The Trouble with Demons

by Shearin, Lisa

  Mychael didn’t like it, but he didn’t have to. For me to find Piaras, that was how it had to be. Mychael was still virtually glowing from battling those phantoms. With interference from magic that powerful, I couldn’t find my way out of a ripped fishnet, much less locate one abducted spellsinger.

  When Balmorlan had Piaras kidnapped before, I’d been able to use my seeking skills to track him right to the elven embassy’s front gates. I hadn’t had an object then from Piaras to track him by, and I didn’t need anything now. He wasn’t related to me by blood, but that didn’t stop me from loving him like a brother. Family knew their own, no tracking objects required. Conscious or unconscious, it didn’t make any difference. I’d known Piaras since he was about eight years old, long enough that my seeker self wouldn’t even have to break a sweat.

  “I’ll alert Sedge and my patrols on this side of the city,” Mychael said.

  I nodded and watched for a moment as Mychael’s gaze became distant. He almost instantly made contact. Show off.

  I quickly crossed the street and stepped out of the lamplight into the shadows next to a building, resting my back against the rough brick. I didn’t sense any magic users inside to get in my way. Good. The less talents between me and Piaras, the better. I closed my eyes and tried to relax, breathing deeply. Breathing I could do, relaxing took a few minutes that Piaras didn’t have. I shoved that thought aside. When I’d calmed myself enough to work, I focused my will on an image of Piaras in my mind until it was almost real enough to touch. Then I reached out, down the streets, around the buildings, seeking, searching, methodically eliminating options.

  Until I found him.

  He was alive, he was conscious, and he was not a prisoner. But he was definitely afraid, though not of the men surrounding him.

  Piaras was scared to death of what he was about to do.

  I clenched my teeth against the flutter of panic in my own chest. I took one deep breath, in through my nose and slowly out through my mouth, repeating it until I had the calm, cool center I had to have to track him. Emotion was my worst enemy right now, not the men I could sense about to move on Piaras, not Taltek Balmorlan, or even Sarad Nukpana. Only I could screw this up.

  I opened my eyes. Mychael was standing in the street, directly in front of me, but about a dozen feet away, giving me my space. “You have him?”

  “I do.” I described what I saw in my mind’s eye. “White marble buildings on either side of the street, no windows on the bottom floors. Street’s wide enough for two carriages; the cobbles are smooth. I smell . . .” My brow creased in confusion. No, that couldn’t be right. I closed my eyes. Those two smells shouldn’t go together. “It’s something sweet, almost like perfume; but there’s this burnt-fat stench.”

  I opened my eyes to Mychael’s fierce grin. “The candlemaker.”

  I blinked. “The what?”

  “A candlemaker has a shop just off Bow Street. He mainly uses beeswax, but he still makes some candles with tallow. That stink goes a city block or more. The Conclave’s been trying to get him to move for years, but he owns the building and won’t sell.”

  “How far?”

  “Six blocks. I’ll let Sedge and my men know.”

  I told myself that Piaras was a smart kid, very smart. And if growing up around me taught him nothing else, it taught him to be suspicious. After what had happened to him over the past few weeks, the kid should be suspicious of his own shadow. The fact that he told Phaelan’s contact wizard the Guardian’s name and armed himself told me he was doing more than being cautious. My head wondered what the hell he was thinking; my gut knew.

  Piaras wanted payback.

  I doubted Balmorlan would have used the same guards as last time, in case Piaras had been conscious long enough to recognize them. But while they may not be the same men, they had the same intention—and Piaras was determined for the outcome to be different this time. I sensed it when I’d linked with him. He’d been planning what he was about to do almost from the moment he left the Fortune.

  I had a sick realization. If Sarad Nukpana could influence Piaras, this was just the kind of thing he’d try to get Piaras to do.

  “Piaras knows who those men are,” I said to Mychael. “And he’s getting ready to do something about it.”

  “Do you know what it is?”

  “Just that it’s violent. Piaras isn’t violent—but Sarad Nukpana is.”

  Mychael swore and broke into a run. Vegard, Phaelan, and I followed.

  I didn’t think I’d ever seen Mychael that angry. Piaras wasn’t the only one wanting payback. Elven embassy guards had murdered six of Mychael’s Guardians in the alley behind Sirens so they could kidnap Piaras. And now one of his own men had turned traitor and four embassy guards were illegally impersonating Guardians. Mychael was entirely within his rights as paladin to kick their asses from here to the harbor then lock up what was left.

  We’d gone a couple of blocks, and I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary for past quitting time in the land of mage bureaucrats. Other than the candlemaker’s place, I didn’t smell anything but a low tide that took perverse pleasure in sending its stink as far into town as possible. I didn’t even hear anything, other than Phaelan trying to breathe through his mouth. Mychael and Vegard were completely silent—and I do mean completely. Apparently Guardians were trained not to breathe while tracking.

  That was what tipped me off. Silence. Way too much of it for my comfort or anyone else’s. Mychael and Vegard stopped.

  I already had.

  In that silence I sensed Piaras—and something else.

  I glanced at Mychael. I didn’t know if he sensed Piaras, the men with him, or the something else that none of us needed tonight.

  A roar answered all our questions.

  I took off running. Behind me, Mychael spat a curse and was hot on my heels. Phaelan and Vegard had weapons out and were keeping up. Mychael stopped just before he reached the corner, and I thought it’d be a good idea to do likewise. I looked around the corner with Mychael and saw something out of a nightmare.

  And Piaras had brought them to life.

  The kid was spellsinging. Quick, sharp, and guttural. Piaras had conjured help, and he’d gotten a lot more than he’d bargained for.

  He’d created monsters.

  Piaras knew he couldn’t take on five trained military professionals by himself, so he called for backup. I’d seen Piaras’s spellsong conjurings before. They were good. But they were normal spellsong creature conjurings: all illusion, no substance. What I saw in that street definitely had substance. I thought I heard Sarad Nukpana’s laughter, but with an embassy guard flying through the air and shrieking like a little girl, I couldn’t be sure.

  Piaras had conjured not one, not two, but three bukas—the nine-foot-tall, hairy, long-fanged, longer-armed mountain monsters of goblin legend. Not only were there three of them, they were solid (they shouldn’t be), they could roar (conjurings shouldn’t be able to), and they appeared to be enjoying themselves (I didn’t know bukas could). One of them had armed himself with a guard’s sword that the elf wasn’t going to be using anytime soon—judging from his crumpled form lying against the curb—and was wielding it with what I could only call cheerful glee.

  “Damn,” Vegard said in awe and admiration.

  Phaelan was grinning from ear to ear. “I love it. I hate magic, but I love this.”

  I didn’t. Balmorlan would have told his men what Piaras was capable of. I imagine the fake Guardians had shielded themselves, but when you saw several tons of fanged and furry rage running at you, shields and discipline would be the first things to go, and your bladder could be next. While I was grateful that Piaras conjured something that could pound the crap out of those guards, I knew he didn’t have that kind of power—but the Saghred did.

  “Our nightingale has a rare gift,” came Sarad Nukpana’s voice and presence in my mind—and Mychael’s. “Don’t you agree, Paladin?” With a chuckle, he was
gone.

  While the bukas were playing with the embassy guards, Piaras was most definitely not playing with the two elves attacking him. Piaras knew how to use a rapier; Phaelan and I had taught him. He was a good student.

  He wasn’t this good.

  One guard lay unmoving in the middle of the street, the streetlights illuminating the blood staining the area around his heart. No rapier lay in the street with him; Piaras had one in either hand. He’d taken it when he’d killed the elf. I could feel what he’d done. The guard’s death lingered heavily in the air.

  Piaras’s first kill.

  It was self-defense, I told myself. It had to have been. Piaras was not a murderer. He’d been forced to kill and it was my fault. Mine. Mine and the bastards who wanted me and the power I had. They were the reason why I was here; they were the reason Piaras had no choice but to come with me.

  The reason he’d had no choice but to kill that embassy guard.

  There was nothing awkward or hesitant in the way Piaras fought. Phaelan had taught him to fight with two rapiers, two men on one. Practicing with friends who didn’t want to skewer you was one thing, fighting for your life against trained solders was something else entirely. I’d seen trained men panic in Piaras’s situation. Not only did Piaras not panic, he fought like a sword master, not the student he was, moving like a hungry Nebian panther stalking dinner.

  The embassy guards knew their business. They attacked together, then separately, one elf trying to get behind Piaras, the other intensifying his attack to force Piaras to focus all his attention on him. It didn’t work. It was like the kid had eyes in the back of his head. He didn’t, but Sarad Nukpana wasn’t restricted by eyes. I hated that goblin shaman, but right now I was grateful. His skill was keeping Piaras alive.

  The bottom dropped out of my stomach. That same preternatural skill would condemn him.

  This might have started out as a kidnapping, but it’d turned into a setup. The embassy guards were no longer wearing Guardian uniforms. For anyone who saw them now, they were elven embassy guards under attack and defending themselves. One of the bastards was even standing off to the side, bearing witness to the whole thing. Balmorlan knew that Piaras was capable of defending himself. Taltek Balmorlan would call it an act of revenge and murder. Piaras was a subject of the elven crown attacking elven embassy guards. Balmorlan could have him arrested and extradited before the ink was dry on the paperwork.

  The first squad of Guardians had arrived; their job was to deal with Piaras’s bukas. I wished them luck.

  Mychael and I drew blades. Before mine had cleared its scabbard, Mychael was halfway to the Guardian impostors.

  One embassy guard risked a backward glance and Mychael’s armored fist punched him squarely in the face. That was the distraction Piaras/Nukpana was waiting for. With a quick twist of his wrist and flick of his blade, Piaras easily disarmed the remaining elf and pinned him to the wall, the tip of his blade resting in the hollow of his throat. Both young men were breathing heavily, and Piaras’s dark eyes were blazing.

  “Piaras, stand down.” Mychael kept his voice low and even.

  Piaras didn’t move.

  The elf who Piaras had pinned to the wall swallowed, and a thin stream of blood ran down his throat where Piaras’s rapier had pierced the skin. “Sir, I can explain,” the elf whispered to Mychael.

  “Jari, nothing explains or justifies this.” Mychael’s voice was tight with restrained fury. “Piaras, stand down. I’ve got him.”

  The tip of Piaras’s blade was unwavering.

  I slowly moved along the wall, closer to the young elven Guardian. I needed for Piaras to see me, to remember me. To remember himself.

  “Piaras,” I said. “Mychael can’t question him if he’s dead. If he dies, Balmorlan will never have to answer for anything he’s done to you. Let him go. Please. Lower your blade; Mychael can take it from here.”

  I could see the struggle on Piaras’s face, and I could feel the battle raging in Piaras’s mind. He was fighting back, with everything he had he was fighting back. All Piaras had to do was extend his arm and that young elven Guardian would be dead, and this time it wouldn’t be self-defense. It would be murder, cold and calculated. Sarad Nukpana wanted that murder, so did Taltek Balmorlan. Piaras wanted it to stop. He wanted to lower that blade, but he couldn’t.

  “Piaras, you’re stronger than he is.” I said it quietly, simply. I said it like it was the truth, willing Piaras to believe it. I was talking about Nukpana’s strength, but the Guardian held captive at the tip of Piaras’s rapier didn’t know that; the Guardians within hearing didn’t know that—and I didn’t want them to. “Let him go; it’s over.”

  Piaras swallowed, his breath hissing in and out between clenched teeth. His knuckles were white on the rapier’s grip. Then he took a deep breath and let it out in a shuddering exhale, and with visible effort, lowered the bloodied blade.

  Piaras was back with us and in control of himself. For now.

  Mychael stepped up next to him, but made no move to disarm him. “Clean your blade and sheath your weapon.”

  Piaras did.

  For Sarad Nukpana, this was just a demonstration, a taste of what he could make Piaras do—and how he could force me to find the Scythe of Nen and let him out of the Saghred.

  “When the lower hells freeze over,” I said in my mind. I was sure Sarad Nukpana heard me. To him, this was but the first move in a game he intended to play until he got what he wanted. Like I said, when hell froze over.

  A pair of Guardians stood nearby, awaiting Mychael’s orders.

  “Take this traitor into custody.” Mychael never took his eyes off of the disgraced elf.

  The two Guardians chained Jari Devent’s hands behind his back.

  “My brother ordered me and I had no choice—” The elf’s voice had an edge of panicked desperation.

  “You had every choice,” Mychael’s voice slashed through the air. “You made the wrong one.”

  Devent’s pale eyes flashed with defiance. Big mistake. “My obligations to my family—”

  Mychael took two strides and was in the young elf’s face, his rage a living thing in the air, his voice low and furious. “As a knighted Guardian, you have duty and loyalty to the archmagus, the Conclave, and to me. You betrayed us all.”

  The elf’s chin came up. “You’re going to kill me.” He was trying for brave, the tremble in his voice said otherwise.

  “No, we’re going back to the citadel, and we are going talk. I will ask questions and you will answer every one of them—truthfully and completely.”

  The Guardians took Devent away, and Piaras cleared his throat.

  “Thank you, sir.” Piaras’s voice was quiet, but firm. “I don’t know what happened to me.”

  “We do,” I told him. “And we’re going to fix it so that it never happens again.”

  “Sir!” An out-of-breath Guardian ran up to Mychael. The armor on his sword arm had been ripped away.

  A buka’s roar told us exactly what had done the ripping.

  I swore. The Guardians and watchers couldn’t kill those bukas, because even though they were solid, they weren’t real. Piaras’s voice had made them; Piaras’s voice was the only thing that could unmake them. As if the kid hadn’t endured enough tonight.

  “You have to dispel them,” Mychael told Piaras.

  Another roar joined the first as a watcher and a Guardian tried a divide-and-contain tactic. It didn’t work.

  “I tried, sir,” Piaras said. “When the second one materialized, I—”

  “They’re still here,” Phaelan pointed out in a singsong voice, eyes wide and disbelieving, blades in both hands.

  “I know that!” Piaras snapped in desperation.

  Mychael was the calm in the middle of furry chaos. “What did you use?”

  Piaras told him. I didn’t know what the hell he’d just said, but Mychael did.

  “That’s not strong enough,” Mychael said. Then he tol
d him what to use; I didn’t recognize those as words, either. “And be firm with them,” he ordered.

  “Got it. I think.”

  “Don’t think, do!” Mychael barked like a drill sergeant to a new recruit. “You’re banishing them! They’re not going unless you force them. Do it! Now!”

  Piaras did. He didn’t think; he just reacted to that order. Mychael’s voice gave him no choice. It wasn’t Mychael’s spellsinger voice. It wasn’t magic. It was the voice of a commander of men, a leader on the battlefield, a voice you obeyed without question or faced consequences that might be worse than getting squashed by a buka.

  Piaras squared his shoulders, braced his feet, and let the bukas have the full force of his voice. It rang like a bright battle horn in the night, the volume magnified by the marble buildings. It was majestic and compelling, commanding the bukas, forcing them to do his will.

  I’m glad the kid wasn’t aiming at me.

  The bukas were becoming less substantial. One of them had a watcher by the leg and was dragging him closer; he lost his grip, his hand becoming translucent in the lamplight. The bukas were going, but they weren’t going quietly. One roar shattered a row of windows on a pristine government building before becoming a mere echo, a distant cry. Then the monsters simply winked out of existence. Piaras’s ragged breathing said there was nothing simple about it. He was bent over, hands on his knees, looking a little green around the gills. But he was still upright. Unbelievable. And the bukas were gone without a trace, not even a smell remained. Good work. Scary, but good.

  And I think Piaras had done that all by himself. Sarad Nukpana had nothing to do with it. That was the scary part.

  “Bravo, kid,” Vegard whispered in awe. The big Guardian’s grin was fierce.

  There was a smattering of applause from the Guardians and watchers. The applause grew and with it came whistles.

  Great. Once word got around, Piaras would be even more of a magical must-have than he already was.

  I put an arm around his shoulders as he pulled himself upright. “Raine, I couldn’t stop myself,” he whispered, looking down at the dead elf sprawled in the street. “Once I started, I couldn’t stop.”