Dan slept, eventually. Fitfully.
Dreams never quite ranged over into nightmares, but he surfaced time and again to disquiet.
Heart pounding.
Thoughts racing.
Demons pounding on the walls of the building to get inside, where they could feast on his flesh.
Dan looked at his phone for the time.
1:14.
Dead of night.
Why couldn’t they call it something nicer? Death wasn’t what he wanted to think about.
A sudden sound shot a bolt of ice down his spine.
Dan froze.
Someone had just tried to open the front door of the office.
All the shades were drawn. Lights were off, leaving the room in as much darkness as you could get with the streetlights bleeding around the edges of the blinds.
The door rattled again.
Stewey’s enchantments pinged hard in response.
That was what had woken him. Something had hit them hard enough to break a hole in the magical barriers around the building.
Over in Leschi, Stewey had probably just levitated out of his bed with a pistol in one hand and landed clear across the room, looking to shoot an intruder.
Except the intruder wasn’t at Stewey’s apartment.
He was just outside the door from Dan.
Dan considered calling the cops, but he might have a faster response getting a pizza delivered. Too bad nobody allowed pizza delivery folks to carry swords in the real world.
Dan reached down on the floor next to his phone for his knife instead. The one he always had handy, usually in a back pocket if he wasn’t wearing a shell. Usually, it was just a security blanket, but the tool was reasonably proof against fell and eldritch creatures.
Like whatever had just ripped a hole in Stewey’s enchantments and was shaking the door in the frame right now. Your average homeless person wouldn’t even understand why they had chosen not to approach that door, let alone sleep in the area. The magic would quietly convince them to move on.
Dan and Stewey couldn’t solve the homeless problem around here, but they could protect their own building, and it helped the neighbors as well.
Dan rose, pulling the knife from the sheath and holding it with the two-fingered grip Stewey had originally learned from a tiny Philippino woman who understood blades.
The silvered runes along the spine were glowing when he did, but Dan had expected that. What was trying to come in wasn’t human.
Dan had no idea what it might be, but there wasn’t time to do much other than prepare a few spells he always kept handy.
Now would have been a nice time to be able to hurl lightning bolts, like they used to be able to do, if the ancient books were to be believed. Dan wasn’t a bull moose sorcerer. Nor was Stewey.
Iliana probably was the best at that sort of thing, but it was rare, even among the warlocks.
Receding tides of time.
But the blade had been enchanted by Stewey, who happened to be among the best in the business when he could get off his ass and actually work, instead of reading ancient Chinese texts.
The silver glowed brighter as the door stopped rattling.
Dan watched the locks all turn in place with a sound like a bell being rung. One of the big ones that was down at the bass end of the keyboard. Mundanes might not hear it, but it was clear as the noonday sun to Dan.
He set his feet and pulled the knife back to his side like he had been taught, left hand out and open, ready to raise a shield, a magical blur that shifted reality in fuzzy ways.
Not enough to deflect a bullet. Maybe an arrow if you saw the whole flight. Pretty good in close combat, where centimeters counted.
The door flew open.
Dan’s eyes were adjusted to the darkness of the room, but the thing in the doorway was pure shadow.
Man-sized. Man-shaped. Dan could see a pair of bright eyes in the head, but the rest was smoke cast solid.
As conjurings went, Dan was seriously impressed.
And utterly appalled.
He’d never known anybody that could summon a shadow servant larger than a rabbit. This thing was as big as he was.
It entered, popping with sound once as it forced the threshold barrier and was finally inside.
Dan felt the impact when the thing was finally able to see him.
Power.
Raw strength that could shatter diamonds, maybe, if someone wanted to.
The shadow servant took a step forward, long arms coming up almost like a gorilla that wanted a hug.
Dan pushed his blur into place between them. It was bigger than a traditional shield like a Viking might carry. Oval, but almost the size that his favorite Roman Legionaries had carried into battle.
A pilum right now might have gone over well, had Stewey silvered the tip with runes. So would a whole cohort of murderhoboes with silver blades, if he was wishing.
The shadow servant reached out and brushed a hand against the blur.
The air crackled with electricity and the creature finally emitted a sound. Almost a growl of surprise.
Dan stabbed with the knife, thinking mongoose thoughts. In. Out. Back. Quick.
Never make big swings with a blade. They leave you out of position and exposed to a counter.
He missed, and the servant pressed, sliding to its left to try to get around the blur.
The desks stopped it, but only because Stewey was more paranoid that whatever master had managed to raise a monster like this. The thing hit the wood and bounced, instead of just flowing though it like it had obviously planned.
On the desk, a set of sigils lit up angrily. Nothing that could stop a shadow servant from moving when it concentrated, but the surprise had been enough.
Dan hopped forward and bashed at the thing with his blur, again causing a spark of electricity that almost made him pee his pants. He poked at the shadow with the blade.
Contact.
It was like someone had suddenly encased his entire arm in a foot of ice. The runes on the knife were bright enough to read by, had they stopped for tea.
The creature reared back and howled, but Dan was sure the sound was only in his head.
Right arm numb, Dan tried to punch the thing in the face with the blur instead.
Contact.
Sparks. Left hand as hot as the right hand had gone cold.
More howls.
Dan got the impression of surprise, more than anything.
Sure, the damned thing was malevolence incarnate, but shadow servants were creatures from one of the outer planes given form and solidity by a powerful warlock. A conjurer’s creature.
They were still dumb and cowardly if they ran into something they didn’t understand. Like a guardian who had accidentally been asleep when they went to break in.
Dan punched with the blur again, trying to will his knife hand back awake from all the tingling of falling asleep.
Sparks arced.
The creature howled once and broke, fleeing for the door.
Dan charged after it in a fit of utter madness, trying to pop it on the ass with his blur one more time.
It managed to get through the doorway before he could reach it and then broke out through a gap it had torn in Stewey’s barriers.
Dan slammed the door shut and collapsed to his knees, dropping the knife like it weighed as much as his car, and letting the blur fade. He breathed like a bellows charging a blacksmith’s fire, gasping with effort.
Locks set, Dan turned and sat hard against the inside of the door, letting his ass keep things from opening it again, and letting the wood hold him upright.
Something trilled.
Again.
Phone.
Dan’s phone.
He turned a deadbolt and crawled back to the couch.
Five feet felt like five marathons.
Stewey.
“Yeah?” Dan managed when he got it connected.
“You okay?” Stewey sounded like he was running. Then a truck door opening and closing. Bessie’s engine turning over.
“Yeah,” Dan managed between gasps. “Something just broke in, but I surprised the hell out of it and chased it off.”
“Yeah, I noticed,” Stewey said. “What was it?”
“Shadow servant,” Dan said. “My size.”
“No shit?”
“No shit,” Dan continued. “Blur and the knife were more than anyone had warned it about. It panicked and fled. Where are you?”
“Blasting over the top of the hill and be there in five minutes,” Stewey said. “You okay?”
“Numb, sore, and tired, depending,” Dan said. “But it never actually touched me. Stabbed it once. That was a dumb idea.”
“Yeah, one that big would be,” Stewey ruminated. “Who the hell could send something like that? Your new girlfriend?”
“She’s got the horsepower, but felt more like a Sorcerer than a Conjurer,” Dan said. “Pretty sure I’ll hear from her tomorrow, one way or the other.”
“No way I can fix my enchantments tonight,” Stewey said. In the background, Dan could hear that old Ford engine howling. “You likely to sleep again?”
“Maybe,” Dan replied. “In July.”
“Yup, about what I thought,” Stewey said. “Let’s get you some food and caffeine. Tomorrow’s already here and you’ll need to power up to face it.”
“See you in five,” Dan said, hanging up and letting the phone pretty much just fall into his lap.
The room was dark again. Colder than he remembered, too. That shadow servant had been the kind they used to talk about in the ancient times, back when the Bible was being compiled, or when some of the Chinese Sages were getting themselves organized into schools of magic.
Nobody summoned things that big anymore.
Except someone had.
And if it wasn’t Khulan, then there was someone else out there at least as powerful as she was.
What the hell had he and Stewey wandered in to?