Touch of the Demon

  “The English designation evolved from various forms of the name for the Elders, demahnk,” he explained. “In Latin it was daemonium, in Greek daimónion, referencing a thing of divine nature.” He gave a light shrug. “For some, that twisted into evil nature or evil spirit.”

  That made sense. I took a deep breath. “So, what’s on the agenda for today, Doctor Hel?”

  He appeared to consider. “There are many places to visit, each with its own unique gifts.” But then he smiled. “However, I know the first place I want to take you.” He extended his hand to me, and I took it without hesitation.

  A heartbeat later we were in a crystal cave—crystalline walls, huge crystal points, and prismatic light that seemed to originate from inside the crystal rather than reflecting light from outside. At first it was hard to be there. As soon as we arrived, every cell of my body vibrated—or at least, that’s what it felt like. I wanted to take time to look around, do the whole “gaze in wonder” thing, but Helori tugged me forward, leading me through tunnels and broad passages and over narrow crystalline bridges, before finally stopping before a pool that shimmered with subtle hints of all colors.

  “She is in stasis yet,” Helori said with a gesture toward the depths of the pool. “But she is aware you are here.”

  Perplexed, I looked down into the pool. It wasn’t filled with water, but instead seemed to be brimming with, well, liquid light was the only description I could come up with, as though all the reflections and colors from the crystals coalesced into a beautiful fluid. And there, a few feet down, was Eilahn, curled into a cute little ball with her knees tucked to her chin, her arms wrapped around her legs and her wings folded like a case around her. In all the time I’d been in the demon realm, I’d never wanted a camera more than at that moment. Because this was some awesome blackmail material.

  Smiling, I gave Helori’s hand a squeeze. “Thanks.”

  He returned the squeeze. “And now we visit some of my favorite places.”

  Helori had strange taste in favorite places, I decided. Our first stop was mud. That was it: mud as far as the eye could see. We immediately sank neck-deep in it, achieving some sort of neutral buoyancy, and then remained there for what seemed like hours while I received the best massage of my life from some I-really-really-didn’t-want-to-know sort of creatures within the mud.

  After that, a waterfall straight out of a shampoo commercial, then to watch a pair of breeding luhnk—which was strange and bizarre only because the female resembled a six-legged mammoth in size and shape, and the male was closer to the size of a German Shepherd. After that, we visited the lower branches of a massive tree with a trunk at least thirty feet in diameter.

  Helori draped himself over a branch as thick as his waist, and I did likewise a couple of feet away. He pointed toward the ground, and I looked to see a teeming mass of carnivorous ants as big as terriers tearing into a cow-like thing twice the size of an elephant.

  As I watched the industry of the giant ants, I found myself grinning; somehow I didn’t think Mzatal would approve of me being in such a potentially perilous position after he’d spent so much energy and effort to retrieve me. My gaze slid to Helori. He wouldn’t let me be in any true danger. I knew that, deep in my essence.

  “What’s going to happen to me after we return to Mzatal’s palace?” I asked.

  “Mzatal will train you,” he replied, “though I do not know what terms of agreement he would set.”

  I mentally recoiled. “I don’t want to be marked,” I said firmly. “I can’t—won’t—do that again.”

  “He would not propose marking you now,” Helori reassured me. “It is a lengthy process, and in any case, Katashi currently bears his mark, and having a second is inadvisable. He will, without doubt, require an agreement.”

  My brow furrowed. “Idris said something about that. What’s the difference?”

  “An agreement is a short term arrangement—perhaps a few months to a few years—with specific terms negotiated,” Helori said. “Marking is long-term, usually lifelong.”

  I gave a slow nod. “Okay. I’ll think about that.” I had yet to fully wrap my head around the notion that Mzatal wasn’t my enemy—at least, not at the moment. The idea of willingly working with him still seemed incredibly foreign. I peered at Helori. “Do you trust Mzatal?”

  “Do I trust him to always make choices I agree with? No.” Helori said. “Do I trust him to speak the truth to me and follow through on what he says to the best of his ability? Yes.”

  I took it all in, considered. Mzatal had certainly followed through on his promise to retrieve me. “I guess I can handle that.”

  Helori’s golden-brown eyes met mine. “I have not known him to willfully break an agreement with a summoner,” he told me. “Dealings with other lords, however, have their own rules.”

  “Some of those lords are batshit fucked-up.” I snorted. “I mean, did their mamas not hug them or something?”

  Helori’s eternal smile faded a little, and he closed his eyes, as if in pain.

  I grimaced. “Shit. Sorry. I was trying to make a joke. I guess a bad one.” But my brow furrowed. What nerve had I struck?

  He let out his breath in a soft exhalation and looked back over at me. “In jest, you hit very near the mark.”

  My confusion increased. “Why are there no female lords? Do they not have mothers?”

  “Genetics and arcane levels determined gender,” he said. “Though it was possible for there to be a female of their kind, it did not occur.”

  Questions crowded together in my head, but before I could ask any of them he reached and took my hand.

  “My beautiful Kara,” he said, clear and ancient eyes on mine, “they do not know their origin. And I ask you to trust me that, for now, it is for the best.”

  My cop instincts poked at me to find out more, to continue to question, but I regretfully slapped said instincts down. For now. “All right.” Damn it.

  “It cannot remain thus for much longer,” he said, expression briefly shadowed. “There is so much in flux now.” He stood and nimbly leaped over to my branch, then pulled me to my feet. “And, speaking of flux, I am taking you now to the Zadek Kah—a polar atmospheric anomaly that acts as a kaleidoscope-type prism. The play of colored light over the landscape of ice is indescribable.” He grinned. “It is awesome.”

  And before I could blink, we were off again.

  Since we seemed to flit all over the planet, I lost track of time. Yet it was clear that Helori wasn’t trying to distract me from either the horror I’d endured or my post-traumatic stress. Each place seemed to be a new opportunity for contemplation or conversation or simple self-discovery—like therapy at super-speed.

  That second night, we slept curled up in a den of skarl—hyena-like creatures as friendly as house cats. I was dubious at first, especially since the den reeked of skarl-musk, but it turned out that the skarl gave off a comforting vibe that allowed me the best damn sleep I’d ever had in my life. As soon as I woke, though, Helori traveled us to hot springs surrounded by ice and snow to bathe the thick skarl odor away.

  After bathing, I lounged on a smooth rock, neck deep in the water. “If you can teleport pretty much anywhere,” I asked, “why did we take the grove to the beach that first day?” That first day—only two days ago, yet it felt like a century.

  “It was so it could truly be your choice,” he told me. “You were not ready to tell me what you wanted, but you could tell the grove.”

  That made sense. “The climate and terrain here is a lot like Earth,” I said. “The fact that humans can live here so easily, on a completely different world, is kind of mind-boggling.” I gave Helori a questioning look.

  He ducked under the water to slick his hair back, then nimbly climbed out of the pool and crouched beside it, apparently impervious or oblivious to the subfreezing temperatures. “Earth and this realm are closely tied in many ways, like sister worlds,” he told me. “A very close family resembla
nce.”

  My lips pursed as I considered that. “Is the geography the same?” I asked. “I mean, is there a North America and Africa and all that? But, you know, with different names.”

  “No,” he said with a shake of his head, eyes crinkling with humor. “Same family, not identical twins.”

  I chuckled. “I can handle that.”

  He laughed. “I am delighted, as I do not think it will change.”

  Snorting, I rolled my eyes. “Okay, my mad syraza, what do you have planned for me today?”

  Taking my hand, he hauled me out of the pool, ignoring my protest, though I was surprised to find that the warmth of the hot spring seemed to insulate me from the frigid air. A heartbeat later, I thought we were standing at the mouth of a cave very high above the ground. Then I realized there was far too much wind, and that the cave itself sure seemed to be moving around a lot. Plus the floor was weirdly squishy.

  I groaned. I’d seen Star Wars. I looked askance at Helori. “Are we in some sort of giant flying demon worm thing?”

  He laughed. “Not a worm. A nehkil. Reminiscent of the Earth basking shark, except more reptilian, and it flies. But don’t worry,” he said as my expression no doubt betrayed my apprehension. “We are far too large to make it down his gullet. Ethereal spores prevalent along the coastline are his primary sustenance. You could say that he soars for spores,” he said, laughing.

  I gave him a pained grimace.

  “You may note them passing in as flickers of light,” he said, then gestured beyond the open mouth of the nehkil. “Is it not a glorious view?”

  I had to agree with him there. It was pretty damn awesome. I’d only flown in airplanes a few times in my life, but I figured we were probably a couple thousand feet up. Sea spread off to the horizon on the right, in varying shades of blue and green from near black to luminescent turquoise. Shifting white marked the places it crashed into land or partially submerged rocks. Verdant forested mountains veined with waterfalls and rivers rose to the left.

  Helori pulled a blanket from elsewhere and spread it out on the beastie’s, er, tongue, I assumed. I found myself inordinately glad for the blanket, since I was still buck-naked from the hot springs. But, since Helori was nude as well, I didn’t see a point in making a fuss about clothing, and after only a few minutes I forgot about it completely.

  We stayed there for what was probably most of the day. The nehkil’s mouth and tongue were nowhere near as moist as I’d expected, and Helori explained that its salivary glands shut down during this open-mouthed basking in order to prevent it from dehydrating. I alternated between enjoying the view, napping, and general navel-gazing while the nehkil flew along the coastline.

  The sun was beginning to dip toward the west when I saw a huge arch of stone stretching from a mountain into the sea. Though I was pretty sure that part was natural, there was something about the shapes around and on top of it that were not. As we got closer, I could make out windows, balconies, and arched doorways, all blending beautifully into the stone and greenery of the arch.

  “What’s that?” I asked Helori.

  Helori lounged on his side, propped on one elbow. “That’s the home of Rayst and Seretis.”

  “Both of them?” I asked. “They live there together?”

  He nodded. “They each have their own sections, but most is common use.”

  “I met Rayst during the conclave,” I said, “He seemed very nice.” I paused. “I don’t despise him.”

  “On the scale of lordly ratings, ‘nice’ serves,” Helori said with a smile. “He involves himself with the power games as little as possible, but will not hesitate to step in if he sees the need.”

  As my gaze traveled over the palace, I caught a glimpse of iridescent wings atop the stone arch.

  “Rayst and Seretis had a lot of syraza with them at the conclave,” I said. “Do the syraza like them more or something?”

  “It is a preference,” he replied. “The potency environment is not only stronger there with two lords together, but also more comfortable due to the nature of those two. And thus many of the younger syraza live near and associate closely with Rayst and Seretis.” Helori smiled. “It took much for the other lords to agree to the shift—for both to be in the same geographic location—because the entire structure of the potency flows had to be reconstructed. But it was long enough ago that all came to agree on it.”

  I pursed my lips in a frown. “Ilana is Mzatal’s syraza-counselor, his ptarl, and Zack…Zakaar is Rhyzkahl’s. Where is Szerain’s?”

  “Xharbek.” Helori exhaled. “Xharbek is in hiding.”

  My brow furrowed. “Because Szerain is in exile? Or because of why he’s in exile?”

  “Both.” He fell silent for several heartbeats before speaking again. “Xharbek is thought dead by, well, most.”

  I regarded him, considered his words. “But you don’t think he is.”

  His eyes met mine. “No. I do not.”

  Interesting. Yet another addition to the mental clue board. At this rate I was going to need a mental clue wall.

  I lifted my chin toward the structure as we came closer. “It’s not as Palace-y as the others I’ve seen.”

  “Each lord builds according to taste and purpose,” Helori said. “Simply viewing and feeling the residences gives much information.”

  That seemed quite true from what I’d seen so far. I glanced back at Helori. “Rayst and Seretis. Are they together together?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Yes. And have been for a very long time.”

  I chuckled. “Well, no wonder they’re happier than all the other lords. Or at least they seem that way.”

  “More at peace,” he said with a nod. “Though that too is a relative term.”

  The nehkil veered slowly away from the dwelling. The faint flicker at the edge of my sight told me that there were probably aversions or some other sort of protective wards in place to keep wildlife away. I stayed silent long after the home of Rayst and Seretis disappeared from view, pondering everything that had happened since my arrival in the demon realm.

  When the sun touched the horizon I turned back to Helori.

  “I think it’s time for me to go back now.”

  Chapter 23

  I exited the tree tunnel in Mzatal’s realm with Helori by my side. My steps slowed as I looked out at the greens and dark greys of the mountains, the glinting glass of Mzatal’s palace, and the dark finger of the column. I wasn’t healed, not by a long stretch, but now I felt as if the fracture had at least been set. And I was ready to face Mzatal.

  Helori, still in human form, slid a look at me as we made our way down the stone path and stairs. “Idris is working in the entry hall.”

  Shame tightened my gut. I’d had the fucking gall to think that he was the naïve one. Wasn’t that a laugh.

  “He was instrumental in your recall,” he continued. “Mzatal could not have accomplished it on his own. Both worked continuously from the time of your departure until the time of your recall.”

  I stayed silent for several heartbeats. “I understand now why he stays with Mzatal.”

  “It is as perfect a pairing of student and teacher as I have ever seen,” Helori replied.

  The simple cave-like entryway beyond the stone and glass doors struck me as refreshingly unpretentious after the opulent grandeur of Rhyzkahl’s palace. Idris stood near the wall to the right, crafting a ward with an ease and elegance that I could only dream of someday having. He glanced my way as we entered, and his eyes lit up with surprise and delight. “Kara!” He turned to me and nearly fumbled the ward, then grinned in relief as Helori lifted a hand and kept it from completely unwinding.

  Helori moved off, leaving me alone with Idris. “Yeah, it’s me,” I said, instantly realizing how dumb that sounded.

  But his grin only widened. “God, Kara, you look so much better than—” He flushed. “I mean…shit. Sorry. You look great.”

  I held back a low laugh. “Thanks.
I feel a lot better, too,” I said with a sigh. “I’m sorry you had to go through so much to get me back. Running away to Rhyzkahl was about the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.”

  “Yeah, but you didn’t know it was stupid at the time,” he said with a scowl. “It was Rhyzkahl you were dealing with. How would you know?” He shook his head. “I mean, back on Earth, that is. When you got here, Lord Mzatal should have…” He trailed off, then straightened his shoulders. “He should have told you more,” he said definitively.

  Damn. Idris grew a spine while I was gone.

  “Anyway, I’m glad you’re back,” he continued. “I, um, we were really worried about you.”

  “Well, thanks for everything,” I said with a small smile. “I owe you, big-time.”

  He flushed and smiled sheepishly. “Nah. It was no biggie. You’re kinda special, y’know?”

  Special? Was he crushing on me? Weird. “No, I just managed to attract the attention of some powerful people. A perfect storm of Shit Happens.” Sighing again, I leaned my back against the wall. “The first time I summoned Rhyzkahl was an accident. I was trying to summon Rhyzel, a luhrek, at the same time that Peter Cerise—the Symbol Man killer—was trying to summon Rhyzkahl. The lord simply hijacked my summoning to escape Cerise’s binding.”

  Idris began tracing a new ward. “Yeah, whatever. I couldn’t do it.”

  I frowned and tilted my head. “Have you ever tried? I mean, summoning a lord?”

  His gaze snapped to mine. “You gotta be kidding! No way!”

  “Then how do you know you can’t do it?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. “Maybe when you get back to Earth you can try summoning Mzatal.”

  He stared at me as if I’d tried to tell him that two plus two equaled three. “You’re serious.”

  “Well, yeah,” I said. “I mean, as long as Mzatal’s willing. That’s what matters most. And I could show you the storage diagram I used so that I had enough power. What do you have to lose?”

  “My measly life?” he said, then grinned and shook his head. “I dunno. Katashi is using four summoners to summon Lord Mzatal. And Lord Mzatal has always been willing.”