Fury of the Demon (Kara Gillian)

  I winced, exhaled. “All right, but the invitation is always out there.” Jill tended to be practical, not stubborn, which told me that more lurked behind her aversion to living in a community than she chose to share. A traumatic event? Family drama? Zack and I would need some insight on the real issue and a sweeter offer than an RV if we wanted her to agree to move here. I’d have another chat with Zack later. “Let’s forget about it for now. You okay with that?”

  “Totally. I am so done with it,” she said then flashed me a smile to signal we were complete.

  Complete for now. But I went ahead and changed the subject. “I told you about Paul, right? I think you’ll like him. He’s a sweet kid.” I shook my head. “No, not a kid. Twenty-ish, but he comes across with that youthful exuberance.”

  Jill laughed. “A kid to you. You are over thirty you know.”

  I held back a sigh. “I know. I sure missed spending that milestone with my best friends.” It had passed unnoticed in the demon realm, with Mzatal holed up in the plexus for the days before, during, and after. By the time he came out it seemed silly to even mention it since I knew his focus had been on finding Idris. I couldn’t even blame Mzatal for not making any sort of deal over it. What was thirty years to someone who’d seen thousands of them?

  “Yeah, that kind of sucks. Maybe we can make up for it later,” she said with a wink. “You told me Paul and the other guy are super close. Are they a couple?”

  “Y’know, I get the feeling Paul is gay, but I’m pretty sure it’s more like a big brother kind of thing between those two.”

  “That’s cool,” she said with approval. “With what he’s been through with the kidnapping and everything, sounds like he could use that kind of support.”

  “Thatcher was pretty much unconscious the whole time he was here, so I don’t know yet if he’s a dick. However, I do know he took a bullet for Paul without hesitation.” I replayed the scene in my mind. “Dude has some awesome reflexes. He jumped in front of Paul before that stupid security guard even squeezed the trigger.”

  “Could be he has Paul dependent on him,” she said. Worry swept over her face. “Same thing that gets me worried about you and Mzatal, and yeah, I know—it’s not like that.”

  I winced and shook my head as we headed across the lawn to the house. “Trust me, I’ve thought about it a lot. Stockholm syndrome, all of that.” We walked a moment in silence. “But, I’m not dependent on Mzatal, and he does want the best for me. He dissolved our agreement because he said if we can’t simply trust one another, the whole thing was pointless.” I smiled a bit. “He loves me,” I said, then smiled more. “And yeah, I love him too.”

  Jill put on her best fake-tough-girl face. “He hasn’t earned the Jill seal of approval yet. When do I get to check out this so-called loverboy? I missed him last time he was here.”

  I laughed. “Come over this afternoon, and you can check him out all you want.”

  “I’ll do that,” she said. “I have to go to birthing class this morning, because y’know, she’ll never come out if I don’t have proper training.” Her face fell.

  “What’s wrong, chick?” I asked.

  “Zack’s only made it to one of them,” she said and sighed. “I told him I would change to evening classes, but he still didn’t say, ‘Oh yes dear, that will be wonderful! I can make it then.’”

  “Sheesh. Men.” I snorted “Demon men.” I tilted my head. “Maybe it’s simply that he already knows all the stuff and doesn’t realize it’s more for your support? I’ll slap him and inform him, if you think it’ll help.”

  Jill narrowed her eyes at me. “How would a demon know all about human childbirth?”

  “I’m sure he’s been around plenty of humans. There used to be a lot of back and forth between the two worlds up until sometime in the sixteen-hundreds.”

  She considered that. “So he’s read a book or whatever. It’s not the same thing—” She turned and stared at me. “Wait. Wait. You’re telling me that Zack was around in the seventeenth century?”

  Whoa. He hadn’t told her news as big as that yet? “Umm, well . . . yeah,” I said, shifting my weight a couple of times as if preparing to flee her impending wrath. “Plus a couple thousand years earlier, most likely.”

  Jill went super-calm scary. “I’m going to kill him.”

  The urge to flee grew. “I honestly thought he’d have told you this stuff by now.”

  She added narrowed eyes to her scariness. “What other ‘stuff’ is there?”

  Where would I even start with something like that? “Let’s back up.” I summoned up a glare of my own. “Have you ever asked him to tell you about his demon-ness.”

  “Sure I have,” she insisted. “But he didn’t say he was around to witness the fall of Troy!”

  “What did you ask him?”

  She fidgeted and looked away “I don’t remember!” she exclaimed. “Something about what it was like being a demon.”

  I knew Jill. She would never hesitate to ask all sorts of embarrassing questions if she wanted to know the answer. She’d been with Zack for a good while now, and she might have asked him a vague question about being a demon? Nope. That didn’t cut it.

  “It’s scary, isn’t it,” I said gently.

  “Scary? Zack?” She tried to laugh it off, shook her head.

  “Yeah,” I said. “It’s pretty scary. All really weird and different. It’s hard to think of Zack as a demon too, which probably doesn’t help.” Zack played his human role well. He blended, a surfer dude. Nice guy and tough fed. No one would have a clue he was anything but human. The only reason I did was because he’d shown superhuman strength and speed when picking me up to race me away from an attempted summoning. “Have you ever seen his demon form?”

  Jill sobered and went a bit pale. “No.”

  I sighed. What the hell was Zack thinking keeping her in the dark like this? “Jill, you should. The demahnk are beautiful. You still care about him, right?”

  “Yes. Sure I do,” she said, but the look in her eyes reminded me of a rabbit ready to run.

  Worry rose in me for both Jill and Zack. “Look, please, for your sake and your daughter’s, please talk to him about this. Ask him about him.”

  “Okay. Yeah. Sure.” She glanced at her watch. “I gotta go! Time to learn how to squirt this kid out.”

  Run rabbit run. “Okay.” I gave her a hug along with the best smile I could manage. “You’ll come by later, right?”

  “Yep. After lunch and errands.”

  “Sounds good. Happy squirting!” I frowned. “That came out wrong.”

  Jill laughed. “It sure did! See you later. Make sure your honey is all spruced up for his inspection.”

  I grinned. “I think you’ll like what you see.”

  Chapter 21

  After Jill left, I took care of my morning ablutions, got myself all prettified again, then texted Zack an update.

  J still says no. Find out real root issue why. Also RV too small. Mobile home instead?

  That task completed, I headed down to the basement. There wasn’t much to be done to prepare. Zack’s assistance, with clearing the area and again topping off the storage diagram, had been invaluable. Yet another point in his favor.

  An odd rhythm in the flows caught me briefly off balance as I began the summoning, like waves on a white-capped lake. Breathing deeply, I waited and watched for lulls, found as much of a pattern as I could, then made the call during a calmer period, like waiting for a pause in the rain to dash to one’s car.

  The arcane wind picked up and whipped my hair into my eyes. I added power to the flows and stabilized the perimeter of the portal, once again grateful to Zack for the additional power in the diagram. It would be poor form to lose any of the four I was bringing through, to say the least.

  Finally the wind died, and I felt the rush of potency that told me the call was complete. I anchored the flows and settled the weird turbulence as much as I could before releasing the
portal.

  Mzatal knelt in the center of the diagram, head lowered. Bryce stood beside him, bent over at the waist with his hands on his knees. Paul lay sprawled on his back by Mzatal, breathing hard. Jekki, curled in a tight blue ball, lifted his head and gave me a chirrup, then raced upstairs as if the summoning had been a walk in the park.

  “Whoa,” Paul moaned. “That was a lot worse than going.”

  My attention remained on Mzatal, and I clung to the hope that he was truly rested and recovered. “Good to see you again, sweetheart,” I said.

  He lifted his head, opened his eyes, ancient gaze upon me. A smile touched the corners of his mouth. “I have missed you, beloved.”

  Potency radiated from him, and his eyes damn near glowed with strength and vitality. My smile widened. “You look good, Boss.” I moved to him, crouched, slid my arms around him. A humming vibration passed through me. Hot damn, was he ever supercharged.

  The vibration increased as he wrapped his arms around me, kissed me. Though I felt no threat, I had the sense he was so strong in this moment he could snap me in half with his arms if he chose to. I smiled into the kiss. What the hell had he been up to? Whatever it was, I liked it.

  After a moment, he broke the kiss and released me. He laid a hand on the downed Paul’s shoulder briefly, then stood in a smooth movement and held his hand out to me.

  I took it, rose from the crouch then looked over Bryce who still stood doubled over beside us. “Thatcher, you look a lot better than the last time I saw you.” I smiled. “I’m Kara Gillian.”

  With effort, he pushed himself upright. Medium build, lean and efficient, he wasn’t an overly handsome man, but he was also far from unattractive. His hair was about the same color as mine—boring dull brown—but his hazel eyes held an interesting combination of kind and dangerous. “Ms. Gillian,” he said, extending his right hand. “I owe you my life. And please, call me Bryce.”

  I took his hand, shook it. “Not a problem. I’m sure we’ll figure out a fair trade.” I grinned to signal that I wasn’t serious.

  Bryce gave me a smile. Nothing toothy but not as subtle as Mzatal’s either. “I’ll see what I can do about that.”

  Paul groaned and struggled up into a sitting position.

  Bryce moved over to him. “Hey, kid, you okay?”

  The young man staggered to his feet, swayed. “Sure,” he said with a gasp that left me doubtful, though I knew Mzatal would address it if Paul had suffered any true harm.

  Bryce caught his arm and studied him, a look of concern on his face. “No shitting me. Are you okay?”

  Paul dragged in a deeper breath and straightened his shoulders. “Yeah. I’m good. I promise. A little shaky is all.” He gave Bryce a convincingly reassuring smile. “Thanks.”

  “Go sit until you’re not shaky anymore,” Bryce ordered and herded Paul toward the futon.

  Their interaction spoke volumes of true concern. I breathed a sigh of relief and allowed myself cautious optimism that their relationship was genuine.

  Mzatal squeezed my hand, laid his fingers on my cheek. His eyes narrowed. “Beloved, what has happened to you?”

  He felt the discord remaining from Farouche’s influence. “I had a run in with Farouche and got zapped by the same sort of thing that affected Paul,” I said, then continued with a summary of the road encounter, trusting he would read the details from me. “It was awful. Ryan cleared the worst of it, but I figure you can get rid of the rest.”

  He brought his other hand up in readiness to place on my head, paused, waiting for my consent. That was huge progress from our first days together when he did precisely what he wished whether I liked it or not.

  I gave him a smile. “Please do what you can.”

  Mzatal cradled my head between his hands, and I felt the subtle whisper of his mental touch. “This is the same energy I cleared from Paul in the warehouse and from Bryce during his healing,” he murmured. He went quiet for a moment, working, and I felt the release of the fear response like the pop of a soap bubble. As a test, I consciously considered kicking Farouche in the balls. Not even a hint of fear in reaction, when a few minutes earlier the thought would have elicited near panic.

  I began to smile in relief, then realized that Mzatal remained utterly and impossibly still, even though the Farouche influence was clearly gone.

  A wave of dread and worry came to me through the bond. Tensing, I reached up to grip one of his hands. “Boss?” I said, keeping my voice low to not draw the attention of the two men. “What’s wrong?”

  His eyes opened, and in them the dread was magnified a hundred-fold. “Rhyzkahl’s virus, the implant in you—its containment was . . . cracked by the incident with Farouche,” he said.

  Sick fear threatened to swamp me, but deep breathing kept it at a low simmer. “All right,” I said, rather pleased that I sounded calm. I sure as hell didn’t feel it. “But you can re-contain it, right?”

  Mzatal didn’t answer for what was probably a full minute. An eternity of time, while he continued to assess and measure and consider. “I can,” he finally replied. “Though it will require frequent reinforcement now, as it is . . . leaking.” He stroked his thumb over my cheek, visibly holding his own dread in check. “Confusion, or feeling not yourself, would be signs that you are in need of care.”

  “Got it,” I said, gave him a light smile I didn’t feel one bit, not with rakkuhr contaminating me like radiation from a faulty nuclear power reactor. “We’ll have to be joined at the hip then, won’t we?” I took a deep breath and released it. “We’ll find Idris, get back to your realm, and then fix this shit once and for all.”

  “We will find the means to counter it,” he replied, voice still low yet filled with intensity. “It is still far from coalescing here,” he touched my sternum, “for the final stage.”

  My mouth felt as dry as Death Valley. “And if it coalesces?” I knew I’d become Rowan, but would it be like turning on a switch? A gradual morph? Or would I change like a werewolf? WereRowan, I thought somewhat hysterically.

  I felt his mental caress, his understanding that I needed to find any shred of humor I could to shield myself from the utter horror of what I faced. “The rakkuhr would crawl sigil to sigil in the order they were created,” he murmured. He slid his hand to my chest, then down my side and to my back, “until it reaches Szerain’s, to finalize with you lost to Rowan.”

  I realized I had a death grip on his other hand, and I forced myself to unclench my fingers. “All right,” I said with a slight nod. “If shit starts to get bad, we go back to the demon realm, and you and Elofir can lock it down again.” I didn’t wait for him to confirm or deny that. I didn’t want to dwell on it for an instant longer. “How about I get you caught up on what’s been going on?” I said, and immediately proceeded to fill him in. Idris and the phone call. Everything he said, including the possible StarFire reference. His sister’s death and his mother’s probable role as hostage. Katashi on Earth. The “Rowan” bit at the end of the call, and I now wondered if that had contributed to the crack in the containment of the virus? During the entire summary I consciously remained mentally open to make it easy for Mzatal to read details and nuances. Sometimes that whole no-privacy-around-lords thing was convenient. “Oh, and my aunt—”

  “Where is this Farouche?” Mzatal interrupted, his face dark and determined, and I felt his spike of focused anger through our connection. I didn’t have to be a mind reader to know what he was thinking.

  I fixed him with a determined look. “No! You canNOT go find the man and throttle him. Not with Idris’s mom being held, and the chance Farouche is involved in that. We have to tread softly until we have more information and can make a definitive move.” I needed another topic to break his dark mood. “There’s more. Idris said, ‘Tell Mzatal I still have his ring and haven’t forgotten the gheztak ru eehn.’”

  Mzatal closed his eyes, and I peered up at him. “Zack told me it translated roughly to ‘the devastating failu
re,’” I went on. “I don’t get the connection, but I’m thinking you have a clue.”

  Mzatal exhaled and looked down at me. “Gheztak ru eehn is how I designated my loss of you to Rhyzkahl,” he said, voice hoarse with emotion. “It marked that moment and was the driving force for the two of us to work incessantly until we retrieved you from him.”

  Comprehension dawned like a flower blooming in high-speed photography. “I get it. By telling me he has your ring, he’s letting us know he’s still on our side. Then he acknowledged that he knows we won’t stop until we get him back, otherwise there’d be no point in him saying that at all.” With the full meaning unfolded, I felt as if Idris was with me now. “It’s not just acknowledging, it’s approving,” I added. “Especially since he gave me the StarFire clue, which trumps everything he’d said earlier about not going after him. ‘I’m still on your side. I know you’ll find me. Here’s some help with that.’ Damn clever execution on Idris’s part.”

  Mzatal smiled. “He is brilliant, and we will retrieve him.” He drew a deep breath. “I have assessments to complete outside and have been overly long in the confines of this chamber.”

  I felt the anxiety building in him. “Go do what you need to do, lover. I’ll get the guys settled in.”

  He gave me a lingering kiss, then departed the basement.

  “C’mon upstairs,” I said to Bryce and Paul. “Zack has a pot roast in the slow cooker, and I’d hate to see it go to waste.” I led the way and gave the pair a basic rundown of the layout of the house, showed Bryce his room—the guest room where Zack had been staying. We stopped at the doorway of my so-called office/library. “I hope the futon in here will be okay for you, Paul. If you find it’s too lumpy or uncomfortable, I’ll get you an air mattress.”

  “I’m sure it’ll be fine,” he said, his eyes on my dinosaur of a computer, complete with the gigantic seventeen-inch CRT monitor that occupied most of the desk. “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome to dink around on my computer if you want,” I told him. “It’s ancient, but it does what I need it to do, albeit slowly.” I gave him an apologetic smile. “Reeeeally slowly.”