Legacy of the Demon (34 page)

I wiped the smile off my face. Damn, I was getting soft in my old age.

Now that I had a quiet moment alone, I pulled Elinor's journal from my pocket. I couldn't articulate why I'd felt it was so important to retrieve it—whether due to Elinor's influence or my cop sense—but there was no denying my relief that I had it. I opened it now and began to page through it almost reverently. The text had seventeenth century style and spelling, but fortunately Elinor's essence allowed me to read it with ease.

To my surprise, for every page of text, there were at least five containing finely rendered sketches of demon realm flora and fauna, as exquisite as any naturalist could desire. Curiously, the inside of the back cover held a mix of letters and numbers that seemed to be arranged in words and sentences, though “H4rq9pr” looked more like a never-to-be-remembered computer password than a language. A personal code, perhaps? Yet I didn't see it used anywhere else in the journal.

After a quick and fruitless check for anything in the various drawings that might help in my current situation—such as pictures of Jontari or sigils for binding—I moved on to skim her written entries.

They began with her arrival in the demon realm and befriending Giovanni, touched lightly on her training with Mzatal, then changed in tone, with coy references to a
Him
that I knew was Rhyzkahl. The entries stopped for several months then picked up again, though less frequently than before, with her in Szerain's realm. Far more talk of Giovanni, and dozens of sketches
of him. Sketches of Szerain as well, along with a variety of demons and one demahnk that I recognized as Xharbek.

But nothing of the ritual that killed her and caused the cataclysm.

I stroked my fingers down the spine of the journal, thoughtful. I clearly remembered an Elinor-dream in which Mzatal took the journal from her because she was doodling instead of studying. That was right before he sent her away to train with Szerain, but obviously she got the journal back somehow. Most likely, Mzatal returned it later on—since it seemed more than a little cruel to flat out
steal
a girl's diary. The real mystery was how it ended up in his possession again, stored away in his solarium.

Yet another question to ask the next time I saw him.

Jill came up from the basement, summoned by my shamelessly pleading text, since no way did I want to navigate the basement stairs with my wonky knee. After I filled her in on the events of our demon realm trip, I handed Elinor's journal over to her with the request that it be photo-archived.

“I'll get right on it,” she said. “You go get that knee checked out.”

“As soon as I look in on Pellini,” I promised.

“Fair enough.” With a crisp parting nod, she returned to the basement.

•   •   •

Pellini's door was ajar, and a peek inside showed him sitting on the end of the bed, looking out the window. His hair was damp, which told me he'd caught a quick shower while I was involved with all the other shit.

I tapped lightly on the door frame. “Mind a little company?”

“Nah, come on in.” He gave me a slight smile. “Found out Kuktok made it through okay.”

“Dude, that's fantastic!” I plopped into the chair beside the bed and cut right to the chase. “How do you feel?”

“Kind of tired but, overall, better than I've felt in decades.” Pellini snorted. “Kadir fixed me right up. I mean, everything. Knees, back, all the little aches and pains from being overweight. And . . . well, I already knew I wasn't in the best of health, what with my high blood pressure and diabetes, but Kadir showed me that, even if the demon hadn't ripped into me, I was going to bite it within a year or two.”

I raised my eyebrows at that. “How come?”

“I had a couple of blockages in my heart, plus a little cluster
of cells in my liver that were ready to join the cancer club. Would've been a tight race to see which took me out first.” His words were light, but the catch in his voice revealed how freaked out he was. His gaze drifted out the window again to where the nearly full moon hung above the tree line. “Kadir took me . . . elsewhere,” he continued more quietly. “It was like the dreamspace but less shifty colors and more solid. And he wasn't Mr. Sparkly. Just himself. Normal. I mean, as normal as he can be.” He drew a deeper breath as if amazed he could still do so. “He told me I was dead.
Dead
. Asked me if I wanted to stay or go, live or move on to whatever comes after.”

“That's a hell of a thing,” I murmured.

His hand crept up to touch the sigil scar through his shirt. “Kara, there was a big part of me that was ready to let go. Like, everything would be
lighter.
No more pain or bullshit. And, hell, a few months ago I would have just . . . gone.” He jerked his hand down and tucked it under his thigh, as if he'd only just realized he'd been tracing the scar.

“I'm glad you didn't.”

He gave a slow nod, brow furrowed. “When he asked me the live or die question, my first thought was of all the shit we're doing to try and put both worlds right, and all the people who need my help.”

“We
do
need your help,” I said.

“Yeah. Go figure.” He grimaced. “I didn't become a cop for any noble purpose. I had everything going for me coming out of college. My big plan was to work my ass off for a couple of years to squirrel away some cash for law school. But when Kadir abandoned me, and my mom passed away, I turned into a surly bastard. Ran my fiancée off within a month.” Old grief shimmered in his eyes. “That was the last straw. I didn't give a shit about anything or anyone—especially myself—but I needed a job and thought being a cop would be cool, a way to get respect and have people look up to me. Of course the whole instant respect thing didn't happen, because that kind of shit has to be earned. And my attitude was so lousy it only pissed me off when people weren't falling all over themselves to kiss my feet.” He gave me a crooked smile. “Man, I was livid when you got promoted to detective. Here you were, young and sharp and getting all the attention I never got. Took me a while to figure out you were getting it because you fucking did your job and took pride in it.” His posture straightened subtly. “But I'm finally
getting my act together and doing something right again. And when Kadir asked me to choose, I realized it'd be stupid to check out now when I have a chance to make a real difference.”

“If you keep this up, I'm going to start crying all over again,” I said. “I mean, not that I cried or anything when I thought you were dead.”

He chuckled then took my hand. “Kara, the other thing that tipped me to the ‘stay' side was that I realized there were some people who would miss me. People like you who are apparently dumb or desperate enough to let me matter to them.”

I slugged him in his thigh even as my tears spilled over.

He gave a soft grunt, squeezed my hand before releasing it. “These past couple months have been fucked up in a lot of ways, but they've also been some of the best times of my life.”

“I never thought I'd have to be grateful to Kadir,” I said, “but I sure am now.”

A wince shadowed over Pellini's face. “Yeah, well, he didn't do it to be Mr. Nice Guy Humanitarian.”

I straightened. “He asked for something in exchange?”

“Not until he was certain I wanted to live.” Pellini's eyes met mine. “The bastard was slick. He steered clear of deals he knew I'd turn down, even if it meant dying, and managed to nail one right on my moral line without going over.”

“It has to do with the sigil, right?”

“It's tied to him, yeah.” He tapped his chest. “Kadir said something about you being the inspiration.”

My brows drew together. “I used his sigil scar to call him for Paul at the Spires and then again to get help for you.”

“Apparently you made an impression.” A barely perceptible shudder went through him. “He can, um, summon me to him.”

I sat up straighter. “You mean he snaps his fingers and, poof, you're wherever he's at?”

“I guess. I'm not really sure.”

That sounded weirdly like the strange bond Rhyzkahl had forged with me after my very first summoning of him where I only needed to call him with strong intent to bring him to me. “Just once or whenever?”

“I don't know that either.”

“Being able to summon you to him isn't exactly insignificant,” I said slowly. “But it also isn't as if you agreed to slaughter all the youngling Jedi.”

Pellini nodded. “In the end, I think I made the right choice. For the sake of humanity, I mean.”

I laughed. “Don't get too full of yourself, or I'll have to find you a bigger room.”

“Nah, you got it all wrong. This is about you.”

“How the hell is it about me?”

“See, if I died, you'd be so prostrate with grief that Xharbek would win without breaking a sweat,” Pellini said, smiling. “So, y'know, I
had
to make a pact with the devil in order to save the world. If it wasn't for you, I'd be kicked back on some fluffy cloud right now tuning my harp and eating grapes.”

“I don't have grapes, but I could probably scrounge up some old raisins. And I think I still know how to put together a guitar out of a shoebox and yarn.”

“Yeah?” Pellini grinned. “But what about the fluffy cloud?”

I tapped my chin, considering. “How about a leaf pile? Complete with a goofy dog and a bunch of kittens.”

“Now
that
sounds like heaven.”

Once I had Pellini all tucked in, I made a quick trip to see Nils Engen, our resident medic, who delivered the very scientific diagnosis of “Yeah, your knee is pretty messed up.” Fortunately, he also gave me a proper knee brace, though it came with orders to rest, ice, elevate, and ibuprofen the offending body part. With the knee braced and ibuprofen speeding through my system, I returned to the war room where, for the next two hours, I did my best to follow Engen's orders while on conference call after conference call—catching up on DIRT business, being debriefed, and hunting down updates on rift activity.

Or rather, the complete lack of rift activity. Not one single demon had come through any rift worldwide since midday. The previous record for no demons had been seventeen minutes. Ten hours made me edgy. It felt too much like the calm before the storm. Moreover, I had to wonder if events in the demon realm had triggered this lull. Lannist's demise? The Jontari theft of the gimkrah? Unfortunately, I'd barely glanced at my watch while we were hopping from realm to realm, so I couldn't be sure of the timing.

After I finally disconnected from a conference call with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, I got as far as swinging my braced leg out from beneath the table before the security switchboard patched through yet another call: Lieutenant Garvey, the officer on duty at the Spires.

“Good evening, ma'am,” he said. “As per your standing order, I'm calling to notify you of activity at IZ-212 that occurred at eighteen-oh-three.”

“Right. That's when we pulled out of there.” I winced at the
unintended annoyance in my voice. It was possible Garvey had only recently come on duty and didn't know we'd been at the Spires. I forced a smile that I hoped carried through into my tone. “Anything after that?”

“No, ma'am. That's—”

“Alrighty then. Have a good night, Lieutenant.”

“Do you want me to email the full report?”

“What report?”

“Of the eighteen-oh-three activity, ma'am.”

“I was
there
. I don't need it.”

“No, ma'am, you weren't. Your group left at seventeen fifty-nine.”

I pounded my fist against my forehead. “You said there wasn't activity after I left.”

“No, ma'am. Let me clear up the confusion.” He spoke with the unruffled patience of a math tutor explaining fractions. “Your group left the area at seventeen-fifty-nine. At eighteen-oh-three, the Demon Lord Muzztol appeared out of nowhere on the road outside the compound, near the security checkpoint.”

The fog of exhaustion burned away, and I sat up straight. “And then?”

“The guard on duty opened the gate for him, at which time Lord Muzztol proceeded on foot to a point between the two Spires and disappeared, presumably transporting out.”

Huh. Mzatal had arrived at the Spires only four minutes after we left. My instinct told me the timing was significant, but more telling was the part where he appeared out of nowhere. It was possible the lords had the teleportation aptitude of their daddies, but if so it was dormant—with the exception of Kadir. “I trust you have surveillance footage of the incident?”

“Yes, ma'am. I have it ready to send over on the secure network.”

“Do that. And thank you for being patient with my confusion.”

“It was my pleasure ma'am.” His voice held a smile.

I punched the end call button on the war room phone then retrieved my cell phone from where it was charging on the side table. I had over half a dozen unread messages, but none of them were as important as the one voicemail that Mzatal had left at 17:55, mere minutes before our departure from the Spires.

The solution for this student does not lie with what you seek, nor with kin of my partner in dance. Do not act. I will come to you in an hour's time.

He'd responded in code based on my original message. I mentally translated.
The solution for Elinor's predicament isn't the gimkrah or the Jontari. Sit tight and wait for a face-to-face discussion in an hour.

Except he hadn't come to me or called again. Instead, he returned to the demon realm minutes later without calling me back.

Maybe the surveillance video could tell me why? I switched the wall screen over to DIRT Secure and clicked on the file from Lieutenant Garvey. Distortion lines waved through the video images but, sure enough, Mzatal magically appeared about ten feet from the guard shack, strode unchallenged into the compound and to the Spires, then vanished.

Huh
. I seriously doubted Mzatal had teleported himself there. Far more likely that Helori blinked him in and departed in the same instant, too quickly to spot. I watched it several more times in an effort to confirm my suspicion, but it wasn't until I ran the arrival clip at quarter speed that I saw the ghostly image beside Mzatal. Pleased, I isolated the frame and enlarged it.

Except it wasn't Helori. It was
Ilana
, Mzatal's ptarl. But why drop him off outside the gate? I fiddled with the enhancement adjustments in an effort to get a clearer picture then gave up and called for Lilith Cantrell, our resident double-duty security guard and tech specialist. While I waited for her, I tried to make sense of it all. There were any number of reasons to explain why Ilana came for him, especially with the rifts quiet on Earth. Perhaps a worsening of the southern anomaly in the demon realm. Or fallout from the Jontari after the gimkrah incident. Maybe a potency imbalance emergency.

I drummed my fingers on the table in a tense staccato. Despite all the perfectly logical reasons, a thorn of worry dug into me. It didn't feel right. Even if Mzatal was needed in the demon realm, why the odd subterfuge? And why in
that
moment, a scant four minutes after I left? It didn't help my uncertainty that Lannist had named both Ilana and Trask before he died. Unfortunately, I had no idea whether he'd been warning me about them or telling me they were allies.

Lilith sauntered in, a laptop case in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. “Whatcha got, boss lady?” she asked, smile and tone bright.

“Technical ineptitude,” I said with a self-deprecating snort. Fortunately, once I showed Lilith what I wanted, it took her no
time at all to enhance the image enough to let me see Ilana's position better.

The demahnk had her fingertips on Mzatal's forehead—the ideal position for manipulation.

I thanked Lilith then waited until she departed before letting my fury boil up. That fucking demahnk bitch Ilana thought she could fuck with
my
man?

My anger cooled to icy calm. Ilana had done something to Mzatal, and though I didn't know what or why, my gut told me it was far from benign. Good thing I wasn't as oblivious or helpless as she thought. And, best of all, I had resources she didn't know about.

I found Michael sitting on the front porch steps, throwing a tennis ball for Sammy while two kittens played hide and pounce between the porch railings.

“Hey there, Michael,” I said. “I really need your help.”

His face lit up. “I got ways to help.”

“I know you do, and I have a couple of important jobs for you.” I sat beside him on the steps. “First, I'm a little worried about Mzatal. Could you please check and make sure he's okay?”

He grinned wide. “That's easy 'cause I just saw him before I ate cookies. Makes it speeeedy to see him again fast.” He went still, eyes unfocusing, but a heartbeat later his smile turned into a deep frown. “There he is.” His brow wrinkled.

“What's he doing?”

“I'll show you.” He sprang up and crossed the porch to sit with his back to the house. “Not done yet,” he cautioned then drew his knees up and rested his forearms on top of them, tipped his head back against the wall and let his face go slack, eyes staring. A few seconds later the life returned to his expression. “He's like that,” Michael said. “Just sitting and looking.”

A chill walked down my back. “Where is he?”

“I dunno. It's a hallway. Kinda dark with light way down at the end. Ilana's there, too. She's talking to a man. I dunno who he is.”

“What's she saying?”

“I can't
hear
, silly.”

“Right. Sorry.” A man who Michael didn't know. There weren't a whole lot of those in the demon realm. He would recognize all the lords and the human forms of their ptarls. Maybe it was an enemy summoner?

Or a certain asshole ptarl who only recently came out of hiding
. “Does the man have really light hair?” I asked. “And is he tall and slender?”

“Yep.” He gave me a hopeful smile. “Can you see him, too?”

“No. Just a guess.” Xharbek in Carl form. My worry became a physical ache. Mzatal craved wide open spaces, the freedom of the air and wind. He despised being confined and would never in a million years go sit in a closed-in, dark place like some emo-lord. Ilana had done something to throttle him back.

Lannist had specifically named both Ilana and Trask. With Ilana now firmly in the Enemy column, it was safe to assume that Trask could join her there.

“Whoops. They're gone. Mzatal's still sitting in that hallway, though.” Michael returned to sit on the steps. “Okay. That's all I can see for now.”

“That was a lot,” I said warmly. “Was he sitting like that when you saw him before you ate cookies?”

Michael scooped up the ball and chucked it for the dog. “Nope. He was in a funny place with black all around it. There was a stump in the middle and big ol' chains on the floor.”

The gimkrah's dimensional pocket and the podium. “What was he doing?”

“He banged his hand down on top of the stump. BAM!” Michael slammed a fist into the palm of his other hand. “And two more times. Bam bam. Broke the stump all to pieces. Blood came out of his fingers. Then Ilana came and made it all better and took him away.” Michael dropped his hands. “That's all I saw.”

Dread pooled in my belly. What did the loss of the gimkrah mean to Mzatal? And what had Ilana done to him after that to cause him to sit and stare in a darkened hall when worlds were at stake?

Oh shit. Xharbek. He'd dangled the gimkrah image to make sure I entered the column then, after I managed to escape the void trap, he left the way open for me to get the gimkrah. He'd
wanted
me to take it. I already knew he was in league with the Jontari on the invasion. It was no coincidence that those reyza picked that precise moment to risk an incursion into Mzatal's realm to steal my backpack—and the gimkrah.

“You okay?” Michael asked, his face lined with distress. “I'm sorry I did it wrong.”

“No! You didn't do anything wrong. You were absolutely
perfect.” I threw an arm around his shoulders and gave him a hug, glad to see him brighten. “I have one more very important job for you. Szerain is lost. Can you see him?”

“Nope. He's gone since the bad day when Earth went kablooey.”

The day the PD valve blew—when Szerain went into hiding from Xharbek. “I know it's getting late, but maybe you could do some super-secret looking for him.”

“I can stay up and be a spy.”

“Good deal. I'm going to talk to Turek about it, but don't tell anyone else, okay?”

“Secret agents don't tell,” Michael said, low and serious.

“Jill left more cookies in the kitchen if you need a spying boost,” I said, though I wasn't sure he'd heard me since he already had the distant look in his eye.

I found Turek crouched in the spray of a lawn sprinkler at the side of the house, oblivious to the chill in the air. I quickly filled him in on Michael's quest then explained that I intended to contact Szerain in a few hours and would need his help. Turek, of course, offered his support without hesitation, which meant I could now focus my remaining energies on Mzatal's plight.

I limped to my room and crawled into bed, propped my leg on a pillow and pulled the comforter over me. After setting my phone alarm for two a.m., I closed my eyes and focused on my breath, slow and easy, then sent a silent appeal to Rho, asking for any assistance the grove might offer.

I visualized my sigil scar on Mzatal's chest while I held the leaf and ring against his sigil scar on mine. I reached mentally for Mzatal, through the silence of our connection and to the isolating walls he'd raised around himself. It was those walls that allowed him to maintain the will, focus, and control needed to marshal the lords through this crisis—and to wield the power of the essence blades.

Our connection was silent because of those walls. But it wasn't dead.

And I had a plan. As their creator, Mzatal had a connection to all three essence blades—and I intended to use them as a backdoor, bypassing his stupid walls altogether.

When I'd last seen him, he carried both his own blade, Khatur, and Rhyzkahl's Xhan—and I had zero reason to believe he'd set either knife aside. Khatur was familiar to me, but Xhan . . . I knew Xhan with hideous intimacy, thanks to Rhyzkahl's torture.

Now I needed to get its attention.

The scars covering my torso were a constant reminder of Xhan's vile resonance and touch. I reached for that resonance, sent out a mental spear of mocking disdain and contempt followed by as many insults as I could think of to use against a semi-sentient knife.
Useless, weak, and pathetic. You're a tool, with
no power of your own.
Keeping my mental voice filled with sneering derision, I continued in that vein.
I look forward to the day I can melt you down into hair clips.

Over and over, I stabbed into the silence.

No response.

Are you stupid, too?
Do you even understand how pathetic you are? Oh, you talk tough enough when a lord is holding you, but once they send you away, you're stuck there in the dark. You're nothing more than a glorified letter opener, imprisoned in a desk drawer.