Legacy of the Demon

by Diana Rowland

  “You did not come to me simply to provide sustenance.” He tapped his finger against the empty glass. “What is it you want?”

  “You’re right. Comforting you isn’t on the top of my to-do list.” The voice of the essence blade echoed in my mind. “Who is the vile oppressor?”

  He flexed his scarred hand. “You will believe nothing I say.”

  “Humor me. Who is the vile oppressor?”

  Rhyzkahl regarded me with contempt. “You. Mzatal. It is difficult to choose which to name.”

  I threw up my hands. “You’re a captive because of your actions.”

  “And you are an oppressor because of yours.”

  “Serving justice doesn’t make me an oppressor!” I caught myself before I blurted out further defensive justification. The asshole was baiting me. I stood and folded my arms. “Let me clarify. Xhan said, ‘Treacherous. Traitor. Vile oppressor.’ What did it mean?”

  His gaze narrowed on me. “Tell me how Mzatal came to be on Earth.”

  Aha! It wasn’t Rhyzkahl’s weakness from the lightning strike that would dredge answers from him. It was his craving for information from beyond the confines of his prison. “I’ll answer that one. Then you answer mine.”

  “On my honor.”

  I snorted. I’d been taught that demons held honor above all else, but Rhyzkahl and company had clearly demonstrated how much steaming bullshit that was. “You’ll probably just lie, but I’m in a good mood.” I shrugged. “I’ll play along.”

  “Agreed.”

  This would be interesting. “An Earthgate from the first age is open. Mzatal came through it.”

  “An Earthgate? Where?” He staggered to his feet. “How?”

  “Sorry, dude. One question. One answer.” I spread my hands. “Your turn. Who is the vile oppressor?”

  He ground his teeth and gave a grunt of frustration. “The one who held Xhan.”

  “Do you mean today? Mzatal? Or you, before?”

  “One question. One answer.”

  “One clear answer,” I said.

  “It is clear to me. Clarity for you was not specified in the agreement.”

  “Fine.” I clearly showed him my middle finger. “The gate is about thirty miles from here”—I pointed in a vague southerly direction—“that way.”

  He went lord-still. “Crystals?”

  “Uh huh. Big and shiny. I gave you where and what. That’s two answers.” He couldn’t do anything with the information, so there was no harm in throwing him a few crumbs—extra incentive for him to answer my questions. “Now, tell me clearly, using a name I know, who your blade meant by ‘vile oppressor’.”

  “Mzatal.”

  “You owe me another one.”

  “I owe you nothing. You volunteered a second answer.” He leaned close. “But I will tell you what I have told you before. Your lover’s hands are not clean. Do you abide slavery?”

  Cold rage filled my veins. “You’re trying to implicate Mzatal in slavery? You who had your Earth flunkies kidnap innocent women to use as sex-slave currency for demonic lords?”

  He gave me a smug look. “You know nothing of it.”

  I swayed, dizzy.

  • • •

  Sunlight streams through the library window, but it cannot compete with his radiance.

  Breath catching, I step closer. “I know my heart, my lord Rhyzkahl.”

  His hand rests on the frame of my portrait. I seem so young, captured on canvas by Lord Szerain. Could it truly have been only a year past?

  “Elinor, it is my will that you abide here.”

  “Do you always get what you want?”

  He lowers his head, eyes on mine. So beautiful. “Yes.”

  Tick. Tick. Tick.

  The sound teases my consciousness. My consciousness. Kara. This is a vision. I need to follow the ticking. Marco Knight told me I can camera-fly, but how? Looks like I’ll learn by trying. I reimmerse in Elinor’s experience, aware this time.

  I conjure Giovanni’s face in my mind to give me courage, and I pray my voice does not tremble when I speak. “Forgive me, my lord. It is no longer my desire to abide.”

  No, damn it, I’m still in Elinor’s perspective. I need to escape it. I’ll fly my camera-view up there, to the top of the bookshelf. I can do this. Uno. Due. Tre . . .

  The world shatters and reforms.

  One. Two. Three.

  Moonlight floods the library. Rhyzkahl’s back is to me.

  A different time, but not the bookcase camera-view I was trying for. It doesn’t feel like Elinor’s perspective either. Did I screw something up?

  His hands grip the frame of Elinor’s portrait, and he drops his head. He heaves out a deep sigh and pushes from the wall. He gazes long at her image then drapes it in deep red silk.

  Not Elinor’s perspective. I’m me. Of course I’m me.

  I sneer. “Did you fuck her over as badly as you did me?”

  He turns on me, and his face twists in fury. “What are you doing? You should not be here!”

  “I can be wherever I damn well please.” I lift my chin. Why wouldn’t I be here? “You burned all of your tell-Kara-what-to-do privileges.”

  He advances on me, grips my shoulders. Shakes me hard enough to make my teeth clack together. “Depart. Now.”

  This is no meek Elinor he’s dealing with. I snag a book from the nearest shelf—War and Peace, hardback—and whack him on the side of the head. For good measure, I drive my knee into his groin, delighted at his grunt of pain.

  He releases me and staggers back, overturns a bookshelf. I sidestep, but he recovers in a heartbeat. Lunges. Grabs my hair at the scalp. Drags me. “Kara, go home.”

  “Fuck off!” I slap my hands over his to hold them close to my head, twist my body in a move that should break his wrist.

  He pivots with me, snakes an arm around my neck and gets me in a headlock. “Kara, stop! You need to remember—”

  The world tilts. Shade and sunlight beyond. The nexus. Dizzy, I claw at the arm around my throat. The world tips back, wobbles drunkenly. The library and moonlight.

  Rhyzkahl’s hold is like iron. I kick and struggle to no avail. “Let me go!” The Nexus. War and Peace. Light. Darkness. What is he doing to me?

  “You don’t belong here, Kara.” Dappled shade. Red silk.

  “No!” I fight down the panic and call up my rage instead, lash out with the one weapon I have in my grasp. “It’s you lords who don’t belong here! You don’t even know where you came from!” Vicious mind control by the demahnk prevents the lords from even considering certain topics. I seize onto the deepest secret I know and wield it as a white hot spear of hatred. “What’s your real connection to Earth? You and all you lordly types.”

  Grass and flowers. The world stabilized. Heat. Humidity. Home.

  No dream-vision, yet Rhyzkahl still held me. Breathing hard, I scrabbled at his arm. “How’d y’all come to be so high and mighty in the demon realm, huh? Where’s your mama? Who’s your daddy?”

  Rhyzkahl released the headlock. I whirled, fists raised and ready to slug him, but he staggered back against the tree trunk and stared at me in open shock. His mouth worked, but nothing came out but an inarticulate gurgle. The leaves of the grove tree rustled as if stirred by a wind I couldn’t feel. Sinking to his knees, he gripped his head and moaned in agony.

  The sound ripped through me like a horrific wake-up call. What have I done? He’d dragged me out of the Elinor vision after I screwed up the attempt to camera-fly, and I’d repaid him with crushing pain. My stomach clenched, and I tasted acid. Sure, I’d been disoriented, but I’d wanted to hurt him, to pay him back for the pain he’d inflicted on me. I’d overreacted, and now I had no idea how to fix this. Usually the demahnk intervened to ease the excruciating headache, or sometimes a sufficient di
straction could pull a lord from the mind-loop of agony. But I’d unloaded on Rhyzkahl with the heaviest weapon in my artillery.

  “I’m sorry,” I choked out, even as he curled into a fetal position against the trunk of the tree. The leaves murmured. I lifted my eyes to the brilliant canopy. “I swear I didn’t mean to hurt him this badly.”

  The shade around him flickered with emerald and sapphire sparkles as if the sun shone through gem stones. I didn’t know if the tree was telling me to go the fuck away since I’d done enough damage, or saying It’s okay, I’ll help him.

  It was beautiful, and I felt like shit.

  Tears stung my eyes. I spun away and fast-walked to the house. The headaches encouraged the lords to forget the thoughts that triggered them. Maybe this one would also erase that I was a cruel bitch.

  But even if Rhyzkahl didn’t remember what I’d done, I would.

  Chapter 15

  I slumped to sit at the kitchen table. Fillion mewed fiercely, then climbed up a chair and onto the table, trotted over to me and jammed his head into my chin.

  “You just want a treat,” I said but accepted the nuzzle. And of course gave him a treat. Cats were pretty cool for cheering a body up.

  Ooh! I pushed up from the table and ran to my bedroom where Squig was curled into a tight ball of fur on my pillow. I carefully scooped her up then hurried out back as quickly as I could without jostling her fully awake.

  Rhyzkahl still lay huddled at the base of the tree, eyes squeezed shut and face etched in pain. As gently as possible, I settled Squig into the crook of his neck. Neither kitten nor lord opened their eyes, but Rhyzkahl shifted one hand to cup the kitten closer and murmured a word that didn’t sound like demon and definitely wasn’t English. Squig yawned mightily then revved up a loud purr. The lines of pain in Rhyzkahl’s face eased a bit.

  Exhaling in relief, I slipped away and returned inside, then snuck a peek out the window. Rhyzkahl was stroking the kitten with gentle fingers. Good. We both felt better now.

  My phone buzzed with a message from Idris.