“You were just a kid when your mom died,” she said quietly, slipping an arm around me.
“Eight.” My voice cracked as I leaned into her. “I was eight. And I was eleven when my dad was killed.”
“And then Tessa raised you.”
“If you can call it that,” I said bitterly.
Jill exhaled a slow breath. “Your parents got you through the walking and talking stage and taught you all about manners and morals, but it was Tessa who was with you through the really tough times—growing up and puberty and being a teen and becoming an adult. She had no small part in you turning into the smart, kind, kickass chick you are now.”
I glared at her. “You think I should just welcome her back with open arms?”
“Don’t be silly,” she replied, tone mild but with steel at its core. “I’m simply pointing out how important she is to you.”
“Again, duh!” I waved the letter. “Why do you think this has me so twisted up?”
“You’re twisted up because you don’t know why she did what she did.” Jill gave me a squeeze, or maybe she was simply tightening her hold to keep me from bolting. “Tessa acted against you for a reason. Her reason may suck, but I don’t think you’ll be able to move past this until you know the truth.”
I scowled. “Except I can’t trust her to tell me the truth.”
“Maybe listening to her explanation wouldn’t change anything,” Jill said with a shrug, “or maybe it would.”
“Or maybe Tessa doesn’t want to explain shit, and this gag-me fake contrition was just another ploy to lure me into a trap so she and her cronies could hamstring me even more, especially since my abilities are coming back.”
“Sure. But if and when the opportunity arises again, you’ll be braced for it, and her actions will tell you all you need to know, don’t you think?”
“I’ll know there isn’t any hope for us!” I snapped. My breath caught an instant later. “Oh. That’s it, isn’t it?” I looked over to see Jill wearing a faint smile. “I’m still clinging to the hope that this is all some big misunderstanding. I haven’t given up yet because I don’t understand why she betrayed me. I just don’t fucking get it, so I keep walking on the same broken glass over and over, looking for a pattern that probably isn’t even there.” I shook my head. “It doesn’t help that I’m not sure I can trust my own judgment anymore. I mean, I never saw it coming.”
Jill made an exasperated noise. “How could you? Good grief, Tessa has been the most important person in your life for twenty years. Not to mention, you’re so fiercely loyal you could teach seeing eye dogs a thing or two about unswerving support and trust. That’s not a bad thing.”
I glowered. “Don’t know if I agree with you. Being loyal seems to have a habit of biting me in the ass. First Rhyzkahl, now Tessa.”
“Oh, please. Being loyal is why you have so many people ready to ride into battle with you.” She squeezed me again. “Look, Tessa may never tell you why she betrayed you. But you’re Kara Fucking Gillian. You’re tenacious and stubborn, and you won’t be satisfied until you dig up the truth. It’s what made you such a good cop.”
I sniffled and hugged her back. “If I’m so awesome and loyal, I think I deserve chocolate donuts.”
She laughed. “Yes you do, and since there are none to be bought, I’ll hunt down a recipe. But, in the meantime, at least you have kittens.”
“Demonic battle kittens.”
“Those are the best kind.”
Chapter 21
It had been nearly a year since the summoner Tracy Gordon attempted to create a permanent gate to the demon realm, using me as the sacrificial focus. That was also when Mzatal and Idris finally succeeded in summoning me—a turn of events that ended up being both life-changing and eye-opening, to put it mildly.
The warehouse where Tracy tried to end my awesome life was in a crummy industrial park that had been deserted long before the demonic incursions began. Oddly enough, now that the rest of Beaulac resembled a ghost town, the industrial park didn’t seem anywhere near as creepy as it once did. But creepy or not, one of its warehouses harbored an arcane valve node.
The façade of the warehouse in question was the same dull grey as I remembered, but the double glass doors were smashed. Since we’d seen similar damage on every other building in the park, we felt safe enough chalking it up to the work of vandals or looters.
Within, we found rakkuhr seeping from the node, but no sign of vandals, Szerain, or anyone else. After a thorough search, we left for the outreach center, which was several miles from downtown Beaulac and well away from Lake Pearl or any of the tourist spots. Or rather, former tourist spots. The lake was now home to a sucking whirlpool at one end and a thirty-foot geyser at the other, and toy boats sent through the former came out the latter crushed and iridescent. Moreover, an active fifty-meter rift sliced through the ball fields, the sand at the public beach was a sickly green, and trees in the surrounding woods had an annoying tendency to burst into flame for no discernible reason.
Hunting season was open, but the only game anyone cared about now was demons. No license required and no bag limit.
I’d first visited the outreach center during my search for the Symbol Man serial killer. Not long after, said serial killer lured me there as an intended sacrifice for a ritual to summon and bind Rhyzkahl, and I’d ended up eviscerated by the reyza Sehkeril. Fun times.
The neighborhood had been crappy back then and was currently well into majorly shitty. Abandoned cars huddled along the curb, stripped of tires and engine parts. At the end of the block, the burned husk of a pickup lay on its side. Every building bore a variety of spray-painted opinions and pictorial suggestions. The doors of the center were boarded up and chained shut, but similar security efforts on the other buildings hadn’t made a difference. Splintered plywood lay scattered under the broken windows and smashed door of the café across the street. In front of the dry cleaners further down, clothing lay strewn amidst broken glass on the sidewalk.
As I swept my gaze over the street, my cop-sense gave a little tingle. “Every building has been broken into but this one.”
“The vandals might’ve busted in from the back,” Pellini said, but he didn’t sound convinced. “Or maybe word spread that the chief of police got his head ripped off in here.”
“Dude, the morgue got looted. I’m not so sure these assholes would be scared of a crime scene over a year old.” There were no aversions or other protections on the doors that I could see, but when I rested my hand on the plywood, I felt a faint and familiar touch, an odd arcane whisper like a lingering scent. Though it dissipated even as I tried to focus on it, it was enough. Szerain.
“Bingo,” I breathed.
“Well?” Jill demanded.
“I sensed Szerain,” I said. “Just a whiff, but it was him.” I glanced at her. “I don’t know what to expect in there, so we need to stay on our toes. For all I know, Xharbek has demons prowling around while our people are holed up in an office.”
Jill drew her gun and flashlight, expression fierce. “I’m ready.”
With bolt cutters and a crowbar, we made short work of the chains and boards. Pellini and I pulled the doors open and, by unspoken agreement, let Jill go in first. She entered, gun at the ready and flashlight sweeping the interior, while I followed an instant behind. Shotgun in hand, Pellini came in last, pausing only long enough to put a small aversion by the door to keep anyone from wandering in after us.
We passed through the foyer and a common room, our breath pluming in unnaturally frigid air—a possible indicator of arcane activity. Or yet another weird weather quirk of the rift-riddled area.
In the main meeting hall, light streamed through chinks in boarded up windows, revealing card tables, folding chairs, and a pair of worn sofas shoved to the walls. In the center of the cement floor, faded chalked sigils and cold puddle
s of melted wax from long-dead candles marked the outline of a large ritual diagram about the size of my nexus.
Jill moved around the perimeter of the room, panning her flashlight over every nook and cranny and crouching to peer beneath furniture. I did the same, though I doubted our people were hiding under the pool table. Still, there was a lot of building left to cover, and my instinct continued to swear this was the right place.
“Jesus,” Pellini muttered. “I remember coming in here after all that shit went down. Blood everywhere, and the Chief of Police lying right there with his head ripped off. I couldn’t believe he was the Symbol Man.”
“The decapitation was Rhyzkahl’s doing,” I said. “Twisted Peter Cerise’s head right off with his bare hands.” All that remained of the blood was a few stains in the concrete. “Can’t say I disagreed with the move, considering the number of people Cerise killed.”
Working quickly but thoroughly, we finished searching the downstairs then made our way to the second floor. The first two offices were unremarkable—bare wooden doors, serviceable desks and chairs, unexciting paperwork. But pasted haphazardly on the third door were pencil sketches of people and demons.
“Are these Szerain’s?” Jill asked, an edge of excitement in her voice. “Isn’t he an artist?”
“No. I mean, yes, he’s an artist.” I blew out a breath. “But these were drawn by Greg Cerise, the Symbol Man’s son.” I’d last seen him alive here in this office a few days before he became yet another victim of his serial killer father. I pushed the door open to reveal a tiny office with barely enough room for two chairs and a desk. A portable drawing table rested on the latter, bearing an unfinished sketch of a mermaid fleeing a sea creature. More sketches and drawings were taped to nicotine-stained walls.
“Damn,” Pellini murmured as he took in the various pieces of art. “He was good.”
“That he was.” I started to pull the door closed then stopped at the sight of a drawing on the floor under the desk. With one finger, I slid the paper out, heart hammering like a college drumline.
“Huh,” Jill said, peering over my shoulder. “It’s you. You made an impression on Greg.”
“No,” I managed to say. Back at the house, I had one of Greg’s sketches: me, dressed in metal and leather bikini-armor, and holding sword and dagger as I faced down a reyza. The drawing I held now showed me in full space-cowboy attire—flowing brown coat, dark red shirt with leather suspenders, and a pistol in my hand. Leaves swirled at my feet, and two moons hung in the sky behind me, shining down on a spaceship that looked just a bit like a chicken. The whole thing was nothing more than colored pencil and paper, but it was so real I could practically see the movement of the leaves and the coat. Greg’s chain-mail-Kara drawing was awesome and showed the depth of his skill, but it couldn’t hold a candle to this.
Szerain did this. He drew me, I thought, stunned. And not only that, it was a nerdy-geeky picture, the sort of thing Ryan was into. But he wasn’t Ryan anymore. What did it all mean?
I looked up at Jill. “This isn’t Greg’s. It’s Szerain’s.”
“Are you sure?!” She reached to snatch the paper from me but stopped before tearing it from my hand.
“I’m sure,” I said. “We’re in the right place.”
Exultant hope lit her eyes. “Then let’s keep moving. Time to bring all the chicks back to the nest.”
But with every subsequent office we cleared, my uncertainty grew, as did Jill’s tension. And after the last room failed to turn up anything but a nest of mice, I made my way downstairs in a cloud of bafflement. Jill jammed her gun into its holster and stalked behind me.
“Now what do we do?” she asked in a tight and brittle voice then nearly ran into me when I stopped in the center of the common room.
“I don’t understand,” I said, frustrated and perplexed. “I know he’s here. This feels right.” Didn’t it? Maybe I wanted them to be here so badly I’d imagined it?
No, I was missing something. The echo of Szerain I’d felt on the door nagged me with a familiarity I couldn’t place. Perhaps there was a clue there? I closed my eyes, remembered the feel, and sought the connection. The memory of my attempt to touch Szerain’s essence blade from the nexus came to mind, and I sank into it. I’d called to Vsuhl—most likely in the dimensional pocket where it was stored when not in use. Right before Elinor interrupted, I’d felt it, and—
Crap. That was it. The whiff of Szerain had the same quality as Vsuhl in storage.
“I wasn’t wrong.” I pinched the bridge of my nose. “They’re here but not here.”
Jill rounded on me. “What the hell does that even mean?” She flung an arm out. “There’s no one here but rats and roaches!”
Before she could retreat or resist, I closed the distance and threw my arms around her. In my periphery, I saw Pellini step discreetly away to give us space. “They’re hiding in a dimensional pocket,” I said and felt a tremble go through her. “It’s where the essence blades go when they’re sent away. They slide into a little pocket of universe that folds around them, and that’s exactly what Zack and Szerain did to make a secure hiding place. They’re safe. I promise.” Only problem was that I had no idea how to reach a person in wherever-it-was. Damn it, I hated this, hated with every fiber of my being that I couldn’t do more, couldn’t reunite her with her daughter now.
Jill’s shoulders slumped. “I don’t even know what color her hair is,” she said softly, but in the next breath she gave a strained laugh. “With Zack’s shapeshifting genes, I guess it’s any color she wants it to be.”
“Darn it, and I was going to give her hair chalk for Christmas.” My attempt at a joke trailed off to a sigh. “I’m so sorry, Jill. I swear I’ll figure out how to get them out of their little bubble.”
She echoed my sigh. “Red. She has red hair like her mom.”
I laughed and gave her a squeeze. “I’m sure I saw red peach fuzz on her little noggin.”
A wan smile touched her mouth then slipped away. “I feel like I’m in a holding pattern. I can’t grieve because she’s not dead. Even though I’ve lost her for now, I haven’t lost her forever.” Her hand trembled as the unspoken I hope hung in the air.
“You can grieve,” I said. “You haven’t lost her forever, but you did lose this time with your baby, and you lost any feeling of security, and you lost the chance to be there for her now. You can grieve and cry and throw things because holy fuck, woman, you’ve certainly earned it.”
She hiccupped a tiny laugh and brushed tears off her cheeks. “I guess I have. And I do believe I’ll get her back. My beautiful, brilliant, special baby girl.” She looked up at me, eyes shimmering with sadness and uncertainty. “What if she’s so . . . so like a demonic lord that she doesn’t want or need her mother?”
“Ashava will always want and need her mother,” I said with such intensity that Jill twitched in surprise. “She’s half human, and that half is irrepressible. That’s an absolute fact. Look at the demonic lords. It’s been three thousand years, but they still grope for that aspect, even though they don’t know why.” The manipulation and mind control of the lords hadn’t stamped out their yearning.
I looped my arm through hers. “Let’s get out of here. I have a few ideas crawling around in my head, and I’m pretty sure they need to be lured out with cookies.”
“Sardine cookies,” she said, managing a faint smile.
I shuddered. “If you kill me, the ideas die, too.”
Chapter 22
Back at the house, Jill returned to the basement to continue her Jontari research while Pellini and I headed for the nexus.
“That whiff I caught at the outreach center of Szerain and the dimensional pocket is still fresh in my senses,” I told him. “I want to take full advantage of it to track down the AWOL four.”
“Pursue every lead,” he said with a sage nod. “It’
s the only way to determine which one is right.”
“Unless all of them are wrong, of course.”
Rhyzkahl’s gaze followed us as we stepped onto the nexus. I gave him a bland look then swept my arm in a broad arc to raise a shimmering privacy veil around the slab. The last thing I needed right now was a nosy neighbor.
Pellini moved beyond the super-shikvihr to his usual position. “Need me to do anything special?”
“Stay close and keep your eyes peeled for weird stuff.” I stepped through the ring of undulating colors to the center of the nexus.
He let out a bark of laughter. “In other words, you’re making it up as you go.”
“I’m deeply offended at the insinuation that I don’t always know precisely what I’m doing.” I grinned as he rolled his eyes. “For your information, I have an actual plan. Now that I know Szerain and company are in the dimensional vicinity of the outreach center, I can use the nexus to do a more meticulous search.”
“Gotcha. Like how, once you know your evidence is in a specific room, it’s feasible to get down on the floor with a magnifying glass.”
“You nailed it.” Time to make the magnifying glass—or rather, a Szerain-finding Dimensional Pocket Detector.
After a brief moment to acclimate to the upward swirling power vortex, I dropped to one knee and pressed my palms against the familiar stone. Beneath them, the silvery inlay of my personal sigils brightened as if welcoming me, and an instant later, raw power engulfed my hands like hot wax.
I commanded more to me, drawing it from the combined reservoir of the nexus, super-shikvihr, and Rhyzkahl. It answered in an electric blue surge of heat and pressure that shoved my hands upward. Tense and focused, I shaped the potency, tamed it until I held a scintillating globe the size of a basketball between my hands. So far, so good. I stood and transferred it fully to my left hand. Now to—
Crimson flashed beyond the edge of the nexus as a whip-thin tentacle of rakkuhr snapped toward the globe. I threw up my free hand to ward it off, but the vile strand wrapped my wrist like a tether ball around a pole. A racking shudder raced up to my shoulder, and I yelped, flapping my hand in the universal gesture of get it off me get it off me get it off me! To my surprise and relief, it uncoiled and withdrew, leaving me gasping in reaction.
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