Read Online Demon Games [4] by Steve Feasey - Free Book Online Page B

expletives and curses before turning to regard the vampire with a fierce glare.
    ‘Ruined,’ she said, gesturing at the pot behind her. ‘Do you see what you’ve done? Coming here uninvited like this. Are you happy?’
    ‘You knew I was coming, Hag. Do not pretend otherwise.’ He used the only name he’d ever known her by – the only name anyone knew her by. ‘Moriel sent word that she would be bringing me.’
    Hag shuffled towards him, moving into the dim light for the first time and looking down at him. She narrowed her eyes and ran her tongue over her toothless gums before settling herself into the chair opposite his.
    Lucien took in her face. It was ancient and unpleasant. Hag looked back at him, unblinking under the vampire’s scrutiny. She’d lived in this realm for as long as Lucien could remember, lured here from the human world by the prospect of uncovering lost secrets of the dark magic she’d studied so assiduously throughout her life. He had never known her look any different from the way she did now; if she’d discovered the elixir of everlasting youth, she’d done so too late.
    ‘And to what do I owe the pleasure?’ she said.
    Lucien opened his mouth wide, pulling his lips back to reveal the vicious fangs which hung down from his upper jaw. He hissed at the old woman, a sinister and threatening sound.
    The mandragore began to move out of its corner, but Hag halted it with a lift of her hand. If she was intimidated by the vampire, she gave no sign of it. Instead she tutted at herself, shaking her head, ‘Of course,’ she said, ‘how rude of me. I haven’t offered you anything.’ She pulled her grey hair back from her shoulders to reveal the scrawny, alabaster neck beneath. ‘Would you like something to drink?’ She laughed raucously, the ugly sound filling the room as if she had just told the funniest joke ever. She looked up into the vampire’s stony face, and the laughter slowly died away. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said once she’d got herself under control again. ‘Just an old woman’s silly sense of humour.’
    ‘As you can see,’ Lucien went on, this time holding up his hands, the backs facing the sorceress, so that she could see the talons there, ‘your magic appears to no longer be working.’ He returned his hands to his lap, and his pupils blazed a terrifying orange-gold that wiped any sense of mirth from the old woman’s face.
    There was a perfect stop, the animals all falling silent and remaining perfectly still; every one of them – even the frogs and newts in their aquatic prisons – stared unmovingly at the vampire. Lucien’s eyes held those of the sorceress. ‘I am not happy with this, Hag. And I do not appreciate your. . .jokes.’
    The old woman managed a small nod by way of an apology.
    After a moment the room sprang back to life again.
    Hag cleared her throat. ‘You must tell me what happened, Lucien,’ she said.
    Hag sat, listening to Lucien chronicle everything that had happened to him: how he had taken the lycanthrope boy, Trey, into his care; how Caliban had captured his daughter; and how he and his vampire brother had fought. He told her how the bite wound on his shoulder, and the infection that came about as a result, had nearly ended his life, and how he believed that the wound was the cause of what was happening to him now. He explained how Trey had stolen Mynor’s Globe from Caliban and brought it back.
    ‘. . . and that is why I am here now. To see if you can help me as you helped me once before.’
    The old woman sat silently throughout his narration, frowning here and there, but never interrupting. When it was clear the vampire had finished, she tipped her head back in her chair, running her tongue over her gums while she thought. When she leaned forward and spoke, her voice was little more than a whisper.
    ‘You are already dead, Lucien.’
    ‘Pardon?’
    ‘You described how you were in a coma-like state, and how you thought your brother’s