Demon's Triad (18 page)

Dorand must have recognized the change in his face because he let go and stood up, shaking his hands fastidiously as if he’d just touched some kind of slime. Which maybe he had.

“That’s why it isn’t a good idea for you two to be alone together,” he said, helping Ferrin up. Blood still streamed from his nose, and he wiped at it with the hem of his shirt.

“It’s infecting him too,” Aleeza said softly. Her eyes were wide as she stared at Ferrin. “It’s all my fault, isn’t it?”

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“It’s neither of your faults. It’s the demon magic. You can’t be—”

“What demon magic? Will one of you please tell me what’s going on here?”

Aleeza and Dorand looked at him. He could practically see the wheels turning in their heads.

Finally Dorand nodded. “I need to try and see Walter before he starts his evening ritual. We can talk on the way.”

“He does magic every night?” Aleeza asked.

Dorand shook his head, smiling a little for the first time since he’d seen Ferrin talking with her. “He watches TV and drinks White Russians, but he gets very angry if someone interrupts him.”

Aleeza smiled too. So did Ferrin. Some of the tension surrounding the three of them eased.

“Come on,” Ferrin said. “Dorand can drive my car. I’m parked illegally anyway.”

* * * * *

She hadn’t been to this part of Rothschild University’s Savior City campus before.

Her classes had all been in the new buildings, squat, plain edifices of cement and glass that watched the roads with blank, dull eyes.

The Demonology Center was different. Towers and garrets jutted willy-nilly from the roof, and the building sprawled and shifted like a drunk across the grass. Aleeza knew immediately, before she even stroked the stones surrounding the door, that this building likely predated the city itself. “How did it survive?” she asked softly.

Dorand heard her. He always did, didn’t he? “Demon magic,” he said. “The spells protecting it aren’t dark, but they’re powerful.”

“Is it dangerous to go in?”

“No. They study demons here. They don’t house them. It’s been clean for centuries, and they clean it again every year. Just do me a favor? Both of you?”

Ferrin tensed slightly beside her but nodded.

“If something says ‘Do Not Touch’…don’t touch it. Don’t even look at it hard. We don’t know what we’re dealing with.”

“We’re not stupid,” Ferrin said, his voice tight. Aleeza wanted to reach out to him but didn’t dare.

“I know you’re not,” Dorand replied. “But whatever this thing is it seems to have targeted you both, and I don’t want to take any chances. Aleeza wasn’t being stupid by the lake either, but she was still nearly taken over.”

Ferrin nodded, his face flushing. She knew he hadn’t liked hearing what happened between her and Dorand earlier. Even though they’d given him a version as clean as they could make it, there was no way to explain without admitting he’d caught her masturbating, that she’d jerked him off while he did the same to her.

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She didn’t know why it bothered him so much. Hadn’t he and Dorand been a threesome with Carantha Smoler? He should be used to this kind of thing now, used to sharing.

Instead he’d wanted to kill Dorand for kissing her, for talking to her by her apartment building, and she’d seen that part of Dorand seemed to want the same thing.

What was happening to them? All of them?

They’d explained briefly in the car about the voices Ferrin sometimes heard, but that didn’t explain his reaction to Dorand. It didn’t explain what had happened after those goons attacked her either. Ferrin hadn’t been in the path of the spell her attacker flung at her. Why had it affected him too?

She sighed while they waited for Dorand’s friend Walter to come to the door.

Hopefully he’d have some answers for her, for all of them.

This hope flagged in the face of Walter’s uninspiring appearance. He was short and slight, with sandy hair and a pale, pinched-looking face. He looked like every victim she’d ever seen, the kind of guy kids picked on in school and muggers jumped on the street. He was weak, an easy target.

The impression lasted until he shook her hand. A wave of power surged over her, almost knocking her flat. Whoever this guy was, he could probably have her dead before she had a chance to react if he wanted to.

“It’s nice to meet you,” she said as firmly as possible.

Walter smiled, a broad, confident grin. “And you too.”

She watched him shake with Ferrin, saw the same flush come to Ferrin’s cheeks as had come to hers. Only Dorand seemed unaffected by his friend’s power. Made sense, really. He was probably used to it.

The three of them followed Walter into the building, down the shiny marble hall.

Glass cases shone against the walls as they walked past, too quickly for Aleeza to see what rested inside. Walter set a brisk pace, and after a minute she gave up trying to look around and focused on keeping up.

Of course, watching Dorand and Ferrin’s tight asses as they walked in front of her was quite pleasant too. She resisted the urge to grin. Only a woman who’d been sex-starved for years would be thinking of such things while in a demonology center waiting to find out how severe the danger to her life was.

They turned down one hall, then another and another until Aleeza had lost track of lefts and rights. She had the vague sense they were descending, but there were no stairs or obvious slopes so she couldn’t be sure.

Finally they came to a wooden door so old it was starting to petrify. Walter pulled an elaborate iron key, incongruous amid the small, shiny silver modern ones on the ring, from his pocket and inserted it. He muttered something under his breath and turned it. Aleeza shivered as the force of his magic slid over her skin.

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The door opened on one of the biggest rooms she’d ever seen. Shelves heavy with books, trinkets, statues and various objects she couldn’t identify at all covered the walls from floor to impossibly high ceiling. Light filtered in through tiny, dusty windows set in the rock.

They picked their way across the cluttered floor, past large statues and desks, past more stacks of books. Aleeza sneezed.

“Bless you.” Ferrin and Dorand said it at the same time. She smiled her thanks. If she’d been a different type of woman, watching them jostle each other to stand closer would have made her feel great. As it was, it only reminded her what kind of situation her anti-celibacy spell had put her in.

She’d just wanted a man. Just wanted to try and put to rest the dreams that haunted her, the restless yearning of her body. Now she had two men, both powerful and sexy, both of whom wanted her and didn’t seem eager to share.

Both of whom she cared about more than she’d imagined possible, especially in such a short time. But as she stood amid the clutter of the room, she realized that living without either of them might just feel like living without air.

In other words, like not living at all.

“What?” The men had been talking while she woolgathered, and now they looked at her expectantly. “I’m sorry.”

“I’d like to see the rune, please.” Walter’s voice was as pleasant and unassuming as his appearance. She reached into her bag.

“I’ll get it.” Dorand took the bag from her. She started to protest, then thought better of it. Maybe he was right. The room was clean—magically, of course, physically it was so filthy and musty she half expected Jimmy Hoffa might be hidden there—but with demon artifacts around, it was better not to take a chance. Amiantos didn’t have to worry as much, despite what happened earlier in the woods. If Dorand was re-infected he wouldn’t need help to expel the curse.

He pulled the picture out of the file and handed it to Walter.

“Hmmm. It’s demon, all right. I don’t remember seeing this one, but it looks like an amalgam.”

“Amalgam?” Ferrin bounced gently on the balls of his feet. Aleeza didn’t like the way his eyes glittered.

Walter’s eyebrows rose “A rune overwritten by a personal rune. I can figure out the base rune in a few minutes, but knowing what the caster intended with the new one will be guesswork.”

“So there’s no chance?” She tried to hide her disappointment.

“No, there’s a very good chance, once we know what the original rune is intended to do. We know who the victim was. We can probably deduce a lot from the rune’s meaning and manner of death.”

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“But we don’t really know the manner of death. He had a stake through the chest, close to the heart, but the postmortem wasn’t detailed enough to know if that was the cause of death or placed there afterward.”

“For this case. But you have detailed autopsies for the others?” Walter adjusted his glasses and peered at Dorand. “You know how Carantha died, right? And the other victim?”

“Lymera Brown,” Aleeza said quickly, seeing the shadows pass over Dorand and Ferrin’s faces. “She and Carantha…different methods of death.”

“May I see their rune photos please?”

Dorand handed them over, his face expressionless. Aleeza’s fingers itched to reach out and stroke his cheek, to relax the stiff muscles of his clenched jaw.

She didn’t, though. After the way Ferrin had attacked him earlier, she didn’t dare.

“Hmmm.” Walter, still examining the photos in his left hand, shoved some books sideways on a desk with his right, clearing a space for the pictures to rest while he grabbed a chair. He glanced up. “I’ll probably be an hour or so. You guys can amuse yourself until then.”

“Here?” Aleeza asked.

He shrugged. “You can wait in the hall if you want. Make a left out the door and you’ll go straight to the armory. There’s some interesting stuff in there, old demon weapons, things like that. We keep some books on their history too if you want to read.”

“Can we go back outside? Maybe get ourselves something to eat?” Her stomach rumbled as she spoke. When was the last time she’d actually had anything to eat, anyway?

“I’d rather you didn’t just because it’s a pain in the ass for me to lead you all the way back out and come get you again.” He glanced at his watch. “
Celebrities Behaving
Badly
starts in an hour and a half, so I’d rather not waste any time.”

“Of course,” Aleeza said. Nice to see a man who had his priorities in line.

The three of them left Walter with his nose buried in his books and made the suggested left turn out the door. Aleeza’s pulse quickened. An hour alone with Ferrin and Dorand. It was just what she wanted—and what she knew she shouldn’t have.

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“Look at this.” Ferrin pointed toward one of the larger cases. Behind the thick glass was what Aleeza could only describe as a mace on psychedelic drugs. The enormous spiked ball had razor-sharp tips, each gleaming cold silver. The chain was as big around as her thigh.

“What would have carried that thing?”

“A giant.” Dorand’s breath stirred the back of her hair as he laughed softly. Aleeza fought the urge to arch her back, to see if her ass would come into contact with the man who stood behind her. Call her crazy, but museums had always done something for her, enough of a something that she’d made sure to avoid them while still under the Gunera curse.

“Giants didn’t really exist, did they?” she asked instead.

“No, but giant demons did.” He stepped forward to stand beside her, his upper arm brushing her shoulder. Just that slightest touch comforted her, made her feel warm inside. “It could have been a Trevero, or a Liguiran.”

“Or a Viotoni,” Ferrin said. “Like it says on the tag in the case.”

He said it lightly and Aleeza considered laughing, but then Dorand tensed. “I didn’t see that,” he replied. The tinge of cold in his voice made Aleeza shiver.

“It’s scary, anyway,” she cut in, moving away to look at something else. This was not the way she’d pictured this hour going. She hadn’t expected the men to keep sniping at each other.

Weren’t they friends? Brothers? Could she really be coming between them like this?

It was the last thing she wanted to do. Nothing could be worth that, not even Dorand’s thick cock or the way Ferrin made her blood feel like it was going to boil right out of her skin. She didn’t want to hurt either of these men, and the last thing she needed after the gray magic she’d performed in the woods was any further stain on her karma.

“Guys, I think…I think it’s not fair of me to have you both here.”

They stopped glaring at each other and turned to her, identical looks of surprise on their faces.

“Yeah,” she said, her words coming faster. “I mean, this is my job. I’m not even really authorized to bring other people into the investigation, especially when neither of you are Gunera. And you’re witnesses, in a way, too, so…maybe you two should go now, and I’ll—”

“Are you crazy?” Ferrin growled. His voice echoed in the cold room.

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“Have you forgotten why we’re here?” Dorand’s voice was calmer but no less intense.

“Or about the guys who attacked you earlier?”

“I managed to beat them on my own,” she said, crossing her arms defensively over her chest.

“And what about next time?” Dorand stepped forward then stopped, as if he wanted to cross the room to her but changed his mind. “What about the spell on your apartment? The runes on the bodies?”

“I’ll know next time not to even trace the images,” she said. “And Walter’s going to decipher them, right? So he’ll—”

“He’s going to decipher them for me,” Dorand said. “As a favor.”

“And if you hadn’t been here, I would have found my way here to get him to decipher them for me. It’s part of my job.”

“What are you really saying, Aleeza?” She didn’t want to look at Ferrin when he spoke, but she couldn’t help herself. The pain in his voice made her ache.

“Just that I don’t think this is a good idea, I mean—”

“She’s saying she doesn’t want to see us anymore,” Dorand cut in. “Either of us.