At the Behest of the Dead (33 page)

Peaches even had one eyes on me. She was curled up near D
oc, with her rear legs scissored at a weird angle.

They’d dragged my crappy television into the living room and adjusted the rabbit ears to pick up a baseball game. The Seattle Mariners were losing to the Yankees ten to two.

“So you’ve all been sitting around while I was wasted on the couch?”

“Not the fi
rst time,” Doc quipped.

“You snore really loud, chief,
” Frank said and popped a naked Oreo half into his mouth. He held his finger down and Peaches rolled over and licked white filling.

“Phineas, can I ask you a favor?” Collin asked. He had one leg crossed over the other and looked relaxed
, while also appearing as uptight as a priest at a strip club.

“Sure, Collin, seeing as how I’m in my own house and your girlfriend just drugged me out of my mind.”

“Whatever. Can you please go take a shower? You smell like demon spoor.”

“I told her I was in the wards.” I shoved my thumb in Gl
enda’s direction. “I don’t think her elevator goes all the way to the top, if you know what I mean.”

“I am g
oing to drug you into next week,” Glenda threatened.

“This is why nobody likes you, Gle
nda. Tell me one thing, friends,” I said. “Did a girl named Ashley call?”

“She did
, but she sounded angry when I answered,” Glenda said. “New squeeze?”

“Probably not anymore.” I groaned.

“Just call her back and tell her what you told us.”

“
What? That I went to hell and didn’t even get a cool t-shirt? Or how about the fact that I was going to call her days ago and apologize for … Well, for something personal. Or maybe I should tell her that my idiot ex is here and has me drugged, or that I was stuck in the first ward and beaten to a pulp by a dead man? Which part should I tell her exactly, Glenda?”

“This is what I’m talking about. No gratitude.” Glenda sniffed and took a seat.

Peaches winked at me and wandered over to be pet by Glenda.

“Demon, eat one of her legs.”

“Repast, you say? Tis not my feeding time,” Peaches replied in his screeching voice. “But if you so command.”

“I was kidding,
” I said, wondering if I was.

My talking demonic Pomeranian certainly got the room
’s attention.

“I told you so!” I
pointed at Peaches and then stormed upstairs to take a shower.

Chapter Seventeen

I was more or less happy to see that Peaches hadn’t eaten everyone in the room.

Later I calmed down and
explained to the others what had happened on the other side. Collin stared at me like I was nuts while Glenda sat, legs and arms crossed, like she was listening to the weather.

As we discussed the implications of
Balkir’s new found life as a possessor of demons, we came to the agreement that we needed to at least try to confront him. To be clear I said it was a very very bad idea, but Collin was unimpressed. If he wanted to take this case to the guild to gain full authority, he needed to see it firsthand. I suspected he still thought I was full of shit and just wanted proof so he could have me committed.

I had the little book I’d removed from the room and was studying it intently between trying to listen and trying to make points.

While the argument raged, Doc took out an old ivory pipe and went outside to smoke.

I finally gave up on the ‘I’m going alone bravado’ after ten minutes.

“Fine. If you guys want your souls roasting next to mine for eternity, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Glenda rolled her eyes. Again.

“Are you sure you actually went over the cusp. Maybe you were smoking something and all of your injuries are from falling off your fork?”

“
You got me. So stick around while I go back. All of you. This is insane.”

She sniffed and crossed her arms again.

“What do you speak of?” Doc returned. He was stooped and leaned on a staff, but his eyes were bright and more alive than I felt. He would look a little bit like Gandalf if he had a long white beard and hadn’t been wearing an AC/DC shirt.

“Kicking ass in the wards,” I sai
d.

“I’ll get my fork.
” He left the room.

“
You shouldn’t be going anywhere.” Glenda had her motherly face on, but with her clothing it was about as believable as a stripper channeling Shakespeare.

“Glenda, enough mothering for one day.”

“I’m not mothering. I’m just worried. I don’t know what really happened, but you clearly aren’t in your right mind.”

“I’ve never been right in the head.” I moaned and covered my aching
skull with one arm.

Collin shot me a look that I couldn’t read. He looped an arm around Glenda’s shoulders and they moved a few feet away and whispered
together. After a minute, they came back but Glenda didn’t look too happy.

“And I suppose you figured out how to actually get us into the ward?”

“As a matter of fact, I believe I have found a way,” I said and slipped the book back inside my pocket.

“When can you be ready?” Collin asked.

“Might as well go now. Assuming I can stand.”

Glenda and Collin both frowned at my words
, so I shot them a confident smile that was sheer bluster. “This should be fun. A gathering of the callings. Two necromancers, a changer, a witch, and Mr. Grumpy Pants.”

Collin frowned.

“Let’s see how you do getting off the couch. This is such a bad idea. Look at you, Phin. You’re bruised and battered.” Glenda ignored my shot at her beau.

“Some guys pay a lot of money to feel like this,” I said and tried to get to my feet.

Glenda was not amused. I watched her carefully, convinced she was going to kick me regardless of me ending up on my ass or on my feet.

“Hand me a
robe,” I said to Glenda with a winning smile.

“What do I look like?
Suzy-goddamn-homemaker? It’s in the laundry room. Get it yourself. If you’re so ready to run off and fight demons, you can start by making it that far.”

“You did my laundry? That’s so sweet.”

“I did.” Doc grinned.

“I hope you went easy on the starch.”

“Come on, Glenda, give me a break here.”

She just stared.

“Always gotta do stuff the hard way,” I said and tried to get to my feet, thirsty, dizzy, floor spinning, stomach tossing, and throat clenching. Seconds later, I had made it up onto one knee. My head pounded so hard I was afraid it would give in to the pressure in my blood vessels and just explode.

I stuck my hand out for support
, but even Frank backed away when Glenda cast her smoldering gaze on him.

“Fine, have it your way,” I muttered and used the couch arm to help
me stand. I experienced a moment of vertigo before I took one stiff robot step and used the momentum to get my other leg moving. Walking, something I’d done for a good long while now, suddenly wasn’t so easy.

Glenda shook her head and left the room. I’ve never been so happy to see her depart.

“She still cares for you, but not in that way, you know,” Collin said.

“I can handle Glenda,” I said.

“Really? Because it’s a bad idea to get on her bad side.”

“Thanks, Captain Obvious. I know what she’s like.”

We both looked away for one uncomfortable moment.

“What did you say to her a minute ago?”

“I told her that I believed you. It’s crazy, but I know something happened at the school. I know Salazar’s death wasn’t a spell gone wrong. I admit that Balkir’s involvement was a shock, but I knew about the blood magic. I’ve known for a while and I looked away.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I sensed it but I didn’t pursue the matter. I assumed that if someone like Balkir was dabbling in blood magic then I needed to be blind to it. He’s just so old and has so much history. I’m barely one hundred and forty. He could burn me to a crisp without batting an eye, and that’s the truth of the matter.”

“You were scared?” I didn’t bother to mention my own brush with blood magic a few days ago.

“Not scared, respectful. What would you do if you found out that Salazar was holding midnight communes with a third ward demon?”

“Honestly? I’d probably give him a medal. Third’s a tough bunch.”

“Don’t be such a smartass.” He frowned.

“I get your point
, but what you did was a mistake. If you’d said something, launched a formal investigation, maybe my mentor would be alive now.”

He looked away.

I didn’t poke him in the chest but I wanted to. Inside I felt rage, but this was not the time to get into it with Collin. The fact was that he’d messed up and now people were dead. Some head of security he had been. When all of this was over I planned to launch a formal inquiry. If I survived the next few days and wasn’t laughed out of the guild.

“We’ll talk about it later,
” I said and got as far as the door into the laundry room before I reached out for a handle that wasn’t there. Luckily a hand took mine and I found myself looking at Doc. He had a firm grip, and despite his age his arms were like iron bars where they held me up.

“You look like shit
.”

“Thanks, Doc.”

“I made coffee.”

“I’ll take a gallon.”

“Son, can you really do all that malarkey you were talking about?”

“I don’t know, Doc. I can do some wild things, and now that I understand the cusp a little better I think I can get us in.” I didn’t bother telling him that I’d read how to get in less than thirty minutes ago.

He nodded.

“Should I whip up a few zombies?”

“It would take too long for them to traipse toward the cusp.”

Doc nodded and looked around the room.

“Guess I’ll have to settle for a classic,” he said and pulled out a revolver that was modern a hundred and fifty years ago.

“That’ll do, Doc. That’ll do.”

“Keep that up and I’l
l pistol whip you into tomorrow.” He smiled.

“I’m a child of the cusp. I think it’s time you all started respecting that.”

Peaches belched brimstone and rolled on her back, legs sticking straight up in the air.

**

We were about to magically zap inside the ward, to a summoning portal that probably hadn’t been touched in centuries. There, we’d confront the most powerful demonologist ever, on his own territory. I had no doubt that we were about to get our collective asses beaten. With that in mind, I wanted to talk to one other person and ask her a favor.

I came up with a plan and then made a quick call.

Collin had been nice enough to return my chest piece from the guild. I strapped on the cold metal. The pain was immediate as the cruel metal bit into my flesh.

I spun around to find P
eaches sitting in the doorway watching me get dressed. That wasn’t creepy at all.

“Thou dost seek to quest, yes? To whe
re, might I ask, do you proceed this night?”

“Going back to the wards to stop a guy that can possess demons.”

“Thou speakest truly?” His grating voice was incredulous.

“It’s a long story. See
, I’m this child of the cusp. Balkir’s turned into a complete dick. He’s now a megalomaniac demonologist in charge of a building-sized demon. When he’s done ripping the door off the cusp, he intends to wipe out the guild, to take over. Same thing I guess.”

“Blow, blow, thou winter wind

Thou art not so unkind,

As man's ingratitude.”

“Right. So that’s how my life has been over the last few days. You stayed here and ate all of my frozen hamburger then threw up and crapped all over my bedroom. Why does your shit still smell like brimstone? Never mind, I don’t want to know.”

“I will accompany thee.”

“And I suppose that as soon as you are on the other side of the cusp you’ll just hang out in dog form and not try to kill me.”

“I can be of use. Trust me. I pledged
, and demons do not break their vows.”

“That has not always been my experience, Peaches.”

“I pray thee cease thy counsel,

Which falls into mine ears as profitless

as
water in a sieve.”

“Fine! Just stop with the quotes,” I pleaded.

The demon panted in an almost
doglike manner, except its tongue didn’t move and neither did her sides. Weirdo.