Ritter and Butler stood before the remaining archmage of the Americas. Mage of the Eastern tower, the Star Mage, Donatella Rabuano, whose daemons were President Oze and King Amducius, was beyond angry, beyond fury. She had just buried three of her comrades.
“Where is he?” she demanded, glaring at Ritter, who still wore two silver bracelets at his wrists.
“I do not know, Archmage,” he said. “He was able to remove the chains somehow.”
“He, or his daemon. Who is it?”
“Grimalkin.”
“I do not know that one.” She turned her angry green eyes to Butler.
Butler said, head bowed, “I have tried to research it, but all I’ve been able to find is that it’s the name of the three witches’ cat in Shakespeare’s Macbeth.”
“No daemon is that powerful to break our wards on its host.”
“My daemon has asked. None have heard of her in the regions of hell.”
Donatella drummed her fingers against her chin. “Unless it is not a daemon at all.”
Both men looked at each other. Obviously that thought had never crossed their minds. What could it be if not a daemon? And if it wasn’t one, what could they do against it? They knew only how to take care of wayward daemons and their hosts.
“We hear your questions,” said Donatella. “We are also concerned.”
Butler admitted, “I’m more than concerned, Archmage. I am afraid.”
Donatella looked down at Butler, frowning. Then she turned to Ritter. “And you, Knight? Are you afraid?”
“Never,” he said, meeting her gaze.
“This is why you are not a Knight, Mage.”
Butler said nothing. Donatella laughed suddenly, the laugh of a woman just on the edge of madness. It wouldn’t be surprising if she went around the bend, especially now being the last archmage left.
“What are your orders, Archmage?” Ritter asked.
“You are to find him. You are to destroy him. Destroy him, his soul and his daemon, by any means necessary.”
Butler said quietly, “Archmage, we cannot murder in the Outside – “
“He has murdered here! He has declared war on us, and we shall take the war to wherever it is! If there are civilians involved in assisting him, they will be destroyed as well! You will find him, Ritter, and you will do this deed, here, Outside, wherever he is!”
Butler looked up suddenly, his eyes wide. He gasped for air, falling forward on his knees, grasping at something, anything. The Archmage looked down impassively as Butler turned blue, then white, then collapsed at her feet, eyes wide open, no longer moving. She stretched out her hand and Ritter could see Butler’s daemon, disguised as a red wisp, rise up from the body and go into her hand. Now, she also had Vapula as one of her daemons, though whether he would help her remained to be seen.
“Yes,” she said, “that was necessary, for that will be your punishment, Ritter, if you do not return with his daemon in chains as proof.”
“Of course,” he said, and left the room.
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The daemon that no one knew about, Daemon Shartan comforted the Star Mage. “I shall be the only Archmage,” she said, repeating Shartan’s words in her mind. “All shall bow before me. That whelp will learn to never cross me. I shall rule the Rosy Cross!”
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Ritter sat down at the edge of his bed and stared at his suitcase. He was not usually a man given to introspection, to thinking about the orders before doing them. However, he had been trained since given life that he was to keep collateral damage to a minimum. The Outside world’s wardens and the Rosicrucians had a difficult alliance. The Knights of the Rosy Cross had long broken with the Catholic Church, the old wardens of the outside world, and the idea of what could be considered a cult giving orders to present-day police rubbed many people the wrong way.
He thought about his old partner, Butler. Matt was always softer with people, believing that they were good at heart, but needed direction every once in a while. He must have thought the same way in front of the Archmage, knowing Oze was a knower of secret things – in other words, a telepath. Vapula concurred, and he was now the Archmage’s.
“I’ll miss you, old friend,” he whispered in German. There would be no memorial, no knowledge of what happened to him, and Ritter was not at liberty to discuss it. If the Archmage wished to tell others what happened, it would be her decision alone.
Ritter slammed shut his suitcase. Regardless of the wide range of his orders, he would still follow his training and keep the damage and exposure to the mundanes as minimal as possible. They did not need to know his magic, and neither did Grimalkin.
Words: 809
Won’t be in the novel, but is backstory to what’s going on behind the scenes.