Lisa Shearin - The Trouble With Demons

But their mark wasn’t the queen of demons. And I wasn’t a master thief.

Phaelan and Vegard weren’t going to die, and the demon queen wasn’t getting her hands on Piaras. The only way either would happen would be over my dead body, and I’d take as many demons with me as I could.

Our captors led us up the last flight of stairs and the heat hit us. A broad hall curved in both directions-my guess was we were in an entrance hall to the Assembly. A sickly green glow, like some sort of fungus, had been smeared along the walls at irregular intervals, dimly lighting a space big enough to hold hundreds of mages. The heat was stifling; but it wasn’t a dry heat, this was like walking into a greenhouse. Directly across from us were a pair of massive doors that must have been at least three times my height. They were closed and were guarded by more Volghuls.

All of that registered in the only part of my brain that wasn’t screaming.

The floor was covered with eggs.

We were in a demon incubator.

I didn’t want to meet the demons that had laid these things. The eggs were oval and almost came up to my knees. Some kind of sticky goo held them upright on the floor. Half of the eggs had hatched, the rest were glowing softly, their shells nearly translucent. Things were squirming inside, things that wanted to be outside. With us. In the middle of several of the already hatched clutches lay pale bones and what looked like the remains of shredded robes. The newborn demons’ first meals had probably been Rudra Muralin’s now-deceased allies. No wonder Muralin was topside playing ambassador. He wasn’t in control down here anymore. No one was-at least no one from around here.

No wonder he wanted me to come down here to close the Hellgate.

The Volghul that had my arm clutched in his claw saw where I was looking and knew what I had seen.

“Yes, the mortal spellcasters made fine food for our children. They grow quickly and eat much. There is no more food here, so they have gone to the surface to hunt.”

My stomach knotted. Newborn demons. That was what we’d run into downstairs, hatchlings on their way to feed. Swarming through dark tunnels that emptied all over the city. Except the demons weren’t going all over the city, at least not yet. First they’d take what food was closest.

Campus. Hundreds of students.

I remembered the terrified chaos in the Quad yesterday that had been caused by one demon. These were swarms, nothing but teeth and starving stomachs, small enough to go anywhere, ravenous enough to eat anything.

I saw Vegard out of the corner of my eye. His face was an expressionless mask. Guardians protected the Conclave mages and students. Mychael would defend a student before a mage anytime, and Vegard thought like his commander. He needed to get away; we all needed to get away. Now. Someone had to warn those kids. Sora and her faculty were expecting Volghul-sized demons and larger-not hundreds, maybe thousands of piranha with feet and endless appetites.

“Your young ones will be sweet.” The demon’s sharp black tongue flicked across his lips in anticipation. “Our young will feed first, then we shall join them.”

I felt the pull of the Hellgate through the closed doors. Actually it was the Saghred doing the feeling; I wanted to be doing the running. What lay beyond those doors was the entryway into our world for a horde of demons. In the midst of my growing panic, it dimly occurred to me that I had absolutely no clue how many demons were in a horde.

The Assembly was huge. Row after row of crumbling stone tiers that had once held chairs fanned up and out from the massive round stage with steps leading up to a dais that dominated the chamber. Seven columns rose from the edge of the stage to meet the vaulted ceiling.

The Hellgate was on the dais, and it was only a gate in the loosest sense of the word. A slickly wet membrane was suspended between two of the columns like a spiderweb, opaque around the edges where it touched the columns, and increasingly transparent as it neared the center, with a narrow opening that looked more like a slit than anything else. A demon slid through and landed with a wet plop on the stone floor. It looked up, quivering in its eagerness. Demons only got that excited over one thing. Food. It scrambled to its feet, claws, whatever, and with two bounds disappeared through one of the five man-height mirrors set up at the base of the other columns. Depending on where the receiving mirrors were on the island, the demon might not have to go far to find what it wanted.

“Oh shit,” Vegard breathed.

I couldn’t have said it better.

As fascinating as incoming demons from Hell were, my attention was riveted to a stone slab to the right side of the Hellgate opening, a slab that bore a disturbing resemblance to an altar. Or more to the point, I was riveted to who was on that slab.

Carnades Silvanus. Chained, gagged, and laid out in a white robe like a demon snack.

Rudra Muralin stood at the head of the altar, and at the sight of me, what was a confident smile twisted into a smirk. He was one happy goblin. My goal-with my dying breath, if necessary-was to ruin his day.

I wanted to yell out “I told you so” to the elf mage, but I looked around me at an uncountable number of yellow, green, and red eyes shining out of the darkness-and every last pair of those eyes were staring unblinking at us.

We were newcomers, prisoners, playthings.

We were food.

I couldn’t see the stairs beneath my feet all that well, but it didn’t really matter since my feet didn’t touch them but once or twice. The two Volghuls who gripped my upper arms decided that I was easier to lift and carry.

We were nearly to the stage before I saw the demon queen. She was tall and slender with opalescent skin that was a near-perfect match for the Hellgate’s membrane. She wore an intricate headpiece set with pale jewels. That was all. The queen of demons was naked. It took me longer to realize this. I was a Benares; I looked at the jewels first. But from the collective intake of breath from behind me, her nudity was the first thing-and probably the only thing-that Phaelan, Vegard, and Piaras had noticed.

She had an unearthly beauty that was spoiled somewhat by her red eyes with vertical black pupils, and the twisting claws on the end of tapered, but otherwise elegant fingers. Aside from that she was flawless, and quite obviously female.

“The Saghred bearer comes to me at last.” Her voice was lush and full, like overripe fruit on the verge of rotting. “You are too late to bring me what I wanted.” She paused, and her lips curled as if from a private joke. “But you are just in time to give me what I require.”

As she spoke, she negligently twirled something between her fingers; it was silver, slender, and curved. I was sure there were cavorting demons carved into it, but I didn’t feel the need to move in for a closer look.

The queen of demons had the Scythe of Nen.

I had a feeling of impending doom.

She smiled fully. Her teeth were more or less human-more if you just considered the number, less if you noticed that every last one was fang sharp.

“Nice knife,” I managed through a suddenly tight throat.

“It is a pretty little thing, isn’t it? I thought you would appreciate it, considering that it was acquired through no effort of your own.”

I didn’t mention that I’d made every effort to get to it first. She knew that as well as I did.

Her voice dropped to a resonant purr. “Come closer, elfling.”

I didn’t move. The Volghuls clutching my arms simply lifted me straight up and carried me. It was hard to look tough and be defiant when your feet didn’t touch the floor. They put me down about five feet in front of their queen and right next to Carnades’s altar. I looked down at the elf mage, sighed, and just shook my head. From the flare of rage in those arctic eyes, I think I got my message across. I’d warned him; he didn’t believe me, and now here he was. I’d imagine his abduction had resulted in some halfhearted searching and a lot of silent cheering.