Touch of the Demon

“What does it mean for me, that I bear these?” I asked.

“You are unique,” he said. “I do not know the full implications.”

I fell silent while I struggled to put everything into some sort of order that made sense. My anger slipped away, and I let it go. I couldn’t hold it indefinitely. It felt as if some of the panic went with it, though I knew I still had a lot more to deal with. I reached for my bra and shirt and pulled them back on, then sighed and lay back on the blanket.

Well, I definitely learned one new thing while I was with Rhyzkahl, I thought, as I watched puffy clouds drift across the too-blue sky. I was totally wrong in thinking that demonic lords don’t lie. What else was I completely wrong about? What other misconceptions would come back to bite me in the ass?

Helori set the pygah to slowly spin above me, then left me alone to brood and ponder.

Chapter 22

Apparently I brooded and pondered so hard I fell asleep. Or perhaps Helori added something to the pygah. Either way, when I woke it was morning, with the sun in glorious display over the water. I could get used to starting my days like this, I decided, though preferably without the whole recovering-from-torture bit.

Helori had put a blanket over me and tucked a pillow under my head. When I sat up I saw that he’d also left a mug of juice and an assortment of fruits and nuts on the blanket for me.

He was out in the water, gamboling in the surf with the unabashed enthusiasm of a five-year-old. I ate and drank a bit, then pulled my clothing off, ran down to the water naked, and dove into the waves.

I swam for a while, reveling in the simple feel of the pull of my muscles against the resistance of the water and the rhythm of the waves. After what was probably half an hour, I came out of the water and took refuge in the shade to prevent the appearance of Red Kara. A few minutes later Helori plopped down onto the blanket beside me.

“I met Turek,” I said as I tugged my shirt and pants back on. “The savik at Szerain’s palace.”

He smiled. “Yes, you did.”

“He was clearly incredibly intelligent, with a strong ability in the arcane.” I frowned. “So, why the hell are savik considered only second-level? And, for that matter, why are syraza only eleventh? Y’all totally kick ass and take names as far as the arcane goes.”

Helori grinned. “Because, the summoner Isabel Blackburn made a note to herself as a numbered list in the margin of a text in 1212 Earth time. In 1352, it was discovered and became set in stone. I don’t even know what she was referencing with the list.”

I blinked, then laughed. “Holy shitballs, that’s hysterical,” I said. “I’d always been taught that the order of demons meant something as far as ability and power.” I laughed again. It felt really good.

Helori joined me in the laughter. “I know! That would mean a savik is less powerful than a kehza!”

“I never met a savik as large as Turek,” I said, still astonished. “The only ones I’d ever summoned, or heard of, were about a third the size.”

Helori reached elsewhere and then set a handful of small cakes before me. “The ones summoned are immature,” he explained as I nibbled one of the cakes experimentally. In texture, it reminded me of cornbread stuffed with savory shredded meat, but the crust part tasted more like buttery bacon than corn. Mmmm, bacon.

“Once mature,” he continued, “they tend to strike their names and claim a new one, which they do not divulge for summoners. They are reclusive and solitary during that stage, and mostly discounted because they do not interact. They are, however, highly skilled with the arcane.”

“I am shockingly ignorant of the creatures I summon,” I said, grimacing. “Why are you lot called demons anyway?”

“The English designation evolved from various forms of the name for the Elders, demahnk,” he explained. “In Latin it was daemonium, in Greek daimónion, referencing a thing of divine nature.” He gave a light shrug. “For some, that twisted into evil nature or evil spirit.”

That made sense. I took a deep breath. “So, what’s on the agenda for today, Doctor Hel?”

He appeared to consider. “There are many places to visit, each with its own unique gifts.” But then he smiled. “However, I know the first place I want to take you.” He extended his hand to me, and I took it without hesitation.

A heartbeat later we were in a crystal cave—crystalline walls, huge crystal points, and prismatic light that seemed to originate from inside the crystal rather than reflecting light from outside. At first it was hard to be there. As soon as we arrived, every cell of my body vibrated—or at least, that’s what it felt like. I wanted to take time to look around, do the whole “gaze in wonder” thing, but Helori tugged me forward, leading me through tunnels and broad passages and over narrow crystalline bridges, before finally stopping before a pool that shimmered with subtle hints of all colors.

“She is in stasis yet,” Helori said with a gesture toward the depths of the pool. “But she is aware you are here.”

Perplexed, I looked down into the pool. It wasn’t filled with water, but instead seemed to be brimming with, well, liquid light was the only description I could come up with, as though all the reflections and colors from the crystals coalesced into a beautiful fluid. And there, a few feet down, was Eilahn, curled into a cute little ball with her knees tucked to her chin, her arms wrapped around her legs and her wings folded like a case around her. In all the time I’d been in the demon realm, I’d never wanted a camera more than at that moment. Because this was some awesome blackmail material.

Smiling, I gave Helori’s hand a squeeze. “Thanks.”

He returned the squeeze. “And now we visit some of my favorite places.”

Helori had strange taste in favorite places, I decided. Our first stop was mud. That was it: mud as far as the eye could see. We immediately sank neck-deep in it, achieving some sort of neutral buoyancy, and then remained there for what seemed like hours while I received the best massage of my life from some I-really-really-didn’t-want-to-know sort of creatures within the mud.

After that, a waterfall straight out of a shampoo commercial, then to watch a pair of breeding luhnk—which was strange and bizarre only because the female resembled a six-legged mammoth in size and shape, and the male was closer to the size of a German Shepherd. After that, we visited the lower branches of a massive tree with a trunk at least thirty feet in diameter.

Helori draped himself over a branch as thick as his waist, and I did likewise a couple of feet away. He pointed toward the ground, and I looked to see a teeming mass of carnivorous ants as big as terriers tearing into a cow-like thing twice the size of an elephant.

As I watched the industry of the giant ants, I found myself grinning; somehow I didn’t think Mzatal would approve of me being in such a potentially perilous position after he’d spent so much energy and effort to retrieve me. My gaze slid to Helori. He wouldn’t let me be in any true danger. I knew that, deep in my essence.

“What’s going to happen to me after we return to Mzatal’s palace?” I asked.

“Mzatal will train you,” he replied, “though I do not know what terms of agreement he would set.”

I mentally recoiled. “I don’t want to be marked,” I said firmly. “I can’t—won’t—do that again.”

“He would not propose marking you now,” Helori reassured me. “It is a lengthy process, and in any case, Katashi currently bears his mark, and having a second is inadvisable. He will, without doubt, require an agreement.”

My brow furrowed. “Idris said something about that. What’s the difference?”

“An agreement is a short term arrangement—perhaps a few months to a few years—with specific terms negotiated,” Helori said. “Marking is long-term, usually lifelong.”

I gave a slow nod. “Okay. I’ll think about that.” I had yet to fully wrap my head around the notion that Mzatal wasn’t my enemy—at least, not at the moment. The idea of willingly working with him still seemed incredibly foreign. I peered at Helori. “Do you trust Mzatal?”

“Do I trust him to always make choices I agree with? No.” Helori said. “Do I trust him to speak the truth to me and follow through on what he says to the best of his ability? Yes.”

I took it all in, considered. Mzatal had certainly followed through on his promise to retrieve me. “I guess I can handle that.”

Helori’s golden-brown eyes met mine. “I have not known him to willfully break an agreement with a summoner,” he told me. “Dealings with other lords, however, have their own rules.”

“Some of those lords are batshit fucked-up.” I snorted. “I mean, did their mamas not hug them or something?”

Helori’s eternal smile faded a little, and he closed his eyes, as if in pain.

I grimaced. “Shit. Sorry. I was trying to make a joke. I guess a bad one.” But my brow furrowed. What nerve had I struck?

He let out his breath in a soft exhalation and looked back over at me. “In jest, you hit very near the mark.”

My confusion increased. “Why are there no female lords? Do they not have mothers?”

“Genetics and arcane levels determined gender,” he said. “Though it was possible for there to be a female of their kind, it did not occur.”

Questions crowded together in my head, but before I could ask any of them he reached and took my hand.

“My beautiful Kara,” he said, clear and ancient eyes on mine, “they do not know their origin. And I ask you to trust me that, for now, it is for the best.”

My cop instincts poked at me to find out more, to continue to question, but I regretfully slapped said instincts down. For now. “All right.” Damn it.

“It cannot remain thus for much longer,” he said, expression briefly shadowed. “There is so much in flux now.” He stood and nimbly leaped over to my branch, then pulled me to my feet. “And, speaking of flux, I am taking you now to the Zadek Kah—a polar atmospheric anomaly that acts as a kaleidoscope-type prism. The play of colored light over the landscape of ice is indescribable.” He grinned. “It is awesome.”