Goetia

they had dominion over.

“You never sensed the other within this one, did you?” Merihim asked.

“No,” Warren replied. He still didn’t know what the demon referred to.

“There’s still so much I need to teach you.”

Warren relaxed a little of that. If Merihim was going to teach him, that meant the demon didn’t have plans to immediately kill him out of hand.

Unless he was lying.

“You should have known he wasn’t alone,” Merihim continued. “No one,especially not a foolish human, would dare attack someone I had named as my own.” The demon waved a hand over the dead man’s ruined face.

In response, that one flesh and broken bone shifted. The soft gliding of tissue and slight rasping of bones sounded loud in the room.

A moment later, a new face took shape in the blood and wreckage of Cornish’sfeatures. The face wasn’t human. It was demonic. Ridges of bony scales movedalong the long . jaw. The mouth was a mere slash carved beneath the hooked nose. Malice turned in the black eyes that moved from Merihim to Warren and back. The torn flesh of the dead man’s head shifted slightly until they resembled horns.

“Fulaghar.” This time the smile on Merihim’s face did hold humor. But it heldthe promise of pain and death as well.

“You know me, then,” the demon rasped.

“I do,” Merihim replied. “This was your idea?”

Fulaghar smirked. “It almost worked.”

“But it didn’t. And now I know you as my enemy. It didn’t have to be thatway.”

“Ah, but it did, o Bringer of Pestilence,” Fulaghar taunted. “You’re in thisplace without sanction. You have no business here.”

“The business I have is my own.”

“Wrong.” Fulaghar’s face turned angry. “Everything you do affects what we’redoing here. Unfettered and unsanctioned, you are a danger to us in this place.”

Warren’s thoughts spun. He knew that the Cabalists had summoned Merihim to London and that the demon hadn’t come through theHellgate like all the others had. From everything he had seen, Warren knew that the invasion was a carefully orchestrated maneuver. It was surprising to learn that the demons didn’t want if an interloper even if he was one of their ownkind.

And what did unsanctioned and mean? Obviously the other demons would destroy Merihim if they have the opportunity. The question was, why?

Merihim laughed at Fulaghar’s assessment. “I’m no danger to any except thosewho trespass me or have what I want.”

“What you seek isn’t in this world,” Fulaghar stated.

Again, the horrific smile spread across Merihim’s coarse features. “You’re ademon. How can I trust you?”

“You would be a fool if you did.” Fulaghar smiled. “Then again, I might lieto you by telling you the truth and lets you search endlessly for that which you seek.”

“I have one of the Books of Qhazimog,” Merihim said.

The smile drained from Fulaghar’s borrowed face. “You can’t have one of thosebooks.”

“Then… I’m lying and I don’t have one.”

Fulaghar hesitated. Warren saw indecision and fear in the bloody face.

“How did you find it?”

“Because I know what I’m looking for here. I know what was lost all thoseyears ago, and I know where it can be found.”

Warren listened to the demon’s words carefully, but he couldn’t separate lieand truth. His thoughts turn immediately to the book back in his sanctuary. If the book was so important—especially if all of demonkind was searching for it,or at least demons as powerful as Fulaghar—why had Merihim left it with him?

Fulaghar’s voice took on a more serious note. “Those books are dangerous.Even to you, Merihim. Or have you forgotten?”

Dangerous? Warren’s heart beat a little faster. In all of his studies ofMerihim during the last four years, he had read no mention of the Books of Qhazimog, or of anything that might threaten the demon’s life or existence inthis world.

“I’ve forgotten nothing,” Merihim snarled. “I haven’t forgotten the Books orthe fact that I was betrayed.”

“You were betrayed for just cause.”

“I had every right to seize the territory I wanted.”

“If you had the right to those territories, no one would have challenged you.Now you’re in this place—again where you don’t belong—and you’ll be dealt with.There will be no simple banishment this time. This time they will end you.”

“I choose not to be ended,” Merihim growled. “And you can tell all those whotry that I will deliver unto them permanent death.”

“You give voice only to empty threats,” Fulaghar scoffed. “You’ll never bestrong enough—”

Without another word, Merihim wrapped his large hand around the dead man’shead to cover the demonic features of Fulaghar. The other demon’s voice becamemuffled. When Merihim squeezed, the tattered flesh and broken bones turned to bloody pulp. They head ripped from the neck and he threw it against the nearest wall.

Naomi shuddered as the head bounced away only a few feet from her. Blood splattered over her. Tears tracked her face. She shivered in fright.

Merihim stood, then breathed flames over his bloody hand. It was the same hand that he had sacrificed for Warren, then grew back in minutes. The blood turned to ash and fell away from the scales.

“Go away from this place,” the demon ordered. “I want you to find Fulaghar,or his minions, and I want you to destroy them when you do.”

New fear filled Warren. He couldn’t imagine how he was supposed to destroy ademon as powerful as Fulaghar was. If it had been that easy, why hadn’t Merihimdone it while he was talking to him?

Instead, Warren chose to say nothing. He didn’t even ask how he was supposedto find the demons he had been charged with destroying.

Without another word, Merihim walked back to the table and lay his hand up on the mirror. Almost at his touch, his body turned to smoke and he was drawn back into the reflective surface. In less than a moment, except for the headless dead man on the floor, it was as if he had never been there.

Warren’s legs quivered and threatened to give way. He remained standing witheffort. His mouth was dry with fear.

Naomi looked up at him. “What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know.” Warren looked over his shoulder at