by Joe Jackson
She pushed the thoughts aside and reached a brisk jog: she had to rescue Lord Black before she could consider anything else. She’d made a promise, and she intended to keep it.
*****
The stable square was busy when Kari returned to the city. Guards were swarming the area, keeping watch over the grasslands outside the gate and the body of the demon lying in the square itself. No one had touched Turillia while Kari was gone, afraid to provoke the wrath of the hammer-wielding half-corlyps guarding the body. Kari was glad for Eli’s protectiveness, even over a dead body. Though Sharyn had killed Turillia, Kari suspected there could be clues to the deeper mystery on the succubus’ person, or wherever she had made her abode.
Not surprisingly, Emma was gone. What was surprising, however, was that Deirdre had the manacles on her when Kari reached her and Eli. The half-elite priestess was still fuming, and Kari wondered how the manacles had ended up on her instead of Emma. Kari wanted to ask Eli how Emma had escaped, or whether anyone had really tried to stop her egress. Kari guessed by the fact that Deirdre was manacled that perhaps she had tried to apprehend the mallasti girl. The demonhunter tried to read Eli’s expression, but his face was an unreadable mask. Whatever Emma’s feelings were toward Eli, his toward her seemed much different. Kari suspected Eli thought of Emma as a friend, regardless of what he said of the matter.
“Do you have the key to these manacles, Lady Vanador?” Deirdre asked.
Kari produced the key and made an effort not to laugh at the absurdity of the situation. “Do I even want to know how this happened?” she asked evenly.
Deirdre didn’t answer, but as soon as her hands were free she turned and slapped Eli hard across the face. “Treacherous bastard!” she growled at him. “You wonder why your race has such a miserable reputation.”
That was not what Kari was expecting. “Wait, what happened?” she asked.
“I can explain,” Eli said, but Deirdre didn’t give him the opportunity.
“I thought your half-corlyps friend was going to capture Emma, but instead he slapped those manacles on me when I wasn’t expecting it!” Deirdre huffed. “Then he just stood there and watched while Emma got to her feet and…teleported away. Lady Vanador, has he been working with her all this time?”
Kari closed her eyes and sighed, and Eli repeated, “I can explain.”
“Explain what?” Kari asked irritably, opening her eyes to fix him with a measured gaze. “That between you and Sharyn, the two of you think I’m too stupid to do my job? We’re not going to capture that shadow demon, so while I may have accomplished what I came here for, now I have to leave empty-handed because you two didn’t trust me.”
Eli let forth a sound of exasperation and shook his head. “Emma serves a demon king, Kari. Nothing good can come from trying to keep her prisoner. You’ll learn more from her by letting her stay at arm’s length than by trying to keep her caged back in DarkWind,” he said.
Kari balled her fist and seriously considered punching Eli in the jaw. “You know, just once I would love for you people to let me make that decision,” she said. “Sharyn killed Turillia because she thought she knew better than me, and now you’ve let Emma go because you think you know better than me. You know what, Eli? I’m the demonhunter. I’m the one that’s risen to the thirteenth rank of the Order. I’m the one that’s spent two lives hunting demons and trying to counter their movements. Not you, not Sharyn, not any of you!”
“Kari…,” he tried to interrupt.
“Shut up!” she shouted, and silver blood began to drip from the wound in her jaw again, drawing Deirdre’s attention to it. “By the gods, you all keep asking me to trust you. Why don’t any of you trust me?” Eli said nothing; he only swallowed uneasily as Kari vented her fury at him. “You all seem to love keeping secrets. That’s great. You can take them to your graves when a demon king invades our world because you think you know better than I do.”
“Let me take a look at that wound, Lady,” Deirdre said, and she stepped in front of Kari. She had Kari open her jaw wide, and the priestess hissed when she saw the extent of the damage. “This is bad. She caught you cleanly here. I can begin the healing process, but you are going to have a scar here for certain.”
“What about my teeth?”
“They should be fine once the bone is healed,” Deirdre answered.
Kari nodded and let the priestess begin her work, but her eyes stayed on Eli. “I told you why I was keeping secrets from you, and that was no lie,” he protested. “Trust me, if I’d told you everything, you wouldn’t have been in the right frame of mind to hunt down and kill Turillia the way you did. Don’t overlook what we’ve accomplished just because things didn’t turn out the way you hoped.”
Kari started to close her jaw and Deirdre ceased her channeling. The demonhunter turned toward Eli squarely and made a gesture of pure frustration. “I am so sick of being treated like I’m stupid! I know I’m not that smart Eli, I understand that. But I feel like I’m the last to know everything, like people think I’m too stupid to know what to do or how to react to things. I’m not a moron!”
“Kari, nobody thinks you’re stupid, that’s not your problem,” Eli said with a shake of his head. “Your problem is you care too much. You’re an amazing person, and I am honestly very much honored to have met you. But you can’t carry the world on your shoulders. The Order sent you down here to hunt Turillia, and you’re trying to dig up information on an old invasion, capture Emma, confront a pack of werewolves, and figure out the Temple of Archons…gods, girl, one thing at a time.”
“That is not your decision to make,” Deirdre chimed in.
“I can’t take things one at a time, Eli. I already feel like we’re years behind whatever it is Emma’s up to,” Kari returned. “And every time I feel like we have a chance to figure something out, someone gets in my way or works against me ‘for my own good.’”
“We’re not years behind Emma,” Eli said, waving off Kari’s comments a little too easily for her liking. “Listen, I’ll tell you everything I know, and I mean everything, when we get to Sarchelete.”
“Sarchelete?” Kari repeated. “What’s in Sarchelete?”
“Danilynn,” he answered. “Trust me, she’ll tell you everything. You think you feel stupid? Imagine how I felt going through everything we went through for Bosimar. I was just a stupid kid, using my head as a shield instead of to think with. I know a lot of what happened, Kari, but I still don’t think I know much of what was really going on. If you come with me to Sarchelete when we’re done with Lord Black, I’ll tell you more of what happened. And when we get to Sarchelete, Danilynn should be able to tell you what was really going on.”
“You promise?” Kari asked.
“He’d better,” Deirdre said.
Eli refused to even glance at the half-elite priestess. “I promise,” he answered. “And if it turns out you learn something important, something you need to look into right away, I’ll come with you.”
“I’m not sure I’ll want that,” Kari returned honestly. “It’s going to depend a lot on what you and Danilynn can actually tell me. I’m not sure I can trust you in a hunt like this again.”
Eli nodded but kept quiet, and Kari waved away Deirdre’s attempt to resume channeling her divine power to seal Kari’s wound. “Why don’t you head to Lord Black’s tower?” Kari asked the priestess. “Our next step is to get the shadow demon out of Lord Black, and hopefully out of the city altogether. Go see to your brother and the others, and make sure they’re ready for what we need to do.”
“As you wish, Lady Vanador,” Deirdre said. She turned to leave, but flashed one last scowl at Eli. “You’re still a stupid git.”
The half-corlyps took the comment in stride, and Kari walked over to the dead succubus. Turillia was mired in mud and blood exactly where Kari had left her. The succubus’ golden eyes were closed, as Kari had left them, and there was almost a serenity about her form in death. Turillia had been a bea
utiful woman, even if her form was a bit alien, and Kari looked down on the corpse and found herself filled with a mixture of emotions. She was relieved that the threat was no more, but a little angry that she wasn’t able to get any answers from the succubus. She was concerned that there might be more demons – possibly intent on coming to Citaria – who were better sword-fighters than she was. Kari was confused; she still didn’t know who Turillia had served. The succubus had tried to deny serving Sekassus; was that a deception, or had Turillia truly been a servant of someone else?
There was one other emotion as well, and Kari bit her lip as she tried to stifle her body’s urge to cry. Lying at her feet, in a puddle of mud and blood, was a representation of what Kari could have become under different circumstances. She wondered at the dream she’d had only days before, when her subconscious reminded her of the man who had saved her from a life of thievery that could have very easily become one of murder. Kari had only ever stolen to keep herself fed, but it wasn’t hard to imagine that to continue to do so, she may have had to defend herself from other street urchins and gang members, and thievery would have led to killing. Kari thought perhaps Turillia found it so easy to invade her dreams because the two had a bit in common.
“Are you all right?” Eli asked. He stepped beside Kari and laid a hand on her shoulder.
Kari nodded but didn’t speak, holding tight to her lower lip with her teeth, and she didn’t even shrug Eli’s hand off of her. Like Kari, Turillia had been abused, hated by her own father – probably her own mother, too, since her mother had been a demon. Kari wondered: did the girl ever really have a chance? Kari had turned her own life around thanks to the caring of a total stranger, a man who had instilled shame and guilt by an act of kindness, rather than punishment. Kari knew there would have been no one who would’ve ever done that for Turillia, not when her father’s people had rejected her and her mother’s kind rejected everyone.
“They’re not demons,” Kari whispered, but Eli caught her words.
“What’s that?” he queried, glancing from Kari to the body and back again.
Kari sighed. “Her father was a syrinthian,” she said. “His people rejected her because she was half-succubus. The demons probably rejected her because she was half mortal. The girl never had a chance.”
“Neither did you,” Eli said, and Kari swung her head to meet his gaze. “Neither did I. We make our own chances and our own choices, Kari. She chose to be rotten.”
“I guess she did,” she returned. Kari felt pity for Turillia, but that did not excuse the succubus’ actions, or absolve her from responsibility. Turillia was a murderer and a scheming conniver: someone that wanted to become a demon king or goddess to visit the same pain and suffering she’d been through onto countless others. Kari pitied her for the childhood she’d endured, but the demonhunter realized that wasn’t an excuse for the things Turillia had done. Turillia had earned her death, but the pity that Kari felt for the demoness helped her understand better just what “love justice, but do mercy” really meant.
Kari sighed and thought of Aeligos’ girlfriend, Eryn, one of the deadliest assassins in the entire city of DarkWind, and likely beyond. What had Eryn been through that she hid so deeply and refused to speak of? From their conversations a few years earlier, when Kari got to know the enigmatic assassin, Kari didn’t think Eryn had been through the same things as either the demonhunter or the succubus. But something terrible had happened to Eryn, something that hardened her and turned her into a heartless killer a good deal of the time, however warm she could be when she was with Aeligos and his siblings.
Kari lifted up Turillia’s body, and Eli turned the succubus’ head to keep it from flopping to the side. Kari knew that a similar fate awaited Eryn. One day, the bottom would fall out from under the Blood Order, whether it was by decree of the Duke of Brunswick, or by Kari’s own if she became head of the Demonhunter Order. One day, the Guild would fall, and Eryn would meet a similar end as the succubus. And when that happened, Kari knew that she would feel the exact same emotions she felt now.
“Where are you taking her, ma’am?” a guard asked, and Eli collected Turillia’s swords.
“To Lord Black’s tower,” Kari answered. “He’ll want to see the evidence that the hunt is over for himself.” The guards saluted Kari respectfully, and didn’t get in her way or ask any more questions.
Kari thought about Aeligos and how hard it would hit him if Eryn were killed, especially if it was by Kari’s Order - or more specifically, Kari’s orders. Despite all of the troubles their relationship entailed, Kari knew that each loved the other, truly and deeply. They loved each other so much that it transcended all of those problems: the differences in their races, moral codes, life goals, and especially the desires of Aeligos’ family. Despite all of their differences, Aeligos and Eryn seemed like soulmates, and though everyone always wanted to compare their relationship to Kari and Grakin’s, Kari knew that wasn’t exactly fair.
Kari looked down at Turillia while she walked and wondered if Turillia had a family in the underworld. She wondered if it was possible that the demoness could have a family, or children, or at least a few people who cared about her somewhere in the underworld. Who was going to pick up the pieces left behind now that Kari and her friends had shattered Turillia’s life? And, more pointedly, would they come for revenge? Kari sighed; there were enough problems with demons without adding in the ones who simply sought revenge for Kari’s hunts.
Eli pierced her thoughts as they walked. “Did you catch up to Sharyn?”
“Yes, she and I had a long talk,” Kari answered. “It’s a long story, though. Don’t say anything to Sherman until I’ve had a chance to talk to him.”
“Sure, of course,” Eli agreed. “So, what are we planning to do with Kaelin Black? And what are we going to do with that demon once we drive it out of him?”
Kari glanced at Eli from the corner of her eye. “I’m not entirely sure,” she said. “We’re going to need the help of a few of the priests of Temple Street – maybe all of them. After what Katarina and the priests did on Temple Street the other night, I know they can drive it out of him. I just don’t know how we can get rid of it once they do that.”
“After what I saw you do tonight, I’d say maybe you should just ask Zalkar for his help again,” Eli suggested. “Or maybe…your father.”
Kari whirled her head on him quickly, but she grasped what he meant after a moment. Kari recalled her dreams in Lord Lajere’s castle, and the way Sakkrass had held the sun in his hands in that one memory. She hadn’t thought about it before, but Eli’s suggestion made perfect sense: if the priests had exorcised the demon by calling upon Kaelariel as the Ascending Dawn, and Sakkrass was a god of the sun, then perhaps the two forces working together could banish a creature of total darkness.
A confident smile crept onto Kari’s features, and she could see Eli looking at her from the corner of her eye as they walked. “Let’s go kill a demon,” she said.
Chapter XXIII – Downfall
The others were all gathered in the waiting room of Kaelin Black’s tower when Kari and Eli arrived. They kept their celebrations quiet when they saw Kari carrying Turillia’s body, but it was clear they all understood the victory Kari had achieved. Deirdre glared at Eli once again, and Kari noted that Piotyr, too, looked upon the half-corlyps with contempt. She could well understand their feelings, and she knew that it would be some time before they decided to forgive Eli, if they ever did. Kari still wasn’t exactly pleased with Eli’s motives or his methods, but she realized that now wasn’t the time to dwell on such things.
Eli held the dead succubus while Kari set her cloak on the floor near the hearth, and then Kari had him lay the body upon it. The majority of the room was only dimly lit by the fire, and Kari needed a good amount of light to search the body for clues. She wasn’t sure exactly what she should be looking for, but she had some ideas. Kari removed Turillia’s cloak, and then she began taking off the s
uccubus’ armor. The leather gear had protected Turillia’s weak points: shoulders, elbows, knees, chest, abdomen, and loins, but it was what Kari would’ve referred to as skimpy for a set of armor. She supposed it was all Turillia had needed given her speed, agility, and skill with the swords. At the very least, it was fairly easy to remove, though it was clear from some of the looks Kari received that the others weren’t exactly sure why she was stripping a corpse.
Their confusion was cleared up when Kari removed Turillia’s leather jerkin. The succubus had worn no halter, and once her breasts were exposed, everyone could see the tattoos upon them. Turillia’s skin was actually made of extremely fine scales, though they were milky white, which made the pale gray tattoos stand out all the more. It was not a symbol Kari was familiar with: a demonic skull with fangs, superimposed over four crossed swords.
“Have any of you seen this symbol before?” Kari asked, and each of the others took a good, close look, though each simply shook their head in turn until Eli saw it.
“I’m not sure exactly who it refers to, but this looks like the mark of an assassin’s guild,” the half-corlyps said. Even Deirdre perked up at those words, and her glare turned to a look of curiosity. Eli pointed to each tattoo in turn and gestured around the succubus’ breasts. “Note how the same symbol is tattooed on each breast? Her heart belonged to whatever guild this symbol belongs to. I’ve seen the same thing on members of a few different smaller guilds. This may mean she was up to something else before she stumbled onto this plot of hers.”
“Terrific,” Kari muttered. She recalled her trip to Tsalbrin with Eryn, and those occasions where she’d seen the half-brys woman naked or partially so, but Eryn hadn’t had any such tattoos on her breasts. Kari put her trust in Eli on the matter, though, and she turned to the half-elite priests. “Piotyr, can you copy this symbol for me? We’ll want to pass it around to each of the priesthoods and see if anyone recognizes it. Maybe one of them has records of some assassins’ guild in the underworld, as weird as that sounds to me.”