The Demon Covenant

Brennan, Sarah Rees. The Demon Covenant. Book 2 of the Demon Lexicon trilogy. 2010. 440p. 901 mins. ISBN 9781416963813. Available as an audiobook on Overdrive.

In The Demon Lexicon, Alan and Nick discovered after a confrontation with the magicians of the Obsidian Circle that Nick was not human, but rather an ancient demon inserted in the body of a newborn to achieve Black Archer’s dark purpose of acquiring even more magic. Nick’s capture had failed, and as a result many of the magicians of the circle had been slain. Mae Crawford and her younger brother Jamie had returned to Exeter and resumed their lives. Having discovered that the two siblings were playing their divorced parents against each other, Annabelle, Mae and Jamie’s mother, has assumed sole custody and now keeps a closer eye on her kids.

Mae is flabbergasted when she discovers that Jamie has continued to meet and talk with Gerald, now the leader of the Obsidian Circle. Jamie possesses magical talents and hopes to develop them further, and he is also madly in love with Gerald. She contacts Alan and Nick to inform them of her worries. The two brothers appear to have had a falling out of sorts, and are barely speaking to each other. As Mae work with Nick to attempt to make him appear more human, she also begins to fall for Sebastian, a tough boy at school who’s been picking on Jamie, causing further tensions between herself and her brother. She’s also still attracted to Alan, and to Nick.

With Gerald planning to capture Nick and draining him of magical powers for his own nefarious purposes, Mae realizes that she must unite all of the magicians’ enemies into a strike force to take the magicians out. This, however, will require careful planning and the setting aside of old hatreds. Can Mae maneuver the deadly pitfalls to save everyone she cares about?

The Demon Lexicon

Brennan, Sarah Rees. The Demon Lexicon. Book 1 of the Demon Lexicon trilogy. 2009. 322p. 610 mins. ISBN 1-41696379-0. Available both on the library shelves at FIC BRE and as an audiobook from Overdrive.

At sixteen, Nick Ryves already towers over his scrawny and crippled older brother Alan. They have been on the run for as long as Nick can remember, as their mother, Olivia, is a magician and is being hunted by the Obsidian Circle, an order of magicians she used to belong to. She reportedly stole talismans from the Obsidian Circle, and the order wants them back. Their father died protecting the family, and every few weeks or, at most, months, the three of them move to another ramshackle apartment. With Olivia in a perpetual state of psychosis, they have to fend for themselves.

Nick has never liked school, and has trouble reading. Unlike Alan, who loves to read books, Nick would rather practice with his sword and knives, ready at any time to fight magicians and demons. The two of them have kept their mother alive, and together they have managed to stay alive. But when they are contacted by two teenagers from Nick’s current school with an occult question, everything changes. Mae and her brother Jamie have experienced several strange events recently, and Jamie bears the three marks of demon possession. If he doesn’t get help soon, he will succumb to the demon seeking to take control of Jamie’s body.

Nick doesn’t want to get involved, but Alan volunteers their help. Soon, everything Nick thought he knew about the world, his past, his mother, and his brother turns out to be a lie. With the Obsidian Circle hot on their trail, who can Nick trust to survive?