by Sara Snow
I was more relieved than I’d care to admit even to myself when the door cracked open and Rakshasi’s amethyst eyes peeked through the crack. She opened it a bit wider and held out a bundle of clothing with some heavier metal pieces, thrusting them into my arms.
“Put these on,” she said, shutting the door.
I laid out the garments on the floor, examining them under my phone’s light. The deep red fabric draped across a metal breastplate seemed to go over a black tunic. The P emblazoned on the front of the breastplate immediately gave the getup away as a guard’s uniform.
Pretty smart, demon princess.
It was tricky, especially in the dark, but I figured out the uniform, throwing everything over my own clothes. Luckily, my backpack wasn’t too full and I was able to discreetly slip it on over the tunic but beneath the cape, concealing it for the most part. At worst, it would probably look like I had a hunched back, but with the grotesque variety of demons that were already walking around this place, it didn’t seem like it’d matter too much.
When I was satisfied with my demon costume, I stepped out of the closet, pulling the hood as far down my face as I could without raising too much suspicion, hoping like hell that would keep any guards from noticing me.
The girl surveyed my disguise, her eyes running up and down me, her head tilting thoughtfully to the side. I was surprised to see a slight blush spread across her cheeks as she bashfully turned away from me, beginning to walk down the hall, her dress fluttering gracefully behind her.
“Follow me,” she said.
With a straightened back, hoping to mimic the upright and stiff posture of the guards that swarmed the castle, I sped up to her side.
“I don’t think I caught your name,” I pointed out, trying to watch her face and gauge her reactions.
“I’m Rakshasi,” she said, keeping her voice down and her eyes forward. “Don’t look at me when you speak, guards aren’t permitted to do so here. You’ll stick out.”
I snapped my head back forward. “Sorry,” I whispered. “I’m Jacob, by the way.”
She nodded politely. “It’s nice to meet you, Jacob.”
We walked in silence down the hall, passing several guards on the way, all of whom stopped to bow to Rakshasi as we passed, a fact that greatly helped me conceal my identity, I’m sure. I’d obviously known that she was a princess from Georgia’s mention of her, but something about seeing all of these demons bowing to her made my skin crawl. Georgia had spoken so positively about her, but the thought of Abalam’s daughter being my only hope at the moment set me on edge, even if she seemed gentle enough.
As far as I was concerned, no one in this place could truly be trusted. Following her down the twists and turns of the palace hallways, I found myself constantly at the ready to be attacked, skeptically wondering who she’d convinced to lie in wait for me around a corner, ready to take a swing at me. I caught her occasionally stealing glances, and at first I was wondering if she was trying to size me up, but the way she kept averting her eyes when I noticed, letting her gaze fall to the floor and an ever so slight curl upward of the corner of her mouth seemed too shy and sweet to be sinister. I considered the fact that she was just acting in order to get me to let my guard down, but I had to admit it almost worked. Her apparent bashfulness was so endearing. If she was just acting in order to trick me, she was good as hell at it.
We managed to make our way through the castle with no trouble, a feat that seemed almost impossible after my previous trip through its maze-like hallways. Thanks to the constantly bowing guards, not a single demon was able to get a close enough look at my face to realize that I didn’t belong. Rakshasi’s ingenuity with this disguise made me grateful for having come across her, even if I didn’t quite trust her.
When we came to a grand hall, a bit more ostentatiously decorated and with much higher ceilings and even more art lining the walls than elsewhere, I immediately sensed that we’d arrived somewhere important. Long banners with golden Ps embroidered on them hung gloriously at even intervals along the wall, with frequent alcoves housing large carved statues of anything from what looked like great warriors to proud kings. The air of this hall felt drastically different from the rest of the palace.
“Where are we?” I asked, doing my best not to gawk at my surroundings as I tried to maintain my demon guise.
“This is the Hall of the Kings,” she said. “It’s where some of the higher-up residents of the palace live, among other things. Most importantly, it’s where the three kings have their quarters. Paimon, Bebal, and my father.”
I nodded thoughtfully, though I could feel a bit of sweat beginning to form beneath my hood, suddenly extra grateful for its cover. I hadn’t really thought about where a powerful demon king would keep the piece of a weapon that was essentially the only thing that would be able to kill him, but it suddenly made sense to him that keeping it close would be the safest. A bit of anxiety sparked in my chest, and the fear of bumping into one of the demon kings became a real fear in my mind.
“Are you sure they won’t be around and wondering why the hell you’re bringing an uninvited guest into their living quarters?” I asked hesitantly.
“Of course. Paimon is being tended to in his own quarters and the other two will be at his side. Besides, we’re not going to their living quarters,” she said, continuing down the hall past intricate doors decorated with gold and silver embellishments to accentuate harsh figures chiseled into their surfaces. It was hard to make out the contents of some of the seemingly ancient imagery, but many of them seemed to be depictions of great creatures wielding weapons, men standing among seas of flames, and even what appeared to be a lion’s head surrounded by a wheel of cloven-hooved legs sticking out in all directions. It would all have been elegant if the contents hadn’t been so unsettling.
We passed numerous doors decorated like this before turning into a large open hall that seemed to exist only to emphasize the set of flashy doors that stood at the back, just as tall and elaborately decorated as the ones we’d passed on the way, if not even more so. Two guards stood post at either side and as we approached, they stepped in perfect sync in front of the doors, pushing them open with great effort.
They bowed as we went through, stepping into what was possibly the largest library I’d ever seen in my life. It was several stories tall with a large spiral staircase towering in the middle, long bridge-like walkways leading from it to the landings of each level. Everything was crafted from stone and gold, retaining the castle’s rigid and intimidating aura, but with a sort of sturdy sophistication that seemed to be appropriate for a library of this scale.
“This is… impressive to say the least,” I remarked as soon as I was sure we were out of earshot of the guards.
“Paimon is a king of knowledge. He is learned in all things pertaining to science, philosophy, and the arts,” she said. “His library spans thousands of years of accumulated knowledge, more than anyone could ever dream of consuming. In our world, this place is famous. It’s a sort of holy grail of information, if you’ll excuse the word play,” she said with a small smile and laugh, which she daintily tried to hide behind her hand as we weaved through row after row of sprawling bookcases.
She struck me as a bit odd, but it was very charming. I found myself feeling more relaxed around her, taking a bit more comfort in the fact that we’d come to such an important place without having fallen into any traps yet. Maybe my influence had worked on her after all.
“Paimon must spend a lot of time in here,” I noted.
“Not exactly. The knowledge contained in every tome in this library lives in his head. He doesn’t need to revisit these books once he’s read them.”
“Wish I had that power. Have you ever read any of these?” I asked curiously.
“Hardly. Most of these are written in languages so ancient that Paimon is the only one left who can understand them. Some of the more recent writings are a bit easier for me to read if they’re in a fami
liar language, but there are few if any that are written in English.”
I hadn’t really expected to be able to find anything useful in here even if I wanted to, considering that I didn’t have three years to search through the intimidatingly full bookcases, but the lack of English in the library crushed any incipient ideas about trying. Wandering through the seemingly endless shelves, I could see just how densely packed they were with everything from books to scrolls to carved stone tablets and anything in between. It all certainly seemed fitting for a demon king, especially one of Paimon’s status, but the idea that he knew all of this information was vastly unsettling. Seeing the physical embodiment of our enemy’s knowledge in one enormous room full of books painted a very clear picture of just what we were going against, as if we didn’t already have enough to fear from our previous encounters with him.
I was brought out of my Paimon-related train of anxious thoughts when Rakshasi stopped suddenly in front of a bookcase against a wall. She delicately began removing all the books, engrossed in her task. That was when I began to hear the faint trickle of voices. While Rakshasi worked at the bookcase, she seemed not to notice me slipping away from her side, following the sound of the quiet voices that echoed much more loudly than they needed to in the grand library.
I ducked behind a shelf, sliding sideways along it as far as I could to try and get a look at the sources of the noise. They were demons, naturally, but demons that I hadn’t seen before. One appeared to be just a giant owl with a crown, the other a regular man, and a third appeared to be a man in body but with the face of a leopard and the wings of a bird. I could hear them muttering among themselves, the sound amplified slightly by the echo making it a bit easier to hear, though some things were still choppy.
“…and you know when they arrive, there will be no coming back from that,” the owl said.
The leopard-face seemed tickled by that, letting out a discreet chuckle. “Humans are so simple. They must realize that Paimon will get it back at all costs, right? Without the other pieces, it’s no more than a homing beacon for the kings to follow.”
“Now, now, Sitri, you know that humans can hardly think for themselves. You can’t fault them too harshly for using their brains only as much as their biology will allow. They probably just saw something shiny and brought it home as a pretty souvenir,” the owl said.
That was met with hearty laughter from the group, but their words had me chilled to my core.
“Regardless, it’s not our concern anymore,” the man pointed out. “King Bebal is taking care of it, last I heard.”
King Bebal is taking care of it?
That didn’t sound good. I crept away as quickly and quietly as I could, hurrying back to Rakshasi’s side. She had finished unstocking the bookcase and slid it to the side where there sat a giant tunnel burrowed into the wall. It seemed to go much farther back than I expected, and I wasn’t able to see the end of it. I rushed up to her, ignoring the tunnel.
“Ah, Jacob, there you are!” she beamed. “My father’s telum piece is right through here.”
“Rakshasi, what would happen if I took this weapon piece back to my base?” I asked anxiously, hoping the answer would be “nothing.”
Rakshasi’s eyebrows knit together in confusion. “Oh, I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
Her tone was warning and I froze for a moment. “What do you mean?”
“As I mentioned, each of the three kings has a hidden piece and were responsible for hiding their own. They each have a sort of… I’m not sure that you’d call it psychic per se, but there is a connection forged through magic that exists between each king and his respective piece that allows them to know where their piece is at any given moment. If you took any of the pieces back to your base, the kings would be able to find you there. I wouldn’t take them from the castle, I’d assemble them right here. If you want to follow me through this way, I can show you how to do it.”
My throat went instantly dry. I thought back to the peculiar flock of bats or birds or whatever it was I’d seen on the roof of the warehouse that I chalked up to my exhausted imagination and swallowed hard.
“If one of the pieces had already made it back to our base, the demon king that it belonged to would know?”
Rakshasi nodded. Suddenly, my pleasant little fantasy about returning to Georgia with all the answers to her prayers was crushed, replaced by the grim image of the warehouse being overtaken by demons. Adrenaline shot through me and I grabbed Rakshasi’s hand, bolting back toward the door, disguise be damned. I had to warn the group.
“I have to get out of here. Can you take me to the exit?” I asked.
She almost seemed disappointed. “Jacob, if the piece is already there, it’s too late. The kings will have found it by now. There’s no sense in going back, you’re better off staying and finding the other pieces so you can retrieve the one they bring back with them when they return,” she said as if she was doing me some sort of favor by suggesting it.
But I was adamant. “You need to get me out of this castle, Rakshasi. Now.”
24
Georgia
I was sure that there was a reasonable explanation for the sudden rumbling beneath our feet. Earthquakes in the Midwest were rare, but not unheard of, and I really wanted to chalk this sudden seismic episode to some moody tectonic plates that were just trying to ruin my day and that it would be over within a minute. The way Olympia looked at me, though, told a different story.
“Georgia, do you think that could be—”
“I don’t know,” I interrupted. “I hope not.”
As if we had the same idea simultaneously, we darted out of Jacob’s room to see Carter, who’d barely gotten to the end of the hallway before the shaking had started.
“Carter!” I called, his attention snapping to me.
“Does anyone else think it’s getting stronger?” he asked.
I’d been so swept up in the novelty of the shaking itself that I hadn’t even noticed that he was right, the vigor of the shakes slowly increasing until it was becoming more and more difficult to stay upright without holding onto something. Olympia and I darted down the hallway toward Carter at his beckoning.
The sound of items vibrating on shelves and desks and of windows rattling quickly began to accompany the rumble, a chaotic cacophony beginning to form in the warehouse. As we hurried down the steps, things began to get even more intense, the walls creaking even more aggressively and the shaking floor starting to make sharp, crackling pop noises. It was becoming quickly apparent that this was much more severe than I’d originally thought, vases falling from shelves and smashing loudly against the floor, heavy pieces of furniture vibrating so powerfully that they skittered across the floor like they weighed nothing. We were nearly thrown down the stairs, the shaking was getting so violent.
“We have to get out of here!” he called. “Jose! Eli!”
“We’re here! We’re coming!” Eli responded from somewhere deeper into the warehouse. His voice was muffled beneath the increasingly loud quake.
By the time we made it safely to the bottom of the stairs, clinging to anything we could grab for balance, Eli and Jose were hurrying toward us, their arms full of stakes, a crossbow, a longbow and arrows, even a sheathed katana slung over Eli’s shoulders. They tossed stakes to one to each of us, though in the intense shaking I nearly dropped it.
“We were in the training room when it started,” Jose shouted over the rumble as we attempted to make our way toward the front. “Thought they might come in useful if this is what we think it is.”
“Good thinking,” Carter called back, narrowly dodging a falling piece of debris.
Things became more urgent when we were pelted with dust and small bits of building that were dropping on us, a clear precursor to what I feared was the worst-case scenario coming true, emphasized when a large beam fell from the ceiling in front of us, nearly smashing Olympia and me.
“This place is coming down, let
’s go!” Carter shouted, climbing over the fallen rubble.
He held out his hand to help Olympia and me over it, bracing himself against a support beam that would likely not be upright much longer with how viciously the building was jolting, tossing anything inside around like it was a ragdoll, nearly including us. My heart was pounding, the fear of being crushed dwarfed only by the fear of losing the place I’d come to think of as my home. As I watched it literally crumble in front of me, it felt like I was losing a part of myself with it, my eyes getting bleary as we finally made it to the front door, tumbling out just in time to avoid being crushed by the support beam that had just been keeping Carter upright.
The shaking outside was no better, but with the immediate danger of being squished put aside, it was much easier to stomach. We got as far from the warehouse as we could, though with the dust being kicked up into the air as everything came down piece by piece it didn’t seem like there was enough distance in the world to save our lungs from whatever particles were floating around.
We turned just in time to see the front windows blow out, finally giving in under the pressure. It tore at my heart, and I could tell that the feeling was shared. I grabbed Carter’s hand and we squeezed each other tightly as I fought back tears. Carter wasn’t the type to cry, but when I saw his face as he watched his home destroyed, it broke my heart just the same.
The building seemed to give one final heave before collapsing completely, walls and windows and everything else falling in on itself in one catastrophic and final structural defeat with the loudest, most deafening crash I’d ever heard in my life.
After that, things stilled. The ground, the warehouse, the world. It all came to a halt almost as if on command. I couldn’t believe it. In only a minute, everything we had, everything we’d worked towards was gone. No one could move. No one could speak. We couldn’t do anything but stare in complete shock and terror as the debris settled around us.