Lord Szerain. Elinor clawed into my consciousness. Not to be trusted. Not to be trusted!
Panic rose. My muscles tensed and twitched as adrenaline raced through my system. Heart pounding, I pushed away and staggered back, torn between fleeing and lashing out.
I settled on a third option: putting a stop to this bullshit. Distracting-Memory Elinor was one thing, but Body-Take-Over Elinor was oh, hell no. Teeth clenched, I planted my feet and willed the completely inappropriate panic to retreat. I felt Szerain grab my head, and I spared just enough focus to let him read me and see how Elinor was entwined. The rest I used to painstakingly remove her control of my body, like removing burrs from socks.
Soon enough I had my limbs under my own power, and my breathing and pulse to normal rates. I gently eased Elinor back to her usual “place,” sending thoughts of understanding and calm encouragement toward her the whole time.
“She doesn’t like you very much,” I said once Elinor was fully settled.
“Understandable, considering her end,” he said, voice thick with sorrow. “I tweaked the attachment so she can’t mess with you physically again.”
“Thanks. That’s the first time she’s ever taken over like that, and I’m happy for it to be the last.” The mental invasions were bad enough. “Once we rescue her, can you unhook her essence from me and restore her?”
“If all goes as planned, yes.”
“Good. We’ll beat Xharbek to the punch.” Then I frowned. “But how can Xharbek hope to restore her if I have her essence?”
Szerain’s face could have been carved from a block of ice. “As soon as he devises the means, he’ll rip it from you like a scab from a wound and leave your essence to bleed out.”
Shock wiped out my power of speech for several seconds. “The fuck?” I finally sputtered. “Are you absolutely shitting me? I’m only now finding out that this whole time I’ve been living with a motherfucking heartplug that Xharbek could’ve popped free on a fucking drive-by—”
“Kara, stop it!” Szerain snapped.
I cut off my spew of vitriolic what-the-fuck but kept my glare at full power.
“Xharbek is not going to snatch the piece of essence in a drive-by,” he said with exaggerated calm. “He can’t. One aspect of the demahnk constraints, their very nature prevents them from bringing direct harm to the demahnk-human hybrids or their descendants—no matter how distant the relationship. And summoners are in the lineage of the lords.”
I all but pounced on him. “They are? Hot damn! I had a suspicion, but— Do you know who I’m descended from? Oh, hell, please don’t say Mzatal.”
“Amkir would make the most sense.”
I stared at him in horror. “Amkir? Why would that make sense?”
“Well, you both have quite the temper—ow!” Szerain laughed and ducked a second demonstration of that temper. “All right, all right. I don’t think you’re descended from either Amkir or Mzatal.”
I put my hands on my hips and narrowed my eyes. “What about the headaches and stripping memories and whatever other control the demahnk have over the lords? How does that not count as direct harm?”
Szerain lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “Zack is too weak to challenge the constraints and give me the details of demahnk’s cryptic moral code.”
The light dimmed several more degrees, and I held back a nervous shudder. “Tell me about the Dekkak summoning before this dimensional bubble thing pops. I need to get the gimkrah, but what then? You said to be lordy, but how do I—”
Szerain jerked his hand up to cut me off, tilting his head as if listening to a distant sound. “Fuuuuuck. Elinor’s earlier freakout attracted Xharbek’s attention.”
A shiver ran down my back. I suddenly felt like a glowing fishy trying to hide from invisible sharks, all too vulnerable in the sea of darkness. “You need to get back to your stronghold.”
“I will, once you’re back on Earth.” Szerain flicked his fingers and set a whirlwind of crimson rakkuhr sparks dancing over our heads. “This will give him pause,” he said with calm certainty. “Go home. Now.”
How the hell was I supposed to do that? Yet even as the thought surfaced, I instinctively called up the sight and sound and feel of the nexus and the super-shikvihr, the scent of pines and damp grass, the familiarity of Pellini’s resonance and his gruff laugh.
Szerain scattered the sparks. The glow of the dimensional pocket shifted to bloody red, save for a rapidly diminishing patch of golden light. My way out.
I dove for it, reached for home and the strand of potency that would show me the way. Nexus. The tree. Pellini’s aftershave. The screech of blue jays. Kittens chasing a butterfly through the grass.
An arcane shove from Szerain propelled me onward into razor-filled snot.
“Dekkak on the full.” Szerain’s voice echoed distantly, fading. “Elinor. Bunker diagrams. Reach for us exactly two . . .”
Two what?
I crashed onto the nexus and tumble-slid from the center to the edge. Ears ringing, I flopped to my back and stared up into grove tree leaves alight in green and purple jeweled splendor by the late afternoon sun.
“Kara!” Pellini dropped to his knees beside me. “Jesus fuck, I’m glad to see you. Are you all right? You scared the crap out of me.”
I gave him a shaky thumbs up.
“Thank god,” he breathed. “I damn near had a heart attack when you disappeared, but I kept hold of the strand. I could feel you, but that’s it.”
“You did good,” I said as I heaved up onto my elbows.
He blew out a breath and shifted to sit. “I knew if I lost you Jill would never let me hear the end of it.” He crooked a weak smile as I laughed. “So, did it work? Or have you been bobbing around in the ether examining your life choices this whole time?”
“I already know my life choices are questionable,” I said with a grin. “But yes, it worked. I met with Szerain.”
Chapter 23
I filled Pellini in on the stuff he needed to know and left out everything else—an editing of events that he was totally fine with. Like everyone else in the compound, he knew we had mind-reading enemies and didn’t expect, or want, to be privy to the more sensitive info. Once that was taken care of, Pellini headed to the war room while I hurried to the basement to give yet another censored briefing—though with a far different tone.
Jill looked up as I clattered down the stairs, a whisper of annoyance on her face at the noise.
“I just talked to Szerain,” I announced and leaped down the last few steps. “And Ashava’s doing great!”
“What did he say?” She shoved up from the chair like a starving tiger lunging at a hunk of prime rib. “Where are they? Tell me everything!”
“We didn’t have a lot of time,” I said. “But Szerain said she’s healthy and smart and strong-minded.” I grinned. “Ashava keeps them on their toes.”
“She’s such a little thing.” Jill sank to sit again, face full of relief and wonder and worry. “It’s hard to think of a baby as strong-minded, but I know she’s . . . different.”
I quickly recounted what I could of my meeting with Szerain, taking care to emphasize anything that was even remotely related to Ashava. As I spoke, the stark lines of tension in Jill’s face eased. Her daughter was not only alive, but thriving, and that knowledge melted away a generous portion of her fear and distress like a flamethrower on a snow bank.
A measure of the worry returned when I explained that the imperator summoning was now our only viable option. Jill wasn’t at all happy with the new development, but she didn’t waste time snarling about it. After giving me a bone-cracking hug, she dove right back into her research.
A call to Idris was next on my agenda. There was nothing in the rule book that said I had to do the summoning on my lonesome, but even if he couldn’t break free of his DIRT duties, I figur
ed it would be useful to get his input and bounce ideas off him. It didn’t seem possible that our last conversation had been only this morning, considering how much had happened since then.
A quick check of the DIRT status board showed me that it was early morning in Pohang, South Korea, where he and his team were currently deployed. I hated to risk waking him, but with sleep being a whenever-you-can-grab-it luxury, now was as good a time as any to call.
I plopped down at the kitchen table and dialed his number, relieved when he picked up on the third ring.
“Hey, Kara. Everything cool?”
“Would I be calling if it was?” I asked and received a dry chuckle in return. Good, he sounded awake, though tired. “Got a few minutes?”
“Not really, but for you, I’ll pretend I do.”
Using vague terms, nicknames, and the occasional demon word to throw off anyone who might be listening in, I gave Idris a “Previously on Kara’s Kompound” recap of the day’s events: Knight and Cory changing from gummy bears to mega-heavy pods, my going to Siberia to help Mzatal fight the Jontari, my subsequent attempt to contact Szerain through Vsuhl, Elinor’s interruption and my realization that she was on Earth and in Xharbek’s control and, finally, the censored rundown of what transpired in the dimensional pocket with Szerain, including the decision to summon Dekkak to rescue Elinor.
“Holy shit,” he breathed. “You’ve had one hell of a day. And you’ll be doing the first Jontari summoning in centuries.” His voice held awe, dread, and more than a touch of envy. At least he wasn’t telling me I was insane to even consider such a dangerous summoning.
“I have a few tricks up my sleeve. In fact, I’ll tell you all about them if you happen to swing by the ol’ homestead, say, day after tomorrow. I could really use your help.”
“I’ll do my best,” he said fervently. “This seafloor rift is kicking my ass, so I can’t promise anything, but wow. An imperator!”
“You don’t want to miss it,” I assured him then grimaced. “Rhyzkahl will be there. I can’t do anything about that.”
“I haven’t forgotten about him,” he said, voice abruptly a hundred degrees colder and razor-edged.
“Look, I know how you feel about—”
“Really?” he snarled. “You know what it feels like to have a lying, evil piece of shit for a father? To see him smirk? To know that he’s getting stronger every day after everything he’s done? You know what it’s like to have a mother who slept with the asshole and doesn’t give a rat’s ass about you?”
My calm sympathy snapped in the face of his rant. “Oh, give me a fucking break, Idris! Look, I love you. You’re family. But sometimes family gets to tell you when you’re full of shit. You have Rhyzkahl’s and Tessa’s DNA. So fucking what? Rhyzkahl doesn’t even know he’s your dad, and you sure as shit can’t blame him for that lack of knowledge. And we still don’t know whether Tessa has any idea you’re her son. Yes, you have every right to be upset and bitter that your biological parents are assholes, but you’ve taken righteous indignation to a whole new level of crazy. If you’re waiting for either of them to crawl to you and beg for forgiveness for having sex and making a baby, then you’re going to be a long time waiting. You need to move on from this shit, and no one can do that for you. You’re the only one who can decide when it’s time to stop beating up yourself and everyone around you.”
Silence.
A loooong silence.
Shit. “Idris, I—”
“You’ve made your point,” he said, voice stiff. “I have to go. The rift is belching demon sea monsters.”
The connection went dead.
I set the phone down and pressed the heels of my palms against my eyes. “Wow, Kara, you really have a way with people. You couldn’t have given him an ‘Oh, you poor baby’ just this once? No, you had to let him have it with both barrels.”
So much for having another summoner to back me up. But hey, maybe between now and the full moon, the sea rift would calm down, Idris’s curiosity and sense of duty would override his anger at me as well as his less than loving feelings toward his father, he’d show up in time to help, and everything would go perfectly.
Uh huh. Right. And maybe the invading Jontari will develop an allergy to Earth smog and slink back home.
To add insult to injury, with the way the conversation had gone pear-shaped, I couldn’t even enjoy the absurdity of demon sea monsters.
Enough wallowing. Time to deal with all the other crap on my to-worry-about list.
• • •
After grabbing a quick, oh-so-healthy snack of cookies, I joined the others in the war room. Bryce sat at the table with a phone to his ear, while across from him Giovanni sketched in a spiral-bound pad. At the far end, Pellini scowled at his laptop screen as his meaty fingers flew over the keyboard.
Bryce growled an ultimatum about a delayed shipment of bricks and hung up, then stood and handed me a slip of paper. “That’s the best deal I could make on the graphene net. But it’s a big one. Almost twice the size of the prototype. No luck with a power supply, though.” He paused. Grimaced. “The Memphis contact is solid, but he’s risking his career as well as his freedom to make that net disappear from DIRT inventory.”
“I’m not thrilled about putting that burden on anyone, but there’s been a development. I had contact with Szerain. It’s critical to rescue Elinor ASAP, so we have no choice but to move forward with the Jontari summoning.” I frowned at the paper and then at him. “Fifty pounds? Of what? I’m guessing this doesn’t mean British money.”
“Ah, no.” He winced. “See, cash isn’t as welcome what with the world falling apart and all. That’s how much gold he wants.”
I goggled and sputtered. “Are you shitting me?”
“Wish I was. Also, it’s fifty pounds of pure gold, not fifty pounds of fourteen karat stuff. However, if we come up with enough of any quality, it’ll be no problem for me to get the equipment to melt, purify, and cast it into bars.”
“That’s a real big if!” I threw my hands up. “Where the hell are we going to get that much gold?”
Pellini’s brows pulled together. “How much gold did the Piggly Wiggly demon have on him?”
“Nowhere near enough.” Glowering, I flopped into a chair. “Ten pounds, maybe. Besides, DIRT scooped it up.”
Bryce gestured to the corner of the wall screen where a timer unobtrusively counted down. “We have until midnight tomorrow to get the gold to the contact or the deal’s off. No compromise on that.”
“Great. Just great.” I dropped my head back. “I guess that’s all the time we have anyway. The full moon is day after tomorrow which means that’s when I have to do the summoning. Net or no net.” Working without a net. Fuck. The damn thing was both literal and figurative. Without it, I’d be like a trapeze artist who’d never performed a flip before, hurtling through the air over razor sharp rocks and hoping to hell that I could catch the other swing.
Yet the outcome would be far worse if I didn’t make the attempt. Xharbek would have Elinor, and it would be only a matter of time before he found a way to rip her essence from me and created an Elinor-Death-Star capable of wiping out Earth.
“What about going through official channels?” Bryce asked. “Can you—as Arcane Commander—requisition gold for some bogus purpose? It’s a fortune for an individual, but nothing for the government.”
“Con the government in order to pay off a government employee to steal government property.” I let the idea percolate. I didn’t much like playing the bad guy in order to be the good guy, but I’d already started down that rabbit hole when I decided to steal the net.
“It’s a big risk,” Pellini said. “You’d need a convincing story and tangible results within twenty-four hours, all while preparing for the summoning of a lifetime.”
Frustration rose. “If you have a better idea, by
all means, spill it.”
“Loot one of the wealthy neighborhoods?” Bryce offered.
“The rich folks who stayed are armed to the teeth and way too trigger-happy,” I pointed out. “And museums nationwide have been hiding their valuable stuff away. Pawn shops and jewelry stores are also a no-go since pretty much every non-essential retail business within a hundred miles has closed up shop.”
Giovanni cleared his throat softly. “There is gold to be had.”
We all turned to look at him.
“Excuse me?” I said.
“Szerain’s palace.” He opened his hands and shrugged. “Statuary gold. Cast figures large and small.”
My brain fumbled for a few seconds. “Let me make sure I have this right. You’re suggesting we steal and melt Szerain’s art?”
Giovanni crossed his arms over his chest. “He stole far more than mere gold from Elinor.”
Ouch. “Okay, that’s a valid point.” I considered this new development. “Y’know, I think this gold acquisition scheme could work.” I’d find a way to make it up to Szerain later. Preferably from a distance. “I need to go to the demon realm anyway to get the gimkrah.”
“Do you know where it is?” Pellini asked.
“Not yet, but I’m going to call Mzatal and ask.”
“I assume you’re planning to use the Spires to get to the demon realm?”
“Not sure we have any other options for interdimensional transport,” I said. “Of course, we don’t know if the Earthgate is an option at all. Just because we can touch it doesn’t mean we can use it.”
“I can,” Pellini said quietly.
“What? How?”
He gave a self-conscious shrug. “When Kadir came through the gate, I got a glimpse of the other side. I could feel it.” He shook his head. “Look, I don’t know what to say other than I’m sure I can get us through.”
“Then that’s good enough for me,” I assured him. Looked like Pellini’s connection to Kadir might actually pay off. “Giovanni, where do we find the gold?”