The Red Scrolls of Magic

Magnus smiled, pressing the curve of his mouth against Alec’s. “Excellent point.”

He made a small gesture and hot water began to spray from the shower, drenching them both. Magnus could see the faint dark curves of runes beneath the thin, soaked material of Alec’s shirt. Silver points of light and water glittered in the tiny space between them. Magnus put his hands on Alec, peeling Alec’s shirt and undershirt off his body and over his head. Streams of water sparkled on the surface of Alec’s bare chest, tracing along the grooves of his muscles.

Magnus drew Alec closer to him and kissed him as he undid the studs of his own shirt with his free hand. He felt Alec’s strong hands on his back, the thin and thoroughly wet shirt almost no barrier at all, and yet far too much of a barrier. Magnus dipped his head and ran his mouth down the wet line of Alec’s neck to his bare shoulder.

Alec shuddered and pinned Magnus up against the glass wall. Magnus was having real trouble getting his shirt undone.

Alec caught his mouth, swallowing Magnus’s moan. The kiss was deep and urgent, their mouths sliding together, as hungry as their wet hands. As Magnus tried to concentrate on fine motor control, he noticed a strange shimmer in the air outside the shower, near the ceiling.

He felt Alec freeze when he noticed the new, different tension in Magnus’s body. Alec followed Magnus’s line of sight. A pair of sinister, glowing eyes blinked at them through the steam.

“Not now,” Alec whispered against Magnus’s mouth. “You have to be kidding me.”

Magnus murmured a spell against Alec’s lips. Steam fountained out of the top of the shower and gathered around the shimmer. Through the haze emerged the outline of a giant centipede-shaped creature. The Drevak demon lunged.

Magnus snapped several more sharp words, these in demonic Cthonian. The shower walls immediately frosted and hardened just as the Drevak demon let loose a jet of corrosive acid in their direction.

Alec pulled Magnus to the ground and dove out of the shower, sliding along the wet floor and slamming into the wooden closet doors on the other side of the wall. Awkwardly, he grabbed at the bottom of one of the doors and wrenched it open.

Magnus had no idea why until he saw Alec rise to his feet, seraph blade in hand. “Muriel.”

Before the Drevak could attack again, Alec launched himself toward the ceiling and executed a long forward slice. The two pieces of the demon dropped to the floor behind him and vanished.

“It’s so weird that there’s an angel Muriel,” Magnus commented. “Muriel sounds like a disapproving piano teacher.” He held up an imaginary seraph blade and intoned at it. “My great-aunt Muriel.”

Alec turned back to Magnus, shirtless in wet trousers, lit by starshine and the glow of his seraph blade, and Magnus was briefly rendered speechless by pure physical attraction. Alec said, “The Drevak won’t be alone.”

“Demons,” Magnus said bitterly. “They do know how to kill the mood.”

The window to their cabin exploded inward, showering glass and debris into the room. Magnus momentarily lost sight of Alec in a cloud of dust. He took a step forward and was met by a creature with a long black body, spindly legs, and a domed head extending to an elongated snout. It landed in front of him and hissed, exposing rows of sharp serrated teeth.

Magnus gestured, and a pool of water on the floor surged up to engulf the demon in a large translucent bubble. The demon became disoriented as the sphere rotated upside down. Then Magnus made a batting motion and flung the ball of water out the window.

Instantly another demon took its place. This insect tried to ambush him from the side, nearly taking a chunk of his leg off with its snapping jaws. Magnus stumbled back toward the bed, flicking his fingers as he retreated, causing the closet doors to swing open and smash into the giant bug as it advanced.

The distraction barely slowed the demon down. It hissed and, with a crushing bite, broke the wooden doors into pieces. Just as it was about to leap, the harsh white glow of Alec’s seraph blade cut down between its two clusters of eyes, splitting its domed head in half.

Alec drew his blade from the body and said, “We need to move.”

He scooped up his bow, signaling for Magnus to follow, and they escaped out of the wreckage of their cabin and into an otherwise undisturbed sleeper car. After the mayhem of a moment ago, the hallway’s peaceful quietude was strange. All was still, save for the rhythmic clicking of the tracks and the soft classical music playing through hidden speakers in the ceiling. Soft yellow lights swayed the shadows gently in a waltz measured to the train’s rhythm.

Alec pivoted back and forth, bow at the ready, waiting for the next attack. The eerie quiet held for several more seconds until they heard it. A faint tapping, nearly imperceptible at first, like light rain on a roof. It was soon followed by more of its kind, rattling and thumps growing in frequency and number.

Alec aimed his bow upward as the noise grew louder and louder, a hundred clicks of nails or claws on metal, as if the train were passing under a thunderstorm. “They’re all around us. Get to the next car. Hurry.” Magnus headed to the near door, but Alec called out sharply, “That’s the way toward the other sleeper cars. There are mundanes there.”

Magnus changed directions and ran toward the far door, with Alec close on his heels. They moved along the corridor leading to the end car, with the bar full of Downworlders. A young werewolf in a beaded dress was making her way down the corridor. She stopped short at the sight of them.