Before we could even move, the sigils on the canvas caught fire and burnt off. Dorian Gray had booby-trapped the fucking painting? I didn’t know shit about magical paintings, and I didn’t know you could program them to self-destruct like I did to programs I put on people’s hard drives when I wanted to fuck with them and erase shit.
We went running down the hall to Ripley’s bedroom to find Reyson and Ripley passed out. Felix shut the door and put his finger over his lips.
“We can wake them later. Let’s go get Bram.”
We walked into the living room. Bram and Talvath were missing. They were both sleeping when we left. Bram hadn’t been in that force-field very long, but it seemed to take him a long time to get his strength back.
Where the fuck were they?!
“Hear me out a minute,” Gabriel said. “I’ve had to recover from depleting my magica lot,because people call me to clean up their revenants pretty frequently. Bram wasn’t down long. What if the spell on that painting was another part of Talvath’s containment and we made it worse for both of them by bringing it here?”
“I agree. Every bit of magic has a price, some less than others. I think Bram would have recovered much faster, but something was stopping him. Talvath may have woken by now if not for the sigils we brought into the house. Do you think they are back in Hell?” Felix asked.
I sniffed the air. All the people who had been touched by demon magic reeked of sulphur, but Talvath and Bram didn’t. Their blood didn’t stink. Bram smelledmuchbetter than Talvath did, but they weren’t stinking up the living room. I could smell it though, demon magic smelled distinctly like rotten eggs.
“I think they did. If Talvath woke up when the painting self-destructed, then he'd probably have freaked out and taken them back to Hell. It stinks in here, and it only reeks like that when demon magic is involved,” I said.
“Shit,” Felix said. “Did anyone get a cell phone for Bram?”
“Can we even call him if he’s back in Hell?” Gabriel asked. “He can only come here with Talvath’s permission. Talvath won’t want to come back here, not after what happened… and if he does, it’s going to be with an army.”
We were in deep shit. We needed Bram to convince Talvath to come back to the Library of the Profane and hear us out. We needed him to come back, listen, and form a plan.
Not storm the earth with an entire army of demons. We were indeepshit.
30
Bram
My eyes flew open. I felt refreshed, and could smell Talvath’s incense and favorite tea. I looked around, we were back in his sitting room and he was pacing with a cup in his hands. He looked awful and clearly hadn’t even showered. Talvath walked over and picked up a bowl from the tray on the table.
“Drink this broth. We need to recover and make a plan.”
I grabbed the bowl and took a deep sip. Talvath’s chef always made this for both of us if we got injured collecting a payment. It was savory and soothing. I had work to do, but this broth always calmed my nerves.
“No, we need to get back. I was working with a team to rescue you. They found a lot of information, and we were trying to stop this.”
“Bram, your supposedfriends…theyhad sigils there that were keeping us weak. I wasn’t recovering, and neither were you. Something happened, and I broke free of the spell and got us both out of there. They are not your friends.”
“Talvath, listen to me. Whatever you are planning, stop. I was at that library for days plotting your rescue, and I felt totally fine. I wouldn’t have gotten you out of there if it weren’t for them. We took a painting with us. We thought it might have Dorian Gray’s soul in it.
“They have a god with them, and he wants to help. It was him that broke the spell and got us out of there. Dorian has several decoy paintings lying around with magic in them. I’m guessing that what kept us weak was that painting, and the reason you woke up was that Gabriel broke the magic on it by destroying it. They are our friends.”
“No, Bram. None of those people on Earth are your friends. They are idiots who will sell their souls for a bit of magic and do awful things to avoid making payments they agreed to make. Even if the group you were with had never made a deal with one of us before, you can bet they would have wanted something in return for freeing me. They wereusingyou!”
Talvath was convinced of that, and yeah, it could have been true, for any other group… but not those people at the library. They wanted nothing. They didn’tneedTalvath’s magic!
“Were you listening to me at all?! They have a god with them. Why would they want something from you in return for rescuing you, when Reyson could just blink and give it to them? They are good people. When you went missing, I waited for a vision to tell me what to do. Your seer sent me to the Library of the Profane. We need to go back there,now.”
Talvath let out a little grunt.
“Drink your broth and recover. We aren’t doing a damn thing now. I need to research how a human and a witch came to possess the knowledge to trap me. I want an updated vision. We aren’t going anywhere near that library if a god is living there, not until I have my own vision telling me it’s safe. I’m going to petition an audience with Lilith. We should get our own goddess involved in this. I’m going to take a bath.”
Shit. Shit! Why couldn’t he just listen to me?! He stormed out of the room to go to his bathhouse. He didn’t have the entire story, and I still didn’t know how he’d gotten trapped. I knew he was pissed, and when Talvath got angry, he went full out. He was always calm and logical,exceptfor the rare occasion someone made him angry.
And that was where we were now.
Did they miss me at the library? Had they realized I was missing yet? I certainly missed them. Talvath’s castle had been my home for so long, but I felt like I belonged at Ripley’s, back at the Library of the Profane. I said I wasn’t going to let feelings get involved. I was determined to free Talvath, stop this whole thing, and go home. But feelings had definitely gotten involved. I wanted to go back for more reasons than just stopping a war.
I needed to get to Talvath before he got an audience with Lilith. If he saw her, half-cocked without knowing what I knew, my friends were going to be in danger. An entire planet would be in jeopardy, and not everyone there was involved in this.
If I didn’t convince Talvath to take a step back, listen to me, and work with everyone at the library, then every demon in Hell was going to release their Hellhounds on Earth. Lilith and Reyson may come to blows. If Lilith and Reyson declared war on each other, nothing would be left standing when this was over. Reyson had no problem working with other gods when he needed it, but Lilith never could ask for help.
It was going to be a fucking slaughter unless I got through to Talvath.
