The Reaping: Language of the Liar (26 page)

“I’m really
really
sure we need to,” Dorian replied with a shrug.  “Something’s going on with the demons and these guys are too caught up in the semantics of the Community.”

Briar let out another sharp puff of air, but nodded.  She knew Dorian was right, and she also had to know there wasn’t another way to do this.  She hit the gas harder, paying no mind to the dips and bumps in the road, and within a few minutes, they were sitting in the driveway.

It was getting dark now, almost sunset, and the entire house was quiet.  Briar had her eyes closed, her breath coming in short gasps, and when she looked up, she gave Dorian a sharp nod.  “I think they’re gone.  The place has a ton of protection spells on it, so I might be wrong but…”

“No,” Dorian said as she attempted to see past the spellwork woven around the house, “I think you’re right.”  She did her best to sense the others and someone was inside, someone besides Grant, but it wasn’t Markus or his brother.

Getting out of the car, Dorian closed her door as quietly as she could manage as Briar grabbed the bag, and they crept up to the porch.  Flipping open the entrance pad, Briar scanned her wrist and they waited, holding their breath to see if they would be allowed in.

The machine gave a few clicks, and just as Dorian thought they’d be rejected, the lock on the door slid back and Briar pushed it open.  The foyer, kitchen, and living room were dark.  It was clear no one had been around in a while.  A few dishes sat by the sink, and the faucet was dripping into a half-full measuring cup, but otherwise the place was dead silent.

“We need to take advantage of this,” Briar hissed, nodding to the stairs.

Dorian nodded and followed the Reaper on her tip-toes, trying to make as little noise as possible.  They reached the landing, and Dorian’s eyes immediately focused on Grant’s door.  She could feel the powerful spell.  No demon which meant the spells were working, so she was going to have to draw it out.

Just as she took a step toward the door, a quiet voice sounded from the shadows.  “I should have known.”

Briar and Dorian spun on their heel, and Dorian let out a heavy breath when Adelaide stepped out of dark.  “Oh my God, you almost gave me a heart attack.”

Adelaide’s right eyebrow quirked up, and a smirk played on her lips.  “I could say the same thing about you.  Markus didn’t tell me to expect anyone.  Especially two Reapers with a loaded spell bag.”

Dorian felt her cheeks pink, and she shook her head when Briar went tense.  “You know what we’re doing here, don’t you.”  It wasn’t meant as a question, and she felt her heart stammer in her chest when Adelaide nodded her head up and down just once.  “And you know why?”

Crossing her arms, the young teen leaned against the wall.  “I figured as much.  But I have to agree with Lennox, this entire plan is half-cocked and really stupid.”

“Lennox doesn’t know we’re here,” Briar defended.

Adelaide let out a small laugh.  “Yeah, he does.  You seriously think he’s that dense?  I mean Dorian’s about a subtle as a hot-pink elephant.”

Feeling her face flush again, Dorian crossed her arms in a defensive motion.  “Well he didn’t stop us.”

“No, because he knows as well as I do this is probably the only way you can get the demon to talk.”

Briar’s eyes narrowed and she took a step toward the Seeker.  “So you know what we’re after.”

Adelaide stared at them for a moment, then she let out an exasperated breath.  “I’ve been telling the Praetoriani for years.  Something isn’t sitting right, hasn’t been since… well forever.  Only whatever’s going on, it’s getting worse.  They don’t want to listen to me, of course.  Never mind they infused me with the entire fucking database of knowledge the Community possesses.  Never mind I’m one of the only ones who can see the patterns.  Never mind that’s what they made me for.”

Dorian made a mental note to get to know Adelaide a little better after this.  She wasn’t just a Seeker, and if they had her on their side, they could make some serious progress.

“I
am
on your side,” Adelaide said, answering Dorian’s thoughts.  A wave of cold fear hit the Reaper at the thought that her mind was being read, and Adelaide laughed.  “I don’t do it a lot.  Anyway, you’re running out of time here.  It’s going to take some massive power to pull that demon through the wards then push it back again.  So I suggest you get started.”

Dorian looked over at Briar whose face was unreadable.  After a long pause, Briar handed the bag over to the new Reaper and nodded her head.  “You’ve got this.  And the kid and I will be standing watch.  You need anything at all…”

“And I’ll scream,” Dorian said, half-joking.  When no one laughed, she sighed and turned away, heading for Grant’s door.  Hand on the knob, she took a few breaths, and pushed her way in.

Chapter Thirty

The small lamp in the corner was still on, and Grant’s even breathing on the bed said he was deep in REM.  The room was stale, a faint smell of body odor saying the poor guy hadn’t been let out of the bed for much, and she assumed they were taking care of his bodily needs through bed pans and other means.

It was demeaning, horrifying in fact, and she felt an urge to get the exorcism out of the way.  This was no life for anyone, especially someone who had been tortured enough from the system and demon possession.

Setting the bag on the floor, Dorian knelt down and did her best to retrieve what she needed without waking him up.  She knew it would be easier to draw the demon out if Grant was asleep.  She would have to part the spells on the chains and on the symbols plastered across the walls to allow the demon a path through to Grant’s head, and it would be quicker if his consciousness wasn’t fighting her.

With the low light of the desk lamp, Dorian pulled the spell sheets out of the bag, setting them next to the small silver bowl, and dug in for the powders, oil, and vials of blood.  The entire thing would have made her squeamish, but she was determined to get this done.  As she watched the thick, red liquid dribbling onto the pile of dark ash, she felt her power stirring in her.  It drifted out in an almost lazy stream and pooled into the bowl.  It was a strange sight, one she wasn’t used to yet, and still it felt natural.  Like she had been meant for this life all along.

Using the brush from the bag, Dorian dipped the bristles into the liquid and began to paint the symbols along the floor, in a semi-circle around Grant’s bed.  She trailed the lines up the bed posts, and then along the chains.  She could feel her magic weave into the writing, twisting itself against the current wards there.  When she was done, she dropped the brush back in the bowl and crouched back down in front of her supplies.

Taking a breath, Dorian pulled the paper across the floor and found the one to part the wards.  She stared at the lines as they rearranged themselves, and as her mouth began to move over the symbols, she was smacked with a wave of heat.  The wards were fighting back.  Lennox and Briar’s magic was trying to stop her.  Her tongue stuttered, but she forced herself to go on.

The words flowed as her power overwhelmed the spells in the room.  She heard a faint cracking sound, and far off, she heard laughter.  The deep, angry laughter of the demon they shoved away from the man in the bed.

“…veolach baexihr.”  The last words of the spell drifted from her mouth, and then everything was silent.  The humming of the spells in the room were muted, and the only thing she could hear was the rhythmic breathing of Grant in his slumber.

Sitting back on her heels, she frowned.  She’d done everything as instructed, and yet there was nothing.  No hint of the demon’s presence, no sign he was prepared to take Grant again.  Letting out a breath, Dorian pushed hair back from her eyes and sat up on her knees.  Peering over at the sleeping man, she reached her hand out.  Perhaps he had to be conscious for it to work.  She could feel the spell itself alive with her magic, and she didn’t expect to fail.

Just before her hand made contact with his skin, there was a sudden heat in the room.  Then a roar, deep in the back of her head, and she stumbled back.  The spell bowl fell to the side, spilling thick red across the floor, and the thing in the bed sat up, eyes glowing yellow, mouth twisted into a silent laugh.

“I thought I might be seeing you again.” The voice slithered out of Grant’s throat, an ugly hiss, and Dorian recoiled.

“You know why I called you here?”

Tugging against the chains, the demon grimaced when he realized he couldn’t break free of them.  He pouted his bottom lip as he shifted, turning toward Dorian who was backing away just out of reach.  “I suspect you want to hear more about your lost love.”

Dorian’s eyes widened.  “Grant?”

The demon threw its head back, howling with laughter.  “This pathetic human?  No, my dear.  My lovely, lovely dear.  I’m not talking about this pile of meat and bones.  I’m talking about the other half of your soul.  The one you cast out so cruelly.”

“Nic.”  The name tasted like ash on her tongue, and she sat up, her arms crossed over her chest.  “He’s nothing to me.”

The demon’s smile twisted wider.  “So you say.”  The creature shifted in the bed to get a better look at her.  Its head tilted to the left and as Dorian stared at it, she could see it changing between the demon’s face, and Grant’s.  “Are you here to let me go?”

Dorian’s eyes widened and a startled laugh escaped her lips.  “Of course not.”

Letting out a sigh, the demon straightened.  “So you’re here to question me.  You want to know why I know so much about you?”  It shifted against the chains again, the metal clinking hard against itself.

Moving her position, she remained in a defensive crouch, but sat up more to get a better look at this thing.  She was terrified on a level which defied all reason, that was true, but there was a comfort in the thought that this demon couldn’t get into her head.  She watched it watching her, its eyes narrow as it studied her movements, and she realized it knew just as much about her as she did about it.  Rumors, myth, assumptions.  Nothing more.

“Before my exorcism,” Dorian said, keeping her gaze trained on the demon, “I was able to get a peek into your world.”

“Beyond the doorway?”

“Just a glimpse.”

The demon’s mouth spread into an ugly smile.  “Beautiful isn’t it?  Beautiful and terrible.  How did it make you feel to peer into the infinite?”

Dorian took her time before she answered.  “Terrified.  Awed.”

“And powerful?”

She gulped, afraid to admit the truth, but she had the demon on the hook.  It was engaged with her now, opening up.  “I could feel where my power was coming from.  When I cast Nic out, I was drawing from that well of power in your realm.”

The demon let out a peal of laughter.  “And how did that feel, my dear?  To have such control over such a powerful Prince?  Do you think you can take all of us on now?”

Dorian shook her head.  “You obviously know I’m new at this, and that’s not what I’m after.”

“Obviously.”  The demon sat up a little straighter as it regarded her.  “So what is it you are after?”

“Information.  I happened to overhear a pair of demons talking about a deal they made with one of my kind.  Over a spell.  One that would open up all humans.  Not long after, a friend and I were attacked by another pair of demons right out in the open.  I want to know why.  I want to know who they are, who the human traitor is, and where they’re getting that kind of spell.”

The demon’s eyes flared wide.  “Is that all?”  His face remained impassive, unreadable.  Then, giving her a physical start, the demon threw its head back and laughed.  The sound was loud and piercing, making her ears ring and rattling the glass in the high window.  Dorian found herself scrambling back before regaining her composure as she climbed to her feet.

“
Enough
!”

The demon’s laugh died to a low chuckle, and it shook its head as it shifted forward.  “I wonder if your beloved knows this.”

“What?  About the attack?”

Its grin spread wider.  “About the insubordination.”

Dorian froze, her eyebrows dipping low.  “What are you talking about?”

With a tiny sigh, the demon sat back and crossed its arms.  “My name is Suc’nesh.  I’m sure Nic told you all about me?”  When Dorian shook her head, its eyes flared bright yellow.  “How unkind.”  There was a moment of pause before it shrugged its shoulders.  “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.  He’s constantly calling me a barbarian.  Accusing me of the most heinous crimes against his kind.”

Dorian, who was pacing just outside the spell line, stopped.  “You’re not with him?”

“With Nic?”  The creature laughed again, red tears forming in the corner of its eyes.  “I’m not with him, no.  Although if he had listened to me only once, perhaps this entire mess might have been avoided.”

“You’re the one exterminating his people.”

In a flash, Suc’nesh was pulling forward, the chains giving a hard clink as it leaned forward as hard as it could.  “He is the one killing
us
.  We merely asked for sanctuary and he set nine realms on my people!”  Its voice came out an angry hiss, spittle flying from its lips.  “We were dying and he set them upon us!”  Its roar rattled the room, making the very foundations shake, and Dorian took an involuntary step backward.

Her eyes darted down to the failsafe, a spell bag with a concoction which would throw the demon back from the body long enough for Dorian to break the spell and reset the wards should it become too powerful.  But after a moment, the trembling stopped and she tried to regain her composure, to appear braver than she felt.

Suc’nesh watched her for a moment, then smiled again.  “I don’t mean to scare you.”

“Yes you do,” she countered.  “You all mean to scare me.  Into submission, into doing your bidding.  It’s all you’ve ever done.”

“Not I, my love.  Not I.  I only meant to see you.  When we found this boy, the one who tried to help you, I knew he was the key to finding you.”

Dorian’s tongue darted out and wet her bottom lip.  “Why?”

“To warn you.  There’s dissent in the ranks, demons turning against demons, and there are factions getting ready to stage a coup.”

“So?”  Dorian squared her shoulders, crossing her arms tight over her chest.  “Why the hell should I care?”

“Because as you said, they’re plotting against humans.  It goes further than possession.  Deeper and more dangerous.  There will be hell on earth if they complete this spell.”

“And why should you care?”  Dorian took one step closer, peering at him hard.  “Why would you bother warning me?”

Its head cocked to the side and its grin widened.  “How’s that father of yours?”

Dorian frowned.  “I never knew my—”

“Father Stone, was it?”

Dorian felt a rush of cold hit her face, and she swallowed.  “What of him?”

“Oh, you know.”  Suc’nesh laughed again.  “Yes.  You
know
.”

“Know
what
?  What’s he got to do with this?”

“I shouldn’t stay, I really shouldn’t.  I’m sure you have more spells to do, more humans to protect from the big, bad demons.  If you see Nic again however, please… send him my regards.”

As Suc’nesh’s eyes rolled back in Grant’s head, Dorian leapt forward, grabbing him by the shoulders.  “No!”

There was a power surge, and the face wavered between demon and human for a moment.  Then, in a split second, the eyes flared wide and yellow.  Claws sank into her shoulder as a fanged mouth closed over hers.  Dorian let out a muffled scream as something hot and furious ripped through her body.  Before she could fight back, before she could draw on her magic, everything went black.