Ann Aguirre - Devil's Punch

The demon ordered drinks using a magickal panel on the wall. By tacit consensus, we waited until the server had come and gone. It hit me then. With this illusion, Greydusk had answered the question I had about the caste with red eyes. I looked like one of them. Quickly, I filled the Imaron in on what I’d learned from handling Shannon’s things, including the detail about her red-eyed captors.

“This helps immeasurably,” the demon said, once I finished.

Chance frowned. “Were they manifested Dohan who took Shannon or—”

“Spirits who had been summoned in a blood ritual?” Greydusk completed the question. “Since the Drinkers look human in their natural form, it’s hard to say. It would take a soulstone to transport them, and those take an incredibly long time to manufacture.”

“In a factory ?” Chance asked, aghast.

The demon shook its head. “In a magickal lab, though we have factories for mundane goods. At one point, the Birsael owners tried to enslave the Noit to work in them, but they only broke the machines and ran amok.”

“So they were probably humans, possessed by Dohan?” I guessed, steering us back on track before Chance pursued the idea of that goblin creature working an assembly line. I sympathized; I was intrigued too.

Pondering, I remembered that Greydusk had said Maury was Birsael, of the Bargainer caste. Coupled with this new information about factory ownership, did that mean he came from the merchant class? And perhaps, despite parental objections, he’d run away from home to lead a more glamorous life. Despite myself, I smiled at the irony. Some things were constant, even between disparate species.

“I suspect so. They would have taken her to the nearest natural nexus.”

I nodded. “To draw me here.”

“Precisely so.”

“At least we have a place to start,” Chance put in. “If the Dohan took Shannon, you can check into their holdings, places they’d hide a hostage.”

I flashed him a grateful look, glad that his methodical mind was still ticking over the angles. He’d always been good at that.

“That presumes they still have her,” Greydusk replied.

Toying with my drink, I asked, “Why wouldn’t they?”

“I wonder if when they moved her, it was more along the lines of a trade.”

“Someone else has her now?” Chance asked.

“Perhaps. The lead that I ran down this evening suggests as much. If the Dohan took Shannon, they received a better offer today and handed her off.”

“To whom?” Panic clutched at me with spidery fingers.

Greydusk looked grave. “The Hazo.”

That struck me as a worst-case scenario. Their knight had reason to hate me more than most. Caim was nursing a grudge, and now he had my best friend. Squaring my shoulders, I told myself, You beat him once. You can do it again .

But this is his home ground. I recognized the voice, so smooth and seductive. The demon queen had found a way to get her thoughts outside the mental prison I’d built for her. Free me, so I may raze your enemies. We are one, Binder. The Knights of Sheol have been permitted too much freedom for too long. They grow impetuous and insolent. They need a queen .

“But not me,” I said aloud.

Chance and Greydusk glanced at me, but neither asked what I meant. They both seemed to realize I was talking to the bitch in my head. Chance’s mouth tightened, but the demon acted as if it was natural to converse with long-dead demon queens. Only in Sheol .

Join with me, Binder. Your companions will die if you do not .

“I can protect them,” I protested.

Chance touched my hand lightly, drawing me out of the argument of which he could hear only my half. I’d be lucky as hell if we lasted another day at the rate I was going.

“So the Hazo traded the Dohan for Shannon.” Chance reminded me where we’d been before I wandered off mentally.

The Imaron inclined his head. “Or so my informant led me to believe.”

“Could it be a trap, a play from Caim to draw me out?”

Greydusk shrugged. “Possible but unlikely. The Hazo are not known to be strategists. They prefer to resolve their grievances in direct confrontation.”

I thought about that. “Which means getting his hands on Shannon and putting word on the street is how Caim would proceed if he wants a rematch with me.”

Greydusk nodded. “Exactly.”

“Do we have to worry about him tracking us?” I asked.

The Hazo Knight had tasted my blood back in Peru. I wasn’t sure what that meant in relation to demon magick. For all I knew, he might be able to use that memory of my taste to dispatch a goon squad to our location.

“Does he have samples of your hair, blood, or…other bodily effluvia?”

I shook my head. “Not that I know of. Unless blood, once tasted, stays in the demonic digestive system?”

“Er, no. It would be quite difficult for him to home in on your location. Xibalba teems with magick, which will retard efforts to find you.”

That was good news. The mob who appeared at his house ran us down on regular street gossip. If we laid low and kept moving, they couldn’t track us.

“And Shannon,” Chance said grimly.

“That’s why I didn’t suggest it,” Greydusk said, in agreement. “While the Binder has considerable power, brute force cannot winnow out a minute trace from the swirling morass of magickal energy that makes up the Vortex.”

“You mentioned that in passing before. I saw it…but what the hell is it?” I propped my chin on the table and drank…whatever he’d ordered. It tasted like lemonade with a bit of a kick.

Greydusk put on his lecturing face. “Every demon has some ability to work magick. His position in the caste determines how powerful he is. The amount of magick done inside the city limits contributes to the protective field that prevents monsters from attacking the walls. It also keeps the outcast Xaraz from attempting to return, once they’ve been exiled.”

“It’s like a force field?”

“Rather.”

“How does it work?” Chance asked.

“For every spell cast in Xibalba, the Vortex steals a small portion of the energy to sustain itself. Not enough to affect the outcome of the casting.”

“And split among so many demons, nobody notices the drain,” I guessed.

Chance said, “So it’s kind of like a toll.”

“Near enough. But what protects us also makes it all but impossible to successfully use scrying or seeking spells within the city limits.”

“But my luck still works,” Chance murmured. “Sort of.”

Greydusk pondered for a moment, likely remembering how we’d tracked Shannon. “I’ll wager you get some interference from the Vortex, but since what you do isn’t magick per se, there’s no cost.”

“We need a plan,” I said then.

“Agreed. Caim will be fortified and ready for you.” Greydusk drummed long fingers on the table, thinking.

“A frontal assault against the warrior caste sounds like suicide,” Chance muttered.

“Perhaps we can deal with the Dohan first,” the demon suggested. “And turn them against their allies.”

Sitting forward, I rested my elbows on the table. “Tell me more.”

“The Dohan prize one thing above all else.” When Greydusk paused significantly, I knew I wasn’t going to like where the conversation went. “They rarely get to experience it, however. The number who are permitted to respond to blood rituals are few. It’s only the honored, the chosen.”

Chance tensed. “What are you suggesting?”

“A simple commodity exchange.”

“That’s our blood you’re talking about,” I snapped.