Taming Demons for Beginners (The Guild Codex: Demonized #1)(9)

“This is … food?”

“Yes.” I blinked bemusedly. “Did you eat them?”

Silence. Did that mean … yes? I had no idea how to interpret its lack of response. Who knew what long silences meant in demon conversation?

Oh god. I was having a conversation with a demon. I was crazy. I’d lost my mind. Stress-induced insanity. That had to be it.

The door called to me, but I felt tethered in place. It wasn’t fear that held my butt to the leather cushion and my socked feet to the hardwood floor. A new feeling had awoken inside me.

My archnemesis: curiosity.

A painfully familiar voice murmured in my memory.

“Oh, Robin,” my mother had laughed as she’d bandaged my scraped knees. I’d climbed a tree to look in a bird’s nest after reading about how sparrows care for their young, but had fallen on my way back down. “Curious and impulsive—it’s a volatile combination. You need to remember to think through your decisions.”

I thought I’d learned that lesson years ago, but even as I told myself I needed to leave, the demon’s quiet voice fed my thirst for knowledge, its words tinged with an alien accent—vowels sharp and crisp, consonants heavy and deep. A bit of throaty German and lilting Arabic, and a touch of rolling Greek.

A hundred questions crowded into my head. Where and how had the demon learned English? Why had it spoken to me? What was Uncle Jack trying to negotiate and why wasn’t the demon responding?

Or, even better, where had the demon come from? What was it like to be summoned to Earth? What sort of life had it led before this?

Don’t ever speak to the demon. Though Uncle Jack’s warning was easy to dismiss, I wasn’t about to forget my parents’ most important lesson: Stay away from magic. But my curiosity burned, and really, what was the harm?

“Um, demon?” I began tentatively.

Silence.

“Are you listening?”

Nothing.

“Helloooo? Demon?”

Not even a peep.

Disappointed, I slumped into the sofa. The demon had asked its one question and showed no further desire to communicate. Well, if it didn’t want to answer my questions, I’d get the information myself. Bending forward, I slid The Summoner’s Handbook from under the coffee table. As I settled back, I remembered my waiting snack.

Biting into a chocolate morsel, I opened the book to Chapter Three, “Summoning Rituals,” but the introduction was painfully dry. Craving something as intriguing as the demon’s voice, I began flipping the pages.

Chapter Twelve, “Negotiation and the Demonic Psyche.” I read the first page.

“Profoundly immoral and wicked.” The definition of evil is an apt description of the demonic psyche and should be kept at the forefront of a summoner’s mind throughout contract negotiation. A demon does not conceive of morality or integrity—though they can imitate those qualities to manipulate a summoner.

Remember, a demon’s ultimate goal is, always, your death.

The debate of inherent truthfulness has consumed the summoner community for centuries, but it has yet to be proven that demons are incapable of lying. It is safer to expect demons to lie, though they may avoid outright falsehoods. Do not assume a demon’s aversion to verbal fabrications means it is incapable of deception. Assume, instead, that the demon is both more cunning and more manipulative than you.

For these reasons and more, we recommend negotiations be brief and aggressive. The MPD’s recommended approach is outlined in detail in this chapter, and in later sections, we will address the best techniques for handling





The text cut off at the bottom of the page, but I didn’t turn it. My eyes lingered on the introduction. A demon does not conceive of morality or integrity … A demon’s ultimate goal is, always, your death … Assume, instead, that the demon is both more cunning and more manipulative than you.

“‘It has yet to be proven that demons are incapable of lying,’” I read in a mutter, tracing the line with one finger. “That’s interesting. Why would a demon with no concept of morality not lie?”

Absently nibbling another cookie, I skimmed the next page. More of the same—demons were wicked and bloodthirsty, demons enjoyed violence and death, demons were intelligent and calculating, and all the reasons those qualities needed to be considered during negotiations.

My brow wrinkled. I shouldn’t have skipped ahead. I still didn’t know what the summoners were so keen to negotiate.

I ran my finger down the page to a new paragraph.

A concept that demons and humans both grasp with ease, and upon which our recommended negotiation strategy heavily relies, is that of fair exchange. A demon is more likely to agree to a contract that is presented as the demon’s surrender in exchange for its life. Leveraging the Banishment Clause is a crucial element of this approach.





“That’s a crappy deal,” I mumbled. “Surrender or die? Lame.”

I nudged my glasses up my nose and read on, but my attention drifted disobediently to the summoning circle.

After what I’d read, I should have been terrified of the demon, yet I couldn’t work up more than fluttery anxiety. Maybe it was because the creature was hidden in that darkness and unable to reach me. How scary was a voice, really?

It wasn’t a monster. It was a fascinating curiosity. Another bird’s nest high in a tree.