Dog-Eared #3
She was fully herself, and Al put his elbows on his knees.
This version of her was safe. Well, safer—as long as she wasn’t pissed at what she still forgot.
It was only when she didn’t know her mind that she was a danger.
Unfortunately, it was getting harder to bring her back.
But since she was the only female demon left alive, they pandered to her even as they held her memories hostage, excavating them when needed and burying them when they didn’t lest she kill them as she had her sisters.
It hadn’t always been such, and Al shoved the guilt down deep. They all did what they needed to do to survive. He wasn’t sure why anymore.
“I have a wizard in reality who needs correction,” Al said, and Newt nodded, conversant with his skill of luring in and training new familiars for others to use.
“My library is taking the brunt of the damage. This last affront would have me abandon him, but he has something I need, and until I have his soul and can force the issue, bargaining for breadcrumbs is the only way to get it. I’m willing to give you this.
” Al’s fingers tingled when he touched the damaged book, satisfied when Newt grimaced, the demon clearly wanting it.
“In exchange for your help in spelling this.” He set the badly copied book down beside it, wincing at the obvious inferiority of it.
Nicholas Gregory Sparagmos, though, wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.
“I need a whip with which to teach him respect of my books, and you, Newt, are beyond any doubt the most adept at modifying an existing spell to a new outcome.”
The flattery fell flat because it was so obviously true.
He had once loaned Ceri to her in the hopes that the familiar would return having picked up a few techniques.
Instead, Ceri had come home all but comatose, unable to even manage his morning tea.
The only good from the experience was that the mere mention of Newt’s name brought the uppity woman to a terrified obedience that could last for weeks.
Newt pulled the book closer, her expression puckering as she sent a visible thread of energy through it to feel the unseen damage. “I’d have to fix it before I could use it again,” she said softly, her focus blurred as if imagining it. “Ley lines do not run smoothly through water-damaged pages.”
She was holding it. A thrill of success traced through him, and he hid his smile. “Damaged goods, but something, as you say, you can fix. At least with you, it will be whole again. With me, it will languish.”
“Not enough.”
Al’s lips parted as Newt dropped the book on the table with a disparaging thump. “Not enough?” he echoed.
The demon arched her eyebrows as if in rebuke for him trying to scam her. “The cost to repair the damage is threefold the damage to me. Oh, I will take the book, but I am tired of Minias’s plots. I want a new familiar as well. Ceri will do. You’ve taught her almost everything you know.”
His gaze went to the jump-in-out circle he had arrived in. “Minias…”
“Is stealing from me.” Newt pulled her knees to her chin, a flash of fear crossing her before she hid it behind a mask of confidence.
“You all know it. You all look the other way because to do otherwise might mean you would have to take his place. A memory here, a recollection there. He writes it down, then makes me forget again. You think I was hiding in a cabinet because he was trying to escape me?” Newt scoffed.
“I make myself helpless because it’s the only way I can keep what I have left.
I want him gone before he writes down and erases enough of me such that I am utterly consumed. ”
“Newt, be reasonable…”
“I want Ceri.” Newt stared at him with her black eyes, unmoved. “She at least steals with the intent to escape.” A smile quirked her lips. “We had such fun the last time.”
“Absolutely not.” Al pushed deeper into the cushions, frustrated but unable to walk away. “She is my Magna Carta, and you returned her all but comatose. I won’t do that to her again.”
Newt batted her black eyes coyly at him. “Are you not here to find a whip with which to groom another?” she asked, a gentle hand on the book.
“You had her for a week, Newt. No.”
“I need someone with enough skill to stir the spells to regain my memory.” Newt pouted. “Minias won’t do it. You clearly have no more use for her if you are grooming another.”
A sigh slipped from him. Newt thought it was the wizard he wanted, but his real goal was Rachel Mariana Morgan.
There was a secret in her he needed to work out, something on the tip of his tongue he couldn’t quite taste.
But she was wary and smart. The only way to get to her was through the mistakes that Nicholas Gregory Sparagmos made.
Al would never gain her without more information. It was his books, or Ceri.
Besides, the wizard needed to be taught a lesson. It was his fault Al had to go to Newt with his hat in his hand. He would have his revenge for his lost book and a new familiar both.
“Loan,” he said, immediately regretting it. “When I acquire a new familiar, Ceri returns to me so I may release her as was our original bargain.” It had been over a thousand years ago, but it still stood. “And I want the book as well. Repaired. Ceri is worth more than that.”
“You intend to release her.” Newt grimaced, knowing what that really meant. “Such a waste. Fine. But Ceri is mine from the moment your wizard triggers the spell. You get her back only when you have your new familiar.”
“Done.” Guilt flashed through him. Ceri would suffer. But her end would be as he promised.
Humming a nonsense tune, Newt drew the book closer, cradling it. “What did you have in mind? To teach your potential familiar respect, I mean.”
A smile, wicked and inviting, found him. He had always enjoyed working with Newt, never fully agreeing to the others’ plan of keeping her ignorant and helpless. He would take heat for giving her the tools to slip Minias, but this would help both of them. They had been friends, once.
His smile vanished. “I’m so pleased you asked.”
Part 3
Six days, Al thought, slumped in his high-backed chair, feet outstretched to his peat fire, brooding with the book Newt spelled for him at his hand.
He was beginning to question whether the slavering dog from hell had been too much for the wizard to handle and he had accidently scared him off.
Surely he had not underestimated his greed.
It had to be cowardice, not guilt, that stayed Nicholas Gregory Sparagmos’s hand in summoning him, but it was hard not to feel as if he had made a mistake.
Two mistakes, he mused, seeing as he had brought Newt back to herself in order to teach Nicholas Gregory Sparagmos the error of his ways.
Minias was already searching to find out who and demand restitution or assistance in dulling her again.
But if Minias had been serious about minding the insane demon, he wouldn’t have left her hiding in a cupboard to sneak out for a cup of bad coffee.
Al’s gaze flicked to the untouched pot of tea on the side table.
“Not that I blame him,” he grumbled, eyeing the bitter brew at his elbow.
It was all Ceri had given him since he had left that dog-eared, water-stained book with Newt.
He needed a new familiar. If not Nicholas Gregory Sparagmos, then Rachel Mariana Morgan herself.
Almost as if on cue, a sneeze threatened, grew, and slipped easily from him. Smile widening, he waited for another, his anticipation heady as the pull on the pit of his soul grew. A second sneeze burst forth. It was a summons.
“Ceri?” Guilt flickered, immediately quashed. “Call Newt. Tell her I need her to serve as witness and to come immediately. I’m being summoned, or I’d do it myself.”
Ceri appeared in the doorway, silken robes rustling, her face ashen. “You want me to call Newt? Gally, she’s insane. Wouldn’t Dali—”
“Scrying mirror,” he said, pointing at it in the corner of the desk. The summons was becoming painful. “Call her. Tell her. I will be back shortly. This won’t take long.”
“Gally!” Ceri exclaimed, but the pull across the void had become too much, and he took the spelled curse book in hand and let the summons pull him across time and space.
“Stupid wizard,” he muttered, guilt twining about him again as he felt himself dissolve. He would have what he wanted tonight. All of it, and everything. That is, if Nicholas Gregory Sparagmos was as greedy and foolish as Al thought he was.
The soft, almost forgotten sound of rain slipped into his awareness first as he felt himself become solid again, and for a moment, longing hit him, hard and unexpected. Lip curled, he opened his eyes, good mood spoiled at the reminder of what he had lost, what they all had.
“Nicholas Gregory Sparagmos.” He practically bit the words off, hating the memories that the smell of rain in the dark had unearthed. Even the sound was wasted on the likes of him. “Does the witch like to be on top or the bottom? Or does she prefer something more adventuresome?”
The wizard stood and stared at him as if wondering if he had made a mistake. Chin high, he ran a hand over his hair to slick it back. He was dressed better than usual, the scent of detergent and pasta making it through the protection circle. My God. Have they just been on a date?
“You wish,” Nick said softly, but a thrill shivered through Al as he saw the cracks in the wizard’s resolve. Six days to search his soul…The man was predictable, and with that came success.
“You brought a book,” Nick said, eyeing it. “Same deal as before? A day for each piece of information.”
Al stifled his smile, then let it flow. “You think she’s worth all that?”