Part 29 (2/2)
”Hey! You guys! There's a demon heading this...” Tony skidded to a stop, dragging Leah, who was half supporting him, to a stop as well. He stared at the demon-which may or may not have been staring back. The eyestalks were flipping around in a way that made it hard to tell. ”Never mind.”
”What's with the cherries?” Leah demanded, sc.r.a.ping pulp off the bottom of her high-top.
”Tony's early warning system,” Jack grunted, getting to his feet.
”It made cherries?”
”Apparently.”
She turned to Tony, who shrugged. They had bigger problems than fruit. He shook free of Leah's hand and shuffled carefully toward Henry. Trouble was, when a romance writer slash vampire fought a demon, it wasn't the romance writer that then had to be dealt with. He could see the Hunter in the set of Henry's shoulders. In the way he was standing, his back to them, perfectly, impossibly still.
At Henry's side, he leaned forward, careful not to touch, and murmured, ”If you need...”
”Not from you.” A quiet voice. Barely audible. A voice that stroked danger against Tony's skin. ”Not after last night.”
Last night. This time, he didn't stop himself from touching the mark on his neck. No wonder he was exhausted; it wasn't just the wizardry. ”Then who?” The emotional kickback was as important as the blood and Jack, as he'd been insisting to all and sundry, was straight. Leah was far too dangerous.
”Give me a moment.”
”Sure.” Terror was as valid an emotion as any other and the shadows in Jack's eyes suggested he'd seen something more frightening than the big rubbery monster tied up on the floor. Tony tried not to wonder what would have happened had they got there a little later and had pretty much buried the question by the time Henry turned, the mask of civilization firmly back in place.
Pretty much.
A red-gold brow rose.
Tony shrugged.
”So...” Leah sighed loudly. ”... if you two are finished with all the silent communing, you think we could get going on sending Maurice here home?”
”Maurice?” Jack snickered, the sound just this side of hysteria.
She pushed a handful of curls back off her face and smiled, deep dimples appearing in each cheek. ”What? You don't think he looks like a Maurice?”
About to tell her to knock it off, Tony realized what she was doing as Jack's shoulders squared and he rubbed a hand back though his hair, standing it up in damp, golden spikes.
”If you're asking, I think he looks like a Barney.”
”Isn't Barney a dinosaur?” Her tongue licked a glistening path along her lower lip.
Jack's eyes half closed. ”Barney, Fred's neighbor.”
The only thing keeping them from consummating the repartee was the demon, tied and p.i.s.sed off, filling the s.p.a.ce between them.
When Ryne Cyratane made his expected appearance, Tony frowned. The Demonlord looked... frustrated?
Because Leah wasn't actually getting any in the here and now?
Because his demonic minions kept failing?
Because he couldn't find the wizard who kept defeating him?
Except this demon hadn't been sent back to h.e.l.l, so how would he know it had been defeated? And why did he look frustrated rather than angry? A glance down and Tony realized the Demonlord wasn't even particularly interested in the whole Jack/Leah dynamic. Interested, yes, but not, well, fully.
”Tony!”
”Sorry.” He shook his head as Leah turned her attention to him and Ryne Cyratane faded. He was missing something, something important, but he was just too d.a.m.ned tired to make the effort and figure out what it was. ”I'll start drawing the runes.”
”Are you strong enough?”
”Sure.” Why not lie on the side of truth, justice, and the wizardly way given there was a distinct lack of choice regardless of how he felt. The demon was fighting against the ropes, rocking back and forth and in a few other less easily defined directions.
”Although...” His stomach growled on cue. ”... I wouldn't say no to food.”
”There's half a bomb bottle of cola left,” Jack offered, clearing his throat and looking everywhere but at Leah. ”And some cherries.”
”Close enough.” Or not. The cherries had no pits and tasted like cough syrup. Fortunately, the cola, essentially sugar and caffeine, faked nourishment.”It's weird how it can't break the rope.” Jack circled the demon slowly as Tony began to burn the first rune on the air. ”We know it's strong and the rope isn't that thick.”
”It's an unnatural rope,” Tony reminded him, squinting through the blue lines. ”What's weird is that Arra would know that it would work. She never faced demons here in this world.”
Leah snorted. ”Where do you think her demons came from? Wal-Mart?”
”These are not the demons I know from the past,” Henry said quietly as Tony started the second rune. ”This poor creature is nothing more than an animal out of its place.”
”Let's not forget these things are killers,” Jack pointed out.
”They kill to eat,” Henry told him. ”So do you.”
”Yeah, well, so far I've managed to avoid ripping any arms off while I'm having lunch.”
”Good for you.”
”You're not entirely wrong,” Leah broke in before Jack could respond. ”Neither of you. These guys are on the low end of the demonic pecking order.” She waved a hand at the demon on the floor. It writhed at her. ”They're all about the rending and the killing and, yes, the ripping off of arms, but they're not really very motivated by anything other than the rending and the killing.
Relatively speaking, they come from fairly close by. The h.e.l.l that the ancient mystics saw...” She turned her attention to Henry. ”...
the h.e.l.l adopted by your religion, that was considerably farther away.”
”Your Demonlord is no beast. If he uses these creatures, then he has moved closer without using the gate.”
”There's some movement within the h.e.l.ls,” Leah admitted. ”But he can't get here without help. If you want the big guys, the demons with dialogue and motivations, then you have to call for them specifically. It takes a lot of power to punch a gate through to their level, a couple of artifacts that aren't easy to get, and, if you want to survive it, a will of iron.”
”Actually, it's not that hard.” Henry folded his arms. ”I know a not very bright young man who brought through a creature capable of speech and independent evil with a small barbecue and a few cheap candles.”
”Did he survive?”
”Not ultimately, no.”
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