by Erik Reid
A hundred candles in glass jars, each lit with a blue flame, lined a shelf that ran in a complete circle just below the room’s ceiling. They cast the rest of the workshop in a cool blue light. Each flame danced despite its protection from any current of air, its tuft of blue fire burning with a life of its own.
A wide cabinet rested against the wall opposite the entry door, but its doors were closed tight. To one side, bookshelves ran one fourth of the chamber’s wall, holding thick tomes of leather-bound books. On the cabinet’s other side, racks of scientific equipment took up another quarter of the room. Glass vials and tubing; scalpels and bone saws; vices large enough to clamp a person’s head to a table — it was like a laboratory of medieval horrors, plus a Victorian-era library.
The second I stepped inside the room, all the blue flames went black. The room didn’t darken, though it did dim as the vibrant blue aura of each flame blackened at my approach.
“Demonfire,” I said.
“It reacts to the glove,” Benoch said. “It is made of onicite, after all.”
“I met a demon hunter who accused me of being a demon myself when the flame inside her necklace blackened,” I said. “Why?”
Benoch’s face lost some of its color. “The demon hunters are not to be trusted,” he said.
“I need more than that,” I said.
He sighed and walked toward a long, thick wooden table at the room’s center, folding his purple robe beneath his legs as he eased into a wooden chair. I took the seat opposite him.
“Imagine a diamond,” he said. “Four corners, one at the peak, one at the base, and one on each side.”
“I never understood why that was a ‘diamond,’ ” I said. “But sure, I’ve played cards before. And baseball.”
At the peak is the Goddess,” Benoch said, pointing one finger above his head. “She is credited with all creation, even that which we cannot see. She built the realms one by one, each unique, and each hidden from the others.
“At the diamond’s base are the demon races,” Benoch said. “They wield a power as great as the Goddess’s, but their power is diffuse. They are many in number, and they war with each other for control of the realms. Their lack of cohesion is a boon to those of us who seek peace. There is only one Goddess, after all. She cannot watch over every realm at once.
“Then there are the witches,” he said, finding a space between the peak and base of our imaginary diagram and off to one side. “We would not have learned of the other realms were it not for them. Former priestesses of the Goddess, they grew disillusioned with the veils that shield one reality from the next. They stole some of her power and began to break down her divine curtain.
“And lastly, the demon hunters,” Benoch said, pointing at the other imaginary point on our diamond. “After the witches breached the realms, the first demons appeared here. They drew their own followers, who worshipped them as new gods and drank in their power for themselves. The demons cast them aside when they realized empowering their followers only weakened their own demonic energies. The demon hunters seek to destroy the demons so they can absorb their arcane energies. They are power-hungry and vengeful.”
“The one I met said something about the Order,” I said. “What is that?”
His eyes darted back and forth, scanning the deepest reaches of his memory. “Perhaps there’s a footnote on it somewhere,” he said. “I just don’t recall.”
“Okay,” I said. “Neat mythology. Don’t really care about all the details. You mentioned powering up Oscar?”
“I need you to bring me a bloodhound,” he said. “Still living.”
I laughed. “Maybe I could set a bear trap and wait. Might catch a unicorn by mistake, or maybe a rainbow. Could you make due with those instead?”
Benoch was taken aback. “You won’t do this?”
“I can’t do this,” I said. “Those things killed Gretna, and almost the rest of us. I’m not putting the girls in harm’s way just so you can get personal with a Golem-faced blood-sucker.”
“Your friends are in no shape for this,” Benoch said. “Stealth will be your ally if you go alone under the cover of night. I will equip you. This is important.”
“You’ll give me back my jeans and sneakers?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “Better. Let’s go to the armory.”
“Sure,” I said. “Let’s see what’s behind door number two.”
Another ten minutes’ walk led us to a door like any other, at least to my eyes. Benoch fiddled with his keys and opened the door, revealing a small room with a few shelves and poles that held hangers with clothing on them. All of that equipment was dark, just like the rest of the compound, and my eyes took time to adjust enough to make out the contours of each item.
“Ah,” I said. “Armory. Yeah, that’s a generous word for this little closet. You’re overselling it.”
A rack of leather pants and vests sat on one side, in every size from “mini-me” to “fat bastard.” A pile of beat-up swords rested against the floor, and a shelf near the rear held random supplies.
“Please,” Benoch said. “Take what you like.”
“I don’t like any of it,” I said. “A leather body suit is a lame-ass bribe for hunting down your demonic vampire canines.”
“Just one,” he corrected.
“Just none,” I said. “This is bat-shit.”
“But I can power up Oscar,” he said, concern invading his voice, hastening his speech. “I can make you strong enough to defeat A’zarkin and restore peace to Silura!”
“Can you open a portal and send me back home?” I asked. “Because unless you have that kind of magic spell written in one of your dusty old footnotes, I’m out.”
“The answer to that is not ‘yes,’ ” Benoch said. “At least not yet. I can promise to try.”
“If you’re lying just to get me to run your dirty little errand, I will shove that silly purple hat so far up your ass you’ll be eating it for dinner.”
“I am a man of the practical arts,” he said. “If a thing can be done, I cannot stop until I do it. That includes magic as well as science, art as well as medicine. It also includes combat. I may not be a match for Oscar, but I can’t imagine his energy reserves are very strong. After lifting a glacier to bury the demon with and lying dormant for a century, it’s a miracle the glove has power at all.”
“So I do this,” I said, “and you find a way to send me home.”
“I try,” he said.
“What about the girls?”
“What about them?” he asked.
“Kaylee’s cursed,” I said. “You saw that yourself.”
“What sends her into that berserker’s rage?”
“Violence,” I said. “She’s bubbly and playful and sweet, but the second she sees anyone fighting, she loses her shit.”
“An observational trigger then,” he said. “I can work with that. No curse is stronger than a well-trained will.”
“Clara is a kobold, obviously, but she’s got healing magic in her. We’re all a little dinged up from fighting and traveling, but she hasn’t used her magic once since we lost Gretna. She blames herself for not healing fast enough.”
“Every mind the Goddess touches is unique,” Benoch said. “What the girl needs is a tutor, and I have some books that might make one of me. If she understands the limits of her power better, she may come to forgive herself for failing to accomplish the impossible.”
“Good,” I said. “Just be gentle with her. She was treated poorly most of her life. It left her sort of shell-shocked.”
“And the draykin?”
“Dani has been nothing but kind to me. It makes me sick, in a way. Like, a knot in my stomach when I think I’m being selfish and that I’m not good enough for how nice she is. She’s tougher than she looks though. She’s gone toe-to-toe with bloodhounds and lived to tell.”
“A good-natured warrioress,” he said.
“No. That’s not it. She doesn’t
want to fight, and she shouldn’t have to. All she wanted was to open a candy shop and start a life for herself.”
Benoch smiled and gave a slight chuckle.
“It’s not funny,” I said. “I respect her for it. Where I’m from, starting a small business is risky, and terrifying. She’s got the balls to give it a shot, and I want her to succeed.”
“As do I,” he said. “One thing this compound has always lacked was a decent cook. The castle convoys would bring supplies on occasion, usually with Gretna in the lead. They left us spices and herbs and sugar and lard, but the guards were useless and I refused to play chef to a dozen dunces when I had my own work to do.
“The ingredients I have stockpiled would make any confectioner salivate.”
“So you can help them?”
“You care about these women,” Benoch said. “I can see that. I’m not certain a road home to your realm will open wide enough to take them with you, however, even if they would choose to stay by your side. I need you to understand that before you invest too heavily in the idea that I might send you back.”
“I thought all you cared about was getting a new pet bloodhound,” I said.
“I care about many things, in this world and beyond it. To save our kingdom, I need you at your best, your most focused. That does not come from filling your head with lies and false hopes.
“Trust me when I say: I can help each of your companions with their rather unique needs. However, I will require them to participate in my research. The acquisition of knowledge is a messy and sacrificial affair, but it must be done. Bring the bloodhound, then we all get to work.”
“Why do I have the feeling I’m not going to like what you’re planning?”
“You won’t,” he said. “There’s no mistake about that. But you will be pleased with the outcome. That I can promise.”
“Fine,” I said. “If I’m going to hunt creatures of the night, I might as well dress the part.” I found some leather pants that fit snugly, boots that were actually my size, and a vest that tied in the front.
The back of the vest was a little breezy. Draykin tops left round holes near the shoulder blades to accommodate wings, which I was lacking. Other than that, the clothing was a good fit, once I finished digging around for the right size.
I glanced down at myself, the dark brown leather hugging my physique. I looked pretty damn good. Badass even.
I left the swords on the floor. I didn’t know how to use them, and they wouldn’t be nearly as useful as Oscar in a fight. Rope, however, I could use. Long stretches of it sat heaped in the back corner of this tool closet. I wound a long coil of it tight around my waist and tied it in a firm knot so I could carry it along without clogging up a free hand.
“Any words of wisdom?” I asked.
“Does it really need to be said?” Benoch asked. “Don’t get fucking bit.”
CHAPTER 19
“I mean it,” Benoch said, patting me on the shoulder as we stood at the bunker’s entrance. A low howling sound echoed through the cool night air. “It’s very important that the bloodhound you bring back is pure. If it drinks your blood, or anyone else’s, it’s no good to me.”
“Then maybe I need a wardrobe change,” I said. “These leathers are a little ‘lazy Hawkeye cosplay.’ What do you have in the ‘Iron Man’ department?”
“You’ll be fine,” Benoch said. “You control the fist of Oscar.”
“Yep,” I said. “I’m definitely the one in control here, hundo p.”
“Attaboy,” he said, already climbing down the ladder toward his underground bunker. “Do you like tea? I’ll boil up some tea for when you get back.”
Before I could even ask what kind of crumpet’s he’d serve, he pulled the metal handles on the hatch door and slammed it shut, masqueraded once more as a small hunk of shale protruding from the hill’s slope.
A cool wind played against my hair, shaggy and un-styled as it was. I ran a hand through it and listened for the howls that came from afar, but at this distance I couldn’t tell what direction they came from.
I climbed to the top of the hill that shielded the bunker from view. It was a beautiful night otherwise, with clear stars overhead uninterrupted by clouds. My new leather boots offered better support than my sneakers had, helping me avoid the discomfort of the rocky ground pressing up through rubber soles.
At the highest elevation I had at my disposal, I stared out into the distance.
“Thermal… Thermo… Infra… Skeeter Vision. Activate!”
Happily, Oscar got the gist. A second’s worth of infrared imaging washed over my vision, revealing a small cluster of shapes vaguely like animals whose bodies glowed a lighter blue than the ground they stood on. Their heat signatures were horizontal, suggesting that even bloodhounds curled up at night and slept.
Energy Reserves Down: 3.5%
“Off,” I said, flipping my sight back to normal. “Those fuckers are cold, but not cold enough to hide.”
I stared into the night, wondering how I was going to pull this off. I’d need to sneak in, rope one of them, and drag it back to the compound.
My first thought was: lasso a bloodhound on horseback and drag it behind me toward Benoch’s hill like I was Wyatt Earp, but the clopping of hooves would give away any element of surprise.
Not that a sleeping gang of monsters would stay sleeping for long. Bloodhounds were noisy fuckers, with their howling and screeching, especially when they fought. One way or another, I’d have to face off against multiple fiends. My best hope was to get there stealthily, assess the dangers, and then choose which bloodhound to target — or choose to run like hell, if there really were too many of them.
I set out in their direction on foot, not intending to flip Skeeter Vision on again until I got much closer.
Oscar had a way of taking my plans and turning them on their head.
Party Assist: 322 Degrees
I glanced slightly to the left, but everything was pitch black in the darkness.
We don’t have the juice for this, bud, I thought. I flicked on my infrared view nonetheless, catching a one-second glimpse of a person moving quickly. The shape was warmer than the bloodhounds, making it yellow and orange with a few splashes of red toward the center.
I picked up my pace, hopeful I’d get to the bloodhounds before this traveler woke them up. I had to use heat vision a few times as I went to get a better picture, and to gage distance. My nerves took over as I realized this was the shape of a person mid-run, taking long smooth strides toward my exact destination.
Fuck. I wasn’t the only person out hunting tonight.
I broke into a sprint, charging toward the small cluster of sleeping bloodhounds. I was in a race to reach them before some reckless midnight runner woke them up and unleashed a wave of unbridled violence.
My thermal vision only cost one tenth of a percent of Oscar’s energy each second I flicked it on, but with only 3.1% left, I hated wasting any. Each flash of color overlay provided the barest hint of information I could use.
Then it hit me.
“Activate magnification and thermal imaging,” I said.
My peripheral vision blurred at the sides, muddling the darker blues and greens into a haze, but the shapes I focused on ahead of me came into resolute focus.
My finish line: four bloodhounds, all lying curled up near each other at the base of a large tree. Two other trees stood nearby, surrounded by flat ground.
My competition: A slender person whose sprint now slowed to a jog. Lithe arms and long legs moved in controlled, fluid motions, stalking quickly but also, probably, quietly.
I did the same, worried the crunch of grass and dry soil beneath my boots would alert those four sleeping beasts to my approach.
Low Energy Warning
Energy Reserves: 2%
“Off!” I whispered. “Dammit, Oscar. You let me use infrared for eight seconds straight. Not cool. Next time set a timer or something.”
The tr
ees I moved toward were close now, cutting outlines out of the sky and blocking the stars and moon from view. I crept forward, listening instead of watching. Bloodhounds snorted in their sleep, but I didn’t hear the shuffling of another person toward them. The only movement I heard was my own.
“Kyle, Kyle, Kyle,” came a whispered voice from the darkness. I froze in place and crouched low, scanning the area to my left. Standing with her hands on her hips and her figure lit ever so faintly by Silura’s large, full moon, was a woman whose build I could not forget.
“Lissa,” I said in a low voice. “You remembered me.”
“You’ve changed clothes, but not faces,” she said, keeping her words so soft I had to step closer to make them out. At this distance, I was a half-step away from arm’s length. I only noticed her fingers when they unfurled, releasing the small glass jar that hung from her necklace chain. The flame inside was black. The heart of that small tuft of fire emanated no light of its own, but its contours reflected back the silvery sheen of the moon, lighting Lissa’s face from below her chin.
Her smile was almost menacing, lit from beneath. Her white teeth were human in their shape, though her feline eyes were not. Her cat-like ears pointed outward, alert to whatever rustling might erupt from under those nearby trees.
“It was amusing,” she continued, “watching you creep and squint. I’ve never seen a demon so ill-suited for the night.”
“How—”
“I see well in the dark,” she said. “My people descend from the mighty sabretooth.”
“Then you know about the bloodhounds,” I said.
“I’ve killed thirteen since we last met,” she said. “They come from the mountains, in vast number, with a hunger for blood and a hatred of all the Goddess’s creations. I am closer now to their source. Closer to fulfilling my task.”
“Yeah,” I said, “you can drop the act, demon hunter. I’ve had a history lesson. I know you’re just a jilted demon fangirl. You people used to worship A’zarkin’s kind.”