by Debra Dunbar
And with that he was gone, leaving behind a greasy smear on the sidewalk and a smell of rotting garbage. Hopefully I had enough information to find out who this demon was, so I could call him and banish him back to hell. But before I sent him across the veil, I needed to know who brought him here. Banishing would only do so much if a mage summoned him right back again, or he was able to come back through a marked human. Take care of the plague demon. Take care of whoever caused him to be here. And somehow do it before more of Baltimore’s residents wound up in the emergency room.
But there was one more thing I needed to worry about. He’d alerted me to his presence as a favor to Balsur. The only reason that demon would want me chasing down a plague demon was to distract me from the Halloween ritual that would break his ties with me and erase his mark. Balsur wanted me busy. He wanted me to be in a position where I’d need to choose between saving the people of this city and my own salvation. I was going to make darned sure that I didn’t have to face that choice.
Chapter 13
I’d dragged Raven into the bathroom and told her all about the plague demon as I showered. She was more interested in the apartment, scrawling questions in the foggy mirror. I was wishing I’d snapped a few pictures of the circle, since she was keen to know what sort of strengths and weaknesses such a magical space had. I knew from seeing both Haul Du and Fiore Noire ritual spaces, that how the circles were laid out as well as the type of energy they were charged with would lend them to certain types of magic. I didn’t know who’d created this, who’d owned the house before Adeyemi Properties bought it. Unfortunately, Raven was probably going to have to wait until she saw it up close before she knew if it was better suited for Goetic practices, charms and illusions, curses, necromancy, or something else.
Finally, I managed to turn her attention to the plague demon.
I’ve got no idea on this one, she wrote. I always stuck to Goetic demons. I might know a few Mars demons from tangential study, and a few Venus demons for…you know. But I never researched plague demons. Yuck.
I might need to turn to my Dad for help in identifying who this demon was, but it was Raven I’d need once I figured that out. Templars dispatched demons they encountered face-to-face. They didn’t call them into a circle using magic and hold them there to banish. I didn’t think my father would have much of a problem with my method, given how difficult it would be to chase a plague demon all across the city, but he wouldn’t have the know-how to do the summoning.
Call Reynard.
What? Raven’s boyfriend had offered to provide help to me when he’d dropped off her books, but the one time I’d called to ask for his advice, I’d gotten the idea he’d regretted his hasty offer. I wouldn’t hesitate if I needed help with something really unusual, but calling a demon this side of the veil into a circle shouldn’t be that difficult. My sister Athena and I had done it once. Raven and I had also done it, although calling three demons had required the additional energy of some Fiore Noir mages. Did she think this plague demon was stronger than he appeared? I really wasn’t that great of a judge with my limited experience, and I had no intention of seeing myself outclassed, overpowered, and smeared like jam across the floor. Balsur’s mark had saved me once. I got the feeling it wouldn’t save me this time.
Maybe that’s what he’d wanted. If he couldn’t have me, better to see me die at this other demon’s hands. Or perhaps he thought that if the plague demon killed me, he had enough of a hold on my soul to take it for his own. Either way, I had no intention of going into this fight unprepared.
“Okay. And exactly what am I supposed to say to Reynard? Your girlfriend’s spirit is inside a resin fox figurine; she wants you to help me call and banish a demon?”
There was a moment’s hesitation where the steam filled in Raven’s previous words. Had I hurt her feelings? I know she loved Reynard, and he’d loved her, but we’d always been able to joke about her relationship with the sexy and somewhat amoral mage.
“I’m sorry. I know it must be painful to think of him, of the both of you. What do you want me to tell him?”
I don’t know. Maybe this is a bad idea. I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to help in the ritual with my spirit-in-a-fox situation. He’s good. His knowledge is more broad than mine. And I know he’d help if I asked him to.
“Then I’ll call him.” Heaven knows what I was going to tell him. Joking aside I could hardly blurt out that Raven’s spirit had taken up residence in my house. But would he help me otherwise?
I was saved from having to face that decision by being sent to Reynard’s voice mail. I quickly outlined the problem, trying to make it sound as intriguing as I could, given that I was dealing with a plague demon. Then I tied my still-damp hair up in a knot, threw on some clothes, and went to meet Dario for our dinner.
Sesarios was hopping tonight. At least half the patrons were vampires and not all of them were with a human companion. I recognized a few of them from the times I’d been to Leonora’s or done work with Dario and the Balaj, but the others I hadn’t seen before. Dario motioned me over to our usual table, and poured me a glass of wine, ordering for the pair of us.
“So? How’d it go today?”
Dario’s tone was excessively casual, and I could see the tension in his shoulders and arms. Actually I could feel the tension in all the vampires here tonight. There was a weird vibe, like they were all waiting for a fight to break out and deciding whether a table leg or a giant pepper grinder would make the better weapon for self-defense.
“Good and not so good. I’ll tell you later. Was there any fallout over Marcus? Have the two others that were under observation recovered their control or are they still excessively hungry?”
He shot me a warning glance. “You know how it is. Two, three donors are never enough. Can’t fault them for wanting more.”
That was not what I’d asked. I froze realizing that someone, or someones, were here that Dario didn’t want to know about the situation. Which meant the other two must have gotten worse. Were they like Marcus, on the edge of draining and gnawing on any human they tried to feed from? Was this so serious that he and Leonora needed to hide it from the rest of the Balaj?
Then I noticed his eyes straying to a few of the other vampires in the room—ones I didn’t recognize. Were they from the other Balaj, the Philly one in town for Leonora’s party? If so, they were a bit early. I wasn’t sure the protocol for that. From what he’d told me, vampire families didn’t usually play nice with each other. There might be a few tentative alliances, but once the job was done, each Balaj went their own way and retained only the most minimal of contact. Unlike mages, there was no central governing body or authority. Their clans were like small nations unto themselves, autonomous and fiercely protective of their hard-won territories as well as the human food sources within them.
So I quickly changed topics, telling him that I had put a deposit down on a new domicile, and thanked him for connecting me with Celeste, as well as sending the doctor to my door this morning. The huge swollen lump on my hip was beginning to recede, even if it was still colorful. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought I’d come out of the tourney unscathed. Of course, some of that was probably the pain pill I’d taken. Half a pain pill, that is. Still, I eyed the chianti with concern, wondering if Dario would need to carry me home.
It was a visual that set my heart racing.
“Ran into a plague demon too,” I told him. Hopefully that was a safe topic. I couldn’t imagine the presence of a plague demon would bother vampires of either Balaj since they never became ill and didn’t seem particularly concerned about taking blood from those humans who were. “He was responsible for the tourney food poisoning, and several other intestinal issues going on throughout the city. I’m working on getting rid of him, hopefully before too many more wind up in the hospital. Halloween will be pretty awful if all the trick-or-treaters are puking up their candy.”
Dario’s head jerked as he shift
ed his gaze from the other vampires in the room to me. “Intestinal issues? Food poisoning? Shit. Shit. I should have made the connection.”
“Huh?” Why would he care? And what connection?
The vampire took a sip of his wine and again glanced around the room. “Vampires don’t get sick. We don’t get colds or viruses, or herpes or cancer. We’re undead, and part of our bargain for immortality involves an immunity from human diseases. If we were to ever become ill, let’s say with symptoms similar to a human ailment, then it would have to be by supernatural means. A powerful curse, or a plague demon, for instance.”
I couldn’t wrap my head around that one. Were the ones under house arrest, the ones who didn’t seem satisfied with added feedings, ill? Was he implying the plague demon was involved?
“I thought you said the hunger was always there, that vampires sometimes lost control. That’s sort-of a normal side effect of vampirism, not a plague-demon-induced illness.”
“Normal hunger, yes. Loss of control, yes. But theoretically if a vampire were to drain a human, they should feel somewhat satiated, they should regain control with the added feeding.”
I got it. Marcus hadn’t retained control, hadn’t felt satiated after excessive feeding. Dario was speculating it might not be normal hunger, but something else. And if he was going with that theory, it meant the other two must have grown worse, not better.
But was this just a weird side effect of the demon-induced human illness, or did Dario think the plague demon was targeting vampires in particular? If so, then there would have been a whole lot more of them with uncontrollable hunger than the three last night. It made more sense that these vampires just lost control in a really crazy way. It could happen. Actually it happened centuries ago before we’d come to our truce.
“How would food poisoning manifest in a vampire, though? The sick humans are all puking and pooping. Do you guys even do that?”
And this sort of illness shouldn’t be delivered through a blood exchange. It wasn’t like the demon was spreading HIV or Hepatitis. Nobody contracted food poisoning from blood contact. No. It couldn’t be. Besides, plague demons spread normal diseases, accelerated their spread. They didn’t create something unusual and new that jumped from human to vampire. Did they?
“I don’t know exactly how a plague demon would create illness in a vampire, but stomach and intestinal issues sound…familiar. I can see it happening in theory, you know. Most of us feed from vetted, scheduled blood donors each night as well as grabbing some extra snacks. That’s enough to keep even the youngest vampire from losing control and going on a killing spree, but a plague demon might do something to make vampires not satisfied. He could make the hunger go into overdrive and take over.”
Marcus had said he was starving. He’d fed from a donor and his blood-slave, drained two other humans, and not even that quantity of blood satisfied him. Were the other two the same? Had more developed these symptoms? If so, this plague demon was a danger to the Balaj, as well as to the humans that sustained them.
How many have shown symptoms as of tonight? I typed on my phone, turning it so he could see the words.
He spread his fingers out on the table. Twice. Then rested three fingers down. Twenty-three. They’d gone from three out-of-control vampires last night to twenty-three tonight? And he was here, eating dinner with me instead of taking care of this. Although if this were caused by the plague demon—whether he was targeting them or they were catching human illnesses through their donors—then Dario wouldn’t be able to help.
Only I could help. I needed to banish the demon, make this a priority. And if Balsur had sent this guy over to throw roadblocks in my path right as I was prepping to rid myself of his mark, he was doing a good job.
“If a plague demon were to cause vampires to become ill, would his banishment cure them?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Does it cure the humans?”
“No. The ones who are sick still need medications and treatment, and some still die.”
Suddenly the implication of my words sunk in. Would the vampires heal on their own? Or would the supernatural nature of their illness mean that even with the plague demon gone, they never recovered? If so, then Dario would be forced to take the same action he’d taken last night with Marcus.
Twenty-three. Twenty-two additional brothers and sisters he’d lose. Maybe more if I couldn’t get rid of the plague demon within the next day. And if one of them got loose and killed more humans, if several of them did this, then I’d have no choice but to step in and enforce some kind of lockdown on the entire Balaj. Well, try to. I was pretty sure what Leonora’s answer would be, which meant I’d need to do it at the point of my sword.
And as lethal as my sword was, I was only one, and they numbered in the hundreds.
I’m sorry. I mouthed. I was. I felt terrible for him, for what he’d need to do. I couldn’t let this happen to them—to him. I had to banish this demon. I had to do everything I could to protect the vampires as well as the humans in my city. I’d taken them under my wing as my pilgrims. Flawed they might be, they were mine to shepherd. And now the vampires were becoming inexplicably sick, possibly a greater threat to humanity then they already were.
“You need to get rid of this plague demon, as well as whoever is summoning it,” Dario said, his voice low. “Otherwise everyone in Baltimore will wind up ill.”
I knew what he meant. Twenty-three infected vampires. Tomorrow that might be two hundred. In two nights that could be the whole Balaj. This could wipe out his entire family, Dario included. The plague demon was quickly becoming my number one priority, even more so than ridding myself of Balsur’s mark. How well that demon knew me. Throw a big enough threat on the ground, and I’d sacrifice myself to take it out.
But the plague demon had taken pains to make sure I knew he wasn’t one of Balsur’s. Was he lying? It wouldn’t be the first time a demon lied.
“Raven and I are on it. It may not be a mage summoning it though.” I touched my demon mark through my clothing so Dario would understand. “They can come through on the strength of a mark, and the demon holding the mark can send any one of his legion. The good news is that I think I gathered enough information today to narrow the demon’s identity down. Once we know who he is, calling him and banishing him should be easy.”
Well, it wouldn’t be easy, but at least it was a straightforward procedure that I’d done before.
“The sooner the better.” Dario again looked around the room at the other vampires. “Leonora’s event is tomorrow and we’ve already got the Philadelphia Balaj in town. We don’t want all of our humans to be ill. The timing of this couldn’t be worse.”
“It wouldn’t be good to have violently ill, puking humans at your party,” I agreed, knowing full well that he meant the timing of the vampire infection. Would out-of-control vampires reflect badly on Leonora as a Mistress? Would the other Balaj suspect something if less than half of the local vampires were at the party?
Dario’s eyes met mine. “We plan to appear powerful in front of this Balaj. They’ve tried to take our territory before. This feast is to show them our strength so they don’t make another attempt.”
I winced. By the time of Leonora’s party, there might not even be enough healthy humans or vampires to attend. Three to twenty-three in one night. Whatever this infection was, it was spreading fast.
“Don’t they have their own territory? Why would they want yours?” I asked.
“Ours is better. And they’ve made it clear in the past they’d be happy to expand their boundaries to include Baltimore.”
“So you’re bringing the devil into your home?” I couldn’t figure out why Leonora would want to invite them here.
“By showing them we’re a strong, powerful family with a secure hold on our territory, they’ll return to Philadelphia and decide to expand elsewhere where they can be confident of winning. Delaware, or New Jersey perhaps.”
It was a risky propo
sition, but Leonora knew these other vampires better than I did. It did put my security job tomorrow night into a whole new light, though. I’d need to protect the Balaj, to somehow make sure the Philly vampires kept their fangs hidden and nobody started throwing punches or ripping vital organs out of chests.
“And here comes the devil himself,” Dario murmured, his eyes focused on someone behind me to my left. I didn’t turn around, not wanting to be that gawking idiot.
“Dario. Nice place here. I can see why so many of your family frequent this particular restaurant.”
I sensed him. Even with all the other vampires in the room, even with the strong aura that Dario projected, I felt the intense static feel of this particular vampire approach my side. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a figure in a silky shirt and jacket. My gaze traveled upward then widened in surprise. I don’t know why I always expected powerful vampires to be old. They eternally appeared the age that they’d been turned, so their exterior was no indicator of youth or experience. Still, this guy looked to be my age, meticulously groomed in dress and appearance. His shiny dark hair was smoothed back with one lock strategically curled against his forehead, as if it had rebelliously refused to be tamed. His skin was pale, far more pale that I would have expected with such dark hair. He radiated power. If he’d been human I’d taken him for a young businessman, sharp, vicious, and brutally successful.
“Simon.” Dario’s one word was less a greeting and more of an acknowledgement. The air between them was tense.
There was a long, drawn-out silence, but Simon didn’t take the hint to go away. Instead he turned his eyes to me—pale blue eyes that were only a few shades darker than the whites. His gaze started at my face, then did a quick sweep of my figure. I bristled, feeling like a sirloin in the butcher’s case.