“How so?”
“Well, both transit from their world to ours with a summoning. What if the demons figured out how to block familiars from getting through? They know full well that familiars help us keep them under control.”
“That would be a hell of a spell,” Silas said. “Pun not intended.”
“But if they’ve somehow learned new ways to go from world to world, it’s possible they learned to block that travel too.”
Grim said, “That makes an ominous kind of sense. My people study world-transitions, trying to understand why we can be summoned and yet can’t make the same outward trip uncalled, but it’s not a field I pursued in detail. I wish I had access to Professor Xsing. Xsing is an expert on summonings and the magical relationships of worlds.”
“He’s… scary smart,” Pip muttered.
“Just intense. But if we could access him and Home, it would mean the problem was gone, so it’s a moot point.” Grim rumbled a little growl under his breath. “I’m sure Xsing’s already busy trying to figure out if the blockage is demon-caused or a natural event.”
“That’d be a hell of a powerful event.” Silas cut a glance toward Darien. Something he did? But no, powerful as Darien was, shutting off contact between worlds unintentionally was surely a whole different order of magnitude. “Hard to imagine.”
“Well, something changed,” Kii said from where she perched on top of the back seat. “No imagination needed. But even if Xsing figures it out, our people study gates, but we don’t create gates. So it won’t help us much here.”
“What’s our plan now?” Jasper asked.
There’s another demon out there. Silas hated doing anything less than tracking it down and giving Spry a hand immediately. But he was tired, his empty stomach was trying to eat a hole through to his backbone, and Darien was out for the count. And Silas needed to start trusting someone else to hold up their end of the work. “We go home, eat, rest, check the map for new information. And then see if Spry needs any help.”
“The man shows some sense, for once,” Grim muttered, and Pip’s tail thumped against Darien’s thigh.
Darien barely woke when Silas parked at the house and went around to help him out. Jasper opened and closed doors, as Silas steered Darien inside and up to their room with an arm around him. Safely behind their bedroom door, Silas laid Darien out on the bed, worked off his boots, and then opened his jacket. Trying to get his arms out of his sleeves was like wrestling with cooked noodles, but Silas stripped him down to his underwear and inspected every inch of golden skin he could see. Scorched red-golden skin, but Silas didn’t find any areas that looked deeply burned or blistered.
When he wrestled Darien onto his side to check his back, Darien waved a clumsy hand at him without opening his eyes. “Tired. Lemme sleep.”
Silas finished his check of Darien’s shoulders, then eased the sheet and blanket over him. Darien whined but didn’t kick off the covers. Pip, who’d been sitting on the foot of the bed, moved up close to the pillows. “I’ll watch him. He’s not really hurt, is he?”
“I don’t think so.” Silas hovered a hand over Darien’s dark hair, hunting for signs of gray and not finding any. Thank the gods. “Just overspent his strength.”
“I’m glad he saved Granny Abels.”
“So am I—” Silas was shocked when that last word came out thick and short. He slid to sit on the carpet at the side of the bed and buried his face in his hands.
He saved the woman I was about to kill. How many deaths could I have avoided, if I didn’t believe the absolute truth that they were beyond hope? Could I have saved— He cut the thought off short, desperate to not start a litany of the lives he’d taken in banishing hosted demons. Ten years of killing. Damn it, Coldwell, Master, you swore up and down I had no choice!
He clenched his teeth and breathed through his nose. A soft whine made him look up to see Pip peering at him from the bed. Beside Pip, Darien’s limp hand lay on the covers, reddened by the touch of hellfire on his magic. My power and Darien’s together, and he barely saved her. That reminder let Silas breathe more easily. Before Darien, he’d never had that kind of power. Maybe no one ever had.
Coldwell was a secretive old man, but never a liar.
The question of what they could— or should— do the next time was one he didn’t want to look too closely in the face. Granny Abels had been a victim, not a summoner, and nearly untainted by the demon’s presence. Too often, the host was a sorcerer a long way down the descent into darkness. Would he risk Darien to save a man like Crosby or Zaruda? Hells, no.
He got to his feet, dusted his hands on his slacks, and managed a smile for Pip. “Keep an eye on him. I’ll be downstairs.”
When he reached the lower floor, Grim was waiting for him at the top of the cellar stairs. “I checked the map. That other trace was still in the same spot, but disappeared as I was watching.”
“That’s excellent news.”
The ring of his kitchen phone interrupted them, and Silas hurried off to answer it with Grim at his heels. Jasper, sitting at the table with a cup of coffee, cocked his head to listen as Silas said, “Thornwood,” into the receiver.
“It’s Spry.” Her tone was steady, perhaps a bit exasperated. “I found the, um, critter I was looking for and solved the immediate problem.” Her wording sounded stilted, as if someone was listening in.
He realized how worried he’d been by the way his heart lurched in relief. “Banished it?” His end of the conversation should be inaudible.
“Yes, that’s right. He had the critter housed in confinement, so I made sure it was sent back where it came from. I’m at a neighbor’s house, who kindly let me borrow his phone. The problem is that the owner of the pet lied to me about where he got it. I believe it was an illegal import.”
“Ah.” At least if the person she’d dealt with had summoned the demon— assuming he was reading her right— then it wasn’t another free-roaming demon. Small mercies. He didn’t want to admit how shaken he felt when he imagined demons randomly popping in out of thin air. “That’s something the council needs to take up with him.” Not my problem, thank the gods. Necromancers dealt with the demons, but if the human summoner was still unpossessed and alive afterward, they became someone else’s job.
He suggested, “Call Worthington, tell him what happened, and the guy’s name. He’ll take care of it.” If he’s forced to. But the council wouldn’t let a demon-summoner walk around uncontrolled.
“I’ll do that. I might tell you the gentleman said that, um, acquisition of this particular pet was easier than it should’ve been. He’d tried and failed many times before, but this time he succeeded without much effort. He was rather gloating about that, taking personal credit. But I thought it was odd.”
“Odd indeed. I’m not fond of anything that makes acquiring demons easier.”
“Nor I. Well, at least this one is returned where it belongs. I will call as you suggested with a detailed report. Perhaps from home, when I’m not monopolizing this gentleman’s phone.”