Be lordy. Be the summoning.
All right. Time to let go of my preconceptions of what the chant should be and freestyle this thing. Starting anew, I allowed sound to flow—unfamiliar though melodic, but oh-so-right. In confirmation, the sigils flared, and a frigid arcane wind swirled around me.
I am lordy.
The guided potency of the ritual slammed against the dimensional fabric, but the portal itself was stubborn, like trying to open a door against a gale. I’d successfully opened hundreds of portals, but never with so much power at my disposal. It should have been easier, not harder. I was trying my best to be the damn summoning. What the hell was wrong?
I sought the calm center in the midst of frustration. Szerain had told me to be lordy and be the summoning. That instruction had brought me this far, but clearly, I was missing something.
Kadir’s advice to Pellini whispered through my mind. Believe it has already happened.
Understanding crystallized. This was different, not harder. It wasn’t all about control and rules like in a regular summoning. It was about creating. It was the difference between painting by numbers and translating an artistic vision to a canvas. Using a boxed mix to make a cake versus creating a breathtaking dessert from scratch.
Here and now, I was the artist. I breathed in the arcane wind, mingled it with my own potency then exhaled it, all while envisioning a pinprick of dimension-piercing light within the perimeter of the binding sigils. The vision became reality as the light expanded into a portal vortex. With it came a roaring rumble like boulders crashing down a mountainside.
I gathered the prepared potency strands, made the call in a voice that was mine but so much more. “Dekkak!”
The wind picked up the name, howled it through the roar and ensnared the demon on the far side of the portal. I braced against the tension on the strands and pulllllled.
For several tension-wracked heartbeats, nothing budged, then all hell broke loose as the demon fought the call. I thought I’d performed tough summonings before, but this was like trying to pull a pissed-off grizzly bear through a porthole using a bungee cord in the middle of a hurricane.
It took every bit of standard training and lordy experience to keep my wits and my hold, but I had the sucker, and I wasn’t about to let go. Dekkak’s shadow choked the portal, and with one final yank he was through and on my nexus.
He stood taller and broader than the Piggly Wiggly reyza—and wore ten times more gold—but to my surprise was nowhere near the size of Big Turd. Rakkuhr flames crawled over his blood-red hide and rose, smoking, from wicked double-curved horns. A thick, barbed tail twitched like an angry snake, and the stench of sulfur rolled from him in a noxious wave.
Fire and brimstone. A living hellish nightmare.
Not my nightmare, damn it. I fed potency into the bindings, imbuing them with his name—Dekkak.
His head swiveled toward Pellini, even as a lightning-fast whip of his barbed tail caved in half of Rhyzkahl’s house. Pellini raised the staff, but the demon was already in motion, lunging toward him. I tightened the bindings, but to my horror they slipped from the demon like greased spaghetti. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught the recoil of the net launcher, its sound drowned out by the fading roar of the of the closing portal.
Dekkak ripped the staff away with one clawed hand and sent it skittering across the nexus then seized Pellini in a demonic bear-hug and launched into flight.
Heart in my throat, I gathered and checked the bindings, watching with one eye as the net sailed through the air toward the target area. All the demon needed was another solid beat of his wings, and he’d be clear.
The net won—barely—fouling Dekkak’s wings. Shrieking with fury, he crashed down, lower body and tail hitting the nexus, and upper torso slamming into the grass. Pellini let out a wheezed curse and scrabbled against the demon’s hold.
Bryce and Suarez ran toward the netted demon and Pellini while I anchored the useless bindings and dove for the staff. Dekkak thrashed on his back, bellowing a deep scream full of rage and the promise of death. In a few more seconds he’d be free of the net.
With a fierce pull of nexus power, I focused a blast of potency at one of Dekkak’s massive arms, burning through the rakkuhr shielding and biting into flesh. He jerked, loosening his grip. Without hesitation, Pellini shoved a flare of Kadir-chartreuse potency against Dekkak’s chest.
The demon howled and pulled one hand free of Pellini to scrabble at the weirdly clinging glow. Leaping forward, I drove the wizard staff hard against the demon’s side, thumb already mashing the button. His body spasmed as electricity found its mark, but I could already tell it wasn’t enough to incapacitate him for long. “Get Pellini out,” I hollered to Bryce and Suarez then sucked in a breath of shock as rakkuhr flames wreathed the staff and crawled toward my hands. “Hurry!” Part of me was impressed and fascinated by this utterly cool and badass use of rakkuhr as both defense and offense, but the rest of me did not want a personal introduction.
The guys moved fast to drag Pellini free then raced to secure the net. They got as far as pulling it around Dekkak’s upper torso before I shouted for them to get clear and had to backpedal to avoid the rakkuhr.
The demon snarled and clawed at the net. The graphene-enhanced strands held firm, but it was clear we had minutes at most before he struggled out of it.
Rhyzkahl’s voice cut through the final rumbles of the summoning and my own pounding heartbeat. “Kara! Bind with yulz. Yulz.”
What the hell was yulz? I wracked my brain futilely for a sigil or protection called yulz before his meaning hit me. Not what. Who.
“Keep him occupied.” I shoved the staff into Bryce’s hands then dashed back to the Dekkak-attuned binding strands. No wonder they’d failed. I’d sure enough lassoed a Jontari warlord, maybe even an imperator, but it wasn’t Dekkak. Baffling, but no time to figure out how and why that happened. I recharged the bindings with the name and energy signature of Yulz then sent them to snake around the downed demon. With a triumphant jerk of my fist, I tightened the hold.
Yulz hissed, unable to do more than wriggle within the confines of the physical net and arcane bindings. The rakkuhr flames slithered from him and dissipated.
I bent forward and rested my hands on my thighs while I caught my breath. Yulz wasn’t the demon I’d intended to summon, but he was still one seriously potent motherfucker. We’d have been dead meat without the net—or Rhyzkahl’s well-timed help.
Straightening, I gave Rhyzkahl a grateful nod and a mouthed Thanks. “Status!” I called out then began to meticulously anchor the bindings. No way did I want to risk releasing the demon prematurely.
“Five by five,” said Bryce and Suarez in unison, standing tense and wary beside the demon. Suarez had a bloody nose, but seemed okay otherwise. Bryce held the staff at the ready.
Pellini lay sprawled on the grass, breathing hard and staring at the sky.
“You still with me, hoss?” I asked.
“Miffed that you wouldn’t let me go flying with our new friend, but except for that, I’m dandy.” He shoved up to sit. “Are we where we need to be with this?”
“I believe so,” I said then gestured gracefully toward the demon. “Everyone, meet Yulz. Not exactly who we expected, but he’s badass. We’ll make this work.” As soon as I caught my second wind, I’d figure out how to bind Mr. Yulz to the task of fetching Elinor. The hard part was over, at least. Once Elinor was successfully rescued and the demon dismissed, I’d spare a minute to try and figure out why the hell Yulz came through instead of the demon I’d actually called. But for now, it was time to get down to business.
My ears popped at a sudden change in air pressure, and the scent of ozone engulfed me. “Stay on your toes!” I shouted as I tried to figure out what the fuck was happening. It wasn’t coming from the nexus or the demon, but beyond that I had no clue.
> The slab shuddered beneath me, and an awful metallic tearing sound filled the air, like two eighteen-wheelers being scraped together by a giant. The remains of Rhyzkahl’s house sank a foot, then plunged into the maw of an opening rift.
Oh shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit.
I flinched and threw a hand up to shield my eyes as light flared like an exploding transformer from the grass on either side of the rift. Lightning flashed at the outer edge of Rhyzkahl’s orbit then streaked around the perimeter, jumping the rift gap and continuing in a blinding race for several heartbeats before ceasing in an instant.
Blinking spots out of my eyes, I made a hurried check to make sure everyone was clear and okay.
No, Rhyzkahl was lying crumpled on his side, stricken by the disruption of the prison warding.
“Turek, get Rhyzkahl to the tree!” I shouted then added, “Please,” since I didn’t know how he felt about the lord. “Pellini, scramble Alpha Squad. Bryce, give Suarez the staff and get someone on the hose in case the grass catches fire.”
The tearing sound died away to the unpleasantly familiar hiss of a new rift. I allowed myself a few seconds to stare at it in horror and disbelief. Seriously? Of all the shitty timing, a rift had to choose now to appear and here by my nexus?
The lovely new addition to my back yard landscaping ran from the edge of the nexus to twenty feet beyond the outer edge of Rhyzkahl’s orbit. Gouts of magenta flame erupted from its depths, and lining the rim were complex braids of rakkuhr, unlike anything I’d ever seen before. Ice spread across the ground, leaving only the nexus itself untouched. At least that was intact.
The netted demon began to laugh, deep and slow—a fiendish sound I hoped to never hear again, and a hundred times worse than any movie special effect.
A sick dread filled me along with the unpleasant feeling that this rift was no coincidence. I dashed to the center of the super-shikvihr, double-checked and reinforced the bindings on Yulz, then cleared away every speck of residual energy from the summoning.
Magenta flames leaped in the rift, casting an ominous light across the slab and highlighting the desperate circumstances. Around the nexus, chaos was held at bay by training, discipline, and loyalty. Roper had the hose pulled out and was wetting down the grass. Turek crouched in a protective stance beside Rhyzkahl at the base of the tree. Bryce now had a shotgun slung over one shoulder and hustled to get as much heavy weaponry as we possessed to the security guards.
Everyone was doing what they needed to do, which left me free to figure out the rest. Anything that Yulz found amusing was surely bad news for me, but no matter how much I extended my demi-godlike senses, I couldn’t get the slightest whiff of what to expect. Demons, no doubt, but how many? What kind?
I wove potency strands for ready use while I ransacked my brain for a solution to the dilemma. The only SkeeterCheater we had was wrapped around Yulz. I could banish him then use the net to cover the rift and slow down invaders, but I’d also lose the chance to get Elinor. That would suck, but so would dying in a hail of demon droppings. Then again, the fastest recorded time for demons to start coming through a newly opened rift was eleven minutes, with an average of eighteen. If I could get Yulz bound in agreement and on the task quickly enough, we might be able to salvage both the net and the mission.
That was a big if. And I needed to make a decision. Banish or bind?
The magenta flames abruptly snuffed out, and the hiss went silent. I froze, eyeing the suddenly quiescent rift warily, potency strands partially woven in my hands. In my peripheral vision I saw everyone else in similar attitudes of waiting for the other shoe to drop. Even Roper had abandoned the hose and backed slowly away as he unslung his rifle.
Rakkuhr fog mushroomed upward and spread with the speed of a tidal wave. My bad feeling quintupled. I’d dealt with hundreds of rifts and never seen anything like this before. The fog rolled toward me. I sucked in a breath and held it as everything was blanketed in uniformly opaque red.
Fuck this shit. I tapped into the vortex of potency at the heart of the nexus, drew out thick strands and set them swirling around me. Blind me with an arcane fog? I’d blow that crap away with an arcane fan.
At least I hoped it would work like that. I heard Bryce’s murmured voice in my earpiece, telling everyone to stay calm and on their toes. Then, “Whatever you’re doing, Kara, keep doing it.” Relieved, I drew more potency, fed it into my whirlpool-fan-thing, and set it flying faster and faster.
The fog thinned then dissipated completely, revealing a naked man standing beside the rift. One eye was swollen shut, and crusted blood clung to his face. Pale gold potency ringed his neck and trailed into the rift like a collar and leash.
I heard Bryce suck in a breath, and a second later recognition punched me in the gut. “Seretis?” I started forward but stopped when he held a hand up in warning.
“Dekkak is coming through,” he croaked.
I breathed out a curse as all the pieces fell into place. It was a setup. The whole thing. Xharbek was probably chortling right about now. All he had to do was tip Dekkak off about the summoning and let the imperator take care of the Kara problem. Innards everywhere.
Dekkak had sent Yulz through to let him spring the trap and take a hostage. That was why he grabbed Pellini. At least one thing had gone our way.
With the nexus, I had sufficient power at my disposal to bind Dekkak—except I had no idea how to bind a demon coming through a rift instead of a summoning portal. And with an open rift, Dekkak probably wasn’t coming alone.
I pulled potency and started fashioning bindings. This would take being lordy to a whole new level.
Pellini hollered, “Alpha Squad’s a good twenty minutes out!”
Great. Looked like we were going to be on our own for the worst incursion ever. Everyone here was armed to the teeth, but Pellini and I were the only ones with relevant experience. Maybe I could somehow use the nexus as a shieldbuster?
Bryce stood tense and motionless, eyes riveted on the lord. Seretis took a stumbling step away from the rift, gaze settling on his bond-brother. “This is for the best.” He gave Bryce a flickering smile, then returned his attention to me. “I hope.”
My apprehension skyrocketed. In the entire history of the universe, This is for the best almost always went hand in hand with, This really hurts. “Seretis, what have you done?”
He lifted his shoulders in a despondent shrug, demeanor an odd mix of weariness and sanguine anticipation. “Struck a bargain.”
“With an imperator?” I asked in disbelief. “For what? Why?” Whatever the reason, it looked like he’d gotten the short end of the deal.
Seretis gave me a barely perceptible head shake then glanced at Bryce. As I watched, Bryce’s face went from still as stone to alight with comprehension. They were communicating through the essence bond, I realized. Most likely relaying whatever Seretis didn’t want to say aloud.
Dekkak wouldn’t know about their bond, I thought and crossed mental fingers that Seretis was taking full advantage of Dekkak’s ignorance.
“Desperate measures in desperate times, Kara Gillian,” Seretis said. “You cannot blame me.”
My lips pressed thin. “I’ll decide who to blame when I have all the details.”
Bryce’s voice crackled brisk and urgent in my earpiece. “After you left the demon realm, Seretis started picking up some of my thoughts. He doesn’t know why it started happening again. He got the drift of our plans that way and found out that the Jontari have the master gimkrah.”
Seretis flinched as the rift burped a gout of magenta. “She is coming.”
Wait. She? Dekkak was a . . . girl demon?
Bryce cut through my momentary stupefaction. “Jesral met secretly with Rayst.”
Yikes. Poor Seretis. His life partner was hobnobbing with the smarmy head honcho of the Mraztur. And he had no Lannist for support.
/> “Seretis saw the writing on the wall,” Bryce went on, “what with that crap on his homefront, his ptarl gone, our plans in motion, and the transfer of the gimkrah. So he messaged Dekkak with a proposal.” Bryce paused. “One he hopes you’ll turn in our favor, but if not, he’s . . . sorry. That’s all I know.”
I kept my expression blank, but inside I moaned fuuuuck. Okay, so Seretis had been faced with dire circumstances and took action. Except he wasn’t like Mzatal, who saw move upon move in advance. He was underestimated, sure. More empathetic than the other lords, yeah. But a strategic mastermind? Probably not.
The only possible upside was that, if Seretis thought there was a chance to turn whatever his proposal was in our favor, it meant Dekkak might not be in instant kill mode when he—she—arrived. Unless Seretis was playing us, but I found that tough to believe. Even though I couldn’t be absolutely sure of his intentions, I had faith in the sanctity of his essence bond with Bryce.
Either way, I was stuck without a rule book in the middle of a game to decide the fate of two worlds. And, more urgently, the fate of me and everyone I cared about.
I briefly considered banishing Yulz then decided against it. One SkeeterCheater wasn’t going to make a difference, and there was a chance I could use him as a bargaining chip. A very slim chance, but at this point I was simply trying to keep from sliding off a tilting chessboard.
Huge clawed hands reached upward from the rift and grasped its lip. Every joint of the scaly, blood-red fingers sported a gold ring etched with blocky symbols.
Heeeeeeere’s Dekkak, I thought with just the right amount of hysteria.
With an agile move as if shrugging off the earth itself, Dekkak pulled herself up through the rift. She was bigger than Yulz—close to the two-story height of Big Turd and equally broad. Moonlight glinted off rugged scales that began at the top of her head and swept down to cover her back and shoulders. As far as I could tell, the scales were the only obvious physical feature that differed from a male, yet there existed an intangible quality about her that proclaimed her as powerfully female.
Legacy of the Demon Page 39