The Cost_An Introduction to Demonology, Part 1

by R. W. Holmes

  Cypress betrayed the slightest hint of a frown as he took aim at the target again. Before firing though, he leaned back and stole another quick glance at Jacky.

  “Shit!” Cypress hissed quickly, before turning to Don and asking, “Where did that woman go?”

  “Who?” said Don, before following Cypress's sight line and spying the same absence he did. “Shit is right!” he exclaimed in alarm. “Getting out of this room with one of the range's weapons is impossible! If any of the security cameras see one of those weapons approaching a door, the alarm goes off.”

  “And if she hid the weapon from the cameras?” asked Cypress.

  “There's supposed to be a jackass standing at the counter for that” Don said as he began sprinting back to the exit and out into the front of the store.

  Cypress meanwhile pocketed the remaining magazines and slipped the Glock into his inside jacket pocket, before putting on his most concerned face and following Don out into the front of the store.

  “Son of a bitch!” screamed Don. “I could lose my damn license over this!”

  “It might be best if I come back later, then?” asked Cypress.

  “Yeah buddy, I'm sorry” Don said with a sigh. “I know you were only just beginning to enjoy yourself and all. You, uh... You go on now, and if you see that woman, call the cops. Gun laws are tight up here, so odds are there won't be anyone to challenge her if she pulls that piece somewhere.”

  Cypress smiled and nodded back at Don, whilst silently thinking, 'I'm not so sure about that...' to himself.

  When Cypress finally returned to Kennedy's dorm, he did so to find Zinerva and Kennedy sleeping on opposite ends of Kennedy's bed, and Gael sitting at the table in the far corner and studying something on the computer.

  “Quiet” Gael said levelly to the incubus. “I think it's better if we let them sleep for now. What did you find?”

  “I found a really beat up woman, and I followed her, and she stole a...” Cypress started, before thinking on how to properly recite the weapon's name. “A forty-four magnum.”

  Gael blinked, groaned aloud, and then clapped a hand to his forehead. “We'll have to wait till the cops catch her or run her off...” he said drearily. “People do know it was stolen, right?”

  “Oh, yes” Cypress said confidently. “I informed the shooting range owner myself. Also, while he wasn't paying attention I walked off with this.”

  Gael looked over to Cypress again as he produced the Glock from within his jacket pocket.

  “It has been quite some time since Don was teaching me how to use it” Cypress continued nonchalantly. “I believe if he confronts me later, I can assure him I handed it over already without him getting too suspicious. He was, after all, extremely flustered when he found out the other gun had been stolen.”

  “Yeah, that was probably Jacky” said Gael. “And she's extremely pissed at me for, you know, letting her live.”

  “Strange...” Cypress murmured confusedly.

  “Humans are” admitted Gael. “I was wrong about you, though. You went out, found out our enemy was armed, came back with an equivalent weapon, and you did it all without even knowing who our enemy was. How is that even possible?”

  Cypress shrugged and said, “I just did what came naturally.”

  Gael snorted the first half of a snicker as he tried to mull over what natural process could possibly produce the result Cypress's did, but knew it was beyond him. Instead, he went back to his reading so he could better research demons some more.

  “So this is it then?” asked Cypress. “We just... wait? But for what?”

  “For something to happen” replied Gael. “Patience is a virtue.”

  “Also I imagine you don't want to get shot” said Cypress.

  Far across Enterprise Island, the next passenger made its dock. There were several people aboard, but only one, a young woman, arrived with a friend who was unusually, and to some, suspiciously, short.

  At just under four feet tall, the fair skinned, green eyed pygmy of a girl tended to draw a glance from people, but nothing more. She wore blue jeans and a pink, button-down corduroy shirt that looked nothing but extremely ordinary, and that was exactly how she liked it...

  “I'm nervous, Emily” she said plainly.

  The young woman who'd arrived with the pygmy nodded sympathetically. “We'll be fine” said Emily. “No one is expecting us to make an appearance, you know that.”

  The smaller girl looked up at Emily fearfully, directly into her perceptive gray eyes, but said nothing more.

  “Come on” Emily said as she stepped off of the ship. “We have to hurry. I got a call from Devin already, and he says one of the Faes have already been killed. It's all over their private message boards.”

  “What if these people are dangerous?” the smaller girl asked worriedly. “What if-,”

  “They let Jacky Persson live” replied Emily. “As in, they spared her. Her near death is also all over the Fae's message boards.”

  “But that just means they're stupid.”

  Emily laughed and said, “Come on, Shay. They don't know who Jacky Persson is. Hell, they don't know who The Chosen are at all, or have a list of them like we do.”

  “No cursing” snapped Shay. “You know it burns my ears.”

  “So build a damn tolerance” replied Emily, and earning a dirty look for it. “And why are you acting so nervous about this? We've been through worse.”

  “We don't know that, though” said Shay. “We've never seen a demon. I don't like what I don't know.”

  Emily scoffed and shook her head. “That's very human of you.”

  The destination for the duo was obvious: the college concourse. They were behind though, because they knew others had already intercepted whomever had summoned the demons in the first place. So when they arrived at the heavy steel arch that was the college concourse's entrance, they stepped off to the side to talk with each other.

  “Alright, Shay” Emily started. “I've been thinking, and we can't waste time looking for these people.”

  Shay narrowed her eyes suspiciously and said, “But we have to. It's a catch twenty-two.”

  “No” Emily replied smartly. “It's not. We have a much better target to pursue, one that won't be hiding or expecting us.”

  Shay looked up at Emily in bewilderment.

  “Who?” she demanded.

  Emily smiled. “The Fae, of course. They have information we need, and they're going to be sitting out in the open looking for the demonologist.”

  “That route, then...” Shay murmured nervously. “Well, at least it's familiar.”

  “And maybe we'll get to kill Jacky” added Emily.

  Shay frowned, but climbed up on Emily's shoulder and faded into translucence, before becoming invisible altogether.

  “I don't like killing” she pouted.

  “You don't like anything” replied Emily. “You're pretty good at killing though, and the Fae shouldn't be sending death squads after people who haven't actually done anything wrong yet.”

  Emily stepped out into the concourse, looked about herself, and immediately spotted Bernard and Deacon sitting alone at a cafe.

  “That's them” she murmured hesitantly. “Cody, Jacky, Deacon, and Bernard were who everyone was talking about online.

  “Oh my goodness, it's finally happened” Shay whispered excitedly. “It's going to be easy for once!”

  “I know, they're sitting right there!” exclaimed Emily.

  “No, you idiot!” snapped Shay. “Turn around. Look at the fountain. Notice anything strange?”

  Emily did as she was told and turned her gaze to the large, flat fountain waiting just behind Shay and herself on the opposite side of the college concourse's entrance. Sure enough, a point in the water obstructed the ripples as if something invisible were sitting in it.

  “Oh my God, these idiots actually put their kelpie in the most obvious place imaginable...” Emily murmured in amusement. “No wonde
r a novice summoner was able to kill one of them and escape already. Shay, how discreet can you make this?”

  “I'm going to do one better” Shay replied mischievously. “I'm going to create a distraction.”

  Emily felt the weight of Shay's presence on her shoulder vanish, and silently remarked to herself that she had probably taken to the air.

  In the distance, near where the water rippled around some unseen form, the lightest hint of a purple glow coalesced in the air beside it, before surging out like a needle, twelve inches long, and striking the invisible object.

  The invisibility on the kelpie fell immediately. For one instant there was a grown woman with horse's hooves for feet laying in the water with a fatal head wound, before she herself turned entirely into an otherwise ordinary looking horse.

  “OH MY GOD! THERE'S A HORSE IN THE WATER!”

  Emily grimaced slightly as panic ensued and everyone in the area flocked towards the fountain, but was slightly reassured by the return of Shay's light weight on her shoulder. When they turned back to look at the cafe, they spotted Deacon getting up and sprinting away from Bernard.

  “Deacon, no! It's a trap!” Bernard frantically called after the perpetually depressed young man.

  “Do we know what Bernard has?” Shay asked Emily.

  “No” Emily replied grimly. “All I know is that several people were calling for his head for almost letting Jacky die on his watch.”

  Shay nodded and said, “I'm going to find out.”

  Emily knelt down as the rush of the crowd hit her, cloaking Shay and herself from prying eyes as Shay set about a second, altogether different sort of fae spell. A purple glow engulfed the crouching pair for a moment, just long enough to draw eyes from passing crowd, before dissipating and passing out into the air.

  “Alright, it's another fairy. I've got this” Shay said as she left Emily's shoulder again. “Try to deal with the humans.”

  Emily nodded and pulled out her Bowie knife from within the holster that ran along her belt, before peeking up through the crowd and spying Deacon trying to make his way towards all the commotion. With a litheness owed majorly in part to her smaller, feminine frame, she snaked through the crowd and made her way over to Deacon at a speed that made it look like he was standing still.

  When anyone noticed what had happened, Emily was long gone. New, fresh cries of horror erupted within the crowd as they realized that someone, Deacon, had had their throat slit.

  “What the hell is happening!?” Bernard cried out in horror from his seat.

  “Mister? What's that?” a child asked Bernard.

  Bernard looked down at the small child, who was dressed in overalls and with a face covered in something sticky and pink, in bewilderment. Then, he became suspicious, wondering if the child was something else in disguise, before reluctantly following its outstretched, pointing finger to an empty seat at the table.

  Except that Bernard's fairy was clearly visible in it.

  “Orin!” snapped Bernard. “You're visible!”

  Orin looked back at Bernard confusedly for a moment, before a burst of purple energy lanced through the back of the male fairy's head and out through the front of his skull.

  Bernard gasped as his fairy dropped to the table, dead, and then faded into sparkly dust. He moved to stand up, but found the rapid sound of whirling air accompanied by a Bowie knife flying towards him, and then found it embedded in the front of his skull.

  An invisible force removed it as Bernard slumped back and fell to the table, leaving the child who had bothered him to scream in horror, and Shay to escape back to Emily and make their way deeper into the concourse.

  “Well, we killed them” Emily said as Shay landed at her side and became visible once more. “We didn't get any information like we planned, but at least that's two less Fae to worry about.”

  “Actually...” Shay said as she held up a small, leather-bound journal. “I found this on Bernard when I retrieved your knife.”

  “Oh, thank God for antiquated Fae traditions” Emily said as she snatched the journal away from Shay. “Hah! Look, the most recent entry. Name: Gael Walsh. They even have one of his professors names in here, and his associates...”

  Shay looked up at Emily as she trailed off, and spied a look of consternation on her face.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Angelica Jackson – Deceased” replied Emily. “Suspected single fatality of her own demon summoning. Oh my God, Shay, do you know what this means?”

  “You keep bringing up God to a fairy?” Shay joked.

  “No!” snapped Emily. “It means the Fae know the death was an accident, and that they're still trying to kill this Gael Walsh guy just for summoning a demon. How can they be so reckless? Where's their sense of morality?”

  “Well, they serve The Fates” said Shay. “So, you know, it's probably up in their butt, next to their head.”

  “Let's just focus on finding Gael for now” said Emily. “And don't hide yourself. We need to be obvious, or they might get spooked and attack.”

  “They might attack anyway, though” replied Shay. “We still have no idea who this person is.”

  Emily remained silent, a grimace plastered on her face as she silently acquiesced to the fact that doing what she wanted to might be very stupid indeed, but was resolved to do it anyway.

  Upon reaching the college, a short bout of questioning with the local students got them not only the location of Gael's dorm, but also the fact that Gael wasn't there. Instead, they were given directions to the dorm of one Kennedy Adams, who they quickly found was listed as an associate of Gael's in Bernard's journal.

  Ten minutes after initially arriving on campus, Emily and Shay found themselves standing before Kennedy's dorm room door, and the first person to summon a demon in thousands of years waited for them on the other side.

  “There's people around” Shay said to Emily. “Is it considered hiding if I don't have my wings out?”

  “No, I think they'll understand” Shay replied as she reached out to the door. “They're stuck alone, scared, and wishing they had help. We're going to be that help.”

  “Unless they're legitimately dangerous” said Shay. “Then we're going to kill them.”

  Shay frowned, but didn't deny Shay's own personal assessment of the situation as she reached out and knocked on the door.

  Chapter 8

  ...Is My Friend

  Zinerva and Kennedy woke immediately, their groggy eyes set directly on Kennedy's dorm room door.

  “Cypress, stay out of sight” said Gael. “Zinerva, get the door.”

  “Me?” Zinerva queried in surprise. “Oh, right. The not permanently dead thing. I always feel like I'm being picked on for being small at first...”

  “This is serious” Gael said as Zinerva went to the door. “Jacky has a gun, remember? If she's there, the first thing I'll be doing is jumping halfway to hell to pick you up again.”

  “Yeah, and what if I beat the gun?” Zinerva said as she opened the door, before immediately looking to Gael and adding, “It's not Jacky.”

  Gael stepped over to the door, still cautious, and took a peek at who was there. He saw Emily, he saw Shay, but more importantly, he saw a Bowie knife.

  “Zinerva, barbecue them if they reach for the knife” he said immediately.

  “What if someone else shows up and attacks them, and she reaches for the knife?” Zinerva asked confusedly. “Because, you know, technically, I'd have to-,”

  “Then be smart about it, whatever” snapped Gael, before looking back to Emily and snapping even more harshly, “What do you want? Is this some sort of intimidation game?”

  “N-No, it's not!” Emily insisted awkwardly. “I'm, uh... I'm not with the people who came for you. Neither is she.”

  “Hi, I'm Shaylee” said Shay. “We're being upfront, so I'm letting you know in advance that even though I'm mostly hiding it, I'm a fairy.”

  “Hi Shaylee, I'm an imp” re
plied Zinerva.

  Gael sighed and clapped a hand to his forehead. “I know it's obvious, but you don't have to tell them that. What if they know things about imps they can use against you?”

  “I don't” said Emily. “Like I said, we're not with the Fae. We came to find you, because we knew the Fae were coming, and we knew they were going to try to kill you without any proper cause.”

  “Okay” said Gael. “And what are you going to do?”

  “I don't know” Emily said with a shrug. “We got this journal off of some of the other Fae operatives, and as far as I can tell they've already concluded the one suspicious death related to you as an accident.”

  “Cody had it coming” Shay added with a smirk.

  “Listen, you...” Gael started, before peeking his head out into the hall and looking in either direction. “Did you kill the young woman? Jacky?”

  “No...” Emily murmured apologetically.

  “You should have” Shay said to Gael accusingly.

  “I'M AWARE!” Gael snapped back with unexpected fervor. “Just... You need to get inside. We're pretty sure she's stolen a gun from the local gun club.”

  “Oh shit!” Emily said as she and Shay practically bowled their way in through the door. “Are you serious? Do the police know?”

  “Yes, the police know” Cypress said from his seat at the table.

  “Hi, by the way” Kennedy added from the other seat. “Welcome to my dorm.”

  “Who... is that?” Emily asked thoughtfully with a gesture to Cypress.

  “We were short of hands and Zinerva, Kennedy, and I had already been recognized” replied Gael. “So we summoned someone new.”

  “Yeah, he's Cypress, I'm Kennedy” said Kennedy. “Cypress is an incubus, which is actually a whole lot more useful than it sounds.”

  “So he's not just a sex demon then?” Shay mused.

  “We sent him out without any information” replied Gael.