Free Bring Out Your Dead by MacAlister Katie

potent being behind the sophisticated
exterior.
    “ How do you destroy a
demon?” Tim asked, holding out a chair for Sally. She beamed at
him.
    I raised an eyebrow at Sebastian, waiting
for his answer. He didn’t look at me. “A Guardian can destroy
demons.”
    Tim glanced at me. “That’s the only
way?”
    “ Not the only way, no.
Talismans created for that purpose can also be used, but
unfortunately, the one I was trying to locate has no doubt been
destroyed in the fire that claimed the Betrayer’s
house.”
    “ A talisman?”
    The color in Sebastian’s eyes faded. “Yes. A
ring of power, actually. It was thin, rimmed with gold, made of
horn.”
    “ Oh, you’re talking about
that ring you mentioned when you staggered into the house. I don’t
know where it is.”
    “ It was in the possession
of the Betrayer. In the right hands, it was capable of the
destruction of the demon lord and his minions.” His hands tightened
on the notebook. “But now it is destroyed.”
    “ It’s broken, but not
destroyed,” a voice piped up over the muted sound of electronic
cars racing down virtual country roads.
    We all turned to look at Damian.
    “ You’ve seen the ring?” I
asked him.
    He shrugged, his eyes still on the TV.
Beside him, William’s head grunted as it manipulated the controller
with his mouth. “Yes. It broke when Nell saved Papa. He gave me the
pieces, saying it was a souvenir.”
    The last hour and a half spent talking to
fire officials made it clear that there was not going to be
anything salvageable from the house. “Damian, I’m sorry—I thought
you heard when the fire captain said that the fire destroyed
everything in the house. Not even a magical ring could survive
it.”
    “ The ring isn’t in the
house,” he said, his shoulders twitching as he manipulated his
virtual car through a hairpin turn.
    Sebastian all but pounced on the boy,
grabbing him by both arms. “Where is the ring now, boy?”
    “ You’re hurting me,”
Damian said, frowning.
    Sebastian loosened his grip. We all watched
breathlessly as Damian reached into his pocket and pulled out an
assortment of grubby items. He picked carefully through bits of
string, a couple of shiny rocks, a key, hard sweets, and assorted
fluff to pluck out three items. He handed them to me. Everyone but
Damian and William’s head crowded around me to see the three thin
bits of curved metal that lay across my palm. They looked more like
a broken hoop earring than a ring. I touched one of the pieces.
“This is a ring of power?”
    Sebastian slumped down
onto the love seat, his eyes closed for a moment. “It was. ”
    “ Hmm.” The pieces of the
ring lay cool on my hand. I touched them, pushing them into a rough
circle, looking closely at the edges of the breaks. “This isn’t
gold. It’s carmot.”
    “ Carmot? What’s that?”
Jack the revenant asked, peering at the ring so closely his nose
almost touched my hand.
    “ Have you ever heard of a
man named Edward Kelley?” I asked Sebastian.
    He frowned for a moment. “No.”
    “ Really? Erm…how old are
you?”
    “ Two hundred and
seventeen,” he said, looking a bit startled.
    “ Ah. That would explain
it. Edward Kelley was a bit before your time—he was an alchemist
during the reign of Elizabeth the First.”
    Sebastian’s eyes narrowed on my hand. “That
ring was reputed to have been created in the mid-sixteenth
century.”
    I nodded. “Edward Kelley claimed to have
found the tomb of a bishop in Wales that contained not only the
basis for his tinctures, which would transmute base metals into
gold, but also of a manuscript that explained the secrets of the
manufacture of the tinctures. He was a fraud, of course, since the
tinctures were not as he claimed, but he did contribute one true
finding to science—carmot, the basis for which philosophers’ stones
were made, and, when treated properly, a yellow metal a thousand
times more rare than mere gold. This ring was made of horn