Diana Rowland - Sins of the Demon

“Oh.” She looked almost forlorn. “Are your beliefs different? Do you object to the symbol of the tree?”

I shook my head. “No, it’s not that. It’s just that it’s usually only me here, and most of the time I figure it’s not worth the trouble or time.” I paused. “My aunt always puts a tree up though, if you want to see one.”

The demon inclined her head. “I would like that.” She still looked disappointed though.

“Or we could get one,” I said, oddly pleased at the thought.

A smile spread across her face, and once again she was the kid who wanted the pet cat. “Could we? I have read about such things, and was hoping to be able to participate in the traditions.”

I grinned. “Yeah, sure. Maybe we can go later today and get one.” And a tree stand, and decorations, and lights. Good thing there was still some room to go before I hit my credit limit.

I gave a slight nod toward the box on the table. “So, what’s that?”

She pushed it toward me. “You may open it.”

The top of the box was closed with a thin strip of masking tape, easily torn. I expected there to be some sort of packing material to go through, but there was only one item in the box—a bulky and rather ugly bracelet.

I took it out and turned it over in my hands. It was a lot lighter than I expected, made of some pinkish-coppery metal, though I was fairly sure it wasn’t copper. It looked old, too—pitted and scarred, as if had been knocked around for a few hundred years. Overall, “ugly” really was the best way to describe it. “It almost looks like an old-style shackle,” I said, tugging it open easily. “Except there’s no place for a chain to attach.” Peering closer, I could see an opening that could possibly be a key hole.

“It needs no chain, and it is a shackle—of a sort. It was quite difficult to acquire.”

I set it down on the table. The thing made me vaguely uncomfortable. “And you’re giving this to me…why?”

“This will offer you an added level of protection above what I can provide.” Eilahn said, eyes steady on me.

“What, is it some sort of arcane artifact?” I asked, switching over to othersight to peer at the thing. To my disappointment it appeared perfectly mundane.

“The opposite,” she replied. “It suppresses the arcane, and it will make it nigh to impossible for you to be summoned as long as you are wearing it.”

I let out a breath. “That’s fantastic!” Then I saw that her expression was guarded. “What’s the catch?”

“It dampens all arcane. Including yours,” she said, tone serious. “You will not be able to summon or use othersight while wearing it, nor will you be able to sense arcane that you are accustomed to sensing. And you cannot wear it for extended periods, lest you become ill from it.”

I swallowed. “Ill how? Like, sick to my stomach, or like cancer?”

“You will feel tired and then generally unpleasant. I believe an appropriate analogy would be the feeling of having influenza. But that would only happen with extended wear. The sensation should disappear as soon as you take it off. Which you would only do when you are within wards,” she added with a warning tilt of her eyebrow.

That wasn’t quite so bad then. As long as I wasn’t wearing a piece of uranium on my wrist that would give me some sort of lymphoma somewhere down the road.

“Put it on,” Eilahn said gently, and I realized I’d been frowning at it for at least a dozen heartbeats.

I glanced up at her. “You said it was a shackle. What did you mean?”

“Artifacts of this type have been used to keep practitioners of the arcane from using their abilities, or to control when they used them”

“In the demon realm?”

“In both worlds,” she stated. “I borrowed this from the storage room of a museum in New Orleans.”

“Borrowed?”

The demon gave a light shrug. “I suspect that none there knew of its true nature, else it would not have been in a storage room with only a padlock for security. I will return it when you no longer have need of it, or I will make appropriate recompense.”

I’d have thought the demon sense of honor wouldn’t have allowed “borrowing” without asking, but apparently there was wiggle room in there according to whether the borrowed item would be missed. Apparently I still had a lot to learn about their honor. Hopefully I wouldn’t need the artifact for very long, and she could return it before anyone missed it. “Why couldn’t you just ask Rhyzkahl to bring one with him the next time I summoned him?”

She shook her head. “Because of its nature, it is not something that can be transferred through a portal without extreme effort.”

I winced. “Oh. Right. Something that mutes the arcane would screw up a portal pretty good, huh.”

“Precisely.” She watched me steadily. “The lock has been disabled. You will be able to remove it whenever you wish.”

I gave an unsteady smile. “I know. I’m just a little weirded out by the idea of putting on what’s essentially a slave cuff.”

She lowered her head, eyes steady on me. “You can wear this cuff here, or you can truly be made a slave in the demon realm after being summoned and bound,” the demon said, voice abruptly hard.

I clenched my jaw, then gave a curt nod. I was being a weenie. Lifting the cuff, I quickly snapped it onto my wrist. I expected to feel something unusual—a tingling, or, well, anything. But the cuff could have been made of plastic for all I felt.

“I don’t feel any different,” I finally said.

She gave a satisfied nod. “It will take a little time for you to feel any effect. But I would not have you wear anything that caused you harm or made it so that you were unable to function.”

I lifted my wrist and peered at the cuff. “It’s seriously ugly though. I guess I can just wear long sleeves and keep it covered.”

The demon traced a sigil on the surface of the table. Even without othersight I should have been able to see it, but I couldn’t see a damn thing, and I found that it was impossible for me to switch into othersight.

“Now I kind of feel like my ears need to pop,” I said. “I mean, not really my ears, but it feels like the same thing.”

She gave a slight nod. “With your arcane senses instead of your physical. I understand.”

“And I can’t be summoned as long as I’m wearing this?”

Her lips curved in a slight smile. “That is correct. It will be impossible for the ritual to ‘lock onto you,’ so to speak.”

It seemed to remain oddly cool against my skin. “Couldn’t I just wait until I feel a summoning beginning and then snap it on?”

“No, in fact that could be quite dangerous,” she stated. At my frown she continued. “The cuff will prevent a summoning from locking onto you. You may have noticed that each summoning attempt has been stronger and more focused than the last. Soon it will be impossible to simply run as a means of escape. If a summoning locates you, and you then put the cuff on, you will still be summoned. But the cuff will alter the portal—”

“And I’d end up in tiny bits,” I said with a wince.

“Correct.” She reached across the table to touch the back of my hand. “You will not have to wear this forever,” she said. “Lord Rhyzkahl is doing his utmost to eliminate the threat.”

I nodded and resisted the urge to do more mopey whining. “Yeah. It’s cool. I can handle this. It’s just a piece of damn jewelry.” Even so, I pulled it off, breathing a sigh of relief as everything seemed to leap back into focus.

“I have something else for you,” she said, dipping into her pack and pulling out a thick envelope.

“Matching earrings?” I said with a deliberately cheeky grin.