Chapter 1
“‘From the best-selling author of The Devil She Loved,’” Aaron read dramatically, “‘comes Her Demon’s Heart—’”
“Aaron—”
“‘—a scandalous new romance with—’”
“Aaron!” I growled, grabbing at my phone.
He held the device higher, electric blue eyes dancing with mirth. “‘Will Angela win her soul back from the demon who holds it, or’”—he cracked up, swallowed, and finished in a choked gargle—“‘or will he claim her heart as well?’”
I took one more swipe for my phone, almost fell on the bar between us, then dropped back onto my heels. Folding my arms, I glowered at him. Lucky for me, the two dozen patrons in the Crow and Hammer weren’t paying attention to Aaron’s enthusiastic narration. Though the pub had quieted after the dinner rush an hour ago, it was busy for a Wednesday night.
“Is this what you like to read?” Cackling, he dropped back onto his stool. “I thought you were more into thrillers and detective stories and stuff.”
“It’s just a stupid ad.”
He arched a skeptical eyebrow and sipped his rum and coke. “I mean, you can read what you want, Tori, but—”
“I wasn’t looking for romance novels.” I plucked my phone out of his hand and closed the app displaying the unwanted ad. “I was just—just doing some Googling earlier, okay?”
The amusement in his eyes dimmed, but he hitched his smile back into place. “You won’t find anything like that on Google. ‘Demon’ searches will just get you loads of movies, video games, and scandalous romances.”
“And blogs by crazy people,” I muttered, jamming my phone in my pocket.
Trying a regular ol’ internet search had been dumb, but I’d had no idea where to start. How did a not-very-mythical girl like me research demonic artifacts? The closest thing to a mythic Wikipedia—a Mythipedia, if you will—was the MPD’s outdated website. What did that even leave?
I’d learned one thing, at least: use an ad-blocker. Whatever advertising tech-juju had decided I was into fictional escapades with sexy devil men was hella determined. Not that some of the novels didn’t look intriguing, but the topic lacked appeal right now.
Noting Aaron’s lingering smirk, I asked irritably, “Shouldn’t you be working?”
“We’re done. Everyone is just bullshitting now.”
I looked past him. Clustered around several tables was a group that included not only the familiar faces of my fellow guildeds, but also six members of Odin’s Eye. I knew Mario, a demon contractor, but the others—three more tough-looking men and two equally tough women—were recent acquaintances. Chatting with the Crow and Hammer mythics, they lazily packed up their array of papers and maps.
Leaning one hip on the bar, I let my gaze wander to the dimmest corner of the pub. My mouth quirked up and I laughed softly.
Aaron followed my gaze. “Subtle, aren’t they?”
Tucked in the private little corner, Kai and Izzah had their chairs pulled close. Ostensibly working—exactly two papers sat on their table—they were deep in conversation. His arm rested on the back of her chair, and she was leaning into his side as he spoke.
Yeah, super subtle.
Noticing our attention, Kai pulled away from Izzah. They slid out from behind their table, grabbed their papers, and headed over. I hid my glee as the beautiful hydromage settled onto the stool beside Aaron, her thick black hair sweeping down her back and her russet skin tinged with an almost indiscernible flush. Her cocoa-brown eyes sparkled with delight.
His companion absorbing most of his attention, Kai took the stool on her other side. A tiny smile lingered on his lips—and, oh my, that hint of flirtatious amusement on the normally serious electramage was devastating. My heart gave a sympathetic flutter as Izzah’s blush deepened.
Resisting the urge to fist-pump triumphantly, I calmly asked, “How’d the meeting go?”
“Well,” Izzah drawled in her throaty accent, which I’d recently learned was Malaysian, “we pooled the results from our surveillance missions over the past week.”
“The results were a resounding ‘nothing,’” Kai added.
I pulled a rocks glass from under the counter and scooped ice into it. “And that’s a bad thing?”
Izzah propped her chin on her hand, elbow braced on the bar. “Criminal activity has dropped off a cliff-lah. We can’t even find rogues, let alone catch them. It’s abnormal.”
“I think Red Rum could be making a comeback,” Aaron mused, “but we haven’t found any evidence.”
“Like I said, there’s no way Red Rum is involved.” Kai tilted his head in a silent request and I obligingly doubled the amount of rum I was pouring into the glass. “Between losing ships in September and MPD crackdowns after that, they’ve had a tough winter. I think they’ve pulled out entirely.”
“Aiyoh, such a shame,” Izzah sighed with mock sympathy.
I topped Kai’s drink off with fizzy cola and slid it to him. “If they’re gone, who’s left?
“That’s what we’re trying to figure out,” Aaron answered. “The Odin’s Eye officers are convinced the power landscape is shifting, and they think the absence of crime is related. I don’t know about that, but I’d sure like to know who the kingpins are and who’s gone off to a new playground.”
Izzah pulled Kai’s drink out of his hand and took a long sip. “I know one rogue who may have left the arena entirely—that or someone finally killed him-lo.”
A spike of nervous energy hit my gut. “Which rogue is that?”
“The Ghost.”
“Oh,” I said vaguely. No sense in confirming that, yes, the notorious rogue known as the Ghost, a wanted criminal so mysterious no one knew his name, face, or class, had indeed left Vancouver for good. That would prompt a whole bunch of awkward questions like, “How do you know that?” and “Why have you been protecting the identity of a dangerous felon?”
“Wah, now that’s a bounty I’d love to claim.” Her eyes brightened as she passed Kai’s drink back to him. “Have you two ever thought about making a go at it?”
“Pass,” Aaron replied casually. “Waste of time.”
No truer words. “Elusive” was Zak’s middle name. The guy could literally become invisible with a bit of fae magic.
A clatter of chairs interrupted our conversation. The six Odin’s Eye mythics had climbed to their feet. Calling farewells, they headed for the door.
“Chup, that’s my cue,” Izzah said, sliding off her stool. Her gaze found Kai and softened in a distinctly sultry fashion. “I’ll see you later, leng chai.”
Sweeping her hair off her shoulders, she glided away in a weightless, sashaying walk. I watched her go, grinning like an idiot. See you later? See you later in bed, more like.
Okay, no, I shouldn’t jump to conclusions. Their obvious attraction aside, Kai was technically unavailable. That’s the whole reason they’d been cozied up in a corner, under the cover of a joint-guild job, instead of cozied up together in a more private, and horizontal, location.
Hmm. I was maybe too invested in their sex life. Was that weird?
As the last Odin’s Eye mythics left with a jingle of the bell, Kai gulped half his rum and coke. “I don’t like it.”
“Don’t like what?” I demanded, my mind still on him, Izzah, and whether I could machinate a properly romantic evening for them without either realizing what I was up to.
“How quiet everything has been since New Year’s. Something is brewing, but I can’t imagine what.”
I shrugged. “How bad can a crime respite really be? I’ve had more than enough excitement lately.”
Glimpsing an approaching customer from the corner of my eye, I switched on my professional Bartender of Awesomeness smile and turned to ask what I could get them.
A pair of ocean-blue eyes peeked up at me through dark-rimmed glasses. Robin Page, our guild’s one and only demon contractor, stood three long steps away, twisting the hem of her black sweater in her hands. Her brunette hair was tied in a ponytail so short it stuck off the back of her head, loose strands framing her heart-shaped face.
My mouth hung open, my question forgotten. She was at the guild so rarely that seeing her was a shock.
“Hi Tori,” she began in a soft, shy alto. “How are … you … to … night …”
She shrank in on herself with each stuttering word. I blinked and glanced sideways. Kai and Aaron had spotted her as well—and they were giving her the coldest stares I’d ever seen them direct at a fellow guild member, including several assholes who routinely deserved punches to the throat.
“Good … good to see … you,” Robin whispered, backing away. With a frightened look at the two mages, she practically ran to the stairs.
As she rushed up the steps, I whirled on my friends. “What the hell, guys? I know razzing new people is a thing around here, but she—”
“She’s trouble,” Kai interrupted.
“Her? You almost made her cry just now.”
Aaron shook his head. “You’ve seen what her demon can do. There’s no way she’s as easily intimidated as she appears. We don’t know anything specific, but we’ve heard things.”
“Such as?”
He frowned at his drink, the last mouthfuls diluted by melting ice cubes. “The Crow and Hammer tends to collect misfits. Some of our members are former rogues who’ve turned their lives around. Darius is usually a good judge of character, but not every mythic who gets a second chance here changes their ways.”
Now that he mentioned it, what did I know about Robin? Not much, and a lot of it was kind of suspicious. “So you’re saying …”
“She’s too new to trust,” Kai said bluntly. “Believe us on this one, Tori.”
I mulled that over, then untied my apron. “I’m taking a break. Holler if anyone needs me.”
They nodded. Tossing my apron on the back counter, I cut around the bar to the stairs. On the second-floor landing, I paused in the open doorway that led into the communal work area, packed with long tables, shared computers, whiteboards and corkboards, and a screen with a scrolling list of bounties and jobs from the MPD website. I’d spent a fair number of hours up here with the guys, working on college assignments while they planned their next job.
Now that I was training regularly, I was probably ready to join them on their less dangerous jobs—assuming they wanted my help—but the recent calm in the city had left the Crow and Hammer’s bounty hunters out of work. Same for Odin’s Eye, which was why our guilds had joined forces to unravel the mysterious ceasefire among rogues.
Ten members were scattered throughout the room, all working alone except for a group of four at the far end: Liam, the weaselly telekinetic; Julian, a new apprentice sorcerer and our youngest member; and Alyssa, a banana-haired apprentice a couple of years older.
They were sitting at a table with Ezra, who’d come up here to avoid the Odin’s Eye team—or more specifically, to avoid Mario, their demon contractor. A wise precaution for an illegal demon mage.
He was pointing at a laptop screen, and I could tell from his slow gestures and his gaze, shifting from person to person, that he was explaining something. I could almost hear his soothing voice as he patiently talked the younger mythics through whatever they were working on. A magnetic pull tugged me toward him, luring me to his side.
His head turned, and his eyes met mine from across the long room.
I flashed him a smile and waved cheerily, then hurried up the next flight of stairs. Jaw clenched, I leaned against the wall and breathed deep.
Damn it.
Since Christmas, I’d dedicated every waking hour outside work and school to researching the demonic amulet. Seeing as I’d stolen it from a demon and used it—once—to interrupt another demon’s contract, I didn’t have much to go on.
As soon as I got home tonight, I would pull out the stack of books and printouts hidden under my bed—Demonica jobs and bounties from the MPD archives; books I’d borrowed from Arcana Historia, a guild with a semi-private library; histories of summoning; studies on demons—and spend an hour or two paging through them, exactly as I’d been doing for weeks. So far, I’d found nothing.
And I was almost out of time.
Ezra’s demon had promised to wait until the full moon on January 21—only five nights away. If I didn’t have answers by then … I wasn’t sure what would happen, but I was willing to bet it’d be messy.
Pushing off the wall, I straightened my spine. Ezra thought he was doomed. Aaron and Kai thought he was doomed. Somehow, all three of them were continuing on with their lives like usual, as though Ezra’s remaining days couldn’t be counted in months. That wasn’t good enough for me. I wasn’t giving up.
Desperate times called for desperate measures.
Robin hadn’t been in the workroom, which meant she was up here. Turning away from the guild leadership offices, I tiptoed down a narrow hall. No, I didn’t need to tiptoe, but it seemed appropriate since, technically, I had zero business being up here.
Most of the guild’s magic-usage rooms were in the basement—the alchemy lab, the sparring room, and a spell-testing bomb shelter sorta hole thing—but the Arcana Atrium was the exception. A white sign hanging on its door read, “Arcana In Progress,” and scribbled underneath was, “So keep out, losers!” I recognized Ramsey’s handwriting.
Raising my hand to knock, I froze at an almost inaudible murmur.
“… not happening.”
Was that Robin’s voice? Canting my head, I saw that the door wasn’t latched, the gap allowing sound to leak out.
“Forget it,” she continued, her words too quiet and muffled for me to make out everything. “You can’t … smelling … would I explain …”
Smelling? Had I heard that right?
“We’ll have to … right time. You’ll get … to … mages eventually.”
Mages? What mages was she talking about? Eyes narrowing, I seized the handle and whipped the door open, revealing a largish room crowded with stuff. A permanent circle, aligned beneath a square skylight, had been etched into the dark floor, which was made of a smooth material that shone like glass. Cupboards, bookshelves, and a worktable, all well-worn and bursting with their contents, lined the walls.
Perched a stool, Robin was facing a newish grimoire, open on the scuffed worktable—and beside her was her demon. He stood like a lifeless statue, his softly glowing eyes the color of bubbling lava. He didn’t so much as twitch at my appearance, staring blankly at the opposite wall, his arms hanging at his side.
Robin made up for her demon’s lack of response by whirling on her stool with a frightened squeak. Her wide eyes goggled at me from behind her glasses, one hand pressed to the side of her face.
“T-Tori,” she stammered. “Um. Just a moment, please?”
She shifted her hand, and I spotted the cell phone she held.
“I’m sorry,” she said to her phone. “Can I call you back? Thank you. Bye.” Lowering her phone, she rubbed her sternum. “You startled me.”
“Sorry.” I only half heard her, my stare fixed on her demon. This was my first up-close look at him. “Who were you talking to?”
She hesitated, taken aback by my nosy question. “Amalia.”
Her blond friend she’d joined the guild with? If Robin was an absentee member, I didn’t know how to describe Amalia.
I took a cautious step closer to her demon, amazed at his slight stature. To be fair, he was no pushover. A couple inches taller than me, the demon was all muscle—hard, ropey muscle that suggested agility as much as strength. Compared to the other demons I’d seen, however, he was a shrimp.
My gaze traveled from the small horns poking out of his messy black hair and across his disconcertingly human face to the mixture of light armor and dark fabric he wore. Not that he wore much. Most of his reddish-brown skin was exposed.
“Do you dress him?” I asked curiously, studying the metal plate over his heart, the center etched with a strange symbol. “Or did he come fully accessorized?”
She peeked between me and the demon. “He—he came that way. Um. Can I help you with anything?”
“Yeah.” I leaned sideways to get a better look at the demon’s midriff. “Damn, girl.”
“P-pardon me?”
I pointed. “You can see this, right? I know he’s a demon and all, but those abs. They might be the most demony thing about him. No man has abs that perfect.”
When Robin didn’t respond, I glanced over. She was cringing on her seat, her blush so intense her face was glowing as red as her demon’s eyes.
“I can’t put clothing on him,” she babbled, hands twisting together. “Extra clothes can’t go into the infernus with him. But—but it’s fine. He’s a d-demon, not a … not a … man,” she finished in a strained whisper.
I arched an eyebrow. I hadn’t been suggesting she dress him—I’d merely been wondering if she enjoyed the view—but apparently, her demon being half naked and totally ripped made her uncomfortable for some reason.
Planting my hands on my hips, I gave the unmoving demon one more swift assessment, this time comparing his eyes to Ezra’s when they glowed with demonic power. Before being bound inside a human body, had Eterran looked like this, or was he more like the winged demon who’d stalked us on Halloween?
“Why’ve you got him out, anyway?” I asked.
“I …” She patted one cheek as though to make her blush fade faster. “I’ve been looking into … the magical properties of … demon blood.”
That sounded unsavory. With a thoughtful “hmm,” I parked my butt on the table beside her, happy to put the girl between me and the demon. Great bod or not, he gave me the heebie-jeebies.
“So … I want to ask you something.”
“Something else,” she muttered under her breath, a hint of an annoyed bite in her voice.
“Yep.” I squashed my final doubts and jumped right in. “Do you know anything about demonic artifacts?”
“You mean objects used for summoning and contracting, like the infernus?”
I glanced at the silver pendant hanging around her neck. “I mean an artifact made with demon magic. Made by demons. Is that a thing?”
Asking her was a risk, but neither Ezra nor I had much to lose. I had to ask someone, and I’d rather take a chance on a guild member, however new and possibly untrustworthy, than a complete stranger.
Robin absorbed my question, her expression serious. “Why do you ask?”
“Just some research I’m doing for a job.”
“Oh.” Another hesitation, then she turned to her demon. She rapped her knuckles against the square plate over his heart. “This is a demonic artifact. It has magical properties, but I don’t know more than that. Summoned demons might carry artifacts, but once contracted, they can’t use them or create new ones.”
Her demon’s armor was magical? Interesting, but not helpful. “Any idea who might know something about these sorts of artifacts?”
“Short of discussing it with a demon, I don’t know how anyone could learn much …”
“Do people do that? Have conversations with a demon?”
“Well, summoners talk to demons before making a contract with them, but … even if someone has studied it, finding Demonica experts is difficult.” Her brow wrinkled, and she sighed like she also knew how it felt to run into dead ends at every turn. “Summoners aren’t common, and experienced, knowledgeable ones are even more scarce.”
Frustration burned through me. How was I supposed to learn anything about the amulet, then? The MPD’s database listed only one active summoner in the greater Vancouver area, and he was currently in custody—on charges I didn’t have clearance to see. Even if I could talk to him, why would he tell me anything?
My hands clenched as I fought back a wave of anxiety. Ezra’s life depended on me, and I was getting nowhere.
Robin cleared her throat. “I’m also researching more obscure facets of Demonica. Not about that, specifically, but …” She fidgeted with the hem of her sweater. “There’s a mythic … a retired summoner. He’s an infernus maker now. I heard he’s a collector of esoteric Demonica knowledge. I was planning to go speak with him but I …”
As she trailed off into a mumble, I caught the words, “go by myself.”
“Can I come along?” I asked immediately. A retired summoner—that was exactly the sort of approachable Demonica mythic I needed. “We can both see if he knows anything about our … research topics.”
Her blue eyes warmed. “That sounds good. You work most evenings, don’t you? When’s your next day off?”
“Saturday,” I answered promptly, then silently swore. Saturday was only two nights from the full moon. That was cutting it way too close.
Robin was already nodding. “Okay. Let’s meet here at seven.”
Would it look suspicious if I tried to rush things? Damn it! “Seven it is.”
Her face brightened with a smile. I squinted at her open, obvious pleasure at having a research buddy and wondered what on earth Aaron and Kai thought this girl was up to. She didn’t have a deceptive bone in her teeny, five-foot-nothing body.
I sighed. “Robin? Can I offer some advice?”
Her brow furrowed. “Yes?”
“When someone butts in on you and starts asking questions you’d rather not answer, ‘get the hell out, you nosy asshat’ is a good response. You should try it.”
She blinked. “Oh.”
“See you on Saturday.” With a final glance at her demon, who hadn’t even blinked during our conversation, I left her to whatever weird “magic blood properties” thing she’d been up to before I burst in.
At the stairs, I paused with one hand on the railing, reconsidering my new plans with the odd demon contractor. She seemed so harmless … but that demon definitely wasn’t. Even if it didn’t make sense to me, I knew better than to disregard a warning from Aaron and Kai.
With a shake of my head, I continued downward. Her infernus-maker lead was all I had, and I wasn’t backing out now. I’d just be careful.
After all, what sort of dangerous secrets could a girl like Robin be hiding, really?
--
Druid Vices and a Vodka
The Guild Codex: Spellbound / Book Six
Copyright © 2020 by Annette Marie
www.annettemarie.ca
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations for review purposes.
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