There were still plenty of people crowding the sidewalks, and traffic roared by in the street at suicidal speeds, but the atmosphere in the Sprawl was noticeably subdued. The pedestrians were quieter than usual, continuously casting furtive glances about and keeping their hands in their pockets, no doubt grasping a weapon or two. There were fewer vehicles than normal in the street, and those that passed by were more often than not armored – or encased in force fields of magical or technological origin. Hood, roof, and side-mounted weapons were prominent, everything from machine guns to rocket launchers, energy blasters to curse throwers.
The threat of open warfare in the Sprawl might not have been enough to keep the die-hard partiers indoors, but it had made them more cautious. The Sprawl was already a powder keg most of the time, and Talaith’s destruction of the bridges had lit the fuse. The only question was how long it would take to burn down and ignite an explosion.
We’d gotten maybe halfway to Demon’s Roost when that question was answered. There were two popular dance clubs on either side of the street here: Overhexed, which catered primarily to Arcane clientele, and Disco Infernal, a demonic hotspot. But the action wasn’t confined to the clubs’ interiors tonight. Revelers from both places had taken to the street, where they stood in two groups, facing each other. And from the way they were shouting and gesturing, I knew that they hadn’t met for a civilized cross-cultural exchange. Traffic had been blocked off at one end of the street by a barrier of mystic flame, while a jagged line of sharp bonelike projections protruded from the asphalt at the other end. It seemed that neither the demons nor the magic-users wanted anyone to interrupt their little get-together.
The sidewalks on both sides of the street were deserted here. Evidently our fellow pedestrians possessed stronger survival instincts than us and had gotten the hell away at the first sign of trouble. I figured it would be wise of us to follow suit, and I motioned for everyone in our group to stop.
“I think we should quickly and quietly retrace our steps, then cut over a couple streets and take a nice wide detour around this block,” I said.
“I like that idea,” Devona said softly, never taking her eyes off the shouting demons and magic-users.
“I like it very much.”
The two groups were an eclectic mix of their kinds. Many of the Arcane were dressed in standard Nekropolitan street clothes, but some wore period costumes: medieval robes, stark Puritan outfits, Arabian finery, Native American deerskins, Aztec capes, stage magician tuxedos or sparkling gowns, and a good number of them carried wooden or metal staves with lux crystals affixed to the ends. The demons varied more in their physical forms. Some were the standard diabolic type, like Scorch’s true shape, while others were bizarre amalgams of different animals: insects combined with fish, mammals with lizards, birds with crustaceans and so on…
Some of the demons wore ethnic garb that indicated which human mythology they belonged to – Chinese, Japanese, Inuit, Persian, Egyptian, Hindu – while some appeared so alien that their shapes not only defied description, they defied perception. Creatures that appeared to be made of a series of floating transdimensional geometric shapes that seemed to warp in and out of existence, and others that were purely conceptual in nature. I saw one demon I recognized as Schadenfreude, and another that was Antidisestablishmentarianism.
But despite the two groups’ striking differences, they had one important thing in common: they clearly loathed one another, and given the aggressive way they were acting, I knew it would only be a matter of moments until…
A heavily tattooed Arcane man wearing a dragonskin jacket raised his hands and began chanting a spell in a language I didn’t recognize. The words seemed to echo in the air, and despite the fact that I have no nerve endings in my ears, it hurt to hear those words spoken aloud. A few seconds later, a half-dozen other Arcane joined in, and soon all of the magic-users stood chanting, hands raised toward the sky.
The Demonkin’s reaction to the spell was dramatic.
They fell back several steps, roaring and hissing, shrinking in upon themselves and averting their gazes as if it was too painful to look upon the faces of the chanting Arcane.
“What’s happening?” I turned to Scorch, hoping she might be able to tell me, but she didn’t respond.
She stood there with her hands pressed over her ears, eyes squinted closed, jaws clenched tight, as if she were trying to shut out the world – or perhaps just the Arcanes’ chanting.
“The magic-users are attempting a binding spell!” Devona said.
I understood what was going on then, but I had a hard time believing it. The enmity between Demonkin and Arcane goes back centuries, back to before the Darkfolk left Earth and emigrated to Nekropolis, when witches, warlocks, and wizards would attempt to summon demons, bind them to their will, and enslave them. Having a powerful creature like a demon to command was an attractive prospect for a magic-user, but you can see how a demon would find the arrangement less than appealing.
After the founding of Nekropolis, slavery of any sort was outlawed by Dis and the Darklords, more as a practical matter than for any other reason. It’s hard enough to keep the peace in a city full of monsters without having to worry about them running around constantly trying to enslave one another. The prohibition against slavery included the summoning and binding of demons, but the fact that it was now a major crime didn’t seem to deter these Arcane in the least, and I doubted any of them considered what they were doing as breaking the law. After all, war was in the offing between Glamere and the Sprawl, and people – Darkfolk or human – are only too willing to suspend the rule of law during wartime… especially when it gives them an excuse to indulge the darker side of their nature.
Devona put her arm around Scorch as if to lend the demon strength and turned to look at me. “We have to stop the spell, Matt! If we don’t she’ll become the Arcanes’ slave, bound to them until they set her free!”
I sighed. “Of course we do. Shamika, you stay here and take care of Scorch. Devona and I will be right back.”
Up to this point Shamika had been staring wideeyed at the scene in the street, but she tore her gaze away and gave me a solemn nod.
“But if the Arcane finish the spell and Scorch becomes bound, get away from her as fast as you can,” Devona added. “They’ll be able to make her do what they want, and she won’t be able to resist their commands.”
Shamika nodded once again, and I turned to Varney, who was watching the action in the street, undoubtedly filming it all with his cyber-eye camera.
“As for you…” I trailed off. I wanted to tell him to stay put, but I knew there wasn’t any point. “Just try not to get in the way.”
“Will do,” he said. “You know, Matt, you get into some of the strangest situations.”
I sighed again. “It’s a gift.”
Devona gave Scorch’s shoulder a last squeeze, and then the two of us starting walking into the street, Varney following close behind.
“I don’t suppose you know any way of blocking a binding spell,” I said to Devona.
“None whatsoever. I figured we’d just do what we always do: stick our noses in where they don’t belong and see what happens.”
I grinned. “I thought I was the improviser and you were the planner.”
She shrugged. “What can I say? You’ve rubbed off on me.”
We continued walking toward the two groups, and while I did my best to project an air of casual calm – letting anyone in Nekropolis see how scared you really are isn’t conducive to your long-term survival prospects – I frantically tried to think of some way to diffuse the situation Devona and I were about to insert ourselves into. I’d restocked my weaponry before leaving the Midnight Watch, and I now carried a few of my more interesting toys in my pockets, but I couldn’t see how any of them would prove useful against an angry mob of combined Arcane and Demonkin.
As we neared the two groups, I noticed a small shop a couple doors down from Overhexed called The Teahouse of the Gibbous Moon. It had a large front window, and sitting at a table, keeping an eye on the incipient mayhem in the street, was a figure garbed in a voluminous crimson cloak with a large hood. At first I didn’t think she saw me, but then she lifted her teacup in greeting, and I gave a slight nod in return.
Devona had picked up on the exchange, either telepathically or through old-fashioned observation.
“Who is it?”
“The cavalry,” I said. “I hope.”
As we drew nearer to the mob, I could see that the binding spell was coming along nicely. Most of the Demonkin lay curled in fetal positions on the ground, rocking back and forth as they let loose blistering streams of
