Vengeance of the Demon: Demon Novels, Book Seven (Kara Gillian 7) (24 page)

Katashi let out a harsh curse in Japanese and made a sharp gesture toward the woods. Carter, Tsuneo, and McDunn followed him to beat a hasty retreat into the trees. Pellini shifted up to his knees and continued the pushing motions. I drew a gasping breath as the vicious pressure eased more, then groaned as nausea rose in its place.

Idris let out a cry of rage and scrambled into view on hands and knees. He staggered up and toward where the men had disappeared into the brush only to collapse halfway there and heave his guts out. I held back my own puke, aware that Pellini’s efforts had probably saved Idris from being taken prisoner again—a very real threat considering how gifted he was. Katashi and the Mraztur would pee themselves in excitement to have Idris working on the valves for them again.

Eilahn pressed up to sit. Face pale and eyes closed, she remained quiescent as Pellini stood and moved around us, continuing to wave his hands as if dispersing smoke. Most of the oppressive ritual weight faded within half a minute, but everything still felt
wrong
, and I couldn’t stop shivering. I managed to push up to kneel then retched into the pine needles and dirt.

“Ah, shit.” Pellini grimaced and made more pushing motions around me. The dizziness receded, but confusion replaced it. The ritual had been dispelled, so why couldn’t I see the potency flows yet? I’d recovered immediately from Idris’s arcane draining ritual at the barbecue.

I spat into the dirt to try and clear my mouth, wiped my face with a trembling hand. “S-something’s wrong.”

Pellini stepped around my puke splatter then pulled me to my feet. My legs refused to hold my weight, but Pellini slung me over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry and hauled me the hell away from the ritual residuals. As soon as he reached the woods he lowered me to sit on the ground then peered down the trail to check on the others.

I did my best to remain upright as shivers wracked my body. Nausea lurked at the back of my throat, and the wrongness took on a defined shape. “The . . . valve. I can’t . . . I can’t feel the valve.”

Pellini frowned. “It’s there. Steady and blue.”

I closed and opened my hands in a useless attempt to get them to stop shaking. “C-can’t feel it. Can’t see it.” I heard the distress in my voice. “I don’t feel right.”

His eyebrows drew together. “You don’t
look
right.”

Heart pounding, I struggled to my feet. “You . . . you don’t either.” I swayed.

Pellini wrapped an arm around my waist to steady me. I swung my gaze around in mounting desperation. “Everything’s wrong,” I told him, voice quavering. The trail and surrounding forest remained the picture of serenity, birds twittering as though nothing was amiss.

But it was like looking at a picture with one color missing.

True fear filled my gut. “Pellini, make a sigil.”

“A what? Oh, one of those drifty things?” He carefully lowered me back down to sit then frowned in concentration, lifted his hands and moved them around. “How’s that?”

The empty air between his hands mocked me. “I can’t see it.” I hugged my arms around myself. “Do another. Please.”

Frown deepening, he flicked his fingers then held his hands a foot apart and waggled them again.

I knew better than to ask if he was screwing with me. Out of habit I tried to pygah. The loops of the calming sigil were so familiar as to be second nature, yet though I remembered what it looked like, I didn’t know how to trace the pattern. It was like forgetting how to hold a pencil.

No, it was like forgetting what to use to draw a picture.

An eerie and fragile calm settled over me. I didn’t want to speak or move because then it would shatter and the bad thing would be real. But the bad thing
was
real, and refusing to face it wouldn’t change a thing.

“He took it,” I said. The calm fractured into a billion pieces.

“Huh?”

“McDunn.” I swallowed, concentrated on the mechanics of my simplest bodily functions. “He took the arcane from me. I can’t sense it anymore. Nothing.”

“Shit,” Pellini murmured then shook his head. “It’ll come back. That ritual thing you were in pulled all the arcane away, that’s all.”

“No!” Deep in my gut I knew he was wrong. “The effect of the ritual was temporary, like at the barbeque when Idris did it to you. Katashi isolated me from the arcane so McDunn could fuck me up.” Crippling me was the intent from the start
.
In one well-planned stroke, Katashi had removed me from the game board.

“Right now we need to get the hell out of here.” Pellini hauled me upright again, draped my arm over his shoulder to steady me as we made our way down the trail. “You’re going to be okay. We’ll figure this out. Eilahn and Idris are right behind us, and we’ll get back to your house and fix it.”

“I’m gonna throw up.”

Pellini reacted like a man who had way too much experience with people about to blow chunks. In a split second he unslung my arm from his shoulders and lowered me to my knees. He scooped my hair back with one hand and steadied me with the other, all while keeping himself out of the line of fire. “Right into the grass there.”

After I finished, I remained on my knees and attempted to trace a sigil. I formed the lines well enough, but when I tried to draw power to make it more than mere scratches in the dirt I might as well have wished for fairies to appear.

Footsteps approached. I straightened to see Idris jogging up the trail, face contorted with anger. He’d recovered quickly from being caught in the edge of the ritual. Eilahn wasn’t far behind him, pale but no less determined.

“We need to keep moving,” Idris said, tone harsh as he passed us without a second glance. Pellini helped me up, but Eilahn scooped me out of his grasp.

“Not much farther,” she said. She hurried me up the trail after Idris, leaving Pellini behind.

I clung to her arm as I staggered along. “Where’s Pellini? He helped. He stopped it.”

“He follows.”

I craned my head around, relieved to see him with his gun out and ready as he surveyed the woods in all directions, covering our retreat.

“My arcane senses will return?” I asked Eilahn, desperation making my voice crack. “What McDunn did to me will wear off, right?”

“You are a summoner,” she replied, implacable.

I gulped. “Not if I can’t touch or see the arcane.”

“Precisely.”

A brief flare of exasperation pushed aside my fear. “Yeah, and I
can’t
touch or see the arcane.”

“I know this,” she said, speaking slowly and clearly. “You are a summoner. Summoners see and touch the arcane.” She nodded as if certain it would all be clear to me now.

Dismayed, I gave up debating the point. Did she understand what I was experiencing? Not that I was sure
I
understood. But for the first time I wondered if there was a logical gap in her thinking. To her it was clear: summoners could see and touch the arcane. I was a summoner. Therefore, I could see and touch the arcane. Except that she couldn’t seem to grasp that the reverse was also true: without the arcane a person
wasn’t
a summoner. Maybe she couldn’t comprehend such a radical change? Perhaps to her it was like a terrier saying it wasn’t a dog anymore. I couldn’t blame her. I didn’t want to comprehend it either.

Idris stood a few feet back from the end of the trail, listening and sensing. He traced his fingers over the bark of a tree beside him, shaping an alarm sigil to notify him if people passed near—though I only knew what it was because I recognized the wrist-straining twist of his hand at the end. Eilahn stopped a short distance behind him and made a careful scan of the road and truck that waited beyond the edge of the woods. Her nostrils flared delicately as she scented the air and assessed for active or potential threats. After another tense moment she said, “I sense nothing amiss.”

Pellini clicked open the locks with his remote. “Y’all get in,” he said, still on guard. Eilahn helped me into the back and got me buckled, while Idris threw himself into the front passenger seat and slammed the door. Pellini climbed in and started the truck, then performed a quick three-point turn and got us on our way.

“Feeling any better?” he asked, looking at me in the rear view mirror.

No, everything’s wrong!
I wanted to yell, but I held it back and offered a shrug instead. “I don’t feel like puking quite as much.”

“They knew we were coming,” Idris said, hands clenched into fists on his thighs. “The fracture of the valve threw them off, but they were waiting for us.”

The truck jolted over a rough bump, and I gritted my teeth against the answering queasiness. “We were cocky and got caught,” I said once I could speak. A shiver passed through me, and I rubbed the gooseflesh on my arms. No matter how hard I tried to see the arcane, the world remained dull and ordinary.

“We walked right into it!” Idris raged, face red. “Katashi was right there! We could’ve had him if we’d blasted him in the first place like I said!” He shot me an accusing glare.

My battered self-control disintegrated into pain and loss and fear in the face of his oh-so-righteous anger. “
I’m sorry
,” I screamed at him. “I’m so fucking
sorry
I fucked your day up by getting caught in their trap!”

He swiveled to stare at me, annoyance drawing his mouth into a deep frown. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

My hands trembled. “While I was so
inconveniently
caught in that trap, McDunn . . .
did
something to me.”

“What are you talking about?” His eyes narrowed. “He enhances talents and intimidates people. That’s pretty much it.”

Did he think I faked the puking and feeling like shit? “Who knows, maybe this was his first time,” I said stiffly. “But what he did to me was the
opposite
of enhancement.”

It took him only a second to grasp my meaning. “Damn. I didn’t know that was possible.” His mouth twisted in thought. “They wanted you neutralized, not dead.” He exhaled. “Then again, with Rhyzkahl’s and Szerain’s influence on you along with
Kadir’s
, it’s safer for everyone now. Even you.”

For a moment I couldn’t breathe, shocked to my core as much by the casual delivery of the comment as the words themselves. Would he be this casual if they’d killed me?
Gee, that’s too bad, but at least we’re all safer.

Pellini’s hands spasmed tight on the steering wheel. “You’d best turn your ass around and keep your mouth shut for a little while, son,” he ordered. Idris opened his mouth to respond, but I found my voice first.

“Did you just say . . .” My voice shook so much I had trouble getting the words out. I shoved to sit more upright and tried again. “Did you just say it’s fine and cool that I’ve lost my arcane ability because it’s
safer?
”

He scowled. “Sure. For now. You’re not a player anymore.” His tone was patronizing, as if I was an emotional idiot to be so worked up instead of seeing the bigger picture. “You won’t be a target, and they can’t use you. It buys us a little breathing room.” He finished with a there-you-go shrug that sent my fury spiraling higher.

“You arrogant, unfeeling asshole!” I sputtered. “Would you say the same thing if I’d been blinded? Because that’s what it feels like. That’s what it
is!
”

“Blinded?” he said, incredulous. “Give me a break, Kara. It’s not the same thing at all. I get that it sucks, but at least some good comes of it.”

Gravel crunched under the tires as Pellini pulled the truck onto the shoulder and threw it into park, but I barely heard it over the hammering of my pulse. “And it’s cool that you still have all your skills,” I said through ragged, uneven breaths, “because you’re so perfect and untouched and
uninfluenced?
”

“I never said I was perfect,” Idris retorted, face flushed, “but I’ve been
cleared
by
Mzatal
and
Elofir.”

Agonizing rage tore at my essence. “Cleared?” I let out a harsh sound—more sob than laugh. Loss and betrayal goaded me on. “You’re hauling around more influence than everyone in this truck put together considering Rhyzkahl’s your
dad!
”

Idris gave me a withering look. “That’s the best insult you can come back with?”

“Enough of this bullshit!” Pellini snapped. “I’m taking Kara home.” He leveled a black glare at Idris. “You either shut up or get out and walk.”

But my reply spewed out. “We’re cousins,” I snarled at Idris. “I have the DNA results to prove it. My aunt was manipulated to think her baby was stillborn. But he wasn’t. He arrived after she spent time in the demon realm. With Rhyzkahl.”

Silence descended. Idris glared at me, a heartbreaking range of emotions galloping through his eyes. After several tense seconds he flung open the door, climbed out and slammed it, then strode off down the highway shoulder.

Pellini muttered a stream of obscenities under his breath and killed the engine. “My goddamn truck better be here when I get back,” he said then pulled himself out and started after Idris.

Two seconds later I opened my door and vomited onto the gravel, dry heaving when nothing more came up. After a moment the nausea faded, and my rage drained away with it, leaving me empty and cold. My cheeks were wet, but I didn’t know when I’d started crying.
Nice going, Kara.