by Lisa Shearin
I grinned crookedly. “Working together to make sure everyone’s safe?”
Sora grinned back. “Damn fine work if you can get it. It’s good to see the student body working together.”
“The kids are going at it like rabbits, aren’t they?”
Sora chuckled. “That’s what I hear.”
“Is it true?” I asked. “That demons like virgins?”
“Raine, demons will eat anything, male or female, virgin or not. Some do have preferences, but they’ll all take what they can get.”
“And they’re capable of taking anyone on this island.”
“If what we’ve seen is any indication of what’s coming, they can take everyone on this island. I don’t care how much demon fighting experience someone has, myself included. Outnumbered plus overwhelmed equals eaten.” She looked through one of the partially open classroom doors at the young students inside, and I saw concern and maybe even fear reflected in her dark eyes. “Or worse.”
“Well, if you have any idea where this Scythe of Nen is, Piaras and I won’t have to go looking for it. It’d be a lot safer for both of us.”
“The demons obviously didn’t find it in Professor Berel’s town house.”
“How about his office here?” I asked.
“I’ve been in there. Nothing in there matches that description, though you’re more than welcome to look. Laurian Berel didn’t like knives, daggers, or any edged weapons. But colleagues and visiting academics kept giving him the things as gifts. I guess they thought a demonologist would like weapons.”
“Demonologists can’t be easy to shop for,” I said.
Sora smiled. “We’re not, though most of us will take a couple bottles of good whiskey. Since Laurian didn’t want to admit that he was afraid of daggers, he gave every last one of them away. Only a few of us knew of his fear.”
I had an unpleasant flashback. The Volghul claws that ripped out his throat definitely qualified as edged weapons. Killed by what you feared the most. Oh yeah, everybody wanted to go like that.
“Apparently the demons didn’t know that daggers weren’t his thing,” I said.
Raised voices came from the classroom with the partially open door. I could see a man, presumably a professor, cross his arms and lean against the front of his desk.
“Let me get this straight-a demon ate your homework?” the man asked dubiously.
“Yes, sir.” The response sounded like it came from the front row.
“You mean dog.”
“No, sir. Demon. A Crog.”
The man raised an eyebrow. “You’re sure?”
“Positive, sir.”
“You don’t want to change your story?”
“I can’t. It’s the truth. It was in my bookbag.”
“Where is it now?”
“It jumped out and ran off when I unbuckled the bag.” The boy made a face. “I really didn’t want to chase it, sir. It didn’t take anything else, and Crogs are really disgusting.”
Sora pushed open the door. “Was the Crog brown with blue stripes or green?” she asked the startled student.
The boy sat up as straight in his chair as possible. “Blue, Professor Niabi.”
“You’re positive?”
“Unfortunately positive, ma’am. I got a really close look at it.”
Sora turned to me. “Crogs like any kind of paper, parchment, or ink.”
I made a face. “Ink?”
“They’ll drink the stuff if they can find a bottle. You usually find Crogs in libraries or bookstores.” She turned back to the wide-eyed student. “Were you in the Scriptorium last night?”
He nodded. “I was finishing a research assignment.”
“You must have picked him up there. The Scriptorium staff sets traps baited with outdated textbooks,” Sora told me. “This one must have had a taste for fresher paper.”
“There hasn’t been a Crog in the Scriptorium in years,” the student insisted fearfully. “Chief Librarian Kalta would never permit it. He has wards in place to keep everything out.”
And everyone. I’d had an up close and unpleasant encounter with Lucan Kalta last week.
I stepped forward. “And how do you know about the Scriptorium’s wards?”
The student looked questioningly at Sora. She nodded.
“I have a part-time job in the Scriptorium,” he told me.
That would make Lucan Kalta his boss. The kid must have needed the money real bad.
“Excuse accepted,” Sora told the student. “In the immediate future, check your bag before leaving the Scriptorium.”
“Definitely, ma’am.”
Sora left the room; I followed. Vegard had waited outside. “Demons are turning up everywhere,” he muttered.
Sora strode purposefully down the hall. “Not just any demon, Vegard. And not just any place.”
What I knew about demons wouldn’t fill a hat, but I’d gathered from Sora’s reaction in that classroom that blue stripes were worse than green. “Blue stripes are bad, I take it?”
“They are. Greenies are as common as rats in a warehouse.
Officially they’re not even demons. They closely resemble Crogs, so most people just lump them together, most demonologists included.”
“So blue-striped Crogs are significant how?”
Sora kept walking, but her lips curled in a satisfied smile. “They’re not summoned.”
“Let me guess: they came through the Hellgate.”
“Correct. And they stay close to it.” Her smile broadened.
“Very close.”
Chapter 22
“The Hellgate’s under the Scriptorium?” I asked.
“Maybe, maybe not,” Sora said. “The Scriptorium is in the center city, and under the city are-”
“Tunnels.” My lack of enthusiasm was evident.
Sora nodded. “Hundreds of miles of them, I understand. Never felt the urge to go exploring myself. Though it’s ill-advised to open a Hellgate in a tunnel. You’d need a chamber. Fairly large, definitely stable, and if you don’t want to get caught while you’re opening it, easily defensible.”
“Anything like that under the Scriptorium?”
“Too many to count. Though with very few exceptions, the center city is where most of the sightings have occurred.”
“Under the campus.”
“Unfortunately, yes. The largest area to cover and also the most densely populated.”
“How far is the Scriptorium from here?”
“Just two blocks.”
I looked down, wishing the Saghred had given me the ability to look through floors and rock. “Tunnels and chambers right under our feet.”
Sora lowered her voice. “Quite possibly.”
I swore silently. I hated tunnels. I especially hated tunnels probably seething at this very second with demons and dark mages-or Reapers. Thankfully, I had work to do up here. “Can I see Professor Berel’s office?”
“Follow me.”
Laurian Berel’s office was what you’d expect a department chairman to have. Spacious corner office with a window. At least it would have been spacious if it’d been cleaned out in the past couple of decades, and there was probably a window with a nice view behind those heavy and closed drapes. Permeating the place was a smell I couldn’t identify and quite frankly, I didn’t really want to. I was tempted to pull back those curtains and open the window to let in some fresh air, but something on a long table in front of the window made me reconsider that. Several somethings, actually.
Demons in miniature. Dead and otherwise. The dead ones were either preserved in jars or stuffed and mounted. The others were alive and in clear cases faintly glowing with containment spells. A couple of them were glowing a little too faintly for my comfort.
“Pets,” Sora told me.
I blinked. “What?”
“Most of us faculty feel the same way.”
Vegard’s expression was somewhere between appalled and just plain disgusted
. “That’s creepy as hell, Professor,” he said. “No pun intended.”
They were all looking at us, and one looked uncomfortably similar to the yellow latrine demon, except this one was green. I didn’t want to ponder what caused the color difference. Its lips curled back, showing me several rows of needle-sharp green teeth. He glared at me. I stared back. Then I realized something and looked away-you can’t win a staring contest with something that doesn’t have eyelids.
“I don’t even want to ask how he fed them,” I muttered. “Or what.”
“Sometimes he did a better job of it than others,” Sora told me. “One time he was having a faculty meeting in here while he fed them. He got distracted, and Green Teeth there got a surprise treat. Laurian was certainly surprised. Did you notice he was missing two fingers on his left hand?”
My stomach did a little barrel roll. “I must have missed that one.”
She waved a dismissive hand. “You were face-to-face with a Volghul. You had more important things to do. Laurian always said that these little ones were bound and could do him no harm.”
Yeah, where had I heard that one before?
“If we’re all still alive next week, I’m sending these things back where they came from,” Sora told me.
Berel’s pets compared to what would be coming through that Hellgate were like house cats compared to lions-giant lions that were damned near impossible to kill. I looked down at the now chittering demon in the cage. I’d take Green Teeth here anytime.
I didn’t feel comfortable turning my back on the late Professor Berel’s pets, but I couldn’t exactly search the office while staring at a lidless mini-demon.
From the looks of things, Berel had been department chairman and had occupied this office for a long time. You just couldn’t get that kind of clutter overnight. There wasn’t room for one more book on Berel’s shelves. When he’d run out of horizontal space, he started stacking books vertically on top of other books. The shelves were floor to ceiling with a ladder on rollers that could slide down the entire length of the wall. That told me the shelves weren’t likely to fall on me, but I didn’t want to push my luck. Besides, I wasn’t looking for a book.
“Do you mind if I search?” I asked Sora. “I promise not to trash the place.”
“Search away. Anything I can do to help?”
“I know he hated daggers, but if he had kept one that he’d been given, where would he have put it? Did he have a safe, strongbox-”
Sora was shaking her head. Not the response I’d hoped for.
“Not that I’m aware of,” she said, “but I’ll look.”
“Thanks.”
“What can I do, ma’am?” Vegard asked me.
I nodded toward a row of file cabinets next to the table with the mini-demons. I smiled apologetically. “Check those, please.”
He gave me a flat look. “Professor Niabi?”
“Yes?”
“Permission to stab anything that escapes and jumps on me?”
“Feel free, Vegard.”
Before I started knocking on the walls to check for hidden compartments, I thought I’d eliminate the obvious. Berel’s desk. It was old and massive. I’d seen mages’ desks that had more hidden drawers than real ones.
The second drawer I searched had more of the usual desk contents-and a pair of small leather boxes, trimmed in gilt filigree, about the size of a man’s hand. I froze. My present problem didn’t start by my finding the Saghred or the amulet; my problem had started as a result of a thief friend of mine finding said amulet in a pretty little box much like these. That one had been closed with a black wax seal; these boxes were closed with latches. Still, there was no way I was touching them without asking a few questions first.
I took one step back. “Sora?”
“Yes?”
I leaned forward just enough to pull the drawer open wider.
“Any idea what’s in these?”
“These what?” She came over and looked. “The boxes?”
“Yep.”
“I don’t know. Feel free to open them.”
I swore. “Gee, thanks.”
“What’s wrong?”
I told her.
Sora whistled. “I wouldn’t want to open any more boxes, either.”
Vegard came over. “Ma’am, maybe I should-”
I held up a hand. “I found them.” I sighed. “I’ll open them.”
“I’ll stand here,” he said, his hands now faintly glowing.
Vegard had a spell ready to launch; I muttered a shielding spell into place. Not that either would do any good if there was something truly nasty in those boxes, but events of the past couple of weeks had made me cautious, if not downright paranoid. I picked up the first box; it was covered in midnight blue leather. I held it at arm’s length and gave it a little shake. It didn’t sound like there was anything in there. Only one way to find out. I put it on the desk, flipped the latch, and opened it. Inside was a star-shaped medallion; it looked like an award or something.
“The Order of Goulous,” Sora said as if that explained everything. It didn’t.
“Which is?”
“An academic award for excellence in research,” she explained. “Laurian was widely published.”
I took out the other box, flipped the latch, winced, and looked inside. It was empty, but there had been something in there, nestled in the dark velvet lining. Something that had left an indentation like a curved dagger no larger than my father’s hand.
Just an imprint, no dagger.
I made no move to put my hand anywhere near that imprint. “Okay,” I said carefully, never taking my eyes off of that box. “Theoretically the Saghred and I are one. So it would stand to reason that the rock wouldn’t be too fond of the Scythe of Nen-and possibly anything that had held it.”
Vegard didn’t move. “Ma’am, I think you should put the box down.” His voice was tight. “Slowly would be good.”
I kept my eyes on the box. “Vegard, we have to know for sure.”
“Are you feeling anything from just holding it?”
“A little tingle maybe, but that might be my nerves.” Before Vegard could stop me-or before I chickened out-I threw caution to the wind and reached out to touch the velvet indentation with my fingertips.
I really shouldn’t have done that.
The next thing I knew, I was on my ass, and the box was across the room. I’d never been struck by lightning, but this had to be what it felt like. I wanted to say something, my mouth was opening and closing, but words weren’t making it out.
Vegard and Sora were doing my cussing for me.
“I… think that… was it,” I finally managed. I couldn’t imagine the Saghred being that pissed off at any other piece of cutlery. Vegard started to reach for me and got one hell of a shock for his trouble.
“Don’t touch… Wait a… minute.”
“Laurian did have it,” Sora said.
I grabbed the edge of the desk and hauled myself off the floor. The desk didn’t catch fire, so I thought I was safe for contact. Vegard thought so, too. He grabbed my arm and helped me the rest of the way to my feet.
“Who else has access to this office?” I asked Sora.
“Just Laurian’s secretary. But he didn’t take it.”
“How do you know-”
“Daggers didn’t stay in Laurian’s possession long enough for anyone to steal them.”
I was confused. “If he gave it away, why would he keep the box?”
“The mage he gave it to collects daggers.” Sora said it like she knew I wasn’t going to like it. “He has display cases and didn’t need the box. Over the years, Laurian has given him a lot of daggers. He called them gifts; I called them bribes.”
I didn’t move. “Who?”
“Carnades Silvanus.”
That wasn’t the name I wanted to hear.
“Carnades collects exotic daggers,” Sora told me. “Laurian hated the things. Laurian also hated Carnade
s.”
“Sounds like he was a good judge of character.”
“Carnades is the chairman of the funding committee,” Sora explained. “They decide how much money each department gets. Guess which department Carnades thinks should be eliminated because any moral person wouldn’t want to study demons?”
“No guess needed. I see why you turned that demon loose on him yesterday.”
Sora grinned. “Mychael and I wanted to give Vegard a chance to get you out of there, but I will admit to a more personal reason.”
“Payback’s hell.”
“Literally.”
I chuckled. “And those blue demons were on him like-” I stopped, thought, and realized in the span of about two seconds. Then I felt a sudden and entirely justified urge to bang my head against Laurian Berel’s bookcases.
Vegard stepped forward. “Ma’am? What’s wrong?”
“Carnades had it.” Saying it out loud just made it worse.
“Carnades has it.”
“What does-”
“Carnades actually had the Scythe of Nen on him yesterday at watcher headquarters,” I said. “He had a small, curved silver dagger tucked in his sash. I saw it-and those demons knew what it was; that’s why they attacked him.” I suddenly felt like the biggest idiot on the island; then my Benares instincts put in an appearance. “When Carnades was out cold; I could have swiped the thing.”
“Ma’am, you didn’t know.”
“I do now, a lot of good it does me.”
I imagined myself tackling Carnades and wrestling that dagger away from him. Fun, but hardly practical. I pulled my bottom lip between my teeth and bit it while I thought some very Benares thoughts that would have made Phaelan proud.
“Ma’am, no.” Vegard was adamant, firm, and he knew he wasn’t going to change my already-made-up mind.
“Vegard, we have to have that dagger. We don’t have a choice.”
“We could go to the boss. He could talk to Magus Silvanus.”
I just looked at him. “Do you honestly believe that Carnades will hand over the Scythe to Mychael for safekeeping?”
“Hell would freeze over first,” he admitted.