Page 35 of Demons Treasure Warlocks

“Are you going to be silent the whole time?” At least Darius was still true to form. Prickly and ready to fight.

“I’m still thinking.” Bale kept his voice calm and without inflection.

“Well, do it elsewhere.” Darius stomped across the two yards before pausing at his stones. His whole body slumped, and nerves exuded from his posture. Bale had never received a solid answer as to why Darius gave up using his rocks and stones. They had been a perfect sight until the vampire and Hastur showed up. Their destruction of his private space must have shaken Darius hard.

“Would you like me to speak with Typhon?” Bale asked, bracing himself for an acid bath.

“Whatever you want to do,” Darius mumbled before kicking ice off the steps and entering the mudroom.

Bale sighed. Not exactly the answer he wanted or expected. He did a quick sweep of the yard to make sure there was no evidence of the shadow creatures before following Darius.

His heart stopped beating for a moment when he couldn’t locate Darius anywhere. Hastur, the creatures, someone had to have breached Darius’s wards and stolen him away. But when he noticed the cats sitting by a door that Bale had never seen before, he paused and took a moment to recover. How had he missed it? It was right by the mudroom which he passed every day. He peered down the dark stairs and found a small glowing light off to the right.

Venturing into the unknown was nerve-wracking. Darius was such a private person, and to invade his area made Bale anxious, more so than anything else he had encountered. “Dare?”

“What?”

“Can I come down?” Better to ask than to just appear.

“Fine. Watch the last board. It’s a bit uneven,” Darius responded a bit distractedly. Bale tiptoed down the stairs and stepped over the last one as Darius mentioned. It was soft and rotting. Bale made a mental note to repair it when he had the opportunity.

Cautiously, he peered into what looked like an ordinary basement. There was a fieldstone wall that seemed damp and a furnace and water heater with the breaker box in a drier location. When he panned around, searching for Darius, he discovered another layer to Darius.

The area opposite the utility room was a bookmaker's or magician's dream. Books, paper, pens, and other types of tools were neatly stored on custom shelves. Everything had a spot, and there was even a workbench with a light ring attached to it. This was Darius’s spot, much like his front room and bedroom. Darius’s presence was stamped all over the room, though there was a scent of disuse in the space.

“What’s this?” The question was the only one Bale could ask that wouldn’t draw an attack.

“Where I found magic.” Darius pulled a book from a shelf and flipped through the pages. “This place has been in my family for generations. Supposedly one guy went crazy and was sent to the poorhouse. Um, the museum. People said he was weird and creepy. But I’ve found some of his notebooks here. And he was lonely. And gay. The guy didn’t have a chance. But God, his words were so fucking beautiful. And the land responded. Like the influx of power when I opened his book? Holy fuck. It was like a lightbulb. Things made sense. I needed to know more. So, I devoured all the books. Found out I had a connection to the land as well, but the magic was potent. It helped.” Darius caressed a leather-bound notebook in his hand and smiled sweetly. “I owe so much to this guy. But anyway, here was where I taught magic to Isaac. Just minor stuff. Making potions and changing the colour of flowers.”

Bale listened to Darius speak, and he was awed. He hadn’t really seen Darius so animated, and this space opened him up. He was almost ebullient. “Colour-changing flowers?”

“Right? What he wanted to do was make a spell to attract Elijah’s attention. And as we know, that blew up big. Because of that minor spell, the Night of the Red Storm happened.”

Bale had never heard Darius talk how everything coalesced into the superstorm that blended two dimensions together. He opened his mouth to ask for more, but he stopped himself as he was terrified of interrupting Darius. “He must have been so scared.”

“You saw him. You were there.”

“I was intent on you. Everyone else was secondary,” Bale confessed. Darius had been angry and unhappy, and Bale had feared for the worst when the two portals had collided into a super one. “There was a bloodred portal opening up, and I was supposed to look after a boy whom I’d never met rather than the man I had come to adore?”

“Bale.”

“Darius, you can’t deny me my feelings. I have adored you since you stumbled across Hastur and became…my ward. I have always loved you even when people said otherwise. Everything I do, I do it for you.”

“No!” Darius set the book down on the table and clenched his fists. He pressed his lips tightly together as he glared daggers at Bale. Unhappiness and despair rolled off him even as Bale tried to continue. It hurt Bale to the bone to see Darius deny Bale’s affections.

“Darius, as much as you want—”

“No. I will not be responsible for this.” Darius’s words continued to stab Bale in the heart. Bale ached for cover so he could lick his wounds. As he actually looked at Darius, saw past the prickly angry exterior, he discovered the heart of it all. Darius didn’t think he was worth Bale’s love. Darius didn’t believe they deserved the happy ending everyone else got to have. “I ruined your life, Balor. I fucked up your whole world. And you—”

Bale slammed a hand on the worn table, wincing as bottles of ink and books shuddered under the power. “You don’t get to say that. You don’t decide when my life got tossed upside down. You saved me. Now let me save you.”

Darius gazed at him with doubt burning in those icy blues. He was quiet for so long Bale wasn’t sure if he was present. He dipped his head and moved to straighten some books on the shelves. Now wasn’t the time to push Darius. If Bale continued, there’d be hell to pay, and every bit of progress he’d made would vanish in a cloud of smoke. He didn’t think he could handle Darius’s mercurial moods, not about what they meant toward each other. It was too fragile.

“So, the noodle people? You think they might be somewhere down here?” Bale asked, withdrawing from the battlefield.

“I don’t know. It’s a possibility. A lot of the other creatures in his entourage were.” Darius flipped through a heavy book before setting it down. “I’d just like to get more information. Even about the hot pink PITA. I’m tired of not knowing all the details.”

Bale refused to step on that landmine. “Did you want to bring these upstairs where we have better light?”

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