“Butler to a cat,” Silas muttered. “Learn magic, they said. It’s so glamorous, they said.”
His unimpressed words let Darien breathe easier and even give Silas a hip bump as he walked past. “You can make me more bacon while you’re at it.”
Silas caught his chin in long fingers. “It’s a good thing you’re pretty.” His eyes cut to Jasper, and he flushed and let go, but the warmth of his touch lingered on Darien’s skin.
Pip bounced beside Darien. “Do you think we’ll have to hunt demons again? I want to help.”
“I’m sure you will.” Darien trailed Silas up the stairs. “Haven’t there been rather a lot of demons lately?” he asked as they returned to the kitchen. “I thought you told me they were uncommon, and most of your work was ghosts. But this makes what… at least six in the last three months? Not even counting the new ones.” Memories of red eyes and gleeful whispers chased shivers up and down his spine.
“It is unusual,” Silas agreed, opening the fridge for Grim’s cream and more bacon. “I deal with two, maybe three demons in a typical year.”
“Nothing about this year has been typical,” Grim said. “I want three slices of bacon.”
“Sure. Pip, you want some?”
“Of course he does. Four slices,” Darien said, pleased to get a little sniff from Grim. As long as Grim let himself be tweaked in small ways, life wasn’t too atypical yet. “You don’t think the hellbeast plague is from something we did? From that book demon in the Veil, maybe?” Wouldn’t that be just my luck with magic, somehow filling the world with demons?
“Don’t flatter yourself, boy.” Grim head-bumped his shin. “You may be powerful, but unless you’re performing summonings in your sleep, you’re not to blame.”
Jasper mused, “I do wonder if Nikotorian’s gang isn’t somehow responsible for the increase in demon activity. That book of Thoth’s we destroyed was supposed to be full of spells for using and controlling demons. Maybe they found other information about how to summon more of them. Could be why they were so desperately looking for information on control, if they’re accumulating demons.”
“Risky,” Darien said between clenched teeth. “Zaruda found out how not safe it is to play with a demon.” So did Lucinda, when I helped kill her. The demon had taken over their powers and their minds, well before their bodies died. Zaruda might’ve made that fatal choice voluntarily, but Darien had delivered Lucinda up on a platter.
“Well, power-mad people aren’t good judges of risk,” Jasper pointed out. “Especially if they can make the risk someone else’s, like Nikotorian did with Zaruda. No skin off his nose if the demon consumed Zaruda, as long as Nikotorian still controlled the demon.”
“It’s all speculation right now.” Silas slapped the strips of bacon in the pan like they’d offended him. “First, we need to deal with these new demons. Then I want to find out if this influx is only happening around us or is more widespread.”
“Good plan,” Grim agreed. “But your actual first is cooking that bacon the way I like it. And you should eat some too, necromancer. Don’t want you going out on a job underfed.” He paced over to head-bump Silas’s shin too. Silas pretended to stagger, but Darien saw the frown wrinkles in his forehead ease a bit.
Darien dropped back in his chair. “Yeah, chef guy. More bacon. Bring on the meat.”
Silas flashed him a look, gray eyes bright. Darien bit his lower lip and yeah, Silas’s attention dipped to his mouth for a moment. Then Silas flushed and focused carefully on the pan.
Darien enjoyed a moment of satisfaction, though he hid it. He loved being able to make Silas lighten up, even when new problems were looming. But as they settled in to finish the interrupted meal, the letter on the table caught the corner of his gaze, and he wished that his days with Silas didn’t also come with a helping of bad guys and hellborn predators.
***
Silas Thornwood forced himself to finish the last bites of his toast and sip the dregs of his coffee slowly. His body thrummed with the tension of seeing two new demon-signs lighting up his detection spell, but he was hopefully old enough and wise enough not to go haring off half-cocked anymore. A quick rub up his shin from Darien, playing footsie under the table, made him think, No, I definitely get off full-cocked these days. He cleared his throat and banished the inappropriate image, moving his leg away from Darien’s.
“We need a plan,” he said firmly. “And more information. I’m going to call Spry and Worthington, see what they know and can do to help out.”
“Will Worthington listen to you?” Darien cocked his head.
Their recent experiences with the local council necromancer hadn’t been salubrious, but Silas was pretty sure Worthington respected their abilities, at least. “I think he will. Whether he’ll take on one of the new demons remains to be seen.” Worthington had been a powerhouse during his raise to the council, but in the last few years he’d somehow been unavailable whenever the occasional demon made itself known. Silas wasn’t sure if that was laziness, a preference for sacrificing others, or a diminishing of the man’s power. We may be about to find out.
He stood, pulled his address book out of its drawer, and dialed Worthington’s number. After half a dozen rings, Worthington’s gruff voice rumbled, “Who’s calling me at this hour?”
Silas blinked and looked at the clock. Eight-fifteen is hardly the crack of dawn. Still, he kept his tone deferential. “Sorry, sir, it’s Thornwood. I have a situation that I’d like to solicit your opinion on.”
“You would, huh?” Worthington cleared his throat a couple of times. “Well, you’re not a hysteric like some of them. What’s going on?”
“As you know, I have a fairly elaborate detection spell established, keeping a passive watch for the active use of hellborn magics. This morning, I have two new alerts of different magnitudes from two different locations.”
“You what? Surely that must be an error. Your spellwork’s faulty.”
“Perhaps. But it’s been reliable over the last five years, as the council is aware.” He’d used his map to detect and dispatch half a dozen demons before the council even got wind of them from other sources, and he’d reported back his successes. Worthington hadn’t always been pleased with being consulted only after the fact, but he’d been satisfied with the results.
“Hmph. Worth following up, I guess. Report back to the council when you’re done—”
“Wait!” Silas interrupted, hearing the impending hanging-up and washing-hands-of-it coming. “With two of them, separated by many miles, I thought this might demand more than just my involvement. One of them is either a small spellworking or a weak demon. It would be a snap for you to deal with.”
“Ah.” Silence echoed down the line for several seconds. “I have several duties that will occupy me for the rest of the day, but tomorrow, if you find these are out of your capability, you could call on me.”
“I see.”
“I’d be happy to do my part then, of course. If it’s too much for you.”