Legacy of the Demon (39 page)

“Surely you remember my
aunt
,” I growled. “Yeah, I know you slept with her a couple of decades before you seduced, used, and tortured me.” Damn it. I clamped my mouth shut and slammed a lid on the flood of condemnation that threatened to escape. “What's done is done. Just tell me. What was she to you?”

Rhyzkahl returned to culling flowers. “I was fond of Tessa Pazhel—as a student and a bedmate.” A smile briefly touched his eyes. “At times Janice reminds me of her, with her spirited conversation and equally spirited bedding.” He frowned and flicked a bug from a leaf. “My realm grew lonelier when Tessa chose to return to Earth and . . .” His frown deepened.

Aha! I leaned forward. “Why did she leave?”

His shoulders lifted in a careless shrug. “To return to Earth,” he repeated.

A pat and simple reply. And too much like the programmed responses given by people who'd been manipulated.

“But why?” I pressed. “What was her explanation?”

“She decided—” Uncertainty flitted across his face. “No, she . . .” Still crouched, he jerked around to face me, muscles rigid. He'd surely manipulated enough humans to know what it meant when there was a wrinkle in an otherwise smooth memory. A glitch in the matrix.

He didn't speak a word, but I felt him pleading, urging me to tell him.

What to say? I did
not
want to cause another vicious headache. The last one had been triggered by Rhyzkahl's thoughts of his own parentage. I had to assume the info about the lords' own kids would be protected as well. “Too much sun will give you a headache.” I nudged my head toward the grove tree. “How about taking a break in the shade?”

Without a word, Rhyzkahl stood, strode to the tree, and rested his back against it. I followed at a more leisurely pace to give time for the tree-calm to take effect. By the time I reached him, his features were relaxed, and the tension gone from his stance.

“She returned to Earth because she was pregnant,” I said. “Tessa told me that she was living in Japan and had a fling with some American guy and that the baby was stillborn.” I paused. “But it wasn't.”

Comprehension flared in Rhyzkahl's eyes. He pushed off the tree trunk, expression a mix of shock and naked
hope
. “Idris,” he choked out. “It is Idris, is it not?”

“Yeah,” I said, more than a little off-balance by this startlingly human reaction. “Idris is, um, your son.”

For the tiniest fraction of a second, Rhyzkahl's aura blazed as if he burned with elation. Then the mask dropped back into place, his features smoothed, and his lordly bearing returned. Damn, he had impressive control.

“My
son
,” he said slowly, as if tasting the word. “He despises me.” His brow creased ever so slightly, as if he was trying to determine if that should matter to him.

“Well, you do have a bit of a reputation.”

He didn't reply or react save to turn away from me and begin to slowly pace the perimeter of his prison. Processing this new paradigm, I figured, and the implications. Rhyzkahl now held the forbidden knowledge that the lords could father children—and from there he could surmise that they had likely done so many times over the last few millennia. No doubt he was
considering how this new information affected various plots and plans. And, surely, wondering why the knowledge had been suppressed and the children hidden.

I thought of Rhyzkahl's face shining oh-so-briefly after learning Idris was his son. I'd seen that look before, on fathers holding their newborn child for the first time.

Maybe that was why the demahnk didn't want the lords to know.

Maybe it risked making them too human.

•   •   •

Jill returned mid-afternoon with a truckload of supplies and groceries. But no chickens.

“I bought chickens,” she assured me when I came out to help her unload. “They're being delivered tomorrow.” Then she shrugged. “That is, assuming you haven't been eaten.”

“Your faith in me warms the cockles of my heart. Admit it. You didn't want to bring chickens home today for fear that Dekkak would eat them all.”

“It would be a terrible waste of money,” she said with a tragic air, then her breath caught as she pulled me into a hug. “Bryce wants me and the pets and the civilians out of here in the next ten minutes. Stay in one piece, damn it. Call me the instant you know anything.”

“I will, and I will,” I said and hugged her back just as hard.

I released her as furious yowling heralded the arrival of Lilith Cantrell with a cat carrier in each hand. Behind her, Sammy bounced eagerly on a leash held by the stocky Kellum, with Janice and Michael bringing up the rear.

“Jill,”
Bryce roared from the door of the security outbuilding.
“Get your shit packed and your ass out of here.”

Jill shot him an affectionate middle finger then leveled a fierce look at me. “Remember: Don't die. I love you.”

“I love you, too. Now go away.”

She smiled and dashed to her trailer while I headed into the house to take the most important shower of my life.

Okay, Kara,
I told myself as I stepped onto the nexus,
we've been busting our asses for two days, planning and preparing for this damn thing.
I paused my silent lecture for a dramatic three heartbeats.
Don't. Fuck. Up.

I positioned myself with the grove tree behind me, a pace from the edge of the slab. I'd given up wearing formal summoning garb not long after I started training in the demon realm. In its place I'd usually opted for whatever felt comfortable. But today, everyone here had on the full kit usually reserved for incursion response—combat fatigues, boots, body armor, guns, knives, you name it. For this summoning, I was happy to trade a bit of mobility for protection. Except for my feet, which were bare to allow me to better feel every shift and nuance of the nexus.

At those same feet, my blood bowl and ritual knife lay ready. Light from the full moon pierced the leaf canopy, patterning the area with misty color while, around me, woven strands of potency thrummed, ready for the summoning call. The super-shikvihr undulated in scintillating electric blue waves and, directly beyond it, the amber glow of over a hundred floating sigils marked the Dekkak binding zone—an oval-shaped area nearly twenty feet wide and extending all the way to the vinyl exterior of Rhyzkahl's house.

Potency from both the prepared ritual and the nexus saturated me to the point that I no longer felt limited to flesh and bone and skin. My brain told me to use my eyes to confirm all my people were ready and in place, but my lord-sense
knew
before I looked. Each person shone with their own unique energy signature.
Pellini, armed with the borrowed wizard staff, just off the nexus to my left. Rhyzkahl near the tree trunk behind me. Turek tucked in close to the house and, beside him, Giovanni within a circle of protective wards. Bryce and Suarez by the launcher, ready to deploy the graphene net upon Dekkak's arrival. Roper and Tandon hunkered down half a dozen feet into the woods as a last resort backup, both with weapons loaded with shieldbuster rounds.

“Status,” I murmured, for the sake of everyone who didn't have the nifty lord-sense. A series of crisp affirmatives came through my earpiece. “Ready here, too. Time to boogie.”

The moonlight abruptly brightened, and I looked up in surprise to see that the tree had withdrawn its branches from over the nexus. I grinned in gratitude and relief. Now I wouldn't have to worry about either demon or net getting tangled up in it.

As I'd done hundreds of times before, I began the familiar chant that would unite the energies and open the interdimensional portal. Yet the words jangled off my tongue, and the ritual was sluggish to respond. It felt
wrong
. Too structured. Harsh rather than harmonious.

Be lordy. Be the summoning
.

All right. Time to let go of my preconceptions of what the chant should be and freestyle this thing. Starting anew, I allowed sound to flow—unfamiliar though melodic, but oh-so-right. In confirmation, the sigils flared, and a frigid arcane wind swirled around me.

I am lordy.

The guided potency of the ritual slammed against the dimensional fabric, but the portal itself was stubborn, like trying to open a door against a gale. I'd successfully opened hundreds of portals, but never with so much power at my disposal. It should have been easier, not harder. I was trying my best to
be
the damn summoning. What the hell was wrong?

I sought the calm center in the midst of frustration. Szerain had told me to be lordy and be the summoning. That instruction had brought me this far, but clearly, I was missing something.

Kadir's advice to Pellini whispered through my mind.
Believe it has already happened.

Understanding crystallized. This was different, not harder. It wasn't all about control and rules like in a regular summoning. It was about creating. It was the difference between painting by numbers and translating an artistic vision to a canvas. Using a
boxed mix to make a cake versus creating a breathtaking dessert from scratch.

Here and now, I was the artist. I breathed in the arcane wind, mingled it with my own potency then exhaled it, all while envisioning a pinprick of dimension-piercing light within the perimeter of the binding sigils. The vision became reality as the light expanded into a portal vortex. With it came a roaring rumble like boulders crashing down a mountainside.

I gathered the prepared potency strands, made the call in a voice that was mine but so much more. “Dekkak!”

The wind picked up the name, howled it through the roar and ensnared the demon on the far side of the portal. I braced against the tension on the strands and
pulllllled
.

For several tension-wracked heartbeats, nothing budged, then all hell broke loose as the demon fought the call. I thought I'd performed tough summonings before, but this was like trying to pull a pissed-off grizzly bear through a porthole using a bungee cord in the middle of a hurricane.

It took every bit of standard training and lordy experience to keep my wits and my hold, but I had the sucker, and I wasn't about to let go. Dekkak's shadow choked the portal, and with one final yank he was through and on my nexus.

He stood taller and broader than the Piggly Wiggly reyza—and wore ten times more gold—but to my surprise was nowhere near the size of Big Turd. Rakkuhr flames crawled over his blood-red hide and rose, smoking, from wicked double-curved horns. A thick, barbed tail twitched like an angry snake, and the stench of sulfur rolled from him in a noxious wave.

Fire and brimstone. A living hellish nightmare.

Not
my
nightmare, damn it
. I fed potency into the bindings, imbuing them with his name—
Dekkak
.

His head swiveled toward Pellini, even as a lightning-fast whip of his barbed tail caved in half of Rhyzkahl's house. Pellini raised the staff, but the demon was already in motion, lunging toward him. I tightened the bindings, but to my horror they slipped from the demon like greased spaghetti. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught the recoil of the net launcher, its sound drowned out by the fading roar of the of the closing portal.

Dekkak ripped the staff away with one clawed hand and sent it skittering across the nexus then seized Pellini in a demonic bear-hug and launched into flight.

Heart in my throat, I gathered and checked the bindings,
watching with one eye as the net sailed through the air toward the target area. All the demon needed was another solid beat of his wings, and he'd be clear.

The net won—barely—fouling Dekkak's wings. Shrieking with fury, he crashed down, lower body and tail hitting the nexus, and upper torso slamming into the grass. Pellini let out a wheezed curse and scrabbled against the demon's hold.

Bryce and Suarez ran toward the netted demon and Pellini while I anchored the useless bindings and dove for the staff. Dekkak thrashed on his back, bellowing a deep scream full of rage and the promise of death. In a few more seconds he'd be free of the net.

With a fierce pull of nexus power, I focused a blast of potency at one of Dekkak's massive arms, burning through the rakkuhr shielding and biting into flesh. He jerked, loosening his grip. Without hesitation, Pellini shoved a flare of Kadir-chartreuse potency against Dekkak's chest.

The demon howled and pulled one hand free of Pellini to scrabble at the weirdly clinging glow. Leaping forward, I drove the wizard staff hard against the demon's side, thumb already mashing the button. His body spasmed as electricity found its mark, but I could already tell it wasn't enough to incapacitate him for long. “Get Pellini out,” I hollered to Bryce and Suarez then sucked in a breath of shock as rakkuhr flames wreathed the staff and crawled toward my hands. “Hurry!” Part of me was impressed and fascinated by this utterly cool and badass use of rakkuhr as both defense and offense, but the rest of me did
not
want a personal introduction.

The guys moved fast to drag Pellini free then raced to secure the net. They got as far as pulling it around Dekkak's upper torso before I shouted for them to get clear and had to backpedal to avoid the rakkuhr.

The demon snarled and clawed at the net. The graphene-enhanced strands held firm, but it was clear we had minutes at most before he struggled out of it.

Rhyzkahl's voice cut through the final rumbles of the summoning and my own pounding heartbeat. “Kara! Bind with yulz.
Yulz
.”

What the hell was yulz? I wracked my brain futilely for a sigil or protection called yulz before his meaning hit me. Not what.
Who
.

“Keep him occupied.” I shoved the staff into Bryce's hands
then dashed back to the Dekkak-attuned binding strands. No wonder they'd failed. I'd sure enough lassoed a Jontari warlord, maybe even an imperator, but it wasn't Dekkak. Baffling, but no time to figure out how and why that happened. I recharged the bindings with the name and energy signature of Yulz then sent them to snake around the downed demon. With a triumphant jerk of my fist, I tightened the hold.

Yulz hissed, unable to do more than wriggle within the confines of the physical net and arcane bindings. The rakkuhr flames slithered from him and dissipated.

I bent forward and rested my hands on my thighs while I caught my breath. Yulz wasn't the demon I'd intended to summon, but he was still one seriously potent motherfucker. We'd have been dead meat without the net—or Rhyzkahl's well-timed help.

Straightening, I gave Rhyzkahl a grateful nod and a mouthed
Thanks
. “Status!” I called out then began to meticulously anchor the bindings. No way did I want to risk releasing the demon prematurely.

“Five by five,” said Bryce and Suarez in unison, standing tense and wary beside the demon. Suarez had a bloody nose, but seemed okay otherwise. Bryce held the staff at the ready.

Pellini lay sprawled on the grass, breathing hard and staring at the sky.

“You still with me, hoss?” I asked.

“Miffed that you wouldn't let me go flying with our new friend, but except for that, I'm dandy.” He shoved up to sit. “Are we where we need to be with this?”

“I believe so,” I said then gestured gracefully toward the demon. “Everyone, meet Yulz. Not exactly who we expected, but he's badass. We'll make this work.” As soon as I caught my second wind, I'd figure out how to bind Mr. Yulz to the task of fetching Elinor. The hard part was over, at least. Once Elinor was successfully rescued and the demon dismissed, I'd spare a minute to try and figure out why the hell Yulz came through instead of the demon I'd actually called. But for now, it was time to get down to business.

My ears popped at a sudden change in air pressure, and the scent of ozone engulfed me. “Stay on your toes!” I shouted as I tried to figure out what the fuck was happening. It wasn't coming from the nexus or the demon, but beyond that I had no clue.

The slab shuddered beneath me, and an awful metallic
tearing sound filled the air, like two eighteen-wheelers being scraped together by a giant. The remains of Rhyzkahl's house sank a foot, then plunged into the maw of an opening rift.

Oh shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit.

I flinched and threw a hand up to shield my eyes as light flared like an exploding transformer from the grass on either side of the rift. Lightning flashed at the outer edge of Rhyzkahl's orbit then streaked around the perimeter, jumping the rift gap and continuing in a blinding race for several heartbeats before ceasing in an instant.

Blinking spots out of my eyes, I made a hurried check to make sure everyone was clear and okay.

No, Rhyzkahl was lying crumpled on his side, stricken by the disruption of the prison warding.

“Turek, get Rhyzkahl to the tree!” I shouted then added, “Please,” since I didn't know how he felt about the lord. “Pellini, scramble Alpha Squad. Bryce, give Suarez the staff and get someone on the hose in case the grass catches fire.”

The tearing sound died away to the unpleasantly familiar hiss of a new rift. I allowed myself a few seconds to stare at it in horror and disbelief. Seriously? Of all the shitty timing, a rift had to choose
now
to appear and
here
by my nexus?

The lovely new addition to my back yard landscaping ran from the edge of the nexus to twenty feet beyond the outer edge of Rhyzkahl's orbit. Gouts of magenta flame erupted from its depths, and lining the rim were complex braids of rakkuhr, unlike anything I'd ever seen before. Ice spread across the ground, leaving only the nexus itself untouched. At least that was intact.

The netted demon began to laugh, deep and slow—a fiendish sound I hoped to never hear again, and a hundred times worse than any movie special effect.

A sick dread filled me along with the unpleasant feeling that this rift was no coincidence. I dashed to the center of the super-shikvihr, double-checked and reinforced the bindings on Yulz, then cleared away every speck of residual energy from the summoning.

Magenta flames leaped in the rift, casting an ominous light across the slab and highlighting the desperate circumstances. Around the nexus, chaos was held at bay by training, discipline, and loyalty. Roper had the hose pulled out and was wetting down the grass. Turek crouched in a protective stance beside
Rhyzkahl at the base of the tree. Bryce now had a shotgun slung over one shoulder and hustled to get as much heavy weaponry as we possessed to the security guards.

Everyone was doing what they needed to do, which left me free to figure out the rest. Anything that Yulz found amusing was surely bad news for me, but no matter how much I extended my demi-godlike senses, I couldn't get the slightest whiff of what to expect. Demons, no doubt, but how many? What kind?

I wove potency strands for ready use while I ransacked my brain for a solution to the dilemma. The only SkeeterCheater we had was wrapped around Yulz. I could banish him then use the net to cover the rift and slow down invaders, but I'd also lose the chance to get Elinor. That would suck, but so would dying in a hail of demon droppings. Then again, the fastest recorded time for demons to start coming through a newly opened rift was eleven minutes, with an average of eighteen. If I could get Yulz bound in agreement and on the task quickly enough, we might be able to salvage both the net and the mission.