Giovanni dropped his gaze to Elinor and gave her a soft smile. I pushed to my feet and stepped to where Bryce monitored the DIRT feeds on the tablet.
“Anything?”
“Still no fatalities reported. Seven in critical condition and another dozen hospitalized. Fifteen to twenty are being treated and released for minor to moderate injuries.” His eyes echoed my own mix of sorrow and relief at the toll. “Everyone has been accounted for except one patient.” His gaze flicked to Elinor then slid to the body on the nexus. “And one agent. Richard Knox.”
“I need to set Szerain’s bunker diagrams and get those two secured within them.” I nudged my head toward Giovanni and his gooey girlfriend. “I’ll . . . take care of other matters once Szerain, Zack, Ashava, and Sonny are here and safe.”
He gave me a grim nod. “Pellini and I will mop up the rest.”
“Thank you. For everything.”
A gentle smile came over Bryce’s face. “You make it easy to care.”
Lovely warmth unfolded within me at the unexpected note of approval and support. “Would you mind calling Jill to give her a status update?” I asked. “I’m sure she’s chewing nails by now.”
His smile kicked up a few degrees. “I’ll take care of it.” He gave my arm a light squeeze then moved off to make the call.
Feeling oddly restored, I returned to the nexus and got down to business.
Chapter 40
Pellini and Roper removed the linen-wrapped body of Agent Knox to the grass beneath the tree, and within a dozen heartbeats white roots emerged from the ground to cradle him. A small measure of the weight on my essence lifted at the sight. Rho would keep the remains safe for now, allowing me to give my full focus to the task at hand.
By the time I had the residual potency cleaned up, the bunker diagrams constructed, and Giovanni and Elinor protected within them, fatigue had begun to infiltrate my defenses. However, there was still half an hour to go before the appointed time to bring our AWOL four home, and long experience told me that if I paused to rest for even a moment I’d never get moving again. Focusing on the crap that needed to be done was the only workable tactic.
With that in mind, I headed inside to check on the Krawkor-Makonite-ilius pod situation. The pods were still the same smooth, shiny black with red veining, but now white potency drifted up from them like arcane steam. Bryce stood nearby, arms folded over his chest, and expression perplexed.
“Those demons are tough to see,” he said. “More smoke than substance.”
“Yeah, part of their illusion camouflage.” I passed my hands through the steam, but sensed only a faint tingle. “What did they do?”
“Each one settled on top of a pod. Then they just . . . melted. I think they’re inside.”
“Huh.” Baffled, I placed my hand firmly on the surface of Cory’s pod. It was warm, with an arcane pulse. I could only hope that was a good thing. “Seems okay, as far as I can tell.”
Bryce flicked a glance at the surveillance camera mounted in the corner. “I need to get some air.”
“I can go for that.” I led the way out to the front porch and waited for him to close the door behind us. “What’s up?”
“Turns out Seretis started picking up my thoughts because of this.” He pulled out a gold disk—the one with Seretis’s image. “And, yeah, Turek knows I have it. We scraped by on the weight without this disk. Short a few ounces, but the contact didn’t bat an eye.”
“I’m glad you have it,” I said, absurdly relived that this one survived. “You’re saying that Seretis could pick up your thoughts, but not the other way around until he got here?”
“Right. I guess the disk worked like a broadcast antennae. Once he came through the rift, we had our normal two-way bond contact.”
“Good to know. That means we might be able to get a message to him, if needed.”
Bryce sobered. “Kara, be straight with me. Is the deal he made worth it?”
“Yes,” I said, utterly serious. “It really is. He saved our asses. I know it kills you to see him fucked up like that, but he’s a real hero. Dekkak would have killed every single one of us and given Xharbek the means to destroy Earth.” I paused. “But it’s not just that. He made one hell of a gutsy move with his proposal, and we ended up with Elinor as well as an agreement that I think will pay off for us in the end. It’s risky, but he made a good call. You can be really proud of him.”
“Oh, I am,” he said, voice cracking only a little. He squared his shoulders and shook off the brief sentimentality. “He also gave me info about the rakkuhr and the Jontari. He said it might be useful to you.”
“Every shred of info is more than I currently have.”
“Here goes.” Bryce moved to the porch railing and drew a donut shape in the dust. “The arcane that you summoners use is the surface potency, while rakkuhr is the planetary core potency.” He added a second donut six inches away. “For both planets—the demon realm and Earth.” A corner of his mouth lifted as I twitched in surprise. “Yeah, that caught me off guard as well.” He drew lines from the outer edges of each donut to their centers. “Core rakkuhr and surface potency are in dynamic equilibrium. If there’s too much surface potency, some converts to rakkuhr and sinks to the core, and vice versa. The planets stay stable.”
“Okay, I’m with you so far. Rakkuhr is supposed to stay below and balance out the surface potency.” Obviously, everything was out of whack now.
Bryce nodded. “Seems like it would be a self-correcting system, but there’s a glitch.” He dragged his finger between the two donuts. “All this time, there’s been an interdimensional connection between Earth and the demon realm, like an energy umbilicus. Through it, the demon realm siphons off potency from Earth, and over the ages, has depleted Earth and filled itself to overflowing.”
I cursed under my breath as I grasped the scope of the problem. “Now there’s so much potency in the demon realm, the core can’t contain the rakkuhr.”
“Exactly. From what I can tell, a few thousand years ago the excess rakkuhr broke through in three locations, sort of like geysers. The Jontari have held those places sacred ever since and have built an entire arcane technology around their use.” His shoulders lifted in a shrug. “Seretis said that would be important to you.”
“It fills in pieces of the puzzle.” Three sacred rakkuhr places. Three Jontari elders who were gatekeepers of the rakkuhr, currently enslaved in essence blades. Radical instability in the demon realm threatening to break up the planet—due to the potency overload. A problem for everyone.
“Seretis told me the lords can’t keep up with the planetary balancing anymore via their plexus work.” His brow creased with worry. “It’s unraveling too much, too fast. He said there has to be another way besides flooding the Earth with rakkuhr.”
“There is,” I said with utter conviction. “We just have to find it.”
“Damn straight.” He erased the donuts with a swipe of his hand then headed off toward the security office. I remained on the porch and allowed myself a few minutes to mull over this new information.
Dekkak blamed the Ekiri for changing her world. Maybe they started the siphoning to suit their own needs, and in the process changed the world? Seretis hadn’t so much as hinted at an Ekiri connection, but he might have been manipulated to forget it. Or perhaps it simply happened before his time.
I turned to go inside but paused at the sight of Eilahn’s decorations surrounding the door. Floodlights blazed around the house, setting the crystal figurines sparkling, and a pang of longing went through me as I realized how much I missed Eilahn. The demon garland was exquisite, but if she were here, we’d have giant pumpkins on the roof, witches in every tree, and cauldrons of apples. Hell, probably even a haunted corn maze.
My eyes narrowed on the slug-squid-octopus figurine Pellini had noted earlier. “Well, helloooo, Slugthing,??
? I murmured. The other unknown-to-me figures were probably real creatures in the demon realm, too. Interesting. And more than a little unnerving.
My watch beeped. Five minutes until Operation Phone Home Szerain.
I made my way through the house to the back yard and marshalled everyone into their respective positions. Giovanni sat beside one of the bunker diagrams with Elinor in his lap. Pellini took up his usual spot outside the super-shikvihr while Turek crouched at the edge of the nexus closest to the rift. This would essentially be a replay of my first attempt to reach Szerain, though hopefully without the part where he pulled me into a dimensional pocket. This time—I hoped—Szerain would catch my line of potency, grab the others from the stronghold, and let us pull them all home.
Pellini’s attention stayed glued to his watch, which he’d calibrated to International Atomic Time right before the summoning. By 2:22 a.m., I had the ball of potency-string ready in my hand and my arcane eye on the resonance that marked where I needed to cast it.
The resonance abruptly dimmed and vanished, obscured by an odd static-like potency. It had the “scent” of Szerain though, which told me it was probably an aspect of the protections. My only option at this point was to trust that he’d be ready at the appointed time.
“Thirty seconds,” Pellini announced then took the end of the potency strand from me without lifting his eyes from the watch.
“Five.”
Four. Three. Two. One.
The static cleared precisely as Pellini said now. I flung the ball along the channel to that spot of perfect resonance and waited for my fishy to bite. One heartbeat. Two.
The potency line went taut, and Pellini and I pulled as hard as if we were trying to land Ahab’s white whale.
I yelped and tumbled backward as the tension on the line abruptly disappeared. Pellini landed on top of me, driving my breath out in a whoosh, except that Pellini was standing a couple of feet away, and it was Szerain who rolled off me and onto his back. No sign of Ashava, Zack, or Sonny, to my rising dismay.
A transparent iridescent shield like a tetrahedron-shaped bubble popped up with the bunker diagrams as the vertices. Turek hissed and moved in to help Szerain sit up. Dried blood caked his hair, and he looked battered and exhausted, as if he’d been rolled down a rocky hill after running a marathon.
“I couldn’t reach the others,” he said with undisguised frustration. “Xharbek’s presence was too strong.”
I kept a firm hold on my worry. “Are they okay?”
“For now,” he murmured, leaning heavily against Turek as if he didn’t have the strength to move. “Elinor? I can’t sense her.”
“She’s right here on the nexus,” I reassured him. “We did it.”
Szerain closed his eyes, and it seemed as if a palpable layer of tension sloughed away. “Looks like you didn’t do badly at all for your first Jontari summoning,” he said.
“Are you kidding?” I shuddered. “It was a mess from top to bottom.”
“Nah, it’s like flying a plane. Any time you don’t crash, you’ve won.” He shifted to sit without Turek’s support then went still, gazing down at the slab beneath us as if looking into the depths of a crystal clear ocean. “I could spend a decade examining what Mzatal created here and not understand a tenth of it,” he said with naked awe. Yet a heartbeat later sadness filled his eyes as they traced the connection to Rhyzkahl, trapped in his orbit.
Rhyzkahl met his gaze, revealing nothing in his expression or stance. Szerain breathed out a weary sigh, then turned his attention to his daughter where she lay cradled in her beloved’s lap. Giovanni glared at Szerain and clutched Elinor closer, only relaxing a trifle as Szerain looked at me. I didn’t miss the flash of hurt in his eyes at the rebuff, though.
“You pulled off the summoning without a gimkrah, which is no small feat,” Szerain said. “How did you lose it?”
I scowled. “You make it sound like I left it on the bus or something. We got ambushed and never had a chance.”
“Perhaps I should catch up on your exploits,” he said with a wry chuckle. He reached toward my head but stopped in surprise as I jerked back.
“Not that way,” I said with a grimace of apology. I had zero clue how to shield specific information, and no good would come from him reading that I’d made a pact with a demon to take Szerain’s essence blade from him. “It’s for your own good. Trust me. Please.”
He regarded me with a calculating, narrow-eyed expression, the most lordly I’d ever seen on him. “Of course.” He gave me a smile. “Turek is offering his perspective.” He gestured toward my bandaged hand. “Will you accept healing?”
“Yes, thanks,” I said and allowed him to unwrap the bandage. We’d moved past the incident, but Szerain wouldn’t forget I intentionally withheld info from him, for his own good or not. Turek would inform him of my privacy-veiled meeting with Dekkak, thus giving him plenty of fodder for speculation.
Warmth flowed into my hand from Szerain’s. He hummed softly as he worked, eyes unfocused, likely communing with Turek. After a quiet minute, his face lit up. “You have Elinor’s journal? Fantastic! I need it. Immediately.”
“Yeah, sure thing.” Maybe one of her bug drawings had a deeper meaning? “Hey, Tandon,” I called out. “Could you bring the journal from my nightstand, please?”
“Yes, ma’am,” she said, and was off like a friggin’ gazelle, long legs chewing up the distance in the blink of an eye.
The warmth increased to heat as the healing intensified. Szerain glanced at Turek, then back to me. “The discs,” he said.
My shoulders hunched. “I’m so sorry. They were beautiful, but—”
“Kara, stop,” he said, voice weary. “I felt each as it died in the fire. Now, at least, I know it was for Elinor and not the machinations of an enemy.”
His gold-green eyes seemed to dull, reflecting the depth of his loss. I couldn’t help but wonder what the discs were for, but this wasn’t anywhere near the right moment to ask.
He withdrew his hands, and I sighed in relief as the heat faded. I turned my hand over to see a perfectly unblemished palm. “Thank you,” I said in complete sincerity just as Tandon sprinted up with the journal.
Szerain climbed to his feet with the help of Turek then accepted the journal. “Having this simplifies matters tremendously. Without it, I’d still be able to make the essence transfer, but it would be more risky and take far longer. Come, we have no time to waste.” He stepped off the slab and staggered. Turek leaped to steady him before he toppled.
“Wait, where are you going?” I asked. “Aren’t you going to use the nexus?”
“No, we can’t do it here,” Szerain said. “We need to go to the valve by your pond.”
“But it’s thick with rakkuhr there.”
He flashed a grin, made more rakish by the blood on his face. “Exactly.”
Giovanni clutched Elinor to him. “How can we trust Szerain to do what he promises?” His voice wavered between grief and anger. “He slew Elinor before my eyes!”
Szerain’s grin dropped away as he faced Giovanni. “Yes, but only to save her. Does she not rest in your arms even now? I swear that I can and will explain all, but first we must get to the valve, else we risk Xharbek taking her from you forever.”
Giovanni’s anger gave way to sullen acceptance.
With Turek’s help, Szerain made for the edge of the woods at a fast clip while Giovanni stayed right on his heels. I followed, but not before seeing Rhyzkahl standing tense and rigid with frustration at his exclusion.
Silvery moonlight pierced the canopy, casting ample illumination for us to follow the trail through the woods. The pathway opened up on the pond clearing, where rakkuhr undulated in foot-high coils of red and black, and a Jontari kehza basked in the water as if it was his personal spa.
Szerain headed straight for the arcane valve
without giving the demon so much as a glance.
“Giovanni, sit here and hold Elinor,” Szerain ordered, pointing at a grassy spot a couple of feet from the valve. “Kara, you sit facing them.”
Rakkuhr floated toward me as I settled on the ground. I shoved it away in distaste. “Do I need to hold her hand or anything?”
“No, I’ll take care of making the connections when it’s time.” He remained standing, the third vertex of a triangle. Turek crouched behind him, nearly invisible in the gloom.
The air pressure seemed to drop. The rakkuhr ceased its random undulations and began to flow toward Szerain, swirling around his legs and torso, more and more and increasing in speed until he stood at the center of a rakkuhr tornado that flashed red and black.
He thrust a hand up, and the rakkuhr shot skyward like a beacon. A dozen feet up it seemed to hit an invisible wall and spread downward, as if coating the inside of an unseen globe.
Gobsmacked, I watched as the rakkuhr resolved into an exquisite lacework, passing through the ground to form a sphere with us at the center.
The rakkuhr tornado died down to a slow whirlpool around Szerain’s calves and feet. The lace-sphere began a slow vertical rotation. A measure of tension left Szerain.
“That buys us time,” he said with a crooked smile.
“It’s a shield?” I asked.
“Among other things,” he replied. “The rakkuhr will keep any demahnk interference at bay until we’re finished.” All trace of humor left him as his gaze went to Giovanni. “I had mere heartbeats to make a decision and act to save her.” Emotion rippled through his voice.
Around Szerain, the lazy whirl of rakkuhr began to pick up speed, though not as fierce a tornado as before. Once again he lifted a hand, and the rakkuhr spun up and out to form a second lace-sphere a hairsbreadth within the first. It flashed in dangerous beauty as he set it rotating, this time horizontally.
“Kara, read Elinor’s last journal entry.” Szerain began a third sphere, drawing rakkuhr from the valve like silk from a spider’s butt.