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“I didn’t give away any state secrets,” he said, as much to himself as to us.
Theo snorted. “You barely tell us anything when we’re in thesame room, and we’re on the same team. You’re not going to hand over the details of our work to an informant.”
“A week ago, he didn’t want to message his lunch order,” I said, “because he got the chipsandthe sandwich.”
“Exorbitant spender,” Theo said with a rueful nod of the head.
“Rude,” Roger said, but with a relieved smile.
“We’re all trying to do the right thing here,” Theo said. “That includes you, boss.”
“All right,” he said, and waved away the sentiment. “Back to demons.”
“I’ve been waiting for, like, ten minutes to use this segue,” Petra said, and cleared her throat. “Speaking of things that demons entail, let the teaching begin.”
She changed the image on-screen to a vintage photograph of a teacher in front of an old-fashioned blackboard. On it, in white letters, was “Real Talk About Demons.”
“From a Western religious standpoint, they’re usually considered evil minions of Satan, wreakers of havoc, et cetera. Other religions don’t necessarily consider them evil but different. Troublemakers sometimes, but not inherently bad. Most of them were sealed long ago by King Solomon and his acolytes. Some managed by their wiles—or their chaos—to escape that punishment, hiding in the human world.”
“Relatable,” I murmured, since vampires had done the same thing. Assimilation was the only alternative to death, and usually a very nasty one.
“Solomon,” Petra segued. “Supposedly, demons were a scourge on the populace. Solomon was dedicated to eliminating them, but he decided they had some uses. He supposedly identified seventy-two demon aristocrats, most of which had their own legions, and figured out their skill sets. One might help you predict the future, help your finances, tell you about science, get your son a wife, act as a demon notary.”
“The last one’s a lie,” Theo guessed.
“It is absolutely true. Bureaucracy is eternal, as you should know. Anyway, Solomon figured out how he could call up one particular demon at a time, depending on his needs, then send them back to their plane when he was done.”
“So, it’s minor league baseball,” I said.
“Not far off,” Petra said with a grin. “If pitchers and catchers reported to help you with some horse thievery or transmogrification.”
“I doubt that’s in the standard contract,” Roger said with a little smile.
“Probably not,” Petra said.
“And what did he use to call them up?” I asked.
“There were several methods,” Petra said. “Sometimes you did a chant, a little alchemy, or even a little religion. And each one required something very specific.” Another image flashed on-screen—a black geometric symbol on a white background.
“The sigil, right? That’s what Patience said they needed but didn’t have.”
She nodded like a pleased teacher. “It is.”
“It looks kind of like a stave,” I said. Staves were also simple geometric symbols used in Nordic magic to construct spells. The witches in Ariel’s coven had used them, and Ariel had had one tattooed on her arm.
“Staves are spells,” Petra said. “Sigils are more like... secret monograms. It’s the secret symbol for each demon that locks or unlocks their power.”
“Not so secret if Solomon found them all.”
“Not all, unfortunately. She’s not one of the demons whose sigils he identified.”
Theo sat up. “Wait. She’s not even an aristocrat—just some demon schlub slumming it in Chicago—and she can bring down buildings?”
“Unfortunately.”
“So we need her sigil,” I said, “but the Guardians didn’t know it, and it’s not written down anywhere that we’ve been able to translate, and we can’t find anyone alive who knew anything about it.”
“Hey,” Petra said. “The Guardians didn’t have the Internet. Hope springs eternal.”
