Red Moon Demon (Demon Lord) (35 page)

“But you have some kind of plan. You aren’t really going to marry her?”

I phrased my words carefully, figuring the Red Lady might also be listening. “I’m going to do what I must
, and so are you. Namely, as best man, you’re supposed to throw me a wake, uh, I mean a bachelor party. Better get to work
”

Old Man’s hand emerged from the little mirror on my chest. His fingers gripped a little folded square of paper. I plucked the note from his hand. His hand sank back into the glass
, and the frame readjusted to its former size.

Salem stared, nonplussed. “You
’
re full of surprises. I am beginning to seriously regret interfering in your life.”

I opened the note and read Old Man’s elegant handwriting: WHILE I AM NOT OPPOSED TO HAVING GRAND
KIDS;
YOU NEED TO HURRY FOR HARUKA’S AND HIRO’S SAKE
.

“Screw you,” I muttered.

THIRTY-FIVE

“Let the party games begin!”

—
Caine Deathwalker

Playing with the now dormant necklace, lobbing it from hand to hand,
I took a tour of the sprawling palace.
I needed to get a handle on the Red Lady and I thought better in otion.
Every now and then, on
e
of those shadow people with red eyes would pass by, guys wearing archaic livery, women i
n
long-sleeved gown
s
with their hair teased into artful piles
a
top
t
heir head
s
. The women all seemed to have a strong resemblance to the Red Lady. The guy’s faces were bland an
d
unrefined. Besides giving her reality
a
lived
-
in look, the shadows bowed or curtsied, graciously asking if they might be of service.

I
ignor
ed them
,
more interested in the décor. A rich cherry wood paneling lined many of the spacious chambers. The floors were parquet, intricate puzzles made of different woods cut into different shapes. The center of the rooms almost always had large medallion
s
at the center of the design
, usually starbursts or flowers
. Everything shone with a high polish though I never saw anyone actually working.

Pacing like a caged tiger, I discovered
a five-story, octagonal library
. E
very wall
was
lined with
ivory
bookshelves
, every
level
serviced by a railed gallery with rolling ladders
.
The
tiled
floor
at ground level
was
a
red and white
checkerboard
.
High
overhead,
a
massive ceiling
dome
was
made of
cloudy
rose quartz.

T
h
e center of the room held three kissing couches arranged to form a triangle. Within the triangle, a wrought iron tree created shade from the pink light of the dome. The sculpted branches were festive, many of them dangling lanterns, fashioned from bright paper and thin-hammered gold foil.
The lanterns cast out a s
oft
luminosity that gave me multiple, pastel shadows as
I circled the stacks, my hand trailing over the titles.

The writing was obscure, nothing
I recognized.
It resembled a blend of petroglyphs
and
Middle Eastern scrawl. I paused and picked out a book bound in red velvet. A
n attached
black ribbon act
ed
as a built in bookmark.

I cracked the volume and scanned a page, more of the meandering writing, written in blood on yellow parchment. I flipped a page and noticed that the writing had shifted orientation. Page after page, this happened; sentences ran left and right, then up and down, and on another page the symbols seemed to spiral from the center. No illustration
s
were there
to help.
I wondered if this were a
demon tongue, or some language the Red Lady had invented.

Old Man might know
.

With a shrug, and quick look over my shoulder, I proceeded to feed the book into the mirror I wore. I felt someone take the book from my hand, pulling it through. While I was at it, I sent the necklace through as well. It had done little good against the Red Lady, and if I didn’t make it back—I shuddered at the thought—maybe Old Man could still do something with it to help Haruka.

If
I stretched
the glass
enough
, it could g
e
t me out of here, except m
y hand
had been
stopped
by the glass
while the amulet and chain went through cleanly.
I understood. There was no way
out with
out
the crystal lotus and a soul to feed it.

Mulling things over, I moved on and almost ran into a shadow girl servant. She held a sliver tray with far more substance than she had. The tray contained a gold cup encrusted with rubies. Beside the cup was a dark red bottle. The shadow girl spoke with a low
,
sultry voice, “Would My Lord care for some wine?”

“I’d rather have a white chocolate mocha.”

She looked ready to cry obsidian tears. “I do
n
o
t know what that is.”

I snatched the bottle off the tray. “This will do, for now.”
I waved her away, and she scurried out. Bottle in hand, I finished my circuit of the room and left the way I’d entered, the only door as far as I could see. The over-wide hall continued past ballrooms, parlors, assorted offices, and rooms devoted to fine collectables
. I reached a solarium with a green glass table and padded chairs.

A sliding glass partition took me into another glass chamber, this one a greenhouse where riotous flowers formed a miniature jungle. Some species could easily have come from Earth or Fairie, others from the methane crevices of Titan, or a madman’s dreams. A few I steered well clear of, suspecting they were carnivorous.

I found a hammock supported by more of those tree sculptures. These had no lanterns. I was bone tired from a night of fighting, and from heavy magic use. Whatever restorative Old Man had giving me in that drink from the mirror had lost its edge. Only the horror of an impending marriage
had galvanized me this long.

I dropped into the hammock and popped the cork from the bottle. Off my feet, I couldn’t believe how comfortable the sling was. That, and the bottle I guzzled, soon had me nodd
ing
off. The bottle fell from my hand as sleep closed in.
J
ust before I lost consciousness, I thought I saw the Red Lady standing next to me, smiling, casting a woven throw across my body.
Softness
touch
ed
my forehead, a kiss
.
It was either
that or a fragment of a dream.

I awoke, feeling hands patting me down. My eyes slit open. It was Salem
, looking for the necklace.

He stilled and looked
at
my face.

I opened my eyes wider.

He sh
oo
k me urgently, as if he’d intended this all the time.
H
e smelled of booze and his
words were slurred
, “
Time for your party.”

“Party?”
I think he’d started early.

“Your bachelor party. That’s what a best man does after all.”

“Oh, yeah.” I slid in the hammock, swinging my feet to the floor
. A
s I sat up
,
I kicked the empty wine bottle. It clinked and rolled
away
with a grinding sound.
“Just tell me you’ve got hard booze and strippers.”

“Hard booze anyway. There aren’t a lot of women around here, ones that are real.”

“B
ooze is b
etter than nothing.”
I stood.
“Wait a second, how long was I asleep?”
Please don’t say twenty years. I wasn’t supposed to eat or drink anything here.

“
Hours and
hours.”

Better than days and days.
Okay, I guess the food and drink are safe here after all.

A trifle off balance, h
e led the way back to the main part of
the palace.

Sauntering along my earlier path, I noticed subtle changes in the floor plan and the décor. It reminded me that all I saw was built on a whim, and that whim could change without notice.
This unseen threat hung overhead like a sword, no matter how benign the scenery might be.

Salem went into the library, around the loveseats and sculpted tree with its lanterns, and out a back door that hadn’t been there last time I was here.
The doors were made of aqua-blue glass with glass door knobs. Salem threw them wide open and went
into a hall lined with
deep blue curtains. He
cross
ed
a Prussian blue carpet to a
cluster of tables and chairs.

The furniture made me uneasy. I kept thinking about those under Salem’s command that had attacked me
earlier
.
Well, he’d had the necklace then. It should be safe enough now.
He’s
under oath.

Like sea foam, pale green tablecloths washed off the tables, almost spilling to the floor. Silver place settings waited. Silver cups gleamed and sparkled with
fire opals and
sapphires. Silver bucket
s
contain
ing
bottles on ice. In place of the usual wine bottles, I saw vodka, gin, and Kentucky bourbon. A cart off to the side was laden with pizza boxes.
Over on a stage, an ensemble group prepared to wow us with cello, violin, flute, and piano.

Oh, joy
.

“The Red lady provided all this?”

“Yeah, once I made it clear this was for a pre-wedding ritual common to our world. She provided the guests too.”

I eyed them with something less than pleasure. More shadow people she
’d
dreamed up.
A lot of them were women, in
theory
anyway.

He said, “I tried to get across that this was supposed to be an all guy thing, but…”

“I suppose it doesn’t really matter since they are all aspects of
her
anyway.”

“That’s what she said.” Salem pulled out an empty seat dropped
heavily
into it. His voice went oh, so casual, “By the way, what happened to the necklace? You did want me to instruct you in its use, right?”

“
You can just tell me what I need to know.
I’ve got it stashed for safe keeping.”

“Do you now?” His gaze shot to the mirror on my zombie apocalypse suit.

So did mine.
The frame expanded.
Old man’s hand pok
ed
out again, offering me a folded paper. I took
it
and
rea
d the note.
The hand withdrew and the mirror shrank.

“What’s it say?” Salem
slurr
ed.

“
Old man’s yelling me about a book he read
.”

Dear Pain in my Ass,

The
script
in the book
isn’t
demon
,
Faire
tongue
,
or
human
language,
nor does it come from
any
known oracle
, extra-terrestrial or otherwise
.
T
he palace
—and its books—seem to be
an
unconscious manifestation of the Red Lady
. R
eading the books
is
n
’
t possible because the part of her mind that
made
them
d
oesn’t
draw from her brain’s language center
. You might be able to override small parts of her reality when she’s not actively maintaining it.

P.S.
Stop screwing
around, get the lotus, and
come home.

—Lauphram

I wadded up the note and shoved it back inside the mirror. “Easy for you to say,” I muttered.

The ensemble played something light and airy that made me remember Izumi. I dropped into a chair next to a shadow woman, and stared. Under my gaze, she seemed to grow more solid, her hair paling to star fire. Her face and figure shifted until she became a shadowy imitation of the fey princess.

S
howing interest, S
alem watched what I did
and
then
peered at the
shadow man next to him
. That guest became a young boy wi
th
long curly locks of hair.