, and Algaliarept smiled. “You tried to choke me to death so no one could stop you from blaming Daniel for the plague Kal started. How is giving you to a demon less horrific than you two killing a quarter of the world’s population?”
Ulbrine brought his darting gaze back from Kal. “They’re just humans!” he said, truly mystified.
“What the hell?” Daniel said indignantly, red spots of anger showing on his pale face.
Algaliarept winked at Trisk’s outrage, then spun, the clatter of pixy wings giving him warning. Piscary and Rynn Cormel attacked together, their savage rage tempered with a plan.
&nb
sp; “Now, Thole!” Piscary shouted, and the professor stepped from his circle, a globe of green-tinted power in his hand.
“Abrie!” the high-magic user shouted, and Algaliarept bellowed, flinging Cormel at the witch. But the spell was away, and it hit Algaliarept square in the chest. The demon rocked back, laughing gleefully, head shaking to make his hair fly out as he absorbed what would probably kill anyone else.
“You, little witch, have potential. I will put in a library with your sale,” Algaliarept said even as he swung a thick fist at Rynn Cormel, now on his feet and lunging across the bar. The living vampire saw it coming, dropping to the floor so it skimmed harmlessly overhead as Orchid shrilled a battle call from the ceiling. Cormel flipped to his feet, but Algaliarept was gone, having vaulted over the bar for Professor Thole.
“Back!” Thole shoved Daniel behind him and out of the way. “Rhombus!” the witch shouted, and Algaliarept bellowed in frustrated anger as Thole’s circle sprang up anew, this time with Algaliarept inside it.
“No!” Algaliarept shouted in frustration, a red mist sweeping the floor for any crack, any conduit out. The circle had been drawn in haste, but it had been drawn by a master, and as Algaliarept gave up and coalesced down to a sullen, angry demon, Thole collapsed to lean against the bar, his hand trembling.
“Save me from fools,” the witch said as his eyes found Trisk’s.
Algaliarept wasn’t fighting the barrier, but she’d never seen him so angry. “You shouldn’t have tried to kill me . . . Sa’han,” she said bitterly, then shoved Ulbrine into his circle.
The barrier dropped and Ulbrine moved away from her, unknown thoughts circling behind his furrowed brow. Trisk’s nose wrinkled. The room reeked of burnt amber, and pixy dust hazed the lights. Daniel rose up from behind the bar, fumbling backward until he found his way out. White-faced, he took Trisk’s arm, pulling her farther away from Algaliarept, who was fuming in a silent rage. “Thanks, Orchid,” he whispered, and the tired pixy dropped down onto his shoulder.