Chapter Sixteen: Unwanted Help

~ Marie ~

The ride back to the house was silent. Marie took that time to relax since she knew it wouldn’t last for long. Adrian’s mind might be occupied for now but soon she would be peppered with questions. He pulled into her driveway and Marie opened her door to get out. She took two steps when he came up behind her and picked her up. 

“I can walk.” Why did he feel the need to carry her?

Adrian ignored her words as he stopped in front of the door and waited. She frowned as she reached out to touch it. The door popped open before slowly swinging in. Touch was all that was necessary for her to unlock the house. The spell on the house reacted to her presence and made the use of keys unnecessary. She didn’t even need magic, which was good considering her current condition. Adrian went inside and kicked the door closed.

“Let me down.”

“What do you plan on doing?”

“Research.” He stared at her for a moment before readjusting her. Adrian opened the door of the study and placed her on one of the chairs before he left. She could hear him heading into the living room.  Marie wouldn’t say it out loud but she didn’t even have the energy to get up and see where he went. The only thing she knew for sure was that he was still in the house somewhere. There was no way he was leaving without getting his questions answered. Marie sighed. It was better for her to focus on research until he returned. Why waste the time?

She was halfway through another book when she heard her name being called. Her mind was still on the book when she glanced up to see a black mug right near her face. Adrian stood there holding another mug, patiently waiting for her to take hers. Marie reached out and put the mug on the table in front of her. The smell of coffee helped wake her up. She took a sip while she turned another page. Marie stopped and stared into the cup. The taste was different from what she normally drank and the coffee was a lighter color than her standard black coffee. She took another sip and rolled the coffee around on her tongue as she tried to guess. It was sweeter than she normally drank it but it didn’t taste bad. Another sip was taken. Hmm. She wasn’t sure if she enjoyed it but she didn’t hate it so she kept drinking.

“Like it?” He had a small smile on his lips as he spoke. Adrian leaned against the nearest bookshelf as he sipped from his mug.

“What’s in it?” 

“Secret.” She frowned but he didn’t elaborate. “What was wrong with Noah?” His smile disappeared as he asked his question. Marie closed the book but kept her finger in the way.

“There were three parts to the spell on the stake. One kept him in a sort of suspended animation and prevented him from waking up or healing. The second part was basically a transmitter that sent out a signal to let the magic user know that the spell was still active. While the third part, which hadn’t activated yet, would have allowed them to kill him at any time." It was also a fail safe. If she didn’t pull the spell apart at the same time, it would have blown up in her face. She wasn’t going to tell Adrian that though.

“Basically, a bomb was in his chest.” Marie nodded as she took another sip of coffee. 

“Why was the house affected? Was that because of the spell too?”

“No. Something activated the defenses on the house and it tried to attack me but I took care of it.” Adrian frowned. It was only the active part of the defenses that had been dispelled. The other parts of the defense must've been active still or she would have been able to teleport. 

“Did you find out anything more on the circle?” 

“Yes. The demon wasn’t as powerless as I originally assumed. One of the script gave the summoner the ability to limit the amount of power the demon could use. So the demon could be as powerful as the summoner wanted them to be.”

“That doesn’t seem wise.”

“It isn’t. It puts the summoner in a risky position.”

"How?"

"The demon can trick the summoner into thinking they need to use more power than they need. Depending on how gullible the summoner is, the demon might try to take greater liberties. If a summoner doesn't pay attention, they run the risk of becoming a sacrifice themselves." 

"That can happen?"

"They are contacting a demon."

"I thought you told me before that there are standard protections in place within the circle itself. How can a demon kill the summoner? And why would he want to?"

"The problem is that they’re standard. They've been used for so long the demons probably know them by heart. Easy to look for loopholes when you see the same thing over and over." Marie opened the book to the page she was on. "As to why... A demon wants death. They don't care where it comes from. If they can get more, they will."

“There are still two scripts that need to be deciphered, correct?” He leaned over and picked up one of the papers that were sitting on the table. “This is a copy of the scripts?” He slid the paper closer to her.

“Script.”

“What?” 

“It's script. Like fish or sheep. The plural form is the same as the singular form.” Adrian gave her a lopsided smile before bringing her attention back to the paper. 

“Which of these script need to be deciphered still?” He gave extra emphasis on the word to show he understood. Marie moved more of the papers around till she found a pencil. She pulled the paper he held closer and marked each of the script she had  discovered before placing the pencil back on the table. Better to mark them so he wouldn’t need to keep asking her. “And these are the books you’re still going through?” He took the top most book after her nod and began to flip through the pages. She didn’t expect much from him. There were several script that were very similar to one another and were only differentiated based on the length or slight tilt of a line. It wasn’t as simple as just matching pictures. At least it would keep him occupied. She returned to her book, hoping he wouldn’t bother her anymore.

“I found one.” Marie blinked for a moment in confusion. Adrian showed her the picture and the paper side by side so she could compare them. He did find something. It has only been an hour since they had been focused on reading.

“Communication.”  

“Meaning?” She put her hand to her chin as she tried to put the information together. If the circle was only being used for communication and they limited what came through then it was possible to summon a higher demon with so little death. 

“They summoned a demon to talk to it.” But why make the circle so complicated? Talking was not something you needed a special script for.

“Then they were after information?” Why didn’t she think of that? That was the answer she had been looking for. She stood up and swayed for a moment, still tired from using so much magic, but she didn’t let it stop her as she went from shelf to shelf pulling out book after book. Marie tried to balance the pile as she tried to reach for another book when the pile was taken from her. Adrian carried the books over to the table, careful to keep the piles separate. Marie grabbed another two books before carrying them over to the table.

“Demons aren’t good at the same things. If their goal was information, then there are certain demons they would go to for that. I also pulled books on demons good at uncovering secrets.” Marie sat down and began to read one of the books. 

“Those are two separate things?”

“Weaker demons specialize because they only have so much power. A demon that specializes in information would specialize in knowledge that might be found in books even if the book is obscure. A book wouldn’t care who reads it or try to keep the information hidden. The demons that deal in secrets would need more power since they would have to actually force the secrets from a person in order to “uncover” them.” 

“So are there demons that are strong enough to do both?”

“Yes but stronger demons demand greater death. There wasn’t enough death there for that.”

"Is there no way for a stronger demon to be summoned?" 

"There is a way but the demon would have to choose to do so. The demon would have to not care that they wouldn't be getting much death from the summoning." Adrian frowned. "Demons go after death because it grants them power. Greater power allows them to do more and if they can do more than they will likely be summoned instead of a demon that can't do as much." It was an endless cycle. 

"Why do demons want power so much?"

"No one knows. Whim, greed, boredom, revenge. Each demon is different." Marie shrugged as she returned to her book. “All that matters is that they want as much death as possible and this circle didn’t have enough death. Only a weak demon should have been summoned.”

“But you’re not sure.”

“No.” One could never be sure when it came to demons.

They sat in silence after that as they both read through the books in front of them. Marie picked up her mug to drink more coffee but it was already empty. She put it back down with an inward sigh. Her exhaustion was creeping up on her.

“I can look through the rest of the books while you sleep.”

“I can rest as I read.” There was no way she was just going to leave it to him. Right now, two sets of eyes were better than one. She just needed one more clue. Just one more.