where you were.”
He clenched his jaw, recalling the fear in his mother’s eyes when she heard he’d been assigned another ancient demon, the horror when she discovered his brothers were coming with him, and his reassurance that all would end well. “Aye. All I can do now is rid the world of Druan.”
“How do we find him?”
We? There was no
“Is that why you didn’t use your talisman on Grog?” she asked, sorting through her little white box, pulling out tubes of ointment and other things he didn’t recognize, muttering to herself.
“That, and I was too weak to use it again.”
“You said those things in the chapel were part demon, what’s the other part?”
“Human.”
“Why would a human…”
“Mate with a demon? The human might not know. Demons can shift into much nicer forms.”
She leaned back. “Are you completely human?”
“I am,” he said, insulted. He could easily ask her the same.
“Can they choose any form? Animal? Human?”
“Aye, but most prefer human forms. They can do the most harm that way. They usually stick with one form. It takes them a while to get comfortable in new skin.”
“And to think I was worried about cellulite.”
“What’s that? Some newfangled weapon?”
She smiled. “It’s nothing you’d have to worry about. It’s more of a modern problem. Why didn’t those halflings shift like Grog?”
“Halflings don’t shift. A few learn how to project an illusion. Their natural form is still there.” So was the smell, but most humans weren’t sensitive enough to notice.
She wrinkled her nose. “Do they all stink like the one that grabbed me?”
Was there anything normal about this woman? “Only in their natural form, but the smell varies, depending on how much demon blood they have. A halfling that’s mostly human might not smell at all or need an illusion. Some of them look like you and me.”
“That’s frightening,” she said.
Bloody frightening.
“Where did Grog get that knife? He didn’t have any pockets or clothes.”
“They can summon their weapons at will, manifest them, like the clothes.”
“Anything they want?”
“Natural things from the earth. Metals, fibers, temporary things that leave with the demon.”
“What about those swords in the chapel?”
“Those were real. Only full demons can manifest material things.”
“Where do these demons come from?”
“Hell. But it takes a lot of power to get here.”
“Do you get to decide whether to zap them with your talisman or suspend them?”
“We destroy them if there’s no other choice. If they’re destroyed, they cease to exist, and they can’t be held accountable for their evil.” The young ones were the exception. They were always destroyed.
“So that thing I killed will never pay for the evil it’s done?”
“But it’ll never hurt anyone again.” He didn’t tell her the thing shouldn’t have disappeared at all. When anyone other than a warrior killed a demon or halfling, the dead body stayed on earth while the spirit went back to hell, powerless, to start the journey all over, whereas death by a warrior was judgment in itself. Even if the thing couldn’t be held accountable for its evil, it was destroyed forever. But nothing about Bree seemed to work the way it should.
“At least you wounded Grog. That might make him think twice about coming back. Your dagger must be powerful, since it made that halfling disappear when I hit it.”
The dirk had no special powers, but he didn’t tell her that, either. “How much longer is this gonna take?” There were times when a warrior’s senses were a curse. Like now. Every move she made drove her scent deeper inside him. It didn’t help that she was standing so close he could kiss her without even moving.
“Not long. Stop squirming. I need to add more gauze.”
He was squirming because her breast was two inches from his face. “Just put a bandage on it.”
“You’re still bleeding. Be patient,” she said, adding another layer of gauze. “It’s a virtue.”
Much more patience on his part, and she might lose her virtue.
“Now we know time vaults can suspend humans as well as demons. Imagine all the things we could do. Revolutionize medicine, keep people from dying, from aging—”
