Heir to the Throne (The Wardbreaker Book 4) Read online

  “Which is?”

  “Demonic attachment.”

  “Of course it is. I should’ve known a Demonologist wasn’t going to say something lovely and calming like designing floral arrangements.”

  He slowly walked around the ring he’d drawn into the floor of his study, his hands clasped together by his belt. “Do you know where I was the night you stole from me?”

  I narrowed my eyes. “No. I guess I’ve never asked.”

  “I was treating a patient.”

  “Patient? You’re a doctor?”

  “I have a PhD in clinical Psychology, although I don’t practice in the traditional sense. When I use the word patient, I’m referring to the poor, unfortunate souls who find themselves the target of demonic attachment. That night, I had been with my patient; a particularly troubled individual who had run afoul of a particularly dangerous demon—one I had come across before.”

  “Wait, when you say demonic attachment, you mean possession, right? Or am I just spouting uneducated bullshit I’ve seen in too many movies?”

  “One is a precursor to the other. A demon doesn’t simply possess people, it attaches itself to the person first and leeches off their life force, wearing them down bit by bit. When it grows powerful enough, it begins manifesting in the world around them, now feeding off something much stronger—the person’s fear. Eventually, the demon gains enough power to entirely possess its host.”

  A shudder pushed through me. “What happens then?”

  “The short answer? Nothing good. I became a psychologist so I could study the mind of a person in various stages of demonic attachment, to try to understand what happens to a person’s psyche as the demon grows more powerful. Each demon is different, as is every person, and I’m fascinated by the nuances I’ve been able to find.”

  “Are you saying the Queen is some kind of demon?”

  “I’m not sure what she is, but I’m sensing in you the kinds of emotional shifts I would expect to find in a person in the mid-to-late attachment phase.”

  “Late… how late?”

  “Usually a person in your position would be days from full possession, maybe hours.”

  “Hours? That’s impossible. I feel fine.”

  “You’re irritable, you’ve displayed a tendency to snap, an inability to sleep full nights, you have a clouded judgment… conflicted thoughts. You say you want to destroy the crown, but you’re torn between destroying it and using it. You also say you can hear her, that you can feel her presence. Were she a demon, I would already be working to exorcise her from you, but I doubt if she is.”

  I looked around the room. “So, what are we doing here? What’s all this for?”

  Becket smoothed his chin with his fingertips. “We don’t yet know how to destroy the crown. In order to learn how to do so safely, we’ll need time. But I worry you don’t have much time. If the Queen is already close enough to influence your thoughts, your actions… we need to delay her.”

  “And how are we going to do that?”

  “By bringing a demon into the world, and attaching it to you.”

  I felt like I’d just been flung out of my body, and whipped back to it. The pain in the side of my head came back, though not as strongly as it had hit me before. Still, I grimaced hard enough that Becket noticed.

  “Are you alright?” he asked.

  I rubbed the side of my head where the pain was highest. “Yeah… fine. I don’t think she liked what you just said.”

  “Good. I had hoped as much.”

  “I’m not sure I like it either.” I paused. “Actually, no. I don’t like it. In fact, I hate it. It’s already bad enough I live in a house full of demons, but I can deal with that at least knowing they’re safely under your control.”

  “I can assure you; this will be a controlled attachment. You won’t be in any danger.”

  “Becket, I’m already in danger. Anyway, how is duct taping a demon to my ass going to help me with the Queen?”

  “Demons are incredibly territorial creatures. Once they have latched onto a host, they will sink their claws into them and refuse to let go until they are forced out. When the demon we attach to you senses the Queen’s presence, it will lash out at her and push her away, theoretically providing you with a buffer against her efforts. It isn’t a solution to the problem, but it could buy us more time.”

  “Assuming the Queen isn’t powerful enough to just bat the demon away like it’s nothing.”

  “Demons are impervious to most Mages’ magic, except perhaps for Psionics. According to the records I have been able to find, the drowned Queen was an Elemancer. She should have no more authority over the demon than you would.”

  “That’s… comforting?” I shook my head. “I still don’t like this idea. Even if the demon can keep her away, I’ve still got a demon trying to… what did you say they did? Eat my life force?”

  “As long as the demon remains under my control, it will pose no threat to you. When we destroy the crown, and your link to the Queen, I’ll put the demon back where it belongs.”

  I frowned at him. “And where’s that?”

  Becket gestured toward his table, and there was the little doll, its dead, wide eyes staring at me. I backed up a step, my heart leaping into my throat. “Holy shit,” I said, “That wasn’t there a minute ago. What’s it doing here?”

  “Izzy, meet your demon.”

  “No way. I don’t want that thing anywhere near me.”

  “This is the only one I trust to respond to my commands. The only demon I trust.”

  I shook my head harshly. “You can’t get me to believe for a second that you can trust a demon.”

  Becket paused, then nodded. “Very well. You’re right, demons cannot be trusted or tamed, but they can be controlled, so long as you know their true names. They also respond well to threats. It knows I can and will obliterate its essence if it doesn’t comply with my commands. If it causes you even the slightest bit of discomfort, I will exorcise it from you and rip it into so many little pieces it will never be able to reform.”

  I looked over at the doll… and immediately felt repulsed by it. There was something so sinister about it. The shadows clung to it in strange, and unnatural ways, and the way it sat upright on its own… I had also fought with the demon inside of that doll once before, and I knew how powerful it was.

  I also happened to know how loyal it was to Becket.

  The night I had stolen from one of Becket’s properties, that doll decided to put itself between me and the way out. It had thrown wave after wave of foul, demonic energy at me to try and keep me from leaving the house with the key I had stolen.

  I shuddered. “Alright, fine,” I said, “If we’re going to do this, let’s get it over with. I hate this idea. It’s like I’m consenting to being dunked into a tub of roaches with my eyes blindfolded and my mouth clamped open.”

  Becket smirked. “Not quite, but I get your point.” He gestured toward the center of the room. “If you could kindly step into the center of the circle, we’ll begin. This won’t take long.”

  “Will it hurt?” I asked, carefully stepping over the lines Becket had drawn into the ground.

  “Not at all. In fact, you may feel somewhat empowered at first.”

  “Has this ever happened to you?”

  He turned his glowing, red eyes at me. “Yes,” he said, his eyes briefly flashing. “Once before.”

  It was easy to forget Becket was an Infernal Mage and not quite like the rest of us. At some point in his life, he had made a bargain with a demon and exchanged away a part of his immortal soul. For what, I didn’t know. I also didn’t dare ask. What I did know was, doing that was a kind of blasphemous hubris that forever marked the Mage as nefarious, untrustworthy, and dangerous.

  Becket was only one of those things, which meant the rest was just stigma.

  Right?

  He picked the demon doll up from his desk and brought it over to me. I turned my head to the s
ide and shut my eyes as he handed it over. “I hate you,” I said.

  “You’ll be thanking me soon. Now, let’s begin.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  The word sick didn’t even begin to describe the way I felt while Becket wrapped a literal demon around my soul; and he’d barely just begun. Just holding the doll in my hand made my skin prickle, and not in the ‘I’m listening to good music’, way; more like in the ‘there are spiders crawling all over me’ way.

  I had a hard time concentrating on what Becket was doing. The doll wasn’t only creeping me out, it wasn’t only making me feel sick; as if those two things weren’t already bad enough. It was whispering. What it was saying, I didn’t know. But the thing locked away inside of the doll had started talking to me, and I wasn’t okay with that.

  “How long will this take?” I asked.

  “Not long,” Becket said, “Please, be quiet.”

  Becket walked around me, toeing the edge of the chalk circle he’d drawn into the floor. There were no flashing lights, there was no chanting, and no fiery hellmouths opened up to bind me to the demon with physical chains. Whatever was going on was invisible, subtle, and that was probably the most terrifying about this.

  About demons.

  They didn’t like to make themselves known. They didn’t like to be known. They liked moving around silently, away from the senses of others, because to be unknown was to be unconquerable. You can’t hurt what you don’t know is there, and you can’t cut out the parasite you don’t know you have worming around inside of you.

  I was willingly opening myself up to having one of those things inside me. “Too late to back out of this?” I asked.

  Becket cocked an eyebrow, but said nothing.

  “I know, I know. Be quiet. I’m nervous, okay? What if this goes wrong?”

  “It won’t… if you remain quiet. Demons feed on fear. Don’t give it fear, and it won’t grow any larger than it already is.”

  I hate this. I thought. I hate this. But I’m not gonna be afraid. Nope. This is fine.

  Becket continued pacing around the edge of the magic circle, making a series of intricate and quickly shifting shapes with his fingers. I tried to catch them all, but he was moving too fast for me to make sense of it. It was like he was trying to have a covert sign language with someone staring up at him from the floor.

  Finally, he stopped moving and extended his hand toward me. “The demon is ready to attach itself to you,” he said, “I only need you to accept it.”

  “I’m ready,” I said.

  Becket paused. “I speak now to the demon, Olmon. With my words I bind you to my will. With my will, I offer you passage out of the doll and into Isabella, a willing vessel. It is this vessel that you will attach yourself to, and claim as your own.”

  Wait a minute. Claim?

  My heart started racing. Something was happening; something dark, and almost sinful. I’d never felt anything like it before. It was like willingly picking a broken cigarette out of the gutter and smoking it; like choosing to grab the dirty bottle of hooch left by the park bench and drinking the dregs left inside.

  Every ounce of me rejected this idea, fought back against this course of action, but it was too late to turn around now. There was no stopping what was going to happen next. I shut my eyes, focusing on my breathing even as the prickling of my skin, and the growing knot in my stomach, intensified.

  “You will protect her mind,” Becket said, “You will not harm her, you will not influence her thoughts; you will not possess her. As your better, you are commanded to keep her safe, and act as my conduit. Do this, and you shall be rewarded.”

  I felt it happen. I didn’t think I would, I thought I would’ve been spared that, at least. The moment of transfer was… slimy. It was as if a fat, heavy, slimy slug had crawled up and along my chest to settle around my shoulders. I wanted to shudder, to shake the feeling off, but I also couldn’t move. The prickles had turned to static, and then into full blown numbness.

  I stood there, my heart beating like a jackhammer inside of my chest, my eyes fixed on Becket, pleading for him to make the feeling go away. It didn’t. In fact, it only got worse. The invisible slug on my shoulders wasn’t content to stay there. It wanted to curl around the side of my face and whisper sweet nothings into my ear.

  It promised power beyond my wildest dreams if I’d only lash out at the man who had bound it to me and escaped the prison he had fashioned, but Becket was quick to chastise it.

  “I’ll give you that one,” Becket said, reaching for the demon with hand as if to try and choke it. “But that will be the last time I entertain your whims. Is that understood?”

  I heard the demon whisper something, and then felt it back away from my ear. A moment later, the pressure around my shoulders was gone. It was as if the slug had merged into my body and disappeared. I wasn’t sure what was worse—knowing the thing was back there, sitting on my shoulders, or knowing it had gone somewhere else.

  “How do you feel?” Becket asked.

  “Like I need a hot shower,” I said, “In bleach.”

  “I understand that feeling well. Working with demons is an unnatural thing for non-Demonologists.”

  “Trust me, there was nothing natural about that. I don’t know how you can do it.”

  “And I don’t know how you carry within you the power to command the elements. From an academic point of view, yes, I can wrap my head around it. But the responsibility of carrying, and wielding, that power… I can’t fathom it.”

  I shrugged. “To each their own, right?”

  Becket nodded. “Indeed.”

  I looked around, breathing deep. “Alright… what now?”

  “Well, now you have a demonic attachment. I would like to monitor your progress over the next twenty-four hours, just to make sure everything is… on the up and up.”

  “Are you anticipating problems?”

  “No. This demon will protect you because I have commanded it to do so. Not only am I a Demonologist with power over its kind, but I also used its true name. A demon cannot resist the use of its true name.” He pointed a finger at me. “Don’t use it yourself. Promise me.”

  I put my hands up. “Geez, I won’t. I wasn’t planning on it.”

  “Good. I suggest you go and get something to eat and drink. The early stages of attachment come with only mild side-effects, but you may find yourself feeling tired, or lethargic as the days go by as the demon uses some of your energy to maintain its own. You’ll need more sleep than usual to compensate. It will feel strange, but trust me, everything is under control. It won’t hurt you.”

  “Won’t, or can’t? Because I’d be much more comfortable with can’t.”

  “Won’t. Ever.”

  Nodding, I left his room and headed down into the kitchen where I found Axel fixing himself a cup of coffee. He glanced across at me and stopped what he was doing to stare, intently. The coffee cup started spilling over, and when he noticed, he shook his head and cursed. “Dammit,” he said, grabbing a cloth to soak the hot liquid up.

  “You alright?” I asked, walking into the kitchen, “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “I’m not sure what I saw… what happened?”

  I shrugged and walked over to him. “Oh, nothing much. We talked, reminisced, then he attached a demon to my soul.”

  Axel stopped wiping the counter down and looked at me, an eyebrow cocked. “Was that wise?”

  “He seems to think so. If the Queen is trying to get into my mind, and my Guardian can’t stop her, he thinks having a demon attached to me could help.”

  “That doesn’t sound safe to me.”

  I grabbed the pot of coffee and pulled a mug out from the cabinet. “Tell you what, if I start acting bat-shit, I give you permission to exorcise me.”

  “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

  I clinked his cup with mine and took a sip. “How are you holding up, anyway?”

  “Things could
be better, but I’m in one piece, at least. I can’t say I’m not shaken up by this whole thing.”

  “Tell me about it. That job your dad hired me to do has really spiraled out of control, hasn’t it?”

  Axel chuckled. “Yeah, I guess so. A couple of months ago, if you’d have told me I’d be spending my time with this group, I’d have wondered if they had peered into another dimension. This whole thing is so disjointed from reality.”

  “Is it? I mean, magic already makes anything possible. I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to think someone like you would be hanging out with people like us. You hated your old life.”

  He walked over to the small table in the kitchen and sat down. “Hated it, but I was comfortable. It was everything I knew.”

  I sat down across from him and took another sip. “I know what you mean. I didn’t hate my life while I was Kandi, and I didn’t hate my life as a thief.”

  “Finder, remember?”

  “Yeah, we can drop the pretense at this point. Anyway, I was also pretty comfortable doing what I was doing, even if I was just avoiding all the things that would make me… me.”

  “You’ve come a long way. I don’t know if this means much coming from me, but… I’m proud of you.”

  “Proud of me?”

  “Yeah. When I met you, you were kind of an asshole.”

  My jaw dropped, and I playfully kicked him in the shin. “That’s totally not true, mister ‘You’d better do what I say’. You were so much more of an asshole than I ever was.”

  “Debatable. I distinctly recall a fair bit of insubordination coming from you.”

  “Yeah, well, you did kidnap me.”

  Axel lowered his eyes and set his cup down. He looked at me again, deeply, softly. “I don’t know if I’ve ever truly apologized for that. I’m still having trouble believing there was a time where I did everything my father asked me to.”

  I shrugged. “Water under the bridge. If you hadn’t kidnapped me, we wouldn’t be here right now.”

  “Do you mean, sitting in the kitchen of a Demonologist’s house, trying to figure out how to destroy a crown that came from the Tempest, with the threat of my father eating your heart hanging over us?”