same lack of success. The savage little bastards were just too small, fast, and agile. Fortunately for the other demons, they were only interested in Magilla. The chiranha were on him before he could fire his weapon a second time, and they swiftly covered the shrieking demon from head to toe. He fell to the ground, rolling and thrashing as he tried to fend off the chiranha, but no matter what he did, he couldn't dislodge the creatures.
All we could do was watch and wait for the inevitable to be over – or so I thought.
'Stop fussing,' Shamika said. 'They won't eat you unless I tell them to.'
She had to repeat this several more times at increasingly louder volume, but eventually Magilla heard her and ceased his exertions. He lay motionless on the ground, the chiranha still covering his body, glaring at him with those tiny black eyes and growling softly. Shamika didn't say anything, but the chiranha covering Magilla's face moved away so he could see her.
The other guards, seeing that Magilla was, surprisingly enough, still alive, edged toward us, slowly raising their weapons.
I looked at them. 'If she can summon chiranha to attack Magilla, what else do you think she might summon to attack you?'
The guards looked at me uncertainly, then at each other. Finally they shrugged and lowered their weapons. Demonkin aren't exactly a sentimental lot, and the others' concern for Magilla's fate didn't override their own survival instincts.
Shamika looked through the barrier at Magilla. 'It's not nice to threaten people. Don't do it again.'
Magilla looked at her as if she'd suddenly started speaking Urdu. Threatening people was one of the things demons like him did best.
'Um… OK. I'm… sorry?'
Before Shamika could respond, Devona gently nudged me. 'We've got problems upstairs, Matt.'
I directed my gaze skyward and saw a score of flying demons descending toward us. They'd doubtless witnessed what Shamika had done to Magilla, and while I doubted they gave anything remotely resembling a damn for him, they'd been assigned to guard the environs around Demon's Roost, and they weren't about to allow our aggression to go unchallenged. Now I really wished I had a Judas bomb – better yet, a few dozen. I was desperately trying to figure out what we could do to keep from being reduced to bloody gobs of shredded and sizzling flesh, when an image appeared in the air just above the barrier.
Varvara might be queen of all the Demonkin, but she looks human – with the exception of her emerald eyes which seem a bit too large and a bit too green to be real. But her humanity is an almost cartoonish representation of femininity. She's more gorgeous than any supermodel, more sexy than any Penthouse centerfold, with a body whose proportions would make a Barbie doll so sick with envy that she'd develop an eating disorder. She's statuesque in every sense of the word, with long full-bodied red hair that seems to glow with an inner fire. She usually dresses in the highest of high fashion, but today she was garbed in a military commander's outfit that looked vaguely Nazi-ish. Black fabric, black gloves, black boots, and a riding crop clasped in one hand held at her side. Her red hair was pulled back in a severe bun, and there was a stylized flame insignia over one of her extremely large breasts.
I knew we were looking at a magically projected image instead of the real thing because she was slightly transparent. Nevertheless, her image exuded the same psychic impression of Darklord power as her physical presence did, and it took an effort of will on my part not to take a step or two backward. No one else in our group did either – we were all a hardy bunch – but Scorch went down on one knee and bowed before her queen.
The flying demons that had been diving rapidly toward us stopped and hovered in mid attack, heads bowed, and Magilla's fellow guards did as Scorch had and knelt. Magilla, still covered by chiranha – who, I noticed, seemed oblivious to Varvara's presence – lay still, but the exaggerated relief on his face at seeing his mistress appear was almost comical.
'My queen!' he said, his voice more than a bit whiny. 'These five attempted to breach the barrier and they've used Arcane magic to attack and insult me! I pray, Mistress, that you'll use your unholy powers to smite them for their transgression against your Infernal Majesty!'
I looked at Varvara. 'He's laying it on a bit thick, don't you think?'
'More than a little, I'd say.' Varvara scowled down at Magilla. 'Get up. You look ridiculous lying there covered in carnivorous lapdogs. I swear, if I didn't need every able body to fight right now, I'd transform you into a school of catfish and let the chiranha have at you.'
Magilla, far more terrified of his queen than he was of being devoured alive, leaped to his feet, scattering chiranha off him. The small creatures gave him a few last growls for good measure before turning away and padding back to the alleys from which they'd been summoned.
Varvara's image turned around to face the demon guards.
'Allow them through and escort them to Demon's Roost.' She then turned her attention to Magilla once more. 'And if any of them so much as stubs a toe on the way, I'll hold you personally responsible.'
Magilla's scaly hide lightened a shade as he went pale. He tried unsuccessfully to speak, swallowed twice, and finally settled on a brisk nod. Varvara's image then turned back to us.
'So, Matt. I suppose you're coming to make my life even more hideously complicated than it already is.'
'What else?' I said.
She smiled, said, 'Sounds delicious,' and then disappeared.
Varvara's parting words didn't exactly reassure me. When the Demon Queen says something sounds delicious, she might be speaking literally.
TEN
I've visited Demon's Roost on a number of occasions, almost all connected to a case in one way or another, and every time I've been there, a bacchanalia of epic proportions was taking place. But while there was still plenty of excitement in the air today, the atmosphere was military rather than celebratory. The Atrium was packed full of bodies as usual, but instead of a cross-section of partying Darkfolk, only Demonkin were in attendance. All subspecies were represented – reptilian, insectile, mammalian, piscine, elemental, conglomerate, humanoid, and conceptual. And while they still wore their civilian clothes, if they wore anything at all, they stood at attention in rows or conducted precise drills at the shouted commands of demons garbed in black uniforms similar to what Varvara had been wearing. Most of the demons were armed, though there was no standardization in the types of weapons they carried. I had the impression that they'd been summoned to Demon's Roost on a moment's notice and had been commanded to bring whatever weapons they could get their claws on. While a number had top-of- the-line Earth guns, bladed weapons, or futuristic hardware, quite a few carried baseball bats, lengths of metal pipe, or that old standby, a two-by-four with nails driven through it.
The makeshift army might've looked ridiculous if it wasn't for two things. One was the sheer number of them. A couple hundred demons were jammed into the Atrium, and there were at least twice that many outside drilling on the grounds surrounding Varvara's stronghold. The other thing that kept them from seeming ridiculous was the fact that they were demons – fierce, heartless, amoral, and savage creatures whose only reason for existing was to sate their appetites, especially if they could do so at someone else's expense. No blank expressions of military discipline on their faces. Their eyes blazed with battle lust, and their mouths were twisted into cruel smiles, no doubt as they imagined what they intended to do to anyone foolish enough to get in their way.
I thought of the total destructive force contained within this building and the horror that would result if it was released into the streets of Nekropolis. As important as finding Papa Chatha was to me, I knew it was even more vital that I find a way to stop the war between Varvara and Talaith before it spilled over onto the rest of the city. I thought of Devona's and my trip to the alternate Nekropolis. That world's Hyde plague would seem nothing but a minor inconvenience compared to the devastation an all-out war would cause in our world.
Magilla himself had escorted us to Demon's Roost, and he marched us across the Atrium, growling for demons to get out of our way in the name of the queen. No one challenged him or accused him of lying about acting under Varvara's authority. No demon was suicidal enough to use the name of their queen under false pretenses.
Magilla took us to the elevator that led straight to Varvara's penthouse quarters. And then, his duty done, he
