Beset by Demons (Necromancer Book 5) Read online

  Lots of unheard-of things seemed to be happening, though. “What did she say, exactly?”

  “A bunch of hysterical drivel. But maybe there was a kernel of truth in it, after all. Wait a moment and I’ll get her address. I wrote it down, meant to drive out that way and look around at some point. Demons popping out of thin air. Hah. Hold on, Thornwood.”

  Silas found a pencil and notepad and was ready when Worthington got back on and gave him the address. Worthington hadn’t asked for her phone number, though odds were she’d be in the white pages.

  “And keep me informed, of course.” Worthington hung up.

  Silas said, “Yes, of course, sir,” to the dial tone and pushed down the cradle. Over his shoulder he said, “Joanna Spry next.”

  She answered her phone immediately, sounding alert. When he explained the situation, she was also a lot more inclined to be helpful. “Of course, I can take a first look for one of them. Can’t guarantee I can handle it if it’s anything bigger than a two-syllable demon though.”

  “Play it safe,” Silas agreed. “See if you can locate it, figure out who summoned it and whether it has a current host or is in a sorcerer’s confinement, whatever information you can get for me. If it’s a pipsqueak, you can just take care of it. If not, the more details I have the better.”

  “I’ll do what I can,” Spry said. “Where am I going?”

  The lower-powered sign had been southeast, close to the little town of Campersville. He gave her as much information as he had from the spell map. To make the map cover all of his part of the state, he’d had to go pretty large scale. “I can’t tell if it’s in the town, or just outside it, and I don’t know any sorcerers in Campersville. If you find traces, it might be worth calling Locke and seeing who’s listed in the council records for that area. Someone had to summon it.”

  “I can do that.” She actually sounded cheerful. “It’ll make a change from the local ghost population. I swear, half of this winter’s dead hung around as ghosts to make trouble.”

  “More than usual?” They’d seen that happen before— ghosts failing to cross over— with a ghoul involved. The last thing they needed was to add another of those.

  “It could just be the awful dreary weather this winter and the closing of the local mill. Economy’s bad, more desperation, more violence, folks are angry and depressed. Me too, I admit. A demon’s a change of pace.”

  “Don’t get cocky,” Silas ordered, regretting it a moment later. “Sorry, not telling you how to do your job. But I’ve come up against demons lately that were five and six and seven syllables, one that might’ve been more.”

  “Holy hells, Silas!”

  “Yeah. It’s been an interesting few months. I appreciate you checking this out for me, but play it safe, all right?”

  “I will. I have no desire to be demon fodder. You take care too.”

  “Keep in touch.” He hung up the phone and turned. “And that leaves the other one for us.”

  A soft displacement of air heralded the swoop of Kii the hawk into the kitchen. She landed on the back of a chair and cocked her head at him. “One what?”

  Pip stood on his hind legs to look up at her, tail wagging. “We’re hunting a demon.”

  “Again?” The hawk swiveled her head to check out Darien, Jasper, and then focus back on Silas. “What are you lot, demon magnets?”

  “I don’t think so.” Although isn’t that a disturbing thought? Could my magic combined with Darien’s somehow be attracting them? He needed more information about whether this was a local problem or a wider one. But the demons now on the ground came first. “Either way, we need to find these two and deal with them.”

  “I can help.” Kii preened one long flight feather. “Recognizing power is my talent. Human power, demon power, get me close and I can spot it.”

  Silas whistled softly. He still wasn’t sure he trusted the hawk, who just a couple of weeks ago had been accomplice to Darien’s kidnapping. Pip’s wagging tail wasn’t enough reassurance. The damned pup liked everybody. But when he glanced at Grim, his familiar lowered his head fractionally in a nod.

  “Yes, that could be useful, thank you.”

  Darien cleared the dishes into the sink, ran a little water on them, and turned. “Okay, what do we do?”

  Silas met his eyes, trying to see how Darien felt about all this. So much had happened to that young man in the span of a few months, and it still showed up in restless sleep and nightmares. But Darien’s expression was bright and eager. “We find the demon and send it back to hell. Simple.” I hope.

  “Can I help?” Jasper asked. “If there’s anything I can do? I’ve developed rather a dislike of demons.”

  Silas could imagine how true that was. “Sure.”

  An hour later found them and all three familiars in the Studebaker, driving down winding country roads that were taking them quite close to Fox Bluff. They’d discussed splitting up to search, but neither Jasper nor Darien had experience with detecting demon magic, and Silas didn’t trust the hawk not to lead them astray. They’d stick to doing it slow but safe.

  March had come to rural Illinois with a mix of rain and snow that left bare patches in some of the fields and drifts along fencelines. The thin light of the cloudy day cast shadows in the woods. Silas kept his detection spells active as Darien steered the car gently around a bend.

  Jasper looked up from his paper map in the back seat to say, “Coming up on Coilingbroke, and then in four miles, it’s Fox Bluff.”

  “Are you seeing anything?” Darien asked Silas.

  “Not so far.” Silas sketched a new rune and sent it out seeking. “The spell map gets us about a ten-mile radius, but that’s still a hell of a lot of countryside. And if the demon’s lying dormant, and whatever magic it worked this morning is fading, it’s going to be hard to find.”

  Grim got up from Silas’s lap to put his front feet on the dash and peer out the windshield. “We’re close enough to Fox Bluff; I vote we look up Miss Lori Hutchins. What Worthington calls hysterical nonsense we might call useful information.”

  Silas resketched his demon-magic see find runes around the side window, but no hint of red tinged the passing countryside. “Worth a shot. She’ll probably also know who nearby has the power to summon a demon.”

  “Unless it was her,” Kii pointed out.

  “In which case, she’d hardly have called the council.”

  “Maybe she wanted to lure Worthington into her grasp,” Jasper suggested.

  Darien muttered, “She’s welcome to him.”

  “Too much speculation, too few facts.” Silas pointed to a crossroads coming up. “Jasper, you have her address. Which way at the stop sign?”

  Jasper’s map directions guided them to a small, neat bungalow painted robin’s-egg blue. The bumpy dirt drive ended in a graveled parking area flanked by willow trees, and Darien pulled in next to an ancient Ford pickup. They all waited for a moment but there was no movement from the house. Silas sketched a set of detection runes and sent them winging toward the windows and doors, then up to arc over the roof. Soft amber wards flared as he brushed against them, but nothing pinged his alarms. “Kii?”

  The hawk shrugged her wings. “Not sensing much of anything. Sorcerer or demon, there’s not a lot of power in that house.”

  Darien turned off the car. “What now?” He flashed Silas a grin. “Shall I go chat her up? Old ladies like me.”

  Not going over there on your own, no way, no how. Silas tromped down his rush of protectiveness and said, “We don’t know her age. Young ladies like me.”

  Darien reached across and patted his cheek, dodging Silas’s return swipe. “Just keep telling yourself that, man.”

  Jasper said, “If you don’t think the three of us would overwhelm her, I admit to some curiosity about a demon popping out of thin air.”

  Silas decided, “We’ll all get out, but you two hang back while I knock. Don’t want to frighten her.”

  Grim stretched. “Pip and I will come to the door with you. Many women are fond of cats and dogs, and Pip couldn’t look threatening if he had a six-shooter strapped to his hip.”

  “Thank you!” Pip paused, flapping his ears. “I think?”

  “And I’ll run surveillance.” Kii hopped out of Jasper’s opening door and took off into the sky.

  Silas led his motley team up the walkway and mounted the steps alone. He felt warmth at his elbow and looked down with his Othersight, spotting a fine gold tendril of power from Darien tagging along with him. In response to his inquiring glance, Darien shrugged. “Power you can pull on, if needed.”

  “Ah. Not a bad thought.” He raised a hand to the front door and tapped gently, feeling the amber warding absorb and spark under the touch of his hand. The wards reacted to his unfamiliar power, thickening around the door even as it opened.

  Standing safely behind the subtle wash of amber shielding, Lori Hutchins turned out to be young, tall, and thin, with auburn hair and watchful gray eyes. “Who are you?” She glanced over his shoulder and closed the door to a narrower gap. “All of you?”

  “I’m Pip!” Darien’s familiar bounced, nails clicking on her porch. “And he’s Grim and they’re—”

  “—sorcerers from out Councilrock way,” Silas finished, probing for any hint of balefire or brimstone. The shields blocked him, but weakly. He could sense nothing ominous behind them.

  “Councilrock?”

  “Worthington sent us, based on your report.” Silas resisted the urge to cross his fingers behind his back. It was close enough to true. “To talk to you about the demon.”

  She pursed her lips. “I didn’t get the impression he believed me.”

  “Perhaps not entirely. But your description was intriguing an
d, combined with a recent detection of demon activity in the area, seemed worth checking out. To me.”

  “Ah.” A corner of her mouth quirked up. “So once you had something more than the— what was it?— fantasies of a young woman with too much imagination?”

  “He’s—” An old chauvinist. “—set in his ways. He should’ve investigated on your word alone. But yes, we also had a warning of demon activity in the area this morning.”

  She sobered. “That’s both reassuring and not.”

  “No, it’s not.” He let that flat statement lie between them.

  After a pause, she reached behind her, slid her arms into a thick coat, and stepped into a pair of boots. “You’ll understand if I don’t invite you in.”

  “Yes, of course.” A sorcerer’s home was her castle and her last refuge, and there were three of them.

  She sketched a run of runes his way, and then another set toward Darien and Jasper. Nothing threatening; he picked out see harm and figured she was checking them out. The featherlight spell slid around his shields and fell away, and she nodded. “I’m coming out. Back off the porch.”

  Silas led Pip and Grim down to the walk, and Hutchins stepped through her door, bending the wards around her to enclose her front porch. Looking down at them, she said, “What do you want to know?”

  “Why don’t you start with what you told Worthington, exactly. What happened, and why you called.”

  “He didn’t tell you?” She laughed. “Probably wasn’t paying attention. All right. Early this morning, I was out feeding the chickens in my own yard. About the least magical activity you can imagine. And I felt… something. Like a thunderstorm on the horizon, you know, but magic, not weather. Power gathering, with an undertaste like ash and smoke and olives.”

  “Olives?” Darien asked.

  “Bitter. I hate olives.” She shrugged. “I slammed up my shields, ran for the house, just got inside my wards when it… appeared.”

  “A demon? You’re sure? Where? How? What did it—” Silas flinched as Grim dug a claw into his shin.

  “Let the lady tell us in her own way, O necromancer?” Grim’s ears flattened back, whiskers erect. “Tell us exactly what you saw, mistress.”

  “It was right over there, under the dying elm. A dark hole opened up in the middle of the air, marble sized, then baseball, spreading fast, becoming a doorway.” If she was faking the rise in her breath and the pallor of her cheeks, she deserved an Oscar. “What came through was, well, I’ve never seen a demon before, but the thing seemed to billow out of smoke and flame, shapeless and black and red and yet… a creature. An entity. There were eyes…” Her voice trailed off.

  “What did it do next?” Silas prompted. “Where did it go?”

  “It came toward me, faster than I expected, and pushed against my house wards. Where my power held it back smelled of burning paint, something smoky, chemical, and nasty. Those red eyes looked at me, and I felt it… pressing. Scrabbling against my wards. It said something and I put my hands over my ears. Eventually, it went away, I think. I haven’t left the house.”

  “And you called the council?”

  “Yes. I wanted them to send a necromancer. Hah. Worthington told me I was imagining things.”

  Silas turned and cast a seeking spell toward the elm tree. Find and show and demon-trace wound in a ball of power. The spell slid over the snow and dirt, then moments before reaching the tree it sparked green and bright. Silas felt a pull, almost as if a gate to the Veil was waiting to open. He tossed a few more runes for shape and gate, and they outlined an arched space, then collapsed in on themselves and went dark. No gate there now, but still a lingering thinning and potential in that space.

  “Yes,” Hutchins said. “It was right there.”

  Grim ambled over to where Silas had delineated the gate and paced around the area, staring intently. “No trace of a circle. No taste of human magic I can pick up.”

  “That’s my yard and there was no circle,” Hutchins insisted.

  “There had to be something,” Silas protested. “Demons don’t just… pop between worlds out of thin air, without magic to transport them.”

  “Maybe there was a circle on the demon’s side,” she suggested.

  “We’d better pray not.” The very idea slid ice down Silas’s spine. “If the demons have gained the power to gate at will, instead of waiting to be summoned, we’ll all be in enormous trouble.”

  “Have you done any summonings lately, Miss Hutchins?” Jasper asked. “Built any circles at all in the last few days?”

  “Well, not out there.” But her cheeks showed a red flush.

  “Inside the house? Something?”

  “I did try to summon a familiar, two days ago. Without success.” She shrugged casually, though the twist of her mouth looked disappointed.

  “I should take a look at that circle,” Silas said. Maybe she’d done something wrong, something that somehow formed a hells gate. In her yard, and a day later? That was a heck of a longshot.

  “I erased it afterward, of course. I wouldn’t leave a failed spell running in the middle of my workroom for a whole day. Or even an hour. Every trace was long gone before that demon appeared.”

  Silas pinched the bridge of his nose. “I need you to show me how you constructed that summons—” Silas cut himself off as Kii swooped down out of the sky and landed on a branch of the dead tree.

  “I think I spotted it.” Kii swiveled her head to peer over her shoulder, gesturing with a jerk of her beak. “A power hot-spot with a nasty red tinge to it. Half a mile that way.”

  Silas turned to Hutchins. “Who lives out that way? Anyone with power you know of?”

  “Granny Abels. But she’s more herbwife than sorcerer. She uses charms to beef up her potions a bit, but they have more power of suggestion than real magic in them.”

  Grim said, “A demon would prefer a host with more power. But in a pinch, they’ll take whoever’s handy.”

  Darien flinched hard enough for Silas to see it.

  “Can you show us where she lives?” he asked Hutchins.

  “I’ll give you her address. I’m not leaving these wards till the demon’s taken care of. It was hunting, hungry. It… wanted me.” A shiver shook her body.

  “The address will do,” Silas agreed. They didn’t need another low-powered innocent in the middle of their hunt anyway.

  Chapter 2

  Darien tried not to let his nerves show in his driving. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected when they set out.

  He hadn’t forgotten that demons could take over vulnerable human sorcerers. God, I have not forgotten. The demon poured into Lucinda— He swallowed hard. Maybe the old lady wasn’t even there. Maybe the demon was just nosing around somewhere in cloud form and Silas could snare it and send it back where it belonged with no casualties. And maybe Grim will pat rats on the head and serve them tea.

  “Here.” Silas pointed left. “Pull in at this drive. It’s the next house along.”

  The driveway Darien obediently turned into curved back toward a farmhouse and outbuildings, but he pulled over just off the road and put the Studebaker in park. “Now what?”

  Silas cranked down his window and sketched a couple of runes toward the cedar hedge that screened the next property. The runes drifted across space, then sparked and glowed as they rose over the bushes and into the next yard. Silas gestured and the runes winked out. “It’s there.”

  Jasper asked, “Can you tell how strong it is?”

  “Not from here.” Silas drummed his fingers on his knee.

  “What do we do?” Darien slid his hands around the wheel, tense and restless. He didn’t want to think about this, he wanted to do something, move, fight, whatever.

  “Might be smartest to leave the car here and walk over.” Silas glanced into the back. “Kii, want to go aerial? Scope out next door, give us the layout?”

  “Of course.” The hawk opened her wings and shook them, climbing past Silas’s shoulder and out his open window. She took off, circling high in the blue, then swooped back down and landed on a fencepost a few feet away. “Single house. A small one, old car in the drive, no garage. What power there is feels modest but demon-tinged and doesn’t spill outside the walls. There are wards up. Weak ones.”

  “I can work with that.” Silas flexed his knuckles. “Grim, take Pip and stay out of sight, pick your vantage point.”