Conrad Edison and the Anchored World (Overworld Arcanum Book 2) (46 page)

Tyler frowned. "That's true for demons too." He shook his head. "It can't be compelled. A person has to truly give up their soul." He ran a hand through his thick hair.

"What about possession?" I asked.

"Those rules are a little easier to work around." Tyler folded his arms. "People who don't care for their bodies typically open themselves up to possession. Sometimes you can tempt your way in."

I repressed a grimace. During our vacation time, Tyler had refused to talk much about his past. What he'd told me before had been couched in generalities, but I knew he'd been a very bad boy.

"I wonder why only one person in the middle had a white robe," Tyler said. "Maybe he was part of a cult."

"Tell me more about this demonicus," George said.

Tyler opened his mouth to speak when the doors at the rear of the warehouse opened and Carswell and his group entered. The moment they stepped across the threshold, sparks flashed across the back wall like a lit fuse, racing all the way to the back right corner of the room. The floor there began to bubble like tar.

"We tripped a ward!" Carswell shouted.

"That was a demon ward," Tyler said. His eyes widened. "I hope to God your people can fight."

"Weapons free," George called.

Carswell and his people drew silver swords and formed a line just as something crawled from the inky mass on the floor.

I gasped as the creature stepped into the light. With at least a dozen legs coated in shiny black chitin, it stood as tall as a Great Dane. Each leg bristled with spiky fur and terminated in pointy spikes that clinked with every step. The monster unleashed a screech that nearly sent my skin crawling off my body.

"Oh, shit." Tyler backed away. "That's a crawler."

It skittered toward Carswell's team.

"A very descriptive name," I said in a dry tone. "What, precisely, does it do besides crawl and turn my knees to jelly?"

"Scuttles, shrieks, and devours souls."

"Can we squash it?" I asked.

"I have a better suggestion." Tyler cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted, "Run!"

"Hold your ground!" Carswell commanded his people. "Prepare to engage with lancers."

The creature closed to within several yards of the Custodians.

Carswell swung forward his arm. "Fire!"

Silver darts whistled through the air and pinged off the crawler's armor.

"You can't kill that thing with darts and swords," Tyler said. "Its armor is too tough."

Sticks removed two short rods from within his suit and raced toward the monster. He leapt, brandished the rods in each hand, and flicked them. They extended to thick staffs, each one with a curving blade at the end. The crawler shrieked and pounced. Sticks whirled his staffs and somehow knocked the creature aside in mid-air.

The crawler's claws scraped across the concrete like nails on a chalkboard, drawing sparks and making the hairs on my head stand on end. Sticks was on the creature almost immediately, staffs blurring, chitin flying as he hacked away at the tough armor.

"He's not going to win," Tyler said.

"Is there anything we can do?" George asked.

Tyler bit his lip. "Crawlers have a soft spot we might be able to exploit, but it'll be tricky."

"Just tell me what to do," George said.

"No." Tyler shook his head. "Let me try." He stepped toward the battle.

I grabbed his arm. "Are you crazy? You don't even have a weapon."

"If this works, I won't need one." He patted my hand. "I'll be fine."

Before I could argue with him, he easily slipped out of my grasp and raced toward Sticks and the crawler.

Unable to simply sit back and watch, I followed.

George moved swiftly to block my path. "Miss Glass, perhaps you should remain here."

"Out of my way." I glared at him.

"Mr. Rock possesses superhuman reflexes, which may preserve his life." He raised an eyebrow. "What if you get in the way and cause him to hesitate at a critical moment?"

I hadn't thought about that. From the way the crawler leapt back and forth like a giant jumping spider, it was likely I would get pounced if I went anywhere near it. "Fine."

"Don't worry. I have Arcanes on the way to help."

"Those are the witches and wizards?" I asked.

He returned a grim smile. "Something like that."

Tyler yelled instructions to Sticks. "Let me lure it away. I'll let it think it has me. When it goes to feed, it'll open its armor and shoot a tube at me. That's when I need you to strike, okay?"

Sticks batted aside a needle-sharp crawler leg, spun, and sliced through the appendage where he'd weakened the chitin. Sweat trickled down his forehead. He glanced at Tyler and nodded.

Tyler shouted and waved at the crawler. Sensing easier prey, it leapt toward him. Rather than fight it, Tyler backed away slowly, like a cornered animal.

I could barely stand to watch. I felt powerless. Hopeless. The man I loved was about to be devoured by a creature of Hell and I had no way of helping him short of discovering a flamethrower.

Tyler tripped and fell backward. The crawler lunged. I screamed.

He rolled side-to-side as the crawler's barbed feet tried to pin him to the ground. The shape of a human face writhed beneath the creature's armor where a spider's head might be. The face stretched into a smile. The chitin split open and a glistening black tube the size of my arm shot toward Tyler's head.

His hands flashed out and caught the protuberance. A round mouth lined with teeth snapped in his face. Tyler squeezed. The face within the monster shrieked in pain. Its front legs stabbed at Tyler. He narrowly dodged the thrusts.

"Now would be a good time, Sticks!" he shouted. Tyler clenched his teeth and squeezed the tube.

The crawler shuddered and screamed in pain.

Sticks flipped over the monster. His eyes locked onto the tender spot and followed up with a lightning thrust. The blade on his staff plunged deep into the opening. The face beneath the crawler's chitin unleashed a deafening shriek. Sticks braced his feet and drove the staff even deeper into the demon.

"Twist it like a blender," Tyler yelled. "Churn its insides like a frozen margarita!"

Sticks moved the staff back and forth like a rower. The other Custodians came up behind the monster and began hacking at its legs. With a final shudder, the crawler collapsed. Tyler rolled free at the last minute, hopped to his feet, and brushed off his hands.

"Anyone have hand sanitizer?" he asked, his wolfish grin back in place.

Carswell took something from a pouch on his belt and sprayed it into my boyfriend's outstretched hands.

"Thanks, man." Tyler rubbed his hands together.

I launched myself at him and squeezed him in a fierce hug. "You crazy asshole!" I backed away and pounded his chest with my fists. "What were you thinking?"

He gripped my wrists and held me at bay. "Obviously, I was thinking about a nice cold drink with the margarita comment." Tyler pecked a kiss on my nose. "You're kind of cute when you're mad, Em."

I blew out a breath. "You're lucky I don't have superhuman strength, or I'd bend you over my knee this minute." I suddenly remembered we weren't alone and felt heat creeping up my face. Thankfully, most of the others were preoccupied looking at the dead crawler.

Sticks turned around and gave Tyler a nod.

"I agree, Mr. Sticks." George looked at the dead crawler and shook his head. "Mr. Rock is no ordinary demon." He tilted his head slightly. "How did you know about the creature's weakness?"

"One of my former acquaintances told me about it," Tyler replied.

"Another demon?"

"Yeah." Tyler's voice lost its excited edge. "There are some people who summon demons and make them fight. He was unfortunate enough to be one of their favorite summons."

"Demonic gladiator matches?" George looked mildly surprised. "I've never heard of such a thing."

"They're more popular than you might think." Tyler shrugged. "You just have to pray your name never ends up in a demonomicon."

"That brings me back to my original question about the demonicus," George said. "What purpose does it serve?"

"The demonomicon is a directory of all known demon names. I heard about it from my former acquaintances. Each demon name is associated with a pattern." Tyler pointed to the different patterns on the floor. "The smaller patterns are lesser demons." He wrinkled his nose. "If they knew my pattern, it would be about that size."

"I'm sure you have a very large pattern," I mumbled.

George cast me a questioning look, but said nothing.

Tyler flashed me a smile, and I abruptly remembered everyone here except me probably had supernatural hearing. My face went hot, but I kept my head up and pretended not to care.

Tyler returned to the patterns, this time pointing out the large one in the middle. "The bigger and more complex the pattern, the more powerful the demon." He sighed and shook his head. "I'm no expert, but the size and complexity of this pattern means someone summoned a demon of epic proportions." He pointed to the soulless bodies. "And it ate all their souls for breakfast."

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The Martian Chapter 1

It was nearly six years to the day Constable Max Planck had sent his parents into the red wasteland to die and now it looked like his sister would soon be joining them.

"What the fuck, Sarah!" Max leaned heavily against the desk as the strength abandoned his legs. "What did you do?" His last words trailed out weakly, like a dying man's last desperate breath.

Sarah struggled to answer, face contorting with pain, sweat trickling down the fair skin of her face, but the silencer wrapped around her neck gagged her each time she tried to speak. Tears pooled in her eyes, but a hoarse rasp was the meager reward for so much effort.

Administrator Barnes gripped Sarah's bicep tight enough to make her wince. "She has been convicted and sentenced. She exercised her constitutional right to death by expulsion instead of reintegration."

"She's going to feed the father?" Max remembered watching their parents, expelled from the airlock all those years ago but only a memory away.

"Yes, feed the father." Barnes sighed, as if this civvie term was too lowly for a lab coat to repeat.

A shiver of revulsion slithered up Max's throat as he imagined the alternative—Sarah's petite form thrown into the grinder and spread on the farms. A human reduced to fertilizer; a life snuffed and fed to the daughter. "What did she do?"

"That is classified," Barnes replied. He didn't seem the least bit sad about executing one of his own.

"Even Science Division usually extends the courtesy of telling the constable what someone did." Max squared his shoulders and tried to look menacing. Inside, he felt puny and weak. A great weight settled on his shoulders and his heart turned to lead.

"Not possible in this case," Barnes replied. "You will prepare her for the exile ceremony to take place at five today. If anyone tampers with the silencer, they will be subject to prosecution and possible execution as well." He tapped a finger to the round module on the metallic collar around Sarah's throat. "Do your duty, Constable Planck."

Max stepped nose-to-nose with the short, bald man. "I want to talk to Alderman."

The administrator stood his ground, looking up at Max with steely eyes. "Impossible, he's in the middle of very important experiments right now."

Knuckles cracked from Max's clenched fists. "This is my sister's life we're talking about." He fought back the tremble in his voice. "My only flesh and blood."

Barnes pursed his lips and regarded the constable without a trace of empathy on his face. "I will relay your request."

The concession wasn't much, but it was enough until Max figured out what in the hell he could do. "Thank you."

"Hey, Max, I'm back from—" Scarlett Flynn froze in the doorway, eyes darting between Max, Barnes, and Sarah. "What's this?"

Barnes sighed loudly. "The constable can explain it to you."

Max turned to his deputy. "Please wait outside."

"But—"

"Go, please!" Max heard the desperation in his voice, but he couldn't deal with Scarlett right now—couldn't bear the heavy scorn she'd heap on him once she saw Max was on the receiving end of a feeding.

Scarlett bit her lip. Nodded. "Fine, I'll be outside." She turned and shut the door behind her.

Eyes wide with fear, Sarah tried to speak again, but grimaced with pain when the silencer squeezed her vocal cords.

The administrator jerked her arm. "Enough of that." He looked expectantly at Max. "Lock her in the vault."

"The vault?" Max's vision wavered with shock. "We haven't used that in years."

"I must ensure she is kept in solitude until the ceremony this afternoon." Barnes nodded his head toward the desk. "Please proceed, Constable, I don't have all day."

Max sat down at the old wooden desk, the surface scarred and stained by generations of constables before him.
Who was the last person to use the vault?
What the hell did my sister do to deserve it?

Hands trembling, he spun the combination lock, got it wrong the first time, and had to start over. It clicked open the second try, the metal
thunk
echoing and the mildly pleasant odor of old metal drifting out. Inside hung several key tokens. He removed the last one, a gray disc with patterns etched into one side, the grooves forming a unique pattern. Rust tinged the edges.

Biding his time and hoping to make a point, Max pulled out a piece of steel wool and rubbed the red flakes. "I can't get rust in the slot," he explained.

Barnes tapped a foot impatiently. "Very well."

Max caught a series of quick blinks from his sister. At first he thought the flutter of her eyelids meant she was about to pass out, but the urgency in her face said otherwise. She was sending him a code.

Three quick blinks, three long, three quick. Max flashed back to a time long ago. This was something Dad had shown them, something from the old world. Something forbidden.