Snippet from The Trouble with Demons

That was what tipped me off. Silence. Way too much of it for my comfort or anyone else's. Mychael and Vegard stopped.

I already had.

In that silence I sensed Piaras -- and something else.

I glanced at Mychael. I didn't know if he sensed Piaras, the men with him, or the something else that none of us needed tonight.

A roar answered all our questions.

I took off running. Behind me, Mychael spat a curse and was hot on my heels. Phaelan and Vegard had weapons out and were keeping up. Mychael stopped just before he reached the corner, and I thought it'd be a good idea to do likewise. I looked around the corner with Mychael and saw something out of a nightmare.

And Piaras had brought them to life.

The kid was spellsinging. Quick, sharp, and guttural. Piaras had conjured help, and he gotten a lot more than he'd bargained for.

He'd created monsters.

Piaras knew he couldn't take on five trained military professionals by himself, so he called for backup. I'd seen Piaras's spellsong conjurings before. They were good. But they were normal spellsong creature conjurings: all illusion, no substance. What I saw in that street definitely had substance. I thought I heard Sarad Nukpana's laughter, but with an embassy guard flying through the air and shrieking like a little girl, I couldn't be sure.

Piaras had conjured not one, not two, but three bukas -- the nine-foot-tall, hairy, long-fanged, longer-armed mountain monsters of goblin legend. Not only were there three of them, they were solid (they shouldn't be), they could roar (conjurings shouldn't be able to), and they appeared to be enjoying themselves (I didn't know bukas could). One of them had armed himself with a guard's sword that the elf wasn't going to be using anytime soon -- judging from his crumpled form lying against the curb -- and was wielding it with what I could only call cheerful glee.

"Damn," Vegard said in awe and admiration.

Phaelan was grinning from ear to ear. "I love it. I hate magic, but I love this."