It must be nice to be as oblivious as the other aspects were about demons but unfortunately, that made them poor backup if I were to try to cast the one above out.
You can’t. Not unless you open the trap. And if you do, then he’ll be loose first. You can’t remove him on your own. You need backup.
Once, when Sir Branson lived, we were rustled from where we were sleeping in a barn loft as a man with a red nose and redder eyes pled with us to join others of our aspect in his village.
“They say they can’t do it alone,” he’d told us, nearly tearing the edge of his jerkin as he wrung it back and forth between nervous hands. “Please come.”
We’d gone, grim and miserable, to help. It had taken two paladins, a squire, and a night of prayer, though fortunately we’d managed to dislodge the demon the easy way — without violence. Had we not been near to help, Sir Fransisci might have had to try a more brutal method — or failed entirely. I hadn’t thought of that night in decades. It had been … troubling.
“I thought you’d agreed that two were better than one,” a deep voice said, ripping me from the memory as the Poisoned Saint caught up with me.
Three is better than one. But four is entertaining. Dance for us, pretty knight. Bare your vices so we can laugh.
When I glanced at him, his eyes were scanning the room around us, catching on details and then discarding them as if he were looking for danger. It was not easy to rule anything out quickly in this place. Everything was carved or sculpted or decorated, so ornate, and breathtakingly intricate, and all of it carved in white stone. I couldn’t help but wonder what the rooms aboveground might have been like. Could they have matched this grandeur? You could host a ball in this main room at the bottom of the stairs and the beauty of the hall would outshine any guests.
Sir Adalbrand’s hand rode on his sword pommel, ready to draw at a moment’s notice. When his eyes finally caught mine, they glittered with suspicion, matching the shining cup embroidered on his tabard. It was the only bright thing on his person. His cloak and tabard were black and his chainmail was rubbed with something to blacken it, too. He looked out of place in this spotless white realm.
“Not one of the faithful?” I asked him, looking over my shoulder a second time, this time not at a demon but at those who were far more devout than I could be with my tenuous hold on faith, the God have mercy on me. Whatever power they felt seeping through the air and into their souls when they prayed eluded me, left me empty and dry.
“You’re a puzzle, Lady Paladin,” Sir Adalbrand said with a small smile as he matched his pace to mine. He kept a wide berth from Brindle. That bite must still pain him.
A puzzle he wants to solve. Snicker.
Did the demon just say “snicker”?
The demon’s teasing might have made my tone sterner than usual. “I don’t see how I can puzzle you. I say what I mean and mean what I say.”
He might be pretty to look at and gentle with those hands, but right now Adalbrand was an unwelcome distraction. I had a quest to complete, a demon waiting to drop on me from above, another ready to tear my throat out in the night the moment my paladin superior slipped, and a bad case of terror still lingering from passing through the door. It made every shadow seem exaggerated and every item feel threatening. Even the strange map on the floor made my skin crawl.
My heightened fear kept telling me that this was no monastery but an elaborate gate to hell, and that could not be true.
I did not need distractions on top of everything else.
“And you don’t stay for prayers,” he said softly, but his soft tone had a blade buried in it, ready to slide out and strike if he did not care for my answer.
Interesting.
I met his eyes then. The last orange in the morning light made their brown depths cinnamon. I could almost taste the spice on my tongue.
So can I, the demon purred.
“You didn’t stay for prayers either,” I said equally softly.
He licked his lips, considering. He was weighing something. Measuring his words with care.
“Didn’t your parents teach you to pray? Or were you born untamable?”
If I did not know better, I’d think he was beguiling me. His expression was subtle, barely playing in the fine lines around his mouth.
I hesitated. But what would the truth hurt? Especially now, when the secrets I had to keep were so much more dire than the ones about my past.
“My parents were good and devout, but they died at the hands of fever, one after another over the course of two nights.”
He looked stricken, and paused, laying a hand on my arm.
“You have my sympathy. Did you come to the Rejected God after that?”
I pressed my lips firmly together. I was not telling him this for sympathy and I didn’t need his condolences. Or his touch. What I needed was to satisfy his curiosity enough that he would leave me to my work.
