The Garrison (The Circle Series Book 3)

by Naomi L Scudder

  “Is that going to come off the floor?” Zora asked.

  Jane sighed. “It’s just chalk.”

  Then she spoke the summoning words and after a crackle in the ether, the circle burst into blue flames and the same demon as before stood before them, wiggling his fox ears at them.

  It was easier this time.

  Jane had still opened a portal from one dimension to another and pulled a demon through her body, but it didn’t take quite so much out of her this time.

  In fact, she still had most of her juice left.

  “Nice to see you’re keeping different company, witch.”

  “Nice of you to answer my call, demon.”

  “What can I do for you?” The demon’s black eyes lowered as he asked the question.

  Jane showed him the Ouroboros tattoo on her upper arm. “This was done to me. I need it out. I need a ride to the hell realm. Would you be willing to serve as conduit and guide?”

  “I may, for a price.”

  “Hold on a second,” Xan said drawing the strange eyes of the demon.

  “Yes fae? What do you have to say for yourself?”

  “You know she has a female demon bound to her?”

  The demon nodded.

  “Well then she needs to go to the female realm. You can’t help us with that, can you?” Xan scoffed as the demon’s expression changed. “You were going to try to swindle her weren’t you. Get a payment first and then take her to a realm that can’t help her.”

  The demon stared at Xan, eyes unblinking.

  “How about, instead of trying to pull a fast one on her, you tell us the name of a female demon that can help us. Then I’ll make sure we let you go back to your realm with all your pieces intact. Does that sound agreeable.”

  “Fine.”

  25

  Xandrie

  “What’s the name, then?” Xan asked the demon again.

  “I’ll only tell the witch.”

  “Fine,” said Xan. “Tell her and then be on your way.”

  The fox-like demon beckoned Jane closer, whispered something in her ear through the barrier of the protection circle, and then disappeared with a crackle.

  The blue flames extinguished themselves as he left.

  Both Jane and Zora stared at Xan.

  “What?”

  “How did you know he was tricking me?”

  “Yeah. How’d you know so much about the demon realm?” Zora asked.

  The women situation themselves around the bar once more and Zora poured everyone post demon summoning drinks.

  It wasn’t strake juice, but it was something, and Xan needed something. She didn’t show it, call it years of court training, but Xan’s insides were squrimy with anxiety. Confronting that demon was not easy.

  “You really put him in his place,” Jane said.

  Xan nodded and downed her tequila.

  “So how could you tell?” Jane asked again.

  “I couldn’t,” Xan said, folding her hands in her lap to keep them from shaking. “He gave no outward indication that he was conning you.”

  “Well, that makes me feel a little better. I thought I was losing my edge,” said Jane.

  “Nothing like that. I only knew he was lying because Casimir has been teaching me about the demon realm. I knew there are separate male and female realms because when, I mean, if we’re married, I’ll be the liaison to the female realm.”

  Zora poured everyone another drink.

  “Is that what you want? To marry this guy and become a demon liaison?”

  Xan couldn’t help shrinking at the tone Jane used. “It’s not just that, Jane. If we were married, I’d also rule the Unseelie Court with him. It’s kind of my duty to fulfill.”

  Jane nodded.

  Zora asked, “Do you want that? Honestly? Outside of duty and royal responsibility? Is that the life you want?”

  Xan nodded. “I think it is. I’ll have to give up my bakery, and I’ll have to stay in the sidhe much more often, which means I won’t be able to drive for you or Theron anymore. But I think I’m ready. I’ve been running from this for so long, living outside of the sidhe and pretending I’m just a regular fae girl when I’m not. I wasn’t able to accept that before. But now I think I am.”

  “Do you even like this Casimir guy?” Jane asked.

  “I do. But more importantly I think he’s a good man, and we’ll make a good ruling team.”

  “Do you trust him?” asked Jane.

  “I do,” Xan said.

  Zora smiled, a broad, toothy grin Xan hadn’t seen in quite some time. She broke out a bottle of fae champagne and poured three overflowing glasses. “When’s the wedding, then?”

  Xan laughed. “I don’t know. I haven’t told him my feelings on the matter yet.”

  “Well, why not?” Zora asked.

  Xan shrugged. “I wanted to tell you guys first.”

  Jane smiled and raised her glass. “To the soon to be King and Queen of the Unseelie Court. May they rule happily together for as long as the summer is warm.”

  Xan beamed at her friend and drank to her heartfelt toast.

  Jane downed her champagne. “And I hope he knows that if he ever does anything to cross you, I’ll rip him balls to throat.”

  Xan laughed, “Thank you, I’ll tell him you send your best.”

  After an hour or so, the rest of the bottle of champagne, and most of the tequila in the bar, the three women were giggling off their barstools.

  “Wait, wait,” Zora slurred. “We still haven’t figured out what to do about the wolves.”

  Xan nodded, watching as Jane slid off her stool onto the floor.

  “Is she OK?” Zora asked between hiccups and giggles.

  “Yeah, she’s fine. She’s snoring.” Xan looked at the drunken gypsy across the bar. “Y’know, I think I figure out what we need to do ‘bout the wolves.”

  “Wassat?” Zora slurred.

  “We just need to separate them like the demons. Male society and female society. Then no subservient females for overly Alpha males to fight over.”

  Zora nodded, or tried to but ended up looking like a bobblehead. “It makes sense. But how? We don’t have any means of forcing them to comply. We still don’t have leverage.”

  Xan sighed. “You’re right. They’re still stronger than us.”

  Jane stood up from the bar floor, and in a voice that wasn’t all hers said, “That’s where you’re wrong ladies.”

  “Jane, nice of you to join us. Have a nice nap?” Xan said, jabbing a friendly poke at her friend's ribs.

  “Um, that’s not Jane,” said Zora eyeing the tattoo swirling on Jane’s arm.

  “Whaddya mean?” But as the words left Xan’s slurring tongue she saw it for herself. “Oh shit.”

  Jane stared at Xan not with her own pale green eyes, but with blacked out demon eyes.

  “Jane can’t hold her liquor as well as I can,” said the demon with Jane’s voice.

  “I see that,” hiccuped Zora.

  “As the witch grew more inebriated, the wall separating us grew thinner.”

  Xan shared a look with Zora. How much had the demon overheard? Did she know of Jane’s plan to exorcise her?

  “You’ve been operating with a false set of rules, ladies. You’ve had the upper hand the whole time. That is, Jane has.”

  “How do you mean?” asked Xan.

  “Shifters like your wolf friends, along with other species like wolves, big cats, et cetera, are all descended from demons. As such, demons have a certain amount of control over their lesser descendants. We can strip them of their demon-ness, their animal side.”

  “Hold on,” Zora said. “How exactly are demons and shifters related?”

  The demon folded Jane’s arms over her chest. “We aren’t related, gypsy. They’re descendants. We share a common ancestor.”

  “And that makes your magic similar? It gives you power over them?” Xan asked.

  “It does not make our magic
similar in the least. But shifters are, with few exceptions, the strongest of the magical creatures. Ancient demons thought it best to practice warding themselves against shifter attack as they can cause demons harm. Over the millennia they figured out how to pull the beast from the man and leave a shifter only half of what he was. Threaten the pack with that, and they’ll have no choice but to listen and obey.”

  Things started to click in Xandrie’s mind. She did have one question though. She wrestled with how to ask the demon without revealing too much. “I’ve seen you outside of Jane’s body. You don’t look like anything a shifter could have common ancestry with.”

  The demon smiled with Jane’s mouth, creeping the hell out of Xan.

  “You only see what’s left of my corporeal form.”

  “What does that mean?” asked Zora.

  Jane sighed. “If you were to summon a demon to the earth realm the right way, you’d do so by creating a barrier and pulling not only the demon, but the ether and atmosphere of the demon realm along as well. A demon cannot survive for long in this realm, not unless we’re hosted by a human. You’ve never seen my true form, as it would be in my realm.”

  Xan looked at Zora who nodded at her.

  It made a weird kind of sense.

  “Just for clarity,” Zora started, “you’re saying Jane can split the wolf from its human part, and we need to use that as leverage. Right?”

  “Wrong,” the demon said, smile tugging at the corners of Jane’s lips in a way that made both Xan and Zora step back. “I’m saying I have the ability to do so, and I will use it as leverage.”

  26

  Xandrie

  Jane collapsed on the floor.

  “Shit!” Zora said and hopped over the bar to see if she was OK.

  “She’s fine,” Xan said, finger already on her pulse. “I guess the alcohol finally caught up with the demon too.”

  “We should get her back to her apartment,” said Zora.

  “Agreed. You lock up here, and I’ll get her in the car.”

  “Are you OK to drive?” Zora asked.

  “I am. Fae metabolism is efficient at breaking down the compounds in alcohol. I’d have to drink a barrel of champagne to actually pass out.”

  Xan carried her small friend to the car and in no time the three were on their way to the other side of The Circle.

  Zora patted Jane’s pockets for her keys, found them and let them into the tiny basement studio.

  “Blech,” Zora said as she headed for the bathroom. “It smells like mold in here.”

  Xan put her friend on her unmade bed, conjured a tea cake from the bakery along with a note for her bedside table. “That should do it,” she said.

  “Here, she’ll want this in the morning, too.” Zora held out a bottle of Aspirin, but Xan shook her head.

  “The tea cake will set her right. She won’t need any pharmaceuticals.”

  Zora shrugged and left the bottle in the bathroom. Both women looked at their snoring friend.

  “I think we should wait to tell her,” said Zora.

  “I was thinking the same. First, we should corroborate what the demon said. We need to know she wasn’t lying to us,” Xan said.

  Zora nodded. “I’ll check with Kirin. She said something about demon history, but I didn’t think much of it at the time.”

  “Great, and I’ll check with Cas.”

  Zora lifted an eyebrow at Xan. “Cas is it? Not the Prince, or his full name, title, and true name?”

  Xan smiled. “He’s my destiny, I should be able to call him whatever I like.”

  “Well, make sure when you two get hitched that you throw a lavish, extravagant wedding.”

  That wasn’t what Xan had in mind, but it would depend on what their parents wanted. It might just end up being the fae celebration of the century.

  Xan didn’t have time to get caught up in that line of thinking and changed the subject. “I don’t think we should tell Jane. Not right away at least.”

  “I agree, not until we know for certain the demon was truthful.”

  Xan nodded. “But more than that, if she knows she has power over the wolves via the demon within her, she might change her mind about exorcising her.”

  “It’s a difficult one. If we tell her, you know she’ll keep the demon to save the women of the pack. But if we don’t tell her we risk not finding another solution.”

  “She’ll be angry if she ever finds out we didn’t tell her,” said Xan.

  “Let’s not worry about that until we know for certain the demon was telling the truth, deal?”

  “Deal,” Xan looked once more at the sleeping witch and left her to recover.

  27

  Jane

  Pounding jackhammers and steel-toed boots banged on the inside of Jane’s head.

  It was the worst hangover she’d ever had. She laid in bed, pressing the heels of her hand to her temples, trying to push away the pain.

  I’m never drinking again, she thought.

  Jane swung her legs over the edge of the bed, instantly regretting the decision as her head swam with dizziness. She reached for the glass of water on her bedside table and downed the whole thing, dribbling a tiny stream of water down her chin.

  “What this?” she said as she noticed the small cake nestled atop a piece of parchment paper.

  She picked up the cake, glanced at the two words on the note and popped it in her mouth.

  Hopefully, Xan knew what she was doing.

  Jane laid back down, resigned to spend the rest of the day in bed. But in moments her headache subsided, and the nausea in the pit of her stomach settled.

  In less than a half an hour Jane felt better than she had before she’d started drinking. In fact, she was certain that cake had restored the magic she’d used summoning the demon yesterday.

  “Xan, you’ve been holding out on me,” Jane said to herself as she went to the bathroom to clean herself up.

  She took a scalding hot shower, dried her hair, and as soon as she was dressed, mapped out the circle she was about to draw on the carpet.

  Chalk wouldn’t work because it was carpet, and Jane did want her security deposit back if she ever moved out of the dump, so it had to be something that would come out.

  She finally settled on pouring a salt circle. It was old school, but it should work.

  Jane brushed off her hands, spoke the demon words, named the demon, and for the third time in less than a week, brought a demon through her body.

  She stood there, beautiful orange cat-like eyes blinking, encircled by blue flames. “Yes, witch?”

  “I’m…” Jane was at a loss for words. She’d never seen such a lovely creature. Not even the fae she’d seen in the sidhe compared to the unearthly beauty this demon had. Triangular face, high cheekbones, big round eyes. She looked like an artist’s rendering of a cat-human hybrid.

  She was magnificent.

  “I haven’t got all day, witch.”

  Jane shook her head. “I’m sorry, your exquisite beauty has truly left me speechless.”

  The demon smiled at Jane.

  Everyone likes compliments. Especially when they’re genuine.

  “Why have you summoned me?” the demon asked again.

  Jane took a breath. “I need a conduit and guide to the demon realm. The female realm,” Jane amended.

  The demon cocked her head at Jane. “Why would you want that?”

  Jane showed the demon the tattoo on her arm. “I need an exorcism.”

  The demons large orange eyes widened. “Where did you get that?” she hissed.

  “I didn’t get it anywhere. It was forced on me by a psychotic vampire that liked to keep his meals subservient.”

  The demon nodded, still eyeing the tattoo. “And you want her removed?”

  “Yes.”

  “Fine. I’ll be your conduit to the demon realm. I’ll shimmer you right where you need to be.” The demon smiled at Jane.

  It wasn’t a nice smi
le.

  It made Jane’s skin crawl.

  “No strings?” Jane asked. “I don’t have to do anything in return?”

  “Not a thing, witch. Just having her removed is payment enough.”

  Jane nodded, lowering her eyes to the demon. “Thank you, Shrikenda.” Jane wasn’t sure about using the demon’s name outside of summoning her.

  Some cultures put a great deal of weight in the power of name magic.

  “You’re welcome, Jane.”

  Demons weren’t one of those cultures.

  “OK, so, how do we do this.”

  “First you release me from the circle.”

  Jane didn’t like the sound of that. “Can’t you just shimmer me to the demon realm from inside it?”

  “No, I can not. I need to touch you in order to transport you. And in order to do that, you need to lower the circle,” said the demon, making no effort to hide the condescension in her tone.

  “Fine,” Jane said and moved a bit of salt out of the circle with her boot.

  As soon as she did, the blue flames surrounding the demon disappeared, and the demon snaked a hand around Jane’s wrist.

  “Hey, that hurts!” But Jane’s protests were cut off as the demon yanked her into the most jarring shimmer Jane had ever experienced.

  Her insides stretched and twisted as they traveled from the earth realm to the demon realm.

  It took forever. Demon travel wasn’t anywhere near as nice as fae shimmers.

  When she finally landed in the demon realm, Jane fell to her knees as nausea and dizziness gripped her.

  “Get yourself together, witch. You stand before the High Council, the Mistress of The Veiled Realm,” Shrikenda said.

  Jane wiped her brow of the sweat and stood on two wobbly legs. “I apologize,” she said to the demon sitting on a throne carved of the very stone of the landscape. It jutted from the ground as if it had grown naturally in the perfect shape of a throne, the rough reddish-brown tones blending with the dunes in the distant background. “The travel didn’t agree with me.”

  “I can see that,” said the enthroned demon, her bright blue eyes, white hair, and purring voice made Jane think of only one thing as she looked at the demon before her. A Persian Cat.