I returned to the living room, stooped, and slid Zack’s arm over my shoulder. “C’mon, demon-dude. I have something for you.”
He didn’t resist as I helped him to his feet, and we made it to the bathroom without either of us falling over. Zack looked at the filling tub as he steadied himself with a hand on the counter. “That bad, huh?” he asked with a flicker of a smile.
I smiled. “You have grass in your hair, and you’ve been downwind from a bait shop. Now strip and get in.”
He pulled his clothing off and let it drop to the floor. Once he was in the tub, I shut the water off, knelt on the bathroom rug, and proceeded to gently bathe him, as if caring for a child. I had the unshakable sense he needed simple nurturing and physical contact. And judging by the way he relaxed into it, my sense seemed to be right on target.
Zack closed his eyes, leaned back. I took my time, often simply soaking the sponge, then squeezing the water out over his torso. Once I’d cleaned all the decent parts, I set the sponge on the side of the tub. “I’m gonna let you scrub your balls, ’kay?”
“You’re such a chicken,” he murmured and cracked one eye open at me.
“Cluck cluck,” I shot back with a smile. “There’s a big fluffy towel and your sweats right here. Soak for a bit and then holler if you need help getting out.”
He opened his eyes fully, found mine. I felt a whisper of his mental touch, and then a gentle caress of my essence along with a flood of love and gratitude.
My throat clogged, and I had to wipe tears from my eyes. I laid my hand on his forearm, squeezed lightly. “Take your time,” I said, voice rough. “We’re here for you.”
I left him in the bath and returned to the living room. After about ten minutes he emerged under his own power—which was an improvement—though he remained unsteady on his feet and disturbingly pale.
Hiding my worry as much as possible, I guided him to the sofa, sat beside him. “I’ll let Jill know the gist of what’s going on with you,” I told him. “We’ll all take care of Szerain and make sure he spends time on the mini-nexus until you come home. Sonny will call if you need me for anything, all right?”
A smile struggled to his lips. “Yeah. Thanks.”
I gave him a hug. “I’m so sorry it turned out like this for you.”
He held me close, then surprised me by gently kissing my cheek. “Some things are worth the price you have to pay.”
I returned the gesture then left him with Sonny. Deep resolve formed in my gut as I returned to the car and Bryce. Zack had sacrificed himself to save us all in a moment of crisis—and possibly in the greater battle as well.
I intended to extract a price from the ones who’d made it necessary.
Chapter 42
As soon as Bryce and I were on the road again, I left a message on Ryan’s phone to let him know we’d found Zack but that he needed time alone and was staying at Jill’s. The next call was tougher since the first thing Jill wanted to do was go to Zack. It took a bit of finesse and a lot of stubborn bitchiness to convince her, but she finally gave in and grudgingly accepted it as some sort of demon thing.
With that done, I let my gaze drift out the window. The moon floated high in a sky empty of clouds. I rubbed at my eyes as the fatigue I’d held at bay with adrenaline-charged action wormed its way in. Hard to believe that first meeting with Sonny had been less than twelve hours earlier. And then I’d become Amaryllis for a while, and then . . .
I rubbed my eyes again. Who had I been after Amaryllis?
“Kara!” Bryce said sharply.
I jerked and swallowed. Remembered. “Thanks.”
“You’re exhausted,” he said, voice laden with worry. “You should catch a nap while I drive.”
He was probably right, but I wasn’t ready. “Not yet.” I rolled my neck on my shoulders, felt things pop. “I can’t call it quits until Ryan’s home, or I’ve at least heard from him. Gotta account for everyone in the posse, y’know?”
Bryce frowned but nodded, then drove in silence for a time before speaking again. “I don’t think he was breathing.”
It took me a few seconds to figure out what he meant. “Mzatal wouldn’t have taken Paul to the demon realm if there was no hope,” I told him. “And you know better than anyone that he can work healing miracles.”
A subtle layer of tension eased in his face. “Right. Sure, that makes sense.”
“It’s going to be all right,” I reassured him, while I tried to convince myself as well. My phone rang with Ryan’s caller ID, and I quickly answered. “Hey, you.”
“I got your message, and I’m on my way home,” Ryan said. “Everything’s taken care of with Angela Palatino. Where are you now?”
“Turning off Serenity Road. Should be home in less than a minute.”
“About ten for me. You doing okay?”
“Yeah,” I lied. “Good as can be expected. You?”
“I feel a little weird, like my brain is too big for my head,” he said, “but otherwise I’m good.”
“We can chill together when you get home. We’re at the driveway now.”
“Deal,” he said. “See you in a bit.”
I stuffed my phone into my pocket as Bryce parked, climbed out of the car, and then stopped and looked at the house. The new floodlights under the eaves cast warm pools of amber while also throwing odd shadows onto the porch. The swing creaked gently in the soft breeze, and water dripped from the gutter spouts. Light shone through the front windows, and I wondered if the owners were home.
My hands clenched at my sides. No, it’s my house. MY house. I fought my way back up the slippery slope. Kara’s house. And I’m Kara. It only seemed unfamiliar because of all the changes. But can it change so much and still be mine? I found myself wondering.
“Kara.” Bryce touched my arm, and I startled, blinked. Concern puckered his forehead. “Kara, you really need to get to bed,” he said. “Like, right now.”
“Sure,” I said. Yet I wasn’t convinced sleep could fix it. Who would I wake up as?
I walked up the steps, hesitated before opening the door. Gritting my teeth, I silenced the voice that told me I should knock first, then turned the knob and entered. I dropped my stuff on the table by the door—because it was my house, and I could do that—went to my bedroom and flipped on the light.
Fuzzykins lay curled on my bed. Blinking in the sudden light, she lifted her head and hissed at me. I started to hiss right back at her, then saw the little squiggling lumps. In the middle of my bed.
“You . . . you horrible beast!” I yelled. Bryce burst in behind me, clearly ready to deal with a demon or something worse.
He followed my gaze, then exhaled in relief. “Shit, it’s just Fuzzykins,”
“It’s my bed,” I gritted out. “She had her damn kittens in my bed! Eilahn bought her a ridiculously expensive cat bed, but no, she had to drop her spawn on my comforter!”
Bryce moved forward to peer at the lumps. “She sure did.” A smile spread across his face as the cat mrowred up at him, but he wiped it away when he looked back at me. “Want to crash in the guest room for now, and I’ll, uh, move them or something?”
“Shit.” I sighed. “No, they’re newborns. Better not to move them.” I scowled at the cat. “She knew that too, the little bitch.”
“Actually the proper term for a female cat is a queen, not a bitch . . .” He trailed off at the look on my face. “And you don’t care about that.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, you still should crash in the guest room—”
Eilahn burst in and shouldered her way past us, cutting him off. “Fuzzykins! You good girl!”
“Yeah, what a good girl,” I muttered. “More creatures in the house who hate me.” A weird and miserable pang went through me at the thought. It bugged the hell out of me that this cat—all cats—despised me simply because I was a summoner. The unfairness of it gnawed at me, though I knew my current exhaustion exacerbated my reaction.
Eilahn continued to co
o and ah over the kittens, clearly oblivious to the fact that she sported a black eye and ripped, bloodstained clothing. “Oh, you wonderful girl!” she gushed to Fuzzykins. “There is Bumper and Squig and Granger and Fillion and Dire and Cake!”
Bryce touched my arm and gave me a reassuring smile. I realized he’d likely picked up on my mood. “Maybe in a couple of days,” he said softly, “after they’ve settled in, and you’ve had some rest, you could see what would happen if you got to know one early on. From the beginning.”
“Maybe,” I said. “I don’t know. All cats hate me.” I rubbed my gritty eyes. “I’m going to go crash on the couch or something.”
“Kara, use the guest room,” he insisted. “You need some quiet.”
I watched Eilahn fuss over the kittens, unsettled by the weird feeling that I’d lost her, too. I knew it wasn’t true at all, but right now everything felt off. Why hadn’t I even tried to call her? “Yeah, okay.” I turned and left my bedroom, walked down the hall, and into the guest room. Then stood in the middle of the floor and looked around, confused. I’d thought I was home, but no. Guest rooms were for guests. That made sense. I shook my head at my lapse.
I heard Bryce curse and pivoted to look questioningly at him. He stood in the hallway outside the door with his phone to his ear. His critical gaze raked through me as though finding me lacking, and it left me unsettled, shaken.
An overwhelming sense that I’d forgotten something vital slithered through me, something barely beyond my reach. My mind scrambled to figure out what was missing, and the sensation increased, as if once again I stood on a tilting plain of smooth glass with nothing to hang on to. “Bryce?” I choked out, struggled to dig in, grab on to anything. This was wrong. Une. Due . . . Due . . .
Or maybe I was just tired? Tired and imagining things. Yes, that was it. Simply tired. I looked over at the inviting bed. Everything would be better once I slept. I’d feel like a new person.
“Kristoff? Thatcher here,” Bryce said tersely into his phone, eyes never leaving me. “How far away are you? Kara’s slipping. I’ve never seen it this bad.”
Who was he talking about? Should I be worried about her? I wondered distantly.
He shoved his phone into his pocket, moved in and gripped me by my shoulders. “Kara!” he shouted at me and gave me a sharp shake. “Your name is Kara!”
I sucked in a breath, surfaced. Kara? A flare of sick dread gave me something to hang on to, though it too threatened to melt away. “R-right. Kara.” I reached up to cling to his upper arms, looked into his face, my eyes wide in panicked desperation. “Bryce, this is bad. Don’t let me go. Please.”
“I have you,” he said with fierce reassurance, and comprehension suddenly bloomed on his face. “That’s why Mzatal left me behind,” he murmured to himself, so low I barely caught it. He shook himself and returned his entire focus to me. “Kara. Mzatal is going to take care of Paul, and I’m going to take care of you. Kara.” He shifted to grip me by the upper arm, then led me out and toward the living room.
I didn’t resist. “Yes . . . yes. He’ll take care of Paul. And I’m Kara.” That was right. Wasn’t it? I felt my eyes squinch in doubt, looked up at him as we walked. “You’re sure?”
“I’m damn sure,” he told me. “Rhyzkahl did this to you. You’re Kara Gillian. Summoner. You have Mzatal who loves you. You have good friends: Zack, Jill, and Ryan who’ll be here in less than a minute. You’re Kara.” He sat me on the sofa, dropped down beside me, and kept hold of my arm. “You have an aunt, uh, Tessa, and a demon guard Eilahn. You rescued Idris a little while ago. You are Kara.”
I gave him a jerky nod. “Sure. Okay.” I looked around the living room. Eilahn crouched a few feet away, eyes on me. Why was she tracing sigils, and why did she look pissed and intense? “Kara,” I echoed, but the name felt strange on my lips, and the familiar room didn’t seem as inviting as it had a moment ago. “I don’t feel right.”
“I know, Kara.” Bryce shifted to face me more, shook me a bit. “It’s the sigils, the scars. It’s Rhyzkahl and his fucking implanted virus.” His gaze flicked to the door then back to me. “I hear Ryan’s car. We’re going to take care of you.”
I clung to his words. “I trust you,” I said and held his arm in a death grip. “You’ll take care of me.”
Ryan burst through the front door. “Kara!”
Distress spiked as I heard the name. I released Bryce, twisted to face my friend. Yes. Ryan was my friend. “Ryan! Something’s wrong.” He would help. That much I knew. “I don’t know what, but it . . . it is.”
Ryan moved to crouch in front of me, face a mask of worry. “Shit,” he breathed. “Kara. Kara!”
My brow furrowed at the shout. Was that my name? It didn’t seem right.
Bryce scrutinized us, jaw tight. “You two are going out back,” he commanded, then stood and pulled me to my feet. “Let’s go.” He jerked his head at Ryan. “Now.”
I offered him a tremulous smile. I trusted these two men, and that absolute certainty helped ease the churning disquiet. Obviously distressed, Ryan led the way down the hall to the back.
“This is a nice house,” I murmured as we passed through the kitchen. Ryan shot a startled look back at me, and Bryce’s hand tightened on my arm.
“It’s your house, Kara,” he insisted. “Your house.”
Fear twisted my gut as I struggled to process that. I looked around for anything that clicked as personal, as mine, but found nothing. How could this be mine? None of this made sense.
Ryan took my other arm as we stepped off the back porch, and together the two men quick-walked me to the mini-nexus. As soon as we crossed the boundary of the power focus I dragged in a shuddering breath, feeling as if the curtain obscuring my Self reopened a crack. I clawed my way up, clung with everything I had to that slim awareness. “Kara,” I gasped out, tasted it, fought to reclaim my name. “Ryan. Bryce. I’m Kara.” I wrestled against the uncertainty and panic that threatened my tenuous hold. But how long could I do so? For now I held fast to the sloping plain of glass, but if it tipped more . . .
The converged potency of the mini-nexus seeped through me, threw the curtains wide and added power to my grip. Yet I knew it could only delay my descent. The instant I lost the potency, I’d be gone. Kara would be gone. Forever.
Fuck no. Not while I have breath in my body.
I drew from the mini-nexus, called up all of my internal reserves. “I know who I am. I know what I am,” I said through clenched teeth. “The instant I leave the nexus I’ll lose it, but I’m not fucking giving up yet. I’m going to beat this shit,” I looked from one to the other. “We’re going to beat this shit.”
“You’re goddamn right,” Bryce said fiercely. Ryan gave an equally determined nod. Eilahn crouched a foot beyond the perimeter of the mini-nexus, still tracing sigils, teeth bared and eyes glowing with relentless focus. They had my back. Always had. My posse.
Kara’s posse.
The scars on my torso abruptly flared white hot, then quickly subsided to a billion tiny ant bites of prickling heat. Shit. No way was that a good sign. I drew measured breaths—in through my nose and out through my mouth, with a silent “Kara” each time.
Ryan released his hold on my arm, shifted to face me, expression intense. Without warning or preamble, he seized my dress at the neckline and ripped it from me, leaving me in nothing but bra and panties. I knew why he’d done so, but Bryce jerked in surprise.
“Shit! What the hell?” He lifted his free hand to intervene, then paused as comprehension lit his eyes. “The sigils,” he murmured.
Ryan yanked my bra free and cast it aside to fully reveal all of the patterned scars. I focused on his face. No. Same hair, same eyes as Ryan, but now with subtle differences in the features. Not full-fledged Szerain, but headed that way. And far more stable than ever before, perhaps because of the potency from the node at the plantation combined with that of the mini-nexus.
A pinpoint of heat ignited over m
y sternum, much the same as when Jesral attacked me earlier. An instant later, it diffused and Mzatal’s sigil crawled with fire. I sucked in a gasping breath. “They’re waking up.” I swallowed hard. “Not good. Last phase.” In through the nose, out through the mouth. Kara.
Szerain squeezed his eyes shut. “Zakaar,” he breathed. He needed Zakaar, needed his support. I now saw that the breaking of the ptarl bond had shaken Szerain as deeply as the other lords, and was made even worse by Zack’s absence.
“No!” I put every bit of power I could into the word. “Zakaar can’t be here,” I snapped out. “It’s only us four, and it won’t even be me much longer if you don’t pull yourself together.” I leaned closer. “Szerain! Right here. Right now. I need you.”
His eyes flew open, the uncertainty of a moment before replaced by fixed intensity. In a slow, deliberate move, he laid his fingers on my sternum where the invisible arcane fire crept upward. “Mzatal,” he pronounced. The first to be carved by Rhyzkahl, the sigil sucked away the heat then writhed like ice beneath my skin. A wave of vertigo hit me, and I swayed, yet Bryce’s firm grip on my arm kept me upright. A soft buzzing drone set my teeth on edge, as though a dozen voices hummed out of tune.
Szerain slid his hand up to rest beneath my collar bone. “Rhyzkahl.” Then to my side. “Kadir.”
With each name, ice twisted beneath his fingers, and the hum grew clearer as though a voice found a harmonious note. Mzatal. Rhyzkahl. Kadir. The exact order Rhyzkahl had carved their symbols into my flesh.
Heart pounding, I seized Szerain’s wrist. “You’re activating the series. Why?”
Bryce shifted his grip on my arm. A quick glance at him revealed a shimmer of doubt in his eyes, though his face revealed nothing. Eilahn stopped tracing sigils and stood, watching us intently.
Szerain twisted from my grasp. “Rhyzkahl began the process when he struck you with the virus,” he told me, almost growling the words. “Jesral completed it when he drew the rakkuhr to your chest earlier. Now the series activates, as was Rhyzkahl’s intent, and I can’t stop it. But I can complete the circuit before the virus does.” He leaned closer, face intense. “Kara, I don’t have a backup plan.”
Fury of the Demon (Kara Gillian) Page 48
