Page of Swords (The Demon's Apprentice Book 2)

by Ben Reeder

  It took me about an hour of reading and re-reading the first chapter before I noticed the narrow ribbons between pages. I flipped to the page with the first bookmark. It talked about the defeat of Mammon, and the symbols that the Atlantean mage-priests had used to seal him into his prison before exiling him for an eternity. In the margins, there was a note that magick avoided absolutes, like forever or never, because the conditions were impossible to keep, so the spell fizzled every time. It made me look at the term used: “an” eternity. A few pages deeper in, I learned that it meant ‘one hundred times one hundred years,’ the largest number the less literate kingdoms could understand and believe. It went on like that, outlining a recipe for Armageddon with each bookmarked page.

  Eventually, I had to pull the rubbings I’d made out of the tube Dr. C had tossed me, and compared them to the descriptions on the page. Nothing was making sense, and I suspected that whoever had been reading this before me had missed something. It wasn’t until I went to the first pages that detailed the G’Honn Tablets, when I saw the description of the reading room that I got it. My blood ran cold as I scanned back in the book until I found the section detailing rituals using the G’Honn formulae, and the consequences of failure. I reached for a sheet of paper from the pile on my right, and stopped as my fingers felt something on the paper itself. I set the page aside and grabbed another one, then snatched one of the pens from the jar.

  My legs were shaky by the time Inamosa led me back up the stairs. Dr. C was sitting in one of the chairs with his staff standing unsupported beside him. He came to his feet when I leaned on the love seat for support. The staff snapped to his hand at his gesture, and he was at my side by the time I sat down.

  “What’s wrong, Chance?” he asked.

  “I know too much for my own good, that’s all, sir,” I said with a wan smile. “Hey, Inamosa, when’s the Feast of St. Dominic?” I asked the hovering little monk.

  “August eighth,” he said after a few seconds.

  I nodded my thanks to him and got to my feet unsteadily.

  Synreah joined us as we came down the steps, and Dr. C waited until we were out of sight of Dead Leo’s place to give me the third degree.

  “What did you learn, Chance?” he demanded.

  “Too much. Etienne’s not playing small. He’s trying to open the seals on Mammon’s prison so he can assume his mantle,” I said, my voice still shaky.

  “Mammon, as in one of the Seven Princes of the Abyss?” he asked softly.

  I nodded.

  “It gets worse, sir. The G’Honn fragments are all written backwards. Something about protecting mortal minds from the knowledge they hold. You have to read them with a mirror, or make an impression of them using soft clay to read them the right way. As far as I know, Etienne doesn’t know that.”

  “How can you tell?” Dr. C asked me.

  “He bookmarked the pages he read. And,” I told him as I pulled a rolled page out of the tube, “he used a ballpoint pen to take notes.” The page unfurled to reveal the shallow indentations of a pen in the page, made visible by the charcoal stick I’d rubbed across the face. “Either way, he’s already very powerful, and he’ll only need one more sacrifice to complete the ritual. Mr. Chomsky’s journal mentioned a Seeker and a Wielder, right?”

  His eyes closed for a moment.

  “Come to think of it, it did,” he said. “I thought he was referring to the same person.”

  “I’m not sure. We’ll deal with that once we find it,” I told him, but I already thought I knew the answer to that question. There had been one person who’d been around almost every time I’d seen a vision of the sword. It was a matter for another moment but things were starting to fall into place.

  “I’ll need to alert the Conclave. This is too big, Chance. Stay out of it. Concentrate on finding the Maxilla for now. The Sentinels will handle Etienne.”

  Thunder rumbled in the distance, and I felt the first heavy drops of rain hit the hood of my cloak. In front of us, people began looking around, and I saw panic begin to dawn in several faces. Merchants started packing up their stuff, and I held my own hand out to catch a couple of drops. Pale red splat marks colored my palm, and I turned to show Dr. C.

  “I don’t think so,” I said as it began to rain blood.

  Dr. Corwyn spent most of the drive home on his phone, alternately being diplomatic and yelling. He barely seemed to notice the watery red border his windshield wipers were making with every pass. Other people seemed to be staying off the roads, maybe afraid they’d get some blood-borne disease or something. The clock on his dash showed that it was coming up on six o’clock. I cursed at the loss of time, but for some reason, I felt almost optimistic, too. I felt like I was close to figuring out how to find the Maxilla, but I had no idea why.

  A white limousine was waiting in front of the house, and I spotted four identical blue Crown Victorias parked up and down the main street. I looked down into one of them as we passed it and saw the Sentinel glare back at me. From the outside, it had a lot of the same things I’d seen on regular police cruisers. Nudge bars and a PIT bumper on the front, a wire mesh partition between the front and back seats, and tires made for the heavy duty suspension. I was willing to bet it had the same kind of high performance engine a law enforcement interceptor had as well. But regular police cruisers didn’t have protection spells woven into the windshield, or aura glass. I felt the gaze of the Sentinel we had just passed hit my aura. Amplified by the aura glass, their aura gazing was like a spotlight; you could feel the heat from a long way off. Even when they didn’t have their Third Eye open, they would have been able to see into the ethereal realm.

  We drove past them and pulled into the garage. Junkyard and I got out on one side, and Dr. C pulled his staff from the back seat. As soon as we stepped out of the garage, car doors started opening up and down the street. Sixteen ankh-topped Sentinel paramiir staves popped up beside the blue Crown Vics, and a smooth white staff with a ruby tip emerged from the limo. I felt the glare start before Polter stepped into view, dressed immaculately in a dark blue suit. He glanced at the Sentinels, then turned to face us with the same smile I remembered from the other night. It reminded me of a shark, all teeth, no soul.

  Polter’s grin soured when T-Bone’s Torino pulled into the driveway behind us, and Cross rode his Harley across the grass and parked it on the sidewalk. They still wore the same black outfits I’d seen them in last time, and I wondered if they had a closet full of identical black cargo pants, t-shirts and sweaters. They came over to Dr. C and me, Polter’s face turned red. They shook hands with Dr. C, and Cross came over and put a hand on my shoulder.

  “You doing all right, kid?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “Not bad for the end of the world and all,” I said.

  “Not on our watch,” T-Bone said from behind me.

  Polter strode up as he finished and put his finger in the middle of Cross’s chest.

  “I didn’t authorize this. Why did you abandon your post?” he demanded. Cross looked down at his hand, then back up at Polter. The pudgy wizard pulled his hand away but didn’t give an inch.

  “That’s a good way to get your hand broken,” T-Bone said.

  “We don’t answer to you,” Cross said. His voice was a deep rumble, like thunder warning of a storm. He ignored Polter and turned to me. “Draeden asked us to come. Moon and Hardesty are watching over your family in our place.”

  “How are they? How’s my sister?” I asked quickly. Polter sneered at me, but I was too busy hanging on T-Bone’s answer to punch him like I wanted to.

  “They’re fine. Mostly bored.” He stepped aside as Polter elbowed his way past me then stopped in his tracks as Junkyard planted his feet and growled up at him. The scene held for a second before Dr. C knelt down beside him.

  “It’s okay, Junkyard. You can bite him later,” he told him. That earned him a lick on the face before Junkyard trotted over to me. I went to the side door to deactivate the wards w
hile Junkyard greeted Cross and T-Bone. Unlike Polter and most every other human he met, he took right to them, further proof that my dog had good taste.

  I watched the Sentinels converge on the house, then my eyes went to Dr. C and Polter standing on the sidewalk. Every single mage I’d seen lately had been carrying a staff. It was their status symbol, and one of the tools of power they wielded. The thing that had been bugging me for the past couple of days dropped into place in my head as I opened the door and invited Cross and T-Bone inside.

  In less than ten minutes, Cross, T-bone, and I were cooling our heels in the kitchen while Dr. C was closeted with Polter and most of the Sentinels in his library. Four had been assigned to me, and had promptly disappeared. I was nursing the last bottle of Coke and trying to keep my mind off of the way Polter had started throwing orders around. This was Dr. C’s house, damn it, and I hated that the overstuffed Master had been acting like he had been the one who’d figured everything out.

  I was so hacked that I almost missed it when Junkyard’s head came up off his paws and his nose turned toward the front door. Cross and T-Bone were on their feet and out the side door the second I heard Lucas’ voice through the front door. I got up and made for the door at full speed a heartbeat later, with Junkyard on my heels.

  The front door swung open to reveal Lucas in the clutches of two sentinels, one the girl who’d been guarding the elevator the night of my trial.

  “This cowan has no business here,” she said sternly. “He shouldn’t even know of our world!”

  “Well, if he didn’t before, you just made sure he did,” I snapped back at her. Her face went red at that.

  “Dude, they took her!” Lucas cried, and I turned my attention back to him.

  His lip was swollen, and he had a bruise along the side of his face that was just starting to turn purple. As if the black eye I’d given him wasn’t enough, his other eye was nearly swollen shut now, and his shirt was torn at the right shoulder.

  “They took her!” His voice was laced with combination of desperation, fear and anger.

  I stepped out onto the porch and put my arm around his shoulder, in the process shoving the two Sentinels away from him. That earned me a black look, but Cross and T-Bone stepped up behind them and pulled them away. I pulled Lucas inside and up the stairs, trying to ignore the sounds of the pompous windbag in the library talking about ‘his’ conclusions. My ego took a back seat to the tears running down my friend’s face.

  “Who took who?” I asked him.

  “Wanda!” he blurted out. “I don’t know who they were, but they took Wanda!” The words stopped me in my tracks, and my eyes went to the line of silver staves lined up outside Dr. C’s library, with Polter’s at the end. We had a whole squad of Sentinels in this house, and one of my friends had still been kidnapped.

  “I couldn’t stop them,” Lucas was saying. “I tried, but . . . they just kept hitting me, telling me to go tell you what they did.”

  “Did one of them have a hat?” I asked.

  Lucas nodded as his cell phone played the chorus of “Cry Little Sister,” the ringtone he’d set for Wanda. We exchanged looks: his hopeful, mine dismal. He pulled the phone out and hit the answer button. Wanda’s cries came from the earpiece before he got it to his ear. They were abruptly cut off, and I could hear another, softer voice.

  “I will,” he said to whoever it was, then ended the call. He handed me the phone mutely and sat down on the stairs. It beeped a few seconds later, and the screen showed that there was an incoming video. I pressed the button to “View,” and Wanda’s tear-streaked face bounced across the screen for a second before it stabilized. A hand flew across the picture and smacked against her cheek, then pulled away quickly with a curse.

  “Bitch!” the unseen speaker hissed.

  The view pulled back to show her with her hands chained over her head. She had on a purple skirt with striped stockings that were torn at the knees. Her purple top was also ripped, exposing her bra and the pentacle that dangled just above the lace edge of it. It glowed blue, and I could see the guy who must have hit her cradling his hand next to his chest with tendrils of steam coming off of it. Streaks of mascara marked her puffy cheeks, and her lip was bleeding.

  “Smile for the camera, bitch!” a familiar voice sneered. “Make sure he knows it’s you.”

  Her head came up, and for a second, she looked almost composed.

  “Chance,” she said, and my stomach dropped to my toes.

  Her pentacle glowed brighter, and the camera backed away. It turned and I saw Darth Fedora’s smug face fill the screen as he walked through a doorway.

  “Stay by the phone, warlock. Good boy!” He laughed and I heard several voices join him before the screen went black.

  The dark, cold place in my mind woke up and ate the anger and pain I was feeling. When I met Lucas’ eyes, he flinched.

  “Come on,” I told him as I headed up the stairs and toward the back of the house.

  The last door at the end of the hallway led to a sunroom that faced to the south, and we closed the door behind us. I didn’t want Polter or his mage cops getting in the way of this. Karl had just made things personal, and there was no way I was going to let him walk away from this. The phone rang before the door clicked shut. I hit the button to put it on speaker before I hit the green answer button.

  “What?” I answered.

  “You know now that we have your little girlfriend,” Fedora chuckled. “Or are you screwing the leggy redhead?”

  “The only person who’s gonna get fucked tonight, Darth Fedora,” I growled, “is you.”

  “I don’t think so. You have defied my Master for the last time. You will stop prying into his business. You will not interfere. You will not even speak ill of him. You will swear to this right now, or she dies. Now, swear your obedience to my Master’s will!”

  He was trying to put me over a barrel by making me swear a binding oath.

  “Let her go, Darth,” I said softly as I tried to buy some time to think. “It’s the only way you’re gonna make it through the night in one piece.”

  “Swear it!” he yelled into the phone.

  “So long as you don’t hurt her, I swear that I won’t do any more digging into your Master’s business. I’m done trying to figure out what he’s up to. So long as she lives, I promise you that. Satisfied?” I asked as I felt the binding of the oath close around me.

  “Yes. You finally understand your place in the world, worm.”

  “Promise me you won’t hurt her,” I demanded.

  “Why? You already promised me what I want, and you can’t break it.”

  “Because my promise is only binding while Wanda’s still alive and unharmed. And I promise you this, Karl. If you do hurt her, after I’m done with you, not even death will be mercy enough.” I hit the end button and handed Lucas his phone back.

  “What the hell did you just do?” he exclaimed angrily.

  “Gave him an empty promise,” I told him.

  He shoved me away from the door and got in my face.

  “You told him, no you swore you wouldn’t interfere! You can’t break that kind of promise!”

  “Lucas, you know me better than that. I only promised him I wouldn’t look into his Master’s business. I told him I was done trying to figure out what he was doing because I already know. I never said I wasn’t gonna fuck up his Master’s world.” Lucas took a step back and gave me a thoughtful look.

  “Remind me never to make a deal with you, man,” he said.

  “You’ll never have to. I don’t make deals with my friends. I have a plan, but it’s dangerous.”

  “More dangerous than getting chased through the woods by werewolves? More dangerous than an evil werewolf threatening to eat me?” he asked. I thought about that for a second.

  “Probably.”

  “I’m still in, dude. This is Wanda we’re talking about, there’s no way I’m gonna sit this out. Especially not when you’re
about to put your ass on the line for her. You tell me what you need, and I’ll do it. Unless I have to hit someone, ‘cuz I kinda suck at that.”

  “No punches. But I need you to do a lot of stuff, and we don’t have a lot of time. Come on,” I said as I pulled him back into the hall.

  Fifteen minutes later, we’d been through my room, the attic workroom and we were standing in the foyer. I opened the storage closet under the stairs and pulled out the pistol Dr. C had loaned Collins the night before. I wrapped the gunbelt around itself, stuffed it in my backpack and handed it to Lucas.

  “Whoa, man! “ he said softly. “A gun? Do you even know how to use that?”

  “Dr. C taught me a few months ago. Gun safety, cleaning, maintenance, he even took me out to a range to let me fire a few rounds to make sure I hit what I was aiming at. It’s a Texas thing, I guess. That and it bugged him that he’d sent me into the fight with King with a pistol I didn’t know how to use.”

  “Did you? Hit what you were aiming at?” he asked with a grin.

  “Not as often as he did, but yeah, if it’s not moving and close enough, I can put a hole in it. Somewhere. Most of the time.”

  “So, is this everything?” he asked, hefting my backpack with a visible effort.

  I nodded and pulled the neglenom charm out of the side pocket.

  “Now you see it,” I said as I tied it to the handle on the top.

  “Now you don’t,” Lucas finished for me as it shimmered out of view. He shouldered it and gave me a determined look. “Okay, I have your gear, I know what I need to get, and who to talk to. Anything else?”

  “Yeah, I need to borrow your phone again for a minute.” He handed it over, and I dialed a number.

  The voice that answered on the other end was familiar and hopeful.