Mark of the Demon

I resisted the urge to slump. “I sure hope so.”

He gave my shoulders a squeeze, then released me. “Come on, I’m taking you to bed,” he said, grinning wickedly.

“Jeez, don’t say that too loud,” I said, smiling despite myself. “People will start talking.”

CHAPTER 22

Ryan pulled into my driveway right behind me, getting out of his car just as I was exiting mine.

“I do hope you realize that I’m not leaving your house tonight,” Ryan said before I could say a word. “Not until you’ve woken up from your encounter with this Demonic Lord.”

I allowed my protest to die unvoiced. “I can’t see that there’s going to be a problem. I mean, he’s helped me twice now, and I think he’s going to keep being cool to me since he wants me to call him. But, yeah, having you nearby is probably a good idea.”

He gave me a quick grin. “I’m going to have to start leaving a change of clothes and a toothbrush at your place if this keeps up.”

I smiled and quickly turned away, feeling an unfamiliar flush rising. What the hell was wrong with me? It wasn’t as if I’d never spent the night with a man. Hell, I’d had boyfriends. Okay, not too many, but still. I’d just never had a guy as … everything … as Ryan pay this much attention to me. Smart, good-looking, witty, charming …

Stop being stupid. He’s just working on the case. That’s all this is. He thinks of you as a partner. I jammed the key into the lock of the back door and entered the kitchen.

“So explain something to me,” he said as he followed me in and closed the door.

“Explain what?” I asked as I opened the fridge and peered at the available offerings. I honestly couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten.

“The whole good-and-evil thing with regard to the demons. I always had the impression that all demons were evil.”

I grabbed a brick of cheddar. “Well, yeah, because that’s what they say in Sunday school.” I closed the refrigerator door with my hip, then snagged crackers and a knife. “But, see, these demons are not the demons of the religious mythos.”

He watched me as I set the cheese and crackers on a plate and placed it on the table. “Then what are they?”

“They’re other-planar creatures,” I said, as I carved a slab of cheese from the brick and piled it onto a cracker. I gestured at the plate with a help yourself motion as I took an undainty bite.

He looked doubtfully at my exceedingly plebeian hors d’oeuvres. “Do you always buy your cheese in five- pound bricks?”

“It’s only two pounds,” I replied after a few seconds of chewing. “It was cheap. And I like cheese.”

“But … cheddar? Mild?” He looked pained.

I glared at him and defiantly cut another piece. “It was cheap. Do you have a problem with my cheese?”

“Absolutely not,” he said, giving a mock shudder. “So. Other-planar creatures? Explain, please?”

I set the knife down and held my hands up in front of me, one above the other. “Think different dimensions. Spheres. Planes of existence. Whatever you want to call it. We live in one, and they live in another. These two planes often converge in such a way that a person with the ability to open a portal between them can summon a creature from their world to ours.”

“And how do people know if they have the ability?”

“Well, there seems to be a genetic factor, so summoners will usually keep an eye on their kids or grandkids when they hit their teenage years. Othersight comes first, so the easiest thing to do is to leave a big shiny ward somewhere and then see if the kid reacts to it.” I grinned. “It can be a bit dramatic.”

Ryan gave a snort of laughter. “I can only imagine.”

“Anyway, after that much is established, the summoner will usually have a demon make the assessment as to how much ability is there.”

He tapped the table. “What if there’s no parent or grandparent to monitor the kid?”

“Well, that’s kinda what happened with my aunt. She figured out that she could see things and feel things that other people couldn’t, so she went to the library and started doing research.”

He raised an eyebrow at me. “Please don’t tell me she found a book called Demon Summoning for Dummies”

I laughed. “Not quite, but I think I may write that someday. No, it was noticed what areas she was researching, and, well … she was directed to a summoner who could mentor her.”

“Wait. Who noticed? Is there some sort of worldwide surveillance?”

“No, there’s no powerful Illuminati-ish conspiracy thingy.” I grinned. “Tessa got lucky. She was at the New Orleans public library, and one of the librarians saw the books she was pulling. The librarian happened to be a summoner.” I spread my hands. “This woman was elderly and was basically ‘retired’ from summoning, so she couldn’t take Tessa on as a student, but she was able to find someone who would.” I didn’t elaborate on how much luck had actually been involved. Over the past few years I’d started to suspect that the demons had a hand in finding people who could summon, but I had no proof and little more than a gut feeling to go on.

He remained silent for a moment. “And how does good and evil come into this?” he said finally.

“It doesn’t. I mean, not in the way that we define it. The demons are no more evil than witches are evil. And, trust me, every practitioner of Wicca I know abides pretty strictly by the canon of Harm None. For the most part, it’s possible to make a general categorization and say this demon or that lord is evil, or this one is good, but all it means is that the behavior and actions of the demon fall into a pattern we as humans find acceptable or unacceptable. There’s really so much more involved.”

“Such as?”

“Well, what we might find unacceptable is merely a manner of dealing with issues of supremacy and honor for them. And vice versa. Something we find acceptable could be anathema to them, simply because of the way the particular act or whatever is performed.” I shook my head. “Their moral and honor code is incredibly complex. Debts of honor are considered absolute, and to refuse to pay a debt of honor is evil to them.” I spread my hands. “If you somehow screw up and put a demon in a position to lose honor, you’re going to get slaughtered in simple retaliation.”

“So they’re pretty solid on the concept of revenge, right?”

“Yeah,” I said, keeping my voice casual. I’d learned how accepting demons were of revenge when I was twenty-three, still a rookie cop. Evidence in a molestation case had been thrown out and the perpetrator had walked. I hadn’t been involved in the case, but I knew the defendant, had known him twelve years earlier when I lived in his parents’ house for a month.

I told Tessa about it, about him. Told her everything. And on the next full she’d summoned a syraza who, after it had been explained to him what was needed, gave his service as a gift. “Yeah, demons take matters of vengeance very seriously.”

Ryan picked up the knife and cut a piece of cheddar, obviously reluctant to soil his palate with my store-brand cheese but apparently hungry enough to risk it. “That sort of thinking could work with humans, too, you know,” he said. “Evil is often a matter of perception.” He looked askance at the cheese, definitely trying to imply that my cheap mild cheddar was evil.

“Well, yes,” I said as I took the knife from his hand. “But in order to do my job, I try to stick with the perceptions of a civilized society. Murder, bad. Hurting people who’ve done nothing to wrong you, bad. Taking things that you have no right to, bad.” I smiled sweetly and stabbed the knife into the brick. “Making fun of other people’s cheese, bad.”

He laughed. “All right, all right. And catching serial killers, good, right?”