Taming Demons for Beginners (The Guild Codex Demonized #1) - Annette Marie Page 0,37
chain around my neck.
Behind me, the summoning circle was empty. My head buzzed with dull confusion. How could it be empty? Where was Zylas?
Crimson light burst from the pendant around my neck like spouting liquid. It hit the floor and pooled upward, as though filling an invisible mold—a human-shaped mold. Flaring brightly, the light dissipated to reveal a figure in its place.
Zylas stood in front of me, facing the three men.
Outside the circle. He was outside the circle.
He lifted his arms away from his body and curled his fingers. His short claws unsheathed, doubling in length until they’d extended well past his fingertips.
“Ahh,” he half sighed, half growled, his husky voice sliding through the silent room. “It feels good to move again.”
Terror pulsed through the library.
“It’s unbound!” Karlson roared. “Call your demons!”
Vince and Hulk yanked silver pendants from beneath their shirts. Crimson radiance bloomed across the metal.
Zylas’s tail lashed—then he leaped. Fast. A reddish blur. He soared over the podium, took a springing step, and landed beside Hulk. His hand flashed out, closed around the man’s pendant, and tore it away. The disc bounced across the floor.
Zylas spun behind Hulk. The man pitched forward, blood spraying from his back in a sparkling wave. Zylas whirled across the man’s other side, claws flashing again. As he fell, Hulk’s throat disappeared, replaced by gushing gore. The man collapsed.
Three seconds. It had taken Zylas three seconds to kill him.
“Run!” Vince bellowed.
Run, I thought vaguely. I should run too. My vision blurred in bright ripples. Pain jarred through me and I realized my arms had given out; I’d collapsed to the floor. This time, I didn’t try to rise. The temperature had plunged, the room so cold that frost sparkled across the floor, dancing in my fading sight. Men were shouting. Screams. Footsteps, thundering impacts with the floor.
The sounds blurred too, mashing together until I couldn’t hear anything but the roaring blood in my ears. My body had gone numb. Was I shivering? Was I trembling? Was I still breathing?
“Do not die, payilas.”
I was lying on my back.
A hand was pressed to my chest and heat was flowing into me.
Another hand was pushing my bleeding arm into the floor as power crackled against my skin. My eyelids fluttered.
Zylas was crouched over me. Crimson light veined his right hand and crawled across my chest, sinking into my body like water into sand. Under his other hand, the one crushing my arm, a two-foot-wide red circle glowed across the floor, its interior filled with shifting runes.
At the edge of my vision, beyond the fallen podium, Hulk lay face down in a puddle of blood. Vince was slumped spread-eagle against a broken bookshelf, surrounded by scattered leather tomes and his head resting unnaturally on his shoulder. His dead eyes stared at the empty summoning circle.
Red magic blazed around me. Concentration tightening his face, Zylas murmured rapidly, the words flowing in the rhythm of an incantation. Power coursed down his arm and flooded the spell. Luminous magic gathered in my bleeding wounds.
His eyes, bright with power, caught on mine. Then he snarled a final command, electric heat exploded through his spell, and heart-stopping agony cleaved through my arm.
Chapter Fourteen
“Robin,” Mom sighed as she dabbed ointment on my hand, “what have I told you about getting Daddy or me to help when you want to try something new?”
I stared glumly at my sliced finger, tears brimming in my eyes. On the table beside me, an old book with its cover removed was splattered in scarlet droplets. A box knife lay beside it, abandoned when I’d cut myself.
“I’ll teach you all about restoring books when you’re older,” Mom promised as she wrapped a bandage around my finger. “Let’s clean this up, all right?”
I helped her gather the tools, and we carried them from the kitchen into her home office. Her dark ponytail bobbed with her lively steps, dark-rimmed glasses sliding down her small nose. Her blue eyes were just like mine.
She opened the cabinet in the corner and set her tools in the bin—the same bin I’d “borrowed” them from. I added my armful, feeling guilty.
She reached for the top shelf and lifted down a small object wrapped in crisp brown paper. “When you’ve mastered book restoration, you can help me with this.”
She opened the wrapping. Inside was a thick journal-sized book. A tarnished buckle held the ancient leather cover closed, and sheets of white paper stuck out the top, revealing glimpses of my mom’s loopy scrawl.