But I had absolutely no idea why I was holding back from telling my aunt about this. Maybe it’s because she doesn’t seem like herself. Was that it? The storage diagram was a huge discovery, and the more I learned about it, the more I realized that it had the potential to be dangerous as well. What could be done with a massive supply of stored potency?
I could summon other demonic lords. And bind them, with enough preparation. Not that I ever would. One demonic lord was enough for me, and such summonings were insanely dangerous. But what if another summoner—one with scruples similar to the Symbol Man—had this knowledge? What could someone like that do with a demonic lord at his command? I’d faced that possibility once already—even chosen to die rather than let it happen.
A chill swept through me. What if that’s why I might be in danger? Not only did Rhyzkahl have the advantage of having a summoner bound to him, but he had one who wasn’t limited to summoning during the full moon. There might be some who would seek to remove his advantage, or worse, there might be some who would seek to protect themselves by removing one who had knowledge that could make it easier to enslave them. All the more reason for me to keep it to myself. The last thing I wanted to do was put Tessa in any sort of danger again.
I jerked as Tessa put a hand on mine. “You look ill, sweets. What is it?”
I forced a smile. “Sorry. Lost in thought for a second. I think I’m still tired from last night.”
She gave my hand a pat. “I’ll make you some of that boring oversweetened tea that you tolerate, okay?”
I laughed. “That would be slightly delightful.”
I expected her to turn and go to the sink, but her hand stayed on mine. Her gaze had gone distant, and I even glanced behind me to see if she was looking at something out the window.
“Aunt Tessa? Is something wrong?”
The barest hint of a frown furrowed her brow. “Do you ever wonder why Szerain was willing?”
I blinked. “Huh?”
She dropped her eyes to mine. “Szerain. The lord that my mother and Peter Cerise and the others were trying to summon . . .”
Even with her clarification it still took me a few seconds to figure out what she was referring to. “Right. When Rhyzkahl came through instead,” I said, keeping my face immobile. Nearly thirty years ago Peter Cerise had gathered five other summoners together in a bold, ambitious, and shockingly dangerous attempt to summon the demonic lord Szerain. Cerise’s wife was dying of breast cancer, and Szerain was—supposedly—amenable to being summoned for such a need. This was most assuredly not the case for any other demonic lord.
Perhaps the summoning would have proceeded without incident if Szerain had actually been the one to come through the portal, but Peter Cerise and the other summoners were unaware that the then-teenage Tessa was hiding in that basement that night. And though she’d yet to realize her potential as a summoner, her presence altered the forming of the portal. A different—and unwilling—demonic lord was pulled through instead: Rhyzkahl, one of the most powerful of the demonic lords.
The result was a slaughter. Rhyzkahl killed all the summoners except for one who later went on to plan another summoning of Rhyzkahl out of vengeance—becoming the serial killer known as the Symbol Man— and who had tortured and murdered his victims in order to gather the power needed to make such a powerful summoning successful.
“Yes,” Tessa said, expression strangely calm. “That’s the one. Do you ever wonder why Szerain was willing to be summoned?”
The serene look on her face was beginning to seriously unnerve me, especially considering the topic of our conversation. Her mother—my grandmother—had been one of the summoners Rhyzkahl had slain. “I, uh, hadn’t really thought about it.”
“You should,” she said, voice soft. “The demonic lords never do anything without motive.” Then she patted my hand and looked back at me with a perfectly normal Tessa-smile. “Let me get that tea for you now.”
I fled to the library after taking a few token sips of tea, but my mind was on Tessa’s strange words—and her stranger mood shift.
Why would a demonic lord be willing to be summoned? I could think of an answer right off the top of my head: the demonic lord in question had an arrangement with a human summoner, much like the arrangement I had with Rhyzkahl. So perhaps Szerain had a summoner of his own at one time as well. Perhaps he still did. I knew next to nothing about the demonic lords except for Rhyzkahl, and I didn’t exactly know a whole lot about him either—even if we did have crazy hot sex every time I summoned him.
But if some other summoner were to think that Rhyzkahl might be willing to be summoned simply because I was able to do so . . . well, that would most assuredly be a fatal mistake on their part. That, I was certain of. A summoning was considered a deep and terrible insult to a lord, a slight to their honor that could not go unanswered, else they risked losing yet more honor. It would be like yanking the pope out of his chair and setting him to clean your bathroom. But a thousand times worse, and with far more devastating repercussions. Honor was the bedrock of the demons’ society.
There were twelve levels of demons: from the first-level zrila to the twelfth-level reyza. The higher level demons had more arcane skill and strength than the lower, but the demonic lords were above all of those. They were denizens of an alternate plane of existence, and I had the ability to open a portal between this world and theirs and summon them forth to serve me in exchange for a suitable offering. While it was an affront for any demon to be summoned, the demons gained status among their kind through knowledge gained in this sphere or the artifacts and offerings the summoner might exchange for the demon’s service. Once the terms of a summoning were set—the offering and required service agreed upon—the demon’s honor compelled it to complete the agreed upon task to the best of its ability, just as that same honor compelled the summoner to abide by the terms of the agreement. The demonic code of honor was a summoner’s protection. Without it, any summoning would demand more power than one human could conceivably draw on his or her own, since it would be necessary to bind and enslave the demon and force it to the summoner’s will. And, then, of course, that summoner would be living in constant fear that the demon might break its bindings and free itself. I had little doubt that the summoner’s messy death would quickly follow.
I’d long been taught that it was impossible to summon a demonic lord and survive, though I knew now that there were exceptions to this. And if I have an arrangement with a demonic lord, who’s to say there aren’t other summoners who do as well?
I could feel the subtle brush of the protections pass over me as I entered my aunt’s library, a mental prickling on the edge of my awareness. The arcane wards in the house and the library were now back to their previous strength, though when they were “installed” this time around I made sure that I had complete access. I’d received a rude surprise when Tessa was in the hospital and I’d found that her library and summoning chamber had been protected against me—with wards of deadly strength that I later discovered had been placed shortly after my first encounter with Rhyzkahl. It was an understatement to say that I’d felt terribly betrayed. I’d been unable to fathom why she hadn’t said something to me, and even now I still didn’t have a clear answer as to her motivations for doing it.
I checked that the portal in the corner was well warded. It wasn’t an actual portal that a demon could be summoned through—more like a weak spot in the fabric between our world and the demon sphere. Or perhaps some sort of arcane pressure valve. I wasn’t quite sure, to be honest. What I did know was that when I removed the wards in the library, some arcane beasties were able to come through—or, in at least one case, were pushed through from the other side—and had caused quite a bit of trouble. I had a feeling that portal was the reason she’d warded everything against me—and, I assumed, Rhyzkahl—but that precaution had backfired since I’d been forced to have all the protections removed after Tessa had been incapacitated.
I’d braced myself for a protest from Tessa when I had the wards restored to normal, but she’d stayed silent on the subject. It was yet another shift of power that made me uncomfortable. It was almost like a grown child who suddenly had the care of an elderly parent, though that was a weak analogy in a lot of ways. Tessa was only in her late forties and far from needing any sort of care. But there was definitely a strange fragility to her now that had never been there before.
And she was out of her body for weeks, I chided myself. Give her some time to recover. I was being unrealistic to expect her to bounce back to fully normal in the course of a couple of months.
Still, I didn’t feel like lingering in the library, especially while Tessa was elsewhere in the house. The scattered books had been stacked in semi-neat piles, with as much system as there’d been before the incident with the portal. Or so it seemed to me, since I wasn’t convinced that there’d ever been a system. But somehow I managed to find a number of books in the same general area that had stuff vaguely related to arcane constructs and golems.
Ryan called as I was stuffing the books into my bag. I knew this without looking because I’d actually assigned Ryan a ringtone of his own. Not that my phone rang so often that it was necessary. Pretty much the only calls I ever got were from Tessa, Ryan, Jill, or the dispatcher. My social life—a pathetic thing indeed.
“You awake yet?” he asked.
“Not only awake, but I’ve had a shower, coffee, and am finishing up at my aunt’s library. So there.”
I heard him chuckle. “In other words, you’ve solved the mystery and there’s no need for us to go speak to Lida.”
“Well, I wouldn’t want to take all the fun out of it,” I said. “I suppose we can still go through the motions.”
“If you’re still at your aunt’s house, I’m only a few blocks away. Want me to pick you up?”
“Works for me. Meet you out front.”
I disconnected, then ducked out of the house, calling out a“bye” to Tessa before she could challenge me as to what I was taking from the library.
Or not challenge me. I didn’t want to face the possibility that she wouldn’t even ask.
I snagged my gun and badge out of my car, and after a brief debate, grabbed my jacket as well. I might as well look as official as possible, even if it was my day off. And when was the last time I had a real day off? I thought with a slight scowl.
About thirty seconds later a dark blue Crown Victoria pulled up to the curb. The passenger-side window slid down and Ryan gave me a mock leer. “Hey chicka chicka! You lookin’ hot. You sellin’ that?”
Groaning, I yanked the door open and slid in. “You are so weird.”
He laughed. “Okay, the gun and badge does kill the sexy a little bit.”
“Hey now, some guys would pay extra for that!”
“This is true,” he said with a grin.
I buckled my seat belt, then grimaced. “Also, the stain on the jacket screams, ‘Oh, do me, baby. Do me now.’” I swiped at the dark streak on the hem of my jacket, but only managed to make it a bigger dark streak. “It’s so not fair. The cops on TV have awesome wardrobes.”
“With terrific shoes,” he added.
“Yes! High heels on crime scenes are an absolute must.”
Ryan snickered. “I dare you to come out to your next crime scene wearing stilettos.”
I made a hacking sound. “I’d be laughed out of the department. Especially after I fell on my face a few times trying to walk in them.” I thought for a second. “I don’t even think I own a pair of heels higher than about two inches.” And I only owned one pair like that, I realized—the ones I wore for court or funerals.
He gave me a sidelong glance. “Please don’t take this the wrong way, because god knows you’d have every right to take this the wrong way . . . But do you ever, um, dress up?”
I glowered at him.
“Okay, you’re taking it the wrong way,” he said with a self-conscious chuckle. “I’m not saying you’re not pretty and feminine and all that good stuff. Because you are.” He flashed me a smile that mollified me somewhat. “But when was the last time you had a chance to dress up and go out and be fancy?”
My throat tightened up and I turned to look out the window so he couldn’t see how deeply the question had affected me. “I dunno,” I said as casually as I could, throwing in a shrug for good measure. “A while, I guess. I’ve had a lot going on.” Never, I thought in sudden silent misery. At least not since I was a kid. How fucked up is that? I’d had two boyfriends, but neither relationship had lasted very long, and the dating had consisted of movies and crawfish boils and fishing trips. And Rhyzkahl doesn’t exactly take me out on the town.
I heard Ryan swear under his breath. Obviously my attempt to hide my upset hadn’t been very successful. “I’m sorry, Kara. I didn’t mean to touch a nerve.”
I schooled my face into a pleasant expression and looked over at him. “Ryan, it’s okay. I just . . .” I shrugged. “My teen years were a mess, and then when I started training as a summoner I became pretty isolated.” “A mess” was a mild description. My mother had died of cancer when I was eight, and then three years later my dad had been killed by a drunk driver. My aunt had been less than thrilled to be saddled with the care of a preteen, and by the time I was fourteen I was doing my best to destroy my life with drugs. The discovery that I had the potential and skill to become a summoner had given us both the impetus to get my life back on track, but the need to keep the demon summoning a secret had pretty much killed any chance of a social life.
“You never went out with your aunt for anything? Special occasions?”
I raised my eyebrow. “You’ve met my aunt, right?”
He winced, then gave me a rueful smile. “Yeah. Wow. Sorry.” He shook his head. “Look, as soon as this case gives us some breathing room, how about you and I dress up like people with actual lives, and go eat someplace where the staff has all their teeth and the napkins aren’t made out of paper.”
I could only stare at him for several heartbeats as my thoughts floundered. Was he asking me out on a date? But he didn’t say it was a date, and if I assume it’s a date that could end up being totally awkward if he didn’t mean it that way. But should I play it safe, or jump on the chance that he meant it as something more? Though if I jumped and missed . . .
Uncertainty abruptly flickered in his eyes, and he reached over and gave my hand a squeeze. “I mean, just as friends, right? Two good friends going out and enjoying themselves.”
I managed to nod, though my smile felt brittle. “It sounds great,” I said, relief and disappointment doing the tango in my stomach. “For this I’ll even buy a dress.”
“Tight and slinky?” He gave me a comical leer again. “And stiletto heels?”
I smiled despite my inner turmoil, obscurely grateful for his attempt to break the tension. “Nah. Floor length. Long sleeves. Y’know: Amish.”
“Wear the stiletto heels with it, and it’s a deal.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Just drive.”
Chapter 6
Lida Moran lived in a house on the lakefront, almost directly across the lake from my aunt’s house. While my aunt’s neighborhood was comprised of older museum-quality houses that had been carefully restored and were meticulously maintained, the other side of the lake was for the people who simply wanted a big horking expensive house on the lake.
And big it was, though it wasn’t quite up to the level of some of the houses in Ruby Estates—the community for people with Too Much Money. Still, it was more house than I would ever live in. Two stories and sprawling, it took up at least three lots—and I knew that the price of land on the lakefront was nothing short of obscene. A mix of brick and stucco, it looked strangely like a scaled down ivy-league dormitory with a large central portion and two wings extending to either side along the lakefront.
I stood back and assessed the house. It had to be at least four hundred feet from one end o
f the house to the other.
“Weird-looking house,” Ryan muttered as we walked up the driveway.
“Great minds think alike,” I said with a low laugh. “They must really like living on the water.”
He gave a derisive snort. “Sure hope so. The house takes up most of the damn lakefront.”
Then we were at the door and had to carefully compose ourselves into a properly professional mien.
Lida met us at the door, barefoot and dressed in jeans and black T-shirt. She had little if any makeup on and about half her usual number of piercings, and my first thought was that she was absolutely stunning like this and why did she wear the crazy makeup and piercings when she was in public? Of course my second thought was that I was thinking like an old fuddy duddy and the makeup and piercings most likely had absolutely nothing to do with how “pretty” she wanted to appear and everything to do with her personal statement of style. Not to mention that the goth look was part of her persona as a performer.
“Ms. Moran, I hope you don’t mind us stopping by, but we were in the neighborhood and figured we’d see how you were doing and if there’ve been any further incidents.” I said it all with a smile, knowing full well that even though she was only nineteen she was sharp enough to know that we hadn’t dropped by simply because we were in the neighborhood. But she seemed perfectly content to go along with the fiction.
“That’s cool,” she said and stepped back. “Nothing else has happened, but we haven’t left the house either. C’mon in. We’re being kinda lazy today, so please excuse the mess.”
I had no idea what mess she was referring to. We followed her through a foyer and into an enormous living area, and the only things I could see that might be considered out of place were possibly the guitar on the couch or the shoes underneath the coffee table. Everything else was clean and orderly and about as far from the home of a singer of her “genre” as I could possibly imagine. Not a skull or black candle to be seen anywhere. Instead, the room had the unmistakable air of an interior decorator with too much budget. The furniture looked incredibly expensive and uncomfortable, and the few shelves on the wall held odd little decorative pieces that looked vastly overpriced instead of elegant. The art on the walls struck me as the sort of stuff that people murmured appreciative things over at galleries, but would never actually buy for their own home—colorful and intentionally abstract paintings that tried to be ever-so-slightly suggestive, but instead merely looked faintly sleazy.
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