The Red Scrolls of Magic

“Are you all right?” Magnus shouted.

“All according to plan!” Alec began to slide off, one slow inch at a time.

Sheer urgency ran hot through his veins. Desperation tightened his hands to claws. With a force borne only of his will to save Magnus, he managed to find some leverage beneath one foot, and with this he frantically scrambled his way up onto the roof.

Before he could uncurl himself and stand up, something large and heavy barreled into him from behind. Tentacles closed around his legs and waist and squeezed. Dozens of small red suction cups pinched through the wet fabric of his shirt, burning his skin.

Alec stared into the large buggy eyes and gaping maw of a Raum demon. It made a wet clicking sound as it snapped at him. Unable to use his bow or reach his seraph blade, Alec used the only weapon he had available. He raised his fist and punched the Raum demon in the face.

His fist connected with a buggy eye. His elbow smashed into its snout. Alec battered the demon’s face until its tentacles loosened just enough for him to kick out and escape. He fell onto his back and somersaulted into a kneeling position. His bow was out, an arrow nocked, and he shot just as the Raum demon came at him.

It blocked the first arrow with a tentacle, but stumbled when the second sank into its knee. It finally stopped its charge when, at near-point-blank range, the third punched into its chest. The demon chittered in agony, staggered, lost its balance, and toppled over the side of the train.

The bow clattered to the ground. Alec exhaled and put a hand on the train’s roof to steady himself. His body burned from dozens of tiny poisonous wounds left by the demon’s tentacles. He fumbled for his stele and pressed it to his heart, drawing the iratze rune. Immediately the tightness in his chest lifted and the numbness subsided.

He drew in a harsh breath. Demon poison wasn’t easily remedied. This relief was only temporary.

He had to make the next few minutes count.

He willed himself to his feet and focused on Magnus, still in the grasp of some dark octopus-like monster. It was unlike any demon he had ever seen before, and definitely not something he’d read about in the Codex. It didn’t matter. It had Magnus, and it was getting away.

Alec picked up his bow and gave chase, speeding down the length of the train and hurdling over the gaps between the cars. He kept his eyes on Magnus, intent on not letting him out of sight again. His terror drove him forward with reckless abandon. He barely stayed on the train as it curved around a sharp turn.

Several Ravener demons appeared, blocking his path with hissing jaws and poisonous scorpion tails. It was unusual, said an analytic voice in the back of his mind, to have so many different demon types attacking together. They tended to stay in packs of their own kind.

This meant, almost certainly, that they had been summoned. That there was malicious purpose beyond this attack, directed at them in particular.

Alec didn’t have time to pursue this insight at the moment, and didn’t have time to suffer Ravener demons, either. Every second lost meant Magnus got one second farther away. He fired arrows while running at full speed, sacrificing some accuracy to keep up. One arrow caught a Ravener in mid-leap, and Alec battered two more off the train with his bow. Another Raum demon got an arrow to the throat. His seraph blade seared through flesh as if it were night air.

Alec stood wreathed in ichor and blood, and realized he had cut through the whole pack.

His body ached in a hundred places, and the iratze rune was starting to wear off. He wasn’t done. He set his teeth and staggered forward. The smoke demon was just at the end of the train car. It had stopped moving. Two of its tentacles were still wrapped around Magnus, four were holding on to the sides of the train near the tracks, and the last two were dragging along the air as if testing the wind. No, the ends of the tentacles were glowing in a light that became more complex as the tentacles moved, remaining in place next to the demon even as the train rushed on.

Alec squinted and realized the light was the red glow of a pentagram, emerging into the air beside the train. He nocked an arrow, aimed at a space in between the monster’s two eyes, and loosed it. The arrow bounced harmlessly off the demon’s roiling skin. He drew another and struck it again; same result. By now the pentagram had opened and the demon was moving Magnus into it. It could drop him into another dimension or some bottomless abyss.

Alec drew yet another arrow. This time he aimed at one of the tentacles holding Magnus. He whispered a prayer to the Angel and fired.

The arrow sank into the tentacle a few feet away from Magnus’s body. The monster reared and relaxed its grip just a bit. Magnus didn’t waste any time and, as soon as he had a hand free, began weaving it through the air rapidly. A web of blue electricity flared onto the remaining tentacle holding him. The smoke demon screamed and its tentacles jerked back, releasing Magnus. The warlock hit the roof of the train with a heavy thud and rolled, beginning to slip over the side.

Alec dove forward, sliding along the cold metal, perilously close to the edge. He brushed Magnus’s fingertips and grasped only air as Magnus tumbled off the train.

Alec lunged off the side of the train and grasped a handful of wet material. He grabbed hold of Magnus’s shirt in both hands and strained to pull him up, using all the strength he had left.

His vision blurred with the effort, but then Magnus was in his arms, blinking his still-stunned golden eyes.

“Thank you, Alexander,” Magnus said. “Alas, the octopus monster is attacking again.”