Fury of the Demon (Kara Gillian) (41 page)

Holding Mzatal, I helped him channel the power as it poured out of him. Steam rose in a massive, seething cloud. The shaking in the earth eased. The worst of the steam dissipated, leaving behind a fetid stench.

Breathing hard, Mzatal knelt with hands still flat on the ground, regret and frustration echoing through him in discordant rhythm along with a headache that sliced at him, much like the one he’d had at my house.

I slowly released him, stood unsteadily, and looked around. Kadir, intently watchful, gave a slight nod then limped to the burned and moaning forms of Amkir and Jesral, seized each by the collar and dragged them toward the node. Flames licked from the roof of the plantation house, tempered, but not quenched by the heavy rain. Half of the Ops building lay in ruins, and potency residue still writhed over it like fine arcs of electricity. People moved, shouted, and screamed in the flickering light, but all seemed too caught up in their own nightmare to bother with the intruders who’d just nuked the place. No doubt someone had called nine-one-one by now but, as isolated as the plantation was, it would be a good fifteen minutes before significant response arrived.

“Mzatal,” I said, sickened. “Paul . . . Paul needs you.”

He pushed up to kneel without meeting my eyes. As he stood, I felt him consciously withdraw from me and close me off as he went to crouch by Paul. For a moment I could only stare as our connection thinned until it felt like the vacuum of space, cold and silent. What was he doing? I mentally extended, found a wall and no entry. “Mzatal?”

I dimly heard Bryce shouting. “
You fix him, goddammit! You did this to him! You goddamn bring him back!”

Mzatal ignored him, ignored me, as he straightened and moved to Idris. Bryce cursed and resumed CPR on Paul. In othersight I saw Mzatal unwind the arcane hooks that would have killed Idris in a few more minutes. That was good. A wave of vertigo came and went. I liked Idris. Clever and talented, that one.

I frowned. Did I know Idris that well? The rain eased from a torrent to a gentle fall, and I turned in a slow circle, taking it all in. Kadir shoved Amkir and Jesral through the node portal, then turned and surveyed the area with narrowed eyes as he approached Rhyzkahl’s motionless form. Mzatal carried the unconscious Idris back to set him down near Paul, then knelt and placed his hands on the horribly burned young man and went still. Bryce shifted back, jaw set and eyes on Mzatal, but he didn’t say anything as the lord worked on Paul.

I lifted my hand to the silent receiver in my ear, unable to escape the feeling that someone was supposed to be telling me something. Reminding me of something. Vertigo flickered over me once more. My hand dropped, and I fought to hold onto a slick plain of never-ending glass, tilting me toward oblivion—

“
Kara
.”

I spun toward the voice, toward Ryan as he climbed to his feet. Dream fragments merged with reality, dispersed to reveal firm ground beneath me.
Kara.
“Here,” I gasped. “I’m here. Kara.” The grove. I still felt the grove through the open node. That’s what I needed to focus on right now. I was Kara, and Kara could do cool shit with the grove.

“Kara,” Ryan repeated as he moved to me. “Kara.”

I took a deep breath, tasted the boiled lake in the air. “Ryan, I killed Pyrenth,” I said, voice cracking. “And Jesral almost had me, and Mzatal, he . . .” I trailed off, unable to voice it.

“Kara,” he murmured as he gathered me close. “Be right here, right now. You have to focus. Too much is going on.”

I clung to him, fought my way back up and dug in. “Right. Right. I’m here.”

“Kara.” That was Mzatal, voice tight and mega-controlled. “Kara,” he said again, yet the connection remained silent and empty. I released Ryan and moved toward Mzatal. The ground seemed to pitch and roll beneath my feet, but I couldn’t tell if it was the aftermath of all the tremors, like trying to walk on land after a long boat trip, or if it was simply my own tenuous grasp on my reality because of the
rakkuhr
virus.

Idris let out a low groan from where he lay beside Paul. Paul didn’t groan. I wasn’t even sure Paul was breathing beneath Mzatal’s hands. At the edge of my vision I saw Kadir carry Rhyzkahl onto the gazebo platform, push him through the node then stride away in the direction of the burning mansion. My hatred of Rhyzkahl remained unchanged, but for now I banked the fires of my rage. He suffered terribly with the loss of his ptarl, and it was enough for me in this moment.

“Kara,” Mzatal said, and I returned my focus to him. “Call Vsuhl.” His words came sharply, bitten out to slice the air, and I didn’t know if it was because he had everything focused on Paul or if he’d closed off even basic warmth from me.

Yet I did as he asked. Perhaps he needed my help to save Paul? The blade coalesced in my hand, edge catching the glare of the remaining floodlights and the fires. None of Pyrenth’s blood on it.
A self-cleaning blade,
I thought with an edge of hysteria. How fucking handy was that?

Mzatal jerked his hand out toward me. “Give it to me.”

I didn’t move. Behind me I heard a weird cough-gasp that I knew was Szerain fighting his way up through Ryan. Mzatal demanded Vsuhl back with no regard for what I’d gone through, no regard for what he’d so recently wrought through his own blade, through Khatur, no regard for . . . anything?

“No.” I said it softly, but I knew he heard me.

Mzatal gathered up Paul in his arms, teeth gritted against the headache that I could see still plagued him. “Kara, no time for this,” he said, flat and harsh. “Give me the blade.”

The silence in our connection beat at me at me like nightmare wings. “No.” I took a slow step back, and my gaze dropped to Paul. “You need to go.”

I wanted to feel some sort of reaction to my denial of him, but there was nothing. No flicker, no clench of the jaw or distress in his features. Mzatal’s gaze merely flicked past me to Szerain, and I felt the exiled lord’s desire for Vsuhl like that of a starving wolf for a doe. “Then send it
away
,” Mzatal said, tone curt and blunt as he brought his gaze back to me. He placed his foot gently on Idris. “Kara,” he said, yet there was nothing there but the word. None of
him
came with it. “Kara,” he repeated, more softly.

I banished Vsuhl without protest. I wanted to understand what happened. I wanted to scream
WHY
. But I didn’t. There wasn’t time for
me
. “Go,” I told him, the silence between us a heart-wrenching void. “You need to go and save Paul.” Bryce took a step toward Mzatal. He intended to go with Paul, I knew.

Mzatal’s expression, already stony, went to the lord-unreadable mask. His eyes came to me, then rested on Bryce. In another heartbeat he was gone with Paul and Idris.

Bryce gaped at the empty patch of sodden ash. “No. No! He left without me!”

I wanted to collapse and hug myself and cry, but I didn’t have the fucking luxury to do so. “Ryan,” I said with as much resolve and conviction as I could muster. “I need you to go to Sonny and get Ms. Palatino away from here and to safety.”

He nodded. “Can do. After that I have to find Zack.”

“I’ll take care of it,” I assured him. Focus on the job now. I could do that. “I’ll find Zack. I promise.”

Ryan hesitated then gave another nod and loped off toward the hole in the fence.

“Bryce, I need you with me,” I said.

He still stared in shock at where they’d been. “What the fuck?”

“
Bryce
,” I snapped out like a whip. “I need you with me.”

His shoulders jerked back as he focused. “Right,” he said, still shaky. “Right,” he repeated, more firmly this time. Paul was gone and there wasn’t a fucking thing he could do about it. I knew more about that feeling than I wanted to.

He bent and picked up Paul’s fried tablet with its bits of charred flesh as though it was nothing more than a piece of litter. Looking my way, he opened his mouth to speak then shut it, gaze going behind me.

I turned to see Kadir approaching, limping heavily from the massive burn that charred his thigh. Deep burns also distorted the left side of his face and torso. His eyes stayed riveted on me as he led a gasping and stumbling Farouche by a noose of potency around the man’s neck. I watched their approach warily. As much as it rocked my world to see Farouche in such a position, I wasn’t in the mood for Kadir’s weird-and-creepy shit right now.

He stopped two paces away from me, drew Farouche up to stand beside him before releasing the potency noose. Farouche drew in a ragged breath, a combination of fury and fear burning in his eyes. Yet he lifted his chin and put on a fierce smile in an attempt to regain some composure.

I offered Farouche a deliberately bland look before I shifted my attention to Kadir, doing my best to give the impression I was dismissing the man as uninteresting and unimportant.

Expression tight with what had to be unbearable agony, Kadir regarded me. “Kara Gillian,” he rasped. “in the agreements and protocols of this world, is this one,” he gestured toward Farouche, “considered deserving of punishment?”

I knew exactly why Kadir would ask me this, especially after finding out about the men who’d been sent because they “deserved punishment.” I’d been warned by more than one lord about how dangerous Kadir was, and how he liked to . . . hunt. Hell, even Rhyzkahl had warned me about him.

But Kadir had simply asked me a question. And so, I simply answered.

“Deserving of punishment?” I nodded. “Yes. Without question.”

Farouche’s smile shifted to a smirk. “You’re judge, jury, and executioner now, Ms. Gillian?” he drawled. “I believe this is better decided in a proper court of law.”

I readied a retort, but before I could speak, Kadir turned to him, aura shifting to
cold as fuck.

“No, James Macklin Farouche,” he said in a voice that set my own bowels clenching even though it wasn’t directed at me. “
I
am judge. Jury. Executioner.” He punctuated each word with potency. “Kara Gillian confirms what I had already drawn from here.” He traced a burned finger slowly down the man’s temple.

Sweat beaded on Farouche’s upper lip as he paled. “I’m a businessman,” he said, no longer smirking. “That’s all. Sometimes business gets a little ugly.”

“He wouldn’t get the justice he deserves here in this world,” I said somewhat dully, part of me hating that I was sending Farouche to what was surely a fate worse than death, with another part of me knowing how fucking evil the man was and how many lives he’d utterly destroyed. If anyone deserved a fate worse than death, it was this bastard. “He’d easily be able to influence the jury and witnesses,” I continued, sick despite it all. “I doubt he’d spend a single day in prison.”

Kadir snaked the loop of potency around Farouche’s neck again. “The
businessman
will spend time with me.”

“No,” Bryce said, interrupting Farouche’s gabbled protest. He dropped Paul’s fried tablet. “He’s mine.”

Farouche’s head snapped around as Bryce stepped forward, and relief filled his eyes. I didn’t have to read minds to know the thoughts going through his head: A little of the old fear-whammy and Bryce would be his dog again.
Oh, dude
, I thought with a whisper of bitter amusement
. You have
no
idea.

I took a slight step back to defer to Bryce as Kadir turned a penetrating gaze on him. A chilling smile curved Kadir’s lips as he no doubt read Bryce’s claim and his intention. Kadir glanced to Farouche, gave the potency leash a brief tug. “Are you indeed his?”

Ignoring the leash as best he could, Farouche smiled, smugly confident. “Yes. Justice demands that Thatcher have custody of me. We have a long history.”

Bryce’s expression didn’t so much as flicker from the impassive mask as he regarded his former boss. “Yes, we have a long history.” He met Kadir’s eyes. “He’s mine,” he repeated.

I took another step back. Kadir narrowed his gaze at Bryce. “I understand he is yours,” he said through clenched teeth. “I acknowledge he is yours.” He reached to grip Farouche’s wrist in a tight grasp, and by the pain that flashed over the man’s face I knew it was
just
on the verge of bone-breaking. “But in
this
moment he is mine for facilitating this.” He gestured toward the unstable node, and I suddenly understood Kadir’s anger. He was
OMG
crazy and dangerous and unpredictable, but at the same time an order-and-rules freak—which was probably how he managed to function at all. The screwed up node was not only likely rule-breaking of the highest order but was also messy and threatened to fuck up the order of things in both worlds. His first action upon arrival had been to stabilize the node portal, and was probably the only reason he broke the rules and came through at all.

And
now
I realized why Kadir hadn’t joined the attack on Mzatal here, or accompanied the other Mraztur four months ago at Szerain’s palace when I performed the ritual to call Vsuhl. It was against the rules for the lords to engage in anything but one-on-one combat.

“In another moment he will be yours,” Kadir continued, then drew Farouche’s hand to his mouth in a smooth and powerful motion. Before Farouche had time to react, Kadir sunk his teeth into the flesh at the base of the man’s thumb and ripped a chunk free.

Farouche let out a hoarse scream as Kadir spat the gobbet at Bryce’s feet. Bryce didn’t shift away or react and kept his face utterly smooth and expressionless as Kadir tightened his grip on Farouche’s wrist with an audible
crack
of bones. Farouche screamed again, knees buckling as Kadir viciously wrenched his hand and then, merely by touching the man’s temple, roused him from a near faint to full awareness.

“Such a brief time, a moment,” Kadir murmured as he allowed the trembling Farouche to go to his knees, “yet so much can transpire.” He crouched, hissing low as the crisped flesh of his thigh crackled grotesquely, then reached and gripped Farouche’s balls, wringing another—higher—scream from Farouche as he squeezed and twisted hard.

Kadir held the man in this agonizing position, one hand squeezing the broken wrist and the other tightening on his nuts, until Farouche’s eyes rolled back in his head. Only then did Kadir release him, though immediately gripped him by his hair to again touch his temple and rouse him to full consciousness. But he wasn’t finished. He ripped Farouche’s shirt open, and as though reading from Farouche the torments he had inflicted on others, Kadir used potency to create four parallel slices in the man’s chest. Methodically, he ripped away the strips of flesh, wringing screams of agony from Farouche. He dropped the bloody strips to the ground, licked his fingers, and potency burned the remainder of the blood from them. He stood, hauling the gibbering Farouche upright, then shoved him to crumple at Bryce’s feet.