Touch of the Demon

“Just under four months,” he replied. “It goes fast.”

“And how long have you been summoning?”

His shoulders lifted in a shrug. “Since I was sixteen. Almost four years now.”

I stared at him. “Only four years? Holy shit. I’ve been doing it close to a decade, and I don’t think I know a tenth of what you do.”

“Well, I learned a lot from Master Katashi,” Idris said. “And now that I’m here,” his face filled with awe, “every single day is just…wow.”

Another summoner trained by Katashi. So, why the hell didn’t I learn anything worth a shit while I was with him? “Okay, please don’t take this the wrong way, but how does your family handle you being here?”

He let out a soft chuckle. “Well, they don’t know I’m here,” he said, copying my emphasis. “They think I’m in Japan on a special foreign school program. Master Katashi takes care of all that.”

“They don’t expect emails or phone calls?” I asked somewhat dubiously.

“Yeah, well, Master Katashi told me not to worry about it.” He shrugged again, smiled. “He said everything would be taken care of.”

Holy crap, but this kid sure seemed way too naïve and trusting to be dealing with demonic lords. “Don’t you miss your family?” I hid a grimace, oddly bothered by the idea of him being in the demon realm without his parents’ knowledge. Yeah, sure, he was a legal adult, but it still seemed weird.

He exhaled, gave me a smile tinged with sadness. “Don’t get me wrong, my family’s great. But I’ve only been with them since I was about fourteen.”

“Something happened to your natural family?” I winced and shook my head. “I’m sorry. I have a habit of being too nosy sometimes. It’s none of my business.”

“Nah, it’s okay,” he replied. “Actually I was adopted twice. The first couple got me when I was a baby.” A fond smile crossed his face, and it was clear that he’d enjoyed a good childhood. But then his smile slipped. “There was a car accident. A truck crossed the center line and they died. I was in the backseat.” He exhaled. “I was lucky—I got adopted almost immediately by another really great couple.” The smile returned to his face. “Turned out that the guy who lived across the street from my new family was a summoner. One day he caught me peering at his wards, and that was the start of all this.” He gestured to encompass the demon realm. Safar gave a low snort from his perch on the wall.

“I’m sorry about your parents,” I said quietly. “My mom died of cancer when I was eight, and my dad was killed by a drunk driver three years later. My aunt raised me. She’s a summoner,” I added. Tracy’s comment rose in my mind. We don’t have a choice. They make sure we become summoners. I pushed it away for now.

“Do you learn a lot with Mzatal?” I asked in a ruthless change of subject. By the relief on his face it was clear he was just as glad of it.

“Yeah,” he said, making a face like a glazed-eyed goldfish. “Holy shit, there’s always more.”

“Do you…like him?” I asked doubtfully.

A somewhat pained grimace came over his face. “Well, um, he’s an awesome teacher.”

“It’s cool,” I said, grinning. “I get it.” Likeable wasn’t a necessary requirement for a good teacher.

He cocked his head to one side. “I mean, it’s hard to explain. He’s always about ten steps ahead of me, so I really really have to stay on my toes.” Then he shrugged. “He always tells me when I’m doing it wrong, but he always tells me when I’m doing it right, too. And he’s never stepped outside of our agreement, that’s for sure.”

I pursed my lips, considering that. He did sound like a good teacher, but I’d probably think more kindly of him if I wasn’t constantly worried about him killing me. “Agreement? Some sort of official contract?”

Idris nodded. “Yeah. Katashi’s already Mzatal’s sworn summoner, so anyone else the lord works with would have an official agreement with the terms laid out.”

My rising questions derailed as an odd vibration went though the tower. I started to ask Idris if he felt it too, but the frown on his face told me he did.

“Shit,” he murmured. His eyes widened as a much stronger vibration shook the tower. “Holy shit!”

I reached for the wall. “What the hell was that?” I asked. “Earthquake?”

In the span of a heartbeat his face shifted from insecure teen to intense and serious arcane practitioner, far closer to how he was in the midst of the purification ritual. “Anomaly,” he said, intaking breath at the sharp sound of cracking rock. “Not safe here. Safar! Take her up!”

With that he turned and ran for the door.

Chapter 7

“Wait! Idris!” I yelled. Had he considered that the tower wouldn’t be safe for him either? I ran after him, then let out a squawk of surprise as Safar grabbed me around the waist and leaped into the air. I yelped and clutched at his arms as we cleared the tower and gained altitude. “Shiiiiiit!”

“The tower is not safe until they seal the anomaly,” Safar said, with a rumble I felt in my bones. “It will not take long.”

“Will Idris be all right?” I tightened my grip on his arms as he climbed higher.

“He goes to the summoning chamber to support the syraza,” he replied, deep voice calm. “There is a small anomaly within the wall of the tower. They will seal it before anything untoward happens.”

A bright flash from above followed closely by a crack like thunder pulled my attention. But there isn’t a cloud in the sky. “Safar? What was that?”

“Another anomaly. Above.” He snorted and beat his wings harder, gaining altitude quickly. “And a syraza falls.”

I risked a peek down, biting down on a very un-brave whimper upon seeing how really fucking high up we were. I looked back up just in time to see Ilana streak by and up.

“Kara Gillian, turn around and hold tightly,” Safar said as he continued to climb. With his help, I complied, clinging to the trust that he wouldn’t let me slip out of his grasp. As soon as I was fully turned, I wrapped my legs around his waist and my arms around his neck, then hung on for dear life while my heart threatened to pound out of my chest.

Safar abruptly stalled in flight, then did a stomach-churning wingover and began to free fall. “Hold tightly,” he repeated. Yeah, no shit, Sherlock. I was pretty darn solid on that point. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a syraza falling. Ilana and Safar paced him in the fall as they both eased closer.

Safar reached a hand out to the syraza, then jerked as he made contact. His hand dropped away, and a weird dizzying shock passed through me, as if he’d touched a live wire. I nearly lost my grip before recovering and clinging hard again. The reyza shuddered, then went limp, beginning to fall in a very different way.

My gut clenched. “Safar?” I called. I looked up to see him staring and dazed. “Oh, shit. SAFAR!” I gripped as hard as I could with my left arm and my legs, took my right knuckle and twisted it viciously into his sternum. I’d used sternal rubs to wake up drunks before, but it barely made the massive reyza twitch. I reached up and grabbed an ear, twisting hard. “Safar!” I screamed. “Fly, damn it!”

At the ear twist he shuddered and came back to himself, then thrashed to get his wings out to slow our descent and stop the tumbling. He bellowed in pain as his right wing wrenched back, though he managed to get us straightened out. I felt our descent slowing, but a quick glance told me it wasn’t going to be enough to keep us from crashing into the trees…and not just any trees. The splash of viridian and amethyst identified the grove. At this point the best we could hope for was a crash at slower speed, ending up merely mangled instead of a grease spot. I tucked my head into his neck and wondered if there was any chance I’d make it through the void a second time. Either way, this was going to really suck ass.

We plowed into the densely woven canopy with a shriek of snapping vines and breaking branches. I lost my grip on Safar almost immediately, crashing down through the upper branches, instinctively flailing to check my descent somehow. I remembered how tall these trees were. The ground was a long way down. Not that I had much time to think about that. A hundred smaller limbs and vines whipped past me, and a branch smacked me hard on my shoulder. Something caught at my right leg, and I screamed as the twisting snap shot through me. I felt a punch of pain in my left side, then came to a hard stop.

Silence descended, strange after the cacophony of the fall. It took me a few seconds to catch my breath, but when I did, stabbing pain accompanied each inhalation. I was wedged in a tangle of branches and vines, at least twenty feet above the ground. A few yards to my right I could see the open space of a clearing—the center of the ring of grove trees.

I tried to shift, then let out a breathless scream as pain from my side and leg shot through me. The agony from the leg was simple to figure out. Legs weren’t supposed to twist that way, and jagged ends of bone weren’t normally visible through the skin. It took me a few more seconds to process the source of the pain in my side. It didn’t make sense that the branch would protrude from my body that way. The rivulets of blood tickling my abdomen finally got the message to my screwed up head. Ah, hell, I thought dropping my head back against the cluster of vines. This is bad.

I heard a bellow and snapping of branches, then a crash of something heavy falling to the ground nearby. Two faas streaked through the clearing and into the trees in the direction of the crash. A moment later they reappeared, supporting a limping Safar. His right wing drooped, and his normally rich bronze skin had a sickly green tinge.

A shudder went through the tangle of branches holding me. Dizzy, I grasped weakly at the mess of vines, fear slicing through me that I’d fall the rest of the way. As badly injured as I was now, I didn’t think I’d survive a fall of another twenty feet.