Chapter 6 Look at Me Looking on the Bright Side #2
Although on second thought, it did look familiar… like something I’d seen in an engraving.
“Is that an ancient Sumerian mace?” I asked her. “And did you just knock Dr. Bryant out with it?”
“This is Sharur, the destroyer of demons,” the girl said. “I’m Eresh. Siya texted and said he might need to drive a daeva out of someone.”
A man in his early twenties and a woman in her forties were standing behind Eresh, the woman watching her and the man studying the dark library behind them.
“Where is Siya?” the man asked.
“He’s searching the campus for dew. Blake—the demon you just knocked out—said there were more, that he sent them to find Siya…”
“I will go in search of him. I am also a hunter of demons.” He offered me a hand and hauled me to my feet, lifting me as easily as Siya had.
I looked questioningly at the older woman.
“This is my mom,” Eresh said. “She won’t let me go by myself till I’m eighteen.”
“Oh. Well, thank you all for coming.” I felt ridiculous. “Is he alive? Should we tie him up?”
Eresh shook her head. “Sharur drives demons out of people. It’s gone. To another dimension or something, I guess.”
“I must go now,” the new demon hunter said.
“Hang on! Siya was texting me his location. Do you see my phone?”
We shoved books aside. I cringed at how I had treated the poor volumes.
“Here!” said Eresh, who had been walking around with her mace held out like a metal dowsing rod. She righted my fallen chair and handed me my phone.
I unlocked it. No text since the one right before Blake arrived. “He was going into my building—where the archaeology offices are, I mean. I’ll take you there.”
“I’m coming too!” Eresh said, brandishing Sharur.
“Yima, you look after your cousin,” her mother ordered. “I will stay here and get medical attention for this man.”
I wanted to ask about that, but I wanted to find Siya more. I led them to the stairs.
We rushed to the ground floor, then slowed for the walk across the lobby. Nothing like running at top speed through the library, right when someone was placing a 911 call, to attract unwanted attention.
Once we were past the weak semicircle of light outside the entrance, we ran.
Yima quickly pulled ahead; he could have sprinted for the Olympics.
Must be the special abilities Siya had mentioned.
And Eresh might have been a high school track star.
I ran like someone who jogged once in a while for cardiovascular health.
Yima had already gotten into the building when I arrived. Either he was also gifted at lock picking, or it had been left open.
He and Eresh were out of sight when I stepped inside, presumably guided by Magical Demon Sensing Powers, which I of course did not share. Which way to go? There were multiple floors, plus a subterranean laboratory and storage area. Several halls and stairs to choose from.
Lacking a better idea, I took the familiar path to my office.
No one was there, but someone had been; the door was open, and a stack of books had been knocked to the floor as if swept by an angry arm.
I left them where they’d fallen and jogged down the hall. I didn’t bother trying the knobs of the other offices. There must’ve been a hundred of them at least, not counting the classrooms.
Where would a demon go?
If I were a demon, I would have left town once I noticed a demon slayer was in the area. Blake had stayed because he was still partially himself and cared about his career. Were the others the same? Were the archaeologists lingering because their work was here? Or did Blake control them somehow?
I needed more information. Where would I begin researching? Siya’s family must have some sort of archive. I’d ask as soon as I found him. Soon. He was fine; he had to be, even though the building was silent as a tomb.
Why was it so quiet? The fight in the hallway of my building had made some noise, even on a carpeted floor. The halls here usually echoed every slammed door and raised voice.
I checked my phone. No update from Siya. I should have taken a second to give Eresh my number. I also should have looked for a weapon. I was not cut out for this.
I decided to go down to the sublevel. There was surely something useful stored there. A fire ax, maybe. Even a sturdy broom would be better than nothing.
I quickly texted Siya: I’m here, heading to basement.
I could hear my footsteps echoing in the stairwell. Were demons and demon slayers both supernaturally light-footed? Either there should be the sound of fighting, or Siya should have two seconds to text me. Unless Siya was—
No. I wouldn’t think about that. He was fine.
He’d kicked Durgan’s ass with barely a scratch on him.
And lots of other dew before that. I assumed.
He hadn’t offered a body count, and he had all those scars.
Shit, what if he was bleeding out somewhere while I wandered around my own department like a lost sheep?
I felt a shift when I passed ground level. Like there was more pressure. Was it always like that, only noticeable because the building was empty? I hadn’t been down here in a while. Had the fluorescent lights always been so dim?
I was imagining things, probably. Stress.
I reached the bottom of the stairs, and above me, the door at the top quietly shut.
I whirled with a gasp, heart leaping into my throat and half choking me.
Nothing happened. I tried desperately to recall if the doors in this building were spring-hinged. I’d been here practically every day for years! I should know this!
I was still second-guessing myself when a hand clamped over my mouth and I was pulled into the shadows.
I flailed, and a hand caught my wrist. I recognized those calluses.
I slumped against Siya, shaking.
Putting his mouth by my ear, he whispered, “There are dew here. Three at least. Yima and Eresh are hunting. I came back for you. Stay behind me.”
I nodded, and he removed his hand.
With his hand no longer blocking my nostrils, I caught the iron reek of blood.
“You’re hurt! Where—”
His hand curved over my mouth again. “I’m fine. It’s only a flesh wound.”
I squirmed emphatically.
He trembled with laughter. “Sorry. It’s more than a scratch but nothing that can’t wait.”
I pulled off my scarf and pressed it against his hand.
“It’ll be ruined—” he started.
I nipped him.
He inhaled. “Okay, I’ll tie up my wound. Then we need to find the demons and my cousins.”
He scanned the vast dimness of the storage area, poorly lit and with hundreds of freestanding cabinets and shelving units, any of which could conceal several people.
“You tourniquet my thigh; I’ll watch for danger.” Siya drew a long knife from his belt.
The blood didn’t show on Siya’s black jeans, but I found the wet patch by touch, flinching as my fingers came away red.
I knelt, trying to see how bad it was. “Should I take your pants off?”
Siya didn’t glance down, but he smiled. “Later. Just wrap the scarf round my leg and tie it as tightly as you can.”
I did as he said. It wasn’t optimal wound care, but it was better than nothing.
Siya drew me to my feet and murmured, “Be brave, Reason.”
Then he had me by the wrist, and we were trotting down a particularly dark aisle.
I wondered if Eresh was okay. She was just a kid. She had Sharur, but did she know how to fight like her cousins? I hadn’t had the chance to ask. If only I’d had a few months to research the dew before encountering them, I’d feel much more prepared.
There was a sound like a tin can clattering to our left, and Siya changed direction.
I heard another noise, but this time Siya abruptly spun away from the sound, slinging me behind him just as a lopsided figure lurched out of the shadows, claws outstretched.
Behind the bruises and bloody fangs I recognized the distorted features of Vaclav, the building’s maintenance man. He must have been working here alone. I felt a surge of anger and pity.
“Stay behind me and watch your back,” Siya ordered as he blocked a swipe of twisted claws with his knife.
The sound the steel and bone made as they struck made me cringe.
There was more noise echoing dully in another part of the basement—another fight. The dew must have coordinated their ambushes.
I backed away, scanning the nearest shelves for anything that could serve as a weapon. Most of them held wrapped bundles or cardboard boxes or plastic bins with miniscule labels, unreadable in the low light, stuck to the corners. My discipline had some very annoying habits.
If I ever held a department chair, I would mandate clearly visible weapons in every room and large print labels. And better illumination! Shit!
I tore frantically at a long object packaged in trash bags and duct tape, which turned out to be a wicker and beadwork sculpture representing some deformed or mythical beast. I put it back on the shelf, gently because it might be important, and scurried several yards onward to get out of the way of Siya dodging dew-Vaclav’s clawed attacks.
Ugh, why were archaeological finds so useless for fighting monsters?
That was a rhetorical question. I knew why. And yes, I was resolved. If it looked like the dew was getting the upper hand, I would chuck a box of irreplaceable artifacts at the thing. Because people were irreplaceable too. Especially Siya.
I prodded the nearest boxes, hoping for a heavy one. No luck.
Siya stumbled backwards, and I seized the box under my hand and hurled it impotently at his attacker.
Vaclav flung himself to the side, revealing Eresh behind him with her mace raised.
Siya leapt on him, grabbing the arm closer to Eresh and shouting at her in a language I didn’t understand.
She struck his temple with Sharur, and Vaclav went down like a puppet with his strings cut.
All three of us stumbled a little, shocked.
Eresh burst into tears, hugging the metal weapon to her chest like a teddy bear.
I wanted to cling to Siya but forced myself to only lay light hands on his shoulder blades, no hindrance if he needed to defend us, as I asked, “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” he answered. “Eresh?”
She sniffed and wiped her face on her sleeve. “He’s dead. He refused the dew, so they killed him and wore his body.”
“Right,” he said grim-faced. “There’s nothing you could have done.”
“I know,” she said, calm despite her tears. “I’m just sad because he didn’t deserve to have his life stolen. There’s nothing you could have done, either. Sharur says no choices you could have known to make would have saved any lives here. Don’t blame yourself.”
Siya sagged under my touch. “Okay,” he whispered. “Thanks. We better help Yima.”
Eresh raised Sharur like someone preparing to conduct a symphony, cocked her head, and said, “No. The dew are gone, at least from this space. There may be others elsewhere, but not near.”
Yima had killed two of them, we found, with not scratch on him. He and Siya both looked uncomfortable and didn’t discuss their respective performances.
Grimly, we collected the bodies. Vaclav, plus a professor of ancient history, and also another fellow I didn’t recognize, some university employee or neighbor of a victim.
In the wrong place on the wrong winter night.
Their pointless deaths made me feel bitterly weary with the unfairness of the world.
Siya and Yima arranged the corpses in a dark back corner of the basement, where we hoped they’d go unnoticed long enough that they wouldn’t be connected to Blake’s accident or the death of Durgan, who would surely be reported missing sooner or later.
Then we trooped outside—glorious freshness of cold air!—and left.