The Demon's Apprentice (27 page)

As I finished, I winked at Dandry with the eye farthest from Mitchell. Either he didn’t catch it, or he was such a gentle soul that he couldn’t stomach even the threat of torture. I gave him the benefit of the doubt, and assumed he was a gentle soul. Either way, he didn’t look too reassured. Lucas, on the other hand, was trying to hide a smile, which I didn’t get until I looked back to Mitchell and saw the fear-stricken look in his eyes. He was shaking like a leaf, and his mouth was working, but no sound was coming out.

“Aw, crap! He’s trying to talk. Okay, what’s out in the open now? What does your master want?” I kept my tone bored and added some irritated.

“The…the…the
Maxilla!
” he finally stammered. “It’s a sword; the wizards have it! It was under some sort of concealment spell, but it was broken a few days ago. Now everyone wants to find it before war breaks out! That’s all I know!”

“Well,
that
was disappointing. Maybe I should still take one eye, though, you know, just to make a point. Besides, I’ve still got a fifty-fifty chance of getting the right one!” I gave him a chilling smile as I leaned in and he squealed in terror. I put the point under his right eye again.

“No! Please! I don’t know anything else!” He sounded so scared, I almost felt a little pity for him. Almost.

“What did you sell Brad Duncan the other night?” I demanded.

“Who?”

“The jock you were making a deal with at Dante’s.”

“That? That was nothing, just a couple of charms,” he said in disbelief. I pushed the point against his cheek until a bright drop of blood welled up around it. “Just a negator hex, and he asked me to make him a love spell! That’s all!” I felt a growl start deep in my throat, but I managed to choke it off. That made his eyes go wide, and he started to whimper.

“Damn. That’s two pieces of information you’ve given me: one for each eye. You don’t happen to know any other necromancers that you’re not too fond of, do you? No? Well, here’s how it is, then. I’m going to keep your blade, because it’s kinda cool and I like it. You get to keep both eyes, and you never,
ever
come near Dandry again. No harm, no bad luck, not even an unkind word about his mother. If I hear that you, your master, or anyone who even knows your
name
has given him a hard time, you’re going to get your knife back, and I’m going to get the eyes I need. Plus whatever other body parts I want at the time.”

“You can’t dictate what my master will do!” he managed to spit, finally getting back some of his courage.

“I laid a beat down on a Count of Hell; don’t think that I can’t do the same to an ass-lick chancellor like Synrhodi’ir.” That got his attention.

“You’re…you’re…
him!”
necro-boy managed to stammer. He went pale and slumped against the van as his eyes rolled back in his skull and fluttered shut.

Beside me, Lucas stood up from where he’d knelt beside me and shook his head. “Man, I think you literally scared the crap out of him!” he said in disbelief. I raised my eyebrows in surprise. It certainly explained the smell.

“You’re the one who escaped?” Dandry asked. His voice had lost most of its fear, but the look in his eyes was far from friendly.

“You know who I am?” I asked. Dr. Corwin had said that the wizards were looking for a rogue warlock, but I didn’t figure they had a lot of details.

“You’re…just a boy,” Dandry said in disbelief.

“Yeah, just a boy,” I snorted as I pulled the concealment charm over the necromancer’s head and tucked it into my messenger bag. I felt like I needed to wash my hands after being so close to him. “Tell that to the demon.”

“Chance,” Wanda said quietly from the opening between the two stalls, “Is he going to be okay?” She looked a little pale, and I could see the worry on her face. Wanda wasn’t a violent girl, and her Wiccan teaching probably made her very aware of karma and the Law of Return.

“I guess so. He woke up pretty quick, and I didn’t hit him that hard.”

“You’re not what I expected,” Dandry continued. “I mean, for a warlock. The stories make you seem…older.”

“Older, huh? I was kinda hoping I didn’t come off as evil as you’d heard.”

“You did just scare the crap out of a necromancer, dude. Not really seeing the warm and fuzzy in that,” Lucas observed. Wanda shrugged and nodded.

“So, what will you demand from me?” the plump little mage asked me nervously.

“What?” I asked, displaying my keen grasp of the situation.

“You extended your protection. There’s always a price.”

“No price. He was being a dick to you.”

“Are you serious?”

“Of course I’m serious! It’s not like you
asked
me to help you out or anything. He was being an asshole, so I beat him down. I just didn’t want you to have to deal with any crap because of me, that’s all.”

“I don’t understand. Where is the profit in this for you?” Dandry asked, genuinely confused.

“I’m not looking for a profit, Mr. Dandry. I just want to buy some stuff. He was making that kinda hard, you know?” He looked at me like I was speaking gibberish. “It wouldn’t hurt if it made me look good, though. If anyone asks about me, I’d appreciate a little good publicity with the Conclave.”

He nodded enthusiastically, making his round little face jiggle like a bowl of my mom’s pudding. “Of course! You’re very powerful, not a, um…person to be trifled with, obviously!”

“Could we just go with how I’m not so evil? That’s all I’m looking for.”

He nodded again, his head bobbing up and down so fast I thought it might pop off and go bouncing. “Well, yes, I could do that.” He sounded uncertain, and I decided to take it at that and go on. Someone’s watch beeped on the hour, and he looked around. Money was changing hands, and it was time to do business.

“You really don’t do the whole negotiation thing very well,” Lucas commented as I started looking over Dandry’s wares again.

“I used to do it all the time for my old boss,” I said darkly. “I’m trying to get out of that business.” In the end, I walked away with a mortar & pestle, a set of knives, and some essential oils for mixing spells and potions, along with a laundry list of herbs: two bundles apiece of sage and cedar, a jar of bay leaves, and packets of cinquefoil, arnica, and St. John’s wort.

“You know, you’re going to have to deal with some pretty serious karma for what happened back there,” Wanda said, with a worried tone in her voice, as we headed to the next stall.

“I already have a ton of bad karma to deal with, what’s a little more?” I asked. It took me a few steps to realize that she’d stopped in her tracks. I turned to face her, and she caught up to me. “What?” I asked when I saw her confused look.

“People usually dodge that issue,” she said quietly. “They try to justify what they’re doing, or claim that they’re agents of karma or something like that. You just…accept it, like it’s no big deal.”

“Well, I have a problem with karma. It’s not perfect. I didn’t do anything to deserve being Dulka’s bitch for eight years. If you think I’m going to get back violence three times as bad for what I did today, then let me tell you something. I have enough scars that I ought to have a little credit on the books. But if not, then fine, I can handle it. I’m used to it by now. What I
can’t
handle is a system that kicks me around for doing something good for someone, even if I have to get a little bloody to do it, just because someone says violence is always bad.” I stopped as Wanda took a half step back, and felt like an ass when I saw the shocked look on her face.

“I…I never thought about it…I mean, where your situation was concerned…” she stammered for a few seconds.

“Hey, it’s okay,” I reassured her. “Sorry I jumped your ass about it.”

“Still, I gotta wonder,” Lucas mused, “if Chance really
wasn’t
acting as karma for that necromancer guy, Wanda. And if the good he did outweighed the violence.”

“Don’t tell me you’re an agnostic Pagan,” Wanda said, exasperated.

“Nah, I’m just thinking that Chance did pretty much get hosed, karma-wise. And we don’t know what this necromancer dude’s done. He might have gotten off light.”

“Who knows?” Wanda shrugged. “But we’re wasting good shopping time with this. All I know, Chance, is that if you do good things, you get good stuff back.”

“I hope you’re right,” I said to her back as I followed her into the throng. The powers knew I needed something good to happen.

Chapter 17

~ Plan in broad strokes. Everything changes on the battlefield. ~ Unknown.

We pulled into the school parking lot around noon. Shade was already waiting for us when we got to Dr. Corwin’s lab. She looked nervous as we came in. Hot as hell, but nervous. She’d ditched the usual preppy-girl look, but she hadn’t gone all the way to black leather, either. She wore a pair of low-slung black jeans and a pink shirt that had the bottom half ripped off, so that the edge curled up at the bottom to show an expanse of soft skin that ran a few inches below her navel. The word “Bitch” arced over her breasts in cute black letters. She pulled her feet up to rest her white sneakers on the rung of her lab stool and offered us a smile as we came in. I smiled back, partly in greeting, and partly because she was sitting in her usual spot in the room during class, halfway back on the left side from the door. I headed for her side. Lucas and Wanda perched on the table closest to the door, evidently not creatures of habit.

“You doing okay?” I asked, when I got closer.

“Yeah, kinda. Spent the night tossing and turning, wanting to go hunt,” she replied. Her eyes went wide for a moment. I smiled as I sat down beside her. “How about you? Your face looks a lot better than it did last night.”

“I’ve gotten better looking since last night? Damn, that whole beauty sleep thing works,” I joked. She swatted my shoulder, making me wince.

“Sorry!” she said quickly. “I didn’t mean to hit you too hard!”

“No, pretty much everything hurts after yesterday. I got hit a lot.”

“Well, you looked good doing it,” she confided as she leaned closer. She didn’t lean back after she stopped. Instead, she laid her head against my right shoulder and wrapped her arm around my biceps.

“Thanks,” I said, more than a little confused. I looked down at her, and she gave me a guileless smile in return, looking up at me through her eyelashes with soulful green eyes. I tried not to squirm with her so close to me. Yeah, part of me really loved the attention, but I wasn’t used to it, so it also made me pretty uncomfortable. Of course, for the last eight years, the only time anyone had tried to touch me was when they were either beating the crap out of me, or trying to molest me. She rubbed her cheek against my shoulder a couple of times before she settled her head back against me.

The cinnamon scent of her hit my nose about the time Dr. C walked in. Shade straightened as his eyes swept over us, then stiffened as another man followed him in a step behind.

“What the hell is this? The Conclave’s version of Sesame Street?” the man asked in a raspy voice as he looked around the room. Dr. C gave him a dark look.

“Kids, this cheery soul is Sinbad, the alpha of the Springfield pack,” Dr. C said, as he set his briefcase down on his desk, then slid a backpack off his shoulder and set it alongside the briefcase. “Sinbad, this is Lucas Kale and Wanda Romanov, and the rather disreputable young man over there is Chance Fortunato. The young lady with him is Alexis Cooper…Shade, the alpha I told you about.”

Sinbad wore a beat-up brown leather jacket; a black t-shirt; worn, almost-white jeans; and a pair of heavy black boots. He wore his white hair down to his shoulders, and a white Van Dyke beard, cropped close. Three Futhark runes were tattooed on each temple. Somehow, he pulled off a weathered look without coming off as old. Gray eyes bored into me for a moment, then fixed on Shade. He crossed the room in almost total silence and offered Shade a hand. I felt Shade’s hand tighten around my arm, and her own hand stayed in her lap. His eyes narrowed before he lowered his hand.

“I can smell the fear coming off you, girl,” he said softly. “That ain’t right for an alpha. You were right, TJ,” he said over his shoulder. “She needs my help. Girl’s plenty screwed up.”

“Chance is the one fighting,” Shade said. “He’s the one who needs the help.”

“TJ will help your
gothi
get ready to
fight
your alpha. I’m here to give you the help you’ll need if he
wins
,” Sinbad said with a feral gleam in his eyes.

“What’s a
gothi
?” I asked. Sinbad’s attention fell on me almost like a physical thing.

“The Norse priests, the keepers of their lore, and their rune-masters. An alpha’s adviser: the one he trusts most to have his back. My
gothi
is one of my pack, but that ain’t always how it is. It’s an honor that has to be earned, warlock. For now, it’s enough that she trusts you.” He turned back to Shade, and I felt the weight of his focus slide off of me. “You and I have a lot to do, Shade,” he said.

She turned to me, and I gave her a nod. Dr. Corwin didn’t trust people without a good reason. She pulled herself away from me, leaving a cold feeling down my left side, and followed the older alpha out of the room. I could hear Sinbad’s voice fade as they walked down the hall.

“Okay, first things first,” Dr. C said after the door closed. “We need to figure out how to keep you
alive
in a hand-to-hand fight with a werewolf. Then, we have to figure out how to make sure you
win
.”

“You make it sound so easy when you put it like that,” Lucas quipped.

“It’s not easy: just simple. Two different things,” Dr. C told him. “We have to figure that King is going to try to weight the fight as far in his favor as he can from the start…and then, he’s going to cheat.”

“Paranoid much?” Wanda snorted.

“It’s only paranoia if you’re wrong.”

“What is it if you’re right?” Lucas asked, worry in his voice.

“Good planning. Now, what does King know about you?”

“He knows about the TK spell, and he’s seen Hellfire up close and personal, too. I figure he’s gotta know about the augment charm I had if he’s talked to the guys at all since last night.”

“He saw the paintball gun at work, too,” Wanda added.

“And you said that he used sorcery of his own, without a focus. So, he’s probably going to try to play to his own strengths and limit yours. He’s seen you use a focus, so he knows you’re a cookbook mage.”

“What
is
that?” Lucas demanded. “You said that last night.”

“It’s one of the most basic methods of using magick without a circle. It’s someone who has to use tools and trigger words to cast spells. Half of the work is done by the tool, half by the person wielding it. That’s a vast oversimplification, but it’s the basic way it works. The mage provides the power and the intent, and the focus channels the spell. At the next level, the mage’s mind becomes the transmitter and his body becomes the focus, or it creates it through gestures. It takes a lot of discipline and practice to cast a spell with only words and gestures. That’s about as far as most mages get.”

“And King is at least there with the mind control he uses on the pack,” I said, thinking along the lines where Dr. C was pointing me.

“Or he might be using a trigger implanted in the spell itself, like a post-hypnotic command. Gods, I hope that’s the case. It would sure make all this less scary if it was. However, we’ll win this thing by assuming it isn’t.”

“So, safe bet is that King is gonna say no to foci, but yes to magick. That’ll give him a huge advantage.”

“What about the augment charm you mentioned?” Dr. C asked.

“It crapped out after school yesterday, when Brad and the rest of the pack jumped me the first time. Right before someone shot me with a knockout round.”

“Well, I think I already paid for
that
little faux pas in spades. Can you recast it?” He had a point, but I wasn’t going to admit it yet.

I rummaged in my bag and pulled out my notebooks, tossing them on the table. “Yeah, if I have the right ingredients and supplies, I can bake that cake. And a few more.” He flipped through my notes for a few moments, then looked at me with one eyebrow raised. Lucas picked one up and flipped it open.

“You managed to keep all of these from Dulka?” Dr. C asked.

“No, I’ve been writing things down in those since I got away, before I forget anything.”

“You wrote
all
of this down from memory?” Lucas asked as his head popped up from the notebook he was looking through.

I nodded.

“Wow,” Wanda whispered. “So, like, pop quizzes don’t scare you at all, do they?”

“Not really.”

“You have a very good memory,” Dr. C said as he flipped through the notebooks. “Not surprising, given the conditions you had to learn under. So, let’s see here… love spell, love spell, another love spell, curse, hex, curse, curse. Boy, you must have been a real hit at parties.”

“I was. All the other demons were jealous,” I answered as I flipped through the first notebook, looking for the physical augment charm. A moment of dead silence answered, and I looked up to see a trio of shocked faces. Everyone looked like I’d just told a Jewish joke at a bar mitzvah. “What? I can’t joke about it?”

“I’m sorry, Chance, I should never have…” Dr. C started to say, but I held up a hand and cut him off.

“Yes, you should, sir. The less of a deal you make of it, the easier I can forget how bad it sucked. Laughing at it makes it…suck less. So, yeah, I have a lot of fun tricks in my spell book, mostly charms, but they’re all based on foci: amulets, rings, potions. All things King will try to say I can’t use.”

“Yes, he will. I have an idea. First, we have to recast the augment. Lucas, Wanda, I need you two to leave while we do the preparations. Technically, I’m not supposed to even acknowledge the Conclave exists to outsiders. I’m not about to show you the nuts and bolts of magick unless you’re my students, which you aren’t. So, away with you until we’re finished.”

“Party pooper,” Lucas said, as he herded Wanda toward the door. “C’mon, we’ll go hang out at the bookstore until Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde here finish playing mad scientist.”

“When can we come back?” Wanda asked at the door.

“After the game. Chance, give them your jacket,” he said. He tucked a little charm into the jacket pocket. “It suggests the presence of a person. People’s minds will fill in the blanks.”

“You were pretty harsh with them,” I said, as the door closed on their dejected looks.

“I was honest. There’s a difference.” He went back into the store room and began setting up a Bunsen burner and a distillation system. “If I didn’t trust them, I would have tried to sugar-coat it, or give them some kind of bogus errand to run, or a meaningless task to do. They’re both too smart for that, Chance. I may have offended them, but I didn’t lie to them, or insult their intelligence. Remember what I told you about lying. It weakens you, distorts your magick. You can’t afford that, especially not now.” The sound of glass and metal against each other was familiar, and almost comforting.

“I think it was King who killed Mr. Chomsky,” I said a few minutes later. From behind me, silence fell.

“Why?” Dr. C asked a moment later.

“It’s a bunch of things, really. First, the person who killed Mr. Chomsky had claws, and I sensed dark sorcery in the room. King’s a werewolf and a sorcerer, so he fits that bill. Duncan also told King that the pack had never killed anyone before, so that eliminates them.”

“Are you sure he was telling the truth about that?”

“He didn’t have a reason to lie. King was pretty pissed off about them taking so long to get that stupid case anyway, and it would have been easier to just keep his mouth shut.”

“Case?” Dr. C was suddenly at my side. “What did it look like?”

“It was black, with red symbols on it. About four feet long, a foot wide, and about six inches deep, maybe less.”

“Did you see any of the symbols?”

“Not up close. They were across the room, and I was looking at an angle, through a dirty window. It was kinda hard to make out details. So this case…it was from Mr. Chomsky’s house or something?”

Dr. C nodded and gave me a sad look. “It’s the why of Sydney’s death. I knew someone was going to be after it, I just didn’t expect it to be a two-bit werewolf thug. It was missing when I got home last night.”

“What’s in it that’s so damn important?” I asked. A sudden heat washed through my blood as I thought of Mr. Chomsky being killed over some stupid trinket or something.

“It’s an ancient artifact, and it’s very powerful. That’s all I can tell you. Sydney was charged with its care almost thirty years ago, and when he died, that burden passed to me. He reported an attempted break-in last Sunday, and on Tuesday, he found the person who’d set off his wards and called Draeden at the Conclave to report it. It was your girl Shade; the wards left a mark on her aura. He wrote that in his journal, even though he never got a chance to tell Draeden that. I figure King sent Shade in to find it and take it if she could. She set off the wards and left. King came here Tuesday night and killed Sydney to weaken the wards, since a lot of them were tied to him, then sent his boys in afterwards to get the…artifact. Last night was the first night I wasn’t in the house until after dark.”

“Sir, I know you can’t tell me what he was guarding, but I think I know. We ran into a necromancer today who was looking for a sword called the
Maxilla
. He said the spells concealing it had failed a few days ago. The case I saw would be about big enough to hold a sword.”