Page 10 of Buzz Kill (Smoke & Mirrors Tavern #7)

Chapter ten

ALWIN

Rith found Declan’s reaction amusing and openly laughed at the startled sorcerer.

“What the hell?” Declan groaned. “I thought we were being attacked, what was that thing I saw?”

“Apparently he was hunting,” I explained, gesturing to the bloody beast on the ground. “And would like us to cook for him again.”

“Is that safe?”

Nothing we did would be safe in this world, but there was no reason to state the obvious. State of mind was often a key factor in surviving harsh conditions. Declan was smart enough to know the difficulties we faced in this world, but focusing on the negative rather than the best way to move forward would only put unnecessary stress on him.

“I’d prefer to complete the glamours first. If something does come looking, it will be better if we blend in with the others in this world. They may be respectful or at least wary of other demons, but there’s no telling what they would do to a human.”

Declan’s lips tugged down, but he gave a nod. “Why don’t you take your bath while you work on those. Looks like Rith is gonna get this thing ready to roast.”

Indeed, the little demon was already dragging the beast away from camp to prepare for cooking.

I gave him a nod and headed around the shelter to bathe. Declan hadn’t complained once, but our time in the desert hadn’t been easy and between the sand and the heat and the sweat, even my skin was stinging and irritated. The water soothed the discomfort and after a quick wash, I went right back to weaving. The magic in this world was resistant to manipulation, and while the weaving was imperfect as a result, the glamour would be sufficient once it was finished.

I’d worked as quickly as I dared and after two days, I’d have preferred two more, but we didn’t have the luxury of time. It was only because we’d been dumped in a barren wasteland that we hadn’t run into anyone besides the child yet. Our continued survival required us to blend in.

Declan remained unusually quiet while I worked. When I returned, he was wearing nothing but boxers and an unbuttoned white shirt and was ringing water out of his pants and undershirt.

“What are you doing?”

“What’s it look like? I’m washing the sand out of my clothes. Why are you looking at me like that? I waited until you were done to swipe your soap.”

“I did not hear you approach.”

“Yeah, I was sure you’d catch me too, but you were pretty focused on those charms. Want me to do yours too? Strip and hand them over.”

He flashed a grin and a wink along with the offer and I shuffled back a step as if I expected him to tear the clothes from my body. As if he could. I shook my head at myself and took a seat.

“I washed my clothes after I bathed.”

Declan’s eyes narrowed and he reached out to feel up my chest, groping around far more than was necessary. “What do you mean? They’re not wet at all.”

“These clothes have charms woven in that dry them as soon as the air touches them again.”

“Ah, you’ve been holding out on me,” he teased.

It occurred to me that I had been. From the moment I released my human glamour, I’d been wearing clothes made for rough conditions and armed with weapons while Declan had been wearing the same suit and dress shoes we’d broken into his family home with. Now that I looked, his heels were red from the uncomfortable shoes and his skin was red and peeling in places where sand and sweat had gotten trapped under the unforgiving fabric.

I touched a spot near the back of his collar that was sunburned and irritated. Then pulled his shirt aside to find several other spots where his skin was nearly rubbed raw.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were injured?”

Declan rolled his eyes. “There’s no sense in wasting one of your charms on a sunburn, so why bother whining about it?”

It had been many years since I was responsible for another human, but a hint of guilt gnawed at me for missing his pain. Aiden would have been complaining from the moment we’d arrived, but Declan suffered in silence and I’d been too focused on our environment and creating the glamours to notice.

“I apologize, I didn’t notice.”

“There’s no need for you to apologize to me. Especially since I’m the one who trapped us here. If anything, everything that happens here is my fault.”

“That is not true. I was the one who forced you to return to your family home, we could just as easily claim it was my fault.”

“True, but you also offered to go without me.”

“So did you. There is no sense in assigning blame, our energy is better spent dealing with the situation at hand.”

“Fair enough,” he agreed, pulling off his button down to wash and leaving him in nothing but boxers.

Once again my eyes were drawn to the cloudy black markings on his skin. Curses could be removed if they were caught early enough, but the longer they festered in a person, the harder they were to get rid of. They essentially integrated with their host over time until they could no longer be separated. There were many kinds of curses and early signs were often subtle, but the stronger the curse grew, the more the bearer would feel its effects.

Declan’s curse would have been there for many years with the way it had spread, and there was no way to know what kind of curse it was without asking or having a magic user examine him, neither of which would be appropriate when he’d clearly indicated he didn’t want to talk about it.

I pulled my eyes away from the markings and found my attention lingering on his flexing muscles as he wrang the water out of his shirt. He was on the thin side, but tall for a human, only a few inches shorter than me, with a lean build similar to the more pampered elf royalty I’d seen. Except I’d never looked at them the way I was looking at Declan.

Rith’s startled exclamation finally snapped me out of my inappropriate staring and I looked up to find him standing over Declan with wide eyes. He gestured to the curse marks and asked a question that didn’t need translating.

“Don’t worry about it,” Declan answered, tugging the still wet t-shirt over his head. “It’s not a big deal.”

Rith turned to me and chittered something else, but I shook my head, letting him know to drop it. The demon frowned, but let it go.

I stood to pull a thin rope from one of my bags and hang a line to dry Declan’s clothes. Once that was finished, I placed the glamour around his neck and his form changed into an adult demon similar to Rith. He still looked like Declan, but with reddish brown skin and dark horns, sharp claws, pointed ears, and longer black hair.

Rith’s eyes widened and he asked another astonished question.

Declan laughed, his smile revealing sharp, pronounced canine teeth. “I can’t tell if he’s never seen a glamour before or he’s just surprised you can make one.” Rith was staring at Declan’s head in contemplation, and the sorcerer arched an eyebrow at him. “Is something not right?” he asked.

Rith touched his horn and gestured to Declan. I’d made them the same but slightly bigger, assuming a demon’s horns would grow more pronounced as they aged.

“Should they be smaller?” I asked, drawing two different sized horns in the dirt.

Rith brushed away the end of the longer horn and redrew it with a curve that his horns hadn’t yet developed. After a moment of hesitation, he also turned and showed me the back of his neck had hard ridges protecting his spine. He lifted his shirt showing that they ran down to the middle of his back, along with a series of scars where he’d clearly been bitten and clawed by various beasts in this world. It seemed the injuries on his leg were nothing new for him.

I removed Declan’s glamour and wove the changes into both charms. When we put them on again, Rith gave a nod of approval.

“Do I need to charge this or anything?” Declan asked, fingering the woven charm.

“As long as you’re wearing it the glamour will work. It will draw from you to power the glamour and is designed to work even as you sleep or if you fall unconscious. As long as you are alive and wearing the charm, it will not fail.”

Rith impatiently gestured to the meat he’d prepared.

“Guess he’s hungry,” Declan laughed. “I’ll get the fire going again while you two get that thing set up.”

While the meat roasted, I refilled the tub to allow Rith to bathe and replenished our drinking water supply. The young demon returned when the scent of cooking meat wafted over the shelter. He wouldn’t be the only one the smell lured over and I was constantly monitoring our surroundings. The forest was quiet over the sound of the rushing water behind us, but the fire drowned out any other smells.

I’d kept my eyes on the trees, but there was no movement to be seen. And even so, I couldn’t shake the feeling that a threat was nearby. Part of me wanted to go into the trees to seek it out, but leaving Declan and Rith unattended would be unwise.

“Why are you freaking out?” Declan asked. “Did you see something?”

I was certain my expression hadn’t changed, but Declan had learned to read more than someone’s face from a young age and there was no point in lying.

“I haven’t seen or heard anything unusual, but it is almost too quiet.”

“Maybe you’re just being paranoid because you expected something to attack when we cooked this thing. Rith doesn’t seem to notice anything”

The young demon had already ripped a piece of the meat off and was stuffing it into his mouth, proving Declan’s point correct. And yet, the feeling that something wasn’t right persisted.

“You two eat, I will stay close.”

I moved to the tree line, watching for movement and getting far enough from the fire to pick up the other scents. My sense of smell was nowhere near what a shifter’s was, but it was far better than a human’s and many demons had rather distinctive scents. Some I could even identify while in glamour by scent alone.

The further I moved from the fire, the more the scents of the forest came through and while everything about this place was unfamiliar, I was picking up on scents I hadn’t noticed when we came through.

“Al, Al, Al, Al, Al!” The panicked shout had me sprinting back to the fire. “Get over here now!”

Declan was running all over the place, his meal abandoned on the ground. When he spotted me, he made a mad dash my way and I finally saw the tiny flying creature that was chasing him. Not an insect, but a tiny demon, similar to a pixie. I drew my sword and sliced the creature in half and only when the pieces fell to the ground unmoving did Declan finally step out from behind me.

“Why did it go after you instead of the meat?” I asked.

Declan pointed further upriver where Rith had prepped the meat for cooking, there was a swarm of the small creatures lapping up the blood.

He shuddered. “Apparently they prefer their meat raw. Only a few came closer to the fire.”

Rith caught one of the demon pixies and tossed it into the fire before grabbing more meat shoving it in his mouth. He was much less concerned with them than Declan was, but his attention did keep darting to the larger group upriver.

“I’ll put out the fire. Finish eating.”

Except now that he’d seen a demon version of something he feared so deeply, he was stuck by my side, even as I went to fetch water. Declan was practically breathing down my neck as I dipped the vessel into the rushing river. Splashing up ahead disturbed the water and a school of giant fish broke the surface to attack the demon pixies and drag them back into the river.

“Holy shit, Rith wasn’t exaggerating, those things are—”

Declan tackled me before the last word had even passed through his lips, and we tumbled back as sharp teeth snapped closed over the place we’d just been. I’d been too focused on the threat upstream and missed the one that had separated from the pack.

Declan rolled off of me and let out a breath of relief a moment too soon. The fish had climbed up onto the shore for a second shot. It dragged itself forward on two tentacle-like legs and lunged for Declan’s leg. My sword sliced through it before it could clamp down and Declan crab walked backward a few paces before dropping down again.

“Gah! Those things can climb out of the water?”

The water I’d been collecting spilled on us when he tackled me and his t-shirt and boxers were soaked. They clung to his skin in a rather revealing way and I forced my eyes back to the river as I helped him up.

Rith yelled something behind us and Declan sighed. “At this point, I’m pretty sure he’s just calling us stupid every time he speaks.”

If so, he wasn’t wrong. That was a foolish mistake on my part.

“Al, Al, Al, Al!” Rith shouted, quickly picking up on the nickname Declan used and the fastest way to get my attention.

Declan and I whirled around to find three huge demons hovering over him.

“Shit!” Declan exclaimed, rushing over without a second thought.

One of the demons swiped a leg off the roasting beast and bit into it with rows of sharp teeth. Rith snarled, but Declan grabbed his shoulders and hauled him back.

“Let them have it. It’s not worth getting hurt over.”

The largest demon’s eyes ran over Declan’s wet clothes with a chuckle before I stepped in front of them and drew my sword. Declan and I were in demon glamours, but that didn’t mean we could communicate with them. There were spells that could do such things, but I didn’t know them.

“Leave,” I demanded.

The word might mean nothing to them, but my meaning was clear. As was his response.

“Pah!” he laughed before muttering something else I couldn’t understand.

The speaker signaled to the third demon and he stepped forward. I had no way to identify these demons or what they were capable of, but their size and brawn were obvious. He reached out to shove me out of the way, but I ducked his grab and struck with my sword leaving a gash down his arm. A warning. I could have taken his hand had I not held hope we could end this before it escalated.

The demon had thick hide-like skin, but even so, my strike left blood dripping from the wound.

“Leave!” I demanded again.

The talkative demon responded angrily and Rith snapped right back at him. The two of them went back and forth a few times before the demon I’d sliced got impatient and drew a thick, curved blade. That kind of weapon was too heavy to handle effectively for most, but a demon this large would have no trouble. The demon grinned at me as he ran his long tongue over the flat side of the blade until his saliva dripped off of it.

Rith immediately issued a warning and Declan sighed. “That sounded important. I’m gonna guess the saliva is bad.”

“Likely toxic,” I agreed.

“Fantastic. Why don’t we just leave?”

“Take a few steps back.”

Declan obeyed, pulling Rith with him, but when I also backed up, the three demons followed.

The talker laughed again and pointed at Declan as he said something to Rith. The little demon snapped back an angry response and pulled Declan behind him.

“What was that about?” Declan asked.

“They are choosing death,” I snapped.

“Wow, that was so hot,” he teased.

Faint glimmers of magic could be seen between the trees, and I feared our situation was even worse than it appeared. Which meant time was not on our side.

I struck at the demon with the curved blade first, seeing him as the biggest threat, and the other two quickly drew their blades and backed him up. I was right that he was the biggest threat, the eater was the first one down and the talker was injured. These demons had clearly underestimated me based on the size difference, but now that I’d proven my ability, they hesitated.

“Leave.” I demanded again.

Rith pointed at the trees as he spoke to them again. Whatever he said made the demons angry.

“Oh, I see,” Declan chimed in. “I think the magic in the trees was Rith. Remember when you ran into his cave and it set off that spell? That magic out there looks the same and I think it’s their men that have been setting off his traps. That’s why they’re stalling, they were waiting for backup. But it doesn’t look like it’s coming.”

“Then let’s end this now.”

My next strike took out the talker, but a curved blade swung toward my head before the body even hit the ground. The metallic clang of our weapons crashing together rang out and the force of the strike made my arm ache. The demons couldn’t compare when it came to speed or agility, but their strikes were heavy and hard to deflect. And this demon knew his strengths.

It took several more arm-numbing strikes before I finally found my opening. My blade changed directions in an instant, swiping over his exposed midsection and sinking in deep.

The second the last demon was down, we rushed back to the shelter and I tossed Declan his damp clothes.

“Get dressed. We’ll head up stream for now and come back for the shelter later.”

Declan pulled his clothes on while I put out the fire and Rith tucked meat away in his sack. The little demon wasn’t happy about leaving the rest of his dinner behind, but he obediently followed us to the trees on the other side.

We didn’t make it far before another demon dropped down from a tree and swung his blade. His face and clothes were singed, but it didn’t slow his blade which swiped past where we’d just been standing and stuck deep in a tree trunk. The tree snapped in half as he broke his blade free and swung again, taking out several thick branches. There wasn’t enough room to maneuver in the forest and I was left with no choice but to retreat to deal with him.

The demon followed me back to the clearing and the demon I’d badly wounded shouted something through a pained grunt. The demon’s strikes grew more aggressive after that and more half-burned demons stumbled their way out of the trees. Most of them could barely stand, let alone fight, but they outnumbered us by quite a bit.

Rith pulled the blanket Declan had given him from his back and laid it out on the ground before tugging Declan over to stand on it. Declan was confused until he looked down at the blanket.

“He put his spells on the blanket, I’m guessing no one can get close. Al, stop fighting and just come stand here.”

“We cannot stand there indefinitely. It is better to take care of the threat while they are weakened.”

Declan took a step closer as if he planned to reach for me. “There’s too many of them.”

“Do not leave that spot until I tell you.”

I pushed the demons back, putting space between us and Declan and Rith, and leaving a trail of bodies in our wake. Rith’s traps had weakened them, but there were more than I’d hoped still standing.

In my world, creatures this big didn’t travel in packs this large. If they did, it typically meant there was someone powerful in charge keeping them from fighting each other. These demons had their eye on Declan from the beginning and if they’d planned to take him back to the one in charge, I would ensure every last one of them died here today.

One by one, the demons fell, but they were skilled warriors and even injured, they’d left their mark. A particularly deep gash on my thigh refused to close and blood poured down my leg. The gwyllgi hide had protected me somewhat, but even that couldn’t hold up to the power behind these heavy weapons. The injury limited my movements, but only a few demons were still standing. My imminent victory soon became obvious and several of the remaining demons ran off.

The rest of the demons fell one by one until only two remained. I twisted to avoid a hit and more blood poured down my leg. The blood loss was starting to affect me and I struck at the more skilled of the two demons. He’d been the one to injure my leg and his blade was now aiming for my neck. I ducked his swing and came up on his other side, sinking my blade deep in his gut.

Something slammed into my back as I pivoted to the right to face the other demon, and the pained grunt behind me made my blood run cold. I blocked the incoming strike and sliced deep into the side of the demon’s neck before turning to find Declan behind me. I didn’t dare reach for him. The curved blade he’d intercepted was protruding from his chest, saliva still glistening on the other half of the blade. The demon I’d left mortally wounded wobbled on his feet, making Declan grimace at the movement of the blade.

“I told you to stay with Rith,” I snapped.

The words were harsh, but my blood was boiling and I suddenly didn’t care what my expression showed. But while the rage was obvious, my hands shook and a ball of ice formed in my chest. I couldn’t begin to explain what I was feeling.

“He was gonna…” Declan’s whispered words cut off on a cough that splattered blood down his chin.

It was obvious Declan had thrown himself in the path of a blade meant for me, but that did nothing to cool my anger.

“You shouldn’t have moved!”

My healing charms couldn’t fix damage to this extent. Declan was pierced through, his lung punctured, ribs broken. Blood gushed from the wound and his eyelids drooped lower by the second.

It finally occurred to me what I was feeling. Panic. It was such a rare occurrence that I hadn’t immediately recognized it. I took a step toward the demon but he immediately shuffled a step back, dragging Declan with him.

The fight had moved us back toward the river and every step carried them closer to the water. The demon’s intention was obvious.

“Stop!”

But the demon smiled, revealing his rows of bloody teeth. He was on death’s door and still refusing to give up. With his last breath he let out a bellow that rang out through the trees and as my blade ran him through, he lifted Declan like he weighed nothing and tossed him into the water.