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I watched the dog mangle a rawhide chew bone, half of which had already dissolved into soggy mush, and I could have sworn I saw something pass behind those eyes. Something that looked awfully familiar. I got up so fast, I turned over my chair.
“There’s one of those things in there!” I told Pritkin, stumbling back against the fridge.
“What things?” Marsden looked intrigued.
“Rakshasas,” Pritkin said, glancing at me. “And it isn’t one, although it would be less dangerous if it were. Rakshasas can’t hurt the living. They’re scavengers, looking for an easy meal. They’re drawn to murders, battlefields, places where violence is about to happen. They feast on the dead.”
I sorted through that and picked out the relative bit. “You’re saying there is a demon in there and it can hurt us?”
“Oh, no, no. He’s perfectly harmless.” Marsden patted my arm. “He was my golem for years. But when I ‘retired,’ the Council forced me to give him up. Said I wasn’t a war mage any longer, and civilians aren’t allowed to have them. Can you imagine? I led the Circle for almost sixty years, but I can’t be trusted to keep one pesky demon in thrall!”
“So you put it in the dog?” Pritkin demanded.
“Temporarily, until I get a few things sorted. It seems to be working out all right. Orion has started piddling on the rug, but that could be his age.”
“You have a devil dog?” I sat down again but moved my chair a little farther away. The dog chewed on, oblivious.
“Demon,” Marsden corrected. “War mages are allowed to trap certain of the incorporeal demon races as our servants. Very useful in combat, although ticklish to acquire in the first place. Poor Parsons,” he added, and Pritkin winced.
“Who is Parsons?” I asked, deciding to just go with it.
“Who was Parsons. He wanted to trap a demon, you see, but he’d barely passed the trials. I told him he might want to give it a while, find his legs, so to speak, but he was having none of it. All the leading mages had golems—it was seen as a mark of prestige at the time—and he wouldn’t rest until he’d acquired one, too.”
“Did he?”
Marsden sighed. “Well . . . in essence . . . no. You see, when you summon a demon, there are several possible outcomes—”
“He didn’t trap the demon,” Pritkin said roughly. “It trapped him.”
He and I looked at each other, hollow and blank and grave. I wasn’t sure how much he’d been able to see of the demon attack through my eyes, but apparently, it had been enough. Or maybe he was just remembering similar scenes. And I’d thought I saw bad stuff. I couldn’t imagine living with that kind of double vision all the time.
Marsden was looking thoughtful. “Do you know, I wonder if Parsons’ disappearance had anything to do with the practice of golem-making falling out of fashion? You don’t see that many with the younger sort, do you?”
I’d been around war mages enough by now to know that the crazy always came out, sooner or later. Nice to know Marsden was getting it on the table early. I glanced at the phone on the wall. “I need to make a call,” I told him.
“You want to find out what happened to the children,” Pritkin guessed.
“What happened is that I thought I could protect them, when proximity to me is probably what drew the Circle’s attention to them in the first place! I wouldn’t even put it past them to have kidnapped the kids in the hopes that I’d come after them.”
“Possibly. But that doesn’t mean they would have been ignored otherwise. They are dangerous—especially in a time of war, when they could possibly be recruited for the other side.”
“They’re not evil!”
“I never said they were. But they do have a grudge against the Circle, something that could be exploited.”
“And the wards are online in any case,” Marsden added. “I am afraid they interfere with telephone service.”
“Your friend hid the children for years,” Pritkin reminded me. “She can manage for a while on her own.”
“She hid them before she was a target for the Circle,” I reminded him right back.
“They’ll be fine,” he repeated, reaching for my mug. “If you aren’t going to drink that—”
I snatched away my potentially lethal coffee. “You’ve had enough. You’re going to make me sick!”
“I wouldn’t have to work very hard. We’re increasing the number of training sessions when we get back—you’re in worse shape than I thought.”
“At least I’m not an addict.”
