The Demon's Game Read online

  The Demon’s Game

  By Rain Oxford

  The Demon’s Game © 2015 Rain Oxford

  All Rights Reserved

  The Guardian Series Book 4

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Epilogue

  Chapter 1

  I knew three things; it was raining something thick and warm, it was pitch-black, and something very large was right behind me. Trying to face my opponent, I turned, only to trip over a root and fall hard on my back. My breath was knocked from my lungs, but before I could try to inhale, I got a mouth full of blood. It was raining blood.

  I had enough time to spit the iron-rich fluid out of my mouth before a creature pinned me to the ground with a single furry paw that spanned the entire width of my chest. I closed my eyes against the foul downpour and put up my arms to defend myself. Heavy, hot breath was my only warning before huge, sharp fangs sank into my right arm, effectively snapping my bone in two places. Heat burned all the way up my shoulder, but I didn’t scream. I had enough brain power left to decide I would rather be eaten alive than die by drowning in blood.

  As the beast began dragging me over thick roots and sharp rocks, the pain of his bite spread with each beat of my heart until my entire body was paralyzed with agony. As if he knew I couldn’t escape, the beast abruptly dropped me. Blind and in so much pain I couldn’t breathe, I rolled onto my back. It wasn’t a heavy rain, but the blood was sticky.

  Cramps struck my legs and abdomen, painful enough that I managed to feel them over the fire in my blood, before bones throughout my body started breaking with sickening cracks. My knees popped painfully. Skin and muscles stretched as my limbs reformed, tearing my clothes easily. My head throbbed with the worst migraine I had ever felt. The heat was unbearable, but the energy that ran through my blood was like lightning.

  Even over my anguish, I sensed the beast run.

  A sort of haze fell over me as the pain grew more severe and the change in my body grew stranger. By the time the torment faded, I felt very bizarre. I felt light and… quick. The blood rain no longer bothered me; I could breathe just fine. I climbed unsteadily to my feet, but it was on four legs instead of two. A quick glance down revealed that I was correct. Instead of arms and hands, I had front legs and paws. I wasn’t small, but I was shorter than my human form.

  The ability to see despite the fact that it was still dark was not as important as examining my new legs, which were covered in sleek black fur that was being saturated with blood. That isn’t good; I want my fur clean. Even more frustrating, however, was the shiny object on my right ankle. I had just enough awareness to recognize the thick metal cuff.

  * * *

  A furious hiss dug into the core of my instincts and tore me from my sleep, for this was not a warning I could ignore. I woke and sat up too fast, eliciting another expression of wrath from Shinobu. The hissing naowen at the foot on my bed with her claws outstretched and her teeth displayed had been my faithful, gentle pet for thirteen years, so her animosity confused me.

  “Get off!” Divina yelled sharply enough to startle both of us.

  Shinobu leapt from the bed to the bookshelf, then out the window. Only then did I realize my heart was beating too fast. My brain tried to rationalize her behavior by suggesting that it wasn’t her or that she was playing, but I knew better.

  “What’s wrong with her?” I asked Divina.

  She leaned her head on my shoulder, still half asleep, and I stroked my fingers through her black hair on reflex. “I don’t know.” Her voice was quiet but deep with drowsiness. “She’s a wild animal, and a very dangerous one at that. Maybe she’s getting old and senile.”

  “Do you think she’ll come back?”

  She sighed. “It’s better if she doesn’t. We’re not going to be back here for years. It’s much better for her to be free. What were you dreaming about?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t remember.” Every time something was about to go down, I had a dream that I couldn’t remember. I could feel that it was important, but it was gone as soon as I woke.

  * * *

  “You win.”

  Silence fell over the cabin. After a long moment in which each person questioned their hearing, everyone at once surrounded the table. Edward laid his cards out on the worn wooden surface and I followed suit. He gaped at my hand with disbelief.

  “You have nothing. Had you used any other card, I could have won the game. How did you know?”

  “I didn’t. I told you I was playing on instinct. I chose that card because it was red,” I said. The red hourglass was just way too ominous between the green dragon card and the tea card, so I wanted to get rid of it.

  Mordon laughed while Divina and Edward stared in shock. To our knowledge, nobody in all of history had ever beaten Edward at a game of cards.

  I was a little bit pleased that it was with Divina here that I won, since Divina and Edward were ridiculously competitive with each other. Ron and Hail were flabbergasted for all of half a minute before they returned to reading their books.

  “Did you do use math?” Mordon asked.

  “Edward doesn’t use a normal deck, so I don’t know how many of what faces there are. There’s no way somebody can cheat without magic using his cards, and if someone did use magic, he would know.” I held out my wrist to Ron. “Please take this off, sweetheart.”

  Ron easily took the metal bracelet off my wrist. At only about half an inch wide and an adjustable eight inches long, the silver bracelet with ancient symbols etched into its thin metal was deceptively powerful. I slipped the bracelet back into my bag with its twin.

  The magic-neutralizing tool we retained from Vretial was often used for silly tricks and games in our family. Mordon and I used them to compete with each other, but we had to stop because they prevented Mordon from shifting. Vretial made it so that only Ron and Hail were able to take the bracelets off a person, so our games left us pretty much defenseless without the boys.

  “Do we have to go to school tomorrow?” Ron asked, his bottom lip wobbling.

  Ron was about the cutest nine-year-old imaginable with disheveled chocolate-brown hair and moss green eyes. He was also an expert on begging, sweet-talking, and manipulation, like his mother. The difference between my adorable son and my lovely wife was that his eyes were very expressive. His lip wobbled, but his eyes weren’t sad.

  I leaned down to be at eye level with him. “If not you, then who? I guess I could go to school instead, but then you’d have to go to work at the hospital.”

  “I could do that!” he declared with excitement. Then he frowned. “But what would Hail do?”

  “Well, Hell would have to go to school.”

  Samhail had a thing about renaming everyone. Of course, I insisted on calling Kiro Edward, since it was his cover name when he introduced himself to me, so I was the pot calling the kettle black. In loving regards to his hellish rambunctiousness as a child, I called him Hell instead of Hail.

  Ron looked horrified. “Hail can’t go without me! He needs me! What if he has a vision?! If he’s going to school, so am I!”

  “If you insist, sweetheart,” I said, resigned. I loved my sons so much. Sometimes Ron acted his age, but he was growing up too fast and the rare moments where he acted like a little boy were o
ccurring fewer and fewer. “When are you going to Mokii?” I asked Edward.

  “I have about half an hour before I need to leave if I want to make the ship.”

  “It would be much faster to flash there,” I offered.

  He shook his head. “I’ve got to do things the mortal way. That’s how I get the information I need to solve cases. I make contacts with other everyday men.”

  My relationship with Edward had always been a little strained and confusing. It wasn’t because he treated me badly; quite the opposite. From the moment Edward took me as an apprentice, he was more like a father to me, and since he was the only father figure I ever had, it meant a lot to me. The problem I had was that men in my life were never worth looking up to until him.

  When I learned how to use my Iadnah energy, I tried to be more helpful to him. All I accomplished was putting distance between us. I thought we worked well together, and we did to a point. After a while I realized what was wrong; Edward needed a son he could be proud of, not a partner. It occurred to me that the reason Edward and Ronez could last for so many years without killing each other was that they lived on different planets.

  I just didn’t want to ruin our relationship.

  Divina ran her fingers through my hair, which was her way of giving me support without actually agreeing with me.

  “He’ll be fine. He’s been at this for more than two thousand years,” Mordon said.

  I nodded. “If you’re going soon, I guess we’ll be off, too,” I said, standing. “The boys need a good night of rest. Will you be over when you’re done at Mokii?” I asked.

  “Of course. I have no idea how you manage with all that technology, but I know you’re doing good.” He hugged me. “If you need me, you know how to find me.”

  * * *

  When the gates to the void started opening, I realized what I really wanted to do in life. I was a Guardian, which meant that I would defend my world against any threat, but my world wasn’t threatened every day.

  I was on Dios when they temporarily lost magic and had a major earthquake. When the underground civilization of magic users found themselves confused, injured and powerless, I did what I could to help them. It occurred to me then that there could come a time when I had no magic to help someone.

  I wanted to go through the training to be a doctor, but since my wife was a goddess, she offered me a faster method. Gods had a way of sharing knowledge directly that was far faster and more practical than speech. When I told her I wanted to be an emergency medicine doctor, she found three who were supposedly the best in the world and offered to copy their medical knowledge to me.

  I was very hesitant at first, because I thought it was immoral and… just really creepy. However, she explained it as the equivalent of reading every medical book they had every read and attending every class or seminar they had ever attended, in just a matter of seconds. Still, I wasn’t convinced this was a good idea.

  Divina sent me to Earth and let me trail these doctors for a few days. I wasn’t invisible so much as unnoticeable. It was a very interesting spell in which everyone could actually see me, but they wouldn’t realize I was there or look in my direction. Fortunately, it let me observe what they did every day.

  When the first doctor saved a life, I lost all hope and was certain I couldn’t do it. I thought I was better off leaving it to them. Then I saw the second doctor save lives, and I thought I could really learn from them. When I saw the third doctor lose one out of two dozen hopeless patients, I understood what Divina was trying to do. No one could save every single person, but out of the hundred people I saw these doctors help, I couldn’t have done a thing for them without magic.

  A few weeks later, I started working at a small hospital on Earth. Divina had given me the knowledge I needed and forged reasonable records… but I felt like a fish out of water my first day. I was afraid to go near a patient let alone help anyone.

  That changed the moment they rushed in a baby girl who wasn’t breathing. I didn’t even consider using my magic. Years of experience that wasn’t mine snapped into place and the only thing that was important was that I could help the baby. She came out fine.

  It took a month to get things ready to move to Earth after I decided to stay at the hospital. As a native of the world, it shouldn’t have been nearly that difficult to return. Getting the job at the hospital really was the easy bit. I also had to get records for Divina, Mordon, and the kids, then get the boys into school. I couldn’t homeschool them and work at the same time. Honestly, I wanted them to have the socialization and public school experience… I just hoped they took mercy on the little mortal children, for my boys could be a handful.

  Mordon wanted to get a job, too, but there wasn’t much for him to do. He was a prince on Mokii and a wizard on Shomodii, so it wasn’t like he had many useful job skills. In fact, he had very few social skills, because humans and sago were fairly different. I only tried to teach him to drive once and it took a hundred years off my life. He could handle technology, but he had no clue how to use a computer and he still couldn’t read English. Although I promised to find something for him to do, I could tell he was frustrated.

  Divina was suspiciously okay with whatever. She never complained or voiced an opinion, which just made me feel worse that I was uprooting our family. She said she was flexible, but I wanted her to be happy, and I knew she liked our life on Duran. I liked it, too, for that matter; I just wanted a little change of pace for a few years. The boys needed variety and I wanted to spend some time being a real doctor instead of just a healer. I also wanted Mordon to experience my home world.

  * * *

  My alarm woke me way too early… the sun hadn’t yet risen to chase away the morning chill. I smacked the alarm, more out of reflex than anything— one left over from my days in college. Unfortunately, I remembered that it was a stupid reflex as my alarm dropped to the floor and rolled away, still chirping. Now I had to get out of bed to shut the damn thing off. The wood floor was cold as I chased my wayward alarm. When it rolled under the bed, I contemplated fishing for it for about a second before I just unplugged it and dived back in the bed.

  It was an evil little impulse that made me reach my hands around my wife’s naked waist to warm them. As she shrieked, I laughed and pulled her closer.

  “Dylan!” she cried with outrage, trying to get away. “Why are you freezing?!”

  I finally let her go and she rolled over to look at me. “I had to get up for a minute. I’ve got to get ready for work. Do you think you can handle breakfast for the boys?”

  “Why do you have to get ready for work this early? Surely the hospital doesn’t make you come in before the sun is even up.”

  I laughed. “My hours could be a lot worse.” I leaned down to kiss her even as I pulled the blanket off myself. She wrapped her arms around me, deepening the kiss. I was so enthralled I didn’t even realize what she was doing until I was back in a horizontal position and she was on top. “We can’t do this,” I said, halfheartedly.

  “Fine.” She sat up and flopped over on the bed with her arms wide. “You can be on top, but you have to cook dinner tonight.” She said this with a teasing exasperation, as if she were giving up something monumental.

  “I can’t be late for work.”

  “We have plenty of time,” she argued.

  “We don’t have any time.” I got out of bed and started for the bathroom.

  “I’m a god, stupid.”

  I stopped at the door and looked at her, interested in her point despite the cold. If nothing else, it was helping the problem Divina left me with. “I’m aware of that,” I said, trying to think of something completely not sexy while looking at my gorgeous wife sprawled over the bed. The dark maroon of the blanket seemed to accent her flawless skin.

  She pushed up on her elbows, which emphasized her chest, and gave me the wicked grin I could never resist. “I can create a time bubble, we can go to the Land of the Iadnah, or we can even go bac
k in time and return here in a minute.”

  “You are a bad influence on me.”

  “I try.”

  I practically ran back to the bed.

  * * *

  I stepped out of the shower and dressed for work, eager to begin this new adventure with my family. I couldn’t help but to smile as Hail could be heard throwing a fit in the kitchen. Some things would never change, and it was a relief that the move hadn’t traumatized him. The last time my older son was on Earth, he was being hunted by a powerful demon.

  When the complaining stopped, I knew Ron had joined his brother and that Hail would be begging his brother to cook pancakes. I couldn’t really blame them; Divina was amazing at cooking up potions, but she had no talent for cooking food. I wasn’t much better, since my cooking experience consisted of bachelor food and grilled meat. Ron, however, was oddly skilled in the culinary arts. He could recreate any meal he tried, from the finest restaurants on Duran, and his imagination for food was ingenious. For his eighth birthday, I got him a cookbook from Earth, and since then I had to flash to Earth to get ingredients and equipment to fit his very specific standards.

  In the kitchen, I found my wife trying desperately to be motherly. She tried to be patient, but she just wasn’t built that way. While she would never hurt one of the boys, she had a history of walking out. Sometimes when the boys were arguing or playing, it would make her feel very mortal and that was something she couldn’t handle, so she would just get up and walk out for days or weeks. She loved them both, but she was too old, too powerful, and too much a god.

  I kissed her on the way to the coffee pot. Her long, silky black hair splayed across her face. She wore a black tank-top and shorts and I could feel the warmth of her skin as if she were calling me to her. If the boys weren’t in the room, I would have pulled her into my arms and probably been late for work. Instead, it took all the control I could muster to walk away and get my coffee.