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“Meanwhile, that just leaves us with finding the venidemons and whatever creep’s protecting them. Considering where we think this portal leads, well . . . it could be anything or anyone.” I glanced down the hall. “Want to make a bet the venidemons are belowground? If I were a giant demonic blowfly, I’d hide in a basement.”
“Ten to one you’re spot-on, babe,” Roz said, winking at me. “Now to find the staircase down.”
I ignored him, not feeling up to playful banter. Another portal meant more havoc to guard against. And the Netherworld wasn’t some scenic spirit amusement park. No, there were creatures there that could swallow your soul and spit it back out, blackened and empty.
Slipping past him, I motioned to Camille. “You take the right side of the hallway; I’ll take the left. Peek in the door and slam it if something tries to get out. Everybody be on their guard. For all we know, we could be facing a spirit demon.”
Vanzir shivered. “Could be a spirit demon. They scare the hell out of me, and I’m a dream chaser. Some of them eat any psychic energy in their paths, which means Morio and Camille better be alert and ready to run. If it is a spirit demon, whatever you do, don’t let it touch you.”
Camille shuddered. “Why?”
“If one touches you, they can latch onto your psyche, and you’ll play hell trying to dislodge them. That’s how they feed. Psychic leeches, you might call them. Only they’re a damned sight smarter than any leech you’ll find in a swamp, and a whole lot deadlier.”
I held up my hand. “In that case, Roz, you switch places with her. Camille, I don’t want you and Morio in front; you two stay back a little. I’m not taking any chances losing either of you to a spirit demon.” Camille started to protest, but I waved her silent. “Listen, you’re far more valuable alive than dead. Got it?”
She gave me a grin. “Got it, General. Okay, while we’re waiting, maybe Morio and I can tune in on whatever’s going on. If it is a spirit demon, maybe it will sense our energy and show itself. By the way, how do you kill one of them?”
Vanzir rolled his eyes. “Don’t you girls know anything about demons?” When we stared at him blankly, he shook his head. “Besides the fact that you want to kill us all? A spirit demon can be killed, but the worst way to attack it is through magic. It eats up spells like candy. They’re just fuel. Silver is always good. You can actually hit them on the physical plane and it will affect them if you have a silver weapon. And an experienced enough witch can trap them—”
“Of course!” Morio snapped his fingers. “A Snare spell. If they wander into it, the energy creates a barrier they can’t absorb, and yet they can’t free themselves. Kind of like when a spin-bug traps a spider in its own type of web, which it attaches to the spider’s guy wires and spins in a parallel direction.”
I stared at him. “Spiders, huh? I don’t even want to think about spiders.”
Morio grinned at me. “Subject makes you a little jumpy, does it?”
I shuddered. We’d fought a bunch of werespiders some months back. Hobo werespiders, at that. I still got creeped out every time I saw a brown arachnid scuttling across the floor. Luckily, the Spider-Be-Gone spell that Queen Asteria’s technomage had cast on our house was still doing the trick. The Elfin Queen knew how to pick her helpers.
“Yeah,” I said. “So what’s a spin-bug? I’ve never heard of one. We don’t have them in Otherworld.”
Smoky spoke up. “Spin-bugs aren’t endemic Earthside, either. Nobody knows where they came from, actually, though I’ve heard they can be found in some of the older Fae barrows.”
“That’s right,” Morio said. “The spin-bug’s a spider-eater. It looks like a cross between a praying mantis and a centipede, and it spins a web out of its butt, just like a spider. It usually hooks its own web next to that of a spider’s and waits in ambush. The spider thinks the webs are connected and tries to scuttle over to put the bite on the spin-bug. Everything looks safe enough, but the moment the spider touches the spin-bug’s web, boom, it’s stuck.”
Camille leaned against the wall. “So the Snare spell is like the web. It looks like magical energy the spirit demon can eat, but when he gets in the middle of it, he can’t touch it, and he can’t get away. Essentially, he becomes a sitting duck.”
“You got it,” Morio said. “And then we pick him off.”
“Can you cast one?” She frowned, thinking. “I have a vague idea of how it might be done, but there’s no way in hell I’d trust my magic unless I knew precisely what to do. Even then, I’d be on red alert.”
Morio let out a long sigh. “Theoretically. I’ll need your help, and we can’t do it here in the hall, and it can’t be done on the run. We have to set it up somewhere quiet so I can concentrate.”
“The living room?” Camille glanced back down the hall at the archway. “We could put the curtains back up to make it more inviting to those in the spook division.”
The youkai gave her a nod. “Let’s go—”
“Hold on!” I vigorously shook my head. “Nobody’s going anywhere without group consensus. We don’t even know if it’s a spirit demon we’re facing. What if you’re wrong? What if it’s something that decides to double around and take you two on while you’re focused on setting up the spell?”
“What if we’re right, and we have no other way to combat the creature?” Camille asked.
A sudden thump put an end to our bickering. “Oh crap, what’s that?” I spun around as a second thump landed squarely on the door at the end of the hallway. It shuddered. Whatever was back there was big. At that moment, I noticed the padlock holding the door shut. The door opened out into the hallway—the hinges could easily be busted through.
“The lock looks flimsy. Maybe whatever it is, isn’t so tough after all.”
“Don’t count your chickens,” Camille said. “The lock’s been charmed.”
Oh hell. If it was magically enhanced, then there was no telling what was behind the door. Whatever it was, it wanted out, and from the way the wood was splintering around the hinges, it was about to get its wish. I headed down the hall.
“Come on! That thing’s coming through. Get ready.” Roz and I stood in front, leaving enough space through which Morio and Camille could aim their spells. “What’s a spirit demon look like, anyway?”
