Page 15 of Buzz Kill (Smoke & Mirrors Tavern #7)

Chapter fifteen

DECLAN

It wasn’t until Alwin collapsed on top of me that I roused from my post-sex haze and realized what I was doing. My fingers had been idly tracing patterns on his skin and while it was likely simple exhaustion and the healing that made him pass out, I’d been in a blissful half-asleep state and my magic had been trickling out, turning those patterns into sigils. Shit. After all these years, this was the moment I dropped my guard and slipped up. Gods , I was such a fuckup.

It wasn’t like magic didn’t spill out whenever I freaked out, especially as a kid, but I’d never directed it into a spell. I’d never intentionally cast anything. Even back at the manor when I ran into those pixies, my magic rushed to the surface ready to blow. But I was frozen and didn’t release anything. I just stood there like an idiot. Some magic was instinctual, but I’d long ago learned to fight those instincts.

Maybe that was where I went wrong. After everything we’d been through, I felt too safe with Alwin. Most of my walls were already down and I hadn’t been guarding against anything at all. While coming to this world was a lesser of the two evils escape plan, I’d had no trouble adjusting. Acacia and her demon couldn’t reach me here so I slept like a baby for the first time in forever. My family was no longer a threat, and to be honest, compared to the things I’d faced over the years, the things we’d encountered here weren’t all that scary. Plus, Alwin was there to take care of everything. I’d grown so comfortable here that I’d forgotten to be afraid of myself.

I had no idea what kind of spell I’d just cast on him, I didn’t even know where my mind had wandered to. Magic required intent, but wherever my thoughts had roamed at that moment may have been enough. What had I been thinking? I didn’t even know. I was just so content. Genuinely happy. To be honest, Al had just banged my brains out and looked at me like he was starving and I was his favorite dessert, I’d been feeling nothing but affection for him… Oh gods . Could I have cast a love spell on Alwin?

Thankfully, my magic was pretty depleted so soon after reviving. The curse drew from my own power and left me weak. I’d long ago learned that draining my power by dying a second time before I’d fully recovered meant I’d be in for some serious backlash when I woke. There were times I was in so much pain I’d wished I hadn’t revived at all, but so far, the curse had never failed.

I tested my magic, finding it at less than half of what I was capable of. Whatever I’d done to him couldn’t have been all that potent. But even so, he deserved to know what I’d done. And he’d probably be pissed. I would be.

With a grimace I shook Al’s shoulder. He was still pressed on top of me, half on the bed with his face buried in my neck. Even if I didn’t need to tell him what I’d done, he couldn’t sleep like that.

“Al, wake up.”

After a few tries, the elf finally roused and lifted his head. He mumbled a sleepy apology and moved us to sleep properly in the bed before closing his eyes once again.

“Wait, Alwin, there’s something I need to tell you.”

His blue eyes blinked a few times like it was taking a lot of effort to keep them open, but eventually they focused on me and waited for me to speak.

“I, uh, might’ve cast magic on you,” I mumbled semi incoherently.

Now his eyes looked much more awake. “What kind of magic?”

“I didn’t mean to,” I rushed to explain. “It was an accident. I was half asleep and didn’t realize my magic was trickling out while I was touching you. It might have taken form without me really meaning to.”

“What kind of spell?” he asked again.

“I’m not sure. Like I said, I wasn’t consciously intending to use magic at all, but my thoughts were wandering and maybe subconsciously something came through.”

“What were your thoughts at the time?”

That was a dangerous question. My thoughts immediately after sex had been a rambling of things from ‘This man is a god’ to ‘I could stay like this forever.’ Luckily he’d already proven I hadn’t rendered him immobile.

“Uh… random stuff, I’m sure. Who knows? How do you feel? Do you feel anything different?”

Al seemed to take stock of his body. “I don’t feel different. Perhaps it did not work.”

“Maybe,” I agreed, though I wasn’t really convinced.

“Do you have a way to find out what you did?” Al asked when he saw it was still bothering me.

“Not really. I can see the pattern I traced, but it wasn’t woven with any kind of sense, it’s just… I don’t know, like applying emotion to magic instead of words or thoughts. Emotion can certainly be a factor, but using that on its own is just like releasing muddied magic with no direction. I don’t even know why it stuck.” I sat up suddenly. “Oh wait, I can just break it. Hold still.”

I placed my hands on his shoulder and activated the spell on my hands. Rather than breaking, the magic on him sparked back at me. I felt the jolt all the way up to my elbows and I yanked my hands back with a yelp.

Alwin sat up and reached for my hands. He turned them over, finding no physical damage. It didn’t seem to affect him either. He hadn’t reacted at all when I’d gotten zapped.

“What happened?”

“It’s never not worked before. Let me try again.”

But Alwin refused to release my hands. “No.”

“But we don’t know what that spell does.”

“It does not matter. I trust you.”

Those words left me staring at him in shock. “What?”

The Fae were always careful with their words. Their kind put power in promises and often used trickery to bind contracts out of the unsuspecting. Knowing how Alwin was, I never bothered to be careful with my words around him, but I’d never speak so casually with any other Fae. And still, I’d never expected Alwin to reciprocate with words that could be taken as a promise so lightly. ‘I trust you’ wasn’t the most binding statement, but it still offered something of himself to me under the circumstances and I could do nothing but blink at him as if I didn’t trust that I’d heard the words correctly. But then he repeated them.

“I trust that whatever spell you cast will not harm me. I know what kind of person you are, and I trust that you don’t harbor ill intentions toward me. Leave it for now, it is not causing any harm.”

“But—”

He pulled me back down on the bed and wrapped an arm around me. “Sleep.”

Well, at least he didn’t seem infatuated with me, so it probably wasn’t a love spell. But he wasn’t as pissed at me as he should be either, so maybe I couldn’t rule out that I’d fucked with his feelings after all. My mind circled the problem a few more times, but in the end, exhaustion won out and it became a problem for tomorrow.

The next day provided no answers. Neither did the next week. Or the one after that. Al was acting pretty much the same as always. But while that situation was still eating away at the back of my mind, I actually had some ideas for the utterly dead artifact. Not one thing I’d done to it since the attack had moved it at all, but that in itself was also a clue.

The artifact had been made by a powerful sorcerer, that much was clear at a glance. So what source did a powerful sorcerer have at their disposal to power a spell like this? Demons. My blood hadn’t moved it, but a dying demon’s had. It was the tiniest spark, but my guess was that the artifact required a demon sacrifice. Hence the reason I hadn’t tested my theory. We were surrounded by demons, but obviously killing them to get home wasn’t something we could do.

It was truly a dark magic spell. I should have realized it sooner. The spell itself wasn’t as tainted as that of the dark mage back in Eastbend. The weaving itself was quite clean, telling me this was likely the creator’s first step into darkness.

Most sorcerers were taught early on that demon lives were nothing compared to ours. They were monsters, so it was okay to use them the way we did. Imprisoning them and stealing their lives was practically doing the world a favor. Because of course sorcerers painted themselves as heroes while doing something so heinous. It wasn’t all that surprising that some sorcerer eventually took this step. I wondered if he even realized what this spell would do to him.

Elliot was one of the few sorcerers I knew of that had been raised with the same indoctrination as the rest of us but still managed to see for himself that everything he’d been taught was wrong. Even as a child, he’d recognized the lies of his parents. I often wondered how much of it was the influence of that crazy Beaumont uncle he used to visit, but even that old weirdo had demons of his own.

Truly, Elliot had always impressed me. We’d lived vastly different lives even under the same roof, but there were days when just knowing he was there kept me fighting. I’d sworn that one day I would get us both out of that place. But in the end, his mother killed my uncle and ran off with him before I could manage it. And in the end, I was the one who went running to him for protection. It was laughable. I was older, I was the one who was supposed to protect him, and in the end, I couldn’t even take care of myself.

“Declan?”

Rith’s voice snapped me out of my wandering thoughts and I looked up to find him standing over me.

“Oh, sorry. What’s up? Done with evening training already? I guess it is getting pretty late.”

“Al sent me. We’re surrounded again.”

I shook my head. “Living here isn’t easy, is it?” But this is what we were waiting for. I packed up my handful of things and gave Rith a tight squeeze.

“Just in case this works, thank you for everything.”

Rith frowned but nodded. He didn’t look happy that we were leaving, but I had to get Alwin home.

I ruffled the little demon’s hair. “You guys will be okay. Al taught you all how to defend yourselves. They might be bigger, but you guys have numbers on your side. Plus, your trap magic is awesome. You’ll be fine.”

Rith followed me out to the courtyard where the demons were taking a break from their training with Al and pretending they hadn’t noticed the upcoming invasion. The elf himself was standing beside a pillar looking relaxed, but I knew his sharp senses were on the surrounding forest. I took the place next to him and struck up a casual conversation.

“Any idea how many there are?”

“There aren’t many left. It’s the guards again but they brought different demons with them this time. At least a dozen. They are extremely stealthy, their presence has disappeared several times. If it wasn’t for the guards, I might have missed them entirely.”

Rith snuck off to get a better look and when he returned, he looked worried.

“Were you able to see what they are?”

The young demon pointed at the ground next to him. The courtyard was lit by lanterns as the sun fell and the demon had pointed at the shadow the flickering light cast. A sense of dread fell over me.

“Shadow demons. Like Keir. Sage said they’re like mercenaries in this world. Where the hell did the guards get enough money to hire mercenaries?”

“The demon funding this attack was likely promised a share of the treasures in the house once the fight is won,” Alwin answered. “But we know their strengths and weaknesses. It will be a difficult fight, but not impossible.”

Al called over the demons and went over the situation with them while we waited for the actual attack. The thing about shadow demons was they couldn’t attack from the shadows. They could come out and bring someone back in with them, but there always had to be a moment when they regained their form to touch or attack. That was the moment they had to be taken down. A split second, that was all the time they had to defend themselves. But these were small demons with animal speed and senses, I had faith that they could do it.

The watching demons must have realized we were planning and they jumped to make their move, taking down one of ours before they could react. Alwin called out orders to the group and they quickly spread out, pairing up back to back to cover blind spots where the demons could appear. But even so, this was an enemy they’d never faced before and the shadow demons quickly gained the upper hand.

Their first mistake came when one finally attacked Alwin, recognizing him as the leader. In theory it was a good plan, take out the leader and the rest fall into chaos. But Alwin wasn’t an easy target and the shadow demon fell to his sword with one strike.

The demon hit the ground and I quickly rushed over setting the artifact in the pooling blood next to the dying demon before backing away, leery of getting tainted by the dark magic. We obviously couldn’t sacrifice demons to the cause, but I could use the lives of those we were defending ourselves against.

After seeing the first demon go down, the others started getting the hang of defending themselves and while most of them only managed to injure the attacking demons, it was enough to deter their attacks. When another demon fell, I picked up the artifact, noting that once again there was nothing more than a hint of a spark. I ran it over to the newly fallen demon and dropped it once again.

Again and again I let the artifact recharge by the dying demons, but each time, the energy left behind was barely there. How many demons did I need to feed this thing? The sorcerer couldn’t have controlled that many at once. Three or four should have been the max, but six demons later and the thing had barely moved. Was I wrong about the energy source?

The shadow demons must have realized Alwin wasn’t one to be messed with and they started avoiding fighting him directly in favor of surrounding the smaller demons in groups. Al rushed over to help cut them down as I continued my work, feeding the evil stone more and more demons with barely any results.

I looked up at the battlefield, searching for the next fallen demon, noting that it was only a matter of time before our little fox demons cut them all down. Most of the guards were already out of the fight and only a few shadow demons still flashed in and out of view. For a moment, my shoulders relaxed, until three shadow demons materialized around Rith.

I screamed his name in a panic, but he’d already sensed the danger and his blade plunged into the first demon without a moment’s hesitation. The problem was, two short, curved blades were already flashing down toward him.

I was already running, but the fight had put too much distance between us. There was no way I could reach him in time. Alwin heard my shout and rushed to Rith’s side. His first strike knocked the shadow demon’s blade off course, catching Rith’s shoulder instead of his neck. I stumbled into something as I watched Rith deflect the final blade and Al cut the demon down.

My breath of relief only lasted a second before the air was stolen from my lungs once more. Pain flashed through my chest and I looked down at the blade protruding from my body. That thing I’d stumbled into? A shadow demon. And he’d stopped me just in time for his buddy to kill me while I was completely distracted by Rith.

That awful metallic taste filled my mouth as I coughed up blood. Fuck, again? Al’s gonna be—

I didn’t even have time to finish the thought before the demon in front of me was hacked down and Al’s blade flashed inches from my head. The sword caught something behind me and I cringed at the gross sound so close to my ear. The sword withdrew and once again, furious blue eyes filled my line of sight.

“My bad,” I rasped through another cough as I dropped to my knees.

Alwin kneeled in front of me, holding my shoulders to keep me upright. The artifact tumbled from my hand and landed in the pool of blood from the two dead demons, but that was having about as much of an effect as the others. It was becoming clear that I’d been wrong about the power source. Fucked up again, no real surprise there.

“Stupid!” Rith grumbled as he caught up and dropped to the ground next to us. “Even if you ran, what could you do?”

That was a good point, actually. It wasn’t like I could fight. I didn’t have any kind of plan, I just reacted. But it was too late to reevaluate now. I slumped forward, leaning on Al as I picked the artifact back up. All that, and it was all for nothing anyway. I was wrong.

All that demon blood and there was barely a whisper of power. I didn’t know what else to do. I was stupid. A willful failure of a sorcerer and nothing but a burden to the people around me.

“I’m sorry.”

My mouth formed the words, but no sound came out. That made sense. I couldn’t even manage to pull in a breath, let alone speak. That panicky feeling flooded my body again and I knew it wouldn’t be long. But as I was fading, the stone in my hand began to thrum with power. Darkness closed in around me but with every second closer to death, the more power filled the stone.

That couldn’t be right.

The power source for the stone wasn’t demon sacrifice, but the life of a sorcerer? Why would a sorcerer ever give up their life to create a nearly impossible gateway between the human world and the demon world? Especially when they could just summon demons without any major sacrifice. A ton of power and rare, expensive components, sure. But nothing so permanent as a sorcerer’s life.

The cost was too great when there was an obvious alternative. It would have taken a lifetime of research and experimentation to create the artifact, something only a few in the world could ever accomplish given hundreds of years. The creator wasn’t lacking in power or ability, so summoning would have been child’s play for them. It didn’t make sense.

Unless the intent wasn’t to bring demons to the human world, but to send them home. I’d been too cynical to even consider that option, but it was the only way it made sense. Had the creator of the artifact given up his life to send his demon back home?

If I was even capable of laughing anymore, I would have. The way home had been with us the entire time. Hell, we had two other opportunities to make it happen if I’d even considered the possibility. In my defense, the idea of a sorcerer giving their life for their demon hadn’t seemed even remotely plausible. Truly not even worth considering. How could this be the answer? And yet, the artifact said it was.

With the last wisp of life I had left in me, I pushed some of my magic into the artifact to activate it and it immediately grew hot in my hand. The flash of pain faded as fast as it came along with everything else.