Taming Demons for Beginners (The Guild Codex: Demonized #1)(12)

I hurried back into the formal sitting room, then sank onto the nearest chintz armchair. This counted as leaving him alone, didn’t it? I whiled away ten minutes in the sterile room, re-reading my notes—forty-six reads now—until a door creaked open and voices spilled into the hall.

“Thank you for your patience,” Uncle Jack babbled, trotting behind Birdman and his hulking counterpart. “We’ll keep you updated—”

“Don’t contact me until the new demon is ready,” Birdman snapped. “Your time is almost up. Don’t waste it. I—and my superiors—do not enjoy disappointment.”

They hastened past the formal sitting room, and Claude came last, hands in his pockets and his lined face calm. He glanced into the sitting room as he passed, his expression unchanging though he must’ve seen me, then disappeared after the other three. Male voices rumbled terse farewells, then the front door opened and closed.

“We shouldn’t have lied to Karlson,” Uncle Jack fretted, his voice echoing off the entrance hall’s twelve-foot windows. “If they realize we’re no closer to negotiating with that demon than we were on day one—”

“Negotiations sometimes fail,” Claude replied evenly. “It’s a fact of summoning. Some demons aren’t willing to subjugate themselves.”

“Maybe you haven’t troubled yourself with the numbers, Claude, but we have a demon that’s never been summoned before. Karlson has already offered ten million for its name—but unless we can prove the demon has value, it’s worthless.”

“If this one won’t submit, we’ll summon another.”

Uncle Jack grunted angrily. Footsteps thudded, then he and Claude passed the sitting room on their way back to the office. A moment later, the door banged shut.

I listened to see if they’d return, then hurried away. Kathy was in the kitchen, and Amalia and Travis were in their bedrooms, meaning I didn’t have to worry about witnesses. I zipped down the stairs and, throwing the library door open with no caution whatsoever, strode into the sitting area. Pulling the Demonica guide out of its hiding spot, I turned on a Tiffany lamp and checked the table of contents, then flipped to page 212: the section on demon names.

Before summoning can commence, a demon name is required. These rare appellations are akin to lineages and correspond to demonic archetypes; demons of the same name share distinct size, form, and strength attributes.

Demon names are typically passed from summoner to apprentice but can also be purchased, though even the most commonly known names sell for prohibitively large sums. The rarest are carefully guarded by unbroken lines of summoners and cannot be purchased. With such a small number of names available—believed to be between nine and eleven—procuring one is among the greatest challenges a new summoner will face.





Wow. So that’s why Uncle Jack was so frantic over this demon. Karlson—his bird-like client, I was assuming—was offering ten million dollars for a new demon name, but unless Uncle Jack and Claude could prove it was valuable, they’d never see a penny.

Shadows, wild and alive, drifted around the ebony dome in the library’s center. The creature hidden in that circle was worth a sum of money that people would kill for, but it was refusing to negotiate or show itself. Uncle Jack had no idea what sort of beast they’d called into this world or how valuable this new “lineage” might be.

I carried the book to the circle and crouched two paces away. Balancing the open cover on my knees, I peered into the darkness for a glimpse of those crimson eyes.

“How long have you been here?” I asked. “In this circle?”

Like usual, the creature made me wait before responding. “Ask the other hh’ainun.”

“I’m asking you.”

“What did you bring?”

Nothing. I hadn’t baked today, nor had I thought to bring a treat to exchange for answers.

“I’ll bring you something tomorrow night,” I offered.

A long pause. “Ch. I see nothing except this room.”

Its statement confused me before I realized that was an answer. The library was windowless, meaning the demon had no way to gauge the passage of time. It didn’t know how long it’d been in the circle.

Did it even matter? Uncle Jack’s business dealings—illegal business dealings—were trouble I wanted no part in, yet a nagging prickle in the back of my head had me running through the men’s various remarks, searching for … something.

“The room warms and colds,” the demon said abruptly. “The other hh’ainun come in the warm. You come in the cold. Sixty-one cycles since the first.”

“Warms and cools,” I corrected automatically. The basement was warmer during the day, and the demon had counted the temperature fluctuations. Sixty-one days, which was … “Eight weeks and five days. You’ve been here for eight weeks and five days.”

Eight weeks in a ten-foot diameter dome in an empty room. An unpleasant twitch in my stomach made me swallow, but I caught myself. Did cruelty toward a demon really disturb me? The creature in that circle was a brutal, evil killer. Given the slightest chance, it would tear me apart. Then again, if someone had locked me in a tiny circle for weeks and weeks, I’d probably feel murderous too.

According to Uncle Jack, he had two weeks to get this demon to agree to a contract. Why the time limit? Why two weeks? I looked down at The Summoner’s Handbook. Demon names. Lineages. Secrets passed from summoner to summoner.