Lisa Shearin - The Trouble With Demons

At least not anymore.

They were dead, and from the looks of them, they’d been that way for a long time. They were armored and entirely too well armed. They drew new steel from moldy and rotting scabbards and sheaths.

The undead warriors appeared to be vaguely human, but unlike any human that I’d ever seen, unless those men had been dragged repeatedly through fire and then what remained of their bodies entombed and held together by the steel armor they wore. Runes and symbols were etched into the steel, glowing red from within.

Specters, ghosts, phantoms-call them what you wanted. Once they were through the boards, those sparkly bodies became entirely too solid. The really bad part was that since they were dead, us killing them probably wouldn’t make them any more dead than they already were.

I hoped Uncle Ryn’s men had had the time and good sense to get themselves back into the tunnels.

Talon swallowed. “I vote we go out my window.”

As if on some perverse cue, Talon’s window slammed shut down the hall behind us, and doors in Tam’s apartment and on other floors started doing the same. The slamming was the only sound in the entire building. Some sicko sorcerer had a twisted sense of humor. My bet was Rudra Muralin.

“This isn’t Rudra’s work.” Tam scooped up my thoughts like dice off a gaming table. That link of ours was coming in handy. Tam went to a massive cabinet that stood against one wall, placed his hand on the door, fingers spread. He hissed a few words in Old Goblin and the door simply vanished. Inside were an assortment of poled weapons; most of them taller than me. Some had a single, wickedly curved blade on one end; the rest sported a blade on both ends. They were monstrous and made the swords I carried look like toothpicks.

I wanted one.

Tam tossed a double-bladed one to Mychael, who expertly caught it. The moment he touched it, a brilliant blue-white light ran down the length of the weapon and blazed with white fire once it reached the curved blades.

“No necromancer on Mid can raise anything that old, and not in those numbers,” Mychael told me. “And Muralin’s got his hands full with a Hellgate.”

“We think,” I reminded him.

“I think her demonic majesty got tired of waiting,” Tam said.

“But those aren’t demons,” Phaelan said.

I understood what Tam was saying. “No, they’re not,” I told Phaelan, “but they’re dead. They’re ghosts.”

“But there’s no such thing as ghosts.”

“You want to go down there and tell them that?”

“No. But demons don’t command ghosts. Do they?”

“Where do really bad guys go when they die?” I asked Phaelan.

“Hell?”

“And who’s ruling Hell right now?”

“The demon queen?”

“Give that man a blade on a stick.” I had a disturbing thought.

“Will a blade on a stick work?”

Mychael spun the bladed pike once with practiced and deadly efficiency. “As long as they remain in their solid form, these should work. Bits and pieces don’t fight back very well.”

“What’s the plan?” My question was for anyone who might have one. I wasn’t exactly flush with experience dealing with dead people who didn’t have the courtesy to act that way.

Mychael’s response was pure, stoic paladin. “We go downstairs, destroy those things, and go after Piaras.”

“Good plan. Simple and direct.”

A ghostly face appeared at Tam’s glass wall, right in front of me. I bit back a shriek. No body, just a floating armored head surrounded by mist. A floating, decaying, rotting head. Half of his face had been peeled back all the way down to the bone, skin and tendons dangling loosely from his jaw. Ruined eyes the color of curdled milk stared through the glass. A flicker of red flared to life in the center of each sightless orb. Those dead eyes shouldn’t be able to see me, but I don’t think anyone had told him that.

“Our lady sends her greetings and regards to the one who commands the Saghred.” The words sounded choked with dirt and gravel, and flecks of decayed skin fell from the pallid lips as it spoke. “She would hold discourse with thee.”

Mychael moved to step in front of me. I laid a restraining hand on his arm.

“Who is your lady?” My voice only trembled a little. Good for me.

“The queen of demons, the mistress of Hell, and the consort of our imprisoned lord.”

Oh crap. That lady. Tam was right.

“You rejected our queen’s first invitation. The Reaper’s presence led us to you.”

I took in a slow breath. “And why does she want to talk to me?”

“To request a boon.”

A favor. The demon queen wanted a favor from me, and she’d sent her most winning and polite courtiers to ask me not so nicely. I glanced down at the theatre floor. Dozens, with still more squirming up through the boards. When they solidified, they stood motionless, as if waiting for some unspoken signal, probably from the big, bobbing head. My throat tried to swallow, either that or scream. I couldn’t do either one.

“I will hear her request.” When a platoon of ancient, burned, and mutilated undead seal my friends and me inside a building, I like to know why before they start killing us.

“Keep him talking, Raine,” came Mychael’s voice in my mind. “We will clear the way.”

“And don’t piss him off,” Tam just had to add.

I was about to ask how the hell they expected me to do one without the other when I saw them out of the corner of my eye. One moment they were at the weapon cabinet, the next they’d literally blended into the woodwork. Vegard had likewise vanished. I’d seen Mychael and Vegard do it before, but it didn’t make it any less spooky. I knew they weren’t gone, at least not yet. It was an illusion that would enable them to move along the wall until they reached the door on the far side of the room. I imagine Tam had all kinds of hidden exits. And armed as they were, I knew where they were going. Downstairs. The three of them against a horde of undead warriors. Warriors who were waiting on the bobbing head in front of me to give them the signal.

And I had to keep him distracted. Wonderful.

“My mistress seeks the Scythe of Nen. She says that you know of its resting place.”

“She heard wrong. Not only do I not know where it is, I don’t know what it is. If you could tell me-”

“Dost thou call my lady and queen a liar?”

Way to go, Raine. “Not at all. She’s merely misinformed. Happens to the best of us.”

“You refuse to assist my queen?”

In my career, I’ve had some lowlifes try to hire me, but Hell set a new record for low.

“Not refuse,” I clarified. “I’m merely unqualified to be of assistance-seeing that I don’t know what this Scythe of Nen is, I can’t possibly know where it is. If you would tell me what-”

“She said you would respond thus.”

“Your lady is as wise as she is… uh…”

“Demonic?” Talon said helpfully.

Those red eyes fixed on him and the kid yelped. “I meant that in the most respectful and honorable and… and… Oh shit, I’m so dead.”

The red flickering in the head’s eyes dimmed and the ruined face actually managed to look like it was listening to a voice we couldn’t hear. I had a sinking feeling I knew who he was talking to.

The eyes flared, enraged. “My lady says that it is you who are the liar. You will bring it to her.”

I was losing what little patience I’d managed to scrounge up. Every second I stood here talking to an arrogant, floating head put Piaras that much more out of my reach. “Perhaps if you would tell me what it was, I could-”

“You insult our lady with your denial. She would question you herself.”