Fury of the Demon (Kara Gillian) (24 page)

“Marry me,” I moaned.

Bryce laughed. “I’m flattered, but I don’t think that would go over very well with the lord.”

“Details!” I sat and spent some lovely minutes savoring the creamy drink. “If chocolate was a weapon, the Mraztur wouldn’t stand a chance.”

“Weaponized chocolate.” Paul grinned. “Turn any bad guy good.”

I grinned and sipped. “We have you two as allies. That’s pretty hard core.” It was nothing to sneeze at either, I knew. Paul could supposedly work miracles with computer and infrastructure, and I’d already had the chance to see Bryce in action. My posse was getting bigger and better.

I finished the hot chocolate and resisted the urge to shove my face into the mug to lick out as much as possible. My ring clinked softly against the ceramic as I set it down, and I dropped my gaze to the thin crack in the blue gem. Unique and beautiful—which gave me an idea. The summoner who’d received Idris on Earth had worn an unusual ring, red and black stones set in a gold filigree. “Paul, if you had a picture of a fairly unique ring, would you be able to track it down?”

Paul screwed up his face. “That all depends on how unique it is, photos, sales records, stuff like that. Sure, it
can
be done in some cases, but I can’t make any promises until I get into it. What do you have for me to go on?”

“I’ll, uh, get a sketch to you later,” I said, tentatively. Crap. Good idea, shaky execution. My drawing skills sucked.

“Do that, and I’ll do what I can,” he said cheerily, then grabbed another mug of hot chocolate and returned to the office. Bryce poured more for me, gave me a wink and then retreated to the living room.

A few minutes later I heard the guest room door open and close quietly. I looked down the hallway to see Zack.

“She’s napping,” he told me softly, then moved on to the basement door. Time for him to tend Ryan/Szerain.

I found paper and a pencil, then settled at the table to drink awesome hot chocolate and sketch the ring as best I could. The house wasn’t exactly quiet—the sound of whatever game Bryce was playing mixed with the hum of the washing machine and the whirr of the air conditioner—but it all wound together into a comforting white noise of home and family. An odd family, to be sure.

After about half an hour I decided there wasn’t much more I could do with my raggedy sketch of the ring. I quietly entered the office and slid it onto Paul’s desk. He didn’t even twitch in acknowledgment of my presence, eyes totally locked on the screen. I bit back a low laugh as I returned to the kitchen, then pulled my phone out and sent him a text to tell him the sketch was in front of him. A minute later I heard, “Got it!” from the office. Now to see what he could come up with.

Jill came out of the guest room and gave me a smile. “I hate to admit it, but you were right. I needed to know about Zack’s demon-ness.”

“Yes, you did,” I agreed. “For the bean’s sake as well.” I gave her a smile. “Anyway, I’m glad that’s over with. You staying for the night?”

She shook her head. “I don’t have a change of clothes here, and I’d rather sleep in my own bed than wake up early to go home and get ready for work.” She slung her purse over her shoulder and gave me an exaggerated mock scowl. “Also, Zack and I talked about the whole moving in thing again, and,” she rolled her eyes and sighed, “I told him I’d
think
about it.”

“Cool,” I said. “I’ll add you to the chore rotation list.”

She snorted. “I knew you had an ulterior motive.”

“Always. Give me a call tomorrow, okay?”

“If you’re lucky,” she said with a laugh, then departed..

Pleased, I returned to my seat at the kitchen table and busied myself with arcane homework—boring-but-necessary stuff that wasn’t anywhere near as cool as tracing glowing sigils, but was essential in order to understand the fundamentals and theory and
why
certain strands linked only in certain ways, etc.

Sometime around midnight, Zack finally came up from the basement and closed the door quietly behind him. I looked up as he approached, but I didn’t say anything. I still wasn’t sure how he felt about what I’d done.

“A warning would have been preferable,” he said, but gave me a smile as he dropped into the chair across from me.

Relieved, I returned his smile with a wry one of my own. “I was afraid that a warning would give either of you a chance to escape.” I shrugged. “And I figured it was time.”

“Time for Jill, perhaps,” he said. “It was not ideal for me.”

I angled my head, regarded him. “When
would
it have been ideal?”

He sighed, passed a hand over his face. “With warning, in a day or two. Still not ideal, but not detrimental. And yes,” he said with a faint nod as if reading my thoughts, “I could have refused today, but then where would that have left Jill?” Regret flickered in his eyes. “Hurting more.”

Spreading my hands on the table, I carefully mulled over his words. “I honestly didn’t know how you’d react to my pushing the issue,” I admitted. “You haven’t allowed me into your thought processes and plans lately. And, at that point, I was more concerned about Jill.” I took a deeper breath. “That said, I apologize for putting undue stress on you.”

He regarded me in silence, for long enough that I began to conclude he wasn’t going to respond at all. But then he laid a hand on top of mine. “You are right,” he said quietly.

Until that moment, I hadn’t realized how scared I was that he might reject me. I sucked in a ragged breath that was perilously close to a sob and turned my hand over to clasp his. “When you talked about Ryan, the real Ryan, something broke inside me,” I said. “I see Szerain coming out more and more, and I tell myself I know Ryan’s not
real
, that he’s only an overlay, but I couldn’t make myself believe that he’d be going away.” My throat tightened. “But now I know he will. Someday, probably not too far off, Ryan will be gone. He’ll really be dead.” I felt tears slide down my face. “And I’m sitting here watching my best friend die, and he doesn’t even
know
it.” I was crying in earnest now as I looked up at Zack. “Promise me,” I said almost desperately. “Promise me you’ll let me say goodbye to him before . . . he’s gone forever. Please.” My voice cracked on the last word, and I fell silent.

“Yes, I promise.” His fingers closed around mine. “I am deeply sorry,” he said, sounding as if he was apologizing for more than the current topic.

I gripped his hand while I cried, feeling the full grief of the loss of Ryan for the first time. It wouldn’t be the same with Szerain. It could never be the same. I struggled to get a hold of myself before Bryce heard me bawling and came to investigate, but it was a lost cause.

Keeping a firm hold on my hand, Zack stood, tugged me to my feet and led me out to the back porch. As soon as the door closed behind us, he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me close.

And then I couldn’t hold it back anymore. I clung to him as I sobbed into his chest and let it all out. He held me, somehow giving me the comfort of being enfolded in wings even though he was most certainly in human form.

Gradually, I quieted to sniffles, though I kept my head leaned against him.

“It is unfair and unjust,” he said gently. “And, from my perspective, the opposite.”

“The opposite?” I tipped my head back to look into his face. “I don’t understand.”

“Ryan masks the one I know,” he said. “The one I . . .” He exhaled, troubled sadness in his eyes. “The one I know.”

“Oh, I see.” It was, indeed, the opposite viewpoint of mine. “I don’t understand why you can’t be
his
ptarl.”

He went eerily still, barely seemed to even breathe.

“Zack?” I said, worried. “Did I say something wrong?”

His eyes met mine. “No, Kara Gillian, you said something very right.”

“You mean about becoming Szerain’s ptarl? I mean, his ptarl is gone, and it seems like he could sure as hell use one.”

“Yes, he could,” he agreed, tension whispering across his face before he shook his head. “Though we both are bound elsewhere with bonds that serve none.”

I fell silent for a moment, turning all of that over in my head before speaking. “A bond—any bond—should be a benefit to both parties,” I stated. “If it isn’t, then one of the parties is a parasite.”

He closed his eyes and lowered his head. I felt a tremor pass through his body. He was already stressed to the nines, and I wasn’t exactly helping matters right now. Maybe time for me to ease up on the dude for a while.

I sniffled. “Sheesh, I’m all puffy-faced and red-nosed now.” I gave him a squeeze, then pulled away. “Jill said she was considering moving in. You got through to her.”

He smiled softly. “Like you said, there were some past issues she needed to face. I can’t say they aren’t a factor anymore, but I don’t think they’ll keep her from making the right decision. And she
almost
smiled at the idea of a double-wide mobile home rather than an RV.”

“You know just how to charm her.” I yawned and considered going out to the pond to snuggle with Mzatal, but when I extended I felt him sleeping. I didn’t want to risk waking him when he needed the rest so badly. “I’m going to sneak to my bedroom and do my best to sleep the sleep of the righteous.”

“Righteous,” he echoed, faint smile on his mouth. “I suppose there are times when the word suits you.”

“As long as it suits me with about eight hours of sleep.” I gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, then returned inside to see how much righteous or unrighteous sleep I could manage.

A weird tingling sensation rippled through me, jerking me out of a sound sleep. Fully awake, I assessed, realized it was wards I’d laid, triggering. I sat up and focused to determine which wards, dimly aware that it was still dark outside my bedroom window. A glance at my clock told me it was 4:13 a.m.

Another ripple.
Jill’s place
. I threw off the covers and pelted down the hallway, burst into the kitchen to find Jekki burbling softly by the table and Zack standing stone still, a knife poised over mushrooms on the cutting board.

He had wards at Jill’s house too, I remembered, and was no doubt assessing. I ducked into the utility room to grab jeans, t-shirt and sports bra out of the dryer, tugged them all on while I kept my eyes glued to Zack and waited for him to come out of it.

He finally exhaled, shoulders relaxing. “No immediate danger. No one’s on the property now.”

“What happened?” I demanded. “Do we need to go there? Or was it a new paperboy or something.”

“I don’t know what happened exactly,” he said. “There were two men. It was quick and on the periphery. They’re gone now.”

“I’m going,” I told him. “You coming with me?”

He gave a serious nod. “Give me a sec to get my gear. I’ll meet you at my car.”

I left him to get my own gear, found shoes, buckled on my gun and holster. I felt Mzatal awake and deep in his work with the mini-nexus, seeking Idris, and I asked Jekki to let him know what happened, and that I was going with Zack to check on Jill. He scurried out the back, and I went out the front to pace by the car. A moment later Zack came down the porch steps, phone in hand and expression stone cold.

I headed around to the passenger side of the car. “You don’t want her going out into something dangerous,” I said. “You should call her and tell her to stay inside.”

Zack slid smoothly into the driver’s seat and passed the phone over to me after I got in. “Make the call?” he asked, starting the car.

I found Jill’s number on his list, called and waited impatiently for her to answer.

“Zack?” she said muzzily.

“No, sugar muffin, it’s Kara. Your sweetie and I are on our way over because something pinged the wards we have around your house. And if you go outside to check, I swear I’ll string you up by your cute little ears. We’ll be there in about—” I was going to say twenty minutes, then took Zack’s demon-enhanced driving into account. “It’ll be about ten minutes.”

“Someone’s on my property?” she asked with alarm, all sleepiness gone from her voice.

“Zack says not anymore, but we don’t know if they left any surprises behind.” I double-checked to make sure my seatbelt was securely buckled as Zack hit the gas. “Stay put.”

“Shit. Okay, I’m getting dressed.”

“Stay inside!” I insisted.

“Did I say get dressed and go
outside
? Nope.”

I made a frantic grab for the oh-shit handle as Zack took a turn on two wheels. “Okay. Good. Call if you see or hear
anything
weird.”

“You know I will,” she said and hung up.

I closed my eyes for part of the drive. I trusted Zack’s demon reflexes and senses, but that didn’t mean I needed to
see
how close we came to obstacles, ditches, and other cars. I finally reopened them as we got near and kept a sharp eye out for anything unusual, but it was tough to see much.

Zack slowed, then pulled into her driveway. He cursed as the headlights passed over a suspicious lump on the lawn.

“That’s not good,” I muttered.

Zack backed up a bit and turned so the headlights lit the front yard fully. I scanned the area with normal vision and othersight, then un-holstered my gun and stepped out, gun at the ready position.

Zack exited the car at a more sedate pace. I noted his eyes flicking here and there, likely picking up information from his wards.

“We clear?” I murmured.

“All clear.”

I moved forward into the wash of the headlights, confirmed it was indeed a body on the lawn. White male, naked, probably in his early twenties, long and lean with little muscle tone. I stopped, shifted to othersight again and looked for any sign of arcane activity on the body. I remembered the near disaster with the arcane trap on the body of Idris’s sister, and didn’t want a repeat scenario.

Everything appeared normal, but that didn’t reassure me. “Zack, you see anything on it?”

“Hold on.” He moved up beside me and put a hand on my shoulder. An instant later a shimmer of blue and gold sprang up between us and the body, and with his free hand Zack lobbed a tightly coiled sigil. Upon contact with the victim it flashed in an expanding ring of light, then dissipated.

Zack exhaled, tension easing from him. “All clear. If there had been a trap, it would have triggered.”

“Gotcha,” I said. “Like throwing rocks into a minefield.”

“The analogy fits.” His hand dropped from my shoulder. “I didn’t detect the trap on Amber’s body, and I apologize for that. The
rakkuhr
is alien and devious.”

“No apology needed, demon-man,” I told him with a reassuring smile.

Still with my gun at the ready, I cautiously moved forward then crouched. The victim lay twisted on the grass, partially on his back, his limbs in a haphazard tangle. Something rested on his chest and I eased closer, peered at it.

Sick nausea knotted my gut. A security company patch had been cut from a shirt and nailed to his left pec. Apex Security, a lesser branch of the StarFire company, reserved for more menial security details. Last time I’d seen one of their guards was—

Shit
. I shifted my gaze to his face, but it was too battered to be recognizable. Then I saw how weirdly long his arms were in proportion to the rest of his body. “Sonofafuckingbitch,” I muttered. It was the security guard who’d shot Bryce.

I didn’t touch anything, stood and looked back over my shoulder. “Zack, you need to call this in,” I said, then shook my head. “No, Jill needs to call this in. That way we can say we’re here for moral support.” I glanced to the front window of the house, certain Jill was behind it, watching. I spread my pinky and thumb of my left hand, held it to my ear in the universal sign for making a phone call. With my right hand, I pointed to the body, held up three fingers then made a zero, confident she would know I meant a thirty, our area’s law enforcement code for a murder.

Zack snorted, and I glanced over to find him watching me in amusement. “I could just go tell her.”

I rolled my eyes. “And what would be the fun in that?”

“All righty then. Charades over?” he asked with a smile. “Looks like it worked. I can see her on the phone.” He moved up beside me. “What do we have?”

I peered down at the corpse. Deep ligature marks on the wrists, flesh flayed in gruesome strips on abdomen and legs, bruising on the torso, various ugly blotches in different locations as though he had been struck repeatedly with a blunt object. “It’s a goddamn message from Farouche,” I said in a tight voice. “He’s telling me this is what he can do, and that he knows where our friends are.” I shook my head, teeth clenched. “I’m getting really sick of bodies being used as messages. Don’t the fuckers have email?”

“Sure, but it doesn’t have the same
uumph
.”

Jill emerged from the front door, phone in hand. “What the hell?”

I moved to her. “It’s the security guard who shot Bryce.”

She stared at me. “Why would he be killed, and why would he be dumped
here
?” Her eyes went to the grotesque form on her lawn.

“Courtesy of J. M. Farouche,” I said, glowering. “He wants his people back. He wants me to know what he’s capable of, and that he knows where the people close to me live.”

“Shit.” She pressed close to Zack as he slid his arm around her. “Now what?”

I gave her a sweet smile “Now you move in with us willingly so that we don’t have to go through the hassle of kidnapping you.”

“Yep. That’s what.” Zack looked down at her, gave her a squeeze.

Jill drew a shaky breath, exhaled forcefully. “All right. All right. I get it.”

I heard sirens in the distance. “Okay, chick, you need to deal with the cops. And best not to mention Farouche.”

“What do I tell them?”

“Easy,” Zack said. “And it’s true, kind of. I couldn’t sleep and called you, we were talking. You heard a noise out front, looked out the window and saw the body. We came over for moral support.”

She eyed him dubiously, then shrugged. “Close enough. Let me at ’em,” she said and headed down the drive toward the street to meet the arriving units.

I stayed put, looked over at Zack. “I had a thought. Because you
know
she won’t want to stop working, despite how dangerous everything is now.”

Zack folded his arms across his chest, his eyes on me. “What’s your diabolical plan?”

“What if Jill had her own syraza bodyguard?”

Zack regarded me for a long moment. He drew breath and released it slowly. “It is certainly a possibility.”

“I was thinking of either Zimmek or Steeev.” Both syraza dwelt primarily in Mzatal’s realm, and I had a friendship-type relationship with each.

“Neither has spent time on Earth,” Zack noted. “Steeev is better suited. Far older.”

I smiled. “He has a good sense of humor too. I think Jill would like him.”

“Yes,” Zack agreed, his eyes on Jill and the cops. “I think he’d be amenable.”

“I should be able to do it sometime later today.”

“You’ll need to ask Mzatal about it first,” he said. “Let me go be all moral supportive for Jill.” He stepped off the porch and headed for Jill and the two cops.

I stared at his back, mildly unsettled by the instruction to ask Mzatal. Was it to ask his permission to summon the syraza? Or to give the syraza permission to come here? I shook my head. Best to wait and hear what Mzatal had to say before going too far down that path.

When the detective’s car pulled up, I headed that way. Pellini emerged, surveyed the scene. He looked over to me as I approached. “This one weird?”

I dodged the “weird” question. “I’m not here on official business,” I told him. “I came over to give Jill moral support.” I gave him the basic information, but left out our suspicion that Farouche was behind it. Until we had a handle on the Idris situation, I didn’t want anyone else stirring that hornet’s nest.

It took a few hours for the cops to finish their investigation and clear out. I hung with Jill while she packed and fretted about leaving her house, though she did
finally
agree that it was for the best, especially with the baby. To my surprise she even called in sick. Hell, it wasn’t every day you could use dead-body-on-the-lawn as an excuse. Zack disappeared for a while, but came back as the last unit pulled away.

Zack and I drove back in his car, and Jill followed behind, having pointed out that she’d eventually need her vehicle for work. As we pulled up to the house, my gaze went first to the two pickup trucks, then to the brand new double-wide mobile home and the workers busy around it, about fifty yards from the house on the east side.

“Um, Zack?” I said, dragging my eyes from the sight to him. “It’s barely eight a.m. You had this ready and waiting, didn’t you.”

He glanced over, smiled innocently. “Did I?”

“Sneaky,” I said chuckling. “Jill will figure it out.”

“What’s wrong with being prepared?” he asked, wide eyed. “It’s not like I’d already moved it here or anything.”

“Right,” I said with a laugh. “That’s why they’re connecting plumbing and power that just happened to be running out by the woods.”

“Uh, it was put in earlier this morning?” he offered with a sheepish grin as he climbed out of the car. “I planned on putting an RV there and had the pipes and lines installed a month ago. I bought the mobile home yesterday, then scrambled people this morning for the installation. They still have a few more hours work, but I knew she’d be happier if it was in progress when she got here.” He paused. “Happi-er,” he emphasized, “not necessarily happy.”

“No,” I agreed. “But she’ll be okay. She knows the deal now, and if nothing else she’ll do it for the bean.”

“If that body had to be dumped, I’m not complaining about the location.”

“That’s the spirit!”

He snorted. “I’m going to go make sure everything’s in order, then I have to get to
work
.”

“Fun times.” I looked over at the mobile home and the deck being assembled in front of it. “Looks like a nice one. You did good, Zack.”

“With a little help from my friends.” He gave me a wink and a smile, then strolled off to prepare the nest for his sweetie.