Touch of the Demon kg-5

by Diana Rowland

  In the blink of an eye Gestamar became a whirlwind of movement, snarling as he laid a series of wards around himself so quickly he’d obviously prepared them earlier and had been holding them ready. I watched, frowning. What the hell was he doing? Faruk hadn’t done anything like this. Maybe it was different for reyza?

  I flicked a glance at Idris. He stared as well, brow creased in similar bafflement. But he’s seen reyza summoned before, I reminded myself. If this looked weird to him, then that probably meant it was.

  Mzatal called something out in demon, and Gestamar answered, still snarling and laying wards. The lord watched, not moving except to clench his hands at his sides.

  Mzatal gestured to Idris, eyes never leaving Gestamar. Idris hurried over, and the two exchanged quick words.

  “Kara! C’mon!” Idris called as he turned and ran back to the support diagram.

  Grimacing, I pushed off the rock, staggering a few steps before I got my equilibrium back. Idris had barely shed a few tablespoons of blood, the perky fucker.

  “What’s going on?” I asked as soon as I reached him.

  Idris swept an assessing gaze over the diagram, then began to rebuild part of it in swift, precise tracings. “Hostile summoning,” he told me, quickly reworking sigils, in full-blown focused summoner mode. “Gestamar resists. Can’t assist directly since it’s locked straight onto his signature. We’re prepping in case his resistance fails.” He flicked a quick glance at me. “Lay a full perimeter around this diagram. Use the ascended model, quickly.”

  Ascended model. I blinked. Hey, I know that one! I quickly moved into position and began.

  Wind whirled around Gestamar, lifting sand as though he stood in the midst of a mini-tornado. He unhooked and dropped his belt with the pouches, then snorted heavily as blood burst from his nose in a spray. He bellowed and went completely still, features locked in intense focus. My pulse slammed as I finished the perimeter and ignited it with grove power. I’d never seen a demon arrive with any sort of nosebleed or demon equivalent. Then again, I’d never performed any sort of hostile summoning. I couldn’t even imagine how much effort it had to take to summon a demon so unwilling. Surely whoever it was had to be using multiple summoners, not only for the power, but also to be able to counteract the resistance quickly and effectively.

  Mzatal lifted both hands to trace, wind whipping his silk pants around his legs. Gestamar gave a bellow full of pain and released the hold on his wards, as if unable to maintain anymore. The portal formed as soon as he did so, and I watched in numb horror as the arcane tendrils whipped out and around the demon. Gestamar bellowed again, looked to Mzatal and said three words, then let out a horrible reyza scream as the portal enveloped him.

  And then he was gone.

  The wind died to nothing, and silence fell, broken only by the whisper of falling sand and the sounds of our harsh breathing.

  Idris spat a curse and turned back to his diagram, swiftly reworking sigils to ground the power that rebounded through it. Mzatal moved to where Gestamar had been and began laying sigils.

  I turned on Idris. “What the hell is a hostile summoning?” I demanded. “What’s going to happen to him?”

  “Depends on whether they manage to bind him or not. Fucking insane. Dunno what’ll happen.” He completed the grounding but then moved on to do something else I didn’t recognize at all. “Key now is to lock down any traces here so they don’t get a toehold. Can’t do shit with the summoning itself, but we can make sure the door is closed and locked.”

  “Toehold? For what?”

  He continued to trace rapidly. The scar on his hand sure as hell didn’t slow him down much. “Sucking info from here while Gestamar is there,” he said. “I know as much about it as you do. Speed lesson from Mzatal in about four sentences.” He jerked his chin toward the lord. “Go over and find anything open and close it down. I’ll finish here.”

  I jogged to Mzatal and began closing everything I could. This was shit I knew how to do. My gut clenched at the sight of the belt and pouches—with my letter—on the sand. Gestamar had dropped them when he realized it was a hostile summoning. Jaw tight, I continued to work.

  As I completed the final closing, Mzatal sank to one knee, breathing heavily. I staggered a step back, then sat in the sand.

  “What’s going to happen to him?” I asked Mzatal, worried. “Who summoned him?”

  A muscle worked in Mzatal’s jaw, and his voice had a slight waver and hesitancy to it. “Tsuneo, Slavin, and Anton. All Katashi’s.”

  Those were the three words Gestamar had said before succumbing. He’d told Mzatal who was summoning him. And Tsuneo was the one with the Jesral-mark tattoo.

  “With good fortune, Gestamar will shred them,” Mzatal said. “Without it…” He shook his head, hissed softly.

  “Without it, what?” I asked, anxious. “What could happen to him?”

  “It has been centuries since there has been a hostile summoning. There are many possibilities.” Anger and what sure as hell appeared to be distress flared in Mzatal’s eyes. “Most likely Tsuneo will bind him as long as possible.”

  Dismay curled through me. Under normal circumstances, a summoner would dismiss a demon after a few hours, but if a demon was needed for longer, the summoner could adjust the bindings so that the demon could remain a while longer without discomfort. That’s what I’d done for Kehlirik when I summoned him to remove the warding on my aunt’s house. It had taken him over a day to complete it, and even with the readjustment, he’d still seemed debilitated when I finally dismissed him. If there was no summoner to dismiss a demon, they’d return on their own within about a day, but it was highly uncomfortable for the demon, as they “snapped back” to their own world. At least that’s what a nyssor had once patiently explained to me when I was still a fledgling summoner-in-training. Considering how miserable a normal summoning was, the “snap back” had to be truly excruciating.

  But to bind an unwilling demon until he could be held no longer? Gooseflesh rippled over me. Not only agonizing for the demon to be held for so long, but the return would be devastating and no doubt put Gestamar out of commission for quite some time.

  And that’s what Tsuneo wants. Anger flared at the realization.

  Mzatal sank fully to sit, fatigue and stress deeply etched into his features. Faruk approached and handed him a mug of juice which he immediately passed to me, his hand visibly shaking. “Drink,” he murmured.

  I took it and drank, but kept my eyes on him. I couldn’t think of any other time that I’d seen him so affected, even when exhausted after retrieving me from Rhyzkahl. “You okay, Boss?” I asked after I downed half the mug.

  “My connection to Gestamar is in flux.” He passed a hand over his face. “We are essence-bound, and this is disruptive.”

  Turek had told me that he was essence-bound to Szerain. “Is that like the ptarl? The Elder syraza?” I asked.

  He frowned slightly, took another mug from Faruk and drank as he considered. “Similar perhaps, though the ptarl have…have always been. An essence bond is a choice.”

  My worry deepened. These assholes had to have known how much this would fuck with Mzatal. I had no idea if the Earth faction knew about our plans to retrieve Szerain’s blade, or if the Four Mraztur and Katashi had managed to get word back to Tsuneo and company about all that was going on, but surely this was done with a mind toward putting Mzatal at a disadvantage.

  An idea took hold, and I staggered back to my feet. “We’ll summon him back!”

  For a variety of reasons, that rescue option hadn’t been a possibility for me when I arrived here, but we had no such limitations on this end. “I may not know much else, but I know how to summon a demon.”

  When I moved, Mzatal actually startled with a very un-Mzatal-like reaction, which only deepened my conviction that we had to do something.

  “Idris…” He glanced back at the blond young man. “Idris yet holds the strand.” Mzatal gave a nod as if adjusting
to the idea of a rescue, yet there remained a bleak cast to him, as if he didn’t dare pin hopes on it. “Yes. Work with Idris.”

  “Yeah, Boss. I’ll let you know when we’re set up and ready for you.” I gave Mzatal one last worried look before hurrying over to Idris. Demon realm summonings required partnership between the lord and the summoner, so Mzatal would have to get his act together for that. The world swam briefly, and I scowled, wishing I hadn’t given that pint to the other ritual.

  “Idris,” I began, then grinned. He’d heard me and was already rapidly tracing sigils, his mouth set in a hard line. I moved to the other side of the new diagram, then hesitated. I knew damn well how to create the pattern for a summoning—in two-dimensional chalk sigils. And I knew how to create floaters, but not the specific ones for a summoning diagram. Even if we hadn’t been on sand—rendering my usual chalk-and-blood method utterly impossible—the past several weeks of training had shown me with stunning clarity how superior the arcane-only method was. And I had no doubt that we were going to need every possible edge if we were to have any hope of snatching Gestamar back.

  Only problem was that converting a two-dimensional chalk sigil to a three-dimensional floater was a brain-melting exercise.

  No, don’t try and convert, I decided. Think of what each sigil is supposed to do and then craft the damn thing. Beginning slowly, I went back to the purest basics of how to structure a summoning circle and began tracing. Idris worked rapidly on the other side, but I did my best to ignore him and not let his speed and skill affect my own efforts. I knew what I was doing. I simply had to adjust to expressing it in a different format. Like sculpting instead of drawing.

  By the fifth sigil I had a better feel for how each tracing had to be formed. On the tenth the proverbial light bulb went on, and I saw how to do the conversion from two to three dimensions. Breathing a sigh of relief, I picked up speed and managed to finish the perimeter as Idris started in on the conduit parameters.

  “Idris,” I said, starting the outer veils. “Do a linear pull in that section and link it to the main conduit vertices. Easier flow that way.” I’d figured that trick out almost by accident, during the summoning of a zrila, when the polarity shifted and threatened to turn me into a bloody lump. “Trust me,” I added, with a glance at Idris. He was a fucking genius when it came to this stuff, but at the same time, I’d been doing Earth-side summonings for over a decade. Sometimes real world experience made all the difference.

  To my relief he simply nodded and complied, raising my estimation of him another zillion degrees. Not a cocky bone in his body. After all this shit was over, I was damn well going to find him a girlfriend, because he sure as shit deserved, and needed, one.

  I flicked a quick glance at Mzatal. He still sat in the sand near where Gestamar had disappeared. Worry deepening, I returned my attention to the diagram and put the finishing touches on the foundation. All told it had probably taken Idris and me about fifteen minutes to trace it out and set it up. I could so get used to doing all my Earth work in the arcane tracings. Watch out, shikvihr, I’m coming for your ass as soon as I get that stupid knife.

  “Okay, Idris,” I said after a quick assessment of the diagram. “You ready?” This would work. It had to work. Surely those fucktards hadn’t even remotely suspected that two summoners and a lord were right beside Gestamar when he was summoned, ready to snatch him back.

  His eyes swept over the diagram in a similar assessment. Straightening his shoulders, he nodded, his mega-focus settling over him like a cloak as he positioned himself opposite me. Now we needed Mzatal.

  I headed over to where the lord sat on the sand, back to us, staring out at the sunset. “Boss? We’re ready,” I said, touching his shoulder.

  Mzatal flinched and staggered to his feet. Damn. Though deeply concerned, I took hold of his hand and gave him a reassuring smile. His face was ashen and hand loose in mine. Definitely not the Mzatal I knew. “It’s all ready for you,” I said. “We’ll get him back. Don’t worry.”

  A glance at Idris told me he didn’t like the looks of this any more than I did. Something had to shift and now. I hesitated. I had a clever plan in mind to jar him out of his funk. Only tiny drawback was that it could easily end with me squished. Then again, if Mzatal couldn’t snap out of this, I might as well be squished.

  I drew a deep breath, hoping it wasn’t my last, turned fully to Mzatal and slapped him hard across the face.

  The lord took a stagger-step back and lifted his right hand. Shit! I thought with a cringe, then exhaled in relief as he traced a pygah and inhaled in one fluid motion. He looked at me, still shocky-looking but more focused.

  “I am here,” he said, voice quiet and raspy.

  I took his hand again, squeezed. “Good. Let’s get Gestamar.”

  Mzatal assessed the pattern and added his sigils, with less fluidity than usual, but solid and potent. He ignited the diagram and gave me a grim nod.

  Idris and I worked quickly through the forms and readied the conduit. With caution, I extended, focused, and made the contact touch.

  I maintained my focus, yet didn’t open the portal. I sensed the reyza, but I didn’t make the pull, simply maintained the touch for now. If there were other summoners present on the other end I didn’t want to alert them. A tug of war with Gestamar in the middle would end badly for all involved.

  “Idris,” I murmured. “Can you tell if and how he’s bound?”

  “Gimme a sec,” he muttered, and I realized he was already focusing down the channel. I held it as motionless as possible. The ideal scenario would be that Gestamar wasn’t bound or warded in any way, but I knew damn well the chances of that were between zilch and none, especially considering the circumstances.

  I watched as Idris skillfully maneuvered the summoning strands and twitched the gossamer thread he’d linked in as Gestamar was taken. Clever. I realized that he’d likely gotten a lot of practice at doing this sort of thing, not only during his many attempts to summon me from Earth, but also when he and Mzatal sought me at Rhyzkahl’s. I smiled despite the gravity of the situation.

  Mzatal shifted then went still, eyes faraway in what I knew was an extension to Gestamar.

  “Mzatal?” I asked quietly, maintaining a steady hold on the ritual. “What do you feel?”

  He squeezed his eyes shut, focusing. “Pain…arcane bindings.” His eyes flew open, and he bared his teeth in the most overt display of anger I’d ever seen on him. “Kara, Idris, we must reach him. Must.”

  “That’s what we’re doing,” I said, automatically slipping into my calm cop-handling-a-crisis mode. “Can you do something with the bindings?”

  Calming somewhat, Mzatal went to one knee and laid a hand on the perimeter of the pattern. Its resonance deepened as he carefully strengthened and fed it. Idris continued to follow the strands to their terminus, abruptly going still as a statue, barely even breathing.

  “One of them is with him now,” Idris said in such a soft exhalation I would never have heard him had we not all been connected in the ritual.

  “Tsuneo,” Mzatal said at a similarly low volume.

  I nodded. “Okay. Idris, you maintain the watch, and you let me know the instant they leave him alone. Mzatal, you get ready to slip bindings. We’re going to play a waiting game and we’re going to win it.”

  Idris breathed a low curse. “I don’t think we can wait. There’s movement.” A frown tugged at his mouth.

  “Another ritual,” Mzatal said, eyes unfocused. “Idris, can you discern its purpose?”

  “No,” he replied. “Gestamar is in Katashi’s summoning chamber, but the other ritual is in the adjoining room.” He paused. “Tsuneo is still with Gestamar.”

  Crap. So much for waiting for the most opportune moment. “Mzatal, how’s Gestamar doing? He needs to be calm and quiet, maybe even feign weakness.”

  Pain flickered over the lord’s face. “Thrashing. I cannot quiet him. The bindings are draining him, and he is in agony.”


  “If we wait any longer, it’s going to get ugly,” Idris said, worried expression deepening. Neither one pulled attention from their surveillance, but I could sense as clearly as if both stared at me, that they waited for my instructions. Considering the disruption in the essence bond, Mzatal was doing everything he could to stay focused. I had the most experience as a summoner. I was lead on this, and it was up to me to call the shots. It made sense, but it still felt weird as all hell.

  “Fuckballs,” I muttered. “Okay. Plan B, folks, since we may not be able to wait for them to leave him alone. Any shift of focus off of him will do. Idris, you give the word and hold the conduit, Mzatal, you slip bindings, and we’ll yank his big ass out. With any luck at all we should be able to make it one perfectly coordinated movement, because we are awesome like that.”

  Idris suddenly grimaced. “Shit, all three in the room now.”

  Damn it! “Fine. Plan C it is. Fuck stealth. Mzatal, can you send any sort of strike through the conduit?”

  A smile ghosted across his lips. “I can.”

  “Good. On three then. Idris hold the damn conduit wide, and I’ll focus on the call. Mzatal, you zap and unbind, then we’ll pull. One, two, three!”

  The word was barely out of my mouth when Mzatal unleashed power through the conduit. I damn near lost hold as part of it reflected back on me, but Idris managed to steady the strands.

  “Now!” Mzatal shouted, and we puuuulled. The diagram shuddered, and then with a crack that shook the beach, Gestamar appeared sprawled and bleeding.

  “Idris, seal it!” I shouted as I quickly anchored and watched for any attempt to follow the reyza. Together, Idris and I shut down the flows and dropped protections, allowing Mzatal to go to the stricken demon. Gestamar was alive, I could see that much. He was a mess, but he was back and in what appeared to be one piece.

  “Mzatal?” I asked. “Is he okay?”

  The lord dropped to one knee beside Gestamar, then looked back to me, relief swimming in his eyes. “Nothing permanent.” He looked up as Helori and Ilana joined him to crouch by the reyza. I blinked. Where the hell had they come from? Had they been here this whole time?