Sarah Brennan - The Demon's Covenant

Nick left his place leaning against the wall and stalked forward. He didn’t attack anyone, but he put himself in front of Jamie, blocking him from the magicians’ line of sight.

“What was that for?” he asked, very soft.

Alan answered him, his arms folded and his gaze on Gerald.

“It was a demonstration,” he observed. “The spell on Jamie is a protection spell. It means no magical attack can touch him.”

Nick turned and looked at Jamie, face unreadable.

“It’s strong,” he tossed over his shoulder at Gerald. “Where did you get power like that?”

Jamie was staring at Gerald, looking helpless and lost. Gerald gazed steadily back at him. His face was open and almost sweet. He looked like someone you could trust.

Nick’s motives for helping Jamie had been seriously called into question. Jamie thought Mae had betrayed him. And then on this day of all days, someone had come through for him, and it had to be a magician.

“You don’t need to know that,” Gerald answered. “All you need to know is that I have enough power to take care of my own. And I will. Always.” He nodded at Jamie. “Next time I’ll come alone. I hope you will too.”

Jamie nodded once. It was a nervous movement, and might even have been involuntary. He might not have meant it.

He might have, though.

“Ben, Laura,” said Gerald, and they turned with him as he moved to go. He passed Nick by without a glance, as if he couldn’t see him at all.

Then he stopped, his magicians flanking him, at the mouth of the alley.

“When you’re ready to talk to me, Alan,” he called out, “let me know. I can help you.”

5

Getting the Wrong Answers

That’s settled, then,” Alan said once the magicians were gone. “We turn them in to Celeste Drake tomorrow.”

“What will she do to them?” Jamie asked in a small voice.

Alan did not answer him directly, which was answer enough. “I gave him a chance to leave.”

“No, you threatened him!”

“What do you want, then?” Nick demanded abruptly. “You want to be a magician? You want them to stick around in Exeter, maybe end up killing someone you know? Hey, how about your sister?”

Jamie glared at Nick. “Of course not. I just wish that there was some way besides murder or threats, or—I wish there was some kind of box I could check marked ‘none of the above,’ that’s all! You saw what happened when Laura cast that spell. You know Gerald’s trying to protect me.”

“And now he has a hold over you,” Alan said. “You’re grateful to him. You don’t think he wasn’t counting on that?”

Jamie hesitated. “It was a lot of trouble to go to, just so I’d be grateful.”

“Yes,” Alan agreed simply. “A lot of trouble. He must have killed several people to get that kind of power. And he could break it any time.”

“I could break it now,” Nick offered. Jamie turned and stared at him, and the corner of Nick’s mouth turned up slightly. “But I won’t.”

Jamie smiled back, a little hesitantly.

Nick crossed the distance between him and Jamie before Mae could move, and pulled a knife on him.

“Why bother?” he asked Jamie lazily. He touched the skin of Jamie’s throat lightly with the blade. “The spell will only protect you from magic. Gerald’s not protecting you, he’s protecting his recruit. Any other Circle tries to recruit you by magic, they won’t be able to. Anyone needs to kill you …” He tossed the knife up into the air and caught it, playful and casual as a man flipping a coin. “It would be so easy.”

Mae grabbed Nick’s arm and he whirled on her, then caught himself and stood looking down at her with his pulse thudding against her palm and the knife still in his hand.

She lifted her chin. “Oh, put that away.”

Nick put it away. “Just making a point.”

“Yes, I took your point,” Jamie muttered. “Right up against my throat.”

Mae looked away from Nick and walked quickly toward the wall, scrambling over it and trying so hard to make the climb look easy that she skinned her elbow as she did so. She pretended it didn’t sting.

Nick did not try to help Alan over the wall this time around. He stood with his hands clenched into fists in his pockets as they all waited for Alan to get over on his own.

“I wasn’t trying to hurt you,” he told Jamie suddenly.

Mae reached out and touched Nick’s shoulder. Her hand brushed muscle, braced and tense under her palm, for a moment. Then he shied away from her and glared.

She smiled as if this reaction was perfectly normal. “Sometimes when you pull knives on people, they get this impression that you’re going to hurt them, and then they’re completely terrified. Crazy, I know!”

“Okay,” said Nick. He turned to Jamie and popped his left wrist sheath again. “Look.”

Jamie backed up. “Which part of ‘completely terrified’ did you translate as ‘show us your knives, Nick’? Don’t show me your knives, Nick. I have no interest in your knives.”

Nick rolled his eyes. “This is a quillon dagger. That’s a knife with a sword handle. I like it because it has a good grip for stabbing.”

“Why do you say these things?” Jamie inquired piteously. “Is it to make me sad?”

“I didn’t have you cornered,” Nick went on. “You could’ve run. And this dagger doesn’t have an even weight distribution; it’s absolute rubbish for throwing. If I had any intention of hurting you, I’d have used a knife I could throw.”

Jamie blinked. “I will remember those words always. I may try to forget them, but I sense that I won’t be able to.”

“Good,” said Nick. “Like I said, that spell won’t protect you, and you have a habit of getting into trouble. You need to know things.”

There was a long pause, during which Nick eyed Jamie in what seemed to be a critical manner. Jamie eyed Nick in what seemed to be mortal fear.

“Do you want to learn how to use a gun or a knife?” Nick asked abruptly at last.

“Ahaha,” Jamie said. “No?”

Nick raked a cold glance up and down Jamie’s body, as if he was planning to skin him. “Well, you’re too scrawny to be any good with a sword.”

“I prefer to think of myself as slender,” Jamie told him.

Nick gave Jamie a blank look, then said, “Come on. I’ll drive you to my place and teach you how to throw knives.”

“What!” said Jamie. “Why?”

“Because I am a sweet and caring individual who is truly concerned about your welfare,” Nick drawled. “You coming?”

Jamie glanced at him and at Alan, and carefully did not look at Mae. It occurred to her, with a painful little shock in her chest, that Jamie didn’t want to go back home with her.

“Okay.”

Jamie didn’t want to be around her, and Nick hadn’t asked her to come. Mae had a vision of them all just getting into the car and driving away, leaving her by the side of the road. Then she turned and looked into Alan’s eyes.

“Do you want to come and take a walk with me?” he asked. “I know you must have some questions.”

His blue eyes were steady and so dark they looked like deep waters, like you could fall into them for miles.

“I do have a few questions,” said Mae.

“Okay, so here’s my first question,” Mae said as they walked back to the city center. “Who the hell is Celeste Drake?”

“She’s the leader of another magicians’ Circle,” Alan said. “The Aventurine Circle. I don’t really know much about it; her Circle never hassled us much. As magicians’ Circles go, I believe they’re not the worst. Not much interested in power squabbles, and a higher number than in most Circles have real uses for their power. I think Celeste herself is a doctor, and I know one of the Circle has a special interest in using magic for fighting; the time we heard that was the one and only time Nick has ever been inspired to do magical research on his own. There are a couple of historians who use scrying bowls to see the past.”