Midnight's Son (Darkling Mage 5)

I frowned at him. “Then why are you waking me up?”

Scrimshaw huffed and folded his arms, insulted. “Well excuse me for thinking that you might want to grab some dinner before your big fight, or maybe a light snack.” He sniffed, staring down the end of his hooked nose. “Might want to pump those flimsy muscles too, scrawny.”

“Hey man. We talked about body shaming.” I grunted and rubbed my forehead. “And okay, thanks. Food isn’t a bad idea.” I looked around, realizing we were alone. “Where are the others anyway? Herald?”

“The sorcerer? Downstairs. They’re talking tactics, which is part of why I decided to wake you up.” He rubbed his sharp little claws against his chest, as if polishing them. “The Midnight Convocation didn’t say anything about me giving you a little extra boost.”

I grinned out of the corner of my mouth. “That’s – awfully decent of you, Scrimshaw. And they sent you?”

“Don’t get any ideas. I figured I’d help you out a little after I shortchanged you the first time around. And yeah, they sent me,” he said, puffing out his little chest, proudly snapping on the suspenders he wasn’t actually wearing. “I’m freelancing.”

“Wow. Nicodemus is pretty generous about letting you take on extra work, huh?”

Scrimshaw scoffed. “That old fool? What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him. I have days to spare. The moron’s developed a taste for smoking wizard weed. He’ll be astral projecting to the stars, whether he likes it or not. He won’t even know I was gone.”

I cocked an eyebrow. “Scrimshaw. Admit it. You planted that wizard weed in with his regular herb, didn’t you?”

He snorted, then gave the tiniest, evilest grin. “I have no idea what you mean. I’ll meet you downstairs.”

Scrimshaw disappeared in a puff of farts, and I started retching and coughing. A cloud of brimstone and fire, if you want to be technical about it, but it always smelled like rotten eggs. I could never get used to it. Mammon, conversely, didn’t make such a smelly fuss when it entered and left our reality. But frankly speaking, farts and all, I think I’d take a visit from Scrimshaw over one from the demon prince of greed any day of the week.

I washed up, jumped into a fresh change of clothes, and slung my backpack over my shoulder, hurrying through the corridor and down the stairs. I could only hope that the nullification enchantment across Silveropolis wouldn’t apply during the trial. That would be completely unfair, and not just to Vanitas. I wouldn’t be able to resort to casting flames or shadows, either.

“They’ll probably have a special arena or something, right?” I said, bursting into the dining room. The guys looked up from their discussion, Scrimshaw sitting cross-legged at the table, like he was part of the team.

Herald cocked an eyebrow. “They’ll have us cordoned off from the rest of this reality, if that’s what you mean.”

“No, no, of course they will. I’m just worried they’ll dampen our magic to give them an edge.”

Gil shook his head sternly. “The entities are many things, but I wouldn’t think they’d stoop to those sorts of tricks. The Midnight Convocation is mostly made up of gods, too. Fickle as they are, I’d say they’re still above that kind of underhanded trickery. I wouldn’t say the same for demons.” He shot Scrimshaw an apologetic look. “Present company exempted. No offense.”

“None taken,” Scrimshaw said, licking at his fingers.

He was scooping up tiny handfuls of clotted cream, a dish of scones sitting nearby, what the Twilight Tavern’s menu said were baked in-house especially by Olga. Scrimshaw casually ignored them, his other hand dipping into a separate little bowl of marmalade. It was mesmerizing, watching him go to town on what was essentially bread spread.

“We’re going to be fine, Dust,” Sterling drawled, leaning lazily against the table, his hand cupping his chin. “Remember what I told you ages ago? Carpe noctem. Seize the night. We already work best in darkness, and now you’ve got a full moon in the mix? This’ll be a cakewalk.”

I eyed Gil cautiously. “You’re going to be fine fighting full dog, right? I mean, it’s not like you’re going to go berserk and turn on us.”

Gil scratched the back of his neck. “Well, you see – that’s not impossible. So make sure to let me dive in first and stay out of my way.”

“So, hypothetically, let’s say you somehow eliminate everyone we’re fighting. All our enemies go down, and only Team Boneyard is left standing.” I folded my arms and fixed him with a leveled gaze. “There’s a possibility you’ll turn right around and start slashing and biting us, isn’t there?”

Gil sighed. “Sterling will bring the chains, just in case.”

“Listen,” Sterling said, an unlit cigarette clamp

ed between his fingers. “You’re making a huge fuss out of nothing. What we have here,” he said, slapping Gil on the back, “is a whirlwind of fangs and fur. The big dog. And he’s going to tear all those entities brand new assholes. The rest of us are just gonna hang back and watch. It’ll be that easy. You’ll see.”

“I wouldn’t get that confident about it, exactly,” Herald said, nudging his glasses up his nose.

Sterling clucked his tongue and shook his head. “And I was just starting to like you, Igarashi.” His chair scraped as he stood up. “I’m gonna go smoke this outside. The rest of you stay here and stress out over nothing.”

As the door to the Twilight Tavern creaked shut, Scrimshaw wiped at his mouth and burped. “He’s right, you know. You have an advantage, just as much as the Convocation does. Full moon and using the shadows to bolster your magic and all that.”

“Right,” Gil said. “Listen to the imp, he speaks the truth. And we’ve got so many other things to fall back on. You’ve got Vanitas, you’ve got both shadow and fire magic, and Herald here can freeze stuff faster than I can blink. We’ve got this.”

“If you say so,” I said.