A look of annoyed disgust swept over Idris’s face. “I know,” he shot back. “I’m the one who taught you how to do it.”
I suppressed a rude snort at Asher’s ego. Idris had trained with Mzatal for over half a year and another four months with the Mraztur after his kidnapping, and had mastered nine rings of the shikvihr. Asher had solid skills, but I highly doubted he knew even half of what Idris knew.
Indignation flashed across Asher’s face. “Just do what you’re supposed to do,” he snarled. “I’ve got the node at the warehouse aligned, so it will anchor enough, in any case.”
“No, you don’t,” Idris said through clenched teeth. “And no, it won’t.” His eyes flicked toward my hiding place then ahead again as they passed me.
They returned inside, and the meaning of the exchange abruptly clicked. Were the Mraztur going to try and come through the node? How was that even possible? I quickly relayed the entire conversation to Paul.
“We’re still a couple hundred yards away,” Paul told me in a breathless voice as if running. Or trying to keep up with Mzatal’s long strides. I knew that pain. “Mzatal’s not happy,” he added, “at all. Says they’ll cause a node incident which will be catastrophic at worst and disruptive at best. He scowled more and said a lot of bad demon words too. You need to get away from there and come toward us.”
“I will as soon as it’s clear,” I replied, keeping my voice low as more men ran past. “You stick like glue to Mzatal, you hear me? I keep overhearing chatter about everyone being told to pull back and clear the lawn. Something big is about to happen.”
“Don’t you worry,” he replied. “He moves fast, but I’m right on him.”
“Good deal.” I peered out and confirmed I was in the clear, then scooched out of my hiding place, gun in hand. Eilahn started toward me in a graceful run near the perimeter of the lawn, keeping to the shadows of trees. Fortunately, bright light made for really dark shadows.
A weird trilling call set the hair on the back of my head on end, and brought Eilahn to a stop. She crouched in a defensive stance, teeth bared as a lanky dark-skinned man loped out toward her. He didn’t stop or slow, and when he was only a few paces away, she sprang to engage him. The two met in a beautiful and terrible mid-air collision, immediately shifting to grapple and claw and fight with deadly and perfect skill.
Another syraza! I realized and had barely finished the thought when the pair suddenly winked out.
I stared in horror at the empty space. “Paul! Eilahn’s gone!” I blurted out. “Another syraza came out, and they started fighting, and then they blipped out. Where is she?!”
“Hang on. Shit.” He mumbled to himself for a moment. “Shit. She’s in New Orleans East.”
I cursed. Eilahn couldn’t travel more than about a dozen feet on Earth, which meant the other syraza had initiated it. And not only could I not do a damn thing to help her, this also meant she was out of the fight. Even if she kicked the other syraza’s ass immediately, it would take her a couple of hours by car or taxi to get back to me. Hell, that was probably the other syraza’s intent all along.
Staying low, I started a nerve-wracking dash from concealment to concealment as I worked my way toward the east side of the compound. The good news was that I didn’t see anyone out and about anymore. Bad news was that I was pretty damn positive the lawn was being watched. And possibly watched through the scope of a rifle, I thought grimly.
“Kara, I don’t know what just happened,” Paul’s agitated voice cut off my pleasant musings about snipers. “Ryan and Zack were at the fence line as planned. I let them know about what you saw with the node, and then Ryan said he looked over and Zack was gone. I don’t have anything on where he might be. No GPS. His link is dead.”
My heart clenched. Zack knows the lords might come through. Was he getting the hell away from here to avoid violating agreements and crossing The Line? Or was he preparing for a confrontation with Rhyzkahl? “What’s Ryan doing?”
“He moved inside the fence about a hundred yards,” Paul told me. “He’s behind the apartment units right now. He’s a little, um, tense.” A pause. “Bryce just met up with Sonny and Idris’s mom. They’re heading out now.”
With Zack gone without explanation, Ryan was probably starting to reflect an agitated Szerain. “Once Mom and the boys are clear we can move on to grabbing Idris and kicking ass,” I said. And hopefully get the hell away from here before any of the lords come through. I edged around a dense clump of ornamental trees, doing my best to stay out of sight of any windows in either the main house or the Ops building. Maybe I was being too paranoid, but I was feeling kind of risk-averse at the moment. What if being in Rhyzkahl’s presence made it even harder for me to resist the rakkuhr virus? I didn’t know, and I didn’t want to find out. Yet at the same time, I doubted Mzatal would leave here and allow the lords unchallenged access to Earth.
A stiff breeze swirled across the lawn, picking up a few stray leaves to toss onto the lake. It brushed the water to form tiny waves, then shifted to bring the scent of rain my way.
Mzatal abruptly strode out onto the illuminated lawn, his essence blade Khatur in hand, and Paul only a few steps behind him. The protections around them flared and crackled in my othersight. No worries about either of them getting shot if someone got stupid. As I watched, Mzatal stopped about a fifty yards from the gazebo, lowered his head in a stance to carefully assess. A few heartbeats later he took three steps back, then began to dance the shikvihr.
Too late to stop the Mraztur from coming through, he prepared instead to face them.
Chapter 39
The staff door of the house opened, and once again Asher and Idris came out and jogged toward the gazebo. Idris appeared stressed and disturbed, while Asher looked triumphant. Idris knows how fucked up this is, I thought, feeling equally grim.
Idris’s gaze flicked briefly to Mzatal, while Asher eyed the demonic lord with a great deal of wariness. I looked around carefully. If there were any snipers who could get me, they’d have to be hiding in the cattails surrounding the lake.
Rising slightly from my crouch, I shouted, “IDRIS! YOUR MOM IS SAFE!” If he only had a light dose of Farouche’s influence, that knowledge would hopefully give him much greater freedom of action.
Idris’s head snapped around at my shout, and relief bloomed on his face. Asher looked over at me as I ducked into the bushes again, but Idris didn’t give him any chance to speak or act. Without hesitating an instant, Idris seized Asher by the upper arm, swung him around and delivered a hard punch to his face. Idris was stronger and in much better shape than Asher, and it showed. Asher staggered and collapsed even as Idris dropped down to slug him again with his entire bodyweight behind the blow.
I held back an exultant cheer. Yep, that was definitely some freedom of action going on right there.
Idris stood and shook his hand out, face hard. He glanced my way, gave a slight nod, then turned and ran to the gazebo.
What the hell?
A low rumble rattled my bones, then waves—part arcane, part physical—spread out from the gazebo like ripples from a rock thrown into a pond. I staggered to keep my footing as they passed under me, then pressed my hand to my stomach as nausea hit. We didn’t exactly get a lot of earthquakes in southern Louisiana. This had to be instability caused by the node, and it wasn’t even open yet. Not good.
Another low rumble, and then the ground shook as if a giant jackhammer slammed into it about a hundred times a minute. I lost my balance and went sprawling. Idris fell in the gazebo but immediately scrambled to his knees and began to weave potency around the node. Not to open it for the Mraztur, I realized with relief, but to stabilize it.
Windows shattered with pops and cracks that sliced across the lawn. To my left, a statue toppled over and tumbled down the far set of steps. Asher staggered to his feet, blood streaming from his nose and mouth, and managed two steps toward the gazebo before falling again.
There didn’t seem
to be any point in trying to get up with the ground still shaking, though Mzatal continued to dance the shikvihr as if nothing was amiss. Even if I hadn’t been able to see him, I’d have known he was there. His aura pulsed and flared like heat from an active volcano. Paul knelt a few feet behind him, his focus on his tablet. Mzatal completed the final sigil and ignited the full ritual, and I sucked in a breath as its power filled me in a delicious torrent through our connection.
“Kara!” Paul’s voice crackled in my ear, excited and nervous. “Sonny and Bryce are clear. Mama’s out the back fence, across the bayou, and away. Still no sign of Zack. Ryan’s going to wait where he is in case Zack comes back, and Bryce will be heading our way momentarily.”
“Got it,” I replied.
The jackhammer feel suddenly stopped, only to be replaced by the madly uncomfortable sensation of too much pressure, as if I was a hundred feet underwater. I dug my fingers into the grass, and a heartbeat later the pressure seemed to reverse, and I felt as if I was going to float away while my eardrums threatened to burst. Mzatal called to me, touched me through our connection, and I returned the touch, assuring him I was okay.
“Node is open!” Paul cried out, tinny and distant. “Node is open!”
I gripped the grass hard as I looked up and over at the gazebo. Tendrils of potency like vines of shimmering blue light flowed out of the center, twining up and over the structure until the whole thing glowed. It flared in an arcane blaze, and in the next breath a concussive blast ripped the gazebo apart and sent debris flying in all directions. I yelped and ducked my head down, glad that I was already prone. Rubble from the columns and shards of slate rained down around me, but the force of the blast left nothing big enough to cause me any significant damage.
“Paul! Idris!” I yelled, though my voice sounded distant to my own hearing. I swallowed to pop my ears and tried again. “Paul!” Peeking up, I tried to assess. No gazebo anymore, only bases of the columns like jagged teeth on the stone platform, and rubble scattered like gravel far across the lawn. Ice clutched at my chest. Idris. He’d been right there in the middle of that huge blast. “Paul! Are y’all okay? Answer me!”
Mzatal got to his feet, expression hard, and his shikvihr still intact and glowing brightly in othersight. Static buzzed in my ears. “Yeah.” Paul’s voice crackled and popped through a suddenly horrible connection. “I think. Yeah.” Now I saw him about five feet behind Mzatal, struggling upright, his tablet clutched to his chest.
“Stay down, Paul,” I ordered, relieved to see him comply. The comms were in bad shape, but at least they hadn’t been knocked out entirely. My gaze swept the area and finally rested on the sprawled form of Idris about halfway between my position and the node. “I see Idris,” I said, voice shaky with relief. “He’s down, but breathing, and I don’t see any blood.” Though the blast had been a fierce combination of physical and arcane power, I stubbornly clung to the hope that he was merely stunned. After a few more seconds of searching, I located Asher lying face down on the bank of the lake, lower legs in the water. Maybe the lake had leeches. That would be cool.
Though a good half of the floodlights were dying in impressive showers of sparks, I caught sight of Farouche standing on the veranda above the steps with his bodyguard, Angus McDunn, right beside him. McDunn touched Farouche’s arm, spoke to him, and Farouche responded with a tight nod. I imagined it was something like, We need to get off the veranda while weird and dangerous shit is happening, since Farouche turned, and the two disappeared into the house.
I returned my full attention to the node. No longer a low, compact arcane weave, it rose a dozen feet above the platform, a disturbing column of potency that oscillated from blinding rainbow light to the utter blackness of the void. The ground shuddered and an eerie whine issued from the node. In the next heartbeat the whine crescendoed and then died as Rhyzkahl stepped out of that column of power, shoulders rising and falling with heavy breath, though appearing collected and confident otherwise.
My eyes went to Xhan in his right hand. The lurid red of rakkuhr wrapped around the essence blade and up Rhyzkahl’s forearm. My lips pulled back from my teeth as I dug my fingers hard into the ground and tried to clench my hands into fists. “Rhyzkahl’s here. Paul, stay down and behind Mzatal.”
“Mzatal says—I don’t know what he means,” Paul said, and I heard the stress in his voice even through the static. “Says no rules here and no way to contain Rhyzkahl? Shit!” Static filled the connection for several seconds as the node flared. “Says must incapacitate. Engaging.”
Cursing, I pushed up to hands and knees, easier now that the ground wasn’t shaking and nothing was blowing up. “As soon as Rhyzkahl is occupied, I’m going to get Idris and drag him over your way.” Mzatal needed me by him for combat support and so that his attention wouldn’t be split. In my peripheral vision, I saw Rhyzkahl tracing protections as he stepped off the gazebo platform and toward Mzatal.
I made it to my feet and began a slightly unsteady dash toward the sluggishly moving Idris. A heartbeat later a reyza appeared beside Rhyzkahl, spread his wings and bellowed. Not quite as large as Gestamar but formidable none the less.
“He called Pyrenth through!” I steadied my legs, but almost stumbled as the node whined. Another lord stepped from it, fierce smile and aura like a jungle cat on the hunt. “Jesral.”
“Oh, shit,” Paul breathed through the static. “Got it.”
Jesral took a step, staggered a bit, then shook his head as if to clear it and get his bearings. Had the sly lord ever been to Earth before? If not, I was ready to welcome him with a good hard kick in the balls.
I took a second to make sure Jesral’s attention was on Mzatal rather than me, then sprinted to Idris and did a super-quick injury check to make sure I wasn’t going to damage him irreparably by moving him. He was breathing easily, and I didn’t see gushing blood or protruding bones—though he had a glassy-eyed look of shock and a shitload of little blisters, likely an arcane affect of the blast. I flinched as the first potency strike of the battle burst with an ear-splitting crack. Heart thudding, I seized the back of Idris’s collar and began hauling him toward Mzatal and Paul. Easier said than done. Idris was a solid chunk of muscle, which made for a lot of dead weight. I sure as hell wouldn’t think of him as a kid ever again.
He let out a low groan, then began to thrash, disoriented. He was still too out of it to get free of me, but it made dragging him about ten times as hard. “Stop struggling, Idris!” I panted, holding on with both hands as I backed toward friendly lines. “Holy shit, how much do you fucking weigh?”
Pyrenth bellowed again, then bounded in my direction. Adrenaline dumped hard into my system as two things became crystal clear: Pyrenth would reach me in about five seconds and, unless I did something quick and decisive, he was going to recapture both Idris and me for Rhyzkahl.
I’ll never be me again! The terrifying thought surged through me in a flash. The rakkuhr virus held that potential. Rhyzkahl was a certainty. No time for my gun, and it wouldn’t be enough to stop the reyza anyway. In the instant I had to react, I realized I had only one possible course of action. I released my grip on Idris’s collar, jerked my hand up into the air and called Vsuhl to me.
In the next heartbeat Pyrenth was on me, clawed hand reaching to grasp and hold. But I’d practiced with Gestamar in all sorts of close-quarter fighting, and knew the balance points and the weak spots. As the blade coalesced in my hand, I snapped out a side kick into his hip, throwing him off balance enough for me to evade his grab. Moreover, it shifted his unprotected chest toward my right. Letting out a guttural cry, I took advantage of the instant of vulnerability, surged forward and buried Vsuhl to the hilt in Pyrenth’s chest.
He let out an agonized bellow and staggered back. The blade’s approval whispered through my mind as it made its insidious presence known. The hilt wrenched from my hand even though my grip on it was solid, almost as if it clung to Pyrenth’s flesh. Breathing hard in triumph, I w
atched him go to his knees and scrabble at the hilt. I’d taken one opponent out of the game, and dying on Earth simply meant he’d most likely return to the demon realm.
Except . . . this didn’t look like the other times I’d seen demons die here. There was no light spilling through the wound, no ripping crack or the smell of ozone and sulfur.
Pyrenth was bleeding.
Sick horror formed a knot in my gut. I moved forward and seized Vsuhl’s hilt. The blade howled in protest as I yanked it free, and it seemed to require ten times the effort it should have. Yet then I could only stare for several eternal seconds at the blood that spilled down Pyrenth’s broad chest.
“I don’t understand,” I croaked out. I dropped my eyes to the blade in my hand, felt and heard it urge more more more, then returned my gaze to Pyrenth. He sagged to his side, his expression calm, relaxed. He might have looked peaceful if not for the blood that bubbled from his mouth and darkened his fangs.
“Well . . . played,” Pyrenth breathed.
The fighting continued around me as I struggled to understand. I felt Mzatal’s focus on me, his insistence that I banish Vsuhl. Felt him take a strike for his distraction. I dimly noted that another concussion rocked the lawn, though not as severe as the first. Paul was shouting something in my earpiece, and it took me several seconds to comprehend the words.
“Kara! Mzatal says to send the blade away! Send the blade away! Jesral!”
I jerked my gaze up and saw Jesral’s eyes locked on the blade and me. Quickly, I banished the blade, and briefly reveled in the look of rage that came over him before I returned my attention to Pyrenth.
“I don’t understand,” I repeated, almost desperately. “I only meant to send you back to the demon realm!”
Fury of the Demon (Kara Gillian) Page 43
