Patricia Briggs - When Demons Walk

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When Demons Walk by

Patricia Briggs

WHATEVER IT WAS, IT WASN'T HUMAN…

"Master," she cried out.

At the sound of her voice, he turned toward her. Urgently he said, "Go child,

hurry. This is not your battle."

As she spoke, a broad red slice appeared on his upraised arm as if drawn there by

an invisible artist. Though she had caught a bare glimpse of something moving,

it was gone before she could tell what it was…

Her mouth firmed as another wound appeared, weeping blood down the side of

his crippled hand. She gestured, calling a simple spell of detection, hoping to

locate the unseen attacker, but the magic in the room was thick and obscured her

spell. The assailant seemed to be everywhere and nowhere at once.

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She tried a spell that should allow her to discover the kind of magic the assailant

used so that she could try un-working his spell. A cold chill rolled its way down

her spine as her spell told her that whatever else it was, it was not human…

This one's for my siblings who've all contributed to my books:

Clyde Rowland who introduced me to Dick Francis and Louis L'Amour; Jean

Matteucci who introduced me to Rice Krispies cookies, Mary Stewart and

Barbara Michaels; Ginny Mohl who introduced me to Andre Norton and Marion

Zimmer Bradley; and to my sisters' husbands Dan and Greg, for putting up with

me all these years. Love ya all.

Acknowledgments

This book owes debts to a number of people—

Dr. Virginia (Ginny) Mohl, MD, PhD—who put up with late-night phone calls

concerning a variety of gruesome topics.

Donald J. LaRocca, Associate Curator, Arms and Armor, Metropolitan Museum

of Art—who recommended a number of sources of information on swords, and

answered a vital question concerning Kerim's sword.

Jess Roe, swordsman, swordsmaker, and martial artist—who lets me pick his

brain at every con I see him at, and is largely responsible for all the authentic

details for the fights in this and future books. Any mistakes are mine.

One

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Sham sat on a low stone fence in the shadows of an alley pulling on her boots. In

the darkness that even the moonlight failed to reach, a sea breeze caressed her

hair. She drew in a deep breath of the fresh air.

Even the sea smelled different here in the hilly area of Landsend. The Cybellian

conquerors, like the Southwood nobles before them, had chosen to make their

homes far from the wharves. In Purgatory, the westside slum where Sham lived,

the ocean air smelled like dead fish, old garbage, and despair.

She stood up and ran her hands lightly over the silk of her courier's tunic to make

sure that the black and gray material hung properly. She had to fluff the opaque

sleeves twice to keep them from revealing odd bulges where she stored the tools

of her trade.

It was still early in the winter season, so the silk was warm enough if she kept

moving, but she was glad the trousers were made of heavier material. After

bundling her other clothes, she tucked them out of sight in the lower limbs of a

tree that graced the garden behind a wealthy merchant's house.

Messengers were common on the streets of Landsend, Southwood's capital, even

in the darkness of early morning. Female messengers were not, but Sham was

lightly built and, on the streets, could pass easily as a boy—as she had for the

last twelve years. Even the long braid that hung down her back was not out of

place. Only recently had the Southwood men begun to crop their hair like the

Easterners who had conquered them.

As she strode through the empty, moonlit street, she noticed a guardsman

standing near a cross street watching her. The east-city guards were as different

from the guards of Purgatory as the smell of sweetsalt was from rotting fish.

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Most of them were younger sons of Cybellian merchants and traders rather than

the glorified street thugs who were supposed to keep order in the less prosperous

areas of town.

The guard caught Sham's eye and she waved to him. He responded with a nod

and waited for her path to bring her nearer.

"Late night," he commented.

She noticed with hidden amusement that he was even younger than she'd thought

—and bored as well to talk to a mere messenger.

"Early morning, messire," she grumbled cheerfully in Cybellian, not bothering to

hide her Southwood accent since her white-blond hair kept her from claiming

Cybellian birth—as long as she chose to leave it uncovered.

He smiled agreeably and she continued past him, careful to keep a rapid straight

path and looking neither to the left nor the right until she'd traveled several

blocks.

The house she was looking for was on the end of a block, and she waited until

she'd turned the corner before giving it more than a casual glance. The hedge

was too high for her to see much of the building, but there were no signs of

occupation in the upper story. First checking to see if anyone was watching her,

Sham dropped to the ground and shimmied under the wall of greenery that

enclosed her target for the evening.

The manicured lawn was tiny. Land was expensive in this part of the city. The

tall greenery that surrounded it kept out the faint illumination provided by the

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street torches as well as the somewhat brighter light of the moon. Sham knelt

where she was, watching the dark mansion intently for movement that might

indicate someone was inside.

The three-storied edifice was newer than the hedge around it; the Eastern noble

she was robbing had purchased an old manor and had it torn down and rebuilt in

the Cybellian style as soon as the fighting had died down. Open-air windows on

the second and third floor might have been useful in the hot, dry climate of

Cybelle, but Landsend, despite its southern location, was wet and chilly in the

winter months as the ocean currents brought cold waters from the other side of

the world to the cliffs of Southwood.

She approved heartily of the new style of architecture; after all, she didn't intend

to live in it. The open windows, even shuttered, made her job much easier than

the closed, small-windowed native styles. As she studied the building, she

warmed her hands against her body. The night air was cool and warm hands

gripped better than cold ones.

According to her informant, the owners of this particular house were currently

enjoying a se'nnight at the hot pools a day's ride from Landsend. Some

entrepreneurial Cybellian had taken over the abandoned buildings there, turning

them into a pilgrimage temple to Altis, the god of the Cybellians.

The Cybellians didn't believe in the restless spirits who were responsible for the

abandonment of the old settlement. They called the native people "backward"

and "superstitious." Sham wondered if the protection of Altis would keep the

ghosts under control—and hoped that it wouldn't.

However, she wasn't going to wait for the Wraiths of the Medicine Pools to

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