“Hold your fire,” I murmured into the headset. “For now.” She hadn’t ripped anyone in half yet, and there was no guarantee we could take her down even if we dumped our entire arsenal on her at once. We needed to pacify her, cleverly work whatever bargain Seretis had cooked up, until Alpha Squad got here. Then we stood a fighting chance. Maybe.
Fucking hell, but this bitch was intimidating.
There was no hint of the rakkuhr flame-shielding, but potency radiated from her—different, but no less impressive than the aura of a lord. It penetrated me, setting my bones buzzing and my teeth on edge. Gold glittered on her hands and horns, but otherwise, she wore no adornments except . . .
Shit. On her left ear, a Beretta 92 dangled from a slim iron hoop.
Dekkak was scary enough with claws and teeth and size, but it was that relatively subtle detail that described the scope of what we were up against here. Whether that gun was a trophy from the Dirty Thirty—the DIRT team who’d gone through a rift to take the fight to the demons—or merely an amusing-to-her trinket, the gun-turned-bauble symbolized the vast power gap between Dekkak and my people.
Though my heart hammered, I willed my face to stone. I’d learned long ago to never reveal my internal battles during a summoning, even for the weakest of the relatively tame lord-bound demons. Mr. Poker Face Mzatal was the ultimate example of the impassive exterior, whether fighting for his life or deciding between tea and tunjen. I strove now to emulate him.
Dekkak’s nostrils flared, and in a tiny corner of my mind I knew she smelled my fear. Yet her gaze swept over me and halted on the netted Yulz. Sucked to be him, but I was more than happy to be the unnoticed insect. Every second she spent focused on Netboy meant no one here died, and Alpha Squad was a second closer.
“Warlord,” Dekkak said in demon, her voice rumbly, rich, and loud. “You failed your imperator.”
Straight to the point. No abuse. No name calling. No nonsense. Which somehow made the castigation all the scarier. Note to self: be nice and direct when chastising underlings.
Dekkak moved with a speed at complete odds with her size, and in a single bound had Yulz pinned beneath one clawed foot. She crouched low and hissed into his face, baring gleaming white fangs that tapered to needle sharp points. I wouldn’t have blamed big badass Yulz one bit if he’d peed himself, but he simply went stone still.
In a savage move that was almost too swift to follow, Dekkak hooked a claw through the three gold rings in his right ear and ripped them free, splattering the grass with blood. “These honors will abide on this crippled world where you disgraced yourself,” she snarled and flung the adornments into the darkness.
Okay, maybe a little abuse. Note to self: let’s not take management lessons from Jontari imperators. Though I supposed there were worse possible fates for a demonic employee who failed to meet goals. While the scary-as-fuck imperator was momentarily distracted, I edged my way to the center of the nexus, within the comforting bounds of the super-shikvihr and in easy reach of gobs of nexus power.
Dekkak stepped off Yulz then stretched her great wings wide, nearly spanning the entire distance between my porch and the edge of the woods. The internal vibration in my bones increased to barely tolerable discomfort, as if she’d fired up a potency generator. With a groan, Seretis dropped to one knee beside her, overwhelmed by her presence rather than as a gesture of homage.
My simmering dread cranked up several degrees. Alpha Squad was at least fifteen minutes away. If Dekkak decided to take flight and wreak havoc elsewhere, I had no sure way to stop her. A potency blast from the nexus was unlikely to take her out completely—even if I diverted power from the bindings on Yulz—and Dekkak’s retaliation was certain be swift and merciless. Except for the purported bargain, she had no known reason to stay. I needed to keep her here until the squad arrived.
“Dekkak!” I called out, amplifying my voice with potency.
I could have whispered for all the difference it made. Clearly the demon queen wasn’t going to give the locals the time of day, and she sure as shit wouldn’t be called to heel, no matter how loudly I shouted.
Instead, she let out an almighty roar followed by a bellowed “RHYZKAHL!” as she reached for him.
With zero hesitation, I released my gathered potency and sent it surging into the perimeter of Rhyzkahl’s prison. I didn’t know how much Mzatal’s built-in protections were affected by the rift, or how they’d hold up against an imperator, but I was damn well going to do what I could to keep them working. I was the warden, and I intended to do everything possible to keep Rhyzkahl safe.
Violet lightning arced from the ground and struck Dekkak’s outstretched hand. She jerked back, palm smoking. Residual arcane crackled over her arm.
Get away from him, you bitch! I silently jeered. This was one lord she wouldn’t be adding to her collection.
“MZATAL!” she screamed, fangs bared. Rakkuhr flame-shielding blossomed over her like a manifestation of fiery hatred. Her tail slashed through the air, forcing me into a desperate leap and dive to avoid getting smacked.
I skidded to a stop at the edge of the nexus, already pulling potency as I scrambled to my feet. Through the headset, I heard Bryce snapping orders, but I didn’t have the spare bandwidth to pay attention.
Dekkak rounded on me, powerful legs flexed as if poised to spring. “And you,” she growled in heavily accented English. “Kara Gillian.”
NOW, she acknowledges my presence. I darted back to the center of the nexus and readied a shield of potency, though I doubted it would be enough to keep Dekkak from squashing me like a bug. Not with most of my available power tied up in the bindings on Yulz and the summoning in general.
Except that she could have squashed me at any point since coming through and hadn’t. I flicked a quick glance at Seretis, more curious than ever about the nature of the bargain he’d made with the imperator. Yet even naked, bloodied, and kneeling in the grass, he maintained an expression as impassive as any lord could hope for.
Dekkak’s knees were at my eye level, forcing me to crane my neck in order to look at her face. “Dekkak,” I said. “I am pleased to finally meet you, honored one. You are clearly more than worthy of your formidable reputation.” The acrid stench of burned demon flesh stung my nose.
Dekkak sank into a deep crouch, shifting close enough that her rakkuhr shielding reached acid fingers toward my skin. But I wasn’t about to step back and give her the satisfaction. Besides, it was just chest puffing. A true power play would have had me retreating out of a desire to keep my flesh attached to my bones.
She scraped the claws of her uninjured hand across the nexus, sending up a screeching nails-on-chalkboard sound. “Your human swarm, your DIRT, arrives here. Soon.” Her eyes glowed red and gold as they rested upon me. “Our interplay begins. Now.”
Could she sense the approaching team? Or was she making an assumption based on previous DIRT responses to rifts? Not that it mattered. DIRT was coming. She knew. Bad shit would happen.
I folded my arms and affected a casual stance to show how very not scared of her I was. “What interplay is that, Dekkak?” No, really. Not scared. Nope, not me.
Instead of answering, she extended a hand toward the rift and spoke in demon. “Emerge, my honored ones. The diminished Earth awaits you.”
Since I didn’t want to reveal that I understood her, I schooled my expression to “slightly befuddled.” But on the inside I did a full body flail while shouting: Oh, come ON! More demons? Not quite the interplay I had in mind.
I pretended shock when the rift vomited a buttload of demons, but the dismay on my face was real enough. Four reyza and a Chinese-dragon-faced kehza took flight and scattered in all directions. A shadowy zhurn with burning red eyes followed, melting into the night as if it had never been there.
In my earpiece, I heard Bryce warn all personnel of demons on the property, and to sh
oot only if attacked. Good man. Bad demons.
Like sentient coils of smoke and flashing color, a pair of ilius wound like housecats around Dekkak’s legs. “Seek your surrogates,” she told them, and after one final rub against her shins, they headed straight for the house.
“Hey! Why are those two ilius going into my house?” I said, mostly for Bryce’s benefit. He was sharp enough to get the hint that I wanted one of his people to keep tabs on the two demons.
Dekkak drew her lips back, revealing fangs that gleamed in the moonlight like ivory tusks. “Interfere, and you doom Krawkor and Makonite.” An ominous growl backed her words.
I stared at her, utterly taken aback. She was talking about Corey Crawford and Marco Knight. What the ever-living fuck? “And those two demons are going to do what exactly?”
“Tend their brood,” she said without further explanation. Still, it was the most direct response she’d made to me yet, so I decided to count it as a win.
“If by ‘tend’ you mean anything except ‘care for,’ call them back.” I pretended to ignore her hiss and continued, “It’s obvious you want something that only I can give, otherwise we wouldn’t be having this nice little chat. I’ll be a whole lot less likely to agree if, er, Krawkor and Makonite are harmed.”
To my everlasting relief, Dekkak settled her wings and eased back. “Untended, they will never hatch.” She tucked her first three fingers under her thumb, leaving only her wickedly clawed little finger extended, like giving me the bird except with her pinky. “On my honor, Kara Gillian.”
Her eyes, her stance, and her very aura told me she would never say that frivolously. She definitely wanted something. And wanted it badly. A faint flicker of hope stirred from deep beneath the ol’ fear of dying. If we were about to negotiate a trade, maybe I could shove the rescue of Elinor back onto the bargaining table?
I had no idea if I was supposed to throw any demon gang signs in response to Dekkak’s pinky swear, so I opted for neutral territory and sought something vaguely flattering. “Your honor is . . . impeccable, imperator.” I winced mentally at the unintended echo, then again as my stupid stressed brain tried to make a rap out of it. Impeccable imperator, insides indigestible . . .
I gave my brain a mental kick in the ass and focused on the impeccable imperator.
Dekkak withdrew her hand, but when she made no move to kill me, I decided I must have made an acceptable response. “Seretis,” she said in demon. “To me.”
Seretis staggered to his feet and approached, the leash of potency still trailing into the rift. Behind him, said rift flared magenta then belched a nightmare creature that looked like an elephant-sized slug with several monster octopuses fused together where a head might be. Its hide and tentacles shifted colors in lazy splodges of midnight blue and neon pink, while in the midst of the tentacles, eerie blue light issued from its cavernous maw illuminating pale shapes of—
I recoiled as my eyes resolved the pale shapes into the human skulls that they were. Mouth dry, I forced myself to confirm that the creature was indeed wearing at least a dozen human skulls and severed heads on its smaller tentacles like ornaments. A few were fresh, as if either newly killed or arcanely preserved, and I suddenly found myself looking into the dead eyes of Sergeant Ted Palmer of the Dirty Thirty.
Cold sweat broke out beneath my shirt. I wrenched my gaze away, silently screaming at myself to hold it together, to swallow back the puke, set aside the horror, and keep a goddamn brave face on because too much was riding on me not fucking this up.
Seretis collapsed to his knees beside Dekkak, but my gaze went to his leash. Only now did it register that Slugthing held the other end within a wrap of tentacle. His keeper.
A deep and dark calm descended upon me. I wouldn’t lose focus. Not now. This was it. Whatever it was.
Chapter 38
With a deft twitch of her claws, Dekkak shaped rakkuhr into a knot-like sigil and set it spinning overhead. I didn’t need to understand rakkuhr to know the ward was for privacy, especially when my earpiece crackled and went dead.
In a foreboding gesture, Slugthing shot a tentacle around my blood bowl and knife and pulled them to a spot between Dekkak and me. A slurred, wet voice issued from its maw, saying in demon, “This frail hu-beast female has not the wit nor resources to procure the trinity.”
What the hell was the trinity? And why did it need procuring? I had to assume this was part of the mysterious bargain, but I was already sick of the games and shows of dominance. Time to cut the crap.
I locked eyes with the imperator and—also in demon—said, “Your underling doubts your decision to negotiate with this hu-beast. Is such insolence rife in your domain?”
Dekkak shot an I’ll-deal-with-you-later glance at Slugthing then huffed out a breath between her teeth. “Gurgaz merely echoes what I have already voiced,” she replied, sticking to her own language since it was clear I understood it. “Doubt yet lingers within me regarding the merit of the defiler’s claim.” She gestured toward Seretis. “Though, as you have mastered our tongue, I concede you are more than a witless hu-beast.”
Hey, I’d made it past Witless. Achievement unlocked. Or rather, achievement faked. The nexus gave me the demon tongue, but I wasn’t about to let her in on the secret.
I inclined my head a bare inch. “I await your proposal, honored imperator.”
“You sought to summon and bind me to your will,” she growled. “Such will never come to pass, but listen well. The kiraknikahl Xharbek expects me to return with your severed head and the Elinor essence.”
Bonus points to her for calling Xharbek an oathbreaker. And points to me as well for having guessed correctly that the asshole had engaged her to do his dirty work and get me dead. The essence thing was a surprise, though. And she’d so far failed to make a proclamation in the vein of, “Oh, and I decided not to kill you because fuck Xharbek.” So that threat was still on the table.
But so was what she wanted. “Yet you haven’t taken my head or the essence,” I pointed out. “What did Xharbek offer in return?”
“Earth,” she said, as if bartering planets was an everyday occurrence.
“Ah.” I gave a knowing nod, as if I possessed vast experience in trade negotiations involving planetary real estate. Meanwhile, Inside-My-Head Kara was running in circles with her hands in her hair while shrieking are you shitting me!?
However, Slugthing’s insulting comment had contained a nugget of useful info. Whatever the trinity was, it needed procuring. “But you want the trinity more than you want Earth,” I said serenely. No way was I going to reveal that I knew nothing about this trinity. However, an unpleasant suspicion was beginning to form.
“And you want the shell of Elinor Bayliss,” Dekkak said with an accompanying hiss.
I acknowledged her statement with a nod. “It seems we have the foundation of a mutually beneficial agreement.”
“Seretis claims you are the zharkat of Mzatal.” She snarled the last three words as if they were poison in her mouth.
“He spoke the truth.”
Red sparkled in the depths of her eyes. “Will you betray your zharkat?”
That was quite the loaded question, and one I needed to consider very carefully before giving my answer. A “yes” would be a mark of dishonor. But a “no” could not only put an end to the negotiation, I might as well hand over my head so she could give it to Xharbek.
“Tell me why you want the trinity,” I said instead. Her question had all but confirmed my suspicion about the trinity. It had to be the three essence blades. Mzatal’s creations. To procure them, I would have to betray him—at least from her perspective.
Her eyes bored into me as if measuring my worth and potential, and it took everything I had to stand my ground before that ancient gaze. And I mean ancient. I’d often thought that the lords were “ancient,” but now I was going to have to downgrade
them to merely “really really old.” Dekkak was older than the rivers and the mountains. Countless civilizations on Earth had risen and faded to dust in her lifetime, and a good number of them would have worshipped her. She’d have given even badass goddesses like Hel and Tiamat a run for their money.
Her nostrils flared, and the intense scrutiny eased. “The Ekiri changed our world,” she said in a voice that resonated through me. “We, the Jontari, changed with it. There are outsiders who wish for us to return to our former way of being, before the change. Before rakkuhr.” She spread her wings a few feet and leaned toward me. “We. Will. Not.” Her wings snapped closed with a sharp report.
Her explanation was a little light on the specifics, but I got the drift. The Ekiri had “fixed up” the planet, and in the process—whether intentionally or not—they’d given the demons a big ol’ leg up. Then the Ekiri, who had something to do with the rakkuhr, left. Now, several thousands of years later, there was a push to put everything back the way it was—wiping out every bit of the demons’ evolution, improvements, and advancements.
I couldn’t blame Dekkak for being pissed. It would be like trying to force modern society to live without electricity or indoor plumbing—and with all knowledge of it removed.
No, it would be like the gods asking modern society to give back the gift of fire and everything that came of it.
Beside Dekkak, Seretis caught my gaze and mouthed “Bryce”—quick but clear—before going quiescent again. He was telling me he’d communicated more to Bryce, which made my wild curiosity happy.
“How does the trinity fit in?” I asked.
Her low growl warned me that this was a touchy subject. “Last question. Last answer,” she hissed. “The defiler Mzatal enslaved our Jontari elders: Vsuhl, Khatur, and Xhan. The gatekeepers of the rakkuhr. The first students of the Ekiri. He bound their essences between blade and gimkrah to hold dominion over the Jontari. We have recovered the three gimkrah. Now it is time for our elders to come home.”
Legacy of the Demon Page 40