Light My Fire (28 page)

“I feel like I’ve been brushed backwards, but yeah, OK
otherwise.” The demon licked a few rumpled patches of fur.

I turned to see where Nora had gone and found myself
facing a room full of people all staring at me with dis
belief, Nora included.

Rene smiled.

A tall, balding man built like one of the dragon bodyguards
stepped forward, obviously a security person. “Guardian.
Mortal. Identification?”

Nora brought out her wallet and showed him a card.

“Member number 1112,” he read to another guard be
hind a computer, who promptly tapped the information onto the keyboard. The second man nodded at the first.

“You may pass,” the guard told her. She walked for
ward a few feet, stopping to chat with one of the men sit
ting behind a desk.

The guard turned to Rene. “Daimon. Immortal. Identifi
cation?”

“I have my passport,” Rene said pleasantly. “But be
yond that...” He gave another shrug.

“You may pass.”

I sent a little triumphant smile to Rene, who winked at
me. At last, confirmation of what I’d suspected—he
wasn’t mortal! Now, if I just knew what a daimon was.

“Guardian. Wyvern’s mate.” The guard frowned at
me, speaking loudly so everyone in the room—people
waiting in a waiting area, others bustling around doing office work—could hear.
“Demon lord. Immortal.
Iden
tification?”

I smiled pleasantly. “All I have is my passport, too. I’m
not a member of the Guardian Guild yet.”

“Name?”

“Aisling Grey.”

At least two people in the room sucked in their breath.
One woman at a desk dropped a stack of papers and went
running out of the room.

“I’m beginning to feel like either a rock star or Ty
phoid Mary,” I whispered to Jim.

“Go with rock star. You get groupies that way.”

“You may pass,” the guard said after a brief consulta
tion with his partner.

“Thank you. Er ... have a nice day.” I spread my smile out to everyone who was still staring at me and followed
Nora and Rene as they left the reception area.

“Some are born to greatness, others aspire to it; some have it thrust upon them,” Rene misquoted as Nora took
us to a conference room.

“Shakespeare didn’t know the half of it,” I grumbled
softly as we entered the room.

17

Three people stood at one end of the room, chatting as
they poured themselves coffee. All three stopped talking
to turn around at our entrance. I recognized one of the
men as Mark Sullivan, the guy who had left the injunc
tion with me, but the woman and other man were strangers.

“Nora Charles?” Mark asked, setting his coffee down
at the head of the table.

Nora nodded.

“I see you have brought... what? Witnesses?”

“Friends,” I said quickly, immediately going into defensive mode at the snarky tone in his voice. “Naturally,
if you do not wish to allow Nora any form of moral support, we will leave. I assume, however, that you have no
problem with her facing this inquisition with a few friends at her side.”

“Well done,” Rene said under his breath. I shot him an
appreciative glance.

“I can assure you this interview is far from the inqui
sition you seem to imagine, Aisling Grey.” Mark waved a
hand toward the end of the table closest to us. “By all
means, stay if that is what you desire.”

The other two people were introduced. “This is Eirene
Mathers, the head of the mentor program, and Greg Gillion,
of the internal investigative committee.”

We took our seats at the opposite end of the table. I
bent down to whisper a warning to Jim to be quiet unless
I indicated it could speak.

“All this power is going to your head,” Jim grumbled.
“I had more fun with Amaymon. He wasn’t always forbidding me to talk just when things got juicy.”

“I would be happy to send you back to him,” I said in
an undertone, then sat up and tried to look supportive and
forthright.

“As you know from the injunction I left with Aisling
Grey earlier, a complaint has been lodged regarding cer
tain inconsistencies with your training program,” Mark
said, shuffling through a couple of papers until he found
what he was looking for. He gave it a quick once-over, then slid it to the side to the internal investigations guy. ‘Although we are not at liberty to reveal the name of the
individual making the complaint, I can assure you that the
complaint itself was investigated thoroughly to determine
if it was valid. Once that was deemed so, the injunction
was issued and an investigation commenced to examine the subject of the complaint—that is you, Miss Charles.”

Nora inclined her head, her hands clasped in front of
her on the table. She looked interested but relaxed. I gave
her full points for style—although she presented a brave
front, I knew she was worried about this slap in the face from an organization she had long served.

“The investigation was carried out by a three-person
committee headed by myself,” Greg Gillion said, evi
dently taking the floor. He didn’t look like the sort of per
son who should be investigating anything—he looked
like a Santa Claus who had been on the South Beach diet
for the past ten months. Balding, with white hair and a
beard, and clothing that hung off him as if it had been
meant for a much larger person, this man looked like any
thing but a take-charge sort of person.

Which just shows why you should never trust first
impressions.

“This interview is the final part of that investigation. It
is your opportunity to answer the investigating team’s
questions and to make a statement in your defense. Do you understand what has been said thus far?”

Nora didn’t so much as bat an eyelash. “Yes, I do.”

“Excellent. The nature of the complaint itself is as fol
lows,” Greg said, consulting a leather portfolio. “First, that you offered apprentice testing to an individual despite the fact that the period of testing had passed, and subsequently gave approval for the individual mentioned to receive offi
cial recognition as an apprentice. Second, that you ma
ligned and otherwise ridiculed a member of the guild in
public at the recent GOTDAM convention. Third, that you
aided and abetted a murderer in his attempt to escape.”

My jaw just about hit the table at the ridiculous allega
tions. I sneaked a peek at Nora out of the corner of my
eye. She was sitting just as still and attentive as she had
been when the interview started. My admiration for her
restraint and self-control was boundless—if someone had
lobbed those absolutely ridiculous accusations at me, I
would have been ranting by now. As it was, I had to remind myself that I was there on forbearance, and my si
lence was more helpful to Nora than any protestations of
her innocence.

“Those three allegations, I am pleased to say, were dis
missed as groundless and based on the accuser’s somewhat biased interpretation of recent events,” Santa Greg said, peering over the top of his gold-rimmed glasses to
see how Nora would take that news.

She smiled slightly and inclined her head in acknowl
edgment.

“However...”

“Somehow, I just knew there was a
however
coming,”
I whispered to Jim. It nodded.

“... the fourth and final accusation was not so easily
dismissed. That is simply that you have taken into your
home a servant of dark powers.”

I frowned, not sure whether he was referring to Jim or
me. “Er... pardon me for interrupting, but are you talk
ing about me? Because if you are, I need to set the record
straight on a few things.”

“No, Miss Grey, I am not referring to you,” Santa Greg
told me with a slight look of admonishment. “The inves
tigation team thoroughly checked the bylaws of the
Guardians’ Guild and could find no mention of a rule re
garding the possible apprenticeship of a demon lord or wyvern’s mate. Neither situation has come up before.”

“However, amendments will be added at the earliest possible date,” Eirene Mathers piped up. I’d almost for
gotten she was there, so quiet had she been. “You may be
interested to know that any existing members of the
guild who are demon lords or wyvern’s mates will be allowed to retain their membership once the new laws go
into effect.”

“That’s very nice of you.” I worked hard to keep my
voice level and sarcasm free, even though it was making
my mouth sour.

She gave me a weak little smile. “The guild is inter
ested in the welfare of all its members, even those of an .. . untraditional mien.”

“The being in question is the demon known as Effri
jim,” Santa Greg said, taking control of the conversation
again.

Jim’s head shot up.

“It is true that Jim lives in the same house as I do,”
Nora agreed. “But it is not my servant, nor do I have con
trol over it any more than it has control over me. It does
not have the least amount of influence over me, and I do
not receive power or abilities from it.”

Everyone looked at Jim.

“You can speak if it’s something helpful,” I whispered.

“Yeah, what she said. Nora takes me on walkies with
Paco and feeds me sometimes, and if she’s really in a
good mood, she’ll scratch my belly, but other than that,
we’re just roomies. There’s no favoritism or anything.
She even yells at me when I get busy with the furniture or
take a dump too close to Paco.”

Santa Greg looked confused. I wanted to throttle my
demon. “Paco is ... ?”

Nora lifted the carrier off the floor and set it on the
table. Visible in the wire door was the figure of a small Chihuahua curled up asleep. “Paco is my dog.”

“Just so. Regardless of the lack of contact with the
demon Effrijim, it is the opinion of the investigating team
that having such a being in constant close contact pro
vides too much of a temptation. A recommendation has been made to restore your mentorship should the demon
be removed from your residence.” .

“Wait a minute,” I interrupted, giving Nora’s hand an apologetic squeeze. “I’m sorry to break in again, but this is just silly. Jim is my demon. It responds only to my
commands. It can’t give Nora power, or corrupt her, or do
whatever it is you seem to think will happen with us living in the same house. Even if Jim wanted to—and you
have to admit, as demons go, Jim is not exactly a prime specimen—it couldn’t. Not without my command.”

“Exactly,” Mark said, an oddly satisfied look on his
face.

A little light began to dawn in the back of my head.

“Oh, I see now,” I said, goose bumps marching down
my arms and legs as the truth hit me. “This is a witch
hunt, isn’t it? You don’t want to ban Nora from the men
tor program—you’re after me.”

“I can assure you that your name was not mentioned in
the complaints,” Santa Greg said, sliding a paper toward
me. “There is a copy, if you’d care to examine it.”

“I don’t need to,” I said, trying to imitate Nora’s calm
exterior. Rene was trying to signal me something with an
odd form of eyebrow semaphore, but I didn’t have time to translate it. “It’s quite clear where this is heading. You are
going to use the utterly ridiculous and completely
groundless idea that Nora could go through me to influ
ence my demon solely to give us grief.”

“On the contrary,” Mark answered. “We fear just the
opposite.”

Next to me, Nora gasped. Rene’s eyes widened.

“I am one of the good guys,” I said, stunned by the unspoken accusation. “I’m a Guardian!
I protect
people, not
harm them!”