

### Demon Spawn

Precursor stories for Add a Cup of Chaos

by Stephanie Barr

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2020 Stephanie Barr

Discover other titles by Stephanie Barr

Conjuring Dreams: Learning to Write by Writing

Tarot Queen

Beast Within (First of the Bete Novels)

Nine Lives (Second of the Bete Novels)

Twice the Man (Third of the Bete Novels)

Saving Tessa

Musings of a Nascent Poet

Curse of the Jenri

Legacy

Ideal Insurgent

The Taming of Dracul Morsus

Pussycats Galore

Catalyst

The Library at Castle Herriot

Dedicated to Stephanie, Roxy and Alex, always.

To Mirren Hogan, Chuck Larlham, Jen Ponce, and Assaph Mehr, proof that good beta readers are worth their weight in gold

Cover by Ryn Katryn, Digital Arts

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Table of Contents

Path to Peace

Demon Spawn

About the Author

Preview of Add a Cup of Chaos

### Path to Peace

The pounding was relentless.

Prudens Portens opened one eye and regarded the bright daylight coming through the windows high on the rounded wall with disfavor. Maybe it wasn't the middle of the night—so she couldn't blame them for the untimely disturbance—but she was still in mourning for her husband of more than eight hundred years. Couldn't she wallow for a couple of decades without interruption?

"Mother!" she heard before the pounding resumed.

Fortis. Well, no way she'd ever get back to sleep. That boy was stubbornness incarnate and she should know. She had raised him that way. He might be nigh on eight centuries old himself, but he wasn't too old to get an earful from his mother.

She dragged herself from her bed, wondering idly why she couldn't shake her lassitude no matter how many hours she'd slept. Maybe she was dying. No, she couldn't be that lucky. She'd used up all her luck up finding a human mate as remarkable as her own mother was. And loving him as deeply as her father had loved her mother. B'alaj Chan K'awiil, had been named, he'd said, for a Mayan ancestor before she'd seduced him from revitalizing his own culture and joining her in hers. She'd called him Chan and he'd let her, shared his warmth and his kindness, his wishes for peace, his impractical beliefs that people could work together for the good of all. He'd fathered her many children with joy and enthusiasm, including the stubborn rock of a son currently pounding on her door.

A part of her reminded her that Fortis—called Port by everyone for reasons that eluded her—was a wonderful son, the first of her children. He was well respected in the community and a rock of support for his dozens of siblings. Not that it would spare him a tongue-lashing today.

She made it to the front door, a tiny bent over wisp of a woman, more than 1700 years old. She deserved peace and she was about to get some. She waited for him to start his pounding again and wrenched the door open just as he hit it, so he nearly toppled into her foyer.

Fortis stumbled but grinned up into her face before straightening and beaming that same grin down on her. "Hi, Mom!"

"Don't, 'Hi, Mom,' me! Pounding on the door like a lunatic or a delinquent. You're a police officer and here you are disturbing the peace."

"I tried calling but you refused to answer."

"Take the hint," she said coldly, then gasped as he walked past her into the kitchen.

"Sheesh, Mom, when was the last time you cleaned? And what have you been eating?"

"The ice cream would have gone to waste," Prudens said tartly. "And I'm a good millennium too old to be taking lectures from you."

"Mm-hmm," Fortis said. "Hold out your hands."

"What?" she demanded but her wrinkled crooked hands cupped anyway. Fortis had that tendency to compel effortlessly. She'd once had that skill and she regretted, for the moment, that it no longer worked on Fortis.

Into her knobby fingers, he dropped a tiny kitten smaller than the palm of her hand, eyes still closed. "What's this, a new familiar?" Odd coloring, she thought as the tiny creature nosed around her fingers. More like a fox, but definitely a cat. As the kitten rolled over, she saw two bottle-brush tails and gasped. "Fortis, you didn't!"

Fortis had gone to cleaning her kitchen as she'd examined the tiny creature. He pulled milk from the fridge, sniffed it, recoiled, and then whispered a spell to restore it to freshness.

"Yes, mother, that's my son. I thought his mother smelled suspicious when I passed her by yesterday so I followed her and, sure enough, she delivered a child in the park and just left it there. Left him!"

"How did you get a demon pregnant, Fortis? What were you thinking? Did you learn nothing?"

"Mom!"

"Yes, I know most demons don't care, using each other for sex and leaving the babies to die, but I expected more from you."

"Most still don't treat their human mates much better. Yes, Mom, I know it has to be willing. You made that law happen, but millennia of thinking humans lesser doesn't disappear overnight. And they still tend to discard the humans as soon as they're no longer necessary," Fortis reminded her.

"There are exceptions and I thought you were one of them, Fortis. Only human mates for procreating, and nothing frivolous without protection. Being a parent is a responsibility not a game. And this! You know the children of a demon match are often underpowered and always undersized. Some are even sterile. He'll be teased his whole life."

"More than likely, but he's entitled to a full life rather than being just left to die. I made sure he wasn't abandoned." He was coaxing a crystal container into the shape he wanted with magic and looked up at her. "I might have been drunk when I copulated. She could have aborted the baby if she didn't want it, but she didn't bother to. She bore it and someone needs to care for it. At least spare me accusations that I would let that little creature pay the price for it. His mother is signing on to the war and I'm going to raise my son." He handed her the crystal bottle filled with milk. "Here. I need to see the state of the rest of the house."

"I'm not feeding it! You're not tricking me!"

"Him. I named him Paulum. Of course not. I'm just checking on my beloved mother who turned into a hermit nine years ago. I'm making sure she has what she needs."

The kitten mewed softly and plaintively, desperately nosing her fingers for milk. It's not like she could let the tiny thing go hungry, she thought, and let the baby find the bottle's nipple. "You named him Paulum? You want him to be picked on?"

"I want him to accept who he is and be proud of it. He's a beautiful baby and, if not born from love, he'll know love. I love him."

"Easy to say that now. Children are a lifelong commitment."

Fortis had been going through her small house like a whirlwind, gathering trash and laundry, dusting, cleaning, clicking his tongue. "Oh, I know. Even after they're grown, they need guidance and support, love."

"You're trying to make me feel guilty," she accused, cupping Paulum more securely as he suckled.

"Me?" Fortis said with a fair impression of innocence. "A devoted mother like you knows how important it is to be at her son's graduation."

"I sent flowers!"

"Or her daughter's wedding," Fortis continued bundling her dirty sheets into the washer.

"I meant to go. I mistook the day. Is he nice?" Baby Paulum gripped the bottle tightly between his front paws. He was adorable.

"He is. He's a sweet little man from Japan who had lost his job and was contemplating throwing himself off a bridge when Alma talked him out of it."

"Almitus was always a generous soul, always bringing home strays." She tried to sound critical, but she was proud.

"I wonder where she learned it," Fortis said pointedly.

Going on the defensive was too dangerous with someone like Fortis. Attack was the only way. "At least she was smart enough to marry a human."

"I haven't married anyone, Mom, and I'm not going to until I find the right one."

"A human."

"Given the war talk in the council and on the Earth's surface, we may no longer have that option. The humans hate us."

"Not all of them. Some understand. Almitus found one." She rubbed Paulum's tummy and earned a burp. "Stupid war! Stupid to fight. Most humans can't find us on Mundus, and there are dozens of additional planes out there that no human has ever been to we could move to. Then this whole war will blow over and we can go back to finding willing partners in the human world." A little of the old passion that had fueled her long life seeped into her and reminded her that she was old and had given up such things.

"Your views and your father's made that so. Before, willing partners were the exception. Now it's the law that we can only marry willing humans. But not everyone is happy with the restriction."

"Titus. Bad enough to be born in the Dark Ages, he wants them to continue forever."

"He thinks humans are lesser, doesn't see why we can't just make slaves of them."

"You don't do that to sentient beings. That's not how a civilization works. You don't leave your children to fend for themselves either! What kind of thinking creature does that to a newborn?"

"I certainly wouldn't do it, even if it is tradition, at least for demon-to-demon-born children." Fortis said, nodding.

"They did it with all children, like being born with magic was less dangerous than having none. Who teaches them control? Who teaches them how to use it around others without harming anyone?"

"I'm already sold," Fortis said, holding out his hand for his now-sleeping son. "Though these may be the only children we'll have the option for if Titus and company succeed at sucking the whole demon world into a war."

"The President should silence Titus once and for all before we're all marched into an insane war—for what? An insult because humans still think in backward ways. They only live a few decades apiece. You can't expect them to learn the same kind of wisdom that comes from several centuries of life. The President should know that."

"Maybe he does," Fortis said, sitting on her couch with his son tucked up in his elbow. Her couch smelled much better so Prudens knew he'd used some magic on it. She joined him instead of crawling back to her bed. Which she wanted to do. But this war thing was a bad idea and someone had to know it.

"Talk to him," Prudens insisted.

"He's recovering. When the humans made their rude offer of slavery to each of us, he was badly shot up in the ensuing gunfight. Well, we didn't have guns, but it was definitely a fight."

"What? When did this happen?"

"Last week. Whatever idiot who originally negotiated the contracts for demon prisoners to help out sorcerers a few thousand years ago didn't bother telling us that one of the humans knew how to come here. They showed up with a proposal that they'd accept demons into society if each of us spent a year of servitude in support of a human being."

"What? That's insane!"

"That's what the council thought, too, so they, er, ate a few of the delegates."

"Oh, dear. I bet that didn't go over well."

"No. The humans opened fire with guns and casualties were high on both sides. Now those that have argued for war and that humans were too inferior have been gaining ground in the polls."

It wasn't her problem anymore. She didn't need to get involved. "Tell Activus," she said. "He's still on the council. Or was he injured, too?"

"Uncle Act? No, he left in disgust before the bloodbath. He thought they'd just refuse and send the humans back. Act's head has always been in the right place, but he doesn't get stuff done. He doesn't have that ability to get people's attention, change their mindset, like you can."

"I'm not involved. I did my part centuries ago and the demon world is better for it."

"And Titus and his blowhards could take all you built away."

"That's not my problem," she insisted, pulling her robe tighter around her. It couldn't be her problem. Chan had always been beside her, supporting her, listening to her, helping her formulate her arguments. And Chan was gone.

"It's my problem. It's Alma's problem. It's her twin boys' problem, too. I can't believe you missed their first birthday party!"

"I thought that was next week!"

"Just because we're grown doesn't mean we don't still need you, Mom. No one gets shit done like you do."

Prudens wiped at her eyes. Who knew she had tears left to shed after Chan. "That's a sneaky attack, Fortis. You ought to be ashamed."

"I still need your guidance. We all do. No one steers demons to the right course like you do. You've been doing it, just by being you, for the past thousand years."

"That was with Chan."

"Yes, father was part of that, and I know it hurts that he's gone, but you don't have to be alone. I'm here. Alma is here. Hades, you have dozens of children to back you and hundreds more demons you influenced to care for their young and mate for love and treat others with respect instead of always wrangling. Most of the things I love in demon society you influenced. We still need you."

She sniffed, "It's so hard."

"I know," he said solemnly. "I lost a father, too, but you lost a partner and a lover. I can't imagine."

He leaned over and touched her cheek gently with his big brown hand, smooth skin against her withered cheek. "But, if I let you go, I'll lose my mother, too. I don't want that. You know what it's like. You know how it felt when your father abandoned you."

"That's not fair! I was a child."

"You're not less vital to me than you've ever been. Maybe more now that I'm smart enough to know what a bonehead I was as a teenager. You have so much to give, so much love and wisdom. Don't let it fade to nothing inside you. I'm going to need advice."

"You're damn right you are. You're holding him all wrong."

"And the world has plenty of room yet for your wisdom. If we do this wrong, humanity will be lost to us forever. And all demons will be like Paulum. I love him, but that would be disastrous for demonkind. What about the generations that follow?"

"Yes," she whispered. "We're our own worst enemies."

"So, will you help me? Help us?"

She took a deep breath and wondered, as she did so, when was the last time she'd breathed in so deeply. "If I must."

He touched his forehead to hers briefly. "You'll be glad you came back to us, I promise."

"Fine," she huffed. "Now give me that baby. Don't you hog him."

Fortis did with a laugh, and she gazed on the tiny spec of demonity and couldn't help but smile. "He's tiny but he's so beautiful."

"Right? He's freaking adorable."

She gazed on him with tears in her eyes. "You're a damn fool, Fortis, and you can't choose a female for nothing, but he really is worth it." She sighed again. "Did I really miss the twins' birthday?"

"No, it's next week, but now I know you'll remember it for sure."

***

Three Years Later

***

Tears blinded her as she dug. Part of it, she told herself, was the acrid smell of fire still pervasive despite four dozen dedicated and powerful weather sorcerers who'd doused the impossibly hot fires and beaten down some of the radioactive byproducts. All over the demon world, demons were fighting fires, searching for survivors, counting their losses.

She'd already fought her way into the ruins of two houses, one of the ineffective president and the other her brother's, Activus, only to find their corpses, damaged beyond repair. Her hands were raw and torn with burns where she'd pulled still-hot debris out of her way. Her face was as filthy as her hands, made even uglier with the tracks of tears meandering through the grime. She had been able to contact all her other children, all survivors, some because they had heeded her and built a shelter when it was clear war with humanity could not be avoided, some because they weren't living where one of the dozen or so bombs were activated in their realm.

All but Fortis. Now she was digging through the wreckage of his home, fearful of finding another pair of corpses, fearful of losing the best example of demonkind in the demon world, damn near the spitting image of her dead husband and twice as manipulative. If she lost him, lost that sweet little spec of charm that was his son, she didn't think she could bear to go on living.

"Fortis," she tried to call, but her voice was gone. Too many shouts, too many orders, as demons had panicked at a catastrophe none but she had anticipated. She was the voice of reason in a world of hysteria, so they listened and acted. She crashed through the fire-embrittled wall and wandered through the charred innards, mind reeling at the thought of finding her huge, handsome son and tiny grandson eaten up with fire.

She found nothing in the kitchen, bedroom, or the living room. Had they tried to hole up in the bathtub? Maybe it saved them.

But the bathtub had been wrenched awry and twisted with nothing but structural fragments and shattered glass inside. Where were they? She stumbled out of the bathroom and sank to her knees, nearly breaking a kneecap on a strange protuberance in the corner of the floor. Unlike the rubble piled near it, it was immovable.

Curiosity and a tiny flame of hope got her moving again, pushing aside the half metric ton or so of detritus from the collapsed nursery. As she neared the bottom, she realized that what she'd struck was a door handle on a door that had been buried by debris. She wasn't particularly good at weather, but she had a real gift for telekinesis when motivated and she'd never been more so. With a huge mental shove, everything around her was blasted back at least a few meters, leaving the door free. "Fortis?" she whispered.

If they heard her, there was no response. She summoned a little light spell and made her battered hands glow as she reached to open the door. Below, an empty black maw gaped at her in horror. _I have to go down_ , she told herself. _I have to know_. But it was several seconds before she could convince herself to make that first step.

When she did, she heard, "See, Dad? I told you Granma would find us." A tiny boy, barely more than a toddler and still unable to banish his cat ears and two tails, grinned up at her. "I knew you'd find us."

"You took precautions!" she whispered in her shattered voice. "You're alive!"

"I'm alive," Fortis said from darkness. As she scrambled down the stairs, she saw him in the corner where a brace had failed and both half-buried him and stabbed him through the thigh with a hefty piece of wood.

"Are you alright?"

"I have been more comfortable," he said, "but I'm in much better shape than if I'd stayed topside. I'm glad their timing was off so at least some people, including us, were able to make it to safety."

Too many didn't, but she couldn't think of that now. First she had to get him out and get him some medical care. "Get behind me, Paul," she said. "Better get into your cat form in case something comes down and you have to dodge."

Paul obliged at once and sat poised to move behind her feet.

With a little muttering, Prudens called her magic and lifted the debris covering her son, while carefully using more power to lift him gently a few centimeters off the floor and pull him forward. After she'd set both burdens down, she came to the bottom and checked him for other injuries.

"I didn't break anything," he said. "But this chunk of wood in my leg is irksome. I can't touch it without the pain overwhelming me."

And there was also the blood. His pants leg was soaked and she'd seen a big puddle where he'd been sitting. If she yanked the wood out, she couldn't stop the bleeding short of cauterizing and that would hurt like hell. Plus, she might block a vital bloodway. She'd have to get him to the hospital faster.

"Fortis," she said, "you're the best with portals. Can you make one to the nearest hospital, even as you are?"

"You mean, in plane, Mom? From here to the hospital?"

"You know the coordinates. How many times have you fetched someone back from Earth or the other planes directly to the hospital?"

"I—I guess I could. Never thought about that before. I'd prefer that to an ambulance ride. But even if I make the portal, I don't think I can walk through it."

"You won't have to. Focus on the portal because what I'm about to do is going to hurt like Hades."

Fortis nodded and started his gestures and incanting while she took firm hold of the wood with her mind. Yanking the wood out wouldn't be hard for her telekinesis, but fire wasn't one of her strengths and she needed to make it focused or he'd be recovering a lot longer than he had to be. Just enough fire to cauterize it and stop the bleeding, no more. With a little prayer to her dead husband's favorite god, she snatched the wood away and filled the hole with a tiny burst of flame. Fortis paused in his work to suck in a breath, his face nearly gray. For a minute, she thought he'd lose consciousness but he surprised her by finishing his portal after just a few seconds hesitation.

She probably should have waited rather than performing her operation in the middle of his, but she'd been fighting panic. And lost.

As soon as it lit up, she crouched next to her massive son, gripped his arm, and pulled him over her shoulders.

"Mom, you can't!" Fortis protested, but she ignored him. She wasn't the shrinking demon wasting away she'd been three years before when he'd brought her back into society. She was a slim but strong demon still at the height of her powers, damn it. And she was not going to lose her son. Plus, of course, she had no issue using her telekinesis. Carrying him over her shoulder, she told Paul, "Go through as we do so you won't be left behind."

_I will, Granma_ , he said. Smart and cute, she couldn't have wished for a better grandson.

With that assurance, she carried her son through the portal and to a hospital where room was made for him within minutes. They were busy but demons were a resilient lot. Most had either died at once or were relatively unscathed. Demons were impervious to radiation so at least that part wasn't an issue, and many, particularly the fire-making types, were fire-proof. Others weren't so lucky.

As Prudens waited outside the crowded hospital, Paul snuggled on her lap, purring in a comforting way. Reports found her through the wall of the hospital, announcing death counts in the millions and specific notable demons—often people she'd known personally—that had been lost. Then there were the reports about whole communities up in arms and ready to take revenge on the humans. She'd seen this sort of thing before. When emotions took over, brains shut off. It didn't matter that the humans were far more ruthless and numerous than the demons—this bombing run had proved it—they still believed that their superior power, man to man, would win the day.

After this, she knew, those intent on war would not hold back. Instead, she'd called the survivors among her personal staff and her brother's support team. They needed to escape before the humans—who had just demonstrated they could come and attack at will without being touched—decided to finish the job this attack had started. As soon as Port was out of the hospital, she'd have him scout out some of the nearby planes, something without much traffic, somewhere temperate and comfortable because they'd be coming with next to nothing with them but their knowhow. They'd have to rough it at least a decade or so.

If her son lived, she knew he'd help her. And if he helped her, she was sure they could find a new home, quickly and quietly, and allow all the demons who didn't want to fight or who could also see the futility of doing so an opportunity to escape safely.

***

Eight Years Later

***

Bang! Bang! Bang! Prudens jerked awake from where she'd been snuggled up with Paul on her couch.

"Mom! Give me back my son!"

Well, it's not like she didn't know he would be coming to get him. She quietly untangled herself from Paul and padded to the door. She opened the door and let Fortis tower over her as he was wont to do when upset.

"Why do you snatch him every time you send me on a mission?"

"I don't have the authority to do anything," Prudens said, skirting around the truth. She had repeatedly refused to take up the title of President, and the people around her had just as stubbornly refused to give it to anyone else and still looked to her for guidance, a situation that didn't seem like a good long term solution.

Fortis was on the side wanting her to take on the title and she still hadn't forgiven him for it. "And Paul came to me. Said you'd abandoned him."

"Paul ran away to you after I had gone on the assignment you gave me like he always does because he thinks he's too old for a babysitter. Which he isn't. And because Jac talks him into it because he doesn't like Hecate's cooking and knows you'll feed him, no question."

"And what do you do when you're in town? Not feed him?"

"Of course, I feed him. Jac's perfectly right. His great-great-grandmother is a sharp old bird but she can't cook worth a damn. That food is awful, but nothing stops Jac from coming here for good food without taking my son along with him."

"He likes Paul," she said.

"Well, Alma likes him too and who cooks wonderfully and is his aunt besides. And she wants to be his babysitter. Alma gets her feelings hurt. She loves him like her own son, and he has others to play with."

"Paul is uncomfortable because she has four babies, two of which are younger than he is and all of which are larger."

Fortis ran his hand through his perfect hair in exasperation. "And yet he hangs out with Jac, Dux and Stult who are all older and way larger than he is, Jac especially. That kid's liable to be bigger than I am by the time he's done."

"He found his own friends. And he loves Almitus but she treats him like a baby. And I know he's still a child, barely eleven years old, but he doesn't think of himself as a toddler and Almitus still sees him as one, just like her newborns. Because he's tiny. Jac and Dux, they don't treat him like he's a baby, but like anyone else, even though he _is_ tiny. And Jac watches out for him, too. You know that. Won't let anyone bully him."

"I know that. But Jac's a scamp. Half the time Paul gets in trouble, I know Jac's really behind it."

Prudens found a smile pulling at her lips. "So do I, though I bet it's more than that. Nothing wrong with that or having them come here. They are always welcome."

"You have a lot of responsibilities."

"So do you, and none of them are more important than your son. You told me that. It's true for my grandson and you."

Fortis was gearing up for a new attack when the walls called out. "President Portens, we have a situation. We need you down by the council building immediately."

"I am not the President."

"Go ahead," Fortis said. "It sounds like an emergency. I'll watch the boys."

She gave him her best mother glare. "Make me a portal." She could make one herself, of course. Once she'd grasped the particulars of in-plane porting from her son, she'd made sure she would never be hampered by lacking that skill again. She could go most places on their new plane, Orbis, without a second thought and she'd gone to the council building times beyond counting. But she loved making him do it for her.

"You're not fooling anyone," he said, starting the portal.

"You should come as well, Port," the voice from the ceiling said. "It's Titus."

"Shit," Fortis said. "I'll call Alma and get her over here to take Paul and Jac."

"We can go with you," Paul's small voice said from behind her. "We're not babies."

"Titus is dangerous."

"I won't let anything hurt Paul," Jac said staunchly, blood red and already nearly as tall as she was though he was barely eighteen.

"I won't need anyone to protect me," Paul said fiercely.

Fortis couldn't say "no" without insulting both boys. Paul might be as manipulative as his father, Prudens thought.

"Fine," Fortis said. "But you stay behind me and if anything bad starts to happen, Jac, port back here. You know how to do that, right?"

"Duh. How do you think we got here?"

"Fine. Those are the rules, take 'em or leave 'em."

"I never disobey you, you know that, Dad."

Fortis took only enough time to roll his eyes before turning and finishing the portal.

They were all shocked by what they found when they came out the other side.

Over the past seven years, since their exodus from Mundus, with as many "mythical" and exotic Earth animals as possible—as well as the dragons—they had sent back many strong demons to try and convince those still on Mundus to come with them to Orbis. To protect Orbis from accidental discovery, Prudens had advised—most strongly—that any refugees brought in be bereft of their portal powers. That way, no one knowing where Orbs was could go to Earth to fight and get captured, thereby revealing their new location. After a few years, proving their trustworthiness, refugee demons could get those powers back but losing them in the first place was a measure that many would-be refugees had balked at.

The risk to the whole, however, was great enough that Port and the other leaders endorsed the requirement and demons came Prudens' way or not at all. For that reason, most trips for refugees had brought a dozen, maybe two dozen at most back with them.

This time, there were hundreds, Titus loud and in front of the rest.

"I want to know by what right anyone has shorn me of the most basic of demon capabilities! Now, after fighting for eleven long years on your behalf with the humans, now you don't trust me?"

Celsus shrugged. "Those are the rules."

"And rules apply to everyone," Prudens said, "or they're meaningless."

"I should have known you were behind it, human-lover."

"Still angry I turned down your proposal, Titus? A thousand years is a long time to hold a grudge. But this isn't about me," she said, indicating the thousand or so residents around them. "This is about saving Orbis from the humans who seek—thanks to this stupid war—to destroy it. If you didn't like it, you didn't have to come."

"We _did_ have to come," Titus said. "They're dead. Everyone on Mundus, dead or captured. But mostly dead. I think they were just keeping the prisoners of war as slaves."

"What are you raving about, Titus? Are you insane?"

"No, President," Celsus. "That part's true. The humans have razed Mundus, totally destroyed it. These were all the survivors I could find."

"Razed? All? All the families waiting for their loved ones in the war, unwilling to part with them? All the elderly who didn't want to leave the land of their birth? My fath—father? They're all gone?"

Celsus nodded. Many of her people looked grave. Some wept openly, for loved ones gone, for the magnitude of the loss. Titus sneered. "Fine state of affairs that finds you as the President. Bunch of pansies, but then you never had the stomach for war."

"No," she admitted, too shocked to argue about being president.

"I knew it. That's why you're here doing nothing while your countrymen were slaughtered! While the people trying to protect you were destroyed, enslaved, mutilated, and set to work providing humans with magical power. Because you were all too stupid or too spineless to take a stand. So spineless you have a woman as a leader."

Fortis took a step forward.

Prudens took two, pushing her despair and grief to the back of her mind because this was the moment that decided what Orbis would be, a world slavishly devoted to anger and the past, or one that looked to a future that learned from that past to do better. "That's not weakness, Titus. That's strength. To resist doing the wrong thing when all around you are for it, that takes conviction, self-assurance, and bravery. We saved ourselves because the war was never winnable. We begged people to join us, begged those still living on Mundus to come because we didn't want anyone to die needlessly. Their choices, not ours. Humanity is necessary for the good of demonkind. You know what happens when we mate with our own."

She heard Paul whimper, but she couldn't let that stop her. This was too important. Millions of lives, admittedly ten or fifteen million, not the sixty or seventy million they'd been a decade before. But they counted on her. They believed in her. And she would not betray them.

"My grandson is a wonderful boy, bright and capable, but we were lucky with that. Many are born sterile and too weak to survive, even if they have care. Without humans, we are dead in two generations. And that is even if we could win. And we can't. There are more of them than us. And their technology is almost all destructive. We've seen it in action."

"Chickenheart."

"Call me what names you choose, Titus. We will not risk what we've built here, the families and communities we have built here because you are obsessed with violence and hatred. You can stay—I won't send you to be destroyed or enslaved. But you will not be given the power to leave this plane unless you prove you are worthy of trust."

"Easy to talk. Simple to say they would all follow you, but I've led men. I've led armies like you can't imagine. They'll follow me."

"No," Fortis said. "Never. My mother is our president and we stand by her."

"Nonsense," Titus sputtered. "You're her son. Your opinion means nothing."

"I stand by the President," Celsus said.

"And I," said another. The crowd of thousands sang out with endorsements, not one voice welcoming Titus or his leadership.

Prudens held tightly to her tears. Not now.

"And what say the demons you've come with? You've come to a land of sanctuary. Will you accept peaceful ways or are you also intent on war?"

No one said anything for a moment, feet shuffling and people looking from side to side. Finally, someone in the back said, "I'll accept. I've had my fill of war."

"Aye, and I," said another. Demons were stepping away from Titus until there was only a handful of demons left at his back.

"I do not wish to incarcerate you, Titus. But I will if you make it necessary. If need be, we can open another plane where you and your cohorts can rage to your heart's delight. I'm sure my son can find one for you."

"I'd be delighted," Fortis said.

Titus, a demon who let his inner ugliness twist his handsome demon features into horror, sneered. "Fine," he spat. "You haven't heard the last of me." With that, he turned and his remaining followers went with him.

"It's official, now," Fortis said.

"Whatever, baby," she said, a term she only used when she was at her limit, when distressed. "Take me home, please. My father—" But Jac had a portal ready and they were gone in minutes, confident the remaining citizens would help their new members fit in. Only in her own room did she let her tears fall, her sobs wrack her body. Her father, doting, loving, both to her and her mother, had been the example she had built a lifetime on, how she raised her siblings after her mother had gone and her father had retired in grief. How she had raised her children, particularly her sons. How she had wanted the world to be. Had she failed them all, and, in the end, him as well?

She looked around through her swimming eyes and saw the three boys looking at her in distress, Fortis, sweet, strong Fortis, adorable Paul who, she knew, would forgive her for arguing against more like him, and Jac who was red as a strawberry and twice as sweet. She'd done it all for them and they repaid her by being more than she ever dreamed. "I'm not wrong," she told herself and started to win against the sobs. "I did the right thing."

"You did, Mom. Of course, you did. We all know it."

"That's why you're the President!" Jac said brightly.

"And my Granma," Paul said.

"I'm not really the President," she said weakly.

"You are now, whether you like it or not."

Demon Spawn

Roze moved quietly over the carefully manicured grass. Tomorrow was a day of memorial and people would be coming to clean up "weeds" and lay flowers on their loved ones' graves. With the moon full and shining down, there was no better time for her to come collecting. She had a garden she cultivated on the top of her apartment building, but some ingredients weren't the same unless they grew in a graveyard. If she helped by dropping a few seeds every time she came, what was the harm? She harvested them before they became a bother.

She stopped at the grave of a man well-respected in town and saw that his headstone had been overgrown with jimson weed ( _datura strontium_ )—devils' snare—which she had certainly not planted since it was so invasive. To have grown so much since the last time she was here—well it seemed the well-respected man had quite a few sins hidden in his closet. She had a special bag for collecting dangerous plants like belladonna, jimsons's relative, so, with gloved hands, she cut down the plant, knowing the root would keep it returning unless someone took it out permanently. But it wasn't her aim to clean up after someone else's carelessness. Harvesting it, however, was something else. The deadly plant had so many uses that weren't deadly for the knowledgeable.

Roze was very knowledgeable.

She was just collecting a small bit of St. John's Wort she'd planted—covertly—when she heard a cry: "Get him! He came through here!" A frisson of fear ran through her.

Witchcraft was well accepted now, but it hadn't been so very long ago when there'd been cries like that for her kind as well, where generations of witches had hidden their talents and spelled in secret to keep from being persecuted. Not in her lifetime, but her blood remembered and responded.

In a world that now accepted fairy coffeeshops where you could get a shot of charisma with your latte for a first date or where cellphones could get spell apps that would return them to your pocket if they were lost, where telepaths in hair salons knew exactly the look you really wanted or aura-reading therapists knew your problems before you said a word, sometimes telling you about problems you didn't even know, what was out there that could still incite so much hatred?

But it was there, menace that vibrated along the cry, echoed in similar voices, making Roze want to run even though she was not the target. Not the kind of hatred you had for someone who had done something awful, but the kind of venom that wanted to destroy something for daring to exist. How did she know the difference? The same instincts that urged her to run even now remembered when the cries were for people like her. She refused to cave in to fear, but she did think that she'd gathered enough for one evening and tucked her pruning shears back in a pocket of her apron.

The screams of rage came again, louder, punctuated with more voices, and the baying of dogs. They were getting closer. She made her way ponderously to her feet when she heard a small whimper. She peeped over the headstone and saw a small creature cowering in the limited shadow. Instinctively, she lowered her voice to one of pleasant timbre and began crooning to it as she circled the headstone. It looked like a fox, she thought at first, with a red coat, black legs and tip of its tail and ears. But the face that it lifted to her was feline and the eyes, while luminescent, reflected red, not gold. She was pondering this when the little animal rose swishing two tails around. Demon!

Hecate help her, _that_ hatred was still alive and well. The little demon came up to her and whimpered again softly. Roze didn't stop to wonder but pulled one of her empty bags and scooped up the demon, dropping it in and closing it. Then, burying it under the other bags of herbs, she shifted things, bringing the bag with the poisonous Devils' Snare to the front. She retrieved her walking stick and leaned heavily on it as she breathed a few words to add gray to her hair and age to her face. She wasn't young, but older witches got a lot less headache than the younger ones did. She snatched at a mosquito hawk that swooped by, ran her hands lightly across it, and whispered directions before she let it go

She caught sight of flickering torches. Once they would have been flames, but harnessing will-o-the-wisps for light had become the rage and torches shone in all directions. Someone spotted her, hailed her, and ran forward with his fellows coming along behind him, some holding the leashes of straining dogs.

"You!" she heard. "Old woman! Ah, witch!"

She schooled her features into the semblance of absent-minded confusion. "Yes?"

"Did you see a demon run past?"

"A what?" she asked incredulously, as the crowd gathered and came to a stop around her. The dogs sniffed around the headstone but then seemed confused and started growling at each other.

One of the tallest said, "We're chasing an oni, a kitsune!"

"A nekomata," yelled another.

The first shrugged off the interruption. "It's a demon. Did you see it?"

"A demon?" she said in surprise, and then let her seamed face and thickened body dissolve into silent chuckles. "You think I should have seen a demon?" After she gasped that, she let her chuckles take on a wheezy sound.

"It's not a joke, old woman," said the first man, well, boy for he looked on the soft side of twenty.

"She's senile," said the one that had corrected him, and a few voices piped up in agreement.

Roze stopped laughing and eyed them with her apparently lazy eye. "All the demons are dead," she said flatly. "What are you trying to pull?"

"They want you to believe they're all dead, all but the ones used like batteries downtown," the first one said. "We set a trap for this one, but it got away. Did you see it?"

She shrugged. "Can't say as I did. I've been busy gathering herbs by the light of the full moon."

The second kid, the one doing most of the correcting gave her a sneer. "What a bullshit story. Why would you do that?"

"I'm a witch. That's how magic is. It has its own rules. Magic is why you kids don't even know what cavities are or acne, since witches treat the water. Those demons you revile control the weather and optimize it for crops and convenience. You should take the time to understand the vagaries about the magic that helps you or, if you can't do that, treat it with respect."

"Whatever," the boy muttered. "What's with the dogs. The dogs led us here, right? Why are they acting confused?"

"It looks like the trail just ended," said one of the dog handlers.

Both boys she'd been talking to looked over at her, suspicion writ larger on their faces. Good. "Oh, ho," she said. "Now you think _I'm_ the demon?" She had a few leaves of skunk cabbage in her pocket and she squeezed them between her fingers.

"The nekomata can shape change," said one. "And the kitsune," he added before the other one could jump in.

She held her hand out, now thoroughly contaminated with skunkweed toward the dogs. "Am I a demon, puppies?"

The dogs cowered away, as well they might, whimpering. She gave the boys a smile. "I have been gathering some odiferous plants."

"Well, even if _you're_ not a demon, what do you have in all those bags draped over you?"

"I told you I was collecting herbs," she said, hoping that the demon she'd placed in a bag would stay still. They were spelled to block odors, so she only feared he'd be detected if he moved. She opened the bag of jimson weed, another strong-smelling plant but not as nasty. Still, the dogs recoiled, sensing the danger. "Don't touch, boys," she said. "This is Devil's Snare and it's deadly toxic to the touch."

The boys leaned back as if it would lunge out at them and, the way it was stuffed in there, it did look like it might. "Why are you collecting poisonous plants like that?" the first boy asked. "What is it you witches do?"

"Magic," she said simply, "and, though many a plant is poisonous, it can also provide medicines when refined or in smaller doses. Relatives of this very plant also make tomatoes and potatoes, eggplant and peppers."

"Really?" said the second boy, intrigued. "Why you out here picking it, though, and at night?"

"You can plant all kinds of herbs, but some herbs have special pungency or powers if grown in a graveyard and plucked in the light of a full moon."

The first boy looked skeptical but one of the dog handlers caught his attention as his dog bayed. "Here it is, the scent! Damned thing must have done a hell of a leap to try to baffle the dogs, but we caught it again!"

They took off running, this time chasing the sporadic scent the mosquito hawk had specifically laid down at her request. The second boy, however, paused. "The demon had to have come through here. And you're sure you didn't see nothing?"

"I didn't see nothing," she said with complete sincerity she reinforced with a touch of magic, only possible when she was truthful. Don't you just love double negatives?

Satisfied, the boy loped off after the others, and Roze checked around her for any items she might have misplaced or left behind before hurrying off in case the boys realized they'd been played.

As she speed-walked toward her car, she let her age glamor peel away. She was still a stout woman of less than medium height, now in her early forties with a few streaks of gray in her hair, but she wasn't quite the grandma she'd wanted them to think. She threw all the bags into the trunk, including the demon, and whispered to it to lay low until she knew they were clear. Hopefully, the demon would understand. Were demons able to speak English?

She drove mostly back streets until she was sure she hadn't been followed then pulled into the parking garage at the bottom of her apartment building. She gathered up her apron and her bags and took the freight elevator to the top floor where she'd converted a space once devoted to maintenance and spares to a workable apartment and shop with a single flight of fire-escape steps to the roof.

Being a witch could be quite lucrative if you were good, and Roze was one of the best. Her network of other magic users, spell designers, hex programmers, and holistic medical practitioners made it possible for her to work from home without having to deal with people day to day. Or be well-known, which could be dangerous for someone in her line in case someone else got jealous or didn't like the results of this or that spell. She could do it all remotely from the safety of her home.

She dropped her bags of herbs in a cooler so she could deal with them shortly. The bag with the demon, she took to the counter. Carefully, she opened it, returning to her cooing noises without thinking about it. When opened, the bag fell down at the feet of her little demon. She was right. It was a super-fluffy cat with fox coloring and two tails. It looked at her with warm brown eyes—ones she knew glowed red in the dark—and purred.

"That's all very well for you to purr," Roze scolded. "And I'm glad you're grateful, but I have no idea what to do with you. Protecting a demon is a capital crime, and we don't have many of those left. Just like being a demon is a crime, though, if you think about that, it makes no sense. How can one help what one is?"

The demon moved closer and rubbed its head against her hand. It was sinfully soft, as soft as bunny fur and she couldn't help stroking it. Even for a cat, it was small, but it seemed to understand her without really caring about anything other than, for the moment, it was safe.

Just like a regular cat. Well, Roze had always suspected cats were halfway to a demon anyway. The good news was she wasn't well known in non-magical circles and didn't get out much, so keeping the demon here, for the short term, was probably not a problem.

The bad news was that she wasn't _unknown_ and the friends she had who knew her well enough to know where she lived also knew her well enough to walk right into her house without fanfare. Nor, if she put a cat glamor on the demon to make it look more cat-like, would they be fooled by it. What to do?

No long-term answers came to her, so she decided she would deal with that later and address the short term. She laid down some newspaper—the Hex Herald—and fixed the creature a bowl of milk and some meat scraps. Weren't foxes obligate carnivores just like cats? Well, hard to go wrong with fish, she decided, and dumped her tilapia leftovers on the bowl.

Then, as the demon plowed merrily through that feast, she went to work on preparing the plants she'd gathered. Some she tied and hung to dry. Some she crushed and sealed in a waterproof jar. Some she froze, some she refrigerated, some she left on the counter for immediate use. Then she set a fire going beneath the cauldron with a nod of her head, filled it halfway with water and began to dice and trim the herbs to go into it.

Just as they were heating nicely and she set it stirring with a mental push, she found the soft demon stroking itself along her legs. She picked it up and doublechecked her first impression. Yep, male demon. "What am I going to call you?" she asked, laying the cat back down and then was disarmed when the cat caught her hand between his paws and cuddled it. "You certainly are charming," she said. "I think I'll call you Prince."

She moved down to her desk to access the computer and ordered a cat tree and litterbox. Several of her friends had been bugging her to get a familiar. No one would think it crazy if she bought supplies for a cat.

Having taken care of that, and with her fluffy companion weaving between her feet, she rose and found the exhaustion was finally starting to hit her. She wanted her bed, but also wondered what Prince might do, unattended. After all, the reason why demons were illegal was because they were amoral, extremely powerful, and untrustworthy. Should she let one in her bedroom?

But he was winning her over and, despite the part of her brain that reminded her they were manipulative, she just couldn't believe the worst of him.

Even so, now that he was her guest, she set wards at every approach to her apartment, including the windows, just in case. Then, incredibly weary, she dragged herself to her little bed with the quilt her grandmother had once made, and dropped into a heavy slumber almost at once, just as she felt a long, buzzing warmth stretch out along her back.

***

High windows let the sun slink into the bedroom and hit her face around nine am. She'd long since learned to sleep right through that since she was something of a night owl. But when a shadow passed over the light after it hit her face, that brought her awake immediately.

She gasped as a huge figure, perhaps two meters tall and built like a linebacker, loomed over her. The skin was russet, the eyes were black, and he could have been human, with a stretch, if he didn't look so menacing. She knew without checking his aura that he was a full-grown demon at the height of his power. It fairly oozed off of him. There was a point to his ears and his teeth, clenched, were white but sharp and visible with his lips pulled back. Curly black hair tumbled from his brow and fell to his broad shoulders. He was very well dressed, with a black suit and a black shirt beneath it with a silver and black tie, but he couldn't have scared her more if he'd carried a chainsaw and worn a mask of human skin.

She didn't scream but it was a close-run thing.

"Where," he said through his shut teeth, in a sibilant voice that had just a hint of hiss in it, "is my son?"

"Your-your son?" she asked blankly. "Why would you think he was here?" Her mind, never its best before noon, was racing. What could he possibly mean? Could he mean, the demon cat?

"Do you think I wouldn't know where my son was?" the demon demanded, bending over so she could get a good look at his clenched teeth. "You kidnapped him at the cemetery and brought him here."

Roze's temper stepped in. "If you have so much insight into your son, why did I have to save him from a pack of hooligans bent on his destruction? Why don't you take better care of your child?"

The demon straightened but his face lightened, his grin turning from sinister to almost friendly. "At least you have some fire in you. No wonder he took to you. Where is he?"

"How do I know you're his father and not someone out to do him harm?"

"I'm a demon, too. I've got better things to do than try to injure my own."

"I do know you're a demon. I thought demons were heartless and amoral and vicious. For all I know, you eat lesser demons for breakfast."

"Now you're being deliberately insulting. You sound like a human being. I thought you were a witch."

She was taken aback by that. "Well, I'm both."

"I thought witchkind were smarter than the general populace, less apt to believe any story thrown at them as gospel truth."

Roze blushed. "Well, magic is mostly accepted by mainstream people, but they don't like magic-type magic so much as they like straight-forward powers like telepathy and telekinesis. Witches aren't persecuted or anything, but we still make people uncomfortable. Even so, when my mother—who was a witch and still is in Patagonia—told me about the war, she didn't make you guys out to be heroes. She said that, when the offer from humanity came to accept magic and incorporate it into the mainstream, demons chose not to."

"True enough and I'd love to discuss this in depth," the demon said, twitching one of his four fox tails that had erupted during their conversation, "but first I would like to find my son. Or will I require more intense questioning?"

"But I don't know where he is. He was sleeping next to me last night and I haven't seen him since."

"You lost my son?"

"You lost him first!"

"Dad?" a small voice said from the door that led to the bathroom. "Don't hurt her."

"Paulum!" the demon shouted and snatched up the smaller demon—now in closer to human form with the same russet skin as his father and the same dark eyes. "You've been very naughty!"

"It didn't seem that dangerous. Jac said no one thought there were any demons anymore and so it should be safe enough."

"And how did Jactatio make it home while you were trapped?"

The little demon hung his adorable head. "He made a portal first thing when he came through, y'know, in case."

"More prudent than I would have expected from Jactatio. Why didn't you do the same?"

"I didn't want to look like a scaredy-cat," Paulum said. "I figured I could always make one later, but we were ambushed. Dad, don't you think it's odd that they had demon-tracking dogs and happened to be in the cemetery just as we were there?"

"Now that you mention that, it is odd," Roze said. "Everything I've heard—I've ever heard-since I was a child—was that demons were eradicated, that the only demons still in existence were those captured and put to use in the capital. And even those are, er, fixed. Why would a group of young adults—"

"Castrated," the demon said, with an edge.

"Well, yes, so why would someone suspect an odd-colored cat, no matter how many tails, to be a young demon? There shouldn't be a young demon. If a group of boys happened across it, why would they ever suspect it was a demon, let alone go after it with fairy torches and hunting dogs? That's not an impromptu response. That's not a natural response if you think demons have been eliminated. Someone knew there would be demons there and knew to look for animal forms that could easily have been overlooked in the dark."

The demon curled his lip. "Those are fine questions and fine deductions. Unfortunately, it argues not only that there are humans cluing into our existing demon world but that someone in that demon population is aiding and abetting them." He huffed out air through his nose and it came out as smoke. "And that I can't abide."

He looked down at Roze, still tangled in her bedclothes and held out a large hand. "Fortis Portens," he said, "but everyone calls me 'Port'. Get up and let's talk about this over lunch."

"Breakfast," she said, hauling herself out of bed and ignoring the fact she was wearing a long flannel nightie. Not like the demon would care about a dumpy witch on the wrong side of forty. He looked like sin incarnate. And had kids. She thought about fishing about in her closet for a robe but then thought, _why bother?_ She padded out to the kitchen in her stockinged feet.

The demon, who somehow seemed at home in her cluttered kitchen, was cooking eggs in a skillet and had bacon frying in another. "I was going to eat young demon," he said conversationally, "but you seemed to be all out, and this guy," and he bent to nuzzle his son's neck which made the boy giggle, "is too tough to be tasty, I know from experience."

She was surprised into a snort-laugh and blushed. "Sorry about that. When my temper gets away from me, I haven't the least control over my tongue."

"I'm sure there are stories that bad circulating and worse. It's the downside to losing a war—someone else gets to set the narrative. Scrambled okay?"

"My favorite, unless you didn't use cheese and then they'll make me throw up," she told him.

"Me too," said young Paulum. "Dad says cheese makes everything better."

"I do love cheese," Roze said, sitting down at a place already set for her. "I haven't made it work with chocolate chip cookies, but I'll keep trying."

Fortis Portens laughed at that, and it was perhaps the sexiest sound Roze had ever heard. She hoped he wasn't planning to stick around for long. Her vulnerable virgin heart—even if the adjective didn't describe the rest of her—could readily fall for his easy assurance. And she was _so_ not his type.

He slid perfect eggs onto her plate, Paulum's plate and then his own, followed by three strips of equally perfect bacon.

"How did you get them done at the same time?" she asked genuinely curious. She never could and had taken to baking the bacon in the oven and just cooking eggs when it was done.

"Magic," he said with a wink.

"I might just believe it. These are delicious," she said then glanced around and started. "My potion!" She bolted out of her seat.

"Too much ephedra," he said, plowing through the food on his plate.

"No way," she said, using the metal arm to lift the lid before she swung the cauldron out of the fire. One whiff and she had to agree. "How tiresome. Must have been a particularly potent batch because I would have sworn I put in the right amount. Now I'll have to dilute it and I'm not sure I have enough of everything else I need to make it up so the whole thing has the right potency." She narrowed her eyes. "And how did you even know what I was brewing?"

"My aunt is an herb witch. We have them in Orbis—that's the demons' new world, too. I know a love potion when I smell it." He clicked his tongue. "Isn't a love potion a bit beneath you?"

Roze blushed. "Gal's gotta eat and it's always in demand." She said that, but she really didn't like making it. She never made true love potions, though she was constantly hounded to do so. That had a karmic backlash, and she wasn't comfortable messing with people's destinies. She made sure they advertised her potion with a 24-hour limit—you didn't make them fall in love with you during that period, they'd forget you and everything that happened. She included a birth control spell so there were no unpleasant surprises.

Even so. She couldn't like it.

"Banned in the demon realm. Too much like a date rape drug," he said.

Well, and that aspect is the one that haunted her. "If it was banned in the demon realm, how did you know what it smelled like?"

"It wasn't always banned," he said. "And my aunt still makes a variant called, 'Open Your Eyes'. Do you have some belladonna? A little bit of that could counter the ephedra without having to dilute."

"I don't have any at the moment, but I've got a sizeable stash of jimson weed that should do just as well." She pulled on gloves and went to her toxic stash. Trying not to sound too desperately interested, she said, "So what's the difference with 'Open Your Eyes'?"

"Takes out the compulsive elements. It allows the recipient to be aware of the sender's regard, the depths of their feeling, but leaves it up to them whether or not to act. Has as good a success rate for long-term matches as love potions if not a little higher. Sure, some people find they really do care under the compulsion and carry it forward, but others are so offended they were used it negates the effects."

Food for thought. _Certainly, it would help her conscience. Too late to remove them from this batch though. Should she even save it?_ She extinguished the fire with a nod and put the lid on the potion. She slid into her seat and went back to shoveling eggs that had—literally—magically retained their warmth. The bacon was still perfect, too. There was even toast, though she never saw him make that. She ate that, too.

"So, with you giving me sound moral advice, it's become clear to me that the demon war narrative I've been told is, at best, part of the story and more likely whacked as hell. Not to mention there are certainly demons alive and well and people still on the lookout to destroy you. Want to tell me your side of it?"

Fortis Portens pushed back from the table, his food gone. "To what purpose? You're human, aren't you? And telling you my side won't help you get along better with the humans you need to survive."

"Yeah, well, aside from a girl needing to eat, she's also got to look in the mirror every day. I'm not saying I've never scared myself, but, up until now, I've mostly been able to look myself in the eye and think I'm a decent human being. Now, if find out I'm part of a society that's done a grave injustice—and they're still at it—well, it's not going to be so easy to look at myself. And it won't be the gray hair that rattles me."

"First," he said, "You're a beautiful woman. The eyes never lie and yours are lovely. Secondly, that's one reason I'm hesitant to tell you. Of course, you might not believe, but, if you do, you won't be able to claim plausible deniability anymore. And, the truth is, I don't know if you can do anything to stop it, so you'll be in pain for no purpose."

"I saw a group of nearly adults ready to run down and destroy a child, a sentient child, for his genetic makeup. No crime, no harm, just for existing. I think plausible deniability is already off the table. As for the rest, if you agree I'm a sentient being, shouldn't I decide for myself, Mr. Portens?"

"Port," he corrected, holding her gaze with his own. She didn't look away and he didn't either. "Yes, you should. If you're sure." He paused, pursing his lips. "Why don't we start with you telling me what you know? It might save a great deal of time." He gestured to her living room. "Shall we get more comfortable?"

"What about, um, Paulum?"

"I've set Paul to washing dishes, but he knows all this. He's young but not so young I have to shield him from reality. It's too dangerous otherwise."

She nodded and curled up in the corner of the couch, her feet tucked under her as she usually sat to read, but wishing she'd taken time to wear something besides her nightgown. She was physically comfortable, but his gaze seemed unusually warm and he sat well within arm's length. Awfully cozy for a girl in her nightgown.

Without looking at him, she said, "In 2028, science finally admitted that some people had demonstrable, provable psychic power. That opened the gate and, within twenty years, not only had most of the psychics outed themselves, but so had witches, fairies, mermaids, shapeshifters, and vampires, who still maintain a popularity among humans I can't understand given that humans remain their favorite prey. The magical folks went to some effort to work out means to make their magic accessible to the mundane and be seen as useful parts of society rather than dangerous.

"When the UN wrote up a treaty, signed by most of the human nations, promising safety to magical folks in return for a modicum of metaphysical support for society, most magic communities were eager to sign. Except the demons, who, instead, declared war on humankind. There was a rather brutal but short conflict, less than ten years, with plenty of human losses but the decimation of the demon community. All remaining demons were rounded up, chained, er, um..."

"Castrated," the demon supplied.

"Yes, that, and forced to work to aid human society as reparation for their war crimes. Demons were considered monsters to be killed on sight and anyone caught aiding and abetting one was also subject to the death penalty. I think that's all of it."

Port took a deep breath. "Mind if I smoke?" he asked, pulling a hand-rolled cigarette from a silver case.

She did mind, but he was probably stressed—she certainly was—and if it would make him more comfortable, she'd be okay this one time. "Go ahead."

He grinned at her. "You're lying but I can make sure the smoke doesn't bother you." He spun a finger and a tiny air vortex materialized, pulling the smoke that escaped after he took the first drag on the whatever it was he was smoking. She couldn't identify it because no hint of the smell reached her. In a way, that bothered her. She would have liked to have been able to know.

"Much of that is essentially true, but there are a few salient points that change the nature of the conflict, in my opinion. Most of the magical folks outed themselves. Demons did not. Do you know how we were, er, outed?"

"No."

"One of a similar bent to your own, er, summoned one of us in front of government witnesses."

"Sorcerers," she spat with venom. "They are nothing like witches."

Port smiled. "I happen to agree with you. Some sorcerers were able to summon demons because they had paid a large sum to _our_ government and that allowed access to demons in _our_ prison for a limited amount of time, so many hours of servitude over a few hundred years. The sorcerers who paid those fantastic sums were mostly dead as humans have much shorter lifespans than we do, but the contracts remained in place for their apprentices or children, anyone who could make the proper portal until the contract ran out. Most of the contracts still have fifty or so years on them. Even though the ability to call us, the skill and knowledge, were fading out so fewer and fewer demons were called out."

He paused for another drag and gestured with his hand, but the air vortex followed to swallow his smoke. "Really, most demons were unaware of the whole business else we might have said something. We were comfortable enough on our plane of existence—our former plane of existence—which isn't the same as yours."

"I'd wondered about that."

"This sorcerer was the heir to the first sorcerer, the one who first figured out how to go to Mundus—our former plane—directly and negotiated the first contract. After that, I've learned, the other sorcerers paid him to negotiate on their behalf. Unfortunately, he'd documented his method of accessing the demon world and this sorcerer was willing, after demonstrating the usefulness of a summoned demon, to take a delegation of government leaders to the demons' world. Following so far?"

"I'd had no idea. I'm afraid the practice still sounds a bit barbaric to me."

"Me as well. From the time our government first implemented these contracts, things in my world had become a great deal more progressive, but this little quirk wasn't widely known so no one thought to protest it. But I digress. Given our magical power, the humans thought it only reasonable that _every_ demon swear to do no harm to humans and provide a full year of servitude as a sign of their good will. A year of slavery where our power was at someone else's disposal."

"That's insane!"

"Agreed. Our power frightened humans while they coveted it. Naturally, our own government was none too keen on this notion and took offense that the sorcerer had abused his own power. So much so that they, er, ate him. Perhaps not the most prudent course of action with armed government officials right there who opened fire. Demons are hard to kill but gunfire is still pretty effective. The humans managed to do some serious harm to a top echelon of the government before they were sent back to their own realm rife with tales of our brutality, which should have surprised no one.

"The remaining contracts were deemed null and void, but the magic used to bind them was not so easily canceled before the time limit." Port shook his head. "The plan was, with the sorcerer who could access our realm gone and by eliminating those that could summon one, we'd just live our merry lives pretending humans didn't exist. "

He puffed for a moment or two, lost in thought.

"But it didn't work like that?"

"No. The sorcerers whose contracts were threatened joined up with government scientists to study the documentation on how to access the demon world. And somehow—" he paused as if a new idea occurred to him. "Somehow were able to not only replicate the means to return to the demon world but to go anywhere they wanted much as we can ourselves."

His face took on something of a grim cast. "That's when they started snatching demon citizens at random. Not the ideal plan because, for one thing, regular demons don't have the restrictions on their powers that prisoners do. And, for another, that garnered humans far more attention than they had ever had. One minor little altercation that the government was quietly covering up became front page news. Those demons stolen—and stealing a demon precludes the use of something practical like a protective circle—meant that angry demons thus snatched were wreaking some truly impressive havoc on their captors in their justifiable rage. But that's not the spin the humans put on it."

"I'd guess not. Then what happened?" She didn't want to be fascinated, but she couldn't really help it. His voice was mesmerizing and, little by little, she'd inched from her corner to hovering right at his side, hanging on every word. Still hadn't caught a whiff of what he was smoking, though.

"Demonkind was somewhat divided. There was a faction, a small but very loud faction, who wanted to blast all of humankind for the effrontery of trying to enslave us one by one. The majority, however, thought it would be easier to just move all our settlements to a different plane, one the humans had not had access to, and forget the humans existed—well mostly. More on that later. That's about the time when humans decided to open various portals all at the same time, dropping a nuclear warhead at each one." He shook his head, his face grave. "The losses were colossal. Sacred sites were destroyed, ancient temples and castles, cities put to ruin. Millions dead."

"Hecate preserve me!" Roze said, truly appalled. This had never been part of the narrative.

"There were more of us than humanity knew but even so, we lost a good quarter of our total population. And shattered most of the existing infrastructure. Public opinion switched to war overnight.

"Of course, you know how _that_ ended and a few of us, myself included, saw it coming so we gathered other like-minded survivors and set ourselves up on another plane. The first few years were rough. We'd gotten soft with flush toilets and our own version of the internet, but we had magic and industry and, within a few decades, we were as comfortable as we'd ever been on Mundus." He smiled. "Some of us liked it better, what with so much of the bratty, angry faction lost to war. Some of those who had taken part in that conflict found their way to Orbis—our new plane—with stories of the horrors of battling with humans. They couldn't come, however, without forgoing their porting abilities so they couldn't accidentally share them with humans. Most settled in quietly and only a tiny handful kept squawking about the rest of us joining the fray. If they whined too long, we sent them to yet another plane We could not return them to Mundus."

"Because?"

"Everyone on Mundus was killed or captured. After humans won the war on their own turf, they sent armies back into our old dimension. Anyone who hadn't emigrated or gone to the humans' world—mostly the elderly who hadn't seen why they should give up their homeland to humans and a few families equally deluded or waiting for a loved one fighting the humans—were killed. No one was spared. No child. No decrepit geezer. No human, for there were humans among them."

"That's when great-grandpa got killed, right, Dad?" a small voice said from the other side. Roze craned her neck and saw that Paul had finished the dishes and was perched by his father on the other side of the couch.

"That's right."

"Wait, you remember? That had to have been," Roze did some fast calculating in her head, "more than fifty years ago."

"Yeah," the boy said, frowning at her. "I'll be sixty-eight this winter."

"Oh," she said faintly. She shook her head. "I don't understand. Why were there humans left on Mundus? Why, if you're all safe now, is anyone still flittering Earthside when there's so much to lose? What's going on?"

Paul nodded. "I told you, Dad. She's sharp."

He lifted one of his brows. "You may have noticed that my son is not of ordinary demon size."

She shrugged. "I don't know what ordinary demon size is. I had thought he was just a baby, compared to you, but I gather that's not the case."

"No, he's nearly full-sized." He reached and ruffled his son's black locks. "Demons can't mate among themselves without their genes sort of canceling each other out. That's one reason why, though we live for centuries, we've never had a huge population. And why humans have always known about us at some level. We need humans to mate. Well, humans, shapeshifters, or the like. Magic ability isn't a requirement, but those with their own magic tend to find it easier to accept us, especially when they were already hiding their own natures from human beings."

"By, by force?" Roze found herself shrinking though Port had yet to do anything the slightest bit aggressive.

He turned to face her, held her gaze, and his face was grave. "Once, I'm sure, it was common. I'm not excusing it, but it was how humans treated women as well, then. But even coercion or trickery has been frowned on as long as I've been alive and that's more than eight hundred years. As for force, that's been outlawed even longer and anyone taken by force can go to any citizen or police station and prosecute the kidnapper to the fullest extent of the law." He grinned and it wasn't friendly. "Our laws are fewer, but they do tend to be enforced a great deal more harshly than in your world. But I've no doubt our early forays gave a great deal of plausibility to the worst stories history has about us."

"I see," she said, her muscles loosening in response. She believed him, which seemed foolish given all she had heard growing up. But, what he said made sense to her in ways the half-baked stories didn't. "Is that why Paulum, er, Paul was here? Looking for a mate?"

Port threw his head back and laughed. A tiny wisp of smoke reached her. She smelled cloves and a few other herbs that just eluded her before it was gone. "I sincerely hope not," Port said at last. "I'm hoping it was just a teenage prank. Unfortunately, since he's small and gets a lot of ribbing from other regular-sized demons, it's easy to goad him into doing dangerous things." A thought crossed his mind and he turned to his son. "Were they on the lookout for mates?"

"Of course not," his son scoffed. "Jac is the oldest and he's not even a hundred."

"Then why--?" She stopped as a ward tripped just outside her door. Followed almost at once by a knock.

Port stood up, concern on his face—very reasonably. "Are you expecting anyone?"

Roze searched her brain. "I did order some cat supplies for Paul. It could be."

"Hmm. It could be, but it's a little dangerous."

"They'll leave it if I don't answer," she said. "And I usually don't."

Whoever was at her door knocked again, more forcefully.

"Did you recognize anyone last night?"

"No. But you're right. You two should leave. You'd be shot on sight." She got up as well and started pushing Port toward her bedroom. "You can portal out from my room, right? That's how you got there, isn't it?"

"It is but you're in danger, too. Could someone have taken down your license plate number?"

Her eyes widened. She wanted to say no, but she couldn't. If the ambush was planned—and she felt like the evidence said it was—then someone checking parked cars in the area wasn't outside the realm of possibility. Aiding and abetting a demon was a capital crime.

"I don't know," she said, stopping and looking around her apartment, filled with plants she'd lovingly nurtured and gathered. Filled with everything that made her comfortable. Her safe spot. Her one haven in this crazy world. If Port was right, it was now a deathtrap.

"C'mon, Dad," Paulum said from her bedroom. "I'm building the portal now."

Port offered her a hand. "It's not safe for you now, thanks to us. Come with us. It's the only way."

The knocking on the door had become a pounding, one with intent. It was a heavy metal door, but she had little doubt that they could break through it if they wanted to. And it sounded like they wanted to.

She took Port's hand and he yanked her unceremoniously into her room and shut the door. "I'm sorry it's come to this," he said, nodding to where his son had just dived through a portal. He scooped her up into his arms as if she weighed a feather, kissed her full on the mouth, and leapt in right after his son.

Disoriented by the kiss that was every bit as seductive as she could have imagined and sent her heart racing, she hardly noticed the trip until he set her down gently on a grassy knoll. She stumbled but he supported her elbow. "Are you alright? Do you need to vomit?"

"Is that the normal response to one of your kisses?"

He grinned but released his hold on her. "I'll have you know my kisses are in demand. I was hoping to distract you from the trip since some folks, especially those who have never gone through before, find it unnerving, even debilitating."

"Well, then you succeeded. I didn't even notice, er, the trip."

He smiled and stroked her cheek. "Sorry for using such a tactic. If I kiss you again, it will be with intent."

Roze blushed. "What do you mean? I'm grateful. I hate throwing up. As for the rest, well I didn't take it seriously. I knew you meant nothing by it."

The hand on her cheek slipped down to cup her chin, lifting it, so she had no choice but to look into his dark eyes. "You are a precious person. Don't sell yourself short. You've done nothing but an act of kindness, and it has cost you all you had. You deserve to be treated with respect and consideration."

He bent down so his face was nearly at her height. "Are you listening, Roze Parker?"

"How did you know—?"

"Your name? I know far more than that. You are under my protection—no strings—until you've found your new path. And I'm telling you, I won't tease you or play with you. If I kiss you again, it will be with meaning."

Roze swallowed, almost certain she was going to get kissed again. And unsure how she felt about it. Scared, yes, but also longing. Port was dangerous in more ways than one. She dropped her eyes. "Aren't you teasing me now?"

"No," he said, but released her chin. "Humans are so caught up in appearances that they don't give their other qualities the credit they should. You are a beautiful woman. Your appearance is only a tiny fraction of that."

She laughed to cover her embarrassment, hoping it sounded natural. "Easy for you to say. Aren't all demons beautiful?"

"Physically, yes. Even Paulum, isn't he adorable? So, if demons are going to have any sort of meaningful relationships, we're going to have to look past the surface. But enough about that. You're already shaken, I'm sure, from all that happened, and I bet you'd like a chance to recover."

She picked at her sleeve and it recalled to her the fact she was still in her nightgown. "I wouldn't mind a change of clothing," she said. "And maybe some shoes?"

He laughed and swung her up in his arms, again as if she were light as down. "I think something can be contrived." He carried her down the hill, Paul in animal form, tripping happily beside him. They maneuvered through a gate in the wooden fence to find what had every appearance of a suburb with the skyscrapers of a genuine city in the distance.

"It's just like Earth," she said.

"I'll ignore the insult since you're shaken and because it does have the appearance of an Earth city. But it's different, my dear. Quite so."

He walked down a row of houses, clearly, but not what she expected. They were rounded, rather than rectangular or angular, with green growing over most of the outer surfaces except for the rounded windows. Vines in some cases. Grass in others. Some were covered in blossoms so one could barely see the leaves. "How charming!"

"It is, isn't it?"

She noticed a slim cable rising from somewhere on each house and disappearing into the sky. She wondered what it was attached to, but before she could ask, Port turned onto the pretty stone walkway leading to a house covered with dark vines and small, white, sweet-smelling flowers. "Star jasmine!"

"Indeed," he said as the round door slid open with no apparent direction.

A thought struck her as he carried her over the threshold, honeymoon-style. "Won't your wife be upset?"

"Not married."

"What about Paul's mother?"

"That was a fling and, besides, she died in the war." He grimaced. "She wasn't really mother material. My mistake, but Paul's a joy so I can't regret it." He set her down gently on what might have been a couch but looked like something organic, maybe a fungus of some kind. It was comfortable, though.

He glanced around the room, found a relatively bare spot on the wall, and pressed his hand on it, muttering.

"What are you doing?"

"Making you your own room. With a bath so you can have privacy if you'd like." He spotted Paul frolicking on what looked like a ball made of green gel. "Run to the store and get a few different outfits for Roze, will you, Paul? Size 1E and shoes..." He studied Roze's stockinged feet. "4F. Strive to find something appealing."

"I'm not color-blind, Dad."

"Given what I saw you in yesterday, I take leave to doubt. But here's your chance to prove yourself. Get going."

"Dad, can I get that new video game? While I'm out?"

"You may not. Your 'harmless' lark has cost this good woman her livelihood, home, and everything she knows. Focus on making it up to her before you indulge any of your own wants."

"Right." Paul was back in human form but with twin tails that sagged. "I'm sorry, Roze. I thought it was great that you were coming with us, but I guess I didn't really think it through."

Roze reached over and ruffled the shaggy head. "You're a good kid, Paulum. I'm not angry with you."

"Enough with the manipulating, rascal. Get going!" his father said, laughter in his voice. Under Port's hand the wall had stretched and bulged outward, like he had melted it and blown it like glass, with just magic.

"That's really fascinating," she said, getting up to see it closer. "What's it made of?"

"Most of our construction is made with crystals that respond to magic. It's like getting a smart home and they're easy to assemble and modify. No painting."

"So jealous. It took me months to make my own place habitable." She sighed. "I suppose I can never go back."

"We'll monitor the news but probably not. When an act of kindness can get you a lethal injection, it's not something I would gamble with. I hope you won't."

"Well, it's not like I could get back on my own anyway."

"I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault," she said at once. "It's really not. It bothers me that you think you need to make it up to me. I did it. I chose to do it, and, though it was an impulsive act, I'd do it again in a heartbeat. And that kid doesn't owe me anything either. He didn't do anything wrong, well, maybe something imprudent, but that shouldn't be a capital crime either."

"Don't go too easy on the boy. He shouldn't have gotten you embroiled in this."

"I embroiled myself."

He made no reply to that but his eyes twinkled. "You want windows?"

"Only if the light won't wake me up at the crack of dawn."

"You're in luck. Your room faces the afternoon sun."

"How does that work? I mean, do you have the same sun as we have on Earth?"

He chuckled. "You're just full of questions. I expected a bout of tears or perhaps railing at me, deservedly. I was all prepared to take it like a demon."

"I might cry a little later. I lost my grandmother's quilt and that soup stock I had frozen, but it's all stuff. This is my here and now, and I'm more worried about your situation."

"Mine?" he said, surprised.

"If what you said is true," she said, "that someone knew Paul and his friends were going to go to the human world, then I think your conclusion that someone on the demon side is helping the humans is correct."

"That shouldn't be your problem."

"Why not? Because I'm human? Because I'm useless? Or because you don't trust me?"

"I didn't say, think, or mean any of those things. Just that you don't owe me, us, a solution to our problems. I don't blame you for the acts of humanity."

"If I could help—and I don't—you _should_ blame me."

"You're a very interesting woman," Port said. "Why not worry about your own troubles? Do you want to look at your room? See if it suits you?"

"No, I want to solve your problem," she said. "It bothers me that a kid like Paul was terrorized and I don't want it to happen again. Besides, what troubles do I have? Didn't you decide to take care of me? I've never had it so easy."

He paused, then shrugged. "Suit yourself." He sank into the ball of green gel that cupped him like a beanbag chair.

Roze went into a peal of laughter, this big fearsome individual, dressed to the nines, sinking into a ball of lime jello.

He gave her a lopsided grin. "At least your sense of humor is intact. So, assuming we have an inside job—and I tend to agree that we do—why do you think you can provide insight into helping us track it down?"

She perched back on her fungus couch and tucked her feet under her. "When you were talking about the war, you paused when you told me that people figured out how to access your old realm, not just the location that sorcerer had found. You paused because it occurred to you they needed inside help to do that."

"It hadn't occurred to me before, but, yes, in hindsight, it certainly seems improbable that they could access us so easily and pick targets that were alone so readily without someone with demonic power and in the know."

"So, what if it's the same source?" she said. "When you thought that, you were thinking of someone, a demon, on the human side giving them a hand, right?"

"I was, though there are only a handful of demons that chose to live in the human world before the war and I don't know of any in the human world now who are there by choice." He shook his head. "Those poor bastards."

"Could any of them be helping the humans, the captive demons I mean?"

"Might have been the one to help before the war, but why they'd still help after being enslaved, I couldn't fathom. And they wouldn't have any insight into what kids were going where."

"No, so, if they helped before the war, they're already being punished and they're not the problem now," she said, nodding, arranging it all in her head. She loved knotty problems. "I wish I had my crocheting with me. That always helps me focus."

Port stood. Aiming his voice at the ceiling, he said, "Get me Paulum Portens."

A second later, Paulum's voice came through. "Yeah, Dad?"

"Get some yarn and a set of crochet hooks for Roze."

"Where am I supposed to get that?"

"Try Dina's Crafts and, if you have to, look for some soft twine and make a crochet hook. You're a bright boy. Contrive."

"I'm following your logic so far," Port said, ignoring the ceiling again. He started to pace. "What you say makes sense, but how could we narrow it down to who? We have a population of nearly eighteen million demons and humans, shapeshifters, fairies, etc. Where would I begin to look?"

"Not all eighteen million knew your son's plans. In fact, I'd think that was a very small list, not even including you."

"True. I doubt they told anyone, but are you implying that a junior-high student is working with the humans to take out us out, that he'd be party to getting a friend caught?"

"Let's leave that as the least likely option. But what if someone outside the kids' circle planted the idea in one of the kids' heads. I mean, how do kids get the coordinates to the human world?"

"An adult would have to supply it or let them have access to a database of them, though no self-respecting... No, he'd give it to him because the angry mob knew just where to be. Wouldn't take a chance with the database."

"Exactly."

Port was pacing, and, without any sort of cigarette, smoking, too, thin wisps of smoke coming out of his flaring nostrils.

"Bad enough to betray demonkind, but why our kids? That makes no sense. And it pisses me off, besides. What do they hope to gain?"

"Can any kid make a portal back to this plane?"

Port stopped. "It's the first thing we teach them."

"But you haven't seen any humans coming here on their own, right? Someone here wants to give humans access to the demon world but can't provide it directly. Though, if they're the same spy—or spies—as before the war, they once could."

His eyes widened. "The ones whose portal powers were removed? You think they're doing this?"

"Are you sure they were all sent back to another plane?" She leaned back on her mushroom. "If not, it fits, doesn't it?" A cat, big and black and super-furry, leapt up next to her and began to purr. She started to pet it without really thinking about it.

"Too damn well, but why? If they hated the war enough to fight in it—and most of those who did died in it—why would they help the humans now?"

"Why do you have a cat?" she asked, curiosity interrupting her train of thought.

"Most of us do. Cats are natural dimension travelers like us. That's Furvus and he knows it."

"He's beautiful." Roze scrunched up even further, into her thinking posture, which didn't stop her from petting the cat. It was much like crocheting in its way. "Well, I don't know about demons, but human history is full of people who betrayed people that trusted them for the stupidest and most superficial reasons. Sex. Money. Religious differences. Political power... Wait. You said that, just before the war, after the UN proposal, demonkind were divided, right?"

"Right," Port said, but didn't look enlightened.

"So, what if one or some of the demons orchestrated the war?"

"What?"

"The folks on the noisy pro-war side, any of them kind of nationalist before that? Maybe wanted political power to change some rules. Like demon purity or talked about subjugating humans, maybe going back to the old ways where you might have just taken what you wanted because you were so much stronger. I mean, humans have numbers but, one-to-one, they're no match for you. There's got to be someone in your midst who thinks treating potential human mates with respect is a waste of time."

His face was twisted in disgust then fell as enlightenment dawned on him before it turned to unmitigated fury. "Get me President Portens on the line," he told his ceiling in a sharp bark.

"She's in a conference. Can I take a message?" said a pleasant voice.

"No, you bloody well can't. Tell her this is Port and it's urgent."

"Hold the line."

Roze felt kind of awed. "You have a direct line to the President? Wait, Portens, isn't that your name?"

"Port?"

"Mother, did we send back all those who urged us into the war after the migration to the other plane? Or just some of them?"

"This is the emergency you yanked me out of a meeting for? And why aren't you working?"

"I had to go fetch Paul from the human world. He and some buddies went for a lark and happened to land right in the middle of an ambush complete with angry mob and demon-tracking dogs."

"Not Paul!"

"He's okay. A human stepped in to protect him and I've got her here now."

"Finally, you're getting a mother for my grandson!"

"We can talk about that later. Listen, someone gave those boys coordinates and put the idea in their heads, then possibly organized an ambush, hoping to catch one of the kids."

"Why would anyone do that?"

"What if someone here wants humans to have access to our new plane but can't show humans himself?"

"You're thinking of Titus."

"Did you send him off?"

"It was complicated."

"Mom, it's a yes or no question."

"No, we didn't send him off. And we can't just bring him in for questioning based on such a flimsy set of logic."

"I don't think it's that flimsy, and I bet you could get a judge to agree it's suspicious enough to issue a warrant to check his communication to the human world. He's having humans target children."

" _If_ he did it. But I see your point. Why don't you do your job and get me more to go on? Your son was involved. You know the friends involved. Get them to make a statement that Titus or someone we can trace to Titus suggested the lark and the location, and we'll have a lot more leverage."

Port nodded. "Seems reasonable. I'll get right on that. Port out."

"How does the ceiling connect with the president? And the president is your mother? And how did it connect with Paul?"

"All these crystals are part of the same crystal. We can communicate with any part we want at any time. I figured Paulum was in or near a store and he was. The crystal is semi-sentient and found him for me."

"This place gets cooler and cooler," she said.

"Well, you're welcome to explore it. I have to go to work."

"What do you do?"

His grin was lopsided again. Why was that so damn appealing? "I'm a cop."

"No way!"

"Didn't recognize the uniform, eh? I have to go to work and leave you alone. I can—"

"Let me go too," she said impulsively. "I don't want to be here by myself." And she didn't. Just the thought of being alone in this house in the whole new and strange world, however cool, scared the stuffing out of her.

"I can't take—"

"I'm home!" he heard from the front door as Paul bounded in, bubbles tethered to his back and bouncing. "Hey, Roze, I got you sneakers and boots. You didn't seem like the spiked heels type."

"You're not wrong," Roze said as he popped bubbles and dumped packages on her.

"I got you some purple yarn and some green yarn. Could you make me a blanket?"

"Paul!"

"I don't mind. I'll be here a while, after all. What's this?" She lifted up a pair of black leggings, somewhat shiny. Not her normal fare.

"You wanted a skirt?" he asked. "Those pants are super comfortable. All the girls are wearing them."

Roze chuckled. "You confused me with a teenager, but it will do for now. Did you get any underwear?"

Paulum slapped his forehead and Port rolled his eyes.

Roze laughed again. "Well, it's been a while since I went commando, but I can manage it a day or two."

"Aren't you going commando now?" Port asked, brow raised.

Roze blushed but did her best to pretend he hadn't spoken. "Wait for me, Port, I really want to go with you." She disappeared down the tunnel he'd built earlier. She found another gel chair, this time in pink, what looked to be a bed of similar material but it didn't look like it had finished growing, a desk with a terminal on it, a closet-currently empty but with special hooks for holding clothes—she'd have to figure that out later—and a bathroom with facilities she recognized. She hoped. Ten minutes later she was dressed in slinky black leggings—that were surprisingly comfortable—a flowered top that she'd thought was too big but that sucked in to match her curves once she smoothed it over her thighs, and purple sneakers that lit up when she walked. She felt fifteen years old. She didn't have a brush so she left her hair in its raggedy braid. She was grateful she'd worn socks because Paulum had forgotten those, too.

When she reemerged, Paulum was looking quite chastened and his father stood over him.

"What happened?"

"Paulum won't tell me whose idea it was to go to the human world."

"You can't ask me to snitch on my friends!"

Roze regarded them both, rigid and stubborn. "Paul," she said gently. "You know I don't blame you for what happened."

"Tell _him_ that."

"I did. But you need to understand that whoever put the idea into yours or your friends' heads set up a trap. You heard us talk earlier. They want to capture you or one of your friends to get access to this plane. Because you can come here."

"I would never tell them."

"That may be. You are so brave and clever. But what they'd do to you is inhumane. It's horrible. They'd chain you up, drain your power, and emasculate you. Do you know what that means?"

He tried to look skeptical, but he nodded.

"Someone, someone you or your friends trusted, gave you those coordinates and suggested the joy ride because they were willing to sacrifice you or one of your friends. If you protect that person, it could be one of your friends being chased next time. Or some other kid who didn't know what he or she was getting into. And someday, after they've captured who knows how many children using such a method, they will find one of them they can scare to show them how to come back here."

"I don't want to be a snitch," he said, his face mutinous but tears starting in his eyes.

She pulled him into her arms. "I know, but your father's job is to protect you and your friends. And, in a case like this, where children are being targeted by someone ruthless, someone who is definitely not your friend, the best thing you can do to protect your buddies is to tell him everything you know."

"It wasn't supposed to be dangerous," he wailed. "I didn't mean to get you in trouble."

"Never mind me. If someone hadn't set you up, it probably wouldn't have been dangerous."

"Will my friends go to jail?"

"No," Roze said, without so much as a glance at Port. "Though Port may have to tell their parents. But the one that is trying to harm you, he needs to be put in jail. For your friends' sake."

Paul breathed in and then out carefully. "I don't know where the idea came from. I mean, I know it was Jac's notion, he's the one that told us, but he didn't say where he got it and I wasn't gonna ask. It was Stult, Jac, Dux and me. We met behind Cooter's Smoke Shop. He always lets us have some even though we're not of age."

"You'll stunt your growth," his father said, perhaps automatically because he flinched right after he said it. "You're not of age yet."

Paul snorted. "And I guess you waited until you were of age?"

"When I was your age, we hadn't heard of smoking, but your point is taken. Did Cooter suggest it?"

"I don't know but I don't want to get Cooter into trouble. He provides smokes to half the guys in my grade!"

"I will take note. I'm going to have to talk to the other boys. You are grounded at least until I get back and can serve your time surfing the web and trying to find underwear and more sedate clothing for Roze." He paused and smiled down at Roze in a way that warmed her to her toes. "Not that she doesn't look smashing in what you bought her. I take back my comment about your color-blindness. Pink is definitely her color. Let me fix your hair." His clever fingers buried themselves in her hair before she could answer.

"How many times in one day will you make me blush?"

"I don't know. Is there a record? I'd love to beat it."

"Roze, are you going to help me find you underwear?" Paul asked, interrupting them.

"No, Paul, she's coming with me. She's proven that she's damn useful when it comes to questioning young punks like you. Now get to work."

"Doesn't he have school?"

Whatever he'd done, he finished and smoothed back her brow. "He does but it's the summer break. That's why he and his friends were so bent on trouble. Shall we?"

He bowed her to the door which swished open without a word.

"Can anyone control that?"

"You are always full of questions. They can if I give them permission." He murmured something to the house.

"Do you know the boys we're going to talk to?"

"All too well. They're not bad boys, per se, but they have too much time on their hands."

To Roze's surprise, he didn't go immediately to Jactatio's house, but instead visited the other two boys named for corroboration. Audux—Dux—was even more stubborn than Paulum, standing up to even Roze's arguments, until his mother joined in. Clearly shocked at the danger he'd been in, she said only, "Some monster preying on boys like you and you'll protect them? You'd best be hauling my boy off to prison, Port."

Audux caved and tearfully told the same tale Paul had said, adding that Jac and Cooter had been awful close for a year or so and he thought it a little weird. Port and Roze left Audux under the baleful eye of his mother and hurried to Stultus' house. But Stultus, it turns out, was not well-suited for secret-keeping and he looked well scolded, blubbering and sniffling, when they arrived. In fact, his mother was asking for a line to the police when they knocked.

Port had to withstand a blistering diatribe by Stultus' mother about children needlessly put at risk and given illegal substances by adults, and, if he wasn't going to do something about it, he could bet _she_ would. Port accepted it stoically and left after a cursory questioning when it was clear that Stultus had told the same story and knew no more than Paulum did.

Port's mouth was grim. "You don't really think a boy like Jactatio is a party to this do you?" she asked, putting her own interpretation to his expression.

"Maybe not," he said. "But Jactatio has lived up to his name more than once."

Roze said nothing for a moment as they walked the short distance to the last house. "Interesting how so many of you have Latin names."

"You noticed, did you? Old habits die hard, especially when there are still old folks that remember Roman times fondly."

"Hmm," she said. "Makes me wonder where a shop owner got a name like 'Cooter.'"

Port stopped, turned to look at her and then wandered to the nearest house. "Get me a line to President Portens."

"I figured you'd be calling me," his mother answered instantly. "Titus has disappeared. I don't know if he wandered off to the mountains, got someone to shuttle him to another plane, or what, but we can find no trace of him. They're digging into his last known financial records, a judge finding that curious enough to provide warrants."

"While they're digging, see if they can find anything for a property currently being used as 'Cooter's Smoke Shop,'" her son suggested.

"I will," she said. "Have you found anything solid?"

"I have found something semi-solid, but from three different sources. Mom, if he did this, he's a monster."

"If he did half of what you told me, he'll find his end in the fire."

"If he did half the things I think he did, that will be far too good for him. Port out."

He mused another moment and then surprised Roze by taking her hand as he continued walking. "Are you precognitive?"

"I don't think so. My mother said I had an odd way of looking at things and a logical bent that made people uncomfortable," she answered.

He pulled her hand up into his crooked arm. "It doesn't make me uncomfortable. It amazes me. Now stand back at this next house. Jactatio has been known to be violent."

"Where are his parents?"

"Lost them both to the war. Keeps up his grades, so, when he petitioned to be treated as an adult, it was granted."

"There's more to growing up than grades."

"So I told the judge. He's been close friends with Paul since they were both Paul's size and, in fact, I offered to take him in, but he refused. Hard for me to think he set up my son." He knocked on a small house door.

"Then don't think it until you have no other choice," she said tartly. "Poor boy."

Port was startled into a laugh that hadn't quite evaporated when someone opened the door. The someone was a demon nearly Port's size and girth. He was intensely red with a pointed chin, pronounced canines that extended over his full lips, red eyes and black horns that grew in a curl out of his bald head. "I knew it," the boy said fatalistically. "Paul snitched."

"Going to let me in, Jac?"

The boy rolled his eyes but didn't seem too upset as he stepped back. "Paul get back okay?"

"He did, but he almost didn't," Port said. "He was nearly caught by human vigilantes who were looking specifically for demons."

Jac's jaw dropped. " _For_ demons? Like they were _expecting_ us?"

"Why did you make a portal as soon as you got there?"

"Man, I always do. Dux and Stult could pass for human with only a little effort. Even Paul can pass for a cat if he needs to. You know I'm no good at shapeshifting. One look at me, and they're grabbing the torches and pitchforks, building a bonfire. That's not how I want to go."

Roze was certain he was sincere. All Port had to do was ask the boy about Cooter, and she was sure he would get a useful answer. But Port was still stiff. He didn't believe him.

"Why did you leave Paul behind?"

"He was too far off, gone to look at an owl or some such. I hustled Dux and Stult back through my portal as soon as I heard voices and whispered to Paul to make a portal as soon as it was safe, but I don't know if he heard me. I didn't think he was in danger. I mean, it was dark and what were the odds that someone would spot him for a demon?"

"Do you expect me to believe that?"

Jac's tone had been completely composed and open until then, like a kid who'd been caught but didn't much care about the consequences, but he sat up at that, his face stunned. "You don't honestly think I'd take my best friend into a trap, do you? Paul?"

She heard it, the hurt, the pain. Before Port could answer she stopped him with her hand. "Those cigarettes you were smoking," she said to Port, thinking back to the wisp of smoke she smelled and what her brain had been making of it since. "Did it have hops in it?"

"Yes, but this isn't—"

She shushed him. "You're about to make a mistake you'll regret the rest of your life. Give them to me."

"A cigarette?"

"All of them." He handed her the case, his grim face now baffled. As was Jac's.

"Do you have anything fireproof I could use?" she asked Jac. Jac sheepishly handed her an ashtray, a clean one, while she broke open the cigarettes and fished around for hops. She brushed the rest away and left the hops on the ashtray, then set it aflame with a blink while muttering a few words. The flame was a soft yellow-green. "Now, anytime anyone tells a knowing lie, even a small one, it will turn blue. Like this. I'm only eighteen years old."

The flame shot blue momentarily and then went back to its original color.

"Now, Jac. I don't know you. Did you know you were going to be ambushed?"

"No," Jac said emphatically.

"Did you know Paul would be in danger?"

"No way!"

The flame did nothing more than flicker with the power of his breath but never changed color.

But some of the damage was already done. Jac looked at Port with heartbroken eyes. "I thought of you like an uncle. I can't believe you'd—you'd—" and he started sobbing in earnest.

Port sat, taut as a bowstring, for maybe five seconds before he leapt forward and enveloped Jac in a hug. "I'm sorry, boy. I'm sorry. I almost lost my son and it made me crazy. I didn't mean it. I really didn't."

"I'd never hurt Paul," Jac said, snot and tears running down his face unnoticed. "He's my best friend."

"It's okay. I know you didn't do it to hurt him. I'm sorry I ever thought it." But he sat back and looked Jac directly in the eyes. "But whoever suggested it to you or, even if it was your idea, who gave you the coordinates, set you boys up. They were hoping to catch a demon, a young demon, and have him lead the humans to this plane."

Jac looked at him, first blankly, then in growing horror. "That bastard!" he shouted, leaping to his feet and storming for the door. "I'm going to kill him with my own two hands."

Port grabbed his arms and held him back while Roze asked the key question. "Who, Jac? Who gave you the coordinates? Who told you the best time to go?"

"Cooter. He runs a smoke shop."

"Yeah, we know," Port said. "But this is not in your hands anymore. It's in mine. You are not to go storming over there or in any way warn him, you hear me, Jac?"

"Like I'd warn the bastard if you've got your sights on him." He took a deep breath. "I shoulda known something stank. He knew I liked to check out the human world and was always giving me coordinates. I had another friend whose dad knew the best sites. My friend used to give 'em to me, interesting ones like the Taj Mahal and Pyramids, like that shit. But his dad found out his son was sharing them and shut that down. That's when I started listening to Cooter's. But, seemed like each time I went, it'd be someplace ordinary and I'd barely be there a few minutes before someone would show up, and I'd have to hightail it back. I'd taken Dux and Stult before, but I didn't want to take Paul 'cause I knew you'd light into me if I got him hurt. But he begged and begged to go. I honestly never thought he'd get in trouble."

"I believe you, Jac," Port said. "You didn't happen to write down the coordinates he gave you, did you? These and maybe some from before."

"I did. I don't like to go noplace twice so I keep a list," Jac said, going to a bin and searching through something that might have been paper but she didn't think was.

"Smart lad," Port said with obvious sincerity. "Smart to do the portal thing right away, too. I'm sorry I doubted you." He hesitated. "Would you be willing to testify?"

"Would I? I'd be willing to take a blowtorch to him. I'll testify."

Port looked up. "Line to President Portens."

"Your hunches seemed right on the money," she said at once. "Cooter started his business three years ago, buying up one of Titus' properties for a hundredth of its value just before Titus disappeared. We're getting Titus' bio record. Bet it matches Cooter if we bring him in. Also, it turns out that Cooter is a big-time correspondent with several high honchos in the human world, in several countries. Don't know what he's been saying—it's all encrypted—but we're working it. We will know shortly."

"When you do, I bet you you'll find these coordinates that he gave some middle schooler so he could be ambushed. If the kid wasn't smart enough to make a portal every time he went in case of emergencies, they might have a demon in their possession even now."

There was a pause. When the voice spoke again it was clearly through clenched teeth. "Go get that bastard, Port. I'm sending backup now. Don't let him get away."

"You got it, Pres. Port out."

Port winked at Jac. "We'll get him, buddy. Thanks for your help. And, come over for dinner once in a while. And take care of Roze." He went to a wall with markings and started manipulating it with magic.

"Don't leave me behind, Port," she said.

"You should stay here," he said. "It's going to be dangerous."

"Please. I'll stay outside."

He must be a sucker for older women. She only stared him down for a few seconds before his shoulders slumped and he gestured her through the now active portal. "Promise to stay back," he whispered in her ear.

It wasn't quite enough to distract her from the disorientation of the portal so, instead of answering, she tried to swallow her gorge. No more portal trips unless she was kissing someone.

They were behind a small shop, also made of the same crystal but parts of it seemed in disrepair either through impact or maybe sun damage. It gave her a feeling of neglect.

"Now," said Port, in a voice of authority. "You wait here, no matter what. I'll be waiting, too, until backup arrives. This is a demon and demons are dangerous blokes." He grinned at her. "Me especially. But he's also a crafty old demon, and we've established that he doesn't fight fair. don't want you hurt in the crossfire."

Port started studying a small device on his wrist that looked a lot like a watch without being one. He'd also glance at the roads to either side in case he spotted some of his backup. Because of that, Roze was the only one who noticed someone sneaking out the back door with some sort of hat of invisibility on or something. She wouldn't have noticed it herself, but he was a tall demon and the hat brushed the porch roof as he passed underneath, setting it askew.

"Port, is that him?" she hissed.

Port replied with near-silent cursing she took to be affirmative. He waved her behind him and stealthily crept behind the distortion she now knew was Cooter in his stealth guise who, in turn, strolled toward the road. Port was nearly within arm's length when he shouted, "Halt in the name of the law, Cooter aka Titus!" With a wave of his hand, the hat of invisibility was sent spinning down the street.

The demon was very pale and somehow repulsive. It wasn't his aristocratic features so much as the twisted, hateful expression on them. She didn't like him. "Portens the younger, is it? Sent to take me out all on your own? Don't make me laugh." The demon roared with apparently genuine laughter. His body was naked but he carried a briefcase. As he spoke, nine tails sprang out of his ass and he opened the case to show some unsightly contraption that Roze felt sure was some sort of weapon.

Port also sprouted a number of tails, four in his case. He didn't act the least bit cowed. "You think I'm afraid of you, old man? My grandfather kicked your butt when he was a boy. And then my mother did it again, more than once."

"Nice end your grandfather came to, didn't he?"

Port growled and Roze remembered that Paul's great-grandfather had been on the old plane when the humans had killed everything. "And all this time you were behind it. Millions of demon lives lost. Humans, too. All for what? Revenge? Some crazy notion that you could get power again?"

Port licked his lips and clenched his fists. "It's my turn to take you on."

Was he stalling in hopes backup would arrive? That would be smart but what if they didn't come? What could she do? _Think. Roze, think_. What was that spell her grandfather had taught her? No time to be squeamish. She squatted on the loose soil and hoped it worked like the soil in the human realm. Using her pee, she made a doll out of mud, whispering magic words as she worked. The smoother it was, the stronger it would be, less prone to break. Then, as she was finishing, she chanted the word her grandfather had told her never to use more than three times. "Bigger," but she wasn't stopping until her golem was taller than Titus. Somehow, Port had kept the demon talking.

She spat on the golem and said, "Take the white demon."

The golem, now a good three meters tall, lumbered forward, jerkily and slowly, but it was something. Even if it was only a distraction, it might be enough to help Port.

"What in Satan's bathtub is that monster?" Titus screeched and aimed his weapon in its direction. Which wasn't entirely a good thing since Roze was behind the golem.

She threw herself on the ground as Port used the opportunity to spring and wrestle the weapon from Titus' grasp. Throwing it to the side, the gun went off and evaporated most of Cooter's shop and a good bit of his neighbor's. Port grabbed Titus by the front and spun him so the golem came up just behind him and grabbed him, squeezing Titus in his thick hand-less arms.

"Sacred soil, bind," Port said, and the golem stopped moving but Titus seemed immobile in its grasp. Port began making symbols in the air, that plastered one on top of the other in increasing intensities of white light until he said. "By the power granted me by this government, I apprehend you in the name of the law." As he finished, both the golem and Titus were bound in a white box.

Port sighed. "Well, that should hold him until backup _finally_ arrives," he said as two dozen bristling demons with weapons and armor appeared. "Take the prisoner into custody. Get statements from Audux Duri, Jactatio Dolor, and Stultus Vultus. Tell the chief that I'm going home to clean up and I'll send my report within the next two hours along with a statement from my son."

"You're kidding," one of them said.

Port looked down on him. "Do I look like I'm kidding? That human there was an unwitting victim of this demon and I need to get her home safely. Got it?"

The demon looked at Roze, grinned and then winked at Port. "Yeah, I believe I do." Port nodded and walked away.

"Didn't I tell you to stay back?" Port asked her as he approached her.

"I did," she said, picking herself up from the ground but was unable to dust herself off with her hands in their current state. "Don't hold my hands. They're disgusting."

"I don't need your hands," he said, picking her up, squeezing her and kissing her with fiery abandon. His mouth was hot, his lips were wickedly decadent, and she thought she might just burst into flame.

"That was intent?" she managed when he pulled his lips away.

"It's the start of it. Marry me."

"You just met me this morning."

"I know. I held off as long as I could."

"I'm more than forty years old, too old to have children."

"Nonsense. Demon healthcare is second to none. Most humans here live into their six hundreds. And have children the first four hundred of them."

"I don't know anything about raising demons."

"You've been a better mother to Jac and Paul than either of their mothers have ever been."

"You're exaggerating. And you guys still have some problems to deal with. The captive demons. The people trying to get access to this plane..."

"How much harder it will be to find human and magical mates... Help us."

"Actually, I might be able to help with that."

Email: _To my trusted friends. We've been lied to about the demon war. If you're tired of being pushed into doing things that make you uncomfortable or fear becoming a target, feel free to contact me_ _here_ _. I can help._

About the Author

"We're all mad here." - Lewis Caroll

My name is Stephanie Barr and I write books, fantasy and science fiction and combinations thereof. A lot of them. My website (with my list of books available) can be found at stephanieebarr.us. I'm also a rocket scientist, raising my two autistic children as a single mother, and herding a bunch of cats. I have three blogs, which are sporadically updated: Rocket Scientist, Rockets and Dragons, and The Unlikely Otaku. Anything else even vaguely interesting about me can be found in my writing since I put a little bit of myself in everything I write—just not the same piece. Those pieces are all parts of my characters such as:

**A four hundred year old shut-in who reads fortunes and a care-for-nobody demon with a scruffy cat** [Tarot Queen]

A **mercenary swordsman cum sorcerer and a rule-abiding self-assured sorceress/warrior who never asks for help, and, of course, six snarky telepathic kittens**. [Curse of the Jenri] or

**A clever thoughtful young man who thinks he's weak who can turn into a dragon and a sweet generous young healer who knows her own worth and wields a dangerous wooden spoon** [Beast Within \- Bete Book 1] or

**A pugnacious firebrand who can think well in a crisis but feels in the shadow of his foster brother and a sharp-eyed, sharp-tongued engineer with a lightning temper and even quicker mind with even more snarky telepathic kittens**. [Nine Lives \- Bete Book 2] or

**A clever teen pursuing an older woman finds himself and all his friends captured by unfriendly natives who rip his powers away with their potions so he'll have to use his brain to escape as a self-righteous snake finds his notions challenged first by a tiny psychic kitten, then by a native of indeterminant gender.** [Twice the Man – Bete Book 3] or

**A teenage technological genius, short on social skills but long on dedication to those he loves and a scrappy girl who punches first and asks question later** [Saving Tessa] or

**A by-the-book analyst finds herself on the wrong side of the government she's always worked for and, with her crazy companion, takes it down. **[Ideal Insurgent **]** or

**A dragon-raised hermity mage who's given up on the world and a former slave who doesn't know the meaning of the word impossible** [Taming of Dracul Morsus] or

**A rocket scientist who finds a moment of anger turns into changing the world and she needs to do more or it will fall to darkness and she has a number of crazy men to help her** [Catalyst] or

**A repressed scholar finds the ultimate treasure, a library where the books can literally take you into other words. Coming back, however, is something else.** [The Library at Castle Herriot] or

L **iterally dozens of other characters in my anthologies** [Legacy and Conjuring Dreams: Learning to Write by Writing] **and my book of poetry** [Musings of a Nascent Poet]. **And many more feline friends to find in** Pussycats Galore **, another anthology.**

Website: http://stephanieebarr.us

Twitter: <http://twitter.com/stephanieebarr>

Facebook: <https://www.facebook.com/stephanieebarr>

Smashwords: <https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/786144>

My blog: http://stephanie-barr.blogspot.com

Or sign up for my newsletter: <http://eepurl.com/dqUBxn>

Preview of _Add a Cup of Chaos_ , coming June 23.

Chapter 1 – Near Miss

_Slavery has always been inherently evil, but too often it's forgotten until those oppressed show their power_. – A Mother's Wisdom _by President Prudens Portens_

By 2163, magic had become mainstream. Magical folks once scoffed at or even hunted became accepted members of society—to a point, with an expectation to contribute their special skills to society. Vampires, shifters, witches, fairies, psychics, were welcomed and put to use. Demons, however, were eradicated in their home dimension and not included. Instead, a few stragglers had been enslaved to provide magical energy for the North American Conglomerate (NAC) government.

Well, that was the government line most of the world believed and the same one the press used, but there was more to it than that. Not that Elizabeth Parker showed anyone a sign she didn't quite buy the party line. That was dangerous indeed, and not only because she was a sorceress, one of those that used the magic of the enslaved demons to do the will of the government.

She pushed a tendril of her magic onto the sensor and it opened at her unique signature. She passed first under the metal detector and then the magical weapon detector before going through the corridor that would power her up for her day's activities.

Once again, the pleasure from the well of magical energy the demons provided—delicious really, for a sorceress who had to build magic within herself to be effective—warred with the guilt of knowing exactly how miserable the existence was for the demons literally chained in the dungeons below. She doubted her coworkers knew or, if they did, that they cared, but her knowledge couldn't help but make use of their power a little complicated for her.

She reached the end of the corridor, energized, and went through the sliding doors into the ante room that led to the four different areas of control: Weather, Defense, Law Enforcement, and General Well-Being. She passed her green ID in front of the detector by Weather and slipped through as the door opened.

"Yo, Liz," Wayne said with his too friendly wave. "Thought you wouldn't make it."

Elizabeth, Beth to friends, hid her irritation at that particular nickname. "I'm not likely to let a rainstorm of my own making stop me," she said in an unencouraging voice.

"I know, right?" Wayne said with a chuckle that was just as legitimate as he was. "But you know how paranoid management is with the growing free-the-demons movement underground. If anyone's even a couple minutes late, they get suspicious."

The clock chimed the hour as he spoke, and she slid into her desk and woke her computer with a breath. "I am never late," she said. "Nor stupidly early. Always exactly on time." She feigned attention on her screen so she could catch his sour expression with the corner of her eyes. Still jealous. He was a sorcerer in name only with just the barest modicum of power he used primarily to allow himself to lap up the powers of others. If not for his pronounced sycophancy, he probably wouldn't have made it for two weeks, since theirs was a job that generally weeded out the weak. But demon power was a great leveler and he spent every free moment with his nose up someone's butt, so he'd managed to stick it out two years.

She shook her head to dispel her thoughts. He didn't matter.

The screen scrolled up with detailed instructions on what weather to put where today. She sighed. She'd sent multiple memos that they couldn't just give rain to the farmers and leave the mountains untouched no matter how many tourists wanted clear days. That snow would be needed in spring or there would be water issues. She wondered if she could sneak in a blizzard overnight, but someone would be sure to complain if they were snowed in. Maybe she could convince one of the ski establishments to complain they would be short the snow they needed. Maybe management would listen to _that_.

She took three calming breaths so her body, crackling with stolen power, wouldn't decide to lash out on its own. _Just do what they want_ , she told herself, _or you'll lose any chance of freeing the demons_.

Not that the odds were good. She'd been working here three years and, aside from bribing someone once to let her walk through the demon "pens", she'd found no hints on how she could free them. Some days, she wished she didn't know, could just take her stolen power and use it like everyone else. Ignorance and bliss and all that, but, since she wasn't ignorant, her conscience wouldn't let her pretend it was okay. She'd seen their empty haunted eyes, their color turned from healthy pinks and red to gray, smelled the squalor of people who no longer cared. She couldn't just let herself be part of that without making some effort to change it. No one, not even a criminal, deserved to be treated like that.

No sentient being. And they had been, once. Hard to tell if they still were.

She swallowed back her gorge. She couldn't do anything yet and, even when she did, she'd have no choice but to follow them to the demon world, the _new_ one the government did not have access to. Aiding a demon was a capital crime and, every time she thought of that, she wondered at her own daring to consider it. But her aunt had done it, helped a small child-demon who had wandered into their realm and escaped to the demon world—she called it Orbis—as a result. Roze had been the one to explain the real situation to her and she made Orbis sound charming and exciting. Then again Roze was an herb-witch, married to a demon and producing a dozen demon children. She wasn't exactly objective.

But if an herb-witch had the fortitude to save a demon, how could Elizabeth, a full-fledged sorceress, fail to do her best as well?

Her fingers paused. A frisson of fear went down her back and she tried to shake it off. She'd nearly sent the rainstorm over the fields of squash and corn and into the mountains despite her best intentions. _Focus_ , she reminded herself. She typed the command and gathered the power so she could add the spell that would make her commands reality when the silence was split with a strident claxon. _Invasion!_

_Were the demons coming for their own at last?_ Hardly had that thought crossed her mind when the power was wrenched from her body forcibly, leaving only her own natural talent. Fortunately, she had not finished her incantation and wasn't overdrawn, as it were, on her power. That would have been a good way to implode.

A thin scream from the neighboring cubicle made her rise and turn just in time to see Wayne—not so lucky—wheeze out his last as his spell pulled the very bonds of life from his body, leaving only dust.

Well, that was unpleasant. She wondered what had caused the demons to pull their power. Were they helping the invading demons or was Central just channeling all their energies against the invaders?

She sat back down and made three calm messages, first that the disruption of power made it impossible to perform the magic tasks set to her. She closed her eyes after sending that to give the storms—already on their way to the mountains—another little nudge. Might as well take the opportunity to help the ecosystems involved. Even so, she hadn't used just her own magic in some time so even that nudge drained her unexpectedly. Secondly, she sent an email to dispatch wondering when she could expect a return of magic. Before she sent the third, she scanned the news, hoping for insight into the specifics of the invasion, but there were no details, including the source of the invasion. Instead, citizens were advised to shelter in place and await further instructions. So she sent the third asking, diplomatically, what the hell had just happened and informed them that at least one of her fellow sorcerers had died as a result.

And then she waited. She waited for power to return but it didn't. Would she need to return to the empowering corridor? She didn't know when she'd felt so bereft, not even after a long and busy day, not even after the time she'd been one of four sorcerers battling a freak hurricane into the night. Perhaps, when they had withdrawn the demon power, they'd snagged some of her power with it. She felt drained. And vulnerable. If it was the demon populace attacking, they weren't likely to believe she was on their side. She didn't think she could conjure the tiniest thunder bolt. She'd have to gather up what static electricity she could and hope for the best.

Around the room, the other weather sorcerers were silent at their desks, eyes wide and wary, hands idle, and faces pale. What was happening?

She could feel tension building, but she couldn't identify the source. There was power nearby in play—that she could feel—and an energy like the power she could always sense prior to a storm, a big one. But she didn't know the source of either or what their growing power meant. She wanted to scream, anything to alleviate a bit of the tension from just not knowing. Ignorance wasn't always bliss it seemed.

There was a pressure, and the hairs stood up all over her body as if she was in a strong electric field. Somewhere, outside her direct sense, a power struggle was going on and their survival, she felt, would depend on who won—only she had no idea who the combatants were.

Someone on the other side of the room laughed with an edge of madness. Not a scream, but she felt sympathy. She felt the scream build in her own throat and, just when she thought she'd have no choice but to let it loose, the tension broke as if it had never been She no longer felt two great powers struggling but no power at all, not even the soft sense of power that had always vibrated under her feet, stray energy from the demons below, she'd always thought.

The floor was still. The claxon silenced. Messages popped up on screens. Work was canceled for the day due to technical difficulties. Report back in the morning. Her fear had dissipated with the tension, but a different kind of dread mingled with her insatiable curiosity to leave her feeling unsatisfied as she gathered her things and shut down her station. The other sorcerers, often with furtive glances at the seat where once Wayne had worked, looked equally bewildered and somehow unmoored. Just how dependent had they all been on the demons?

As they siphoned back through the empowering corridor, Elizabeth expected to feel a drop in the power available, but the corridor was still, lifeless, without so much as an erg of magic to share with half a dozen drained sorcerers. What did it mean? Her brain grappled with the question but felt as sluggish as her spirit.

Underground, she slid into the seat of her hover car, wondering if it would even work. But mundane magics like superconductors and electrified roadways were still functioning as designed. It gave her experience in Central a surreal quality, as if it were a dream rather than an actual event. Was she sleep walking? Would she get fired? Another of her coworkers darted into the traffic just ahead of her. At least she wasn't alone in her delusion.

She kept running the past events through her head, letting her car go on auto to take her to the apartment that had once been her Aunt Roze's at the top of an old-fashioned apartment building only five stories high. She stumbled into the elevator and leaned against the cool metal wall. The events of the day had taken far more from her than she expected. She began to think they really had drained off some of her natural power. Right now, she wanted a whole pizza and a nap, Maybe not in that order. She ordered a loaded pizza—hold the onions—on her wrist phone before the elevator opened its doors. She stumbled into the apartment, dropped her purse and her jacket on the couch, tripped forward another ten paces, or so and collapsed on the bed, asleep before she landed.

***

The insistent ringing of the doorbell, followed by knocking, woke her and forced her blearily to her feet. Who in the world knocked at the ungodly hour of, wait, eleven am? Oh, the pizza, right. She answered the door unenthusiastically, paid for the pie with a ping from her phone, and wandered back into the living room with the pizza, letting the smell wake her up a little. The more she smelled, the more hunger clamored over tiredness. She had a slice in her hand and was going to sit down when she saw the "special" light flashing at her computer.

She had a light for messages and notifications from the underground forums she was in, those fighting to remove the stigma on demons and get those captured freed. The upside of being in the magical community was that no one did you-can't-find-me encryption protocols like other magical folks. They were always happy to share that kind of technology for a song, too. The years where they were pursued and persecuted weren't so very far back after all.

But that wasn't what this light was. This was a message from the demon realm. Roze always picked a set hour, gave warning, and did a number of cleansing runs first before sending a message. If she sent one now, in the middle of the day, without warning, it had to be crucial.

Elizabeth swallowed the last if the first piece of pizza and picked up a second slice to eat as she read at her computer. The first words made her drop it, forgotten, to her desk.

"All of the demons on Earth are dead," Roze began.

