The Dark World

by Cara Lynn Shultz

  “Cerus, want to tell me what you’re doing?” Ajax asked dryly, leaning against the kitchen counter with studied ease. He looked like he was waiting to order a martini at the bar at the end of the day, not questioning the demon who was threatening his buddy.

  “I’ve discovered these two interlopers,” the crossbow-wielding demon hissed, and Ajax merely laughed.

  “Cerus, consider where we are, you pompous old ass. To him, you’re the interloper—I’m pretty sure he’s the one who lives here,” he said, chuckling, gesturing to Logan as if he’d never met him before. “You’ve heard the rumors about Rego’s protégé. I doubt he’d be thrilled with you if he came home to find you’ve impaled his charge with one of your fluffy little arrows.”

  I gripped Logan’s hand where it curled around my hip as I stole another glance at Cerus. For some reason, Ajax didn’t want to reveal that he and Logan knew each other. I already didn’t trust demons—but a demon that other demons didn’t trust? Clearly that’s the worst kind of demon ever.

  Cerus studied us, his gaze calculating and cold.

  “Remember, kid, one false move and your little friend will taste my arrow in the back of her throat. I never miss.”

  Ajax nudged his friend, who finally turned her gaze on me. Her body twisted gracefully, and she vanished in a swirl of black and red, thin trails of the color bleeding into the air like ink dissipating in a glass of water.

  “I’m not going to hurt you—unless you’re into that sort of thing.” A light breath in my ear tickled my skin as she materialized behind me. I screamed as the demon grabbed me in her arms, my ribs throbbing with pain as I struggled against her ironlike grip. The room whirled around, a dizzying pinwheel of color and light—and suddenly I was swaying on wobbly legs, sandwiched between Ajax and this new girl, who whispered, “Be very quiet” into my hair as she kept me locked in her arms.

  Logan started toward me just as Cerus gasped at the distraction, letting his concentration falter. In three long strides, Logan changed direction, crossing the room and swiftly delivering a roundhouse kick that slammed into Cerus’s wrist. The demon cried aloud as his crossbow clattered to the floor, and he fell to his knees to grab at his weapon. But he was too slow: Logan punted it across the room, where it smashed into pieces against the wall, falling to the floor in a limp pile of feathers and wood and metal.

  Logan raised his sword and sliced it down swiftly, stopping the blade a mere inch from Cerus’s neck. A weak cry bubbled up through Cerus’s lips as he shut his eyes in fear.

  “I never miss either. Do yourself a favor and remember that,” Logan growled as Cerus whimpered. Logan took a step back, keeping the tip of his sword pressed underneath Cerus’s jaw.

  “Aw, what’s wrong? Not so brave without your crossbow, are you?” Logan goaded sarcastically. “Now, listen up, you little troll, what are you doing in my kitchen, shooting arrows at me?”

  “I am not a troll!” cried Cerus, glaring at Logan from where he remained kneeling on the floor. “I am a Regent, a member of the superior demon race, and you would do well to respect—”

  “Please, go right on ahead and kill him,” Ajax offered, a smirk on his face. “Cerus talks like this all the time. It’s really annoying. ‘I’m a Regent, I’m so great, durr, durr, durr,’” he imitated in a deep, doofy voice. “Who isn’t a Regent? I mean, really?”

  “Even your friend doesn’t seem to like you.” Logan spoke with menacingly cool detachment. “So, why don’t you tell me what you’re doing in my kitchen before I accidentally run you through with my sword?”

  “I’m here to confer with Rego,” Cerus said scornfully, “on matters that have nothing to do with you, child. Why are you so concerned with me, anyway? Don’t you care about Ajax and his little friend? After all, they’re the ones holding your little human friend hostage.”

  “They didn’t shoot arrows at us. Now, tell me, who are you, and where is Rego?” Logan demanded, pushing the tip of his sword further into Cerus’s neck, effectively erasing the arrogance from his face.

  “Rego isn’t here yet! I arrived for our meeting early.”

  “To snoop around, I bet,” Ajax chimed in.

  “You’re not even supposed to be here,” Cerus snarled in reply.

  “And yet I managed to show up anyway,” Ajax retorted, the disdain in his voice contradicting the innocent smile on his face. “Funny how you like having meetings without me these days, Cerus.”

  “What are we all, childhood friends catching up? I’ll ask once more before I take your head off,” Logan barked, using the broad side of his sword to whack Cerus in the ear. The blade struck his skin with a loud smack, and Cerus howled in pain as lavender blood streamed from his ear. I squirmed, uncomfortable at the brutal sight.

  “Just stay still,” Ajax whispered to me, his voice low and his mouth covered as he pretended to scratch his nose. I stopped wriggling but glared at him. I’d had enough of demons telling me what to do today.

  “Why are you here for Rego?” Logan demanded, his jaw clenched as he dragged the tip of his blade across Cerus’s throat. I blanched, gritting my teeth at the grisly scene. Logan was menacing, authoritative, threatening—terrifying, even. The soldier he’d said he’s always been.

  “The Regent Queen—she needs to be overthrown. Her reign is impure,” Cerus stammered in reply to Logan’s question, his violet eyes wide with terror. “I have information for Rego on her itinerary.”

  “And you tell him this why? For your health?” Logan continued his interrogation, smacking him in the ear again before returning his sword to Cerus’s neck.

  “In exchange for his protection! Once she’s assassinated, the warlocks will reign again. And I’ll gain a prominent position, money, power.... Please, don’t kill me,” Cerus babbled, his face shimmering with sweat and his neck streaked pastel as blood streamed down his skin.

  Logan smacked Cerus again, and I winced, fighting the urge to look away. I didn’t harbor any particularly warm and fuzzy feelings toward Cerus, but this inquisition was difficult to watch.

  “This is a revealing scene, Cerus. A teenager threatens you with a little paper cut on your neck and a few taps to the head, so you divulge all our secrets. Remind me to put you in charge of nothing,” Rego seethed, startling us all as he stepped through the now-glowing doorway behind us.

  Rego’s entrance triggered an emotional charge in the room: Cerus paled, his eyes focused on the warlock as he appeared to forget the blade at his throat. Logan stood up straighter, his face composed and slightly defiant, with only the flexing of his jaw hinting at any unease.

  After hopping up on the kitchen counter, Ajax gave Rego a cheerful wave and a big grin, but it looked forced. The demon gripping me held me more tightly, only this time I couldn’t help but feel like she was using me as a human shield.

  Rego gracefully slipped off his nondescript beige trench coat, and tossed it carelessly into a corner—revealing the same military-style uniform I’d last seen him wearing—and stood before me, his reserved glare even colder. The Rego I’d met earlier was positively snuggly compared to the intimidating man who now stood before me.

  Ajax tapped the girl demon with the back of his hand, and she released me. I all but ran into Logan’s arms; well, arm. He still held his sword against Cerus’s neck with one hand but pulled me into his side as Rego took his place before the red-and-black-haired demon.

  “Ajax, you bring strangers into my headquarters when I’m not here? Without my permission? Is this an ambush?” Rego asked coolly, whipping his head to glare at Ajax, the blunt tips of his pin-straight black hair barely brushing against the stiff line of his shoulders.

  “Before you get angry,” Ajax began, his palms raised in deference, “I trust her, and she really wants to work with us. She comes bearing news of the fire demons.”

  “And she is?”r />
  “Evadia, sir,” she said, her voice clipped and devoid of the smarmy tone it had held when she grabbed me. “Eva for short.” Eva—a normal, nonthreatening, somewhat old-fashioned name. Certainly not the name of someone who can bend the rules of time and space and teleport you from place to place.

  “I’ve never heard of you.” Rego curled his long fingers around the sword hanging from his belt as he spoke, before turning to Ajax. “You could have brought her information to me without bringing this—” he flicked his hand dismissively at Eva “—intruder here.”

  “Eva wants to join with us. I thought you’d be happy,” Ajax replied, nonplussed. “I vouch for her, Rego.”

  Rego turned away from the two demons to stand before Logan, his silver-tipped boots thudding heavily with purpose on the floor.

  “Remove your sword from my comrade’s jugular,” Rego ordered briskly. Everything about him was calm and coolly authoritative—but his eyes were stormy, landing on me with a glare that could wilt flowers.

  “Cerus shot at—” Logan began calmly.

  “Now, I said!” Rego demanded, and Logan gaped at him in shock.

  “Rego just doesn’t want to have to clean the mess when Cerus soils his undergarments,” Ajax called helpfully.

  “If you must open your mouth, I suggest you fill it with some of the snacks you begged me to get for you,” Rego snapped, and Ajax obediently grabbed a bag of tortilla chips and a jar of cheese sauce off the counter. The potent aroma of processed cheese and corn and salt soon filled the kitchen.

  Keeping the one arm wrapped protectively around my shoulders, Logan slowly slid the sword off Cerus’s neck, keeping a cautious eye on the demon. He scrambled to his feet, first glaring at the broken metal scraps that had once been his prized weapon before letting his heated gaze rest on Logan.

  “Who are you to attack my protégé?” Rego asked Cerus. “You think you can take on the assassin of untold numbers of demons? Or perhaps you think me a fool? That I would allow merely anyone into my sanctuary?” His voice started out maddeningly calm, only to rise in volume and intensity as he spoke at Cerus, who cowered in his chair. Finally Rego boomed, “Do I need to remind you who I am?”

  “I’m sorry, Rego.” Cerus bowed his head.

  “Oh, don’t apologize to the person you actually shot at, though,” Logan muttered, and Rego turned his attention back on Logan and me. He folded his arms behind his back, one hand gripping the wrist of the other as he raised his chin in a commanding stance.

  “You’re early.” Rego issued the observation as if it were an indictment, keeping his eyes locked on Logan. “And another jar of healing ointment is needed, I see. Are the offending demons dead, or did you somehow get waylaid again?”

  “The lust demon is dead. But I wanted to know what you’d heard about this final demon. His name is Aiden and he’s—”

  “Dragging this assignment out, are you?” Rego’s eyes traveled to where Logan held his arm around me, and Logan clenched his teeth, the muscle in his jaw twitching at the implication of Rego’s statement.

  “I’ve never given any reason to doubt my dedication,” Logan growled, his hand dropping from my waist. “And yet, your little associate over there decides to shoot an arrow at my head.”

  “Are you really sure you want to question me, after all I’ve done for you?” Rego snapped in reply. “You’re a soldier, who does what I order him to do. I must say, I don’t appreciate your audacity. It’s a recently learned character trait—” his gray eyes flickered to me again “—that isn’t very becoming or beneficial to the revolution.”

  “Hey, kid, did you mention the name Aiden?” Ajax interrupted from his perch on the kitchen counter. He was still pretending that he didn’t know Logan, and busied himself by using one corn chip to carefully apply a thick orange stripe of cheese dip to another corn chip before cramming both into his mouth. Ajax clearly loved playing the jester—but for whose benefit? There was a calculating mind behind the mirth and easy smiles; I just didn’t know who he was trying to fool.

  “Yeah, Aiden. He attacked this girl today,” Logan explained, his voice emotionless as he jerked his thumb toward me. I tried not to flinch at the cold expression on Logan’s face, doing my best to keep my face impassive and go along with whatever facade Logan was creating, no matter how hurtful. “I want to get her healed and on her way.”

  “And here I thought you were the feared demonslayer, proditori,” Cerus sneered, earning a hateful glare from Logan.

  Logan kept his eyes on Cerus as he popped his sword in the air, catching it without even looking at it. “You got a sharp tongue there, buddy,” Logan said, pointing his sword at Cerus. “Be careful you don’t cut your own throat with it.”

  “Logan, please continue,” Rego said, ignoring their bickering.

  “Aiden and a lust demon, going by the name Della, discovered my identity, so they attacked me today. He used this girl as bait to get to me, then sacrificed Della so he could escape,” Logan lied smoothly, his delivery of this fable so confident that I was nearly tempted to believe it.

  “He hurt this girl pretty badly—Rego, can you grab the healing balm?” Logan asked, and Rego excused himself briefly, returning with another glass jar of the blue ointment, which he set on the tabletop with a heavy thump. Cerus greedily reached for the concoction, but Logan stepped forward and swiped it from Cerus’s bloodstained hands.

  “This isn’t for you,” he said coldly, before turning to me, his back to the demons in the room.

  “Go in the bathroom and put this on your wounds. Your ribs, your cheek, everywhere,” he said in a persuasive voice, his eyes shut. The hairs on the back of my neck tingled at the smooth, almost seductive tone in his voice—it had the same alluring quality that Della’s voice had, but without instilling the all-consuming compulsion to obey.

  I felt a flare of anger and betrayal rise inside me when I realized what he was doing. He was trying to put that spell on me—to hypnotize me into being his puppet.

  Logan opened his eyes and grabbed my hands, pressing the jar of ointment into them. He had an almost desperate look on his face, as his eyes bore into mine.

  “Go,” he mouthed, squeezing my hands before releasing me, adding in a loud, brusque voice, “Do it. Now.”

  And that’s when I realized he hadn’t tried to cast a spell on me—only make everyone else think he had. He’d kept his eyes closed—those dark eyes that secured the spell’s success with one hypnotic look. I attempted to appear fully under his influence, nodding dully with a vacant look on my face. It wasn’t hard to fake it—I was already dazed and completely overwhelmed—and I quickly ducked into the bathroom.

  It was small and windowless with no escape. Like everywhere else in the apartment, the bathroom walls bore the marks and scrapes of a dwelling that had seen scores of careless residents come and go throughout the years. I tried shutting the door, but the swollen, cheap wood bumped against the frame, forcing it to remain open a crack. I pressed my ear against the thin sliver of space, closing my eyes as I focused on the conversation outside.

  “I know of Aiden. His reputation precedes him. What I don’t know is why he’d be so interested in this little human girl in the first place.” Cerus’s voice was saturated with contempt. “Rego informed me you were searching for the Traveler. Is this her? Can she open gateways between the worlds? Because that would be most helpful in assassinating the Queen.”

  “That girl? Like I said, Aiden was simply using her to get to me. She’s nobody,” Logan said dismissively. I winced at his hurtful words and tried to convince myself he was somehow trying to protect me.

  “She doesn’t seem like anything special,” Cerus scoffed, and I peered through the crack of the door again, scowling. From my position behind the door, I only had a view of Logan’s back. He stood with his arms folded in front of the bathro
om, as if he were guarding me.

  “As if you’re such a prize.” Ajax’s voice was muffled—probably because his mouth was crammed full of chips and cheese—but the sarcasm was evident. “You’re twenty pounds of dung crammed in a ten-pound sack.”

  I quietly snickered. If he weren’t an evil demon, I might actually like Ajax.

  “As usual, you’re full of jokes but have no real contribution to offer. I still want an answer to my question. What can she do that’s intrigued you so much, proditori?” Cerus asked in a measured, calculating voice.

  “Aiden has seen that I’m fond of her. I haven’t identified the Traveler yet, so I’ve been passing the time with this one.” Logan jerked his thumb over his shoulder toward me, his voice so dismissive that it stung.

  “And that’s all she is to you? A recreational activity?”

  “What do you want me to say? She’s hot. And she won’t remember anything by the time I’m done with her. I erase her memory so often, I’m amazed she can still tie her shoelaces,” Logan said callously, his uncaring words slicing right through me. Had he erased my memory? I was working with the general assumption that Logan was lying to protect me, to hide what it was that I could do, but still...damn, that was harsh. My heart lurched at the thought of such a deep betrayal.

  “I forget sometimes that you’re still a teenager,” Rego muttered, his voice, for once, not sounding angry. It was almost...indulgent. I had forgotten Rego was in the room. Why hadn’t he interrupted Cerus’s relentless questioning?

  I bit my lip, realizing that I already knew the answer: Rego wanted to hear how Logan would handle himself. And if he’d leap to defend your honor, or if you’re just a distraction that keeps him waylaid, as he said.

  Well, according to these guys, I was keeping Logan way laid—and as long as it was nothing more, Rego was apparently fine with it. Suddenly, my dad’s desire to keep me away from all males made sense. Even males of different species only cared about one thing.

  “Ajax, does your friend have anything to offer me?” Rego asked. “Or do you plan on justifying this intrusion by eating all my food?”