Page 8 of A Blade of Lies and Spirits

“Do you see that?” I asked, pointing out the scrape. At least it was something.

It took a moment, then Walker nodded. “Probably animal.” He frowned, shading his eyes as he looked up.

“Still going to check.”

“It’s not big enough to hide in.”

I shrugged. “I’m still going to check it out. I don’t feel any minds there, not even insects, and that’s strange.”

As if the universe knew my intentions, lightning split the sky in the distance, followed by the roll of thunder. Walker glanced from the sky to me with a raised brow. “Still sure about that?”

“Absolutely,” I said, determined to follow the only clue I currently had.

Heading toward it, it only took a moment before Walker sighed behind me and followed, his footfalls heavy in the silence. I was relieved when I stepped beneath the shadows cast over the ground from the cliff, even though the temperature seemed to drop faster than I expected. Moving to the cliff face, I blinked against the darkness, running my hands along it, looking for something to use as handholds.

Walker pulled a penlight from his pocket, illuminating the cliff face enough for us both to see better. And so, we started up, him with the penlight held between his teeth as we climbed. Me trying not to be too distracted by the impressive piece of technology itself.

I’d tried to smuggle one out, early on. It had cost me two days in classes on why introducing technology before an area was ready would stunt its innovations. Then I started requisitioning parts from supplies. For some reason, pre-assembled technology wasn’t allowed out of the major cities, but the various parts were. The manuals were all restricted, too.

How on earth had Walker managed to take it out?

After a slip, I returned my attention to the climb, ignoring the thunder that continued to boom overhead. The climbing was tricky, but to my surprise, I found that someone had carved handholds into the cliff higher up. It not only made us move faster, but it told me that we might be on the right track. The only reason for handholds on this cliff, ones that had been concealed from the ground, was because someone was climbing up and down in this area. Someone who didn’t want anyone else to explore where we were going.

And soon we would know for what purpose.

The climb became easier the closer I approached the hollow. I clung to the stone to the right of the shallow cave, trying to steady myself, being careful not to fall to my death. It wasn’t big enough to climb into, that I already knew, all we needed was to see inside, and I had a feeling we’d have our first lead to what was happening out here. Our first clue to who killed the Representative and why.

As I waited for my eyes to adjust to the darkness, Walker maneuvered around me, and his penlight illuminated the small cavern. For a second, it was like my brain couldn’t process what I was seeing, and then, a gasp slipped past my lips.

“What the hell?”

THREE

Alys

Tiny bodies layin a row on the floor. They were reminiscent of mummies, dried out from the warm weather, and abandoned. But the weather did nothing to conceal the terrible way in which they had died. Their throats gaped open; the sight enough to turn my stomach and make anger burn within me. Time and desiccation had touched them, but not rot nor animal life, again, whispering of something unnatural about their deaths.

The space was so small that less-withered bodies were stacked upon older ones.

Innocence is potential, meaning that because babies have the potential to do anything or be anyone, the wrong person can harness that magic as fuel for ritual magic, although it’d take a very twisted soul to do it. Loathing roiled in my throat; this was the harvest of decades of babies stolen from their mother. The old Representative’s enemies had diminished over many years.

My jaw spasmed. Another phantom murmur echoed in my ears: a baby’s wail. My eyes stung.

A flare of light made our shadows dance on the cave floor as lightning flickered overhead, and a roll of thunder snapped. It was like the world for this moment had emulated Dmitri and linked its emotions to mine. The sky above was as angry I about the sight before me. About the loss of such young, innocent lives.

“Alys?” Walker whispered, and I startled a little.

If I wanted to try to figure out what was going on before the storm hit, I couldn’t just stare. I needed to touch one of the bodies, to use my magic to learn what I could. So, I steeled myself, gripped my handhold and reached out. Even with a glove on, I cringed inside in expectation of what I’d no doubt pick up from the body.

Walker swore as a ward I didn’t perceive flared and fire poured over me. The filthy magic answered my question, even as I hissed at the pain in my fingers. This was demon magic. Demons, unlike spirits, were summoned from another dimension for terrible things. They did not belong in this world, and they often brought death and destruction when you found one, although finding one was rare.

Since I hadn’t felt the demon within the settlement, someone must be inhabited by it. Only those who invited the demon in and shared with it were able to hide that taint. So now, we knew that a demon was the reason behind the dead babies, but we still had to find the human who summoned the demon, and destroy both of them.

I sighed. That wasn’t entirely true. We knew who had summoned the demon. It was Representative Malcolm. I knew that for certain given the way Malcolm was killed. His body had the stench of demon all over it.

What I didn’t know for certain was where the demon was now, although I had my suspicion.

Bits of Uncle’s long-ago lectures on demons scuttled through my head. Real demons were unkillable and foul even beyond what the Ridden practiced: banishable by salt and fire and purity of will. They weren’t creatures I ever wanted to deal with, but at least I knew how to.

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