Vengeance of the Demon: Demon Novels, Book Seven (Kara Gillian 7) (26 page)

Jill entered and closed the door behind her. “You’re all wrinkly.”

“And clean,” I said. “Don’t forget clean.”

She let out a soft snort. “I have a feeling there wasn’t a lot of scrubbing going on, but you were in there long enough to soak off pretty much anything.” She came around the end of the bed and hiked herself up to sit beside me. Almost beside me. Between us, Fuzzykins was busy having a passion attack.

“The cat likes me now.” My voice broke, and I looked up at Jill, feeling utterly bereft. I figured Pellini had filled her and Bryce in on everything that went down. The sympathy that swam in her eyes told me she understood the deeper and unwelcome symbolism of the cat’s affection.

“Is there any way it can be fixed?” she asked gently.

Fuzzykins arched and purred as I stroked her furry belly. “I sure hope so. We don’t need more kittens around here.”

“Not the cat, you dork,” Jill said with a weak chuckle and thwacked my arm.

I managed to hold a smile for a few seconds before it faded again. “I don’t know. I’m trying not to rule anything out or give up hope.”
Or hold onto unrealistic hope
, I added silently. My throat tightened. “I’m not a cop anymore, and now I’m not a summoner either. What am I supposed to
do
now that I’m . . .”

“Normal?” Jill finished for me, cocking her head. “I’m not sure you could ever be
normal
, darlin’.”

“Tell me again
why I’m friends with you?”

She smiled and pulled me into a hug, ignoring the protests of the cat between us. “Because you’re Kara Gillian.”

I hugged her back, pushing down the uncertainty and doubt and grief that roiled through me. No matter what, Jill was precious to me. I didn’t know
what
I was anymore, but for now my mission was to do whatever I could to make sure Jill and the bean stayed safe. And, I’d find a way to help the others track down that shitstain, Katashi. “Yeah, I’m Kara Gillian,” I replied then released her. “At least that’s what I put down the last time I did my taxes,”

“Ugh. Taxes.” She shuddered. “Even I don’t want to be
that
normal.” She patted my leg and stood. “Get dressed and come eat. Meatloaf.”

“What about the ice cream?” I whined.

She smiled serenely. “Meatloaf first.”

“You already sound like a mom.”

“Yeah? Cool. I’ve been practicing.”

Raised voices from the driveway alerted me to trouble before I was halfway through the slice of Jill’s awesome meatloaf. Dread rising, I dashed to the front porch only to see Pellini blocking the driver’s door of the Malibu as he faced off against an angry Idris. Bryce stood on the bottom step, vigilant and poised to intervene.

Pellini folded his arms. “Now isn’t the time for you to go off on your own,” he said to Idris with implacable calm.

Idris lifted his fist, face flushed. “Who the fuck are you to tell me when the right time is?”

Bryce breathed a low curse and started forward, but Pellini didn’t flinch at the threat. He seemed ready and willing to give Idris an outlet for his churning emotions by taking a punch, however I didn’t want to see either one of them get hurt.

“Idris.
Idris
,” I said as I moved down the steps and toward them. “You can leave if you want, but will you please talk to me first?”

Seething, he rounded on me, fist raised. I stood my ground, braced for him to tell me where I could shove my offer of conversation. Yet, after only a few tense breaths, he lowered his hand. “Sure.” He sounded more exhausted and miserable than aggressive. “Yeah, I’ll talk to you.”

Sympathy squeezed my heart. “Why don’t we go to the pond.”

Without a word, Idris strode off and around the house, which I decided to take as a “yes.” I shot a grateful smile to Pellini and Bryce then hustled after Idris, but halfway down the trail through the woods, I slowed. Chest tight, I blinked back tears. This was where I should have been able to feel the valve, like tingling waves over my skin, but I sensed nothing of the arcane.
Nothing
.

I continued to the pond clearing and stopped a few feet from the water’s edge. With single-minded determination, I tried to perceive anything beyond the standard five senses.

Nothing
.

Horror crept through me. Like a dream within a dream, memory of the
feel
of the arcane faded even as I sought to remember it. Would I eventually forget it altogether?

Idris stood near where I knew the valve to be, yet nothing distinguished the location from any other grassy patch by the pond. Not even the faintest shimmer. I found a dry spot on the leaves a few feet away and sat heavily. After a minute or two, Idris dropped to sit crosslegged in front of me.

“How is it?” I asked with a nod toward the valve, relieved that my voice remained steady.

“Stable enough for the moment.” He paused, and a slight frown tugged at his mouth. “More than stable.”

“You don’t sound thrilled.” I eyed him. “What’s wrong with mega-stable?”

“Nothing.” He glowered down at the leaves between us. “Believe me, I tried to find faults.”

The reason for his annoyance clarified. “Kadir’s method,” I said. “I symmetrized the valve yesterday, and you don’t want to admit that it worked.
Really
well.”

Heaving a sigh, he flashed me a weak smile. “You’re right, I don’t,” he said. “But I have no choice. The valve is stable and so clear I can feel Rhyzkahl’s nexus through it.”

Feel Rhyzkahl’s nexus through the valve?
How incredible that must be.

I shoved down the grief and battled to get it nicely tucked away again. The embodiment of Pellini’s stone cold bitch. Under control.

Nope. Didn’t work. “I can’t feel
anything
,” I managed to gasp. “Can’t see
anything
.” And then my gut caved in on itself, and a wave of sobs rose to choke me.
No no no!
I couldn’t lose it now. I scrambled to get up. All I wanted was to run away and hide somewhere, anywhere.

Idris grabbed my arm and pulled me back down, called my name. I clawed at him, fought, screamed at him to leave me alone, to let me go. I couldn’t see through my tears. I couldn’t see. I couldn’t
see.

He wrapped his arms around me, pulled me close to his chest and refused to let me go no matter how much I thrashed and shrieked and cursed. He held me until I stopped fighting him, my throat raw and head aching. Worn out, tired of fighting, tired of
everything
, I finally buried my face against his shoulder and shook in big snotty wet sobs. Even then he didn’t release me but gently changed his hold to an embrace.

Eventually I wound down to snuffly hiccups. I remained blind to the arcane, but I felt better, more clear. Drawing a shaky breath, I sat up straighter. This time Idris let me go—with caution, as if releasing an alligator back to the swamp. I wiped my face with the bottom of my shirt. “Thanks,” I said and offered him an unsteady smile, then winced. Three scratches scored the side of his face along with several on each forearm. “Crap, Idris. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

He cut me off with a lift of his hand and a ghost of a smile. “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “I have older sisters, remember?”

I didn’t miss the haunted pain behind the sincere words. “Explains why you’re such a sissy,” I said as I gave his shoulder a light shove.

Idris chuckled, but it faded along with his smile. Shifting to face the pond, he gazed out over the water. “How long have you known?”

I rubbed my puffy eyes. “I’ve only known for sure since the day after the plantation raid,” I said. “However, I suspected Tessa might be your mom back in Mzatal’s realm, after you two rescued me from Rhyzkahl.” I gave him a tentative smile. “Your hair and eyes and features. When I returned here I asked her if she’d ever had a baby, and she told me she had but that it was stillborn. And, well, I’m a sneaky bitch. I collected DNA samples from both of you and had them tested.” I let out a long sigh. “I knew she’d been in the demon realm with Rhyzkahl not long before the baby—you—were born. Rhyzkahl was my prime suspect, and Zack confirmed it.”

Idris dug a golf ball sized rock from beneath the leaves and threw it hard at the water. It struck with a heavy
sploosh
, sending up a spray of sparkling droplets. “Does Rhyzkahl know?”

“No,” I said softly. “And neither does Tessa. Someone manipulated her to believe you’d been stillborn and that the dad was an American in Japan who loved her and left.”

He frowned at me. “Who did the manipulation? Mzatal? Jesral?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “When I found out, I assumed the manipulation had been in place for twenty years.” I pressed the heels of my hands to my temples. “But now I’m not so sure. She’s off with Katashi—willingly. Maybe the manipulation is more recent.”

He toyed with a twig on the ground in front of him. “When were you planning on telling me?”

Exhaling, I dropped my hands to my lap. “You’ve been kind of a mess, and I didn’t want to screw you up more.” I shook my head. “So, of course, I went ahead and did exactly that. Idris, I’m so sorry.”

He went eerily still. “It’s okay. It’s out now, and I’m fine.”

“Uh huh. As fine as I was a few minutes ago.”

“I’m dealing with it,” he said through gritted teeth. “I’m
fine
.”

“Idris,” I said with extreme gentleness, “you’re not fine. You haven’t been fine since you witnessed Amber’s murder. It broke you.”

In a mercurial moment, Idris shot to his feet. “You don’t know,” he said, breathing hard. “You don’t know what it did to me!
I’m dealing with it
.”

Remaining seated, I tipped my head back to regard him. “How?” My already hoarse voice cracked. “By staying angry and hostile all the time? By lashing out at the people around you at the slightest provocation?” I drew a deep breath and forged on. “You’re pushing everyone away as hard as you can because, if no one’s close to you, maybe a death won’t hurt so much.”

He flicked his hands dismissively. “I’m not doing that. I just have to get those fuckers. No bandwidth for social shit.”

“Idris, you’ve barely smiled since you arrived,” I said. “You go off on your own at every possible opportunity. And it’s a miracle I still have a tongue considering how many times I’ve bitten it after you’ve made an asshole-ish comment.” I kept my eyes steady upon him. “That’s
not
the Idris I once knew. That Idris is broken, and he keeps kicking the pieces farther apart.”

“Yeah? Well, shit has changed.” Idris pivoted away and folded his arms across his chest. “When I’ve dealt with Katashi and Steiner and Asher,
then
you’ll see me smile.”

“That’s what scares me.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It scares me that revenge is the only way you’ll find joy,” I said. “With your lineage, you’re pretty powerful. What’ll happen after you kill or capture those men? Will you return to being the Idris who can sing silly songs with his family at Christmas? Or will you hunt down the next target?”

Idris glanced back at me, a deep scowl on his face. “Won’t know ’til I get there, will I?” he said gruffly then shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Nothing for you to be scared of, though.”

“Until you decide it’s better for everyone if I’m removed from the picture,” I replied, keeping my tone even. “Why gamble that my arcane abilities could be restored?” I found my own rock and chucked it into the pond. “I’m defenseless against the arcane right now, and you scare the crap out of me.”

He spun to face me again. “Bullshit!” he shouted. “I didn’t take your abilities or try to have you locked down. Yeah, I said it was safer—
after
McDunn had already stripped you. I shouldn’t have said it, but I do believe it’s true for now.” Anger settled on him more heavily. “But that doesn’t give you any reason to believe I want to eliminate you.”

My experience and intuition told me it would be foolish to push him more on the subject. He wasn’t even all human. Who knew how he might react? Besides, my emotional reserves registered at nil. “Fair enough,” I said as lightly as I could manage. Speedy extrication from the subject was in order. “I think we should go to Tessa’s house. There’s a valve in her library that should be checked and, well, I can’t do it.”

His features relaxed at the change of topic. “It’s on the list to be assessed.”

Relieved, I nodded. “My schedule is quite free at the moment if you want to head over there tonight.”

Idris extended his hand to me. “C’mon. I need to grab some food, then we can go.”

Taking his hand, I stood, but then he caught me off guard by pulling me into a hug. Before I could return it, he released me and headed for the trail. Sighing, I watched his retreating back. An instant longer holding that hug and he’d have broken down. Idris
needed
to break down—scream and sob and let out the grief that tore at him. Yet I also knew how much he needed that anger to keep him going. With me already out of the game, we couldn’t afford to lose him on any level.

“Meatloaf,” I muttered and trudged after him. “Everything’s better with meatloaf.”

Idris pulled into Tessa’s driveway, shut off the headlights, and let the darkness surround us. The ache of loss settled in my chest as I climbed out and surveyed the well-maintained yard and house. All distressingly ordinary.

I dredged up the memory of how it used to appear in my othersight—arcane protections glowing on every surface like phosphorescent filigree. The effort of clinging to the recollection was like trying to remember a dozen phone numbers at once. After a few precious seconds, I let it slip away with a resigned sigh. “It looks and feels so different,” I murmured.

“Yeah, I bet,” Idris said, already absorbed in examining warding. He winced as he realized his gaffe. “Shit. I’m sorry.”

Plastering on a smile, I squared my shoulders and moved to the walkway, then stopped and shook my head. “You know, I never got to finish my meatloaf. Let’s go to Lake O’ Butter and get waffles. We can do this tomorrow.”

I started to walk away, but Idris grabbed my upper arm. “Aversions,” he said. “Keep your eyes on the house. It’s all about willpower.”

The gloom hid my flush of embarrassment. Why hadn’t I remembered the aversions? “Right.” I swallowed. “Got it.” Ruthlessly, I moved forward and drove down the craving for waffles. With lots of butter. And bacon.

Idris lingered behind. “Kara, wait,” he said when I reached the steps. “I need to assess the protections.”

Tense and jumpy from the aversions, I stopped. Wards were stupid inanimate things, I told myself, stomach knotting. So what if they didn’t recognize me. I shouldn’t let it bother me. I lifted my chin.
It doesn’t bother me.
“Can you unweave them?” I asked over my shoulder.

Idris peered at the house through narrowed eyes. “There are a buttload of wards,” he said with dismay. “Looks like a mix of demon and Katashi’s work.” He swore under his breath. “I’m not going to be able to get through them.”

Well, that sucked ass. Too bad we didn’t still have the arcane-dampening cuff that I’d used to keep Mzatal and Idris from summoning me. I could have plowed through the wards with that. I retreated from the house, noting without humor how the desire for waffles faded with each step away from the aversions.

“I think it’s the same all the way around,” I told him, “but you might as well check.”

Idris began a slow perusal of the perimeter. I watched him until he disappeared around the corner of the house, then nearly startled out of my skin when the porch light flicked on and the front door creaked open. My hand flew to my gun, but I relaxed as Tessa’s boyfriend stepped out. “Carl! You scared the shit out of me.”

“Sorry about that, Kara.” Lanky and soft-spoken, with short, near-colorless hair, Carl seemed an odd match for my petite and flamboyant aunt. Yet I’d always felt he understood her far more than most people—including me, at times.

I managed a weak smile. “It’s cool. Your car wasn’t out here, and I didn’t see any lights on. Had no clue you were inside.”

“Come on in,” he said then looked toward the corner of the house where Idris disappeared. “Where’d your friend go?”

“Checking out protections,” I said, remaining where I was. Carl had a talent of arcane immunity which allowed him to slip through wards as if they weren’t there. Unfortunately, that didn’t help me one bit. “I was hoping to get a few books from the library and check the valve at the same time, but I can’t get through the protections.” I proceeded to give him a quick and dirty update on my condition.

“That’s rough,” he said, expression barely twitching from its usual impassiveness. “You want me to get the books for you?”

After brief consideration, I shook my head. “Thanks, but I don’t have specific ones in mind. Besides, the valve is the most important project.” I faked a casual shrug. “We’ll come up with a new plan.”

Carl closed the door behind him and took a seat on the steps. “Seems as if quite a bit is going on,” he said calmly. Not that I’d ever seen Carl anything
but
calm. Ever. As a morgue assistant for the coroner’s office, he handled all manner of dead bodies and bizarre crime scenes with cool aplomb and a dry-as-the-desert sense of humor. “If you need any help, I have time on my hands.”

“Because Tessa’s out of town?”

“Because I retired last month.” A whisper of a smile passed over his mouth.

“Nice,” I said with what I hoped was the right amount of enthusiasm to cover my surprise. He couldn’t be older than mid-forties and hadn’t worked at the coroner’s office
that
long. Then again, he might have added the time to a previous pension. “What on earth is Dr. Lanza going to do without you?”

“Curse a lot,” he replied.

“I don’t doubt it,” I said with a brief laugh, but I quickly sobered. “Thing is, Tessa went off with her old teacher, and it has me pretty worried. Did you know about that?”

Carl shrugged, an almost imperceptible gesture. “Doesn’t much matter one way or the other. We’re not together anymore.”

“Crap. I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” Tessa sure hadn’t mentioned a breakup. Tilting my head, I peered at him. “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but if y’all aren’t together anymore, what are you doing here?”

“Like I said, I have time on my hands. I come by every few days and check on the place. Fix what needs fixing.” One side of his mouth twitched. “What Tessa doesn’t know won’t hurt her.”

I wasn’t so sure. Intruding on Tessa’s affairs was a dangerous game at the moment. I knew that all too well. “Be careful,” I said. “All you need is one neighbor to call the cops, and you’re hosed.”

He remained silent for a moment. “I’ll keep that in mind, and you keep me in mind if you need anything. I’m handy. Painting. Cleaning gutters.” He paused. “
Other
tasks.”

“I appreciate the offer,” I said. With Steeev gone and me next to useless for arcane projects, we were at a severe disadvantage. I’d never thought of Carl as a resource, but we were desperate, especially for anything in the
other
category. “We could sure use the help.”

Idris rounded the corner, frowning.

“What’s wrong?” I asked after he reached me.

Idris flicked a questioning glance at Carl then gave me a head shake. “Nothing.”

“Oh, sorry,” I said. “Idris, this is Carl. He used to date Tessa, and I’ve known him for years. He’s cool. He, ah, knows we mess with arcane stuff.”

Idris lost a measure of his wariness and gave Carl a nod. “Warding is wicked all the way around the house,” he told me.

“Figured,” I said. “We’ll find another way to get in to deal with that valve.” Maybe Idris could summon a demon to take down the wards. “We have to get going,” I said to Carl. “You need a ride?”

“I’ll walk,” he said. “Thanks anyway.”

I let out a low whistle. “You must have titanium skin to be willing to brave miles in mosquito paradise after dark.”

“The world is full of strange and curious things,” he said with a straight face then climbed the steps to the porch. “Don’t forget to call me.”

And one of those strange and curious things is you
, I thought with mild amusement. “No worries there,” I said. “You’ll probably regret volunteering soon enough, though.” I kept my tone light, but I had a feeling he didn’t really know what he was getting himself into.

“Time will tell, Kara Gillian,” he said as he opened the front door and entered the house. “Time will tell.”

 • • • 

Jill and Pellini had gone off to their respective beds by the time Idris and I made it back to the house. The only light still on was the one over the stove in the kitchen, but the empty sofa indicated Bryce was awake. Though I didn’t see him in any of the common areas, I felt no need to worry. I knew he wouldn’t be far from Jill.

Idris headed straight for the basement to map out the valve repair plan for the next day. With Bryce taking over Jill-duty, Idris would be partnered with Pellini. That would be
interesting
, to say the least.

I slouched into the recliner, too wired and unsettled to go to bed. My routine for the past few weeks had been to check the nexus and survey the protection wards before turning in, but obviously that would need to come off my chore list. Along with a dozen other tasks that Idris would have to take over.
This sucks
, I thought in ginormous understatement.

Out of habit I reached for Mzatal, with as much result as if I’d reached for the moon. My breath shuddered out. The loss of the bond gnawed at me, and my overall uncertainty salted the wound. I wanted—
needed
—to talk to Mzatal, get his advice and opinion about what happened to me, as well as his comfort and support. The bond had been an intrinsic part of our relationship for six months, and I felt its absence now as keenly as if I’d lost my right hand. Did Mzatal feel the same way? What was six months against the thousands of years he’d lived without a bond? I didn’t know if the relatively brief time would make it easier for him to handle the loss or if it made it all the more tragic.

My chest tightened as I ran my thumb over the curled prongs of my ring. If only I could
touch
him, I’d feel better. A whisper. That’s all I needed—

“Stop it,” I growled to myself and stomped down my self-pity. I was mooning and moping like a lovesick teenager, for fuck’s sake. How was that going to solve my problems? Maybe I wasn’t thousands and thousands of years old, but I’d managed perfectly fine for thirty years without any sort of quasi-telepathic connection. Sure, it hurt like walking barefoot over broken glass, but there were other ways to send word to Mzatal. Idris would need to summon a demon to deal with the wards on Tessa’s house anyway, so it might as well be one of Mzatal’s.

Cursing, I pushed up from the recliner and stalked to the kitchen, unable to keep my frustration at bay. Sending a message to Mzatal via demon was a lousy and not-always-reliable substitute for the conversation with him I truly craved. Hell, even if our bond was working at its best, a mental touch wouldn’t give me any answers. I’d need an interdimensional connection like the one Bryce and Seretis had, with a true exchange of thoughts.

I stopped dead in the hallway.
Bryce and Seretis!
Maybe Bryce could get word to Seretis and ask him if my affliction could be reversed? Short of returning to the demon realm, I saw no other way to get the direct input of a demonic lord.

Excited by the possibility, I proceeded to hunt for Bryce. A
teensy
part of me wondered if he was in the guest room with Jill, considering his obvious-to-me deepening affection for her. I instead found him in a rocker on the back porch, a shadow in the shadows.

“Hey, Bryce,” I said. “You okay?”

“Hey,” he replied. Quiet. Subdued. “How’d it go at your aunt’s house?”

I winced. “Not so great.” I sat in the rocker next to his and filled him in on the salient points.

“Damn,” he said when I finished.

“Yeah.” I went quiet, listened to the chirp of crickets in the dark and the croak of frogs from the woods and pond. Not far above the trees, the moon waxed gibbous.
Four days until the full
, I thought idly. Easy to pinpoint the moon’s phase after more than a decade of obsessing over it. A year and a half ago I’d have been chafing at having to wait four days to summon again.

I had one hell of a long wait in front of me now.

“My condition screws up the team,” I said. “Idris is now the only one who can perform the necessary arcane maintenance. It helps that Pellini can see the arcane, but it’s not enough. We need to find a solution as soon as possible.” I looked over at him. “Do you think you could ask Seretis what he thinks?”

My eyes were adjusted to the gloom enough to see his grimace. “I already tried with no luck,” he said, regret coloring his words. “I couldn’t get the specifics across. I’m sorry.”

“Oh. Yeah, okay,” I said with the lightness of a bowling ball covered in concrete. “It was worth a shot. Thanks for trying.” Back to square one—wherever that was. Stupid tears pricked my eyes, and I blinked furiously, grateful for the darkness.

His shadow shifted, and he put his hand over mine on the chair arm. “I’ll connect with Seretis in the morning from the nexus. It’s the best time of day, and the link is always stronger there. I think I’ll be better able to get my point across to him then.”

I turned my hand over, threaded my fingers through his, drew from his strength. “Thanks, Bryce.” Any other words on the topic seemed unnecessary. I squeezed his hand. “What about you? What has you brooding in the dark with the mosquitos?”

He exhaled. “Security gets trickier when long-range weapons come into play.”

“Good news is they don’t seem to want Jill dead. They could have accomplished that today. They want the baby—alive.”

He disengaged from my hand and stood, moved to lean on the porch rail and lifted his gaze to the moon. “I need to get you and Pellini up to speed on the camera security system,” he said. “While you and Idris were gone, I made notes on everything I could think of regarding Jerry, McDunn, and Carter. The file is on Paul’s system and the laptop.”

Ice slid between my ribs. “You’re
leaving?
” I barely got the words out then couldn’t stop the torrent. “I understand. I really do. Better for you to be close to Paul. And Seretis. Mzatal shouldn’t have sent you here in the first place. Did he even
ask
if you wanted to come? I know he can be presumptuous—”