Sarah Brennan - The Demon's Lexicon

Nick laughed, and Merris regarded him coldly. “She fulfills all the requirements. She has good coordination, she has a strong desire to call the demons, and she has no fear.”

“She’ll be afraid enough in a minute,” Nick murmured.

“Want to bet?”

Mae strode past Nick to the nearest dish of fruit and seized one as if she was picking up a gauntlet someone had thrown. When she bit into it, the juice ran in a golden stream down her chin.

Her eyes met Nick’s, and his hand went to his belt. He unbuckled his old sword and scabbard, and tossed them aside. He wasn’t going to back down from a challenge.

“Let’s dance,” he said.

As Mae cut her circle under Merris’s direction, he turned to Alan, who offered him the shell. It gleamed i S. Iwidn pale seashell colors, blue and violet and apricot in the Goblin Market lights, and then it was white once more. Nick kissed it, put the speaking charm around Alan’s neck, and then stepped into the circle of summoning.

Nick’s talisman flared in a sudden moment of pure pain. Nick tilted his head back and absorbed the shock, let it wash over him like water, and listened through the feeling of pain and rising magic for his brother’s voice.

“I call on the demon they called Anzu in Sumer!” Alan said as the sound of the drums came faster and faster. “I call on the demon they called Djehuty in Egypt! I call on the demon the Romans called the thief at the gates and the watcher by night. As they called him, so I call him: I call on Anzu!”

Mae must have entered the circle beside him when Nick had entered his, but Nick had no awareness of her now. Partners or not, she would dance or fall on her own.

The drums surged and pounded in his temples, and he stepped along the lines for communication. The lines of traveling began to whirl as if they really were the spokes of a wheel, and he had to keep up with them. There was a cold, well-known touch all along his side, a seductive and almost familiar voice whispering to him, and in his other ear the call of “Come buy!” spiked into an appeal to stay, a promise of warmth in this world. He side-stepped neatly, never going too far to meet the demons; he twisted and spun in the center of sound and color and set lines.

There were thin screams of approval all around him. Arms reached out for him. Some were human, and he let them reach him. They pressed warm hands against his body, against his face, and the fever fruit was pressed again to his lips. He bit down and the world was bright around him, like a glass sculpture on the very edge of a mantelpiece, catching the light before it fell. He put his body between the worlds, threw back his head and put the straining muscles of his shoulders, the twisting strength of his hips, put his heart and his clenched hands at the service of the demon, and then held firm.

Nick always had to wait for his partner to catch up. He waited with his heart slamming against his chest and his throat raw with every breath, the world in a glow from fever fruit.

For a moment all he registered was that Mae was doing well for a beginner. Her steps along the weaving were sure, and she was making the right gestures of offering and appeal. Then he saw the fall of her skirt against her leg, the gleam of the chain around her stomach in the firelight. He saw her hands sliding like a lover’s hands down her own throat as she tipped her head back, and he realized that he could want her, after all.

He realized that he did want her.

There was no time to think about that, since at the point where their two circles intersected there was a cold light burning, racing along the patterns of the weaving but growing stronger and stronger at the point where it had started. Until the light gave birth to a dull red bonfire, and at the center of the red chill a shape formed.

Anzu was taking the shape of a man today, though there was a suggestion of the eagle in the curve of his nose, a glint and pattern like crimson feathers about his golden hair. The fair skin he had chosen to wear was reddened by the dull glow of the fire around him, and when he lifted his eyes to Nick’s face, they were enormous, and clear as water.

Nick saw his own face reflected in those e Stedormyes, black eyes and black hair, a face far colder and more grim than the demon’s face before him. That was Anzu’s intention, of course.

“Nick, isn’t it?” Anzu asked, pronouncing Nick’s name as if it was rather a good joke. “Well, well. Dancing again, are we?”

“Our pair danced for you and you fed off their feelings. You owe us some service, Anzu,” said Alan.

Anzu peered out past the circle. “Ah,” he said, looking even more amused. “It’s Alan, isn’t it? The one who knows so much. What service do you require?”

A new voice broke through the sound of drums and the sizzle of the flame.

“I want to save my brother,” said Mae, clear and confident. “He has a third-tier mark. How can I do that?”

Anzu laughed. “You can’t,” he answered. “He’s ours now. It’s only a matter of time.” His great glass-colored eyes traveled to Jamie’s face. “So young,” he remarked, smiling wickedly at Mae. “We do like them young.”

He turned and grinned at Nick. Nick saw sparks pinwheel around Anzu’s head and take flight in the shape of tiny birds.

Alan hesitated, his face grave, but Nick’s brother knew better than to leave a pause for a demon to misinterpret.

“I have a first-tier mark,” he said quietly. “Can you remove it?”

“Oh, of course,” Anzu replied. “Washing you clean would be my pleasure. Can’t have you leaving that little family of yours. What would they do without you? Put the mark in the flame.”

Alan knelt with some difficulty on the grass and rolled up his jeans. He extended his leg into the circle, making sure it was lifted well above the pattern of the weaving, and held it in the center of the fire.

The fire did not burn him, but its sullen glow lit up his leg so the first mark stood out dark against his skin, the two slashes forming a doorway. The shadows lurking in them were so deep that it looked like they were welling with fresh blood.

“Hmm,” said Anzu. “That’s interesting.”

Alan’s voice was clipped. “Explain.”

“Oh — it’s nothing,” Anzu said. “Only that your mark”—he nodded to Alan—“and the young thing’s mark were made by the same Circle. The Obsidian Circle. And they were made by the same demon.”

“What does that mean?” Alan demanded.

“A small thing,” Anzu told him. “It means that if you agreed, I could transfer one of the young thing’s marks onto you instead. That would mean you would both be bearing a second-tier mark, which still means death for someone. If you caught and sacrificed two magicians of the Obsidian Circle, then you would both live. It is the only chance the boy has, but it would be a terrible risk for you to take.” Anzu waved a careless hand, fingers blending into the flame. Nick could almost see talons. “Forget I mentioned it.”

“Wait,” said Alan.

Nick had kissed the speaking charm and given his voice into Alan’s keeping a hundred times, and he had never missed his voice. It was almost peaceful, having no words, having Alan speak for them both, but now Nick had something to say. It felt as if smoke had got caught in his throat, or the lack of words was scorching him. He moved his mouth, moved his tongue with a painful effort, and found his whole body empty of words when he needed them most.

Mae had words. She looked at Alan and she said simply, “Please.”

Nick knew that while he was within the circle, Anzu could feel a little of what he felt. Even though Nick could not speak, even though he knew that his own face rarely betrayed much emotion, Anzu looked at Nick as Mae spoke and Nick was sure Anzu knew everything Nick could not say. In turn, Nick thought he could feel just a touch of the demon’s malicious delight.