by Joe Jackson
Kari nodded. “We have very little to go on right now. We'll see how much that changes after I meet with Amastri again tomorrow night. But when I consider that Turik Jalar went there and came back to tell the tale – whether he actually laid a list of demands at the Overking's feet or not – there’s got to be something to the claims. Everything, though, is going to hinge on where Se'sasha is, if Sekassus has her in custody, and whether or not we can negotiate for her release if she's in prison. If Sekassus won’t negotiate, there’s no point to going at all.”
“Let me find out if my arcane spells will work the same way in the underworld,” Sonja offered. “I’m still not having much luck advancing under Master Maelstrom, but if my spells can be of some use, I’d be willing to help you, too.”
“Mother, please talk some sense into them,” Grakin said.
Kyrie sighed lightly. “Grakin, right now there’s nothing to talk them out of,” she said. “At this point, it honestly can’t hurt to ask questions and gather information. Even if Kari decides against going, she will have learned something.”
“I would…,” Serenjols began, but Kari cut him off.
“Oh, no. I’ve already almost come between you and Damansha once, I’m not going to make that mistake again. You’re staying put no matter what.”
Serenjols was clearly surprised by Kari’s words, but unlike his headstrong younger brothers, he simply nodded in acceptance of her decision. Jol was very protective of his siblings and friends, but Kari meant what she’d said. If she took Jol to the underworld with her, she’d be putting Damansha through the same thing Jol had gone through when his half-elite girlfriend was nearly killed. Kari could understand his half-guardian nature and would normally welcome his help, but she wanted to see him develop his courtship of Damansha much more. Aeligos wasn’t in the same situation: Eryn was an assassin, and with the skill sets those two possessed, each knew the risks and possible fates that awaited them. Jol had a gentle heart, and Kari felt inclined to push him away from a life of danger if she could.
Damansha was smiling, and Kari knew well what the woman was thinking: she was happy to have been so readily accepted into Serenjols’ family. Kari had felt much the same once her in-laws had finally accepted that she really was the resurrected hero from two centuries before. Kari didn’t know what sort of family life Damansha had aside from her relationship with Serenjols. She had no idea whether the half-elite woman had any parents or family to speak of. In such a case, Kari knew being accepted by Jol’s family would mean so much more to Damansha.
Grakin was staring at Kari, and though his expression was far from a scowl, she could see that he was not pleased and she was going to hear about it once they retired to bed. Kari and Grakin were very careful about arguing in front of the rest of the family, particularly their son. The rest of the family seemed to take that to mean the two never fought, but they were a mated pair and they had disagreements just the same as any other couple. Each had a great deal of not just love, but respect for the other: Kari respected Grakin as her mate and as a gentle healer who saved and changed lives on a daily basis, and he respected her as a staunch protector of the entire world as a demonhunter.
“I’ll be meeting with Amastri again tomorrow night,” Kari said, breaking the silence. “She’s either going to tell me that her king forbids her from telling me anything, or she’ll be giving me what will hopefully be some useful information. I'm also waiting to hear from Eliza Chinchala about whether she can tran…eh, send people to the underworld with spells. If we have no way to get there, then the entire idea is wasted. But really, the whole thing is dependent on what Amastri can tell us about a safe landing point; I’m not interested in being captured the minute we set foot down there. And, again, Se'sasha has to either be free and in hiding, or else Sekassus has to be willing to negotiate her release.”
Aeligos nodded. “Do you want me to come to the meeting with Amastri? Maybe I can get more out of her than even her king would prefer.”
“That would actually be very helpful,” Kari agreed. “You keep up with helping me and I’m going to have to deputize you. Did you end up finding anything else in Bosimar’s journal?”
He nodded again. “I did, but most of what I found was things your friends here were able to expand upon already,” he answered. “Like I’d said before you left, he kept just enough notes to look complete while leaving out all the major details that would’ve pointed to what he was up to. There was something between him and Ciceria that he left out of the journal and your friends were unaware of, but I’m still not sure what it was. Nothing romantic, obviously, but like I said before, she told him something that made him trust her, and I don’t know what that was yet.”
“Romance, with a syrinthian? That’s gross,” Ty interjected, and there were chuckles around the table.
“I don’t know, there’s definitely something exotic about them,” Eli said. “Not that I’d go asking one for a date, but they’re not all that different than humans, and those eyes….”
Danilynn shrugged. “I think they’re an attractive people.”
Kari glanced around and sighed. “Aeligos, when you were going through Jason's journal, did you ever get the impression he had a family he was trying to keep a secret?”
That pride flashed in Aeligos' eyes, and he smiled. “You recognized it too?”
Kari shrugged. “It's the only thing I could think of that would make him keep everything a secret,” she said. “I realized maybe he wasn't hiding everything from the Order so much as from its enemies, so they wouldn't go after his family if his plan with Se'ceria failed.”
The rogue nodded. “Makes sense,” he said. “Do you want me to look into whether or not he had a family, and maybe try to find out who and where they are?”
Kari saw that the topic had drawn an interested look from Danilynn, but the demonhunter shook her head. “Not right now,” she said. “That's something we can look into when we don't have so many demons and demon servants nosing into our business.”
There was a silent accord, and then Kyrie spoke up. “Do you two need a place to stay?” she asked her new guests. “I have a guest room down here, but it has only a single bed.”
“Single bed’s fine,” Eli said, looking to Danilynn with a smile, and it quickly dawned on Kyrie what he meant. Eli and Danilynn had kept their relationship to one of kissing and holding hands while they travelled with Kari, but she’d been able to tell that they were looking forward to exploring intimacy. It wouldn’t have bothered Kari if they’d done so while the three travelled together, but she knew her point of view on that was one most people didn’t share.
“We would very much appreciate that, Ms. Kyleah,” Danilynn added.
“All right, kiddo, time for night-nights,” Kari said in the rir tongue to Little Gray, and she scooped him up and rose to her feet. “If you’ll all excuse me.”
“Nite-nite everybody!” Little Gray said over Kari’s shoulder as she carried him toward the stairs. Laughter and wishes good-night followed them, and Kari took her son to his bedroom.
Kari checked the position of his reading chair when she entered the room, but it was where it was supposed to be. Her footsteps slowed as she crossed the room toward his bed, and her heartbeat sped up when she recalled she’d nearly been murdered in that exact spot several hours before. There was still a stain on the floor where the syrinthian assassin Irressa’s body had lain; neither Kyrie nor her children had gotten around to cleaning it up yet. Kari was pretty sure the body would’ve been taken to Kaelariel’s temple to be given last rites that would ensure it didn’t rise again under the power of a necromancer in the future.
Little Gray seemed to pay no mind to the bloodstain or the harrowing events that had taken place in his bedroom earlier in the day. “Little Gray, is the Fuzzy Man here?” Kari asked, referring to the elestram assassin that had saved Kari from Irressa for some unknown reason.
“No, mama, no Fuzzy Man,” he replied.
&n
bsp; Kari sighed, but she wasn't even sure if it was one of relief or disappointment. She had encountered elestram before in her previous life, and fought a few of them to the death. Though tall, the jackal demons were very graceful, and their intellects could be staggering. They made for excellent assassins, spies, and very powerful wizards. The Wraith, or “The Fuzzy Man” as Little Gray had dubbed him, was an assassin: sent on a counter-mission to stop the syrinthians from killing Kari. It created so many questions in Kari as to what he was up to, who he served, and what that person’s goals might be. She supposed it somehow tied back into the fact that she was Salvation’s Dawn. Kari sighed again as she realized there might be more than one king in the underworld that knew she was Salvation’s Dawn.
She tucked Little Gray into his bed and knelt down beside it, and Kari folded her hands before her when he sat up to say his prayers. Little Gray was serilian-rir by all rights, and his father was a healer of Kaelariel, who was the unofficial patron of serilis- and serilian-rir alike. Kari was fine with her son learning to worship the god of freedom and death, and she quietly prayed along with him as he recited his prayers to Kaelariel. When he was finished, Kari kissed Little Gray on the side of his snout affectionately and tucked him back in. “Nite-nite, mama,” he said happily as he closed his eyes.
“Little Gray…do you know why mama goes away?” Kari asked, trying to keep her eyes from welling up with tears.
He opened his eyes again and smiled. “To fight monsters!” he said happily. “You beat up the bad monsters, right mama?”
“Yes, but are you sad when mama goes away?” she asked.
“I miss you, mama,” he replied a little less exuberantly, but then he smiled again. “But we play when you get back! Grandma makes cookies when mama is away.”
Kari kissed him again and he closed his eyes. She walked around his bed to close the curtains, and then left his bedroom. Grakin was waiting before the door to their bedroom, and Kari entered to get out of her armor and change her clothes. She wasn’t sure if Grakin wanted to make love or not, but she had planned to go back downstairs and spend a little more time with her in-laws and friends. When she started removing her armor, she glanced at him over her shoulder and saw that making love was not what was on his mind.
He was silent for a minute, and Kari understood that meant he was upset. She took off her armor and padded clothes, and gave her undergarments an appraising sniff. They certainly smelled like they belonged to someone who’d been on the road for a couple of weeks, but thankfully they hadn’t rubbed their scent off on her too much after her shower. She dropped them into the laundry bin and turned to face Grakin, naked. He still stared at her in such a way that suggested even being apart for several weeks wasn’t overriding how upset he was at Kari’s stated plan.
“Obviously I cannot forbid you to go through with this,” he said at last. “But as your mate, I am begging you to reconsider.”
“Grakin, when I was considering chasing Turillia down to Barcon, you told me to trust my instincts. That’s what I’m doing now,” she replied, but he cut her off.
“This is different!” he snapped, as close to yelling at her as he’d ever come. “When you went to Barcon, you were going to hunt a dangerous demon in a dangerous city, but you were still on our world. You were going to a city of our people to hunt an outsider. If you go to the underworld, you will be the stranger in their land: you will stand out, an obvious target and a demonhunter, no less! Imagine a demon coming to the campus of your Order; what you are planning is essentially the same insanity!”
Kari held her tongue for a minute and made no move to get dressed. She blew a light sigh through her nose and said, “Grakin, the Council of the Order – and I assume most of the priesthoods of the pantheon – think the Temple of Archons holds the means to become a god. If the demons get their hands on that, we’re all in big trouble. And I’m apparently the final key to opening the Temple, and some of them know that already. The days of my Order being re… reactionary when it comes to underworld demons are over. I have to get us the information to be able to fight back, and I think this is the only way.”
“But the risk–”
“Will be as small as possible,” she finished for him, and she closed the distance between them and laid her hand on his chest. She met his eyes and used her facial expression and body language to try to ease his worries as much as she could, or at least more than she knew her words would. “I’m not going anywhere until I know exactly where I’ll be landing, what I can expect there, and whether or not I can safely get where I need to go and home again. Again, I’m not going to do what Turik Jalar did; I’d rather the history books don’t even mention this if I end up going.”
Grakin pulled her into his embrace, and Kari let out a content sigh. “You are too brave to be my mate,” he said quietly, but his words didn’t alarm Kari; she knew what he meant. “I will say this and no more: I am worried about you. I do not want you to go, and I am begging you not to. But should you go, I will pray ceaselessly for your safe return, for it will be the only thing I can do to keep myself together.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, at a loss. Kari never wanted to hurt her mate or her child, and she knew that leaving them again so soon would do so. But there were implications to what she’d learned and what she stood to learn, and she didn’t feel comfortable with the idea of her first act as head of the Order being to send someone else to their death. Kari understood that a time would come when she had to do exactly that, but in this circumstance, she chose to lead by example. Turik Jalar may have laid a list of demands at the Overking’s feet, but Kari felt she was going to do one better: she was going to come back with someone who could give her the information she needed to cripple any demon offensives going forward. To her, that was worth the risk.
“Do not be,” he said after a few moments. “I love you for who you are, Kari, and I would not change a thing about you, even were I able. I fear for your safety, but your valor leaves me in awe, and I am very proud to be your mate.”
They shared a passionate kiss for a minute, and then Kari led Grakin over to the bed. He undressed when they reached its edge. They made love quietly, mindful of noises and voices carrying in the large house full of people. It was not simply sex: Grakin made love to her despite his fears and his desire for her to stay home with him and their son. He was upset and scared, but it didn’t carry over into the way he made love to her. They cuddled close when they were done, and Kari fell asleep in the warm quiet of her mate’s loving arms.
*****
Kari was never one for a lot of fanfare. The Council of the Order, however, had other plans. When she arrived at work the following morning, she found nearly the entire Order on the grounds in formations, awaiting the arrival of their new commander. Kari had hoped, in the back of her mind, that being promoted directly by Master Attir Surallis and simply informing Lord Allerius face-to-face would have allowed her to dodge the publicity. Instead, she found the Order awaiting her arrival to perform the ceremony that would appoint her as the new head, the first person to be promoted to the rank of Hand of Zalkar since Jason Bosimar had accomplished the feat almost twenty years earlier.
The sight of everyone in formation put Kari in a somber mood. She had never seen a change of command, either during the years when she’d attended the Academy or those years she’d worked on its campus as an administrator. The only time she saw the entire Order gather in this way was for funerals, and though she knew that wasn’t why they were gathered so today, the thought stuck with her. The gravity of the situation and the possible self-imposed mission before her weighed heavily on her thoughts. She imagined that if even the slightest thing went wrong or the smallest lie were offered by Amastri, the Order just might be gathering this way for a funeral in a few weeks - possibly several.
Lord Allerius was standing before the gathered headmasters, hunters, and cadets, dressed in shining steel plate mail. Kari had never seen Allerius dressed for a mission, and
the sight of him in his armor with his polished greatsword strapped across his back was impressive. She often had trouble thinking of him as a highly-decorated officer and hunter because he’d served as an administrator for so long. She knew that people viewing him that way left a sour taste in his mouth, but contrary to his feelings, Kari didn’t see his administrative position as a weakness. Instead, she saw it as one of the ultimate signs of strength: it was as though Zalkar was saying Not only is this one fit to be my champion, but he is fit to lead my other champions as well.
Kari thought on that a moment and realized it now applied to her as well. It was strange to think that just three short years before, she had wondered what her place was in Zalkar’s plans and why she had been resurrected at all. The thing she had chafed at and seethed against for the entire eight years of the Apocalypse, she now viewed as a blessing. She had been given a second chance at the life she had missed out on after dying young of a terminal illness. She now had a mate, a child…and the entire Demonhunter Order at her command. Or at least, she would in a little while, officially.
“You seem pensive, my friend,” Lord Allerius said quietly when Kari approached.
“You know, I’ve dreamed of this for most of my life, but I don’t think it ever occurred to me that it would ever be more than a dream,” Kari said. “I’m not sure if that’s because I knew my days were numbered, or if the…enormity of it seemed too much. I’ve wanted to reach the position of Avatar all my days as a hunter, but I never imagined I’d actually become head of the Order. It’s…a little intimidating.”
Allerius smiled and clapped her on the shoulder. “As I said yesterday, it is a position you will fill well, and the men and women under your command already respect you as a hero. From what I’ve seen and heard in the last few weeks, you are already well on your way to a long and successful tenure.”