Touch of the Demon

I headed through the antechamber and into the chamber itself. Idris was already there, standing by a much simpler and smaller diagram than the one that had been used on me previously. Mzatal moved past me to inspect the diagram, but I stayed where I was, near the door. Sigils twisted and glimmered a foot off the floor in ordered rings, mesmerizing even unignited. I tried to breathe normally and not like a hyperventilating chihuahua, but I could feel sweat pricking the small of my back.

“Do I need to do anything?” I asked Mzatal when he looked my way.

He shook his head. “There are no special preparations needed.”

I raised and eyebrow. “Really? No being led around hooded, and scary thrumming, and all of that? Really?”

“There will be thrumming during the process itself, but not before,” he said. “There is no purpose for that now, nor for a hood.”

Slick motherfucker. Now I understood. He pushed buttons as part of the damned assessment. Yeah, he’d needed to purify me when I first arrived, but the rest of it was all to see how I’d react. I leveled a scowl at him. “Is there anything in our agreement that says I can’t call you names?”

He crouched and added a few touches to the diagram. A very faint smile curved his mouth. “No.”

My own mouth twitched. “So, hypothetically, if I were to call you an asshole, there’d be no reprisals?” I asked with an innocent look. “Hypothetically, of course.”

Idris glanced up sharply, then hissed and drew back his hand as the sigil he was working on stung him.

“Nothing of that sort is covered by the agreement,” was Mzatal’s mild reply.

I chuckled under my breath. “I think I’ll just call you Boss.”

He glanced over at me with a raised eyebrow. I smiled sweetly in response. Mzatal straightened, turned fully to me, hands behind back and head lowered slightly, and still with the faint hint of a smile. “There could be consequences.”

I shrugged, still smiling. “What fun would it be if there weren’t?”

Mzatal lifted his head. “None whatsoever,” he said, his face betraying a hint of amusement as he moved to the center of the diagram.

My smile faded as he turned to face me. Somehow I’d forgotten the pesky detail where I had to go into the diagram.

He held out his hand to me. My mouth went dry. Rhyzkahl had done this same thing—stood in the center of the diagram, invited me to cross over, to walk gullibly to my own doom.

My gaze snapped to the door of the chamber as I looked for the sigil that would seal it. No, it’s Mzatal’s chamber, not Rhyzkahl’s. Almost identical. I squeezed my eyes shut and took a deep breath. Stop being such a fucking pussy! I railed at myself.

Opening my eyes, I looked to him. He waited patiently, exuding calm and stability. I moved jerkily forward, like an automaton that hadn’t been oiled, but I made it to the diagram and passed through the sigils. I took his hand, all too aware that my own was probably gross and sweaty and clammy right now.

He gave my gross, sweaty hand a squeeze and ignited the diagram with a flick of his fingers.

“Thanks, Boss,” I whispered.

His eyes met mine, deep, ancient, and intense. “You are most welcome, Kara Gillian.”

He helped me down to lie on my back, then retreated from the circle. I closed my eyes and waited for the shit to start.

The next thing I knew, someone called my name and a hand squeezed my shoulder.

“Mzatal?” I blinked awake to see the lord crouched beside me, his forehead covered in a sheen of sweat. “It’s done?”

“Yes. The link has been cleared.”

I squinted at him as I sat up, my eyes feeling oversensitive to the light. “You okay? I can’t believe I fell asleep.”

He gave a quick nod. “With a triple pygah set above you, you would have found it challenging to stay awake, and I needed the stillness of your mind.”

“Well, it worked,” I said as I watched Idris clear the last of a support diagram that hadn’t been there when the ritual started. “It was hard?”

His mouth curved in a faint smile. “Rhyzkahl does not relinquish his treasures easily.”

“I bet he doesn’t.” I met his eyes. “Thanks.”

“You are welcome.” He stood and held his hand out to me. “I searched for anything else that had been integrated using rakkuhr and found nothing.”

I pushed aside the thought of Mzatal digging through my head before it could weird me out. It had to be done. As I straightened my clothes, I found myself looking down at the deactivated glyph in the center of the floor. I frowned. There’d been a pair in the center of Rhyzkahl’s ritual. One had been Rhyzkahl’s mark, and the other one naggingly familiar though I couldn’t place it.

I nodded toward the glyph. “Is that your mark?”

He crouched and passed his hand over the glyph, igniting it to a soft blue glow. “Yes, with a few variations for this specific ritual.” He traced around a section with his finger. “Here is the core of it.”

“So any ritual you do has your mark in it?”

He looked up at me and nodded. “Yes, the qaztahl’s mark is the hub of any ritual in the demon realm.”

“In…in his ritual, his mark was there along with another. I didn’t realize it then, but it had to have been a qaztahl’s mark as well. Probably Jesral’s, right?”

“Yes, Jesral’s mark was there,” he said. He stood slowly, eyes on mine. “What troubles you?”

“It looked so familiar.” I pinched the bridge of my nose, trying to place it. “I didn’t have time to think about it then though, y’know? But I’ve seen it before. On Earth.” I struggled to remember. “Shit.”

“Pygah,” Mzatal said, reminding me to use my resources. “That you’ve seen Jesral’s mark on Earth is significant.”

I called the pygah and breathed, but the connection still eluded me. “Damn it,” I said, knowing I needed to remember. “Can you, um, help?”

He smiled a bit, probably amused that I asked him to do something I’d so strenuously resisted before. “Yes. A simple prompt, nothing more.”

A second later, I knew. I could hear the water drip in the shower, smell the soap, feel the humidity of steam. “Tattoo,” I said. “On one of Katashi’s senior students. Tsuneo.” A smooth-faced Japanese man a few years younger than me who’d been studying with Katashi for five or six years. I didn’t know much more about him. Katashi didn’t have more than a few students with him at any time, and his more senior students tended to live and practice elsewhere, only coming to Katashi’s mansion for summonings. “It was down by his hip where no one would normally see it,” I continued, “but I walked in on him in the bathroom. It was small, but I know it was the same.”

Mzatal went still, only the muscle in his jaw shifting as he ground his teeth.

“Why would one of Katashi’s students have a tat of Jesral’s mark?” I asked, not liking any of the answers I came up with.

Mzatal remained silent for another moment, and when he spoke, power boiled behind the words. “Only if Jesral has influence in Katashi’s enclave.”

Everything about that was disturbing. Jesral with a foothold in Mzatal’s Earth presence held implications beyond my puny knowledge, but I knew enough to label it a Really Bad Thing. “I guess it’s too much to hope that Tsuneo simply found it in a book and thought it would make a cool tat?”

Mzatal took my hand in a firm grip and strode toward the doors. We passed through the antechamber, crossed the corridor and exited onto the balcony.

He breathed deeply and closed his eyes as he released my hand, undoubtedly calling up the pygah. “A chance that he came upon it by accident? Yes,” he said, then he shook his head. “Likely? No.”

I leaned on the rail and rubbed at my temples. “Shit gets more and more fun,” I said with a sigh. “So when do you start training me? I think I’m going to need it, and soon.”

He stood beside me, looking out to the sea and sky. “You need everything I can teach you, all that you can absorb,” he said, voice still brimming with power. “Meet me at the column at midday wearing clothing suitable for working out.”

I straightened and regarded his profile. The set of his jaw betrayed his deep turmoil. “You got it, Boss,” I said, laying my hand briefly on his shoulder before I turned and departed.

Chapter 27

Workout clothing? An ilius—Tata, I think—coiled out of my way as I passed through the main room and into the bedroom. To my utter shock, I found a tank top, something that looked very much like a sports bra, socks and shorts. Apparently the zrila had been busy sewing like, well, demons. I quickly threw the clothing on, then spent several frustrating minutes looking for my sneakers, finally finding them in the insane location known as the-bottom-of-the-wardrobe-where-they-belong. Crazy faas!

I raked my hair back into a ponytail as I headed out and reached the column just as the midday tone resonated through me. I looked up. It rose three stories or so, about ten feet in diameter at the base, narrowing gradually to a flat top that was half that. Though of the same ubiquitous basalt of the area, its polished surface glimmered in othersight as though coated with a thin layer of potency. As good a place to meet as any I supposed. What the heck did the lord have planned for me that required workout clothing? Exercise? The Arcane? I sucked equally at both.

A few minutes later Mzatal approached down the long path from the palace. I allowed myself an appreciative smile at his appearance. Barefooted and bare-chested, he wore loose pants of deep blue low on his hips, and a sleeveless and flowing knee-length open tunic in a fabric that shimmered impossibly between gold, maroon, and dark green. His braid hung over his right shoulder, though calling it simply a braid did little justice to the intricate weave. It had to be at least a dozen strands, wound through with cords of silver, gold, and bronze. He looked damn good.