Along Came a Demon (20 page)

They glared at each other, while the demon clan shuffled and whispered. Their voices rose, the buzzing of wasps, till I no longer heard the pounding of my heart. Royal One motioned with his hand and their speech abruptly cut off. Silence held the huge room once again, wrapping me like a cold hand.

Royal One nodded. “So be it.”

Royal Two peeled off his jacket and slung it to one side. He clasped the hilt of the sword in both hands and raised it, assuming a martial stance, and every muscle bulged like an enraged bull’s. His copper-gold hair spat sparks as it swirled about his head. His jaw was rigid, his expression thunderous.

He was larger than life. He was magnificent.

Wait a minute! Pointed teeth? So easy to summon the feel of Royal’s mouth on mine. He didn’t have pointed teeth.

Royal One was not
my
Royal.

The demon who was not Royal dropped his whip and lifted one hand. A sword flew through the air and he neatly caught it by the hilt, but did not lift it to meet Royal’s challenge. He looked past the real Royal, to me, as a subtle change came over his face, and he was not quite Royal anymore. His build was slighter, his hair longer, his cheekbones sharper with hollows beneath them.

With only a flash of his eyes, the baring of pointed teeth as warning, he lunged at Royal. Royal caught the blade on his and they snarled in each other’s faces over the crossed hilts. Then they broke apart as if by mutual consent and backed away.

The other demons moved back to give them space. Royal and the other guy slowly circled, blades resting on their shoulders, each studying the other’s face. They darted in.

It was beautiful, in a lethal kind of way. All graceful strokes and weaving bodies. A dance. A deadly dance. Blades flicked and swung and parried as if separate entities from the men who wielded them. Bodies spun, ducked and swayed. Their feet seemed to barely touch the floor.

I don’t know anything about fighting with a blade, but I quickly realized they were evenly matched. I didn’t think one could overcome the other, until one of them tired. The clash of blades made an unholy racket, the sound amplified, clattering back and forth across the room as if a whole platoon fought.

With one eye on the combatants, a prayer for the real Royal in my heart, I worked on the ropes which bound me.

The demons completely enclosed the arena in which Royal danced. The size of the room gave them ample space in which to maneuver and as the two darted about, the demons flowed back away from them, then flowed in again, the motion of a huge, undulating snake. I watched them glide back and forth to give Royal and his opponent space to duel, and hoped they’d get splinters in their bare feet from the rough wooden floor.

The ropes were not real tight to begin with and I twisted my wrists one way and the other until they felt looser. The wood rubbed the tender skin on the underside of my wrists and the rope chafed me, until my wrists were abraded almost all the way around. They became slippery with blood soaking in the coarse fibers, lubricating my skin as I tried to ease my hands through the rope loop.

I kept a watchful eye on the demons, but none paid me any attention. They had their backs to me while they watched the duel. From my elevated position, I saw over their heads to the space where Royal fought.

Biting the inside of my mouth, I wriggled my right hand free, wincing as skin on my wrist and back of my hand messily peeled away.

I tried to unpick the rope on my left wrist, but wrenching at it had tightened the knot and I didn’t have time to take my time, so to speak. I tore my hand free, removing more skin. I sat up, leaned over, and with shaking hands worked on the ropes around my ankles.

I held my breath as I slowly slid down off the contraption to the ground and stood right behind the demons, afraid one or more would look back at me or hear me move, then backed away from them, but not too far. I looked at the table and saw it sat only a few feet from the curving wall. I looked around, peering to penetrate the shadowy perimeter of the room, but the single arched opening was the only exit. If I could sneak around the demons, if I could reach the archway, if I could outpace the demons who would surely come after me, if… .

I gave up on ifs. I couldn’t leave Royal behind.

I hunched over and made my way behind them, back to the table. I was sure they would hear me. With their supersensitive hearing, how could they miss me scrabbling along? But they were totally captivated by the duel.
One step at a time, Tiff.

When I reached the table, I squatted behind it and rested for a moment. I was so scared I would be seen, that the cries of the demon horde when they saw me would distract Royal, giving the other demon an opportunity to kill him; that Royal would die.

But the longer I waited, the more chance of all that happening. I grabbed the Ruger off the top of my clothes, staggered upright and climbed on the table.

Royal and his dueling partner moved too fast for me to get a bead on them. I spread my legs, lifted the gun in both hands and fired over their heads.

The report sounded like a shot from a cannon, followed by a
ping
as it ricocheted. Most of the demons reflexively ducked. The others froze. Royal and his adversary stopped moving, and stared at me.

As Royal met my eyes across the distance separating us, the demon stepped and spun, his blade making a diagonal at Royal’s neck.

I fired again.

I aimed for his shoulder, but my hand shook and the bullet hit him just above the collarbone. The impact spun him halfway around.

Royal took his head off.

The body stayed upright for a instant, then collapsed to the ground. My eyes, and those of every demon, followed the head as it trundled meatily over the wooden boards and hit the wall nose first. It rolled back and came to rest on one cheek.

I dropped to my knees.

Royal raised his head and stared a challenge at the demons. I lifted my gun, expecting all hell to break loose - Royal and I couldn’t fight off thirty demons - but they backed away. Convinced they would turn on us, I watched in disbelief as they walked to the wall and passed through the arch in ones and twos. Caesar paused and met my eyes, but I couldn’t read his expression, then he followed the rest of them.

Royal lowered his bloody sword, then dropped it. It hit the boards with a clatter. I didn’t see him move. He was just here, arms reaching for me, easing me off the table. He went to his knees, taking me with him, gently holding me, my face in his chest, my legs sprawled on the floor. I couldn’t take my finger out of the Ruger’s trigger guard and my hand clenched the butt so hard it was bloodless.

“
Tiff,” he said softly in my hair. “Can you stand? We have to get out of here.”

I wanted to stay on his knees. I didn’t want him to ever let me go. But I nodded on his chest. He eased me off his knees, stood, and helped me upright. Reaction set in, and I shook, the Ruger jerking in my grasp. I let him take it from my hand, then his arms enfolded me again. I felt hard metal on my naked spine and his fingers move to engage the safety.

“
Ow!” I said.

He pushed me to arm’s length, brows almost meeting just above his nose as his gaze swept my body. “You’re hurt.”

And naked. And Royal Mortensen is seeing all of me,
I thought,
as if it mattered under the circumstances.

He let me go, undid the top two buttons of his shirt, lost patience and ripped it open. Buttons popped off and flew everywhere. Bunching the material, he used the shirt to gently wipe drying blood from my body. The little nicks were not deep and the bleeding had already stopped. He tore the material in strips with appalling ease and bound my wrists. He looked me over again, and apparently satisfied, helped me dress and put my necklace, bracelet, watch and the Ruger in my pockets.

With his arm along my shoulders, we crossed the room to get his jacket. He bent to pluck it from the floor and tried to drape it over me.

“
Are we going home?”

“
If we are lucky.”

I can be practical at the strangest times. “Then you’d better wear it, else you’ll be a mite conspicuous in Clarion. What do you mean,
if we’re lucky
?”

He put his arm around my waist and turned me in the other direction. “We have an hour to leave. It’s a big place.”

“
Why an hour?”

“
The tradition of combat dictates the victor has one hour to quit a hostile arena.” He frowned at me. “But surely you knew.”

“
Knew what?”

“
The rules of challenge. That we would go free if I won the duel.”

“
How in
hell
could I possibly know that?” I said as I shook my head.

He grasped me by the shoulder and held me in place. “But… . What did you think you were doing?” He looked aghast. “You did not
think
, did you. You and your little gun - “

“
I
did
think! Kind of. I figured if I shot enough of them we could make a break for it.” I wrenched my shoulder free. “And it’s not a little gun.”

I didn’t understand what he said beneath his breath, but I’m sure it wasn’t complimentary. He put his hand in the small of my back and propelled me onward.

His feet slowed, stopped, and I saw we stood between the body and the head near the wall. Royal just stood there, looking at the head with an odd, angry … yearning.

“
Who is he?” I asked in a low voice.

Royal glanced at the body with emptiness in his eyes. “My brother Kien.”

What do you say to a man who just killed his own brother? What could you say? Nothing would be adequate. I looked at Kien’s head and felt no remorse or horror that an evil man lost his life, but I felt terrible Royal had to be the one who did it.

As if he read my thoughts, he put one finger under my chin and tilted my head up. “It would have happened eventually. It was inevitable,” he said stiffly. “He was always corrupt, even as a child. Although this is the first time we fought one-on-one, it is not the first time he tried to kill me. We were of the same blood, but never true kin.”

There must be
something
I should say, but I couldn’t think what. I stuttered something unintelligible.

“
It would be better if we do not discuss it farther.” Royal smiled thinly. “Change the subject, you are good at that.”

In other circumstances, I would take umbrage at the remark, but I swallowed and obeyed.

We walked to the arched opening and the set of stone steps going up. They rose steeply; the bluish illumination came from brighter blue light at the top. I looked back. “What is this place?”

“
It is Morte Tescien, my ancestral home.” He took my hand and led me up the steps.

I watched where I put my feet. “When you say home, do you mean like in
house
?”

“
Yes, Tiff.”

“
So what’s down there, the basement?”

“
Part of it. An area not in use at the moment.”

Good grief!
“Just how big
is
this place?”

“
Think White House.”

Two more steps, and it clicked. His brother called him Ryel. Morte Tescien. Ryel Morte Tescien. Royal Mortensen. “You changed your name.”

“
No. I’m Royal Eric Mortensen, born and raised in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. But I was also born Ryel, of House Morte Tescien.”

A square passage stretched away from the top of the steps. The size, wide as it was high, with floor, walls and ceiling lined in glossy, glowing cobalt-blue tiles, gave it a crazy three-dimensional effect. It seemed to go on forever; I couldn’t see where it ended. Royal’s fingers twined with mine and we walked on.

The first right angle came upon us suddenly. I might have walked into the facing wall if not for his hand guiding me. The floor gradually sloped until I felt the pressure of walking uphill in my calves and ankles.

“
We are in the maintenance levels,” he said. “Everything required for the smooth running of the House is tucked away down here. It feels empty. I think they are distancing themselves from what happened below.”

Another staircase, another passageway with silvery, polished metal doors, some open, others closed. I glimpsed small square rooms lined with metal shelves on which square and rectangular cartons sat in stacks, objects wrapped in murky plastic, tin cans. Furniture with missing legs, or arms, or chipped woodwork filled another room. We passed what were obviously clerical offices.

“
Whoa!” I said in a low voice when we were safely past. “Computers? Phones?”

Royal gave me a
so?
look.

I brought my brows together. “But your … those guys downstairs … the clothes and swords … I thought you were, well, medieval.”

Alert, he kept his eyes ahead. “It’s an affectation, Tiff. We are a modern society.”

“
Oh. Is demon technology like ours, then? Do you have all the good junk; cell phones and Blue Ray and electronic games?” I thought of an appliance I consider indispensable. “And microwave ovens; do you have microwaves?”