Demon's Play

by David McBride

  “I just used it to banish one of them,” I said, wiping the back of my hand across my mouth. “The people who are marked are the ones that perform the rites of summoning.”

  His answering laughter made my ears hurt. “Is that what they told you?” He tsked tsked. “Of course that’s what they told you. But that didn’t stop some of the people on your side from summoning a Demon of their own did it?”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked before realizing he was talking about Lily.

  And then I suddenly realized that Lily and Simon had been here when I went into my magic-induced sleep. Where were they? Christian hadn’t mentioned them before or used them as leverage. At least Simon was safe, I hoped.

  “Don’t play stupid with me, Inquisitor. You and your kind flaunt your nobility, all the while making back-door deals with the same creatures you strive against. It’s pathetic really.” He paced back and forth in front of me like a caged tiger. His hatred of the Inquisition gathered around him like noxious fumes in the small room. “You think I can’t feel its power in the air? It whispers to me like music. Not like my birds’ music, oh no, nothing could be that sweet.” He closed his eyes and swayed to some melody I couldn’t hear. His eyes snapped open and landed on me. “My Master doesn’t tolerate competition. He will sweep away this other and once I have the Book we will usher in a new age together.”

  I laughed, the sound like a drowning man struggling to draw breath. “Is that what your master told you?” Gagging on my own laughter I doubled over and grabbed another handful of tissues. Coughing into them, I tried not to look at the specks of red that dotted the wadded up paper. “You think you’re going to be the right hand of a Demon? To them we are beneath contempt; we are lowly creatures with finite life-spans and limited power.” Smiling, I added, “What would something as powerful as your master want with someone like you? Once he’s gotten what he wants from you he’ll kill you.”

  “You think I’m completely blind to their ways? Oh no, Inquisitor. Part of the deal is that he can never harm me. Why are you laughing? You think this is funny?” He walked over to me, his face twisted in fury. “My Master has gifted me with these powers because I am special. My abilities as a necromancer are unparalleled. I am the new god of the dead!” He threw back his head and thrust his arms out above him, reaching for the heavens. A moment later he lowered his arms, opened his eyes, and focused on me. “Just look upon the lovely face of my queen and you will know it is the truth.” He grabbed me with one hand and hauled me to my feet. With a firm grip on my shoulders, he spun me around so I faced the window where Cassie was standing. “Go ahead Inquisitor; tell me she isn’t the vision of perfection.” There was a moment of silence as I stood looking at the small girl bathed in the glow of a streetlight. Christian shook me and bellowed, “Tell me!”

  “She’s dead!” I yelled back.

  Spinning me back towards him, I had a second to see his lips pull back from his teeth in a snarl and his eyes light up with hate before he threw me bodily across the room and onto the chair he had occupied moments before. My body was horizontal when I hit the back of it and brought it crashing to the ground with me. The landing hadn’t hurt much, but it had caused another coughing fit. I rolled onto my side and held my ribs. Spittle dribbled onto the floor next to my face.

  He came to stand next to me. “That is the point, little psychic. The zombies and ghouls are just puppets, things to be directed and controlled. My disciples were my first experiment in immortality. Alas, they too are imperfect. The talismans they wear give them self-sustaining power, but what I trapped within them is…incomplete. The spirit had already departed by the time I resurrected them, so what is left is only a partial imprint of what they were. Cassie, though.” He turned burning eyes filled with adoration upon her. “She is perfect. A full spirit retained in its body. Death is no longer a barrier, Inquisitor; we don’t need to fear it any longer.”

  He looked back at me, his eyes unfocused and glossy. “I can give everlasting life to those that follow me.”

  “And those that don’t?” I croaked.

  “There is no salvation for them. I am the way, Inquisitor, the one true way.”

  “And I suppose you’ll want someone to write your gospels for you as well, eh? You sick fuck.” I spit my disgust at him. It landed with a wet slap on his shoe.

  Snarling, he charged over to me, grabbed me by the shirt, and hauled me up to eye level. “You ungrateful shit. You lack the imagination to understand what I’m trying to do.” He shook me violently. “No one will have to be scared of death again!” With that, he lifted me and threw me back to the ground. My aching ribs screamed in protest, and the rest of my body wasn’t too happy either.

  Christian smiled down on me. “I want the Book, and you will bring it to me by the coming nightfall.”

  I forced myself up and stood on shaky legs. I couldn’t fight him, but I’d be damned if I was going to cower in my own house. “And why would I do that?”

  “Because if you don’t I will bring my army to bear on you and your friends.” His smile widened. “The wizard and witch have already gotten a demonstration.”

  My legs nearly buckled as cold sweat broke out across my body. “What have you done?”

  “Calm yourself. They are undamaged for now.” He spread his hands. “It was an interesting idea to track the birds, but as you can tell it didn’t go quite as they planned.” He waved the thoughts away. “What I sent them was simply a warning. If you don’t give me what I want I will kill them. And I won’t stop there. Oakland—all of Oakland, not just the Second City—will see my power.” Christian spread his hands in front of his chest as if he were holding an invisible box. Green strands of power leapt between them in arcs of electricity until they began coalescing at the center into a small orb of emerald light. “This is what the Shadowcasters saw right before they died. Give me the Book and no one else has to see it.” He brought his hands together and the light was snuffed out. “The wizard knows where it is, but he’s old and obstinate. He’d let everyone die in the false belief that his magic could somehow best me. You, on the other hand, don’t have his power or the ego that comes with living through as many battles as he has. I can see the truth in your eyes; the realization that I could sweep this city into the ocean if I so wished.”

  I knew no such thing but I wasn’t about to let on that I thought he was vulnerable. I tore my gaze from him to look at the floor. He was a madman enamored with his own power. That was nothing new in the history of humanity, but he had taken it to new depths. Too many people had talked of bringing a Demon to this plane in order to harness their power for themselves. Most stopped at talk because they knew that even if the Inquisition didn’t catch them, then their own summoned Demon would try to kill them at the first opportunity. Adam Drake, the creator of dreamscape, had tried it when he had summoned a Demon to kill me. Drake was locked up in Alcatraz and the Demon had been banished, but the battle had been costly. The difference here was that Christian didn’t want to bind it, he wanted to serve it. And Demons loved to play the role of puppet master with humans and paras alike.

  Remembering the beam of sunlight that had struck him in the church and momentarily drained his power, I knew there had to be a way to beat him. But I needed time.

  Allowing my shoulders to slump and keeping my eyes on the floor at his feet, I said, “I’ll get you the Book if you promise to spare my friends.”

  I could hear a restrained tone of triumph in his voice as he replied solemnly, “You have my word, Inquisitor.” Turning from me, he went to the window and placed a hand on Cassie’s elbow. “Come my queen, we have work to do.” Over his shoulder, Christian called to me, “It’s almost dawn, Inquisitor. Remember, you have till sundown to keep your end of the deal.”

  As Christian led them out the front door, Cassie looked back over her shoulder to give me one more pleading, helpless look. Before the darkness of the outside world swallowed them she mouthed words to me.<
br />
  Help me.

  The door shut behind them, leaving me alone in echoing silence.

  22

  The only good thing about playing the role of the beaten-down would-be hero was that it was very easy to pull off if you looked and felt like I did. I sat down gingerly on the floor, wincing as pain shot through my ribs. My shirt still hung open and I examined the red patches that remained from Christian’s attack. They were like red lakes on the map of my skin. As I probed them with my finger I realized that the skin itself was smooth and undamaged. The necromantic energy hadn’t seeped past the outermost layers of my skin, a fact that should have made me ecstatic, or at least put me in a better mood. But something he had said kept swirling around in my head.

  Demon magic always leaves a mark on a person.

  He had been talking about the Book, but still…

  How did it mark you?

  I looked at the fingers that had touched the raw wounds, examining them critically. They suddenly felt oily, as if there was a taint on my skin that wanted to spread across me and consume me, so I wiped them vigorously on my pant leg.

  “Well,” a tiny voice said from behind me. “That looked unpleasant.”

  Turning, I saw the air shimmer and two forms take shape. Lily and Simon stood in the entranceway to the kitchen.

  “I need a shower,” I grumbled.

  Lily came up next to me and sniffed. “All the hot water in North America won’t get rid of that stink. You smell worse than a corpse, and considering I’ve spent the last half-hour standing next to one,” she hooked a thumb over her shoulder at Simon, “that’s saying something.”

  Simon ignored her, walked over to me, and gave me an inscrutable look. “You said you’d give him the Book if he spared us.”

  Suddenly I knew what the look meant. “Don’t be stupid,” I said, feeling unduly exposed, as if Simon’s eyes were spotlights into my soul. My hands fumbled at closing my shirt until I remembered that the buttons were torn off. “I needed to buy us some time, so now we have till sundown to figure out what to do.”

  Simon’s eyes squinted ever-so-slightly. “You lied to him?”

  “Well I prefer to call it bluffing, but yeah, I lied.”

  A smile slowly spread across his face, and he offered me his hand. I grabbed a hold and he hoisted me to my feet with ease. “You had me worried,” he said, and slapped me on the shoulder. “For a minute there I actually thought you might give in to despair and try to make a deal with him. Are you alright?”

  “Just some superficial damage.” I looked down at Lily who was staring intently at my bare torso. “So you two were cloaked in here the whole time?”

  “A minor spell,” Lily replied distractedly. “It shouldn’t cause any ripples that my hunter can follow, but all the same I don’t think we should linger here much longer.” She reached out a small hand towards my stomach. I slapped it away. She squeaked in surprise and pulled her hand back. “How long have you had that?”

  I looked down at the red marks in puzzlement. “You should know, you were standing right there.”

  Frowning up at me, she snapped, “Not the overblown rash you imbecile! The snakes! When did you get that tattoo?”

  “A few months ago. Why?”

  “Interesting,” she mumbled and looked around the room. “Where’s Mr. Bear?” She hurried off into the kitchen.

  After watching her go, Simon turned back to me. “You should be careful of what you tell her. You know how much Demon’s like to barter their knowledge.”

  “Point taken.” I rubbed the back of my neck and anticipated the warm shower I was planning on. “So what happened? Why didn’t you wake me earlier?”

  Even though vampires didn’t need to breathe, Simon sighed. “We tried but Ben spelled you. Lily said she couldn’t wake you without countering the magic, and that would have alerted the other Demon to her presence. Besides, you needed the rest, Frank. I don’t need to sleep much anymore, but you do so I decided to let it run its course. Lily sensed Christian coming and cloaked us just before he barged in.” His hands balled into fists. “God damn it!” he hissed. “She said he wouldn’t hurt you because he needed you to get the Book. I shouldn’t have listened to the damned Demon. I should have helped you. I’m sorry, brother.” He hung his head.

  “You did the right thing, Simon. She may be a damned Demon, but she’s also an ambassador. You needed to protect her first.” I gave him a reassuring smile. “Besides, he didn’t hurt me much. He was just showing off, trying to intimidate me.” And he did a fine job, too, I silently added. Those black tendrils creeping across my skin had been a very effective message. “And we don’t know what effect his powers would have on you. I know the vampires like to pretend that the old stories about necromancers and vampires are just that, but he isn’t just a normal necromancer anymore.”

  “But still—” he started.

  I interrupted. “No buts. You did your job like you were supposed to. I would have done the same in your position.”

  “You sound like Ben,” he said with a smile.

  “Are you two girls done gossiping yet?” Lily called from the kitchen. “Mr. Bear and I are anxious to get moving.”

  “And where would you like to go, little Demoness?” Simon called to her sweetly.

  Lily poked her head around the archway, her auburn hair waving like heavy branches in a breeze. “I’m sure uncle Frank will think of something.” She gave me a smile and retreated once more to the kitchen. “Are there any tacos left?”

  “I’m going to go take a shower,” I told Simon. “Can you heat up some leftovers for her?”

  “She could make them herself,” Simon grumbled. “You shouldn’t treat her like a child or else you’ll lose sight of what she really is.”

  I snorted a laugh. “No chance of that happening. I want you to cook for her because I have a feeling that if she uses the stove she’ll “accidentally” burn my house down with us still inside.”

  The smell of cooking meat drifted out to us. With a look of alarm, Simon called, “Let me help you with that, Lily,” and walked quickly to the kitchen.

  * * *

  The shower was fantastic. The hot water rushing over me had worked hard to melt away the tension that had built up in my muscles, and several applications of soap had made me feel almost clean of Christian’s death magic.

  It had also given me time to think. As I took deep breaths of the steam it seemed to clear away the muddled mess of thoughts, ideas, and confused emotions. Up through the smoky haze rose the specter of the training. It bore down on doubt and indecision and sent them packing along with anything else it considered useless. I needed a plan to deal with a crazy necromancer and a Demon that walked the earth in human skin looking for its adversary, a small girl that I was sworn to protect. I had a plan, if only I allowed my training to take over and show it to me.

  I changed clothes, tossing the ruined shirt in the trash, and went to check on Simon and Lily. They sat at opposite ends of the kitchen table, Lily daintily picking at the meat on her plate with a fork, foregoing any of the other ingredients that had originally made them tacos. Simon sipped slowly from a can of beer. He had put his sunglasses on, but I knew his eyes never left hers. As I watched, Lily guided a fork full of meat unerringly into her mouth without glancing away from the vampire. It was like watching a professional staring contest, neither one blinking yet carrying on about their tasks.

  Shaking my head, I turned and went to the basement. The heavy metal door opened after I gave my thumbprint. Lights flickered on and I padded my way down the steps to my inner sanctum.

  Stopping at the gun locker, I grabbed a couple extra clips for my pistol and stuffed them in my pants’ pockets. My gun and knife were still on the table upstairs and as far as standard weaponry went they were all I would need.

  But there was something nonstandard that I needed from down here.

  I pulled A Guide to the Demonic off the top of the bookcase where I had left
it and flipped through the pages. The training that was ingrained in my head maximized my subconscious to work on certain problems that my conscious mind didn’t have the time or the focus for. When I had given the book a cursory look at Jon’s shop my subconscious had latched onto something. It was just a diagram, but it was one I recognized.

  And to get it to work I would need something that I didn’t have access to here.

  Book in hand, I went back up and walked into the kitchen. “Get your stuff together. We’re going for a ride.” I walked out to the living room and grabbed my gun and knife off the table. “Simon, you mind driving? My car’s kinda busted up and stinks like leeches.”

  “Leeches?” With one hand he rubbed his temple while the other lazily slashed the air. “Never mind, I don’t want to know.” He came into the room, saw me holstering my gun, and decided that he needed to double-check his own. Ejecting the clip and checking the slide, he gave me a sidelong look and asked, “So you have a plan?”

  “Technically I have part of a plan. The rest will drop into place if this works.”

  Simon reloaded his gun and put it away. “Not to rain on your parade or anything, but dawn is coming soon and that’s not good for my complexion.”

  “That’s why we should get a move on.” Smiling, I added, “I wouldn’t want your first visit out here in more than a year to result in you being turned into a crispy critter. That’s bad for our reputation.”

  “Far be it for me to hurt your tourism industry,” Simon said dryly.

  I walked around the room to see if I had forgotten anything. My eyes landed on a small table against the wall. The symbolic items that Ben had used in the ritual were placed there. A sliver of wood from Ben’s staff and the necklace of a Wiccan priestess. The small jade piece twinkled at me as I leaned closer.

  Where were Terri and Ben right now? Christian had said he’d given them a demonstration but that they were alright. He could have lied, and he surely would have if it would improve his bargaining position with me. I had to find out…