by Jenn Bennett
“Then do me this small favor. Tell me who you sold it to. Come on.” Lon grinned at him, and I realized that I was watching a show: Lon was manipulating Spooner’s emotions. Holy Night, that ability had some scary potential. He swore he’d never use it on me; I hoped like hell my trust wasn’t misplaced.
Spooner sighed and began tying his shoe. “Craig Bailey.”
“The retired cannery owner in the Village?”
“That human’s got more cash than people realize.” Spooner made a neat, tight bow and moved on to the second shoe. “He’s obsessed with magick. To be honest, I told him the talon had powers that could … grant immortality.” He waggled his fingers in the air in a faux-spooky manner and chuckled.
Craig Bailey. We had a name, and it was local. I knew it was too much to hope that we could just walk away with the talon that night, but maybe now we could go visit this Bailey guy and be done with it. If Lon could manipulate someone like Spooner, who obviously hated his guts, then surely someone with no strong feelings one way or another toward him would be easy as pie, right?
“How much did you sell it for?” Lon asked.
“Come on, Lon. I love ya, but a man has to have his secrets.”
Lon pressed him, and they went back and forth, laughing and joking. I started to feel a little sick, and for a second thought it might be all that phony brotherly love. Then a humming sound filled my head, low and steady; distant but moving closer. I bit the insides of my cheeks trying to stave off nausea and turned away from the men.
A movement across the room caught my attention. The eyes of the incubus opened and his head popped up. He crawled to the edge of the mattress, looking down at the vermilion-designs on the floor. His eyes brightened with hope when he saw me.
Send me back, please.
His mouth didn’t move, but I heard the words in my head, clear as glass, just like I’d hear my guardian Priya. I didn’t realize incubi could communicate this way. I shot a look over at Lon and Spooner. They were still talking.
Mother! Send me back to the Æthyr. I’m weary of being trapped here. I’ll do anything. What do you require? Information from the Æthyr? A task? Pleasure? Just get me out of here.
Another wave of nausea rose and broke. I tried to reply to the incubus without speaking. Are you talking to me?
Lon stopped talking and turned his head to give me a puzzled look.
Yes! Mother of Ahriman! Please!
That damn slur again. You’d think someone in his position would try to be a little nicer. I’d like to help, but I didn’t summon you so I can’t—
The air shimmered around the mattresses. I blinked, and everything went black. I could still see the two sex demons, and Lon, Spooner … but they were all transparent. Like imps. The vermilion binding in the floor was black and shiny like a glistening oil slick. Everything else was swallowed in a void. No cave, no creepy shower, no bench. Just darkness.
In the air above the two demons, a bright blue light appeared. About the size of a coin, it began expanding and changing. It grew until it was a round, blue disk of light. Pieces of the inside began falling away, like dough being removed with a cookie cutter; negative spaces revealed the blackness behind them. My head pounded. I held out my hands to the side to keep myself from falling.
The blue circle of light began forming an intricate design, like a laser etching the air. Then I recognized the pattern. It was a distinct combination of symbols … it was mine. My magical creation that I’d worked so hard developing for months: my imp portal. As far as I knew, it was completely unique. I’d damn sure never heard of another magician using one, nor had I seen one exactly like it in any grimoire.
The portal glowed in the void, a flat sheet of light. Then it flipped to its side and floated above the incubus. Heka began flowing from me, strong energy that I hadn’t kindled. It poured into the blue portal, and in a bright flash, turned to silver, solidified in the air.
Thank you! The incubus’s voice in my head was fading quickly. My name is Voxhele of Amon. I owe you a favor.
The portal snapped and disappeared, the incubus and succubus along with it.
Blackness lingered for a moment, then rushed away as the room and everything in it became solid and normal again and the humming stopped.
It was just the three of us now: me, Lon, and Spooner. They were still talking; had they not seen what just happened? Couldn’t Lon hear me talking to the incubus? As I was thinking this, Lon’s head turned, and he shot me a questioning look; he could certainly hear me now.
Spooner glanced across the room, then cried out in alarm. “They’re gone! They’ve escaped!” He scrambled out of his seat, grabbed Lon’s arm, and pointed to where the sex demons once were. “How—?”
“What the hell?” Lon muttered.
We all stared at the empty beds in silence.
“Shit!” Spooner said. “Do you think they’re loose in the club? Did one of the vermilion pipes burst?”
A tiny puff of smoke trailed away from the mattresses. Spooner ran forward to inspect it.
I did it, Lon. I don’t know how,but I sent them back, I said in my head.
“They’re gone!” Spooner said again. “Not loose, they’re—” He turned around and gave us a suspicious look. Then he pointed at me. “You. What are you? Did you do this? Why is your halo that way? Lon, what is she?”
Eyes creased hard, Lon let go of me and took two quick strides to grasp Spooner. “Hey, it wasn’t her. She doesn’t even have a proper knack. She’s nothing. It must have been something else. Maybe the binding beds in the other rooms are affected too. I’m sure someone can fix them. No big deal.”
Lon smiled at Spooner, who calmed down immediately. “You’re probably right. It’s no big deal.”
“Glad you finished up before it happened, right?” Lon said.
Spooner laughed. “Yeah, yeah. You’re so right. Night’s still young. Plenty to do.”
“All right, buddy. We’re going to step out now. Take care.”
“Right, yep. Well, it was good talking to you, Lon.”
Lon clapped him once on the shoulder, then turned to me, green eyes wide with panic.
Herding me out the curtained doorway, he whispered in my ear, “We need to get out of here, now. Move.”
I was too shocked to do anything but comply. Clearly there were more succubi trapped in other rooms, and for a brief moment, I wondered if I’d be able to repeat the unexpected banishment I’d just performed.
“Unh-unh,” Lon whispered, reading my thoughts. “These people are not going to take this lightly. We’ve got to get out of here before they realize what you’ve done.”
Or what? He didn’t answer, just forced me to walk as fast as I could without breaking into a full-on run. We breezed through the narrow passageways, back through the red velvet curtains, and into the din of the ballroom, where Lon wove us in and out among the people, a few protests and murmurs rising as he barged through.
We’d almost made it out when David stepped in front of us. “Hey kids! Where ya headed? It’s not even midnight yet. Aren’t you going to stay for the entertainment?”
“Just getting some air,” Lon said. “Be right back.”
His head turned and I followed his gaze to the back of the ballroom. Spooner was emerging from the velvet curtains. He didn’t look happy; just how long did Lon’s suggestive influence last? Flagging down a bald man with horns and a flaming golden halo, Spooner began speaking to him in a whisper, then he pointed right at us.
28
“Where have you taken Lon?” I demanded, glaring at David as two demons held me by my forearms. They’d separated us, guiding me one way down the blue corridor, Lon down the other, dragged away by three large demons who pulled him by a long length of rope tied around his hands. One of them kept a gun trained on him. They stayed several feet ahead, I assumed to avoid Lon’s emotional manipulation.
David smiled as he paced in front of me. “We’ve been experimenting with so
me interesting summonings. Succubi and incubi are our bread-and-butter, but it’s good to change things up to avoid boredom. Lon is going to be our volunteer for tonight’s entertainment. Our last volunteer isn’t ready to get in the ring again just yet.”
“Ring? What ring? What the hell are you doing with him?”
A man stepped in the door and nodded at David before retreating.
“Wonderful!” David said while clapping his hands once. “Let’s go see, shall we? Maybe you’ll be more inclined to tell us how you pulled that little stunt in front of Spooner. I’m bored with trying to guess your origins. Oh, wait … what’s this?” He fingered the deflector charm around my neck, then snatched it, breaking the chain. “I don’t know what kind of ward this is, but I don’t think you’ll be needing it tonight.”
Protesting, I stumbled as they dragged me back down the passage. Several half-dressed people stood as witnesses in the doorways of the small caves that lined the blue corridor. Quite drunk, they cheered us on, laughing and making crude remarks as I passed.
The men at my side shoved me into a larger cave where dozens of demons congregated around something in the center of the room. The crowd was boisterous and more than a little excited. Small red spotlights flooded the wet stone walls around them. Water dripped from the ceiling into small pools on the rocky floor.
A clicking sound ticked from within the throng. The buzzing spectators murmured in response before breaking out into sloppy applause.
“Step aside,” David said to the people around the edge. He plowed his way through, my chaperones and I trailing him until we made it to the center. I bleated a small cry when I discovered what was inciting the horde.
Another glass vermilion circle was embedded in the floor, maybe twenty feet in diameter. Captured inside, a willowy gray demon defended one side of the containment space. Its skin was darker around the elbows, neck, and navel. Genitals on the outside of its body initially led me to believe it might be male, until I got a closer look at several additional unrecognizable fleshy components. Sex … indeterminable.
The gray demon lacked horns or wings, but possessed something much nastier: shiny black nails with narrow fishhook endings that doubled back at the tips. The source of the clicking noise. It clacked them together in anticipation.
Crouched on the opposite side of the circle, Lon moved clockwise around the inner edge as the gray demon stalked him. A red mark was painted on Lon’s forehead; upon closer inspection, I recognized it to be a sigil that allowed him to enter the circle without breaking it, but prevented him from leaving.
My stomach balled up into a knot.
This was the ring that David was talking about; instead of pit bulls, it was Æthyric demon versus Earthbound. I had no idea what had happened to the first volunteer that David mentioned, but a sneaking suspicion told me it wasn’t good.
The men held me tighter at the edge of the circle, so tightly my circulation was cut off and my arms tingled. I didn’t want to call out Lon’s name; it might create a distraction that the gray demon could use to its advantage. But I had to do something.
“Mmm … exciting,” David murmured to my side. He looked out over the fighting ring and spoke louder. “So kind of you to volunteer, Lon. Good sport. After all, you’re already carrying around that nasty scar courtesy of your ex-wife, I’m sure you won’t mind a few more.”
Lon didn’t respond. He was concentrating. Blank. Centered. The only betrayal of his rising panic was the splotchy redness accumulating on his neck; seeing it made my stomach queasy.
But as I listened to the talk around us, I noticed that not everyone in the audience was ecstatic. “David is really pushing it,” one person remarked. “Mr. Dare wouldn’t approve of this if he knew what was going on.” I didn’t know who this Mr. Dare was, but most of the thirteen parking spaces outside were filled, so I hoped like hell that he was somewhere inside the caves. I turned to one of the dissenting couples nearby.
“Please, go tell Mr. Dare—get help,” I whispered.
They looked at me, shocked that I’d spoken.
David put a hand over my mouth and chastised the couple. “Now, now—don’t go running to Daddy or I’ll get you kicked out. We’re just having some fun, nothing more. If you don’t like it, leave.”
Refusing to look at me, they turned and left the room, along with a few other people.
“I mean it!” David called after them. “If there’s a rat in here, I’ll find out. Don’t cross me.” A manic laugh bubbled from his lips. The people around us went back to cheering the fight on. David then turned to me and spoke quietly near my face. “Now, then, love, no more tricks like that. Since neither one of you wants to tell me exactly what kind of Earthbound you are and how you banished our sex demons—or why we can’t seem to summon them back, for that matter—then we’ll just leave Lon here to battle it out with the Salixen. You and I can retire to another succubus chamber and have some fun.”
Oh, hell no.
Before I could respond, a high-pitched snarl stole our attention. The gray demon made a swipe at Lon. Lon made a clumsy duck but not fast enough. A line of blood welled on his cheek.
As the crowd cheered, David clapped ecstatically, then turned back to me. Pawing my chin, he whispered in my ear, “Exciting, no? Just like you did with me earlier, we’ll make a new game of all this and see who breaks first, you or Lon. I’m betting on Lon. He has a bad history with women, but I think he’s learned his lesson with Yvonne. I doubt he really wants to put himself on the line, even for a pretty young chickadee like you.”
I stared back at him as he smiled at me, hearing him but not listening. My mind scrambled to piece together a solution. I couldn’t reach the sigils on my arm; they were being squeezed dry by my guards, so that was out. What else? I hadn’t summoned the gray demon, so I couldn’t banish it … except that I was somehow able to banish the incubus and succubus. Maybe it was due to something elemental in the caves? Something that enhanced my Heka? I concentrated and tried to will the floating blue imp portal into existence. All that did was give me a headache. Nope, not happening.
If I couldn’t banish the gray demon, and Lon couldn’t leave the charged circle because of the red mark on his head, then the only option remaining was to break the circle. But how? I couldn’t even reach it. We were several feet away.
David twisted my face to his and planted a brutal kiss on my lips. I tried to jerk away, but he clamped his hand on the back of my head. His mouth tasted of top-shelf liquor, cracked lips scraping against mine. He stank of sweat.
Furious, I shut my eyes to concentrate and pulled from the electricity wired through the caves, as hard as I could. The lights in the cavern wavered and flashed. A murmur spread through the crowd. I pulled harder, kindling Heka until it made my body quake. I held it for a moment, then slowly released it through every pore in my body.
David pulled away from me, crying out and covering his mouth with his hand at the same moment that the bodyguards dropped my arms. Heka kindled with electricity creates a nasty shock without a caduceus to pinpoint the release. They fucking deserved it.
The shock would disorient them, but it wouldn’t last. My eyes flew to the edge of the circle near the gray demon. I shoved the person in front of me, then dove with outstretched arms. My fingertips barely grazed the glass circle. Close enough.
The remaining kindled Heka poured through my fingertips into the embedded piping, heated the glass instantly, and scalded my fingers. I lurched away from the glass and crashed into the legs of the bodyguards, bowling them over like tenpins.
Vermilion bubbled and surged through the pipes. Like a lit fuse, it spewed inside the glass until it found my willed mark near the demon.
“Get down!” I yelled to Lon. He covered his head as the sound of shattering glass filled the chamber.
The gray demon wailed and emitted a dog-whistle-worthy cry that set off a chain reaction of pain-filled screams throughout the crowd. Glass glittered on the stone f
loor around the broken circle. Some of it was also lodged in the calf of the gray demon, who was now limping. I’d only blown a small section of the glass pipe, just a few inches. In the break, liquid vermilion was oozing out and running in rivulets through shallow crevices on the surface of the rock. Toxic rivulets, to be exact, because vermilion is a mercury compound. It burned with a whispery, delicate blue flame that spread up the pants and dress hems of a handful of club members. They screamed in horror, frantically slapping at the creeping blue fire. Hello, mercury poisoning.
“Lon!” I called out, vaulting onto my feet as the lights in the room dimmed again. It wasn’t me that time. Unless someone else was pulling, I must have fucked up the electrical current; in my defense, the whole place was probably shoddily wired to begin with.
The circle now broken, I stormed forward and grabbed Lon’s arm. Let’s get out of here! I thought. He shook his head to clear the shock, then hustled alongside me before taking the lead and ramming the crowd out of the way. They weren’t concerned with us.
The gray demon was recovering from its injury. Any second it would realize that it wasn’t bound. As Lon and I dashed out of the doorway, I glimpsed David scrambling to hide behind his bodyguards as the mob backed up and the lights popped and sputtered.
Without much enthusiasm, I hoped the electricity held; someone had an unpleasant containment job on their hands, and it would be a hell of a lot harder with the lights off.
29
The stone sidewalk that led from the Hellfire caverns to the parking lot was clogged with people mingling near the bonfire, people who had no idea what was going on inside. Lon yanked me behind some shrubbery off the path. The door to the caves opened and slammed behind us and someone shouted, “Stop them!”
“We’ll have to sneak around the beach,” Lon whispered. He tugged me along behind him. We headed into the shadows.