For now, while he made his way through the streets in the middle of the night, Aemric made a call to someone. Not through a Dream, for once, which was a welcome change.

  “Hey, bud. What’s up? Settled into your new place yet?”

  “Nope. Still in the hotel. Should be moving in… two days. Uh, hey, are you busy right now?”

  “Just doing some independent investigation, really. We still haven’t found that magician in the dorms yet. He showed up again after you moved out, and we went ahead and put up surveillance for now. Definitely a good thing you moved out when you did.”

  “Heh. Yeah.” Aemric nervously smiled; he’d gone back to the dorm just before turning in his key and Dreamed for a while just to throw them off. If he moved out and everything stopped right then, it’d be an interesting coincidence. “Uh, there’s something really weird I kind of need done. I swear I’ll explain afterwards, just please, do it for me?”

  “Nothing kinky.”

  Aemric scoffed. “Fuck off. Look, there’s someone I know… online, coming to Leansville on the train tonight. Can you meet her there for me?”

  “Dude, I am not wingmanning for you. That falls under kinky.”

  “I swear to the various gods, Ken.”

  Kendric’s laugh didn’t come out over the phone very well. “Well, I guess I can do it since you still don’t have a car. Not gonna do you any more favors with her, though, you hear? So, what’s she look like? When’s the train?”

  “The train should show up in an hour… 0:30. You’ll know her when you see her, she’s uh, kind of unique. Black hair, weird red dress, glowing eyes.”

  “And you met her ‘online,’ huh.”

  “She’s just someone I know, okay? Stop with that shit.”

  “And you want her coming to your hotel room after midnight in a fancy dress?”

  “Kendric, seriously.”

  “You’re really trying to tell me you didn’t pay some girl to-”

  “No, I didn’t. You know I wouldn’t do that, so shut the fuck up.”

  “All right, all right. Just messing with you… it’d be weird to have a hooker take the train to come to you anyway and then still have to get your own brother to do the last leg. You’re definitely going to have to explain this after, though.”

  “Yeah. Look, there’s one more thing, it’s important. Don’t tell her who you are, introduce yourself as ‘the Conduit.’ Don’t mention me, you’re… supposed to pretend to be me, actually. I’m serious, here. Laugh it up now if you want, but don’t mess around when you talk to her.”

  Kendric was already laughing, so that was covered. “You promise this isn’t some roleplay you’re getting into? I meant it when I said no kinky.”

  “Promise. Look, it’s… sort of tied to the investigation you’re doing, okay? Take this seriously.”

  No more laughing. “Wait, what?”

  “Like I said, I’ll explain afterwards. For now, just trust me.”

  “You know whoever can put out that much magic is hella dangerous, right?”

  “I do. This woman might have her own magic, that’s… kind of why I have you on this, so you can check. I have my own tricks up my sleeves here to help if something is wrong, but it shouldn’t be dangerous.”

  “Shit’s sake. Okay, well, I’ll show up on time, then. I could get some backup, too.”

  “No. Seriously, don’t. Better to keep this quiet, trust me. And do not forget, Conduit. It’s important.”

  “Right… all right, going to pick up some shady woman on a midnight train with no context as to why.”

  “Good luck, I’ll talk to you afterwards. You don’t need to bring her to my place, just meet her, say the words, and bring her to… how about the park next to the station, by the fountain. I’ll do the rest.”

  “All right. I’ll… see you then.” Kendric hung up.

  Aemric could only hope that he would stick to his word and not bring in the police or anyone from the LV-U Magic Department. Having anyone else tail the demoness would be a major problem down the line.

  Then, he checked in with Norvash. The president didn’t need to know any of this, and it would stay that way: Instead, he was just told that the attacking demon had been scared off by his preparations, and had been caught somewhere else instead. Aemric was thanked for ruining the evening, and then left.

  He got off the bus, sat down on a bench in the park, and killed some time on his phone reading up on Sal Tudi’s recent history. Then, around 0:20, he began to Dream.

  The demoness was on the train, sitting perfectly straight in her seat with her hands on her knees, as if she was at an interview. It looked very uncomfortable. Then again, she’d been acting about like that since Aemric had finished introducing himself. Maybe he’d been too harsh… well, that was what Kendric was getting involved for, to see if that was true or not.

  “Your stop is coming up.” Aemric notified her. She could understand the words coming out of speakers already, such was the extent of her power, but he still made sure.

  “Welcome back, master.”

  Getting that kind of reaction to his mind-control was appreciated, even though Aemric knew it was just her trying to avoid her new overlord wiping her off the Land. “Thanks. Say, I forgot to ask, what’s your name, anyway?”

  “I… um…” The question made her more uncomfortable than even talking about the thought-weaving.

  “Something wrong?”

  She resigned herself to it, whatever it was. “I’m sorry, master. My name is Xolitharkitria.”

  He’d definitely shorten that. “Why did you hesitate?”

  “My name was on the list of contractable demons, previously. It shouldn’t matter unless you put me back on the list.”

  Another new variable. “Tell me about this list.”

  It killed some time while they were waiting: in short, there was some kind of method of summoning demons from their homes to do various kinds of work – without their being able to refuse – provided the summoner knew the name and the price to pay for summoning them. It was both a way to gain resources and to get the hell out of their scorched worlds for a while. The price varied, but it usually came in the form of food, luxuries, tools, and other such things that could no longer be made in the demonic worlds.

  The method of transport was ‘different from the gates, but not understood,’ apparently introduced by some lofty being even the most powerful demons didn’t understand. Given his present situation and that the gods had managed to tear holes between worlds before, Aemric accepted that explanation. If he had any useful answers, they weren’t going to come here.

  “Seems like you could go to all sorts of places with that, no gates needed.”

  “It’s… temporary. It only lasts until the contract expires.”

  “And then it can be renewed?”

  “Until the master says otherwise.”

  “What makes for a master?”

  “Another contract. Mine was ended so I could go on this mission without being summoned.”

  “Ah.”

  A ding; the announcement for Leansville station.

  “It’s time to get off. I’m going to meet you outside the train. Look for someone with brown hair and dog ears.”

  “Dog ears?”

  Aemric decided she’d be able to figure it out or Kendric would find her, and pretended to have stopped watching her. Xolith stood up, and filed out of the train. Leansville station was a little bigger than the previous one, since it was a bigger city – one of the biggest in the region, really – so despite it being midnight there were still plenty of people around.

  Still, Kendric wasn’t hard to spot; he was a familiar sight. He was waiting at the right stop, casually sitting on a nearby bench. Upon seeing the demoness step out of the train and onto the platform, he was immediately sure of who he was looking for, just as expected.

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  He stood up and approached her. He momentarily choked, then composed himself; a passing bit of exhaust? It wasn’t clear. “Ahem. Hey. It’s me, the uh, Conduit.”

  Xolith blinked and looked at him. “Good evening, master. That must be what you meant by dog ears.” She lowered her voice; she’d been told to avoid revealing what she was. “I’m sorry, I’ve never heard of a dog before.”

  “O-oh. I see.” Kendric was very confused and trying not to show it; working with the magic department or not, he was no spy. “Let’s talk outside, all right? There’s a lot I want to know.”

  “I’ll follow you.”

  And she did; Kendric turned his back, and Xolith meekly followed him out of the station. Aemric watched for the slightest attempt at using any of her considerable roster of powers or methods of attack, but none of it came. Not yet, at least.

  Once they were out onto the street, Kendric took a breath, and briefly looked into the parking lot; presumably, at his car. Then, he gestured at a different direction with his thumb. “Let’s stop at the park, yeah? We’ll talk there.”

  “Of course, master.”

  Kendric clearly wanted to ask what was up with that, but refrained. Aemric watched his discomfort with great amusement. In any case, Kendric couldn’t help but distract himself with talk. “How was the train ride?”

  “It was interesting. I’ve… never gone so quickly, not since losing my wings. It’s shocking to think of how such a thing could be made; it must have taken the smith years.”

  “The… smith?” No question about the wings yet. It wasn’t like winged people were totally unheard of, sure, but Aemric hadn’t even heard about Xolith having any either.

  “The blacksmith… the train is made of metal, no? Surely it must have been made by a smith.”

  “No, there’s factories… let’s talk about this some other time, okay?”

  “All right, master.”

  They walked in silence; Kendric hurried along, and the demoness behind him easily matched his pace. The train station’s park wasn’t large, but it was almost completely deserted, and lacked cameras or anyone watching over it.

  Kendric stopped by the fountain, as intended, and nodded. “I guess this’ll do. Uh, you want to take a seat?”

  “Yes, please. I’m… very tired, still.” Xolith took her spot on the bench. She waited for a little while, but with her ‘master’ still unsure of what to do from here, she decided to ask, “Is something wrong?”

  “Huh? No, not really. We’re just going to be here for a while.” Kendric then tried to act more casually when he sat down next to her. “Have I really asked where you’re from, yet?”

  “Well… no. I suppose not. I’m from a place called Cold Dirt on Koriokath, it’s only a small village compared to the cities you have here, really.”

  “I’ve never heard of Koriokath.”

  “It is… my world. Most succubi are from there, it’s where our species began. It’s much, much warmer than here… I suppose I’ve never been in a place this cold, really. It’s very nice, I much prefer it. Maybe Korio was originally supposed to be this cold.”

  “I guess I can spare my hoodie if you’re too cold.” Kendric said, almost monotone himself. He was staring dead ahead, apparently trying to process that information.

  “Hm? No, I’m just fine.”

  They sat there in silence for a while again. Aemric could scarcely handle the awkward atmosphere, but he kept watching until he was very certain Xolith wasn’t going to try anything. There was only one shot at this, after all.

  Still, he didn’t wait any longer than that point to show himself. The rest of the conversation had been too cringe, while everything prior had at least been embarassing for Kendric, which was a plus.

  Aemric still knew what he was doing was technically kind of stupid; it might be best to figure out another way to keep Xolith around, make use of her powers to get her someplace to stay on her own and so on, or get Kendric in on the job properly and watch over her, or something – after all, as long as Aemric stayed away, he could retry all sorts of problems, so putting a demon next to himself was a bit dangerous.

  He was tired of trying to account for every little danger, though. Obvious ones, sure, but he was pretty sure his commands worked on Xolith properly, and he had the feeling she wasn’t really a threat anyway.

  So, Aemric approached from the other side of the fountain. He debated what kind of entrance to make, but he also knew his brother would ruin most of it intentionally or not, so he just played it by ear. Doing everything in person also made doing it perfectly much harder.

  “All right, that’s enough. Sorry for taking so long.”

  Kendric perked up. “Finally. You’re here. Now...” He clearly wanted to bitch about half of what he’d seen, but he was holding back to continue the charade until further notice.

  Aemric shrugged. “I promise I will explain all of this to you, later, but for now… there’s some basics here. First, though, nice to meet you in person, Xolith.”

  Xolith was silent; she continued to sit still on the bench and looked to Kendric, letting her ‘master’ talk. Kendric noticed her gaze and looked between her and his brother for a bit.

  Aemric sighed. “Kendric… I know who caused those magic spikes in the dorms. Xolith’s linked to that investigation, because she’s linked to me.”

  It took a while to catch his older brother up on what was happening, but Aemric didn’t leave much out while he did. Most of it, Xolith would figure out one way or another anyway, with how this plan was going. He could stop her from moving or talking, but not from thinking or hearing. He mainly avoided talking about exactly how his power worked: all they really needed to know was that he could give certain people orders and see their futures.

  During this, Xolith finally realized something and looked at Kendric. “Wait… are you… you pretended to be Master.”

  Aemric was just about to get to that part of the explanation – he’d started from the beginning, so it was the last bit. “I told him to, yes. I wanted to see if you’d try and kill me if I showed up in front of you, not that that should be possible anyway.”

  “You used me as a body double!?” Kendric complained. “Ajelda’s sake, what would you have… Oh. I guess you’d see that future and… undo it or whatever.” He said it as if he didn’t really believe it. Which, he probably didn’t. Yet. He’d get used to it.

  “Exactly. So… Xolith. Are you going to try anything now?” Aemric challenged her; best to put the idea in her mind himself before she thought of it. Kendric faintly tensed up, but it was pretty clear that he still didn’t understand what kind of danger the succubus could pose.

  She shook her head. “If everything you say is true, then the fate of this world rests on you. My home or not, all the demonic worlds are destroyed, barely habitable, and… seeing this one join them would be terrible. And if you are lying about this, then you would likely lie about your capabilities, too.”

  Aemric cracked a smile. He hadn’t needed magic to foresee the core of that response. “All right. Now, uh, the other shoe. While I could probably steal a lot of money with the powers I’ve got, I’m… too nice for that, I guess. So, unfortunately, you’re living with me for a while.”

  “The other shoe?” Xolith cocked her head.

  “It’s a figure of speech.”

  For a moment, both brothers waited to see if she’d have any concerns about that other shoe. The succubus didn’t even seem to have it on her radar. Kendric raised another question. “You’re… you know, sure this is all legit?”

  Aemric wondered if it was even possible for it not to be at this point. “Very sure. Xolith, do you think you can pull off one more gate?”

  “I believe I might collapse, but I can try it.” Distances didn’t matter to her all that much; just opening the gate was most of the cost.

  “Maybe tomorrow on that one. Otherwise, really all I can show off is some parlor tricks. If I close my eyes and use my power I can still see if you write on a piece of paper, and if a bird were to fly past and bomb you in the next couple seconds I could warn you about it beforehand. I can… hm. I guess there’s some other things too, but they need more prep.”

  Kendric put his head in his hands and thought about it. “This all seems crazy.”

  “You’ve got a demon right next to you, and you know I don’t have affinity for magic. It is pretty crazy, but something’s going on.”

  “This is why you dropped out, isn’t it? So you could deal with this?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Fuck’s sake, whatever picked you could’ve done a better job and found somebody who was at least old enough to drink. Seriously, there must’ve been someone else.”

  Aemric shrugged, and pondered for just a moment to figure out his response.

  Xolith interrupted. “Apologies, master, but I really need to excuse myself…” She’d been going at full-steam ever since arriving here without much of a break.

  “Eh? Oh… uh, yeah, there should be a bathroom in the station.”

  The brothers waited outside for her to come back; hopefully the procedure in there was obvious enough. Kendric raised another crucial issue. “So… you’re planning to just, what, have her stay at your place?”

  “Yeah. There are a few other options, but this is probably the best one. She’s not the only demon that’s going to show up. I know of at least one that’ll appear tomorrow in our own city, and from there, well, they’ll probably have the magicians looking into it once anyone realizes what kind of danger the demons pose. If I have her close she’s both a bodyguard and less likely to make some mistake while living on her own.”

  “And, you totally just want a hot succubus sharing a room with you. I’m gay, not stupid, I can tell you’re maneuvering this the way you want it.”

  “…That might have a hand in it, yes. But, seriously, think about it. There’s nowhere else to really put her. How many people can either of us really trust with this? I mean, I wasn’t even really sure you’d work with me.”

  “You could just bring this to the department. All of it, you know. There’s some kind of magic going on with you, and if we get to study it it might be important research material. You’d have plenty of resources, and a platform, and so on.”

  Aemric shook his head. “The demon that’s showing up tomorrow is invisible without using magic. It just is invisible, and it’s got blades for hands. Xolith, in there, can teleport to anywhere she can see and control someone’s mind with a kiss. If I’m a public entity at all, I’ll be an easy target.”

  Kendric was really, really trying to keep up. “So, we’ll see about hiding you somehow, or, you know, you could actually have guards if you’re really that big of a deal.”

  “Dude, mind control. And Xolith there was tasked with controlling the fucking President of Sal Tudi. If it weren’t for me, she would’ve succeeded with incredible ease. Even with a full staff of armed guards she pulled it off without a scratch. They can go after other people, too, like, I dunno, our own president. And if they have him, what secret can’t they get?”

  Kendric was taken aback. World leaders were viable targets, now. “Magic’s got to be some defense, though, if we were actually prepared with it.”

  “Maybe, but I dunno. Norvash didn’t seem protected at all and I doubt he has no enchantments on him, same with his guards. If a solution is found, though, it’d work both ways, and at some point this is going to go from shadow war to actual war. Sometime before then I’ve got to get the major powers ready to fight, and I really don’t think they’re all going to cooperate on re-arming so easy.”

  “You mean you’re also trying to control everybody.”

  “Not directly, not for anything I don’t need to. Think about it. The other play’s just to hope the department believes me enough to not lock me in an asylum or try me as an unlicensed magician and be quiet about my presence and bring this higher up to the right channels who’d then have to decide the same things, until finally someone with authority can then decide whether to actually work with some far-fetched prophecy that a bunch of toasty dudes with bronze swords are going to show up and destroy everything.” He finally took a breath after all that.

  “It… does seem crazy… but there’s no way you can pull this off alone.”

  “I’ve got a president and the aforementioned teleporting succubus in my toolbelt. It’ll work.” Mentioning the Red Scale to his pseudo-police brother was probably a bad idea, so Aemric avoided that.

  “Do you even know how to use those tools, though?”

  Aemric sighed. “No… but does anyone?”

  Kendric considered it all again, and made a decision. “Look, I still think it’s a bad idea, and weird that you’re trying to puppet-master everything. It’s worrying.”

  “If you’re planning on reporting all this anyway, then say it.”

  “I’m… I almost feel like I’d need to. I thought it was neat at first, but this plan of yours is crazy.”

  “Fine. We’ll try it… partially your way. There’s no way anyone’s going to trust me outright, but we can see about convincing some people quietly, keep other plans last-ditch. There’s going to be a fight in a pizzeria tomorrow at midnight, and I was planning to get it to spill out into the street enough that someone might notice the fucking invisible demon in there. If you happen to bring one of your buddies along on 8th Street around then, they might see it and we can get the ball rolling early.”

  “All right.” Kendric still kept a wary eye on his brother, and stayed pretty quiet until he and his pet demon were dropped off at the hotel.