Sarah Brennan - The Demon's Lexicon

He stood silent, feeling like an animal held at bay. Mae and Jamie were staring at him, their eyes traveling over his ripped and bloodstained clothes.

His brother looked sad and kind, but then, Alan never looked kinder than when he was lying to someone. “Will you just do what I ask you to for now, Nick?”

Nick remembered that hidden photograph, those hidden letters, and now this secret plan. He thought of Christmas in the dark, and Alan coming back, opening the door with the light behind him.

“Do I have any other choice?” he growled.

Alan nodded at him, and then let his gaze drop. The shallow gashes Liannan’s icicles had left in Nick’s shoulders stung, and his mouth ached with cold. He suddenly felt very tired. He’d done what he could, and he had no idea what Alan was doing.

He’d carry out Alan’s little plan, even if he was in the dark. This was his brother. He had no one else.

“So — can we stay?” asked Jamie tentatively, as if this was a visit instead of an invasion.

“Stay if you like,” Nick snarled, too tired to argue. He strode past them to the stairs, pulling off his bloody shirt as he went, and threw a warning over his shoulder. “Just make sure you keep away from me.”

NICK WAS NOT USED TO LIVING WITH ANYONE BUT ALAN. Mum hardly counted, since it was best if she never saw Nick.

He didn’t like it, even though Mae and Jamie proved to be quite useful. They were willing to pore over Alan’s books and scrolls for hours, trying to get information about the Obsidian Circle. They tried to memorize the few pictures of Obsidian Circle magicians that Alan had drawn from descriptions he’d been able to get from Market people. They chipped in for groceries, and Jamie honestly tried to help with the cooking. Alan offered to give up his own room to them, but Nick insisted that they take his instead. He wanted Alan to keep the bookcase.

Sharing a room was fine by Nick. The second mark meant that demons could send Alan dreams every night. Nick had to watch and wake Alan if he seemed restless.

The cloud of Black Arthur and his message hung over their house. He was coming for their mother, and their mother knew it.

There were small magical incidents throughout the house these days, lights unexpectedly coming on and strange noises. Alan said that it meant Mum was scared, but Nick didn’t care. He didn’t need these reminders of his magician mother everywhere in the house; the magic felt like another intruder.

Alan liked the human intrusions. Both of them.

Alan liked reading books with Mae, and he loved that she wanted to learn the Greek alphabet. He fancied her, Nick could understand that, and if it hadn’t been for Nick’s uneasiness about what idiot thing his brother might do next, he might have been all right with that. But Alan seemed to like having Jamie around too.

He and Jamie watched television and listened to music together, and Alan was trying to teach him the difference between cooking things and burning them.

Nick was not sure why that bothered him, and then he realized that if Alan was this ready to welcome strangers into their home, he must be very lonely.

Nick had no idea what to do about that. He just wanted them to go away.

“Won’t your parents be wanting you back?” he asked when he came home from school on the third day, slinging down his bag and pulling his horrible tie over his head.

Jamie, who was attempting chips and something that looked like French toast, gave Nick a slightly apprehensive glance as usual.

“Well,” he said cautiously, “they don’t know we’re gone.”

Nick strode over to the fridge, grabbed the milk, and took a swig. Alan would have seriously objected to him drinking out of the carton, but Jamie just kept watching him warily, as if he thought he might have to dodge at any moment.

“How did you pull that one off? If you have an evil twin, you should send him over,” Nick said, leaning against the fridge. “I might like him.”

Jamie’s face closed down in what Nick could tell was a trained performance, telling a story he’d had to tell a lot and pretending he didn’t care. Nick didn’t lie, but he’d learned to recognize the signs of lies in others. The world was filled with clumsy liars, amateurs who didn’t realize how they looked to other people and didn’t work to perfect the act.

Nick could always tell, except with Alan.

“Our parents are divorced,” Jamie said with false airiness. “They split up about seven years ago, but it took a while for the divorce to come through. They’re both…society types; they have a lot of money and it was all tangled up. It was a pretty acrimonious divorce. They both wanted most of the assets and less time with the kids.”

Jamie tried to smile. Apparently he made jokes when he was upset as well as when he was afraid. Nick just stared at him, and after a moment Jamie started talking again.

“Mum got the house, Dad got the holiday home, and they got joint custody. They both thought they got ripped off. It’s easy enough to call them and say you’re spending extra time with the other one. They can’t check. They don’t talk, and anyway — they’re glad to be rid of us. Even if they did find out we were gone, they’d think Mae took me to one of the raves she sneaks off to sometimes. So.”

So that explained some things. It explained why the demon had gone for Jamie in the first place. The magicians didn’t dare let the demons out often or at random, since secrecy was as important to them as it was to the Market. Demons had to choose victims who were alone and unprotected, whose disappearance would not be noticed soon, and parents usually noticed rather quickly if a child disappeared or turned up possessed. Not these parents, obviously.

It explained Mae’s rebellion, created to punish her parents or get their attention, and explained the way Jamie was, caught young in the middle of a domestic war, just trying to stay out of trouble. Look how well that had worked out for him.

Nick could understand it, but he wasn’t sure how he was supposed to respond to it.

“So the magicians knew you wouldn’t be missed,” he said.

That didn’t seem to be right. Jamie went very white.

“I suppose they might think that,” he said. “Mum’s very busy, and I don’t think being a single parent is the type of life she had planned. I don’t think we’re the type of kids she wanted. She never means to be unkind.”

When Mum was in her screaming fits, she sometimes hit out. Alan had gotten black eyes that way. Mum never meant to hurt him, but there it was.

“What is that?” Nick asked abruptly, staring at the pan.

“I don’t know,” Jamie answered, stirring the unidentifiable mass with a helpless air. “It was meant to be omelets.”

“I thought it was French toast.”

“It sort of looks like brains,” Jamie remarked sadly.

They both regarded the pan for a moment, and then Nick came to a decision.

“All right, push over. I can fix this. You go grate some cheese.”

Jamie squinted up at him. “You’re going to fix this?” he repeated, and looked extremely doubtful.

“Yes,” Nick said. “All this and I can cook, too. Get out of my way.”

He pushed Jamie aside, lightly enough because Jamie was so little that a rough push from Nick might have sent him through the window. Jamie still looked unsure, but he went over to the fridge and got some cheese in an obvious effort to look willing.

“Can I ask you something?” he asked.

Nick looked up from chopping onions. “In the sense that I won’t stop you with actual violence,” he said in a guarded voice, “yes.”

“What do magicians want?”