Demon Magic and a Martini: The Guild Codex: Spellbound / Four Page 4

  “I don’t. I tried cooking for a few months, then I got banned.”

  “Banned?”

  “Hmm.” His eyes brightened with rueful humor. “I never learned to cook when I was younger, so I’m awful at it. Kai and Aaron tried to teach me, but …” He propped his chin on his hand. “When I’m alone in the kitchen, I don’t knock things over because I remember where I put them. But with someone else, they move things around and I don’t know where everything is anymore, and …”

  “And you knock things over,” I guessed, an easy conclusion to reach.

  “Mm-hmm. After a tragic incident involving a plate of barbequed steaks, Aaron jokingly banned me from the kitchen, but I decided I wasn’t meant to be a great chef and took the ban literally. It was for the best,” he finished somberly.

  “You just don’t like cooking, do you?”

  “No, not really.” He grinned. “You’re a great cook. Who taught you?”

  “I’m mostly self-taught, but I learned the basics from Justin, who learned from my mom. She made the best lasagna I’ve ever tasted.” I scrunched my face. “Though I haven’t had it since I was a kid, so maybe it’s just really good in my memory.”

  “Sometimes it’s better,” he murmured, “not tarnishing those really good memories with adult sensibilities.”

  “Yeah, I think so. What about you? What’s your favorite childhood meal?”

  “Me?” His eyes went distant with thought, and I held my breath, expecting him to evade the question or answer with a joke. “I would say my mother’s moqueca.”

  “Moqueca? What’s that?”

  “It’s a kind of fish stew eaten with rice and farofa. When she took the lid off the pot and all the steam escaped—the aroma.” He sighed wistfully. “Definitely my favorite.”

  I couldn’t help grinning at his half-longing, half-starving expression. “I’ve never heard of it before, but it sounds delicious.”

  “It’s a Brazilian dish. I don’t know anyone here who makes it.”

  I surreptitiously reexamined his beautiful bronze skin. “Is your mother Brazilian?”

  He nodded. “She and my father moved to the US when they were eighteen. They cooked a lot of traditional dishes before …”

  As he trailed off, his expression shuttering, I quickly asked, “Do you know how to make moqueca?”

  “I sometimes watched my mother make it, but I don’t have a recipe.”

  “We could look one up,” I said excitedly. “Not your mom’s version, but something similar, and we could try making it. It’d be fun!”

  He blinked, and I froze, kicking myself for being insensitive. Then his face relaxed into a smile. “I think I’d enjoy that. We should try it sometime.”

  Relieved that I hadn’t upset him, I returned to the laptop. We went through several pub menus and found little in the way of ideas, but we entertained ourselves by making fun of the weirdest dishes. Time slipped by faster and I stopped listening to Felix’s every word.

  That is until a distinct change in his tone brought my head around. Ezra looked over as well, his tension returning in an instant—and a distracted part of me wondered how much effort he was putting into hiding his concern to alleviate mine.

  “Yes, sir,” Felix said brusquely. “Yes. Right away.”

  He tapped on his keyboard. “Attention all teams. MPD agents and the GMs have conferred on the search strategy. We’re switching to a rotation so teams can rest. Teams One and Three, return to the guild. Teams Two, Four, and Five, stand by while the MPD recalculates the grids.”

  Felix muted his headset and turned around. “Okay, everyone,” he announced to the room. “We pushed our teams hard to track this demon down before sunrise, but it’s proving evasive. The good news is that the demon hasn’t attacked anyone yet. The bad news is that it’s making it difficult to find, and once dawn arrives, keeping humans safe will become a job in itself.”

  “Are we sure there is a demon?” Sanjana, the apprentice healer, asked. “After six hours of searching, no one has confirmed a sighting or even a dead body.”

  “That doesn’t make it any less dangerous, just more elusive.” He rose to his feet. “We’re one of the two closest guilds to the search area, so we’ll be taking half the teams who are going on rest, while the other half will go to the Seadevil’s headquarters. We’re about to have a lot of company. Clara, did you get the second level prepared for people to sleep? Good. Healers and alchemists, get ready with vitality potions and strength boosters. Tori, prepare hot drinks. How much food do we have?”

  “The fridge is full of sandwiches,” I told him. “We’ll be good for a while. I can always make burgers if we need them.”

  He nodded. “Get to it, guys.”

  As he took his seat, I left Ezra at the bar and headed into the kitchen to put on more coffee. Relief mixed with my anxiety. Aaron and Kai were on their way back. They’d be safe for a while.

  I’d just emptied the coffee machine and restarted it when a surprised shout burst from the pub. Dropping the coffee packet, I flew through the saloon doors as half the room rushed toward Felix’s monitors.

  “What?” I demanded, racing up to Ezra. “What happened?”

  “The demon is five blocks from here,” he said tersely, stretching onto his toes to see over people’s heads. “Odin’s Eye just reported it—in an area that was already cleared.”

  Five blocks? My heart slammed into my ribs. Five blocks was way too close.

  “The demon jumped our lines and is fleeing northeast of Grid 22,” Felix barked into his headset. “All teams, check in with your position. Team One?” He paused. “Confirmed. Team Two? Confirmed. Team Three?” Another pause. “Team Three? Team Three, do you copy?”

  My entire body went cold. No one moved, every person as still as a statue, half of them watching the screen, the other half watching the guild door like the demon might burst through at any moment.

  “Team Three? Team Three, I’m not receiving.” Felix focused on another screen. “Where’s their signal? It’s—”

  He leaped to his feet and spun toward the door—and that’s when I saw the blinking GPS dot marking a team’s location. The indicator was speeding toward our guild, almost on top of us, about to—

  The front door flew open.

  Several people screamed and backpedaled, but it wasn’t the demon. Dark-haired and russet-skinned Izzah burst into the pub in a splatter of rain.

  “Healer!” she yelled. “Where’s the healer?”

  “Here!” Miles boomed as a mash of eight people squeezed through the doorway. Aaron pushed through, a limp man slung over his shoulder in a fireman carry, and Drew carried Gwen piggyback-style. Last in line, Kai backed through the door with his sword out, then slammed it shut and flipped the heavy, rarely used bolt down.

  Aaron lowered the injured man onto a gurney and the healers surrounded him. Miles and Elisabetta—a tall blond woman—shot rapid observations back and forth as they cut their patient’s clothes off.

  As Kai helped Gwen off Drew’s back and supported her over to a chair, Aaron stormed up to Felix, his black vest shining with rain and blood. “Get Darius for me.”

  Felix sat again and tapped on his laptop. “Darius, do you copy? I have Aaron here.”

  Aaron took the headset and shoved it on his dripping head. “Darius, the demon has wings. The bastard was probably watching our search from the rooftops. How the f—” He cut off the curse. “Yeah, we’re okay. Gwen sprained an ankle, that’s it. An Odin’s Eye man took the hit and he’s with our healers.”

  A pause while he listened.

  “We ran into their team on our way back. We stopped to trade notes, and the beast dropped on our heads. It knew our guards were down.” He swore again.

  Aaron listened for a minute more, then yanked the headset off and passed it back to Felix. He strode away from the table, cursing in a low, continuous growl. The three healers were huddled around the injured mythic, and as I watched, the shifting bodies
parted, offering me a glimpse of the gurney.

  The man was lying face down, his bare back streaked with blood. Three deep gashes ran from shoulder to shoulder.

  The horrific wounds were enough to make me lightheaded, but they weren’t the reason the floor was shifting under my feet. The way the three parallel cuts swept across his flesh like monstrous claws had torn him open … I’d seen wounds just like that before.

  I’d seen them in the form of white scars that raked across Ezra’s torso from hip to sternum.

  * * *

  Aaron slumped on a stool. “Tori, I need a drink.”

  I shook my head. “Darius said no liquor until the alert is over.”

  He looked up with pleading, exhausted blue eyes. “Just one. My next rotation doesn’t start for two hours.”

  Shifting my weight, I considered. “Only if you promise to eat a sandwich. What do you want to drink?”

  “Something that’ll burn.”

  I pulled out a shot glass and filled it to the brim with whiskey. He downed the shot with a grimace.

  Kai dropped into the next seat, his sword sheathed. My stomach twitched unhappily at the sight of him and I ducked into the kitchen to grab sandwiches and a wet paper towel.

  Returning to the bar, I put a sandwich in front of each guy, then told Kai, “Hold still.”

  He squinted tiredly, then recoiled when I started scrubbing his cheek with the paper towel.

  “Tori,” he complained.

  “You’re splattered with blood. Just hold still.” I scrubbed his temple, checked he was clean, then pitched the paper towel into the garbage. “Okay. Now eat.”

  As they robotically bit into their sandwiches, I surveyed the pub. The healers were working on the injured man, his team members hovering nearby—Izzah, Mario, and another mythic. It was reasonably quiet again.

  No sooner did I think that than the door banged. The bolt rattled, then someone knocked loudly. Clara hastened to unlock it, and three wet strangers stumbled in. Outside, rain poured, the rippling puddles reflecting the building’s lights.

  “Guild?” Clara asked.

  “Pandora Knights.”

  She made a quick note on a clipboard. “We have hot drinks, sandwiches, and cots upstairs. What would you like first?”

  They conferred, then chose beds. She led the weary trio to the stairs, where the second level had been converted into a bunk room. As they passed the bar, Aaron and Kai nodded to the men, and they nodded back.

  “Mages,” Aaron said once they’d vanished upstairs. “The Pandora Knights are exclusively Elementaria. They invited me to join but I passed. They’re snobs.”

  I glanced worriedly at the stairs. With the arrival of the Odin’s Eye team, Ezra had vanished, just like when Izzah and Mario had shown up last night. There were only so many places he could’ve gone. “Is Ezra up there?”

  “I checked on him a few minutes ago,” Kai said. “He’s camped out on the third floor where it’s quiet.”

  That was good. Ezra was unpredictable when it came to chaos. Sometimes, he was the calmest person in the room, and other times … he didn’t cope well. I now suspected that demon-related chaos always pushed his buttons.

  I pulled my spare stool over and sat across from them. “What happened out there?”

  Aaron rubbed his forehead. “It was ugly, Tori. The demon dropped on us from off a building and ripped Roberto open before we even knew what was happening. Mario called his demon out, and the unbound demon jumped right over it and tried to take Mario’s head off. Izzah was fast—she’s his champion—and landed a direct hit with a water blade, but the demon barely flinched. The thing is a tank.”

  “What do you mean she’s Mario’s champion?”

  “It’s a tongue-in-cheek term for a contractor’s protector,” Kai explained, picking at the crust of his half-eaten sandwich. “Since no one wants to fight a demon, they try to kill the demon’s contractor instead. As soon as the contractor dies, the demon is gone.”

  “It takes most of a contractor’s concentration to command and maneuver his demon, so the champion protects him.” Aaron stared at his sandwich like it was made of playdough. “Mario’s demon was way too slow for the unbound one. I thought we were all dead.”

  “Not that I enjoy admitting it,” Kai muttered, “but the Keys of Solomon saved our asses. Their team charged in with two demons of their own, and the unbound one took off. The Keys chased it while we rushed Roberto back here.”

  Huffing painfully with each step, Izzah stumbled over to the bar and sat beside Kai. “Aduh. Tori, anything to eat? For Mario too, please.”

  “Coming right up.” I grabbed two more sandwiches, and when I returned, Mario had taken the stool beside Izzah, his shoulders drooping. “Here you go.”

  Izzah started unwrapping her food. “It’s bad, this demon. With its ability to fly, we’ll have a hell of a time catching it, let alone killing it.”

  “We can wear it down,” Kai said. “It’s one demon against thirty combat teams. Sooner or later, it’ll make a mistake.”

  “But how many mistakes will we make first? How many will die?” She took an unenthusiastic bite. Why did no one like my super club sandwiches? They were only a little soggy.

  “Mario,” Aaron began, “do you know anything about winged demons?”

  “They aren’t common.” He picked the tomato out of his sandwich. “Summoners keep mum about demon lore, so I don’t know much about types. I’ve heard about winged demons but I’ve never seen one until now.”

  I sank onto my stool. “Are all demons equal, or does their power vary like fae?”

  “They’re all powerful, but some more than others. I can only base it on my own experience, but some are larger with more physical strength.”

  “Our issue is magic,” Izzah said. “Bound demons can’t use their magic, only the small amount the contractor can command through them. Unbound demons can do who knows what with theirs.”

  “Who knows what …” Aaron muttered. He shoved back from the bar. “I need to sleep if I want to be of any use in a couple of hours. Tori, can you ask Felix about a replacement phone for me? Mine got smashed during the ambush.”

  “Okay. Have a good rest.” Chewing on my lower lip, I watched him, Kai, Izzah, and Mario limp tiredly upstairs to catch a few hours of sleep. None of them had finished their sandwiches, and I threw out the remains. I needed better food for them. Something more appetizing than slimy deli meat. Something they could scarf down fast.

  I hung around the bar for another hour, dispensing unappealing sandwiches to the mythic teams that arrived in trios and quartets, wet, dirty, and exhausted. They’d eat, have a drink, then traipse upstairs to sleep.

  When all the expected teams had settled in, I headed up the stairs. Passing the open doorway to the second level, I glimpsed the dark room filled with cots and mats, still bodies stretched out under thin blankets and gear piled around them.

  I continued to the third level and headed down a short hall. In the room at the end, the three officer desks were buried in folders and papers, all work abandoned when the alert had gone out.

  Ezra sat on Girard’s desk, feet resting on the seat of his chair, and stared out the rain-streaked window. As I walked in, he glanced over, his face dimly lit by the single lamp glowing on Tabitha’s desk. His expression was a mystery.

  I stopped beside him, at a complete loss for what to say. How did I broach the topic of his scars? How did I ask if a demon had inflicted them? Should I suggest he hadn’t joined the search because he couldn’t handle confrontation with demons? Should I point out that he fled whenever Mario showed up because the man was a demon contractor?

  I didn’t want to ask any of those things, so I said nothing. Sitting on the desk beside him, I too stared out the window at the street beyond, illuminated by the first gleam of dawn. In silence, we watched the wet pavement brighten with shades of orange and gold.

  It had been a long night, but the dawning day promised t
o be even longer.

  Chapter Five

  Sleepless Tori is a grumpy Tori.

  I squinted blearily at the clock. 6:35 p.m. Over eighteen hours since the alert had gone out, and everyone’s energy was flagging. I’d napped for the afternoon, curled up in Clara’s chair in the office at the back of the kitchen, but it hadn’t helped much.

  Aaron and Kai were due back from their third rotation at seven. A couple dozen mythics were sleeping on the second level, and another ten were hanging around the pub, too wired to sleep.

  At one table, a pair of older men and a woman were poring over a map. According to Felix, they were the GM of Odin’s Eye, the GM of Smoke & Mirrors, and the first officer of the Pandora Knights. Their teams were sleeping, but they couldn’t rest.

  I filled three mugs with steaming black coffee and carried them over.

  “Thank you,” the woman murmured as I set them down. “The movement patterns don’t make sense, Lee. The demon could only have reached this point by flying directly there and attacking immediately.”

  She jabbed at the map. All the locations where the demon had been spotted were highlighted. The creature was jumping all over the Eastside, an expansive and disreputable neighborhood with a mix of low-income housing, small businesses, and industry. Since ambushing Aaron’s team, the demon had struck three more times … and its victims hadn’t been as lucky as the Odin’s Eye survivor.

  Three mythics had died in the streets. Another hadn’t made it to the healers in time. Two more were with the Seadevil guild’s healers, hanging on to life.

  Lee folded his hands together and tapped them against his narrow lips. “These four locations are confirmed engagements with the demon.” He indicated the highlighter marks. “The rest are signs or sightings. They could be wrong.”

  “Grand Grimoire is confident about the damage they found—only a demon could have inflicted it, and it was recent,” the woman said. “Either this demon is moving exceptionally fast, or there are multiple demons.”

  “Um,” I interjected hesitantly. “There are multiple demons, though, aren’t there? Any of the contractors’ demons could have caused some damage, right?”