Random Acts of Sorcery (14 page)

Sam was still asleep when Miri arrived, his face half-buried the pillow while Vladmira flew back and forth above the
bed in grand, sweeping arcs. Miri smiled; asleep, he almost looked like a little boy.

She plopped down on the side of his bed and rubbed his back. “Wake up, Sam. We need to talk.” There were other ways she could have woken him up, and she was tempted, but it didn’t seem like the time.

He made some noises, still half asleep. “I’m not on the schedule until 4:00. Go away.”

“It’s about Cassie, it’s important.”

As she predicted, that woke him up. He sat up and rubbed his eyes. Vladmira tried to settle on his shoulder, but he twisted his body so that she missed and settled on the bedpost instead.

“We need to trim your claws, lady,” he mumbled in the general direction of the bat, then turned at Miri for the first time. “What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be guarding Cassie.”

“Nyesha’s got it for me, just for an hour or two. She’s not in the school as a student, but she can sense all the kids from where she is.”

“…Oh.
Then what’s so important that it couldn’t wait?”

Miri hesitated before she spoke. “Something happened last night. Cassie made me promise not to tell you. And I did promise her.” She took a deep breath she didn’t need. Sam’s eyes bored into her face; he was fully awake now.

“I hate betraying her like this,” she said, looking down. “She’s my friend, and I love her, but I know I don’t work for her—I work for you. I realized it was my responsibility to tell you.”

Sam knitted his brows for a moment, thinking. “Is she in danger? Because, if it’s not at that level of importance….”

“She is definitely in danger.”             

He took a deep breath. “Then no matter how mad she gets at both of us, you need to tell me.”

“Okay,” said Miri, feeling dejected. It wasn’t just that she was betraying Cassie’s trust; it was the fact that she was acting like a servant, in this room. Normally she didn’t mind being a subordinate; after all, everyone had to be subordinate to someone, whether the hierarchy was explicit or not.

But in this room, at the very least, she had always been in charge. She had advised Sam on what to do and what not to do, and he had never failed to listen to her.
Having to relinquish that authority hurt, more than she would have thought.

Sam seemed to sense something of her discomfort; either
that, or he was really hungry. “Come on. Let’s go to the kitchen and I’ll make you breakfast, and you can tell me all about the latest thing Cassie did that’s going to get us all killed.”

He threw on a pair of jeans and headed out, with her following close behind. “I can’t believe how much cooking you do now,” she said. “It’s adorable.”

“Having an actual kitchen will do that. One egg or two?”

“Two!” she chirped, plopping down at his kitchen table.

“Alright. Now, talk.”

Her budding good cheer quickly evaporated.

“Um, okay, so…where to start…” she said as Sam gathered things from his refrigerator. “Last night, when we got back from DG, Cassie ran out to the park and summoned a demon. I think it was your father.”

The sound of Sam sorting through ingredients in the refrigerator suddenly came to a halt. There was a pause, and Miri wondered if she’d handled this all wrong. Finally, he closed the refrigerator and sat down in the chair across from her, hands empty.

“I’ll cook later. Talk now.”

She told him all that she could; how it seemed like Cassie had summoned this demon before. How they had been talking about how Cassie had disappeared, or dropped out of reality somehow. Somewhere in the middle of that conversation, she had been thrown into a metal fence so hard that she blacked out for a while, but she still heard snippets of the conversation later on. It had been so aggravating, lying there and trying to listen, knowing she could do nothing to help Cassie if she had gotten up.

Sam just listened to her, motionless as a statue. She couldn’t read his expression at all.

“After he smacked me, I mostly just heard bits and pieces because I was so far away,” she continued. “He said something like, ‘I can’t do what that little girl did,’ and ‘I have to tell the others.”

“Anything else?”

She strained to remember, to make sense of the partial sentences she’d heard. “She didn’t say much, he was doing most of the talking. I think she said ‘What happens now?’ and he said he didn’t know.”

Sam balled his fists on the table. “You must have misheard. My father would never admit that there was anything he didn’t know.”

“I think that’s all I’ve got, though,” she said apologetically. “Maybe I should have tried to move closer once I woke up.”

“No,” he said quickly. “You were right to stay down. My father’s very dangerous. You may be Cassie’s bodyguard, but I don’t expect you to fight Lords of Hell.”

“I wish I knew what it all meant,” said Miri.

“Me too,” he said. His eyes were looking at something far away.

Miri scrunched up her face. “Are you angry at Cassie?”

He was too quiet, too still. “I don’t know. I think I’m just numb,” he said, then he sighed. “And I really wish I could talk to Serenus right now.”

“Oh!” Miri exclaimed, standing up. “I’m so sorry! That was the other thing I could hear. I almost forgot because it had nothing to do with anything else.”

“What?”

“He said something to her like, ‘I’m sorry I threatened him, I don’t know what Asmodeus wants from him.’ And I heard Ser’s name before I got hit, so I’m pretty sure they were talking about him.”

“Asmodeus has him?” Sam said, standing up as well. “That means he’s probably in Realm. I should go look for him.”

The very thought of that made Miri uncomfortable. “Are you sure that’s safe?” She knew that Sam’s father had given him the ability to travel to and from th
e demon Realm (better known as Hell), but she wasn’t aware that he’d ever gone back since the battle in North Carolina.

“It’s not safe, but I’m going to. I’m fumbling around in the dark without him right now,” said Sam. He leaned his weight on the back of the chair and looked to the side, obviously thinking. “I’ll need to drop by DG to get something before I go,” he said,
then he turned to return to his bedroom and dress.

“Wait! What about Cassie?” Miri asked.

He whipped back around. “What about her?”

“Are you going to…confront her about all of this?”

He grimaced, as though she’d reminded him of something he’d rather not address. “I haven’t decided yet. If I confront her and she refuses to tell me, I might have to make her tell me…and then, she’ll never forgive me. But I can’t just….” He trailed off, then looked at her. “What would you do?”

She was surprised that he would ask her opinion. Surprised, and a little gratified. “I would confront her. I think you have to keep her safe…even if it makes her hate you, and even if that hurts,” she said carefully. “Because nothing will hurt more than if you fail to keep her safe.”

He nodded, then went to the bedroom. She heard him dressing quickly, all whooshing fabric and zippers, then he quickly moved past her on his way out.

“Sorry. We’ll do breakfast another time.”

“I won’t believe you can actually make eggs until you do,” Miri quipped.

“You know, I’m getting a little tired of no one ever having any faith in my cooking ability,” he said as he left the apartment.

Dwight wasn’t in his office very often lately; he was needed up front too often. But with both Francesca and Khalil up front, he finally had some time to sit down and fill out some of the paperwork corporate had been hounding him about. He knew Khalil was only at partial effectiveness, considering how little sleep they’d all gotten last night, but even a half-functioning Khalil was still faster on the espresso bar than most people.

He was anticipating several peaceful, if dull hours alone, but Khalil ruined everything, as per usual. The door to his office swung open so suddenly that the sound made him jump. “You have to come see!”

“See what?” said Dwight, not turning around.

“It is literally the greatest thing that has ever happened.”

Dwight sighed and got up.

“This better be good.”

“I told you, it is literally the greatest thing that has ever
—”

“Shut up.”

Khalil led Dwight to the break room, and quickly stepped aside so Dwight could take in the scene. It was Vladmira and Mr. Golding. The bat was trying to play with him, taking big, sweeping dives, while the little rat buried his head under his paws, trying to protect himself from her. Periodically, the rat would gather his courage and try to run for it, only for Vladmira to effortlessly chase him down, at which point he would guard his head and shake like a leaf again. The cycle kept repeating all over the furniture.

Dwight considered the sight for a few moments. “This is not the greatest thing.”

“Are you sure? It’s like we’re inside the ultimate Youtube video,” said Khalil with no small amount of reverence.

Dwight lifted his red-blond bangs off his face, still watching the rat scurry around. “Poor guy doesn’t deserve this. Maybe we should put him back in the cage to prot
ect him, until Sam gets in and—”

At that, Sam entered the break room from the other door.

“Speak of the devil!” said Khalil. When Dwight and Sam both gave him dirty looks, he glared back at them. “Hey that wasn’t supposed to be a stupid pun or anything, it’s called a figure of speech.”

“We were just talking about you because we wanted you to do something about her,” said Dwight, gesturing to Vladmira. “She’s scaring the teacher half to death.”

“Stop it, you!” Sam yelled at the bat, and she whimpered and landed on the lockers, chastened. Dwight was pretty sure that normal bats couldn’t make whimpering sounds, but Vladmira seemed to have a much wider selection of vocalizations than your average bat.

Meanwhile, Mr. Golding was desperately trying to find a way out of the room. With his quick hands, Khalil grabbed the rodent before he could bolt out
the door between his legs. “Hey, sorry man but we can’t have you leaving here. What if you get lost?”

“Put him on the table,” said Sam, “I need him for something.” He pulled a sheet of paper out of a nearby drawer and began writing something down on it. Dwight and Khalil changed glances.

“Will this help change him back to a human?” Dwight asked.

“Technically, no,” said Sam, still writing furiously. “But it won’t hurt him in any way.”

Dwight shrugged at Khalil, and the latter put the rat on the table where Sam was writing. The fight seemed to have gone out of Mr. Golding, who didn’t move once Khalil had placed him.

What Sam was writing turned out to be the alphabet. He had filled the paper with all 26 letters in a clean, clinical hand. “John, I need your middle name.
Point with your nose to the letter that your middle name starts with, then the next one, and so on.”

John looked about as defiant as a rat could look,
then sat on his paws. He clearly did not wish to cooperate.

Sam gave him a tired look. “John, it’s either this or run around while Vladmira divebombs you again. Is this really a fight you want to pick?”

The rat twitched his whiskers, then slowly made his way towards the paper and started indicating letters.

“B…E…N….” Khalil followed out loud. “Benjamin?”

The rat nodded.

“John Benjamin Golding,” said Sam, sounding it out. “Nice name.”

Dwight crossed his arms. “Gotta say man, this isn’t right. It’s bad enough he’s stuck like this, don’t bully him on top of that.”

“Believe me, I know. He’ll be back to normal just as soon as I can manage.” He looked at the rat with a curious expression that Dwight couldn’t interpret. “I just need to borrow him for a few hours.”

Dwight and Khalil exchanged worried glances once again.

“You’re absolutely sure this won’t hurt him?” Khalil said, sounding unconvinced. “I mean, don’t give me the details because I don’t think I wanna know, but sure?”

“Positive,” he said, picking up the rat and depositing him gently in his coat pocket. “Gotta go now. I’ll be back in time for my shift.”

“Where are you going?” Dwight asked.

“Hell.”

Then Dwight blinked, and Sam was already gone.

The two men stood silently for a few moments. “Err…do you think we were wrong to let him do that?” said Khalil. He looked guilty.

Dwight thought for a moment before he answered. “I think right and wrong are very complicated right now.”

Sam ended up on a dirt road, surrounded by ragged weeds. The sun was low in the sky, but that didn’t mean anything here; in fact, he was pretty sure it wasn’t a real sun. Just a knock-off of the original, designed to mimic a small star by a one very sad demon.

The only one around besides himself and his small companion was a wizened old woman, who was pulling an apple cart behind her some 100 feet to the north. He turned toward her, knowing his voice would carry farther in the strange air here than it would in reality.

“Excuse me, do you know where I can find Asmodeus?” he called. The old woman stopped moving briefly at the sound of his voice, but continued trudging along.

He sighed. “I’ll pull your cart for a while if you’ll tell me.”

At that she did turn around, gesturing him forward. He couldn’t see her face under her voluminous hood, and was pretty sure he didn’t want to. She gingerly moved aside, and he picked up the cart on his shoulders and began to move. It wasn’t hard; he knew that by design, it was just as heavy as its owner could possibly handle and
not a smidgen more, but he wasn’t the cart’s owner. For him, it was light.

He almost made the mistake of saying he’d pull the cart until they passed a large stone further down the road, but caught himself in time. “I will pull this for 100 more steps,
then you will tell me where to find Asmodeus.”

She nodded. It wasn’t a great deal, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. If she held out for too much, he could abandon her and find another soul to query. At least this way, she got a few moments of rest.

When he had finished his labor, she pointed diagonally, back in the direction he had come and off to the left. He expected her voice to be gravelly with age, but when she sounded no older than Cassie, something in his stomach seemed to ache.

“Walk that way until the sky turns purple, then red. You will see three others.”

“Thank you,” he said, giving her back the cart and walking briskly back the way he had come. If he hadn’t talked to the woman, he would never have found where to go if he’d walked for a million years; here, you had to know where you were going in order to get there. Whether or not anything in this world had a fixed destination, or it was all relative, was something he had decided not to think about.

He gingerly stuck a hand in his pocket, only to be rewarded with a bite from the rat. “Really, John?” he said,
then somehow managed to get his hand around the rodent’s middle and pick him up again. He arranged it so that the rat could see out of the top of his pocket, supporting himself on the outside flap with his paws. John swiveled his head to get a look at the scenery and shuddered.

“
See, think of what this will do for you as an English teacher. You can read
The Inferno
and complain to your students that Dante’s version of Hell was all wrong,” he said. “This is a career-building experience.”

As he walked, the scenery changed. The scrubby weeds gave way to long purple grasses, then blue flowers. He passed a half-naked man pulling a heavy stone behind him.

One.

He thought of the old woman and her young voice, and frowned. Was that girl really only a
teenager, and it was labor that had stooped her shoulders like that?
Or had some demon allowed her to keep the lovely voice she had had as a youth, even as the rest of her body crumbled and decayed as she walked? The latter seemed far more likely.

Thinking of a teenager here made him think of Cassie again, and he had to stop himself from grinding his teeth while he walked. He would never let anyone take Cassie here; not even his father.

He passed a set of two pale-skinned boys, who were dragging a dead ox behind them via chains attached to their necks. The ox was missing a leg, but strangely had not attracted any flies.

“Nice rat,” one of them called out, and Sam nodded.

Two. Looks like it’s all draggers today.

The sky had turned a dusky purple, and again the scenery changed. This time, he was walking on a beautiful cobblestone road, with gardens on either side. The gardens were full of flowers, with blossoms in vibrant colors that didn’t
exist side-by-side in the natural world. John leaned forward so he could get a better look.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you; if you fall out of my pocket, you’ll turn to ashes.”

At that, John snapped back, his tiny paws tightening their grip on Sam’s jacket pocket.

“Or I could be kidding. You’ll never know,” he said conversationally.

Why do I torment this guy
, he wondered. John had been involved in a plot to kidnap Cassie once, but he had been nothing but a tool; besides, he was only human. And he had been helpful in getting her back, so Sam really had no reason to hold a grudge. He thought that Cassie might have had a crush on him at some point— maybe she still did—but was that really why he was always tempted to mess with the guy? Was he really that petty?

“I am exactly that petty,” he said out loud. “I know you’re thinking it, so I’ll just say it. I’m afraid you see only the worst of me, my friend.”

John made some squeaking noises, and though Sam couldn’t be sure exactly what the rat was trying to say, he was pretty sure that John was taking issue with the idea that there was anything but the worst to be seen.

They passed a man in a business suit, another dragger. The item he was dragging behind him, attached by a chain at his waist, was a lioness. The great animal mostly refused to move, forcing him to struggle for every inch forward, but she occasionally snapped at his legs; below his knees, his suit had been shredded to the point of nonexistence, and the muscles that should have made up his calves were dragging behind him, limp pieces of stringy meat, yet still he pressed on.

Three. I should be almost there.

A few minutes later, he walked over a footbridge next to a charming waterfall, and made his way to a long table with a blue satin cloth. There were glittering silver lights in the trees, and it felt like he was at the entrance t
o a country club on a summer evening; only the blood-red sky gave it away. A beautiful woman in a white evening gown was sitting behind the desk, but she wasn’t smiling.

“I’m here to see Asmodeus,” he told her. “I’m interested in seeing a prisoner of his.”

She seemed less than impressed. “Do you have anything to offer His Eminence?”

“Yes, I have a soul he might find intriguing,” he said. At that, John began to go ballistic again, but Sam pushed the rat back down into his pocket.
If the woman noticed or cared about the rodent in his coat, she gave no sign.

“Walk to the right,
then turn left at the second bell tree,” she said, face expressionless. “Then you will be taken to his private audience chamber.”

“Thank you,” said Sam. He didn’t think the woman was capable of appreciating his politeness (or even feeling much at all), but he could try.

As he walked further, passing trees full of not only fruits of all colors, but tinkling musical instruments as well, he whispered assurances at John. “I promise you, it’s not as bad as it sounds. You’ll see.”

He knew better than to say “Trust me.”

After making a left at the second bell tree, he was on a short path leading to a stately looking set of French doors. There was no light along the path, but the way was lit by a profusion of fireflies. In the strange red lighting, they took on a pink glow.

When he pushed through the French doors, he was in what looked like a study. The walls were lined with shelves, only there were no books; only gruesome trophies, like skulls and the remains of ancient weapons. A stately fireplace roared with a voracious blue fire, making lights of different colors dance on all the strange objects in the room. There were no couches, only giant velvet,
overstuffed chairs. A massive wooden desk, complete with an inkwell with some rare bird’s feather sticking out of it, completed the effect.

Sam lowered his head and whispered to John. “There should be books on these shelves. It’s a crime against heaven and earth for a room like this to have no books in it.”

John squeaked, and Sam was pretty sure they finally agreed on something.

Sam took a seat in one of the chairs, feeling small; the chair was big enough for two or three people. With nothing to do but wait, he combed through his other pockets; he had collected way too many fast food receipts recently. He kept meaning to pack a bagged lunch to take to work, but never seemed to get around to it. For one brief moment, he considered getting rid of the little slips of paper by throwing them into the fireplace, but thought better at it; who knew what effect material from the real world would have on that arcane blue fire?

He didn’t know how long he waited, and tried not to think about it. Time was weird here, and what felt like five minutes could really be five days. He knew how to make it so that he would reappear in the real world only a minute or two after he left, so as far as he was concerned, it didn’t matter how much time he spent here.

Well, I guess it does matter a little. I don’t want John to starve to death.

He didn’t hear a door open or close, but he heard the sound of expensive leather shoes moving on hard wood and knew his host had arrived.

“Son of Sammael, what a pleasant surprise,” he said, walking over to where Sam sat. Sam hopped out of the ridiculous chair and shook the other demon’s hand. Asmodeus’ appearance was a careful study in ordinariness; he had thinning brown hair, a slight frame, and skin that
was beginning to sag around his neck. Sam knew that the demon could have looked like a Greek god if he wanted to, so the mild-mannered appearance had to be designed to put people off-guard. The only thing that marked him as different were his unnerving yellow eyes, similar to a cat’s, but they weren’t glowing at the moment.

“Are you certain? I know you and my father aren’t the best of friends,” Sam said with a half-smile. He had a gut feeling that being relatively honest with Asmodeus would get him farther than piling on the courtesies.

The demon smiled at that and gave a small shrug. “Perhaps, but as it says in a certain book, I do not hold the son accountable for the sins of the father. And as it happens, you yourself have done me something of a favor.”

That was a surprise; he had best tread very carefully here. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean.”

“Quentin,” said Asmodeus, putting his hands in his pockets and turning around. “He was the most obnoxious offspring I’ve ever produced. Frankly, I should have killed him myself and put an end to the embarrassment, but I did have fondness for his mother once,” he said. “It was just as well that you rid the world of his ineptitude.”

Sam pursed his lips. There was no way that Asmodeus was truly pleased that Sam had killed one of his sons (although technically Sam hadn’t delivered the killing blow, but that was another story.) He was saving face, making it seem like Quentin’s death hadn’t been any sort of blow to him. He was happy to go along with the ruse, but angry at himself for not anticipating this; frankly, he’d forgotten that Asmodeus was Quentin’s father, if he’d ever known. Sloppy mistakes like that could easily get him killed.

“Well it wasn’t a pleasant task, but I did what I had to do,” he said quietly.

Asmodeus sat down behind his large desk and motioned for Sam to take his seat again. “Can I get you anything to drink?
Tea, coffee?”

Sam was pretty sure Asmodeus wouldn’t do anything as gauche as try to poison him, but he didn’t accept food or drink here on general principal. “No thank you. Listen, I don’t mean to take up much of your time,” he said, leaning forward in his chair. “I’m here because I heard a rumor that my friend, Dr. Serenus Zeitbloom, is here.”

“You heard correctly,” said the demon. “What of it?”

“I’m interested in bargaining for his freedom.”

Asmodeus leaned back in his chair, and put his feet up on his desk. It was a surprisingly casual gesture. “You can’t. He’s here of his own free will.”

That was news to Sam.
“How so?”

“
It’s part of a long-standing agreement,” said Asmodeus, studying his immaculately-trimmed nails. “In return for something I did for him decades ago, I own him two weeks out of every year. In years past we’ve arranged his visits over the summer, so as not to disrupt his academic schedule, but this year I called him in a little early.”

Sam tried to imagine what possible reason Serenus could have had for ever making such a deal, but he shut down that line of thought; he could puzzle it out later. He hadn’t really expected Asmodeus to agree to let Serenus go, so everything was still going according to plan…more or less. “In that case, may I see him? It needn’t be for long, but I would like to ask him a few questions.”

Asmodeus smiled. “You expect me to let you see him out of the goodness of my heart?”

“You said I had done you a favor,” Sam pointed out.

The smile faltered. “
Something
of a favor. Don’t push your luck.”

Maybe Asmodeus just wasn’t that committed to his ‘I’m glad you killed my son’ ruse. “In any case, I’m prepared to offer you payment.” He took John out of his coat pocket. The little rat must have been exhausted, but started struggling anew when Sam touched him.