It howled in fury and turned coal-black eyes on her.
“Vacate the host or I’ll shoot again,” she yelled.
The demon stretched both arms to the side, palms out. It began to rattle off a spell in a language that Thomas was certain predated even him.
“Shoot him. Now. And don’t miss this time.” Panic laced James’s every word.
Juliana glanced back at her friend, not liking the tone of his voice. Fear shone in his eyes. She quickly took aim again, sighting the demon through the scope of the rifle. The demon, not the inkmage. She couldn’t see the host, only the creature within, or she’d never be able to do this. A burning heat started up in her belly, like someone had set a hot pan on it. Ignoring it, she squeezed the trigger. The bullet passed straight through its mouth and out the back of its head.
It stood there stunned for a moment and then dropped to its knees before falling forward onto the street. The burning faded. She stood, shifted the rifle in her hand so she had a more comfortable grip on it. “I didn’t miss the first time. I was trying to save the host.”
“That’s very noble of you,” James said, “but if I call you in to help, it’s because something needs killing. Remember that next time please.”
“Juliana.” Thomas’s voice was tight, angry.
She looked at him in surprise, unable to think of anything she’d done recently to earn his ire. He pointed to the street below. The inkmage pushed himself up and staggered to his feet. Terror slammed through her body. The gods help her, the demon was inhabiting a dead host. She’d heard rumors of it being possible amongst the highest tier of demons but she’d never seen it. And she hoped never to see it again. Cold, dead eyes stared up at her and a rasping laugh came from the distorted mouth. Dark, thick blood coursed down the chin. Oh, gods.
“You don’t know it, Hound, but you just did me a favor. See ya,” it said, more gurgle than actual speech. She caught a glimpse of daylight through the open mouth before the demon turned and ran down the street and through an alley faster than an inkmage had any right to move.
Thomas was over the wall and in pursuit before she could even tell him to follow.
“Did I just watch a demon animate a corpse?” James asked.
She looked at him but said nothing. It wasn’t really a question that required an answer anyway. The sound of breaking glass filled the air and she turned to watch the green haze marking the perimeter come down in a million little pieces. James’s tight lips and pale countenance told her that wasn’t supposed to happen either.
It was ten minutes later when Thomas appeared in the street below, the corpse of the inkmage draped over his shoulder. By that time, Jeremiah had joined them. They went down to meet him.
“I found him a few alleys outside of the perimeter. There was no sign of anyone else.” He dropped the inkmage at her feet.
Jeremiah pressed on the radio in his ear. “Fan out. Start looking for anyone acting odd or anything out of place. The new host couldn’t have gotten far.”
The new host could be halfway across the city by now, but she didn’t bother correcting him. She ran a hand down her face and rubbed her nose trying to rid it of the smell of cinder and ashes. The corpse still reeked of demon.
“Can you search for it with your gift?” James asked.
“Demons don’t have signatures, so I could leave my gift on and look for anyone not glowing. In theory,” she said. “Problem is I fried myself yesterday. I’m not sure I could call it up today even if I was stupid enough to try.”
James sighed. “I don’t like this, Juliana. That’s a first-level demon and he’s obviously interested in you for some reason.”
Tell me something I don’t know.
“What was the spell?” she asked to change the subject.
“What?”
“The spell that had you ordering her to blow his head off before he could finish it,” Thomas answered, his voice clipped.
He shifted his weight. “It’s a forbidden spell. It’s not supposed to be used except in times of war and then only with my express permission. To do otherwise is an automatic death sentence.”
“That must be some spell,” Jeremiah said.
James pursed his lips. “You could say that. It incinerates the target from the inside out.”
“Like spontaneous combustion?” Heat flared through her stomach in an echo of the earlier sensation.
James looked at her, a bitter smile on his face. “Something like that. Only this spell takes about six hours to come to completion and there is no counterspell. Hence the reason it’s forbidden.”
A shudder ran through her. There’d be no coming back after slowly burning to death from the inside out. And that was almost her fate, would have been if she hadn’t killed the host. Right now, she’d be lying in the infirmary with her insides melting as she burned to death and they tried to find a way to fix her. Her head felt light and she took a deep breath hoping the air would help. It didn’t.
“While you’re here, I’d like to get your opinion on the book,” James said, giving her a new topic to focus on.
“I think it’s dangerous.”
“That’s not what I meant. I want you to come into the vault with me.”
She studied him until he frowned.
“You’ll be fine, I promise. You deactivated the spell when you shut the book,” he told her.
That book was full of dark magic she had no desire to encounter again. She ran a million excuses through her head, but knew none of them were good enough. She sighed. “All right, let’s get this over with.”
James led Thomas and Juliana down a hallway deep below the Apocryphan. Jeremiah stayed behind to oversee the search for the new host. They came to a door with two large battle mages on either side of it. They nodded in greeting. James stepped past them to a small pad and placed his palm on it. The technology was a paranoid’s wet dream. Not only was it a palm reader, the door wouldn’t unlock unless the power signature fed into it matched the palm print.
The door swung open with a hiss. They all stepped into the dark little room, the first of three chambers. From this point forward the walls, ceiling and floors were all made of three-foot thick steel over reinforced concrete. The rooms really did resemble bank vaults.
Beams of light started at the ceiling and moved slowly to the floor as they scanned the group. All items of a magical nature had to be left in the outer chamber to keep them from interacting with anything in the other rooms. She put her gun and sword on the table before the alarm could beep at her. When they’d convinced the tech running the scanner that they had no contraband on them, he unsealed the next door.
The room was three times the size of the previous one. A large steel table sat in the middle of the floor while several smaller ones lined the walls. There was another door on the wall opposite them, but Juliana had never been through it. James told her there were rows and rows of mini vaults that they locked items up in until they were brought out for examination. There were also several vaults that could not be opened, the items in them so dangerous they’d been sealed away forever.
The book lay open in the middle of the large table. Again, she felt it beckoning her. This time it was more a gentle prodding than an overwhelming, undeniable need. Thomas cleared his throat. She glanced at him and realized the men stood at the table waiting for her to join them. She picked up her feet one step at a time, forcing herself to move forward.
“It’s just a book, Juliana,” Thomas said with a sneer.
A sliver of hurt stabbed through her and she frowned. “Let the damn thing throw you across a room and see if you feel that way.”