“We saw your little magick show on the parade float. I’m sure you won’t mind if we ask you a few questions.”

At the mention of “we,” Merrin’s mismatched eyes darted around the restroom until they met mine. I gave him a little wave.

Lon towered over the balding, short man as he spoke with soft insistence. “There’s no need for you to use any magick on us like you did last time. We just want a few answers, then we’ll leave you alone. We’re not a threat, and you want to help us, right?”

“Lon.” Anger flashed over the magician’s face, then faded; his body slumped in submission. “I won’t fight you,” he admitted at length. “I’m sorry about the incident at the Silent Temple. I panicked, you see . . .”

Lon turned the magician in my direction while gripping him from behind. And there it was, the source of the ball of light that had tipped me off—an invisibility talisman. Now uncharged, it hung around his neck on a rough cord, swinging against the placard of his button-up shirt. I yanked it over his head, nearly catching the cord on his wire-rim glasses, then stashed it in my coat. I checked his pockets for the Heka weapons but found nothing, so I took up a post against the restroom door. The last thing Lon needed was an unwary customer to stumble into the restroom and find a horned demon holding a man hostage.

“Let’s talk,” Lon said. “Tell us about the grand duke. How did you team up with him in the eighties? And what happened to Bishop?”

I’d seen Lon use his persuasive powers only a couple of times. Usually they completely transformed the recipient. Turned them into putty. Merrin wasn’t aggressive, exactly, but he wasn’t lying on the floor with his belly exposed, either. His willpower must’ve been strong as hell. A trickle of fear ran down my back. I really didn’t trust this guy.

Merrin inhaled deeply through his nose, then sighed. “Thirty years ago, I was employed by the Hellfire Club. They paid me well and I enjoyed the work. During my time off, I became friends with Jesse Bishop.”

“Yes, we found his body in the cannery,” I said. Friend, indeed.

Merrin nodded in calm resignation. “Bishop was a young Hellfire member who had the rare knack of precognition. However, his ability was weak. His premonitions were hit-and-miss. A lot of Hellfire members didn’t hold much stock in his visions, but they were idiots.”

“You believed his visions?” Lon asked.

“I did, especially when he began seeing images of a spell that would open doors between the worlds and allow travel from either side.”

The spell inside the Æthyric tube.

Merrin continued. “The idea of being able to cross into the Æthyr was an intriguing one, but it wasn’t until Bishop had visions about the entity in possession of the spell that I became worried. Bishop described it as an Æthyric demon with pale skin, his throat covered in blackened symbols. He was dressed in armor and carried a blade shaped like a serpent. His halo was blood-red. Bishop had seen a demon that I’d conjured for information . . . Grand Duke Chora.

“I wasn’t the first magician hired by the Hellfire Club, you know,” Merrin continued wearily, as Lon continued to keep the man’s arms pinned behind his back. “There was a magician named Frater Morrow. He was the first person to conjure the grand duke back in the seventies, and the first person the duke asked to aid him with the Buné spell.”

“The spell to open the doors between the worlds?” Lon said.

Merrin nodded. “The duke is an old demon with a great deal of power. Frater Morrow made the mistake of refusing to bargain with him, and ended up dead. Chora laid a curse on him. I found that out from another Æthyric demon after I’d already summoned Chora and turned down his bargain. The curse was a tricky one that made it appear the mage had just experienced a simple heart attack—”

“So the duke had cursed this Morrow magician,” I said. “And you realized after you’d summoned and rejected the duke that he could curse you too?”

“I didn’t want to die,” Merrin argued. “I realized my error after I summoned him, but I had no choice but to comply and let him ride me. So I called him again and made the bargain. He promised that he’d keep me blind during the possessions, so I wouldn’t be aware of what was happening. All I knew is that he needed vessels to help open the doors. I agreed to invoke him into me eight times: seven to find the vessels, and once more to complete the Buné spell on All Hallows’. The summonings were temporary, a few hours each time, and only at night—he was stronger then. Once the alloted time was up, he would be banished automatically and leave my body.”

He’d summoned the duke for short periods of time? Interesting.

“Bishop’s visions of the duke became cloudy,” Merrin said. “Bishop became obsessed with wanting to undergo the transmutation spell to increase his knack, in hopes that he’d be able to see his visions more accurately. He asked the Hellfire Club leaders, but they refused. Bishop begged me to help in secret, but I couldn’t, of course. I didn’t want him to realize that I’d already bargained with Chora.”

“Because he would have tried to stop you,” I said.

“The duke told me he needed vessels, but I swear, I didn’t know they would be children.”

“That means you took all those kids back in the eighties, didn’t you? You bit them and tasted their blood?”