Chapter 13
They landed in front of Hafrey’s house in a smooth wave of magic and a twinge of envy on Quentin’s behalf. Even with his improved teleportation abilities, his transportation never went that well.
“My teleportation is never that smooth.” He complained with a slight whine.
“Wait until the rest of your power settles.” Lars patted him on the back in what he probably thought was a supportive manner, but came off condescending.
He completely forgot his animosity toward his father when he turned and saw that a gaping hole had replaced Hafrey’s front door.
He was mildly surprised there weren’t any police or emergency crews standing outside Hafrey’s house, since the front of it was a pile of shattered wood and plaster.
There must be magic keeping it out of sight from regular humans.
He spotted one of Hafrey’s protection spells clinging to the remains of his house.
“Looks like something burst its way out.” Lars’s calm tone was at odds with the tense way he squared his shoulders.
Brimstone-scented air swirled around them. “It must’ve been recent.”
Lars nodded. “Shall we investigate?”
“Yes, but be careful.” He cast a spell to detect living beings and received a response: one green light, one white light, and a faint pink light. “One person injured, but not fatally.”
Lars tilted his head. “I don’t recognize that spell?”
“I invented it.”
“Impressive. Teach it to me later?”
“Sure.” It gave him a boost of confidence that his father was interested in something Quentin had created. It was like bringing home a drawing and having his mother put it on the refrigerator door.
He walked through the gaping hole in the wall and promptly choked on the stench. Hafrey’s house reeked of brimstone far more than Grevin’s had. “I wonder how long the demon was here.” The only reason the smell would be more pungent was if the demon had lingered.
Since Hafrey only used a couple of rooms in his house. It didn’t take long to find him lying on his living room carpet, not moving. Quentin’s spell was the only indication of life in his still form.
He dropped to his knees beside the old wizard. “Hafrey.”
Up close, he could see Hafrey’s nostrils were caked red with dried blood.
Hafrey’s eyelashes fluttered. When his lids flicked up, he gasped. “Quentin, you have to leave. He must not find you here. You would make a much better host.”
“Hafrey, what happened?” He resisted the urge to shake information out of the wizard.
“I’m all right, just stupid.” He pulled himself into a sitting position and moved until he was leaning against the couch. I thought I could handle it. He swallowed a few times and coughed. “I could use some water.”
Quentin nodded and went to fetch a glass from Hafrey’s kitchen. Luckily, the house had a simple layout, and Quentin had been there several times before. He returned with his glass of water to find Hafrey and Lars staring at each other.
Quentin cleared his throat. “Here’s your water.” He handed it to Hafrey.
It sloshed slightly in Hafrey’s shaky hold. He was tempted to steady the older wizard’s hands, but he didn’t want to insult him. Hafrey had a delicate ego. Once he had drunk most of his glass, Quentin began his gentle interrogation. “Were you the one who broke Grevin’s circle?”
Hafrey didn’t meet his eyes. “Yeah, that was me.”
“But why? Why would you want to be possessed?”
“I didn’t.”
Quentin frowned. “But you went there to free the demon, didn’t you?” None of this made any sense.
“Who did you do it for?” Lars’s voice cut through Quentin’s confusion.
Hafrey clenched his jaw as if Lars was trying to force the answer out of him.
“Hafrey, trust us, tell us what happened. We can’t help if we don’t know what we’re facing,” Quentin pleaded. He’d always liked the old wizard, but if he’d gotten involved in dangerous things, Quentin needed to know what happened.
“Ms. Mearson.”
“Dean Mearson?”
“Yeah, that fancy dean with the heels. She threatened to tell people where I was.”
“And that’s a problem?” He suspected for years that Hafrey was hiding. This was his first confirmation.
“They would’ve killed me.” Hafrey’s serious tone was reflected in his solemn expression.
“Who?” Lars asked the question Quentin hadn’t dared.
“I got into debt and smuggled some illegal goods for some black magic dealers. Turns out they were running a human smuggling ring and using my herbs to keep the kids sleeping. I wasn’t going to be a party to that, so I turned them in, then I went underground.
I don’t know how Mearson found out, but she threatened to turn me in if I didn’t get the demon.
I broke Grevin’s circle.” Hafrey picked at his nails.
“I didn’t get the chance to bind it before it attacked Grevin.
Once Grevin was down, it possessed me. I had no control.
I don’t know what happened to Grevin.” Tears dripped down Hafrey’s cheeks.
“I saw him text you before I left. Is he, is he all right?”
“Yes. He’ll be scarred, but he’s healing.
” Quentin didn’t know what to say to the sobbing wizard before him.
Hafrey was usually a cheerful, mellow soul.
It changed Quentin’s view of him to learn he had such a troubled past. “Hafrey, if Dean Mearson hired you to get the demon, why did you bring it home instead of taking it to the dean?”
“I didn’t have a choice. Once he was inside of me, he read my mind and didn’t like what he saw about Mearson and refused to go to her. I couldn’t fight him. I was a passenger in my own body.” Hafrey shuddered.
“We’ll have to address this carefully,” Quentin said. “I can’t go up to Dean Mearson and ask her if she’s possessed. They would have me kicked off campus.”
“How did she get it out of you?” Lars asked.
“She had a blue gemstone, a demon gem. She did some sort of ritual chant and ripped him out.” Hafrey rubbed his chest as he spoke. “Don’t hurt the demon when you find it. It’s not his fault that he’s here.”
Quentin frowned. “Hafrey, what do you think we are going to do with the demon?”
“Kill him,” Lars and Hafrey said in unison.
“I was planning on banishing him back home, with Grevin’s help, but we need to find him first.”
“It would be easier to kill him,” Lars said, folding his arms across his chest.
“It would, maybe. Hafrey, did the demon tell you his name?”
Hafrey sighed. A long, desperate sound. “No.”
“Damn, that would’ve been too easy.” Quentin groaned.
“See, that’s why we should kill him,” Lars crowed. “If we don’t know his name, we can’t banish him.”
“Grevin can. He’ll know who it is.” Quentin had complete confidence in Grevin.
“Why bother?” Lars’s forehead wrinkled like he didn’t understand why they would waste their time sending the demon back when they could just kill him.
“You really hate demons, don’t you?” He’d never seen this side of his father in their admittedly short relationship.
“They are the antithesis of nature. They should all be destroyed.”
Wow, that was more prejudiced than he’d been expecting.
“Don’t give me that look, they destroy all life.”
The worst part was that Quentin couldn’t even argue against that fact. “Still, we should try to send him back first. If he’s as powerful as I expect, it would be in our best interest to banish him because he might be impossible to kill.”
“At least you’re being practical,” Lars said.
“Why did you suspect me?” Hafrey asked.
“There are only a few people who have access to Grevin’s wards.”
Hafrey’s face fell. “I probably don’t anymore.”
“No, you probably won’t.” He didn’t mention that Grevin hadn’t tweaked the wards yet. Quentin did not doubt that as soon as he returned home, Grevin would take care of that.
Hafrey coughed up a bit of blood.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Quentin silently vowed to send Jaks’s doctor over when he had a minute.
“I’ll be fine. My body is recalibrating from the possession.”
Quentin was a little concerned about Hafrey's confidence in his assessment. Was this not the first time a demon possessed him?
“Why is there a giant hole in your house?” None of Hafrey’s story explained why it looked as if a cyclone had destroyed Hafrey’s house.
“He fought Mearson between her ripping him out of me and putting him in a demon gem. There were several minutes where he was free.” He waved a hand at the hole in the wall. “That’s what freedom looks like.”
“Do you know what Mearson is going to do with the demon?” Lars asked.
“She didn’t say, but I heard her call someone named Nikko on her way out.”
“Damn,” Quentin cursed.
Hafrey rubbed his chest again in a worrying manner. “I’m sorry, Quentin. Tell Grevin I’m sorry too.”
“I will.” Hafrey had made a bad decision, but Quentin didn’t know what he would’ve done in the same situation.
Quentin didn’t like how Hafrey kept rubbing his chest, or the slow, hollow breaths he was making. He whispered to his father, “We need to get him to a doctor.”
“I’ll take him. You go back home. I don’t like what is going on here. I want you safe behind your workshop protection.”
“All right.” Quentin couldn’t think of any good arguments to stay.
At least he solved who had broken Grevin’s rune circle, but now they had a different problem.
This one, he could officially call the bounty hunters for.
Brenton might enjoy hunting a demon even if it was only to use one of Quentin’s capture orbs.
He teleported into the family room of his house. Before he could be distracted by other things, he called Jaks.
“Hello, darling. Where are you? You weren’t at your lab.”
Quentin winced. He’d forgotten he said he’d stay put. He could hear the tension in his Jaks’s voice. “Lars and I went to talk to Hafrey.” He recounted the entire conversation, ending with Lars taking Hafrey to the hospital.
“Maybe I should talk to him after he’s admitted to the hospital.”
“You can try, but I didn’t get the impression that the demon shared much information with him.”
“I’m wondering why the demon didn’t try to possess Grevin when it first broke free of the circle.”
“Wouldn’t do him any good. Grevin has anti-possession rune tattoos. Every smart necromancer has them somewhere on their body.”
“Have you seen Grevin’s?” Jaks’s voice was all too casual.
“No.” He didn’t even try to hide his amusement. “Like I’ve told you before. Grevin and I don’t have that kind of relationship. He only told me about them, but I’ve never seen them personally.”
“Hmm, if you say so, beloved. I’m probably not going to make it to your house tonight. I’ve got too much to catch up on. Are you going to stay behind wards tonight?”
“Yes. I’ll go home soon. I’m going to sift through the research I sent there and decide what I’m transferring to the lab.”
“If you leave, give me a call so I know where you went.”
Quentin bit back his instinctive need to snap that he could protect himself.
Jaks was only worried about him. It had been a long time since anyone other than his mother fretted over Quentin’s safety.
“Will do. Just to warn you, I’m going to see a movie with my mother tomorrow,” Quentin reminded him.
“I’ll send Braed to drive you. He can get your mother, then pick you up.”
“I thought we weren’t trusting Braed?”
“Your mother’s presence should keep him on his best behavior.”
“Hmm, we’ll see.”
They exchanged goodbyes, and Quentin hung up.
“I hope tomorrow is less stressful.”
He just wanted one relaxing day without a significant problem. Every instinct screamed that he wasn’t going to get it.