The Trouble with Demons

She dismissively waved her free hand. “Then feed on him, but be quick about it.”



My power was free to do with as I willed. No Hellgate distortion was holding me back, and the queen knew it. But the captive Guardian held the source of that power clutched in white-knuckled hands. If I tapped my Saghred-spawned power, would the Saghred take him? Would it take all of us? I had no idea what the damned rock would do.



I knew what I wanted to do, what I had to do. That Guardian wasn’t going to die. Mychael wasn’t going to be possessed by the demon king and then had by his bitch bride. I didn’t care what I had to do to save him, but he would walk out of here alive, soul intact. We all would.



She had the Saghred, but I was the Saghred. And I was really pissed off.



Mychael’s hand lightly touched my arm, telling me to wait. He was buying time. We didn’t have any time; the Guardian had even less time, and the smug demon not a dozen feet in front of me was acting like she had all the time in the world. She wanted Tam here to watch.



Tam.



He wasn’t here. That was what Mychael was waiting for. And from the silence, the demons hadn’t found him or Vegard. We would have heard that. All we heard was silence. Deadly silence. Killing quiet. I’d seen Tam do it before, and I was sure Vegard was equally qualified, and both of them couldn’t be more motivated. I put on my best poker face and kept it there—and I kept my thoughts on the captive Guardian and the sweetness of payback.



Tam was fast.



He rose up behind the queen’s guards like Death himself, and with one sweep of his demon-killer blade, two Volghuls lost their heads. From the surprised hisses and thumps in the dark, Vegard was having similar success.



Mychael’s voice rang out, and the Volghul’s claws clenched in rigid paralysis at the big vein in the Guardian’s throat. The queen snatched the Saghred from his hands and plunged the Scythe into it, slicing through the stone like living flesh.



My flesh.



I screamed. The Saghred and I were one. Flesh of my flesh. My screams turned to agonized gasps. No air. So cold. I tried to stay on my feet. I had to; I had to get that rock. I felt myself sinking to the floor. You’re not bleeding, Raine. You haven’t been stabbed. Get up!



Tendrils of multicolored light writhed their way out of the Saghred. I felt each soul flow up the blade as if it were coming out through my own skin. Elongated shapes of dark shadow and mist, breaking free into the air around us, circling, searching.



The demon queen saw it and laughed, high and wild, and utterly insane.



Until the light from Mychael’s hand took her in the chest and flung her backward, slamming her against the far wall. Tam was waiting for her.



Mychael caught the Saghred as it fell.



No. Oh please, no.



I heard Tam’s shout, Vegard’s roar, and everything slowed until time barely moved at all.



“Drop it!” It was my voice screaming at him, but I sounded so far away. Too far to reach him in time.



Mychael didn’t drop the Saghred; he didn’t even shield himself. He couldn’t do what he had to with shields in his way. He held the stone tightly against him and pulled on the Scythe with everything he had.



It didn’t budge.



Only for you, Raine.



It was a voice and not a voice. It could have been the rock; it could have been me. I was the bond servant; Mychael wasn’t. I had blood on me where the queen had slashed my neck. I was a Saghred sacrifice waiting to happen. Another wraith flowed up the Scythe to freedom. Maybe the Saghred was too busy spitting out souls to suck mine in. Maybe.



It didn’t matter. Mychael wasn’t going to die or worse because of me.



I was the Saghred; and the Saghred was mine.



I dragged myself to Mychael’s side and put my hand over his, over the Scythe. Something in the Saghred responded to my touch.



Or someone.



Mychael felt it. He moved his hand from the Scythe to grip the Saghred in both hands, holding it for me. I pulled on the blade.



And someone inside the stone pushed.



My father was pushing the Scythe out. When the blade was out, the gash would close. He knew this; he was telling me this. He would remain inside, giving up his chance for freedom.



My father was sacrificing himself.



My vision blurred with tears. Sobs I couldn’t stop came between gasps for breath.



Please don’t. Don’t do this. You can survive; we’ll find a way. I need you. Tears streamed down my face and onto the Scythe, onto the Saghred.



I need you, Dad.



The Scythe jerked in my hand, like someone had grabbed hold of the blade.



Dad.



It felt like he was holding my hand, holding on tight. I desperately pulled air into my lungs, put both hands on the Scythe’s grip, and pulled with the last bit of strength I had, pulling like I was dragging a drowning man from a flood.



The Scythe quivered weakly in my hand. A thin sliver of silvery mist flowed up the blade and into the air above us. It hovered there, flickering with pinpoint motes of light, before gently settling into the dead elven Guardian. The body took a shuddering breath and his now-living eyes looked directly at me.



“Daughter,” he whispered.



The Scythe came free, and the Saghred sealed.



I quickly crawled to his side and took his hand, holding it tightly in mine. Deathly cold was surrendering to life-giving warmth. The body was a young elf; the soul looking out through his eyes was my father. He smiled and weakly squeezed my hand. As he closed his eyes, his chest continued to rise and fall.



And heal.



“What’s his name?” I could barely get the words out.



“Arlyn Ravide,” Mychael told me.



“Does . . . Did he have family?”



There was a smile in Mychael’s voice and tears in his eyes. “He does now.”



Chapter 31



My new leathers arrived just in time for Piaras’s induction ceremony.



The citadel’s Great Hall wasn’t filled to capacity; about a fourth of the Guardians were still out demon hunting two days after we’d closed the Hellgate. Between the Guardians and Sora’s faculty, most of the demons had been trapped or killed, but Guardian patrols were still out in the city hunting down what was left.



But Archmagus Justinius Valerian had made sure that everyone who needed to witness Piaras’s induction into the Conclave Guardians was here.



Except Carnades Silvanus.



Protocol demanded that he be invited, even though I didn’t know of anyone who wanted him here. So the invitation had been extended, and Carnades had refused, politely of course, citing injuries sustained while a prisoner of the demon queen. The only injuries he’d sustained were from my rock-wielding cousin, but no one was lining up to tell him that. The elf mage had earned himself one heck of a concussion, but no doubt the memory of what he’d seen was quite intact. His absence confirmed it.



Carnades was holed up in his town house. He hadn’t had contact with anyone—including the Seat of Twelve, whose signatures he’d need on any arrest and/or execution order. Uncle Ryn had taught us that a quiet enemy is an enemy to be feared.



It was a lesson I’d learned only too well over the years, and I didn’t need a refresher course to tell me that I’d better watch my back.



At the moment, my back was firmly against a wall in an alcove to the left of the Great Hall’s dais. There were chairs, but I didn’t want to sit down. The alcove was a place usually reserved for dignitaries or special guests who didn’t necessarily want to be seen by everyone in the main audience. I didn’t care who saw me, but I went along with Mychael’s precautions. Besides, everyone’s attention should be on Piaras where it belonged. This was his moment, and he’d more than earned every second of it.



On the dais was the archmagus’s throne, and Justinius Valerian looked right at home. His lean and grizzled body didn’t stand a chance of filling that chair, but the old man’s presence more than made up for it. Justinius was wearing formal robes that must have weighed as much as he did; and if they didn’t, the massive sword he lifted to tap the kneeling Piaras on the shoulders had to make up the difference. It was nothing short of a towering testament to the old man’s stubbornness and determination to show that he was back in charge. He wasn’t even breaking a sweat.



Piaras was splendid in his dove gray Guardian cadet uniform. It was identical to the uniform that fully knighted Guardians wore, with the exception of color. Cadets wore dove gray; knights’ uniforms were the color of dark steel. The short, quilted tunic was cut to accentuate broad shoulders, muscled chests, and narrow waists. The formfitting leather trousers did the same thing, but to other places. Piaras and the other cadets who stood in the front ranks still had a little bit of filling out to do, but no doubt those uniforms still did a fine job of turning coed heads on campus. One coed’s head was being turned right now. Being the archmagus’s granddaughter had earned Katelyn Valerian a front-row seat; being Piaras’s girlfriend put an appreciative gleam in her bright eyes. I knew that look. That girl had intentions, serious intentions. If Piaras didn’t already know, I wasn’t about to tell him. He was going to have to figure out things like that for himself.



“You’re smiling,” said a new, yet familiar voice.



Standing next to me was the father I’d never known, in a body that until two days ago, I’d never met.



Vegard had himself a partner in crime—and I had a second bodyguard. Arlyn Ravide’s brother Guardians thought the kid was a glutton for punishment for requesting the assignment. I knew he was a father with a lot of catching up to do and with a daughter he was determined to protect.



I was a daughter determined to protect him.



“Yeah, I am,” I admitted. I was so proud of Piaras that I could burst, and I had a father. Those were two of the best reasons I’d had to smile in a long time.



In my mind, the absurdly young blond elf by my side was Eamaliel Anguis, my father; but I’d called him nothing but Arlyn in the two days since his body and my father’s soul had become one. And I’d tried my best to think of him only as Arlyn Ravide. On an island full of mages, they didn’t just listen with their ears. No one could know his true identity. Mychael had convinced the Guardian who had been the demon queen’s hostage that Arlyn hadn’t died. He’d been critically injured, but Mychael and the archmagus’s healer had been able to mend his chest wound. Arlyn had stayed secluded until this morning to make the story more believable. No one could suspect that he was really Eamaliel Anguis. There was no statute of limitations on Saghred stealing. If certain people found out, Arlyn Ravide would be put on trial as Eamaliel Anguis, charged with theft, treason, and abandonment of his post. He’d just gotten his life back; no way in hell was anyone taking that from him.