Turning to the book, I flipped three pages ahead and showed him the finished array. “I have to add more lines to direct the different elements, and runes to dictate how I want the magical forces to behave.”
I expected a scoffing “zh’ūltis” but he was frowning at my book.
“You will draw this on the floor? And that will make the vīsh?”
“Yes. When I’m done, the magic will be imbued into an artifact.”
Another frowning appraisal. I waited. His tail swished, then he sat beside me, legs sprawled out, and propped himself up on one arm.
My eyes narrowed. “Aren’t you going to comment? Tell me how dumb and useless and pointlessly complicated this magic is?”
He smirked, which only increased my defensiveness. “I already knew vīsh hh’ainun was weak and slow.”
Ah, the insult. Finally. I felt better now. “Well, we can’t all wave our hands and make magic appear out of thin air like you.”
Smirk widening to show a hint of teeth, Zylas pulled the book away from me.
“Hey!”
I reached for the text but hesitated, confused by his intense focus. He analyzed the detailed arrangement of lines, angles, shapes, and runes, the seconds ticking past.
At three minutes and fifty seconds—I counted—he handed the book back to me. Answering my unspoken question with the return of his wolfish smile, he raised his arm. Crimson light sparked across his hand and veined his wrist. He spread his fingers as concentration tightened his face.
A glowing red circle flashed into existence, hovering an inch above the floor, perfectly aligned with the white one permanently marked on the smooth surface. But his spell was … was …
I looked down at the diagram in the book. Back up at his glowing red spell. Pure demonic power … in the shape of an Arcana array. The Arcana array I’d barely begun to create, except his was complete, showing every line and rune. Based on how perfectly his spell aligned with my work in progress, I didn’t doubt that every angle was flawless.
“How …” I whispered.
He relaxed his hand and the glow died away. “My vīsh is not so different, but I do not draw it. So slow. Gh’idrūlis.”
“Then how do you …” I recalled his careful study of the diagram. “You memorized it?”
“My vīsh must be perfect too. I learn and learn it, practice it until I can never forget.”
His insane memory—the way he could memorize a thousand puzzle pieces in a few minutes—suddenly made a whole lot of sense. All those complex, tangled demonic spells I’d seen him cast … they didn’t appear from some mysterious spell cache in the ether; he’d memorized them all in perfect detail, down to the exact angles and tiniest runes.
“Wow,” I whispered.
His lips curved, but I wasn’t sure if he was gloating or flattered by my awe.
“Are there limits?” I asked. “How many spells have you memorized?”
“I do not know the number. Hundreds and hundreds.” He leaned back again, braced on one hand. “Sometimes it is hard to think of the one I want.”
“But if you know it, you can cast it instantly?”
“Hnn. I need … some seconds? I must see it perfect and clear in my mind before I cast. Bigger spells are more difficult. If it is wrong, it is …” He tipped his head back, gazing at the skylight. “It is dangerous.”
I absently ran my finger down the page of the book. “That sounds like it requires a lot of concentration.”
“Var. If I am fighting, I do not always have time to cast.”
“Still, your magic is really powerful and faster than mine. But,” I added brightly, “mine will still be pretty fast once it’s ready, assuming I can make it right.”
He waited, with only the occasional impatient scoff, as I resumed building out the array. Though he’d memorized it in a few minutes, his reproduction of the spell was powerless. Anyone, mythic or human, could speak an artifact’s trigger incantation to activate it, but only Arcana mythics like me could create them. I was a conduit, and through the process of creating the array, my passive magic would infuse it.
It took me two hours of careful, intensive work to finish, every line and angle measured and remeasured. Then I spent another hour adding the runes in painstaking detail.
When I went to the cupboards, Zylas stirred out of his bored stupor. I collected bags of iron powder, salt crystals, copper calcinate, and black sulfur, as well as a jar of oil. Using the scales on the counter, I measured out exact amounts and added them to the small, circular nodes I’d drawn into the array.
Finally, I selected a thin rectangle of pure iron the size of a domino. With a small silver marker, I drew three runes down the front as shown in the text, and placed it in the node at the point of the open triangle—the spot where all the magic would be directed.
“There,” I declared proudly, standing over my work. “It’s ready.”
Zylas wandered to my side. He stared down at the array, dotted with piles of colored powder and three drops of oil.
He waited a beat. “Now what?”
“Now”—I consulted the book—“the array needs to charge for at least sixteen hours.”
“Charge?”
“Arcana is powered by the natural magical energies that flow across the earth. Spells like this absorb that energy, then expend it when they’re triggered.”
He scrunched his nose. “You spent hours making this, now you must wait even longer? So slow, drādah.”
I shrugged. “Making the spells is slow. Some of these”—I patted the book—“have to charge for months before the sorcerer can complete them.”
“What will you do while you wait?”
“Well …” I drew in a deep breath. “Zora thinks she found the vampires’ hideout—where the ones controlling all of this might be. She’s taking a team in tomorrow morning.”
His bored lassitude vanished as he focused his full attention on me.
“I’m not invited on their mission. And even if I were, I couldn’t search for answers with a bunch of witnesses. If we’re going to learn what’s really going on, and why the vampires are so interested in Uncle Jack, I think we need to go see this place for ourselves … before she and her team get there.”
Zylas glanced at the skylight, the dark glass reflecting the room and my Arcana array back at us. “Then we have until the sun returns.”
Which meant we needed to go now—when the vampires were at their strongest.
Chapter Sixteen
This vampire “lair” was several steps up from the last one. Not that the last one had qualified as a lair, really. I didn’t know what to call them. Hideouts? Dens? … Habitats?
I lurked in a shadowy doorway across the street from the building Zora had marked on her map. Tucked deeper in the shadows behind me was Zylas. His heat radiated into my back as he studied the building over the top of my head. Traffic zoomed past, headlights glaring in the misty rain.
We were in the heart of downtown. In fact, we weren’t far from the storm drain I’d escaped through last night.
Neither the tallest nor the nicest building on the block, the tower was anonymous among its neighbors. It could be full of offices or condos, and stood out from the rest only in that the front doors were blocked off by construction barricades and the second through fifth floors had plywood in place of windows.
“What do you think?” I whispered to Zylas.
“Too many hh’ainun here. They will see me.”
Though darkness had fallen, it was still early evening and the remnants of rush-hour traffic was whizzing by. Zylas, with his horns, tail, red eyes, and armor, was a tad noticeable.
“I’ll go around to the back,” I told him, “and let you know when it’s safe to come out again.”
Crimson light rushed over him and his power returned to the infernus. I hugged my arms to my chest—having lost my coat, I was wearing three sweaters instead—and ventured into the light rain.
A few minutes o
f nonchalant ambling later, I entered the back alley and whispered, “Okay, Zylas.”
He materialized beside me, and together we studied the new view—a blank wall with a loading bay and a single, featureless steel door. Red light flared up Zylas’s arm, forming a pattern of runes, and he pressed two fingers to the thin gap between the door and frame. Crimson power blazed out of the gap, then he pushed on the steel.
The door swung open.
I squinted suspiciously. “Where did you learn to do that?”
“It is how the metal box in the summoner’s house was opened.”
Uncle Jack’s safe, broken open with demonic magic. Zylas learned too fast for comfort.
A dark hallway waited for us. The dusty smell of drywall hung in the air, and a layer of white grit covered the concrete floor, yet to be finished with carpet or tile. I followed Zylas, my heart thudding so loudly I wouldn’t have been surprised if it was making more noise than my shoes.
The corridor led us to an unfinished lobby, lit only by the streetlamps outside. The ceiling was full of missing tiles, and bundles of wire and unattached ductwork hung from the dark space above. Steel studs were piled beside a stack of drywall, buckets were scattered around, and extension cords snaked across the floor. An industrial fan pointed toward the closed and blockaded front doors.
I nudged my toe through the dust. The half-completed construction appeared abandoned.
Zylas angled toward the opposite end of the lobby, his steps silent. He paused at a door, then pushed it open. The soft clack of the latch echoed through the dark concrete stairwell on the other side as he started up the steps.
“Up?” I whispered, hesitating with one hand on the door. The basement seemed more bloodsucking-monster-friendly. “Are you sure?”
He glanced back, eyes glowing. “I smell fresh blood.”
Gulping, I eased the door closed. The instant it snicked shut, utter darkness plunged over the stairwell. There were no windows and no lights.
“Zylas?” I whispered faintly. “I can’t see anything.”
His softly glowing eyes reappeared as he turned. Judging by their location, he was already halfway up the first flight of stairs. His eyes drew closer as he returned, then warm hands touched my wrists. He drew my arms around his neck, then hooked his fingers under my knee and tugged. I pulled myself onto his back and locked my legs around his waist.
As he trotted up the stairs, I sighed glumly. “I really am useless, aren’t I?”
“Yes.”
I lightly smacked his right shoulder—the unarmored one. “Don’t agree with me. You should say something encouraging.”
He glided up the next flight. “Why?”
“To make me feel better.”
A pause. “Why?”
“Do you ever do anything that doesn’t benefit you somehow?”
“Like what?”
His gait leveled out as he turned away from the next flight. His shoulders shifted, then I heard a door open. The faintest light, leaking around the plywood blocking the windows, scarcely penetrated the darkness of what looked like a hallway.
Seeming to realize it wasn’t enough light for a human to navigate by, Zylas didn’t try to put me down. He continued onward with cautious steps.
I wiggled against his back, getting more comfortable, and he hooked his arms under my knees to better support my weight. “Okay, here’s a hypothetical situation.”
“I do not know that word.”
“Hypothetical? In this case, it means imagining an event as if it’s real, so you can decide how you would react. So, imagine you’re walking through the woods and you hear someone calling for help.”
He paused, inhaled through his nose, then turned down a corridor that led away from the boarded windows and their weak light. “This sounds zh’ūltis.”
“Just play along, okay?” I put my mouth closer to his ear so I could whisper more quietly. “You hear a call for help in the woods. What do you do?”
“I would see who is calling.”
Surprised, I allowed a spark of hope. “What if you found … a woman? She’s trapped under a fallen tree. What would you do next?”
He paused again and released one of my knees. The clack of a door. He leaned forward, sniffing at the air, then withdrew and walked on. Away from the windows, the darkness was eerily complete, and I doubted Zylas could’ve navigated it without his infrared vision.
“Who is the woman?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“The trapped female. Do I know her?”
“No, you don’t. She’s a stranger.”
“Is she a demon or hh’ainun?”
“Uh … a demon.”
“Then I would flee before she saw me.” He dropped into a crouch and I squeaked, clutching his back. I felt his arm move. “There is old blood here.”
“Are there vampires close by?”
“They have walked here, but not in many days.” Rising, he hitched me higher on his back and continued on. “I can hear voices. They are close but I do not know how to get to them.”
We must have come in the wrong door. I was betting there was a closer stairwell to wherever the owners of the voices were stationed.
“We’ll find a way eventually,” I assured him. “We don’t need to rush.”
“The longer it takes, the longer I have to carry you.”
“Oh, come on. I’m not that heavy.”
His shoulders twitched in annoyance. “You are not heavy at all, but you keep talking in my ear. Mailēshta.”
I smiled into the darkness and leaned close to his ear again. “So why would you run away from a trapped female demon?”
“Because she might kill me.”
Oh, right. He’d told me that female demons had magic more powerful than males. “Maybe she would be grateful to you for saving her.”
“Or she would kill me.”
I rolled my eyes. “Okay, fine. Let’s say it’s a female human. What would you do?”
“Hnn.” He walked a few steps in silence. “How is she trapped?”
“Under a tree. You could lift it no problem,” I added to make this easy for him.
Another thoughtful silence. “Why is she there? In the woods under a tree?”
“Does it matter?”
“It is suspicious.”
I huffed with impatience. “Pretend there’s nothing suspicious about her. She isn’t armed or dangerous. She’s just a trapped human who needs help or she’ll die.”
He rounded an invisible corner and prowled onward.
“Well?” I persisted. “Would you save her?”
“You want me to say yes.”
“Of course I do!” My heart was sinking, leaving an unpleasant burn in my chest. “Why wouldn’t you? You could save her life with almost no effort. It would cost you nothing.”
He crouched again, inhaling through his nose. “Your hypothetical does not make sense, drādah. I cannot be seen by any hh’ainun or you would be in danger. You told me this.”
“What if you could save her without being seen?” I asked desperately.
He held himself still, either thinking or listening. “Why are you upset?”
“I’m not upset.”
A soft scuff behind us, and I imagined his tail swishing across the floor.
“You are lying.”
Damn it. I’d forgotten he could tell when I lied. “I want you to say you would save the woman, because if you wouldn’t save her, then you’re …”
“I am what?”
“Evil,” I whispered.
He said nothing, and in his silence was the answer I feared. He wouldn’t save a helpless person from certain death. His questions revealed his thought process. Did he know the person? Were they dangerous? Why were they there? In other words, he wanted to know the risks or rewards for him.
Selfish. A selfish demon who only cared about himself.
“Why?” I whispered miserably. “Why wouldn’t you help someone who
was hurt or trapped?”
Another scuff of his tail. “I hear voices behind this door.”
I gripped his shoulders. “What door? Where?”
“The one right here. If I open it, they will probably see.”
Pushing the hypothetical scenario out of my head—he was right, it had been stupid—I focused on our mission. How would we get into the room without being seen? Squeezing my eyes shut since I couldn’t see anyway, I tried to think of a different way in. The unfinished lobby materialized in my mind’s eye.
“Zylas,” I whispered. “What does the ceiling in here look like?”
He looked up, his head so close that his hair brushed across my cheek. His muscles tensed, then he stood.
“Var,” he whispered. “Good idea, drādah.”
* * *
Finally, there was light. It streaked up from the room below through rectangular openings where the ceiling’s plastic panels were missing. Thick wiring and shiny gray ducts wound among steel crossbeams, and a metal grid stretched into the farthest corners of the building, unbroken by the rooms and halls underneath.
The crawlspace, hidden between the ceiling of the room below and the floor of the level above, was barely two and a half feet high, forcing me to lay face down with my arms and legs braced on metal supports. The steel bruised my skin as I held my torso off the flimsy white panel under me. Zylas had disappeared into the darkness, crawling noiselessly across the beams. The ceiling was too low for a piggyback ride.
As I waited, voices drifted to my ears, their words inaudible. One male voice, one female. Conversational tones.
Crimson eyes appeared as Zylas crawled under a silver duct. He moved cautiously, navigating over and around heavy crossbeams and bundles of wiring. The muscles in his arms and thighs flexed with strength I didn’t have as he shifted across the awkward, fragile obstacle course.
He braced himself on the grid beside me. “Vampires in three rooms.”
“How many?”
“I cannot see into the third room. In the others, there are rēsh. Ten,” he corrected, translating for me.
Ten vampires plus an unknown number in another room? Well, this would probably break Zora’s record for the largest nest she’d ever encountered.
Slaying Monsters for the Feeble: The Guild Codex: Demonized / Two Page 14