The Trouble With Demons

Chapter 9

Getting from Uncle Ryn’s hideout-excuse me, land-based headquarters-to Tam’s nightclub involved going to ground. Literally.

A rats’ warren of tunnels ran under the entire island. There was no way I could show my face on the streets right now. With Carnades running around waving a warrant for my arrest and/or execution, the quicker I got myself underground, the better. I guess it was too much to hope for that the blue demon had caught up with Carnades and eliminated him and most of my problems in one fell swoop.

I’d never liked tunnels before; I didn’t like tunnels now, and that feeling was unlikely to change in the next hour or so that we’d be spending underground.

Hours underground.

That thought made me breathe funny and put a twitch in my left eyelid. I tried telling myself that I’d just obliterated a couple of demons, one of which had been the size of a small house. We’d have lightglobes or torches, so it wouldn’t even be dark.

Most of Mid’s tunnels were natural; they’d been there for eons and weren’t likely to collapse on our heads.

I could tell myself all that, but it wasn’t going to improve how I felt. Nothing good had ever happened to me in a tunnel or cave. Multiple near-death experiences in a cave just a few days ago only further convinced me that Fate was going to finish the job the moment I set foot in the dank dark.

Think about the destination, Raine. Not the journey.

I had to get to Sirens, and when I did, Tam and I were going to talk.

I’d first met Tam at his nightclub in Mermeia. I was on a case to retrieve a client’s ring that her husband was about to gamble away at one of Tam’s high-stakes card tables. I came to Sirens that night as a customer; I conned my way upstairs as a seeker who was going to do her job come hell or high water.

Tam was overseeing the tables himself that night. He knew I hadn’t come to play, and somehow he also knew I was armed. I didn’t want any trouble, but I wasn’t leaving without that ring. Tam behaved like the perfect host, welcomed me to Sirens, and asked how he could be of service. I wanted to tell him he could serve me just fine by getting the hell out of my way. I tried to step around him; he blocked me. I had daggers strapped to my thighs under my gown and I considered using them, but I was in a high-class establishment and told myself that I could resolve this in a civilized manner. I told Tam why I was there, simply and directly.

My client got her ring back; Tam delivered it to her personally. It was a public relations coup and he knew it.

Tam told me later he did it to impress me. He needn’t have bothered. Being a Benares, I’ve always been attracted to rogues. Kind of like a moth to flame. And if Tam and I had really formed an umi’atsu bond, I wasn’t just singed; I was fried.

The entrance to the tunnels was in the shipping office at the back of the warehouse. I guess if you did business with certain people and dealt in certain commodities, a trapdoor in the floor of your office that led to tunnels could come in handy. The shipping office wasn’t large. It was no more than ten paces deep and not much more than that across. It had a desk and a couple of chairs with faded ledgers and maps scattered across the desk. The musty, cloying smell of old paper and mold made the air thick. Though that could be as much from cramming so many people into such a small space as anything else.

Uncle Ryn had assured me that this tunnel, after a couple of turns-and a little over an hour-would put us directly under Mid’s entertainment district. Leave it to a pirate to find the nightclubs, bars, and brothels on his first day in port. Like father, like son. His men knew the way, so I could keep my spells to myself. Yes, I was a seeker and could have easily found my own way to Sirens, but since I didn’t know who or what Carnades had looking for me, the safe thing to do was to keep my magic under wraps.

There would be nine of us going down into those tunnels and under the city to Sirens. It sounded like an unnecessary crowd to me; to Uncle Ryn it was barely adequate security. Phaelan, Vegard, and myself had an escort of six of my uncle’s most levelheaded crewmen. Level heads were good when going into a place where heavily armed and murderous bad guys might run at you out of the dark. I hated it when that happened. My eyelid twitched again and I put my finger on it to make it stop.

“Nervous?” Phaelan asked.

My eyelid fluttered under my finger; I pressed harder. “Guess.”

“Sarcasm won’t help,” he told me.

“It’s all I’ve got.”

“Tell me again why we’re going into a rotting, dark hole in the ground rather than taking our chances on the streets.”

“Carnades.”

Vegard and a crewman moved the desk in the corner of the office, exposing an iron ring attached to a trapdoor in the floor. Vegard opened it, and Phaelan and I gingerly leaned forward and looked down. Way down. It was just your basic nonthreatening, perfectly harmless, yawning black pit.

“Maybe that demon’s still chasing Carnades,” Phaelan ventured, still looking into the hole. “We’re not all that far from Sirens. I’m always up for a good sprint.”

“It’s across town and you know it,” I said. “It’s just dark and damp. There shouldn’t be anything down there, but if there is, we can handle it. There’s nothing down there. Right, Vegard?”

The big Guardian shrugged. “Just the usual. Rats, spiders, salamanders, maybe some larger-than-normal crabs-”

Phaelan stopped looking down the hole and stared at Vegard. “Define ‘larger.’ ”

“Just Guardian rumors,” Vegard assured him. “Ruben was coming off leave and a three-day drunk when he said he saw it, so we’ve never put much stock in that one.”

Phaelan didn’t bat an eye. “You didn’t answer my question.”

The big Guardian sighed. “Supposedly there’s some kind of crablike thing with pinchers the size of your head running around down there-at least in the ‘down there’ that’s closest to the waterfront.”

“Which coincidentally is exactly where we are.” My cousin did not look amused, and Uncle Ryn’s boys had become noticeably less thrilled with our choice of routes.

“Captain, it was dark and Ruben was wasted,” Vegard assured him.

“I’ve been wasted and seen plenty of things that turned out to be real,” muttered one of the elven pirates.

Time to put a stop to this. I slapped Phaelan on the shoulder. “We’ll just refill one of our water skins with melted butter and we’ll be good to go. You like seafood.”

“Yeah, but I don’t like seafood that likes me.”

He did have a point, but I chose to ignore it. I jerked the strap tighter that secured my two new short swords across my back. Uncle Ryn had replaced the ones I’d stuck up the demon’s nose. I pushed the crab out of my mind, prodigious pinchers and all. Of today’s problems, carnivorous crustaceans ranked way down on my list of worries.

Vegard and I made a pair of lightglobes and sent them through the trapdoor and into the tunnel; their pale blue light illuminated walls of packed earth that didn’t look all that stable. Vegard went down first, then the crewmen. I followed with Phaelan.

As I climbed down, the rickety wooden ladder creaked, but held. I looked around. Wooden beams supported a packed-earth tunnel. The beams had seen better days. Some had fallen away altogether leaving no visible means of support.

I shone my lightglobe down the tunnel a few yards. “I thought all the tunnels were natural-and rock.”

“Most of them are,” Vegard replied with a shrug. “Some of them aren’t.”

I had a spell in mind should this particular tunnel pick sometime in the immediate future to collapse. Considering recent events, I thought it prudent to be prepared.

“I should lead,” I told Vegard.

“That wouldn’t be wise, ma’am. I should go first.”

“Then I would have to bring up the rear, because these men are experts with steel. They don’t have enough magic between them to light a candle, let alone torch a demon-or whatever might come running at us. And, if I bring up the rear, you can’t keep an eye on me-and I know you want to do that. So, do you want to cover our backs, or spend half your time looking back at me?”

The Guardian scowled. “You lead.”

I turned to one of Ryn’s men, a young elf named Galen. “I want the most direct way to the entertainment district, no scenic routes.”

“Understood, Miss Benares.” He flashed a nervous grin.

“We know the quickest way to the best bars, including Sirens.” He looked down the dark tunnel and swallowed. “We just didn’t know there was anything down here.”

“Hopefully you won’t find out anything different this time. And if you do hear pinchers clicking, just walk faster.”

“That goes without saying.”

“Good.” I sent my lightglobe ahead of us. “Let’s go. And just tell me where to turn.”

The tunnel was damp, moldy, and had things that slithered and scurried into the dark ahead of our lights. But thankfully, there was no clicking or clacking. However, a series of white lines ran along the walls at various heights. Salt. I knew what that meant. We were close enough to the harbor that a storm or exceptionally high tide would put where we were under water. I’d just add drowning to my worry list under giant crabs.

Time was next to impossible to keep up with underground. I didn’t know how long we’d been down here, but it’d been long enough for me. I was ready to see the sky or the inside of Sirens, anything but tons of rock and packed dirt looming only a couple of inches above my head. Vegard had to walk in a perpetual hunch; I knew he was ready to get out of here.

The tunnel ended abruptly in a small chamber. It didn’t end so much as give us five more choices of tunnels. Though it did give Vegard a chance to stand up straight, which he did gratefully. While he cracked his spine and rolled his neck, I surveyed our options.

“Okay, Galen, where are we now, and which way do we go?”

“We’re under the center of town, near the college campus.”

“And which way?”

“Sirens and the other higher-class establishments are on Rathdowne Street. That would be down the tunnel to our left.”

“Where does it come out?” I asked.

“It forks after a hundred yards or so. One tunnel comes out in a drainage pipe that runs under Rathdowne Street, the other one dead-ends at a door.”

Phaelan and I exchanged hopeful glances.

“The door, what’s it look like?” I asked.

“About this tall,” Galen held his hand to the middle of his chest. “Looks like solid iron.”

“Is there a knob or handle?”

Galen thought for a moment then shook his head. “Nothing. Not even a key hole.”

Last time Phaelan and I had been down here, we’d left Sirens by a door that had a handle on one side, but not the other. It hadn’t been a problem for us; we needed to get to the elven embassy, not back into Sirens. Tam didn’t need a handle, knob, or key to open his basement door; he’d use magic. I was sure he kept it locked and warded. Tam had arranged it so that his wards in his nightclub in Mermeia always let me in. I’d find out soon enough if these wards liked me, too. Get there first, Raine. One problem at a time.

I smiled. “Things are going right. That’s the place. Let’s-”

Our lightglobes died, leaving us in the pitch dark.

Crap. Me and my big mouth.

“No one move,” Vegard ordered, keeping his voice to the barest minimum to be heard.

I felt him try to conjure another lightglobe. Not one flicker.

I tried the same. Nothing.

“Galen, do you have a torch?” Phaelan kept his voice calm.

“Yes, Captain. We all do.” He sounded scared to death.

“Get them lit. Now.”

I heard flints striking. Not one spark.

Something was down here with us and getting closer, moving at a steady pace, as if it had all the time in the world. It negated magic, smothered fire, and sure as hell wasn’t a crab. Then the bottom dropped out of the temperature, and I knew what was down here with us. It did have all the time in the world.

Death was eternal-and so were its Reapers.

I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face let alone the frost from my breath, but I could feel it. I clenched my jaw to keep my teeth from chattering, and the long muscles of my back convulsed with cold, the violence of it sending a shuddering spike of pain through my entire body.

Death sent Reapers to collect the dead and the dying. I’d never seen a Reaper, but then I’d never been dying. Battlefields supposedly swarmed with them.

It flowed over us, and around us-but not through us. We were the living.

A Reaper sought the dead.

I swallowed. “Vegard?”

“I know.” His voice was the barest whisper.

“Where?”

“All around us.”

Not the answer I wanted. One of the elves shifted, ready to run, his terror a tangible thing in the dark. Another elf’s teeth chattered with cold, fear, or both.

“Don’t run.” Vegard’s voice was low and commanding.

“Don’t even move. It will pass us by. It hunts not for us.” His words were oddly formal and awed. As a Guardian, Vegard would have done more than his share of time on battlefields. No doubt he’d seen Reapers in action.

It touched me. My breath caught in my throat, my heart faltered. The soothing and eternal cold that flowed over me was death in its purest form. It was the complete absence of life, that which drew the souls of the wandering dead into itself.

Like the souls in the Saghred.

Please, no.

I was the reason the Reaper had come.

Thousands of disembodied souls, not truly alive, not entirely dead. With the Saghred’s containments gone, those souls had become shining beacons, irresistible lures. The Reaper’s coils wrapped themselves around me, soft and soothing, welcoming and entreating. Seeking the source of those thousands, the wellspring from which it could draw them.

I was that wellspring. I was the bond servant. Souls could pass through me to the Saghred, so souls could pass out of me into the Reaper-and my own soul would be taken with them.

I was the vessel that Death had sent one of his own to empty. The Reaper wasn’t evil, it simply was. And it had a job to do, and that job was me.

Vegard realized the danger. I heard him move, felt his fear for me.

“Stay back,” I said quickly, my voice thin.

The Saghred knew what to do, and I did it without hesitation. It didn’t want to give up its souls-and I wasn’t giving up mine. I wrapped my arms tightly around my ribs and closed in upon myself, drawing every shred of my will, my essence, vibrant and burning with life, to encase myself in living armor. Life so strong that Death itself couldn’t penetrate it.

The coils of soul-numbing cold hesitated, then renewed their efforts. Insistent, probing, looking of a weakness.

And finding none.

My defiance wasn’t entirely my own. The Saghred’s power helped me block every touch, every seductive entreaty. A Reaper could quell magic, but right now the Saghred wasn’t magic. It was life. Imprisoned and tormented souls, but still alive. The stone had always existed beyond Death’s clutches, and a flash of insight told me that this was not Death’s first attempt to claim those it considered its own by right, a right that had been repeatedly denied.

The Saghred had shaken off its bonds this morning, and now Death had sent a Reaper to try to collect. Again.

“No!”

I screamed, terrified and defiant-and in smothered silence. My silent scream tore the coils that were weaving their way around me like a shroud. Death had been denied before, and it was not going to win now. My scream turned into a snarl as I held on to my life and clutched my soul; that single, screamed word channeling my rage into a white-hot fury. The Saghred had torn me from my home and turned my family and friends into targets for madmen. Mages and kings wanted my power and my freedom.

Now Death wanted my life.

“No!”

The coils loosened, the pressure became less.

“No.”

I said it quietly into the darkness, then repeated it with confidence.

The cold receded. The Reaper was gone.

It would come back.

I took one breath, then another, drew warm air into my lungs. Air that smelled of earth, and water, and life. My life, Phaelan’s and Vegard’s, and the men with us.

We were alive.

Vegard’s lightglobe flickered to life. Phaelan lit a torch.

“Is it gone?” Galen whispered.

“For now,” Vegard said, his eyes on mine.

Death was eternal; it would always be back. Vegard and I knew what had almost happened; Phaelan and his father’s men didn’t need to.

“What the hell was that?” Phaelan directed his question at me. I wasn’t going to answer him. Not now. Maybe not ever.

My throat was bone-dry. I reached for the water skin at my belt; Vegard passed me his flask.

“You take what you need, ma’am.” His voice was quiet. His eyes awed.

I did.

I swallowed and the whiskey burned its way down. “Galen, get us to Sirens.”