Insidious Insurrection (Overworld Chronicles Book 14) Read online

  "Yeah, it blew up around the same time as the war against Daelissa." He tapped a finger on his chin. "I think that was a few months after the Demonicus Incident."

  I strained my brain for a clue, but came back with nothing but a dull ache in my forehead.

  Elyssa rubbed the back of my neck. "It's okay. I didn't even know about the Demon War until I read the after-action reports."

  I threw up my hands. "There was another war and nobody bothered to tell me?"

  Adam didn't look up from his phone when he answered. "It wasn't widely talked about because the Second Seraphim War kind of stole the headlines."

  Elyssa hooked a finger on my chin and turned my head toward her. "Obviously, Emily and the Custodians won the war or we wouldn't be having this conversation."

  Shelton shrugged. "I don't remember hearing anything about it either."

  "Aha!" Adam held up a finger. "This is a variation on a demonicus."

  "It sure as hell ain't no finger painting." Shelton walked around the edges. "Man, this is some work."

  I held up a hand. "Wait, a demonicus?"

  Adam pushed up on his non-existent glasses and adopted a lecturing tone. "Each of the smaller patterns you see"—he pointed out the smaller circles—"is the representation of a lesser demon name, many of which are listed in the demonomicon—a directory of known demon names. These demons tend to be more humanoid and range from the caustic to the symbiotic."

  Shelton toed the edge of a pattern. "For example, this entire circle contains the name of one demon."

  "Exactly." Adam tapped his phone. "I'm searching the demonomicon for names corresponding to the patterns."

  "What about that?" I nodded toward the big pattern in the middle.

  "Well, that's where it gets tricky." Adam pressed his lips together as if thinking of what to say next. "A demonicus tends to consist of lesser demon patterns surrounding those of greater demons, with the pattern for a demon lord in the center."

  "This one only has two circles," I said.

  "Yes, but…" Adam's eyes darted around the outer circle as if something had just occurred to him. Using a finger, he pointed at each circle and counted them. "This building isn't an octagon—it's a nonagon."

  "Huh?" Shelton counted them out loud. "Well what do you know? This place does have nine sides."

  "Nine sides, nine circles surrounding a huge complex pattern at the center." Adam's forehead pinched. "Dude, this isn't the pattern for a demon lord—it's for an overlord." His eyes filled with wonder. "If Victus made this, I think he intended to conquer Seraphina with a demon army."

  Chapter 13

  I wasn't convinced. "I don't think Victus had any plans to conquer Seraphina."

  Shelton snorted. "Far as Victus is concerned, this place is just one big prison for his worst enemies."

  Elyssa frowned. "If that's the case, why make a demonicus? Maybe he intends to return later."

  "Good question." Adam's phone beeped and he groaned. "The scan program I used to identify the diagrams crashed. It can't handle the big picture, meaning I'll have to take pictures of all the diagrams individually."

  "While you're doing that, I'm going to look at that gem on the pedestal." I pointed to the one on the last table. "I'd bet it has something to do with this puzzle."

  "I'll help Adam," Shelton said.

  Elyssa and I went to the gem on the pedestal and looked it over.

  "It looks like they took the other gems but left this one," I said. "I wonder why."

  Elyssa ran a finger along the bottom of the gem. "Probably because of this." The bottom of the stone looked as if it had fused with the cradle.

  "Well, well. Looks like a malfunction." I motioned her away from the pedestal. "Step back. I'm gonna channel into the gem."

  Her eyebrows shot up. "Are you sure? What if it malfunctions again?"

  "That's why I want you to back up." I waited for her to do as I requested and then sent a gentle trickle of Murk into the gem. The ultraviolet energy flowed through the gem. Transparent webs sparkled out of the other side, twisting around each other and forming the outline of a sphere in the cradle of the other pedestal. Well, it would have been a sphere, but the bottom began to sag and warp, probably due to the defective gem.

  "It's a soul sphere," Elyssa said. She looked down the tables. "They must have mass produced them here."

  I amped up the energy output and finished a lopsided sphere within a few minutes. I pulled it off the cradle and inspected my handiwork. "I wonder how they put the spark and soul essence inside."

  "No wonder!" Adam said in an excited voice. He jogged over to us, eyes lit up with excitement. "I identified the demons associated with the diagrams." He set the arcphone on the table and projected the image of an amorphous red shape with train wreck of letters and a circular diagram beneath it.

  "Is that supposed to be a name?" I said.

  "Yeah." Adam scratched his head. "Gxlilitharth? Gixilthruth?"

  Shelton groaned. "Will you just get to the point?"

  Adam smiled apologetically. "Sorry." He flicked through several images, some of ghostly humanoid shapes, and others of fully summoned demons in human form. "What we have here is a collection of ruby, topaz, and an amethyst spirit or two." He stopped at a green one. "Even the rarest of the rare—a jade spirit."

  "These are demon types?" I asked.

  He nodded. "Yeah. Emily Glass is the one who started listing them like gemstone colors. The only ones she doesn't list like that are the yellow spirits—the caustics."

  I stared at the dark green form. "Colors aside, I assume these spirit types are humanlike when summoned?"

  "Exactly." He pointed to the diagram beneath the name. "That symbol represents the demonic name, which is what forces spirits to appear when summoned." Adam flicked to the last image, this of the largest diagram. "Apparently, Victus wasn't using just any old demons for his cloning process."

  Shelton sighed impatiently. "You never get to the point, do you?"

  Adam held up a hand. "Fine, fine, I'll skip past all the tantalizing setup and ruin the surprise, okay?"

  "What surprise?" I said.

  "The humanoid demons I showed you aren't random." Adam milked the suspense a moment longer, turning his gaze on each of us in turn. "These demons are the children of a far more powerful entity." Adam switched to another image, this one of a shapeless mass of blacks, grays, reds, whites, and all the spectrums of the rainbow.

  The name beneath was so long I couldn't even begin to pronounce it. "Is that a demon overlord?" I asked.

  Adam shook his head. "No. This is the big cheese. The grand poobah of all demons." He grinned. "This, my friend, is the pattern for your dear, sweet grandfather, Baal."

  I didn't have anything in my mouth, but I still managed to choke on my breath. "Baal, as in the ruler of Haedaemos?"

  "The very same." Shelton let out a long, low whistle. "I wonder if Victus actually summoned him."

  Adam shrugged. "The only person to successfully do it in recent memory was Emily Glass. From what I understand, Baal is powerful enough to resist a summons even if the summoner has his name perfect."

  "Holy hellhounds in a fruit basket." Shelton blew out a breath. "You think Victus wanted to make a mega-Nightliss clone? A giant Daskar?"

  "I think he wanted to make something beyond super-soldiers," Elyssa said. "He wanted to raise an army that could lay waste to anything."

  "Christ," Shelton growled. "Do you think he's doing that in Eden right now?"

  "Man, I hope not." Adam reached for his eyes as if to adjust eyeglasses and then stopped himself. "There's something else to consider. If Kohval moved the foundry to Tarissa, that means he must have someone on hand who can create the patterns and summon the demons."

  "In other words, bad news all around." I tossed my misshapen soul sphere on the table. It clunked around and came to rest on its warped bottom. "Maybe that's why I heard all those voices in my head."

  "Man, I wonder if Baal wa
s able to reach through the pattern to you somehow." Adam rubbed his hands together nervously. "He must be insanely powerful."

  "No doubt." I could almost feel the tidal wave of power pounding against the closed window in my soul. Could that possibly be Baal? "We need to find out who did this and stop them from helping Kohval."

  Elyssa's upper lip curled with distaste. "Who'd be crazy enough to summon Baal?"

  "Crazy ain't a strong enough word," Shelton said. "More like bat-shit insane."

  "What happens if Baal breaks free of the pattern?" Elyssa said.

  "That's something we don't want to find out," Adam said. "Baal's pattern is the work of a master." He knelt and put his cheek to the ground. "My god, it's even three-dimensional and hardened. We'd have a heck of a time destroying this."

  I followed his example and put my eye level with the floor. From that angle, the lines seemed to hover off the floor, even if only by a millimeter. "Incredible." I stood up and brushed off my hands. "You think Victus designed this?"

  Adam sat up on his knees and nodded. "That's the highest probability. I can only hope that whoever is helping Kohval can't recreate this pattern."

  "That makes all of us," Shelton said grimly. "The last thing we need is a loose nut unleashing Big Daddy Baal on Seraphina."

  "I think we're looking at this backwards," Elyssa said. "I doubt anyone makes Baal do something he doesn't want to do."

  Shelton's eyes fluttered. "Wait, you think Baal is large and in charge?"

  "That's a distinct possibility," Adam said. "An entity that powerful uses people, not the other way around."

  My insides went cold at the thought of Baal's possible involvement. Somehow, we had to shut down this place and ensure it couldn't be used again.

  Elyssa squinted, eyes locked on something at the other end of the room. "Is that a gem on the wall back there?"

  I followed her gaze and saw a small imperfection. "I can't tell what it is from here." I jogged around the perimeter of the black line encircling the other patterns, unwilling to risk physically touching it, especially after my cranial invasion.

  "Just go on without me," Shelton shouted. "I've had enough of running today."

  Elyssa and I reached the opposite wall. It wasn't a gem we'd seen, but a hole in the wall about the size of my fist. I peeked through. Dim light glinted off shiny surfaces, but I couldn't see what was inside.

  Elyssa shouldered me out of the way for a look. "It's too dark." She backed away and examined the wall. "Does this open?"

  I touched the smooth hole. "It must open somehow." I gripped the edges of the hole and tugged. The wall didn't budge. I traced a finger along the corner where this wall met the next, but it looked seamless.

  Elyssa walked past me, running her hand on the wall and stopped. "I found something." She lifted her hand to reveal a small bump in the crystal.

  It was a dark gem that almost perfectly matched the wall in color and texture. I channeled Murk into it and was rewarded when the wall misted away into an opening. I stepped into a corridor like the one leading inside the foundry, but this one ended in the dim room I'd seen through the hole. I channeled a globe of light and sent it hovering overhead.

  Elyssa hissed a breath through her teeth at what we saw.

  I recoiled in horror at the sight of nearly a dozen transparent crystal caskets, each one occupied by a withered humanoid form. I swallowed hard and stepped closer. A female clothed in a purple gown stared blindly back at me. All skin and bones, her withered flesh looked as if someone had vacuumed out her insides and left her to die.

  That comparison wasn't far from the truth. I'd seen this before. Seen the effect of draining someone of too much soul essence all at once. It was exactly how Daelissa had killed humans when she fed on them.

  Are these humans?

  Seraphim didn't feed on one another. They exchanged greetings by splaying their fingers toward one another, sometimes exchanging aether, but not soul essence. Besides, feeding on another Seraphim wouldn't amplify their magic.

  "Justin, come here." Elyssa hovered over a casket near the back of the small room. She backed away so I could stand next to it.

  At first, I didn't know what I was supposed to see. It looked like the withered husk of a man, also wearing a robe like the others. As I stared at the gaunt face, I realized it was familiar. The sunken eyes and hollow cheeks made it harder to see, but once I saw the resemblance, I knew who this was.

  "It's Kohval." I flicked my gaze to her. "The real one."

  She shivered. "He's completely drained." Elyssa waved a hand around the room. "Just like the others."

  I stared long and hard at each of the occupants to see if I recognized any others, but none bore a resemblance to anyone I'd met before. I walked back over to Kohval's still form and studied the tortured lines in his face.

  Adam and Shelton entered the room.

  Shelton looked inside the first crystal case and shouted in surprise. "What the hell kind of freak show is this?"

  "Fascinating," Adam breathed. He gripped the sides of the casket and swiveled it from side to side. A tug on the bottom inclined the case vertically. The body remained in place instead of sliding around inside.

  Shelton huffed. "What kind of sicko likes to play with bodies in coffins?"

  "I'm not playing with them," Adam said. He walked over to the hole in the wall. "I'm figuring out something."

  Elyssa stood next to the hole and looked at the crystal coffin. "If you swivel the cases upright, the tops line up with the hole in the wall."

  "I think a gem fit into this hole," Adam said. "They probably siphoned the soul essence straight from the bodies during the ritual."

  "Why do that when they could grow a whole new soul in a soul globe?" Shelton said.

  "I don't know," Adam said. "Maybe they wanted to mass produce some demon golems in a hurry."

  "They might have been using the souls of these poor bastards to fuel the demons too," Shelton said.

  Elyssa motioned Adam and Shelton to the back of the room and showed them Kohval's case.

  "Well, I guess we know for sure that ain't the real Kohval leading the legion," Shelton said. "Did you find Meera in any of the other coffins?"

  "I don't even know what she looks like," I said.

  Adam turned his phone to us and displayed the stern face of a woman with a shaved head. A small nose hung above a wide mouth and dark amber eyes seemed to bore into whoever took the picture. Next to her stood a male and female with equally grim faces. "This is Legiaros Meera and her top lieutenants, Talus and Ganja."

  "Aw, don't they look sweet," Shelton said. "I'll bet if I asked Meera to make me a sandwich she'd cut my arms off."

  Adam tutted. "They don't eat sandwiches in Seraphina, Shelton, but she'd definitely cut off your arms just because you're a grade-A jackass."

  Elyssa snorted. "She'd make you her bitch."

  He waved off the comments. "Yeah, you're probably right. Hell, even Bella won't make me sandwiches. She's always making me eat those damned Colombian arepas."

  Adam barked a laugh. "No wonder you cook for yourself."

  I walked around the room, looking at the females in the crystal cases, but none of them remotely resembled Meera. "If Meera's body isn't in here, does that mean the one in Tarissa might be the real deal?"

  "It means she might be defending Tarissa instead of conquering it," Shelton said as he fiddled with the case containing Kohval. "Maybe we can talk alliance with her and take on Kohval." He pounded on the side of the case and grunted.

  "Maybe not." Elyssa took Adam's phone and held it next to one of the male bodies. "This is Talus." She walked over to another coffin. "And this is Ganja."

  "Damn." I shook my head. "Even if Meera is still in command, her top people are dolems."

  Shelton pressed down on a bulge in the side of Kohval's case. "Hey, I think I got it!" With a loud hiss, the top misted away. Kohval's eyes flicked open and a hoarse scream tore from his throat.


  Chapter 14

  I screamed right along with Kohval. Shelton scrambled backwards, shouting curses, and Adam fell on his ass with a yelp. Elyssa pressed a hand to her heart and steadied herself on a nearby coffin.

  Elyssa came to her senses first and rushed to Kohval's side. "Kohval, we're here to help."

  The seraph reached a feeble hand for her, but couldn't hold it up.

  Adam tapped on his communication pendant and reached Tahlee. "We need a healer in the foundry stat." He stepped outside the room. "That means pronto—I mean, right away!"

  Elyssa patted the withered arm and leaned closer as Kohval tried to speak. "What are you saying?"

  "Victus," Kohval wheezed. "From Eden."

  I stood on the other side of Kohval. "Yes, we know who Victus is. Was he here with Cephus?"

  "Air." A ragged breath sent a shudder through Kohval's body. "Air is."

  "You're not making any sense," I said. "What are you saying?"

  "Air on is." It was as if he was saying a word he didn't know how to pronounce.

  "Is that English?" Elyssa said. "What are you saying about air?"

  Kohval's chest sunk and rose as he gasped for breath. "Demon…woman."

  "He needs to rest," Adam said. "I think this coffin is like a preservation chamber. We need to close it back up and keep him alive until help arrives."

  "No." A hint of command crept into Kohval's voice. "Dead already. Too much."

  "That's not true," Elyssa said, eyes running up and down what had once been the stout muscled frame of a Legiaros. "A healer can restore you."

  "Air on is," he said again. "Demon woman. Both legions subverted. Daskar army." Kohval tried to say more, but his eyelids fluttered and his head lolled to the side.

  "Oh, crap." Shelton inched closer and peered in. "Is he dead?"

  Elyssa felt the seraph's neck. "He's alive, but barely."

  Elsa, one of the Mzodi healers rushed into the room. "I am here. What is—" her dark eyes went huge. "What is this place?"