Fierce Lessons (Ghosts & Demons Series Book 3) (7 page)

“Like who?”

“Leonardo Da Vinci was such a one. A demon mage.”

“But — ”

“Only the outliers, the very talented, manage to come and stay and contribute and integrate. Picasso was another. When you look to those who are doing something different and groundbreaking, you may be looking at a demon genius. The citizens of Ra are not just bred for battle. Some are bred for greatness. Salvador Dali and his melting clocks. Tesla, feeding the world electricity with lightning bolts through the air.”

“Um. Wow.”

“Wow, indeed. And don’t forget me. I’m only a half-demon, but the demon who sired me was so powerful, I am quite extraordinary. A genius, in fiction and in fact.”

I looked around his humble abode and chose not to comment. Instead, I asked about the demon mage at Stanford.

“Dangerous,” Merlin said. “His powers are so strong he can stay in one place as long as he wishes and humans are none the wiser.”

“Neat trick. Has he got a name?”

“His human name is Alfonso de Spina. His demon name is Chronos. Call him that and he will be forced to reveal himself. He is a hedonist. I envy how much he enjoys his human life. No scars for him or those who follow him.”

“How will I get him to cooperate?”

“He can’t be killed, but Victor will give you a box that will restrain him. Don’t let him speak. That’s the main thing. If he speaks to you, all is lost.”

“Wait. If he’s that powerful, how am I going to do anything? This sounds like something for the Impossible Missions Force. Isn’t Tom Cruise available?”

“No. You’re very droll when you’re nervous, aren’t you?”

“What about Simon Pegg? Not even Simon Pegg?”

“If your mission was easy, it wouldn’t be much of a noble quest, would it?”

“But — ”

“It’s not an adventure if you know exactly what’s going to happen, girl.”

“It’s not an adventure if I know it’s certain death. It’s suicide.”

 
The wizard sighed. “Find a way. It is possible. We all have a vulnerability. It was decided a long time ago: every Magical has limits placed on him or her equal to their gifts.”

“Huh?”

“I’m an immortal, trapped in scars. You are a sword singer, weakened by your human half. Chronos is strong in black magic but he cannot see the future. If he could, you would have been murdered as a baby. Chumele could see the future but she was vulnerable to slings and arrows and martyrdom.”

“Chumele was nice.”

“Too nice. That’s why she’s dead.”

“Seeing the future didn’t seem to help Chumele much.”

“She died to help you.”

“I didn’t ask her to do that.”

“If she hadn’t, you and your friends would all be dead.”

I made a mental note to light a candle for Chumele. I didn’t know what else to do so I resolved to do that.

“Every spell costs us something in energy or curses,” Merlin said. “Even the most adept among the Magicals needs to rest after casting a powerful spell. There is a balance in this. Homeostasis, the moderns call it. If all magic folk were equally powerful in all aspects of the craft, we would have taken over the world and enslaved humans long ago.”

“So…we’re all just Muggles to you? JK Rowling got it right?”

The old wizard chuckled. “We? What do you mean
we
, warrior? You are a demon girl.”

“You’re only half right.”

“You think like a human, but you aren’t one of them anymore. You never really were. Can you think of any time, before the horns, when you felt the demon stir your heart? In the thrill of battle or, perhaps, in seeing an inferior human? Did you not feel something snarl from down in your genes or behind your lizard brain? Don’t act so pure. I’ve been watching you. You defend humans, surely, but you’ve felt the ache in your eye teeth for meat.”

“Maybe a little. I’ve always liked barbecue.” But I was thinking of a rainy night when a guy from New Jersey threatened me. His road rage tempted me to kill him. When my attacker had run off, terrified, I’d enjoyed his fear a little too much. I’d wondered where the casual contempt came from. Now I knew.

“Let’s get back to the demon you want me to kidnap. How am I going to do that exactly?”

“I suppose you’ll have to improvise. I can’t solve it all for you from here, girl. You will have to be clever.”

“Great,” I said. “Be clever. I’ll write that down.”

“Chronos has all kinds of tricks. He is valuable to the Ra. However, your first concern will be his bodyguards. They are human, but he granted them the kind of immortality I crave. They all look young. Their motto is ‘
Frater Perdurabo.
’ It is Latin. It means,
Brother I shall endure to the end.
They don’t scar and each is an expert in combat. They live in eternal youth, presumably until you show up to cut through them, I suppose.
”

“So they can be killed.”

“Oh, yes, of course. They just can’t be killed by natural causes. One of them died a violent death last year, as a matter of fact.”

“How?”

“He was shot by a policeman during a traffic stop. What should have been a charge of driving under the influence went awry when Alphonso’s man drew a knife. A man can live a long time but never mature.”

“How many bodyguards are there?”

“The dead one was replaced. There are six. There must always be six. Six is the mage’s power number. Chronos calls his familiars his Circle of Knives.”

“Suppose we pay them to go away? How much is he paying them now? Victor has deep pockets.”

“Alphonso pays them in eternal youth, Iowa. How much do you suppose that’s worth? Could a billionaire even begin to tempt these men from their mission to protect their master?”

I drank my tea and thought a moment. “I’m not exactly inconspicuous, Merlin. I’ll have to walk among the Normies.”

“You’ll figure a way around that.”

I sat and stared at him, waiting.

“Ah. You want a taste, to be sure I can deliver on my end of the bargain.”

“Can you?”

“A demonstration is in order, true. A simple bit of alchemy.” He disappeared into a narrow galley kitchen. I heard him shove pots and pans aside. A few minutes later, he returned with a powder. He poured it into my tea and stirred with a long silver spoon.

“Drink,” he said.

“How do I know you haven’t already turned traitor and that’s poison? Maybe you’ve already made a deal with the demons. They’ve already tried to kill me.”

Merlin paused so long I didn’t think he was going to answer. “Huh,” he said. “I should have done that. Easier and, quite frankly, it hadn’t occurred to me. That’s good lateral thinking, demon girl, but my answer is that I’m still trying to get out of this life the right way, in the hope that I may earn a better position in the next.”

I drank the potion. I felt woozy. My scalp tingled.

“How does it feel?”

“Like
Head and Shoulders
shampoo.”

Merlin reached up to the ceiling and, with a dramatic flourish, produced a hand mirror, seemingly out of the air.

I stared at my reflection. My horns were gone. Without thinking, I reached up. I could still feel them, thick at the base and just as substantial. I pressed their sharp points with the tips of my index fingers, almost to the point of bleeding. However, I could not see them.

“That little glamor will last for a moment, but I can make your shame stay a secret for the rest of your life, I assure you.”

“The rest of my life? That might not be much of an offer.”

I stared into the mirror. There was the girl from Iowa who had a future after the war was over. A woman without horns growing from her head could get dates, marry and maybe live like the Normies. Well, even with the horns, I could probably get dates, but I wasn’t up for cruising weird fetish websites. How many guys were freaks for girls with devil horns in New York City? Surely no more than a few thousand. It’s hard enough to find a nice guy without adding complications like demon wars, devil horns and the rotten case of PTSD I was sure was in my future.

“Bring Chronos to me,” Merlin said, snapping me back to reality. “After seven days, I will assume you are dead and I will pursue other remedies with the Ra. Ah, and there are your horns again. To tell you the truth, I don’t think they look bad at all. So sleek and shiny.”

“Unless I get into death metal and pretend it’s Halloween every day, these horns are not going to make me happy, Merlin.”

“I am sorry, my dear.”

“I don’t think you are. You could solve my problem right now.”

“A little quid pro quo is always an incentive. Until the battle demons break through to our dimension and start eating humans, ours is still a market economy.”

I turned from him. “Betray us, and I promise you, I’ll find a way to make you sorry.”

“Iowa?”

“Yeah?”

“You have ideals. Stick to them as long as you can. It’s a wonderful luxury to be young. You have not betrayed yourself yet. When you do give yourself over to your demon side, you will find your way back to innocence.”

“I don’t like you.”

“No one does. My scars — ”

“It’s not the scars.”

“But we have an arrangement.”

“I’ll find Chronos and try to bring him back, sure.”

“Good. Then it’s not necessary for you to like me.”

Lesson 165: When an agreement starts with so much disharmony, it’s not going to end any better.

10

“S
ettle down and focus on the mission, Iowa. We don’t want all of Stanford to be flattened like your lovely little hometown.”

I put down the teacup, stepped behind the wizard and kicked the back of his knee hard. As he went down, I got my palm under his chin and yanked his head back to expose his neck.

“What if I took your head?” I asked.

“It would be worse for me,” the old man admitted. “I’d just be a head. My body would live on until you had mercy on me and put head and body back together. You won’t do it so you can stop playing at it.”

“Remind me why I shouldn’t?”

“Despite the horns, you imagine you are on the side of good.”

“I don’t think you believe in good guys and bad guys.”

“Like Time and Death, Good and Bad are relative, too.”

“What do you believe in?”

“Your blind aspirations to dumb heroism.”

I released him.

He got to his feet and brushed dust from his knees. “I fear we have started off with too much unpleasantness.”

“We started off with me drowning. I remember it like it was just a few minutes ago.”

“It seems longer, doesn’t it?”

“Not to me.”

“I did mention Time is relative and — ”

“If Mama were here, she’d say your pancake pile is a short stack.”

“I don’t understand that reference.”

“I mean you’re…what would Rory say? Oh, you’re a fopdoodle. A scullion.”

“Admitted freely and so stipulated,” Merlin said. “I do have a parting gift for you, my dear.” He gestured to the sword buried in the stone. “
Et voila!
”

“Oh, c’mon! Really?”

“Why not? It worked for Arthur. I can make it work for you.”

“You said that was a scam to get a plum job hanging out with Arthur.”

“I admit, there’s a bit of the slippery carney in me, but you should be done with ordinary swords. The Lady of the Lake returned this sword to its stone for you years ago.”

“I haven’t been in the Choir that long.”

“Destiny awaits. Chumele told me you were coming long before you stepped inside the Keep’s gates.”

He pointed to the sword in the stone. “Go ahead. It will give you great advantage in battle. Take it. If you are to be my champion, it will be easy.”

I hesitated.

“Heroes take risks, Iowa. Long before you, Arthur embraced his destiny. Are you still frightened to commit to yours?”

“Choosing champions and monarchs based on who pulls a sword out of a…nah, never mind. I guess it’s no worse than the usual voting process.”

“Do you still dream of living on a farm outside of a tiny village that is now burnt to the ground?”

“Medicament wasn’t that small. The town was going to get a Krispy Kreme store next year.”

“Are you a daring heroine or just a girl with horns playing at saving the world?”

“I’ve done and seen too much now. I haven’t been ‘just’ anything since my boyfriend died and I started seeing ghosts and was shoved off to a mental hospital.”

“I know you’re special. Are you
sure
you know it?”

I stalked over to the stone, and wrapped my hand around the hilt. The sword came out as easily as pulling it from a scabbard. I knew it would. I suspected that Merlin rigged the ballot box for Arthur, too.

“So…” Merlin said. “You are not a scared girl.”

“Sure I’m scared.” I was sure he was grinning under that mask. I wanted to smash it.

“A long time ago,” he said, “that was the finest sword in the world. We called it Excalibur. In Welsh, we called Arthur’s sword,
Caledfwich
. She is ready for a noble quest again. The blessed blade has a new master. You should give her a new name. What will you call her, Iowa? Every sword needs a name.”

“Excelsior
,” I said.
 

“Excellent!” the old man said. “That means — ”

“Ever higher,” I said.

“You know Latin?”

“I know
that
Latin. It’s New York’s state motto.”

“Ha! Very well.”

“The blade is too long to be carried at your waist. You will have to sling it on your back.”

Merlin produced a wand from his vest and, with a theatrical gesture, he tapped the breast pocket of his suit jacket three times. The wand disappeared up his left sleeve as he pulled a scabbard long enough to hold my new sword.

It might have been a cheap illusion any third rate magician on a Carnival cruise could pull off. Or Merlin had defied physics in an astonishing feat that wasn’t an illusion. I couldn’t decide.

He held the scabbard out to me in his left hand. Before I touched it, he shook it three times. On the third shake, his right hand held a short sword, as well.

“The samurai always carried two swords, one for the battlefield and one for close quarters when combat became necessary indoors.”