“Ms Cary.” The blinking whirring ball of gears appeared from nowhere and addressed Cary without preamble. Though she had worked in the Scriptorium for days now, Cary had not quite grown used to the automata and the way they blinked into existence. At least this time she did not attack it. “Master Alshin would like to have you speak with Ms Dorcas and arrange for the two of you to collect a rare text. Ms Dorcas possesses the details of this task, please find her outside in the dining area. Thank you.”
As far as Cary knew, those automata could literally appear from nowhere, but they always floated away, clanking as they did. She watched this one bump into the closed door to the archive rooms, flash a green light at the door as if scanning it, and then turn the knob to open it. The moment the strange little device vanished from her sight, Cary knew she would not be able to track it down and find it later.
Rather than waste her time with such a fruitless task, Cary finished the transcription job she had been given, sealed the book, and deposited into the complete records chute she typically used. Pneumatic tubs sucked the book off to its final destination as Cary collected her materials and rose to follow the automata.
As large as the Scriptorium was, Cary rarely encountered other people loitering within. The higher she walked, the more likely random encounters became. After Emilia fought off Esme, Cary had become something of a minor celebrity among the demons. It was not that Esme was unpopular, at least not as far as Cary could tell. Instead, she had a reputation for power and skill. It raised Emilia in Cary’s estimation and that mattered far more than the esteem of random demons attached to the Sanctorum.
This time up the winding stairs to the exit, she managed to avoid any other demons or mortal students. Outside, a light rain fell onto the camp, which should have reduced the well-trodden grounds to a swampy disaster of a mess. Instead, the grass and soil remained firm. No one ever seemed to track mud into the tents, no matter where they walked outside.
Cary had never heard of mortal magicians so willing to expend magic for trivial purposes. Perhaps the camp had access to a source of magical power Cary could not sense. Or there were more powerful magicians in the camp than she had observed so far. The latter possibility was a near-certainty as far as Cary was concerned. Joshua knew his magic and had clearly spent a good deal of time training. But he was no Archmage. Among demons he would be little more than a curiosity, perhaps a promising student. Cary doubted, based on the way the camp consumed magic, that he held a major rank among the magicians here.
Stepping into the dining hall, Cary searched for Emilia or her friends. Based on the hour, they might have gathered within for their evening meal. Cary’s hopes were dashed. A good number of mortals gathered within the halls, as well as demon servers, but none of the mortals associated with Emilia or the mortal herself where there.
“Cary?” Spinning at Dorcas’s voice, Cary found the ravishing Temptress — virtually redundant — bedecked in an apron, with her hair tied up atop her head and a pale blue dress on with a long skirt that flared at the bottom. “Oh good, Master Alshin sent for you, right?”
Cary licked her lips and bobbed her head, the words suddenly struck from her throat by the appearance of the Temptress. Had she been asked a month ago how she felt about the 1950’s homemaker aesthete, Cary would have laughed and offered a note of scorn for the style. But with Dorcas standing there radiating innocent sexuality, Cary had trouble keeping her thoughts in order. Blinking as she realized she stared at the Temptress, Cary said, “yes, Alshin. Sent me.”
Either Dorcas was used to the reaction or she didn’t give it a second’s thought. “Good! Let me change out of this apron and we can go! Wait right here.”
Dorcas flitted away without waiting for Cary’s answer. She disappeared into the crowd of demons that streamed into and out of the kitchens. Considering how little skin Dorcas showed off as she departed, Cary was surprised by how much of her attention Dorcas commanded.
She was still staring after Dorcas when someone hit her in the back. As Cary spun on her assailant, a series of glass mugs hit the floor with a bright, tinkling sound. A few onlookers clapped at the fall, but they quickly turned away.
“Watch where you’re fucking going, Hellspawn!” A man wearing a pink shirt with short sleeves and a high collar with a pair of beige slacks motioned to the soiled front of his shirt. “Damnit! Look what you’ve done!” Cary eyed him and remained silent. So far, he had not said anything that required Cary’s reply. “Are you fucking deaf?”
A few of the nearby magicians and students backed away from Cary and the man, as if they knew something Cary did not. Now that she realized her silence tweaked the rude stranger’s nose, Cary just stared him down.
He kicked at the shards of glass on the floor and sneered at her. “Clean this mess up, Hellspawn. And find me a new polo shirt!”
This guy had no idea who Cary was. She was honestly surprised that he even knew she was a demon in the first place. Instead of standing there and waiting for him to attack her or issue a new order, Cary turned away from him to face the kitchen where she expected Dorcas to emerge.
When he put his hand on Cary’s upper arm, her temper flared. Rage seethed out of her pores and should have melted the offensive idiot’s arm. He jerked at her and shouted, “Hey!”
Now the people around the had cleared a wide area around Cary and the stranger. Cary spun on her heel, shifting into her stone form as she did. She remained utterly silent.
The man stared up into her cold eyes and the sight cowed him for a few seconds. But he gathered his courage and stepped into Cary’s personal space. “I said clean this mess up, you fucking demon!”
Cary flexed her arm and jerked it up with near-simultaneous motions. The wind from the passage of her elbow ruffled the rude man’s hair and he swayed as if the breeze had disturbed his balance. Recovering his footing, the man took a step backward and opened his mouth as if to chastise Cary again.
“Is something the matter here?” Dorcas’s sweet voice rose up from behind Cary and it made her smile.
The man turned from Cary to Dorcas and his glare softened a fraction. “This idiot demon spilled my beers.”
Cary opened her mouth to gainsay him, but Dorcas bustled past her and clucked her tongue. “Well, well, that just won’t do! Let’s get you cleared up and arrange for some more beers!”
Dorcas wove magics with her fingers, her back to Cary as she did. Feathers composed of light appeared midair as Dorcas chanted in a language Cary did not recognize. As those feathers alighted upon the shattered glass and spilled beer, the mess disintegrated as the feathers vanished. “There we go! Mess cleared away…” Dorcas snapped and a nearby demon, a winged horror, appeared with a tray of pewter mugs. “And here are some new drinks for you and your little friends.’
She leaned her arm on his shoulder as Dorcas spoke. The stranger nodded at her and grinned, most likely forgetting what had made him forget his ruckus at that point. Or so Cary thought.
“Wait a minute! That other demoness needs to be punished. She caused this whole problem in the first place!” The man focused his attention on Cary and tried to push past Dorcas.
She didn’t budge and the man looked around him as he pressed his body into the Temptress. His eyes lost their focus and he blinked at Dorcas as she said, “I don’t think you really need to shout, do you?”
He shook his head, not caught in the full throes of Dorcas’s power, unable to turn away even if he wanted to. “No, I guess I don’t.”
“You ran into her because you weren’t paying attention, or on purpose, didn’t you?”
The man gave Dorcas a vacant nod. “I was staring at a hot demon’s ass. But I didn’t want anyone to see, so I made a scene.”
“Well that just doesn’t make sense, does it?”
“No, it was foolish of me.”
Dorcas patted him on the head. “Well, you should get back to your little friends. Don’t cause any more trouble, okay?”
The man nodded at her, his eyes refusing to focus as he did.
Once the man cleared the space provided for them by the crowd, Cary moved. “Did you just manipulate him?”
Dorcas grinned and brushed off her question. “Oh, don’t worry about that. Let’s go meet with Master Alshin’s courier, what do you say?”
Cary snapped her jaw shut. After what happened to Esme, Cary had assumed that demons using their powers on mortals was considered some kind of breach. But no one accosted them as Dorcas led the way out of the dining hall with wings on her feet. For her part, Cary stared at Dorcas’s rear. Hidden as it was behind several layers of skirt, Cary still found the sight of it swishing back and forth alluring.
The moment they left the tent, Dorcas fell back against the canvas, fanning herself. Her skin was flushed with blood flow and her her pupils were dilated.
“Are you all right, Dorcas?”
After a moment, Dorcas focused on Cary and her question. “Oh, I will be fine in a few minutes. Restraining my aura is exhausting.”
“You mean you pheromone cloud?”
Dorcas giggled and shook her head. “I sometimes forget that you have a library’s worth of knowledge in your head. Yes, the act of suppressing my pheromones is tiring. Once I have them under wraps, it’s much easier. But reining them in in the first place makes me… fatigued.”
Cary suddenly wanted to know what Dorcas had been about to say more than anything. She bet all of her money and free time that Dorcas cut the truth as thin as a leaf. The same intuitive sense assured Cary that Dorcas was not going to admit it, whatever it was.
People passed by them, entering or leaving the dining tent on their way to their appointed activities. Any thought of lingering to stare at Dorcas fled their minds when Cary turned her baleful glare on them.
A few minutes passed as Dorcas gathered her breath. When she pushed herself off of the tent, Cary was more than ready to leave. At least the strange man who’d accosted her in the dining hall had not returned.
Dorcas grabbed Cary’s hand, which was still in the form of a stone statue, and pulled her out of the camp. Until they stood at the edge of the Sanctum, Cary had not been able to see the archway that indicated the exit to the place. One moment she followed Dorcas over to the road side of the camp, the next they stood on the stone platform beneath the arches to leave.
“You can drive, right?”
Dorcas’s question surprised Cary. “Sure. I mean, I have never formally studied, but I have driven under adverse conditions successfully.” Would mentioning how she’d driven a car through a night-dark forest and into an office building make her case stronger or weaker? Cary was not certain in the moment, so she left the incident unspoken.
“That works for me. Let’s go!” Dorcas pulled her out between the arches and the camp behind them faded into the mists. “We need to walk to the carpark. It’s not far.”
Cary could have pulled her hand out of Dorcas’s. It felt like being unfaithful to Emilia. Perhaps it was. Though Cary’s interest in the Temptress had only grown after the way she managed the near-attack in the dining hall, she was still loyal to Emilia in her heart. The thoughts were foreign to the demoness, as if the memories of Emilia’s life she held onto somehow colored her personality.
“I forgot to thank you for helping me in the dining hall.” Cary tugged on Dorcas’s hand. “Thank you for your help.”
“Don’t mention it. Benjamin Regils is a jerk anyway. Anything I can do to cause him trouble, I will.”
“I did not know his name.”
Dorcas waved back toward the camp. He’s part of the faction who thinks demons should be treated like dirt. You’ve noticed the different groups in the camp?”
“Yeah, mortals, otherworlders, and demons.”
“Exactly.” Dorcas held up her hand. “The mortals think they’re in charge, but the Queen and her entourage are the real power in the camp. That puts the Otherworlders ahead of the mortals. It makes the mortals who know the truth a little snippy.”
“He seemed a lot more than ‘snippy’ to me.”
“Well, after your little mortal master put Esme in her place, it emboldened the other mortals. They’re spoiling for their own fights against a demon.”
“I take it that no one in the camp cares for us?”
Dorcas snorted and shook her head. “That is correct. Demons are only allowed in because of the magic we command. And even then, we either have to be a mortal’s servant, possess a rare and useful power, or we have to be political refugees.”
“That last one seems out of place.”
Dorcas nodded. “It’s the queen’s own law. She offers refuge to any who truly need it and who are willing to abide by her other laws. My sister and I got in due to the refugee clause, though we’re both useful in our own ways.” At the final sentence, Dorcas grimaced as if she didn’t quite believe what she’d said. “Maybe not my twin so much.”
“She’s not useful?”
Glancing around to see if they were being spied on, Dorcas said, “No. She’s terrible at most magics and only uses her natural abilities to curry favor with powerful demons and mortals. If she studied or applied herself, she might be decent, maybe even good.”
“And you, you seem better than good.”
Dorcas’s hand twitched. “You’re just saying that.”
“I am not. The cleaning spell you used, that was Aloycius’s Magical Discernment combined with something else, right?”
A small grin blossomed over Dorcas’s mouth. “Maybe a little. I’m impressed you recognized the basic spell. That’s really rare.”
“Yes, well, as I have said, I studied a good deal of theoretical magic over the years. What stumps me is the actual cleaning effect you used.”
Rolling her shoulders, Dorcas nodded. “I’d be more surprised if you knew that one.”
“Why?”
“Because I developed it myself. As far as I know. I’m the only person in the world who casts it.”
At that admission, Cary froze in her tracks. “You are making fun of me, why?”
Dorcas stammered. “I swear that I am not. I made that spell up a few years ago to eliminate bad odors and expanded it to include messes of all kinds. Until I incorporated the Discernment the spell had a nasty chance of dissolving whatever vessel or surface it was supposed to clean. I guess technically it was trying to dissolve the surfaces.”
“That is amazing! Spell Creation is a terribly rare art. Even I know that much.”
Dorcas’s blush grew as she ducked her head and stared at the gravel road under their feet. “Yes, it’s part of what put Esme and me in so much danger. The sudden mood shift put Cary entirely off balance. “We’re lucky the Sanctum took us in, or we might both be dead.”
“I am sorry it has caused you undo trouble.” Cary grabbed Dorcas’s hand. “Power tends to do that, right?”
Dorcas squeezed Cary’s hand and nodded. “Yeah, it sure does. It’s why I wish I didn’t have it most of the time.”
Dorcas’s answer hung in the void and chilled further conversation between the two, until the trees at the edge of the road retreated to reveal an asphalt parking lot. Among other things, Cary identified the van sitting near the entrance as the one that had picked her and Emilia up and brought them here.
Passing by the van, Dorcas walked over to a short red sports car, with lines similar to the one Cary had smashed through a corporate window in order to save Emilia. “I have driven this sort of automobile before.”
She walked over to the left side of the car and paused. Looking over her shoulder, Dorcas had followed her. “Why does this not fill me with confidence?”
The Temptress flashed a grin at Cary and pointed to the left side of the car. “It’s confusing because Armenians drive on the same side of the road as Americans. But this is Europe, many of the cars are designed to be driven on the left hand side.”
“I… had no idea.” A blush crept up to Cary’s face and stuck there as she walked around to the right side of the car. “This seems less safe.”
“Do not worry. I doubt this car will move fast enough to kill either of us. Not that you should be careless.” Playful tones danced from Dorcas’s lips. “I could drive if you’d prefer.”
“Would you prefer to drive?” Cary raised an eyebrow as Dorcas opened the car doors with her remote key.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
“No, since we’re not really in danger, I would like to see how you fare. Try not to kill anyone else.”
Cary had no reply to Dorcas’s teasing, other than to hop into the vehicle after her. As she fasted her seatbelt, Cary realized that Dorcas had relaxed by a noticeable measure around Cary. She did not know what she had done. But something had calmed the Temptress’s urge to recoil into her own personal space.
The little red sports car roared to life as Cary pressed the activation button. Compared to the timbre of the engine in the first red sports car Cary had driven, this little automobile held a lion in the block. Without meaning to, Cary peeled out of the parking space and missed a large truck by a small enough margin she could not see it with her mirrors. “Hmm.”
“Yes?”
Now Cary’s face all but vibrated with embarrassment. At least she had not stuck anything, especially a stationary vehicle. Caution guided her course through the parking lot, sending the little car lurching forward by inches. “I am not used to the speed this sports car is capable of.”
Dorcas’s lips turned up as she visibly suppressed the smile she had worn there since Cary stepped into the cabin. Once they reached a straight length of road, Cary pressed on the gas and let the sports car tear at the pavement.
Their driving arrangement turned out to be strictly necessary. Though Cary might have been able to eventually understand the paper map Dorcas wielded, night would have fallen and the sun would have risen on a new morning first.
“Our turn is coming up in about two hundred yards.” Dorcas interpreted the map and Cary coordinated her speed to match. Their rear wheels spun over the road, skidding and squealing as Cary took the turn faster than she intended. A few pedestrians stopped to note their passage, but Cary did not come close to slamming into anyone.
They stopped before a squat stone building with a low panel of windows in the front and a raised stone lip. Metal bars protected the glass in an arrangement that might have stopped Cary and her little red sports car. Good thing Samantha’s sorcerer cult did not think to instal such useful security devices on their own building.
“This is our destination.” Dorcas pointed to a parking spot where Cary pulled in and turned off the car.
As she stood up and climbed out of the car, Cary’s seat thrummed in sympathy with the engine. A similar intoxicating lure pulled at her as Cary felt from Emilia and Dorcas. She enjoyed driving that fast little rumbling car, far more than the first one she drove with Joshua. The difference was clear to Cary. That first car lacked the power of the second, and her second trip lacked the urgency of the first.
A sign hanging above the barred windows read “Book Dealer” in Armenian. Not being fluent in the language, Cary could not tell if the phrase indicated a specific kind of book trade or it it was intended to be generic. Dorcas led the way and opened the door for Cary, who smiled in response to the curtesy.
Inside of the bookstore reminded Cary of Mystical Wonders, the store where she had met Emilia. The principle difference lay in the fact that books were this store’s main trade and the Wonders had primarily dealt in New Age curios and books second.
Cary’s nose detected the reek of incense and sweat, but the sweet smell of worn paper and binding glue overwhelmed the non-book odors. If Dorcas had not been here of if they had not had their own mission, Cary might have wandered these shelves for a an hour or more. The Scriptorium smelled lovely, but nothing compared to the atmosphere of old books mixed with new that this store managed to exude in a perfect balance.
A man in a faded plaid shirt with braces holding up his pants stood behind the counter at the back of the store, a cleared aisle gave him a view of the entrance from his perch. He nodded to Dorcas, who passed him a short wave. Cary started forward, obviously this was their contact, when Dorcas grabbed the back of her shirt. “Not that way, this way.”
The old man ignored them further as Dorcas and Cary moved around the wall to the right. Walking by the stacks of books without pulling one off the shelves physically hurt Cary’s neck as she followed Dorcas. With the Temptress charging forward, Cary stopped as her eyes caught on the back of a book of Armenian love poetry. She pulled the book out and found a pair of women in silhouette exchanging a rose on the cover. It spoke to her and Cary clutched the book to her chest.
“What are you doing?” Dorcas favored Cary with a tilted head and a crooked grin. Wrapped as she was in her mission, Dorcas had grown downright bold.
“I want to buy this as a gift for a friend.”
“A friend?”
Cary found herself squirming. From her memories, Emilia adored poetry, though she lacked opportunities during most of her life to properly explore her interest. This dusty book would make an ideal gift. As Cary stared at Dorcas and back at the text in her hands, she realized that she had never procured a gift for anyone in her life. When the notion occurred to her, it came as naturally as recovering from stubbing her toe. And like walking, when she paid attention to the idea, Cary began to fumble. “Maybe this was a bad idea…”
She started to return the book to the shelves, but Dorcas put her hand over Cary’s. “This is for your mortal master?” Pulling the book out of Cary’s slackened grip, she turned it over and examined the cover. Dorcas nodded and handed the book back to Cary. “I believe she will appreciate it. If you need help paying for it, I brought a wallet full of Drams with me.”
The heat from Cary’s face should have lit Dorcas with a red glow. Shaking her head, Cary said, “I have an expense account from the Cabal. I believe I can use it here, yes?”
“Yes, you can.” Dorcas nodded and turned back around. After the brief exchange, Dorcas turned back to Cary several times on the way to their mysterious destination. “We should but it before we meet with our contact. You speak the language, right?”
Cary’s blush deepened. “Yes, but not particularly well.” Her opportunities to speak Armenian had been few and far between. Though her memory helped her record the words, it did not help her with diction, did not help her recognize strange colloquialims or other linguistic quirks. Besides, like most adults, embarrassment made it harder for Cary to speak to people in a foreign tongue.
“Then I can help if you need.” Dorcas shifted direction back toward the center back of the shop. When the proprietor saw them coming, he raised his eyebrows and set the large tome he hunched over to the side.
“What do you want?” The words and tone made Cary feel as though her interruption was not a welcome one.
“I, er, I would like to buy this book.” She slid the book over to the storekeeper and his grimace faded as he turned it over to see the front.
“You know this book?” His face remained screwed into a mask of irritation.
“I do not, but the cover looked good.” Cary felt like a baby trying to speak to a professor with the speed the man used when he addressed her.
“It’s good. You have smart tastes.” At no point did his face change from permanent annoyed expression he wore, but he gave Cary a thumbs up and slammed the fingers of his other hand into his cash register to produce a total.
Cary handed over her credit card the Cabal had provided her. His grimace deepened at the sight of the plastic card, but the old man took out a small machine and took an imprint of Cary’s card and wrote the total on a receipt. She had never seen such an apparatus for recording transactions before, but Dorcas did not raise any alarms about the sale or method of purchase.
He handed the book back to Cary and said in English, “Enjoy, is truly good.”
Cary could not help but grin at the incongruity between the man’s words and his facial expression. She bowed to him and followed Dorcas back through the store to a small service door they had passed earlier. “He knows we use his store for… meetings?”
Dorcas nodded and opened the door. “Yes. The Sanctorum pays him a monthly stipend to act as something like a post office. I think the Armenian government might have a similar arrangement with him, though I do not know that for certain.”
“I see. And the mixture of loyalties is not a problem?”
“No, the Armenian government supports the Sanctorum directly and indirectly. The only requirement they make of us is that we have to help in the national defense.”
From what she had read, many ancient societies and kingdoms had made the local magicians extensions of the government in one way or another. The way Dorcas and Joshua described it, the arrangement between the Sanctorum and the Armenian polity fell along different lines. She did not wish to press the matter at that time, so Cary shut her mouth as she and Cary walked through the halls.
The walls here reminded Cary of Samantha’s corporate base, metal walls and ceilings separated by the occasional door and overhead light as well as the concrete floors made up the primary difference. Of course, this place was not located in a demi-plane.
“What is this place?” Cary’s curiosity overwhelmed her urge to remain silent and sneak through the tunnels.
“This was an old military fortification, I believe one that provided support for the Sanctorum, though you would have to check the ledgers in the Scriptorium to know for certain.”
“We are meeting a courier here?”
Dorcas nodded. “He doesn’t enjoy the sunlight especially. You’ll see.”
The words made Cary’s skin crawl. Trust in anyone came hard for the demoness. As innocent and kind as Dorcas acted, Cary never forgot that she bore the form of the Temptress. For all Cary knew, innocent and pure comprised some part of her temptation. Praying to the infernal gods that it was not so, Cary continued to follow Dorcas. The deeper they walked into the tunnels, the harder Cary gripped her new book.
Never having given anyone a gift before, she struggled to imagine how Emilia might react. The fact Cary was technically forbidden from seeing her servant meant nothing to Cary. She would simply need to contrive a circumstance under which to meet with Emilia.
Dorcas stopped and Cary had to catch herself on the rusted wall lest she collide with the Temptress. “We’re here.” Tracing the curves of an intricate figure on the wall, Dorcas mumbled a chant under her breath. Light followed her finger as a doorway materialized in the steel wall. “Follow me.”
Hair standing on their ends, Cary followed Dorcas through the portal. If this turned out to be a demiplane, she planned to be irritated with Dorcas. Instead of a dimensional transition, Cary discovered nothing more than a slightly better kept section of steel walls. Though rust pocked the walls and ceiling, both surfaces bore the clear evidence of thorough cleansing.
A tall grey stature sat in the middle of the room with an imposing frown on its face. Wings rose over his back, that ended in hooked talons. Fangs jutted from the creature’s frown and it squatted back on its legs.
At once, Cary recognized the “statue” as a gargoyle. She had spent a good deal of her life as a stone creature herself, so she could tell that no hammer or chisel had ever been lain against this creature’s body. Dorcas’s comment about the creature avoiding the surface made sense now too. During the night the gargoyle could safely travel the earth. But a single kiss from the rays of the sun would turn the gargoyle into an actual statue. In his position, Cary would have chosen a nice deep series of tunnels to call her own.
“Barnala, you have something for us?”
The gargoyle turned its head slowly to regard Cary. “You bring a newcomer? Who?”
Dorcas motioned to Cary. “This is the demoness, Cary.”
“Demonesss. Why kind of demonic form does this slip of a woman possess?”
Now Cary found herself in her own element. Rather than let Dorcas speak for her, Cary shifted into stone and stepped between Dorcas and the gargoyle. “I command several forms, Stone One, and unlike you I can walk out into the sun. Cary suppressed the urge to stick her tongue out at Barnala; that was something Emilia might have done.
The old gargoyle rumbled at her from his chest deep within his chest. “I like the cut of your lines, girl. If I were a younger man…”
Cary tittered at that; she could not help herself. “I bet I’m at least a millennium older than you, youngster.”
At her words, the gargoyle’s rumble grew. “I doubt that very much, I was but a stone chip when the Romans laid the first brick into their Vatican. You can’t be older than a thousand.”
Glancing back at Dorcas, Cary said, “when the Semitic tribes were still united under their mountain god, before the oceans claimed Mycenae, I was already thousands of years old. I recall the first human settlements upon the Catal Hyiuk as encroachments upon a domain my parents held for the better part of a thousand years.”
Dorcas gasped and her jaw dropped opened. The gargoyle rotated his head to get a better look at Cary. “You’ve not taken a scratch for all your years. Not that I can see.”
Cary shrugged and shook her stone form away. “That is because I am a Formless One, and old even for my people.”
At her announcement of her nature, Barnala scoffed. “Aliens…” he shook his body as well, shifting from stone to flesh. Only a thin loincloth covered his lower body while the flesh of his belly looked as though the muscles had been painted on by a master. “Never can tell the age of the Alien.”
Cary had nothing further to say. Some otherworld races, especially the Elves and their kin abhorred Aliens like herself. But Barnala did not appear to share their biases. Until that moment, she had not heard that particular appellation thrown about the Sanctorum, even by residents who knew her true nature.
Dorcas glanced between Barnala’s almost nude body and Cary’s challenging stance and rolled her eyes. “If you two are done?” Barnala rumbled and Cary shrugged. “Good, Master Alshin indicated you had found something valuable for us, Barnala?”
The gargoyle puffed his chest out and said, “Yes! I found a scroll that your greedy little librarian will appreciate, or I’m a tourist’s knickknack!” He turned and waddled over to a spot in the corner of his room. Lowering himself to the floor, he blocked Cary’s view of his activities, but the shriek of metal grinding against metal told her that he opened some kind of artifice. “Here!”
When he turned around, Barnala exhibited a long gilded scroll case. As she stared at the surface, Cary’s head began to ache. The runes and characters upon the case writhed and morphed to her gaze, shifting with the same liquid quality her own species possessed. Dorcas’s hand alighted onto her shoulder as Cary took an involuntary step toward the golden case.
“By the Boundary itself, what is that thing?” Cary held her hand up to block the sight of the case from view.
“I believe it is a reliquary, one enchanted by Infernals older even than you, Formless One.” Barnala’s pride was warranted, if his claim was true.
Dorcas strode forward with confidence in every step. “If this is what you claim, Master Alshin will pay handsomely for the find.”
“As agents of the chief archivist, I would be a madman to lie to either of you. It is what I claim, by the Beginning and the End.” Barnala held his hand over his heart as he spoke the oath with his head held high. “I expect the usual payment?”
“Of course, once the master confirms the scroll’s nature.” Dorcas regarded the scroll with obvious disdain, avoiding staring it as much as possible. She deposited the scroll into a silken green sack she pulled from an extra dimensional space. Cary noted that she did not return the sack to the same space after dropping the scroll within.
“Good. Then I bid you both a good day. I have more sleep to engage in.” Barnala swept them both out of his room with his hands, the door opened on its own for them. As Cary stepped through, he added, “and you, little Formless Alien, come visit me again sometime. I would love to compare notes on the Crusades.”
Cary waved at him without committing to his invitation. She did not wish to obligate herself to the gargoyle, especially in light of the fact she did not know when or if she would be permitted to leave the Sanctorum again.
“Did he invite you back?” Dorcas awaited Cary back in the hallway.
“Yes, is it a trap?”
Dorcas tilted her head at Cary and covered her mouth. “No, or I guess, I do not think so. Barnala gets lonely, I think. If you do come back here, you will have to listen to his stories. Unless he has business to conduct, he gets chatty.”
That seemed a small price to pay for knowledge. Besides, Cary had long years of experience in listening, she had not tried her own patience in such matters, not since freeing herself from her former master, Elelele.
Glancing down at the green sack on Dorcas’s side, Cary said, “That scroll disturbed my mind. It made me want to reach out and snatch it from Barnala, why?”
Raising an eyebrow, Dorcas said, “That means you need to work on your mental guards. I’m honestly a little surprised you started after it and planned to ask you about that later.”
“It is enchanted then, I have never seen the like.”
“Even more interesting, our ancient demoness has never seen this little scroll case? Huh!” Cary flexed her neck side to side and Dorcas said, “I am only teasing you. I’m honestly a little surprised at how old you are. You’re older than Masters Alshin and Boris. You might even be older than the Queen herself.”
“I have never met her, though based on the little I have heard, I doubt I am older than her.”
Dorcas shrugged. “I don’t think anyone really knows, but it’s totally possible.”
“Does my age disturb you?” Cary almost grumbled to herself, but the recent encounter with Barnala’s own rumblings made her self-conscious.
“Not disturb, exactly.” As if she caught herself mid-admission, Dorcas bit her lip. In the darkness, she was the near-spitting image of Emilia, down to the way she held her body. Cary coughed into her palm and deliberately focused on anything but the Temptress.
For the rest of their journey out into the bookstore, the two remained silent. Dorcas occasionally shot Cary glances, which she noticed out of the corner of her eye. From this side of the door, Cart noticed a series of elaborate locks that acted to keep the curious out of these tunnels. She did not recall Dorcas doing anything complicated enough to deactivate those locks on the way into these depths. She held her curiosity in check as she watched Dorcas manipulate the locks to open the door.
The lovely aroma of books wrapped itself around Cary as she walked back out of the tunnels, her own book of poetry still clutched in her arms.
“I feel as though we were gone longer than the sun suggests.” Cary shielded her eyes as she stared up into the sky. It hung lower than she expected.
“The tunnels are part of Earth, but the passage of time can be deceptive down there…” She sounded distracted, as if concerned about an entirely different matter than the time. Before Cary could ask her what was wrong, Dorcas said, “do you see our car?”
Cary knew exactly where they had parked. An empty patch of asphalt and paint marked that location. When Cary gingerly walked into the space, she did not bump up against the side of the little red sports car. “It is definitely gone.”
Dorcas gritted her teeth and covered her eyebrows with her hand as she scanned the horizon. “We should go back into the store.”
“Why?” A buzzing feeling covered Cary’s shoulders, as if someone had thrown a hair shirt over them rather suddenly. “Get down!”
The only warning Cary had was a glint of light off of some distant object. Her body shifted into her stone form as she threw herself atop Dorcas. A split-second later, the report of a supersonic rifle round alerted Cary to the fact they had been shot at. A ricochet from the stone wall behind them informed Cary of how near the bullet had passed.
Dorcas froze, apparently in shock as Cary pulled herself off the Temptress and continued to scan the area from a crouch. When a second explosion lit the air, Cary felt the round strike the side of her head and rock it back. If not for her stone form, she would have taken that bullet right between the eyes. As it was, the impact made her neck ache.
Still unmoving, Dorcas lay on the ground as Cary recovered from the bullet strike. After a second’s pause, Cary grabbed Dorcas by the back of her dress and hauled her up under her arm. Though she could not confirm the sniper’s angles, she did not believe he or she could see below her own neck.
The third round made a much louder sound than the first two. Cary stumbled back, almost losing her grip on Dorcas as an explosion blossomed against her forehead. Her world tilted and the flash blinded Cary as the bullet’s sonic boom reached her belatedly. “Dorcas, I need you to move. But do not stand up! Please hurry.”
Blinded as she was, Cary had to rely on feeling the weight of Dorcas’s body shifting to know she had started moving. When Dorcas’s weight changed, Cary felt around for her back and laid her hand over her sacrum. “Don’t stand up higher than this.”
“Was that an explosion?” Dorcas’s voice rose to a panic.
“Yes. But try not to think about it. We need to find cover.” At a time like this, Cary pined for the ancestral powers her kind possessed. Though her stone body protected her from whatever their enemies were shooing, her real powers would have made escaping this dilemma trivial. A little concentration and Cary could have protected Dorcas as well as herself. As it was, Cary had to rely on her mental image of the parking lot and the bookstore’s building to find the entrance and crawl back in.
“What’s going on?” The storekeeper’s tone had shifted to something other than irritation. “Is someone shooting at my store?”
A blast struck the windows as if to answer his question before Cary or Dorcas could respond. Rather than shattering glass, the only signal of a round striking the windows was a single massive thunder crack.
“That is a yes.” Cary’s vision recovered enough to see that the storekeeper held a shotgun in his hands as he walked over to the door. “Do not go out there!”
The shopkeeper’s figure paused before he opened the door. “I am going to shoot those pigs in their pathetic faces!”
“They are at least,” Cary did some quick mental calculations in her head. “Three hundred feet away. If that’s a shotgun, you wouldn’t hurt them even if you could see them.”
“Tch.” The shopkeeper removed his hand from the door as he turned back to Cary and Dorcas. “Then we go out the back. Come.”
Cary’s mind was still addled from taking a high explosive shot to the face. She followed the gruff old back toward the counter before her thoughts coalesced enough to realize why they did not want to leave through the back. “Wait! They also stole our vehicle. This is not a chance attack. Whoever this is would consider the rear a valid escape point.”
“Then what do we do?” Dorcas huddled down below the sales desk, waiting for permission from Cary or the shopkeeper to advance.
Cary growled as more shots rang against the glass. Too many options crossed her mind then; the shots out front could be a diversion and the rear the true assault. The front could be the only angle of attack out for them. Or there could be a tactical squad incoming on their permission at the same time as she crouched there trying to think her way out of their situation.
The shopkeeper made the decision for them. “Fuck this! We leave out the back!” He kicked the inner door open as automatic weapons fire opened up on the front windows. Cary and Dorcas hustled through his offices, hot on the shopkeeper’s trail. Ignoring the random assortment of items on either side of them, Cary pushed Dorcas ahead of her. The shopkeeper opened the rear door with a key from his belt and rolled out through the heavy metal doorway. As Cary stepped through a flash of green overtook her vision.
Already in her stone form, she held her breath and refused to inhale any of the possible toxins in the cloud. It did not matter as the green cloud coalesced around her, forming a hard shell that resisted even her own enhanced strength.
A magical field washed over her, forcing Cary back into her flesh body as a figure wearing a full body suit rushed her and injected her with a hypodermic needle. The fact that she had been correct about the ambush from the rear gave Cary little comfort as darkness stole away her consciousness.