My throat felt tight and hot, and all I could do at first was manage a short nod to acknowledge what he’d said.
“What did he do?” I was finally able to croak out. “What did Szerain do for you to want revenge?”
Rhyzkahl moved to me, gently placed his hands on either side of my head and kissed my forehead in a move so tender I could only stare at him in complete bafflement.
“You have already asked your questions, dear one, plus a third,” he said softly. “But I will answer this one as well. Szerain stole something from me. Something deeply precious and priceless. He stole it, and then he willfully destroyed it, because he knew what the loss would do to me.” And with that he took a deep breath, kissed me on my lips, then straightened and was gone.
Chapter 7
I stayed down there, sitting in the armchair and staring at nothing in particular until my legs threatened to fall asleep and the rest of me as well. For once I’d come away from a session of “two questions” feeling almost overwhelmed with information—very little of which made any sense. Szerain had been some sort of asshole and took something from Rhyzkahl. In turn, Rhyzkahl killed the summoners to disrupt Szerain’s plans—out of revenge. So, what were those plans? What did Szerain take?
Fragments of memory spun in my head like leaves in a breeze, coming to rest in patterns I could almost begin to recognize. A name shouted in a moment of desperation. An ice cold visage.…
The house was dark and quiet when I made my way back upstairs. Eilahn’s motorcycle helmet was by the front door, which told me she was back from wherever she went, but she didn’t seem to be in the house. Maybe she sensed that I needed to be alone with my thoughts for a while. My jangling, chaotic thoughts.
If so, she was wrong.
I went out to the living room and sat on the couch. I tucked my bare feet underneath me and pulled the throw over my legs. “Eilahn…?”
Less than a minute later I heard a soft thump, the front door opened, and the syraza came in, followed by Fuzzykins. The demon gave me a soft smile as she closed the door, then settled into the recliner, tucking her own feet up in an echo of my pose. The cat jumped onto the back of the couch and proceeded to wash her butt in my direction.
“You must not have been far,” I said to Eilahn.
“I was on the roof,” she replied. “The sky is lovely tonight, and the air is fresh.”
I started to ask her how the hell she got onto the roof in the first place, then realized that was a stupid question. “Is it anything like this on your world?”
“Similar,” she said. “The air is a bit drier there, and it gets much colder, but there is much forest. There are mountains not far away. And we can see more stars.”
“No ambient light,” I replied with a nod. “You must not have big cities full of light pollution.”
She tilted her head. “There are cities. But they do not cast as much light.”
A tug of longing pulled at me. I’d been to the demon realm only once, after Rhyzkahl brought me there to live out the last few seconds before I died—allowing me to return to this plane of existence in one piece, much like what happened to demons when they were killed on this world. I’d spent less than a minute there, but what little I’d seen had left me wanting to see so much more. “Did you leave any, um, family behind to come here?”
“I am unmated,” she replied, a slight smile curving her mouth. “I would not have agreed to come had I other commitments.”
“Oh, so, you had a choice?” I said, then instantly hated how it sounded. “I mean.…” I trailed off, grimacing. “I’m sorry. I guess I’m completely ignorant of how things work over there. With the demons and the lords.”
She pursed her lips and was silent for a moment. “It is a complex dynamic,” she finally said. I waited to see if she was going to elaborate on that, but she remained silent.
Time to get to the meat of things. “When we were out at the landfill,” I said, “fighting the golems…when that one golem hit me, you yelled to Ryan. That’s when he turned around and, um, saved me.”
The demon was still as stone. She didn’t nod or acknowledge my statement.
I was suddenly nervous. Little things were starting to click into place, though I knew I was still missing most of the big picture. It was like the moment when working on a picture puzzle that you put three pieces together and suddenly realize it’s a face. Maybe you still don’t know where it’s supposed to go, or what the final picture looks like, but at least you have something more than hundreds of scattered pieces.
I knew that once I started putting it together, I wouldn’t be able to stop until I had the whole picture, whether I liked the end result or not.
“You didn’t call him by his name,” I said, taking the plunge. “I mean, the name you yelled wasn’t ‘Ryan,’ was it?”
She shook her head, a slow deliberate movement. Her eyes never left mine.
My pulse beat an unsteady staccato. “It was ‘Szerain,’ right?”
“It was,” she said in a low voice.
I blew out an unsteady breath. It was true. Fucking hell. He’s a demonic lord. He’s that demonic lord. So what the hell happened? “Can you, um, get in trouble for doing that?” I asked after a moment of mental floundering. “Using that name, I mean?”
She seemed to consider the question. “I should not have done so, but there were circumstances. I doubt I will receive much censure.”
I licked my lips. “Ryan is…Szerain?”
Her look was full of apology. “I am oathbound. I cannot answer that.”
I let out a breathless laugh. Zack had said something very similar when I’d asked him if Ryan was a demonic lord. “Right. I understand.” I suddenly felt calmer than I had in a long time. So what if the answers I’d been given only raised more questions? It was a shitload better than being completely in the dark. “I just have one more question,” I said. “Were…are they enemies? Rhyzkahl and Szerain?”
Eilahn pursed her lips, appeared to consider the question. She was silent for long enough that I was about to retract the question when she took a breath to speak.
“‘Enemies’ is a strong word,” she said, looking off into an unknown distance and speaking as if she was measuring each word carefully. “It implies that the two parties have conflicting goals.” She shifted her gaze to me. “What if they have the same goal? What would they be then?”
“They’d be allies,” I said.
Eilahn’s smooth forehead creased in a frown. “Yet what if they disagreed on how to reach said goal?”
I turned the question over in my head, and finally shrugged. “I dunno. Bad allies? Rivals?”
A smile whispered across her mouth. “Some things are difficult to define.” She stood, and I knew that was the most I’d be able to get out of her regarding the dynamic between Rhyzkahl and Szerain.
In other words, It’s Really Fucking Complicated, I thought wryly.
“I was able to finish the warding on your place of work,” she said. “I was also able to obtain something that may be of assistance.” She reached for a backpack at the end of the couch. “Come to the kitchen. I have something to give you.”
I obediently followed. “Somehow I get the feeling this isn’t an early Christmas present.”
“Alas, no,” she said as she sat at the table. Out of the backpack she pulled a plain cardboard box, big enough to hold a coffee mug, and set it in front of her. “But, speaking of the Christmas festival—when do you plan to obtain a tree?”
I blinked as I took a seat opposite her. “Um, well, I hadn’t really planned on getting one.”
“Oh.” She looked almost forlorn. “Are your beliefs different? Do you object to the symbol of the tree?”
I shook my head. “No, it’s not that. It’s just that it’s usually only me here, and most of the time I figure it’s not worth the trouble or time.” I paused. “My aunt always puts a tree up though, if you want to see one.”
The demon incline
d her head. “I would like that.” She still looked disappointed though.
“Or we could get one,” I said, oddly pleased at the thought.
A smile spread across her face, and once again she was the kid who wanted the pet cat. “Could we? I have read about such things, and was hoping to be able to participate in the traditions.”
I grinned. “Yeah, sure. Maybe we can go later today and get one.” And a tree stand, and decorations, and lights. Good thing there was still some room to go before I hit my credit limit.
I gave a slight nod toward the box on the table. “So, what’s that?”
She pushed it toward me. “You may open it.”
The top of the box was closed with a thin strip of masking tape, easily torn. I expected there to be some sort of packing material to go through, but there was only one item in the box—a bulky and rather ugly bracelet.
I took it out and turned it over in my hands. It was a lot lighter than I expected, made of some pinkish-coppery metal, though I was fairly sure it wasn’t copper. It looked old, too—pitted and scarred, as if had been knocked around for a few hundred years. Overall, “ugly” really was the best way to describe it. “It almost looks like an old-style shackle,” I said, tugging it open easily. “Except there’s no place for a chain to attach.” Peering closer, I could see an opening that could possibly be a key hole.
“It needs no chain, and it is a shackle—of a sort. It was quite difficult to acquire.”
I set it down on the table. The thing made me vaguely uncomfortable. “And you’re giving this to me…why?”
“This will offer you an added level of protection above what I can provide.” Eilahn said, eyes steady on me.
“What, is it some sort of arcane artifact?” I asked, switching over to othersight to peer at the thing. To my disappointment it appeared perfectly mundane.
“The opposite,” she replied. “It suppresses the arcane, and it will make it nigh to impossible for you to be summoned as long as you are wearing it.”
I let out a breath. “That’s fantastic!” Then I saw that her expression was guarded. “What’s the catch?”
“It dampens all arcane. Including yours,” she said, tone serious. “You will not be able to summon or use othersight while wearing it, nor will you be able to sense arcane that you are accustomed to sensing. And you cannot wear it for extended periods, lest you become ill from it.”
I swallowed. “Ill how? Like, sick to my stomach, or like cancer?”
“You will feel tired and then generally unpleasant. I believe an appropriate analogy would be the feeling of having influenza. But that would only happen with extended wear. The sensation should disappear as soon as you take it off. Which you would only do when you are within wards,” she added with a warning tilt of her eyebrow.
That wasn’t quite so bad then. As long as I wasn’t wearing a piece of uranium on my wrist that would give me some sort of lymphoma somewhere down the road.
“Put it on,” Eilahn said gently, and I realized I’d been frowning at it for at least a dozen heartbeats.
I glanced up at her. “You said it was a shackle. What did you mean?”
“Artifacts of this type have been used to keep practitioners of the arcane from using their abilities, or to control when they used them”
“In the demon realm?”
“In both worlds,” she stated. “I borrowed this from the storage room of a museum in New Orleans.”
“Borrowed?”
The demon gave a light shrug. “I suspect that none there knew of its true nature, else it would not have been in a storage room with only a padlock for security. I will return it when you no longer have need of it, or I will make appropriate recompense.”
I’d have thought the demon sense of honor wouldn’t have allowed “borrowing” without asking, but apparently there was wiggle room in there according to whether the borrowed item would be missed. Apparently I still had a lot to learn about their honor. Hopefully I wouldn’t need the artifact for very long, and she could return it before anyone missed it. “Why couldn’t you just ask Rhyzkahl to bring one with him the next time I summoned him?”
She shook her head. “Because of its nature, it is not something that can be transferred through a portal without extreme effort.”
I winced. “Oh. Right. Something that mutes the arcane would screw up a portal pretty good, huh.”
“Precisely.” She watched me steadily. “The lock has been disabled. You will be able to remove it whenever you wish.”
I gave an unsteady smile. “I know. I’m just a little weirded out by the idea of putting on what’s essentially a slave cuff.”
She lowered her head, eyes steady on me. “You can wear this cuff here, or you can truly be made a slave in the demon realm after being summoned and bound,” the demon said, voice abruptly hard.
I clenched my jaw, then gave a curt nod. I was being a weenie. Lifting the cuff, I quickly snapped it onto my wrist. I expected to feel something unusual—a tingling, or, well, anything. But the cuff could have been made of plastic for all I felt.
“I don’t feel any different,” I finally said.
She gave a satisfied nod. “It will take a little time for you to feel any effect. But I would not have you wear anything that caused you harm or made it so that you were unable to function.”
I lifted my wrist and peered at the cuff. “It’s seriously ugly though. I guess I can just wear long sleeves and keep it covered.”
The demon traced a sigil on the surface of the table. Even without othersight I should have been able to see it, but I couldn’t see a damn thing, and I found that it was impossible for me to switch into othersight.
“Now I kind of feel like my ears need to pop,” I said. “I mean, not really my ears, but it feels like the same thing.”
She gave a slight nod. “With your arcane senses instead of your physical. I understand.”
“And I can’t be summoned as long as I’m wearing this?”
Her lips curved in a slight smile. “That is correct. It will be impossible for the ritual to ‘lock onto you,’ so to speak.”
It seemed to remain oddly cool against my skin. “Couldn’t I just wait until I feel a summoning beginning and then snap it on?”
“No, in fact that could be quite dangerous,” she stated. At my frown she continued. “The cuff will prevent a summoning from locking onto you. You may have noticed that each summoning attempt has been stronger and more focused than the last. Soon it will be impossible to simply run as a means of escape. If a summoning locates you, and you then put the cuff on, you will still be summoned. But the cuff will alter the portal—”
“And I’d end up in tiny bits,” I said with a wince.
“Correct.” She reached across the table to touch the back of my hand. “You will not have to wear this forever,” she said. “Lord Rhyzkahl is doing his utmost to eliminate the threat.”
I nodded and resisted the urge to do more mopey whining. “Yeah. It’s cool. I can handle this. It’s just a piece of damn jewelry.” Even so, I pulled it off, breathing a sigh of relief as everything seemed to leap back into focus.
“I have something else for you,” she said, dipping into her pack and pulling out a thick envelope.
“Matching earrings?” I said with a deliberately cheeky grin.
She chuckled. “No. I did not think you wished to wear yet more ugly jewelry.” She pushed the envelope toward me. “I am aware that your finances have been stressed with the additional expenses incurred by my presence. Since it is hardly worthwhile to protect you and yet have you fall into financial ruin, I am hoping that this will ameliorate the situation somewhat.”
Stunned and wary, I pulled the envelope to me and peered inside. I didn’t pull the bills out to count them, but at a rough estimate I figured it was about five thousand dollars in hundred dollar bills. “Wow,” I managed after several heartbeats of trying to figure out what to say. “Um, how did you get this?”
&
nbsp; She gave a pleased smile. “I borrowed forty dollars from your wallet and went to a casino on the Gulf Coast. The advertisements on television stated that one could win large sums of money at such places.” Then her brow puckered. “However, I must say, their advertisements are terribly misleading. One must have excellent skills at observation, physics, and mathematics in order to compete with a minimum of disadvantage. Fortunately, I am in possession of all of those skills, but I would venture to say that very few humans have the necessary aptitudes.” She inclined her head. “No offense intended.”
I grinned. “None taken. The casinos pretty much count on people being stupid.”
“And they are seldom disappointed, I am sure,” she said. “I could only remain and partake of the gaming for an hour, but I am hoping the monies within the envelope will help your situation. And the original forty dollars are in there as well.”
Pulling the bills out of the envelope, I counted off five hundred and then handed the rest back to her. “Thank you for worrying about me, but you’re really not a very expensive roommate. However, you do need your own money.”
She paused before taking the envelope back. “Are you certain? If you need more funds, you need only ask.”
“I’m sure,” I said.
A smile spread across her face as she tucked the envelope into her backpack. “My thanks. I do indeed have some purchases I wish to make.”
Somehow I had the feeling that it wouldn’t be long before Fuzzykins was the proud owner of a shiny new Kitty Kondo.
Chapter 8
“I can’t think of a better way to start the day,” my aunt’s boyfriend said as he looked down at the corpse before him.
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