“But surely you must have noticed the increase this past week in outbreaks? First the kobold scare, then imps, then blight hounds.” Nora punched a floor number on the elevator panel, giving me a curious look.
Rene blew out a breath. I didn’t spend longer than a second wondering why he was coming along with us. He seemed so much a part of my little gang, I was just grateful to have one more head to consult. “Mon dieu. Three in a week?”
Nora nodded. “And three last week, at Salvaticus.”
“That being…?” I asked.
“The start of Vexamen. It’s the date when the ruling prince of Abaddon begins to lose his powers.” Nora stepped onto the thankfully empty elevator. We all filed in with her, including a woman with short blond hair who was carrying a coffee mug and a portfolio.
“I thought the…er…situation was normal,” I said, mindful of the stranger in our midst. “To be honest, I thought it was due to the dr—to Drake and his kind. I had gathered that things like those outbreaks happen whenever they disagree.”
“Not this sort of thing,” Nora said, shaking her head.
I mused on that for the few seconds it took to get to the seventh floor, following Rene and Nora as they walked down a long hallway to an office in the rear. Nora paused with her hand on the doorknob. “Rene, the guild has very strict rules about who is allowed into their offices. I know you do not present any threat, but I want to warn you that you may be refused admittance.”
He gave one of his effective Gallic shrugs. “We will see, hein? You do not mind if I come with you?”
“No, certainly not. I’d be grateful for a friendly face.” Nora gave him a bright smile that made me feel ashamed of my self-absorption. Here she was facing an investigation into her professional capabilities, and I was too busy worrying about my own problems to be supportive and helpful.
“Don’t worry; we won’t let them mess with you,” I said with a little hug. “If it’s me causing the guild concerns, I’ll formally de-mentor you, and we’ll just go on in an unofficial capacity.”
Nora laughed, hugging me back. “I wish it was that easy, but let us not borrow trouble. Brave hearts, everyone.”
She opened the door and stepped through it, Rene following. I started to go through the door but found myself held back as if by an invisible webbing. The door had been warded with a powerful protection ward, no doubt to keep dark beings out.
“Uh…that’s not happening,” Jim said. “Ward. Big one.”
“There’s nothing I love more than a little challenge,” I muttered to myself as I opened the door in my mind, gathered up some dragon fire, shaped it, and focused it on the ward. The pattern glowed purple in the air for a moment. I grabbed Jim by the collar and forcefully shoved it through the doorway, bullying my way through the ward. I thought for a moment that I wasn’t going to be able to pass it, but I broke through just as the purple ward turned silver, then evaporated. “Whew. That was a toughie. You OK, Jim?”
“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 disbelief, 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 behind 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 forward a few feet, stopping to chat with one of the men sitting behind a desk.
The guard turned to Rene. “Daimon. Immortal. Identification?”
“I have my passport,” Rene said pleasantly. “But beyond 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. Identification?”
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 Typhoid Mary,” I whispered to Jim.
“Go with rock star. You get groupies that way.”
“You may pass,” the guard said after a brief consultation 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 injunction 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 inquisition 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 certain 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, evidently taking the floor. He didn’t look like
the sort of person 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 anything 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 follows,” 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 official recognition as an apprentice. Second, that you maligned 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 allegations. 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 silence was more helpful to Nora than any protestations of her innocence.
“Those three allegations, I am pleased to say, were dismissed 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 acknowledgment.
“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 talking 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 investigation team thoroughly checked the bylaws of the Guardians’ Guild and could find no mention of a rule regarding 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 forgotten 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 interested in the welfare of all its members, even those of an…untraditional mien.”
“The being in question is the demon known as Effrijim,” 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 control 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 provides 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 mentor 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 influence 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!”
“You are also a demon lord, have control of a demon, and are high in the powers of a dragon sept. Although your own powers have not been tested by the guild, it is evident that they are beyond the scope of an apprentice.”
Nora’s hand grabbed my wrist. I bit back the smart-assed reply I wanted to make.
“Is the guild now punishing Guardians who show exceptional talent by deeming them dangerous?” she asked. “I can assure you that I weighed the pros and cons of taking on Aisling as an apprentice. I am aware of the limitations she has regarding her apprenticeship, but I was convinced then—and remain so—that her dedication, her abilities, and her commitment to the guild are sufficient to overcome any obstacles her other roles may present.”
“Aisling is not bad,” Rene said suddenly. “She is different, yes, but that does not make her bad.”
“We have strayed from the purpose of this interview,” Mark said, tapping a pen on his portfolio.
I had to speak or burst. “I think I should be allowed to defend myself just as Nora is allowed. And to be perfectly frank, I’m insulted by the idea that you’d call into question my dedication, not to mention Nora’s judgment and ability to pick an apprentice. I am not a bad person. Jim was an accident—I never sought to become a demon lord and don’t have anything to do with the rest of them. In fact, I don’t have anything to do with anyone who dabbles in the dark powers. None whatsoever!”
There was a ripple in the air behind Mark’s chair. Outside the room, a distant alarm sounded.
“In fact, I don’t even know anyone who…er…does…”
The air thickened, twisted, and formed into Obedama. The demon stepped forward, its hands on its hips as it ignored everyone to glare at me. “
The lord Ariton has waited for you, but you have not responded. The hour of your appointment with him has passed, and Vexamen is near. You are summoned now to make your fealty to him.”
“Other than Ariton and his minion Obedama, of course,” I said, my stomach wadding up into a little ball as three men burst into the room, each bearing a demon-banishing silver dagger. I slumped back in my chair. My goose was really cooked now…and I suspected Nora’s was as well.
“Well, that went well,” Jim said a couple hours later, as we emerged into the exhaust-laden parking garage. “Not!”
“We’re free, aren’t we?” I pinched Jim’s ear.
“Ow. Demon abuse!”
“Stop complaining. It’s not like you were grilled, anyway. Or had to put off a demon lord. I just hope Ariton isn’t going to be pissed that the Guardians sent his minion to Abaddon when I told it I couldn’t talk to him right then.”
“I’m sure she gets hazard pay.” Jim paused, an odd, abstracted look on its face. “Oh, boy, I should have gone with Nora when she took Paco to the park. Emergency walkies! Like, right now!”
“What are you going to do with the demon lord?” Rene asked just as Jim bolted toward the exit. “Aisling?”
I had stopped when I spied a familiar man standing at the elevator. With one eye on Jim racing toward the street and the other on the man behind us, I shoved the leash at Rene. “Would you mind taking Jim to the square? Nora’s probably still there walking Paco. Here are two plastic bags…. They should take care of things. I see someone I know and just want to find out what he’s doing here.”
“What person? Who?” Rene asked.
“A man who may just possibly be stalking me, and if he is, I’m going to put an end to it here and now.”
Rene looked curious as I turned back the way we came and hurried over to where Peter Burke stood patiently waiting for the elevator. “Hi. Er…this is going to sound really rude, I know, but would you mind telling me what you’re doing here?”
“I don’t think the question is particularly rude,” he answered, his eyes just as curiously flat as I remembered them. Either he had an incredible amount of self-control or he was not what he seemed. I decided to try another look at his true self using my super-Guardian vision. “As a matter of fact, I was following you.”