He paused barely long enough for Jill to begin a response, then folded down onto one knee and took her hand between his. I watched in amusement and more than a little awe as he blinked up at her in the hitherto unheard of syraza equivalent of puppy dog eyes. “Jill Faciane, only you can prevent my return to the demon realm, utterly rejected, steeped in shame.”
Jill gaped at him, but it took her only a second to pick up the humor. She fought to hold back a laugh, with only partial success. “I am seriously having the weirdest day ever,” she muttered.
“As am I,” Steeev said, still kneeling before her. “I was very inoffensively trouncing Safar in a game of kessa, and whoosh! Dragged to Earth.”
“Dragged to Earth to be my bodyguard?” She turned an accusing glare on me.
I twisted the toe of my shoe on the deck and whistled innocently. “Only if you agree to it.”
Steeev gazed up at her. “You do, do you not?”
A scowly-disgruntled expression began to form on her face, but then it shifted to a wince. She laid a hand on her belly, sighed. “Ah, jeez, bean.”
I masked a smile. The bean wanted Steeev around. Yay, bean!
Jill narrowed her eyes at Steeev. “Please tell me you can do the changing-to-look-human thing like Eilahn and Zack.”
His features scrunched. “It is possible, yes. Perhaps. I have not done so before, but I do not shy from a challenge.”
Jill rolled her eyes, then gave a dramatic slump of defeat. “Okay, fine. If you can get human-looking, then I won’t send you back an utter disgrace.”
I silently sang the hallelujah chorus.
Steeev stood, her hand still clasped flat between his as he gazed down into her face. “Jill Faciane, this is not to be done under duress,” he said, all joking gone from his voice and manner. “It is wholly your choice and my choice. I offer my service in my willingness to work with you. If you choose not to accept, then I depart with no ill will. This is between us now. It has nothing to do with what others want.”
Jill stared up at him with a stunned look on her face as the sincerity of Steeev’s proposal permeated the air around us. She took a shaky breath. “I’ve . . . suddenly realized I don’t like being on edge all the time. So, yes, Steeev. I’d like it very much if you would stay and, um, be my bodyguard.”
“Guardian,” he gently corrected, then leaned down and touched his forehead to hers. “And so it is. I have Mzatal’s support and will forge the tie that binds me here and to you. It may feel bizarre, but no harm will come of it.”
She inhaled sharply, eyes widening in shock, but a few seconds later she relaxed into unfocused peace. Eilahn had connected to me like this, I remembered, though she’d told me that no words could have prepared me. Then again, Steeev’s words seemed to have worked pretty well.
The pair remained still, forehead to forehead for several minutes, while I sat on the steps and amused myself by looking at clouds. Finally the palpable intensity faded to nothing. Steeev straightened, exhaled. “I am delighted that part is complete,” he said with a baring of his teeth, his laughter like a cascade of bird song.
Jill swayed a bit and gave a weak laugh. “Oh my god. That was . . .” She trailed off, apparently deciding that words were inadequate or unnecessary. “What now, Steeev the Guardian Demon?”
“You require that I take on the form of a human, and so I shall,” he replied.
“Do you need privacy?” she asked tentatively.
Steeev chimed softly. “No, I require assistance.”
Jill shot me a baffled look heavily flavored with desperation, then fixed her gaze on Steeev. “What kind of assistance?”
“Mzatal already offers direct potency which will ease the transformation greatly,” he explained. “However, I also require guidance from you.”
“Wait,” Jill said, “you want me to pick what you’ll look like?”
He shifted his shoulders and wings in a shrug. “Not precisely. I will not choose a particular form as much as create a composite from what you bring forth. Guidance.”
“Jeez, the pressure.”
Steeev chimed in laughter. “As I have never adopted a human form, I would prefer to do it with your guidance so that I may not omit anything vital,” he said. “It will be an adventure, Jill Faciane!”
Jill rolled her eyes and grinned. “Okay, bring it. We can’t risk having you run around here without all your bits and pieces.”
He guided her to sit on the top step. “As I have not done this before, I know only what I have heard from others.” He knelt on the step below her feet. I cleared my throat to get his attention.
“Steeev, transforming leaves Eilahn pretty shaky. You might want to go down to the bottom of the steps.” I gave him a grin. “I’d hate for you to fall and mess up your new body.”
He inclined his head to me and moved to kneel on the grass. “Thank you, Kara Gillian,” he said, then looked up at Jill. “Now, call forth a vision of your ideal guardian so that I can feel it.”
I stifled my laughter as I watched Jill’s face contort in concentration, no doubt desperately trying not to think of Kevin Costner in The Bodyguard. A moment later she sucked in a gasp as Steeev began to shimmer and slowly change. As with Eilahn, it was nothing like the smooth CGI-worthy morph the demahnk Helori had demonstrated in the demon realm, but more as if reality flickered in and out. I watched, curiosity tickling. Zack was demahnk, yet his shift hadn’t been at all like Helori’s. Maybe it had to do with Zack being on Earth?
The flickering faded. A naked man knelt at the base of the steps, eyes squeezed shut and breath coming shakily. Steeev. Jill still had an unfocused look about her, so I ducked quickly inside, found a towel, and returned outside as Jill began to come out of her fog.
Jill blinked, then grabbed the edge of the step with both hands as if to keep from toppling over. “Whoa. That was . . . I don’t know what that was.” She let out a breathless laugh, then focused on Steeev. “Whoa. You look really good.”
“I have all my bits and pieces?” he asked, eyes still closed. His human voice was light, pleasant, and smooth.
She snorted. “Uh, yeah.”
I descended the steps, wrapped the towel around Steeev’s waist. “I’ll find some clothing for you.”
He opened his eyes. Nice golden-brown eyes set in an amiable, dark-skinned face. “I do not recall agreeing to clothing,” he said, his smile displaying even, white—but not too white—teeth.
“You’d definitely distract any attackers,” I said with a laugh. I returned to Jill, sat and wrapped my arm around her. “You okay, chick?”
She smiled. “Yeah. The bean’s going crazy, and I’m dizzy, but that’s it.” Her smile grew into a grin. “Holy shit! I have a demon guardian named Steeeeeeeeeeev.”
Chapter 29
As I returned to the house, I allowed myself a moment to bask in the success of the Jill and Steeev venture. Yet at the same time I knew how incredibly fucking lucky we’d all been. Farouche obviously didn’t know how much Jill meant to me. He likely thought her a close friend at the most. I knew damn well that if he’d known how much I loved that stubborn woman he wouldn’t have settled for a simple dump of a dead body on her lawn. His people would have grabbed her at the first opportunity to use as leverage to get Paul and Bryce back.
Mzatal was still on the mini-nexus, and as I passed I felt how much stronger the flows were than the previous day, coiled with potential energy like a compressed spring.
An exultant shout from the direction of the obstacle course drew my attention. I heard another shout, then the sound of Bryce cursing along with a musical peal of laughter. A few seconds later Bryce and Eilahn burst from the woods pelting neck and neck toward the house. At least I assumed it was Bryce. It was hard to be sure since he’d apparently done a face-first, full-body plant into mud somewhere along the course.
However, he didn’t let what looked like an extra ten pounds of mud slow him down, and even though I knew damn well Eilahn could outru
n any Olympian, and was certainly sandbagging a bit for his benefit, Bryce still managed a final kick to finish neck and neck with her.
Eilahn grinned widely as Bryce flopped to the ground. “You fight dirty,” he managed, then let out a wheezing chuckle. “I love it.”
“I should have warned you about her,” I said as I approached them. “No such thing as a fair fight in her book.”
Eilahn bared her teeth. “A fair fight is the one you survive.”
“I’m with you, sister,” Bryce said as he pushed up to sit. He swiped a hand over his face and flicked mud away. “Though I admit I didn’t see eye to eye with you when you hooked my leg and shoved me into the mud.”
“I wished to be certain of my victory,” she stated.
“And stepped on my back.”
“Very certain.”
“You were already winning!” Bryce said in exasperation. “You stopped, waited for me to jump the log, and then tripped me.”
Eilahn tilted her head. “I wished to be very certain of my victory. And it was most amusing.”
Bryce lobbed a chunk of mud at her which she nimbly dodged. With a parting musical laugh she loped off into the woods.
I cocked an eyebrow at Bryce and smiled. “Do you want the hose?”
“I think that’ll be a good start,” he replied with a laugh.
He levered himself to his feet while I fetched the hose and turned the water on for him.
“I’ll let you sluice yourself off,” I said, handing him the hose. “But I’d like to pick your brain once you have the worst of the mud off.”
“I’m all yours,” he said with a smile as he began to rinse.
“I need to get something from the living room, and then I’ll meet you on the back porch.”
He nodded and held the hose over his head. Smiling, I headed inside. It took me a few minutes to find the journal I needed in the stack on the coffee table, and by the time I returned to the back porch Bryce had not only finished rinsing off but had even found a battered towel to dry himself. He’d also exchanged his wet and muddy clothing for battered-but-clean t-shirt and shorts, and his drying shoes sat in the sun on the steps.
“Ready for my brain picking,” he said.
“I’ll try and make it painless,” I replied and sat in one of the rocking chairs, gestured for him to do so as well. “This is one of Tracy Gordon’s journals—the one that has your name in it along with several others.” I passed it over to him. “Do you know any of these other names?”
He read through the list, all humor fleeing from his expression. “Shit.”
My gaze locked onto him. Finally, something. “You do know them? How?”
“I know about half of them.” He looked up at me, perplexed. “What the hell?”
“Anything unusual about them? Any common link you can think of?”
“The ones I recognize work—or have worked—for StarFire or other companies Mr. Farouche owns.” He frowned in thought as he drew a finger down the list. “But they do all sorts of things. I mean, they’re not all—” Pain flashed briefly over his face before he could control it. “They’re not all like me. Hanson is an accountant. Stevens is Mr. Farouche’s in-house financial advisor. Sonny—he’s listed here as Jesus Ramirez—is kind of like me. Aberdeen is the surveillance specialist for StarFire. And Henrietta—” He shrugged in bafflement. “Hennie is a damn cook.”
I slumped in the chair. Great, so at least half of the people on the list worked for Farouche, but we still had zilcho idea why they were in Tracy’s journal. “Any link apart from working for Farouche you can think of?”
Bryce considered for almost half a minute, then gave a shrug. “Nothing I can come up with.”
“Did you all come on board at the same time?” I asked, frustration rising. “Are you all from the same area? Are you all allergic to Ethiopian peanuts?” I threw up my hands in desperation. “There has to be something.”
“I’m sorry. I’m trying here.” He shook his head, grimaced. “We weren’t all hired at the same time. Hennie’s been around longest. Otherwise it’s spread out over a few years. Nothing in the past eight years though.” He scrutinized the list again. “I think the theory of being from the same area is out. Hennie’s from Vegas, and Sonny’s from California. Not sure on the rest.”
I blew out a sigh of disappointment. “Thanks anyway. I’ll check with Paul to see if he can run the names. Maybe something will pop as a connection.” I closed the journal and stood.
“Wait!” Bryce said. “Shit. I just realized—there is a connection.”
I spun to face him. “There is? What?”
“There was this one time we all went down—passed out or got really sick and dizzy—all at the same time. Several at the compound, including Mr. Farouche and Paul and me. It didn’t hit everyone, but every person I know on that list was somehow affected.”
My skin tingled. This was it. “Tell me what happened.”
“It was sudden, struck us all at once,” he said, face intense with the memory. “Some people had a bit of nausea, headache, vertigo, that sort of thing. Others collapsed completely. Lasted about ten minutes. Seriously weird.”
I felt my pulse quicken. “When was this? Date? Time?”
“No clue on the exact date. It was in November, late afternoon.” He paused in thought, then gave a firm nod. “It was a Wednesday, because Wednesday was always sushi day for Paul, and we’d decided to go eat dinner at Auntie Mimi’s Super Sashimi.”
Hot damn. “I know what the link is to the people collapsing,” I said with barely contained glee. “That’s the same date and time an attempted gate to the demon realm got fucked up and nearly collapsed.” I gave him a tight and triumphant smile. “It happened in that warehouse where you got shot, where you and Paul went chasing a wiggle.”
He nodded, but his brow creased. “Why would a collapsing gate affect some people and not others?”
“That’s what we have to find out,” I told him. Could it be summoning ability? No, I decided. There was no way there were that many summoners or people with arcane aptitude running around. I frowned. Farouche and the essence-eating murderer I’d tracked down the year before were non-summoner humans with arcane abilities. But what if it isn’t something so blatant? “When you think of each of those people, is there anything they do really well, or is unique?”
“You mean like arcane stuff?” He shook his head. “Paul and I are normal. I saw what the lord did in the demon realm, what you people did out here yesterday.” He lifted his chin toward the back yard. “We can’t do any of that.”
I smiled slyly. “Actually, that’s not true. Mzatal told me that Paul uses his computers and equipment to play with the arcane flows of Earth and can even sense them in the demon realm.” I hadn’t known Bryce long, but I’d seen him in action. “You ever get hunches? Feelings or intuition that seem to always pan out?”
Bryce shrugged. “Sometimes. Everybody does.”
Not the way he did, I was willing to bet. I traced a sigil on the porch rail. “Do you see anything? Feel anything?”
“Nope, don’t see anything.” But then he frowned. “I, uh, feel something right here though,” he said doubtfully, pressing a hand to his stomach. “Maybe. Probably my imagination.”
I dispelled the sigil. “Now?”
His frown deepened. “It’s gone.” He peered at me. “What’s the deal? I have stuff like that all the time.”
“Bear with me.” I pretended to trace another sigil. “What about now?”
“Nope, nothing. See? A coincidence.”
I smiled. “Yeah, sure,” I said and traced a complex warning sigil that pulsed and emitted a “loud” arcane broadcast.
“The back of my neck itches a little,” he said with a shrug, though I saw him wince.
I grinned and dispelled the sigil, feeling most triumphant. “Ha! You are so sensitive. I didn’t trace a sigil the second time.”
He shook his head in obvious disbelief. “I don�
��t know, Kara. That’s pretty out there.”
I gave him a withering look. “Excuse me. You spent two days on another world, were brought back from the brink of death by magic healing, and you say that butterflies in your tummy are Out There?”
Bryce gave a bark of laughter. “I mean for me. I’m just muscle.”
“Yeah, suuuure.” Brains too. He sure as hell didn’t get into vet school on brawn. Tito, the man Mzatal killed in the warehouse, fit the bill of muscle with a little arcane sensitivity. I had a feeling Bryce had a splash of arcane-bolstered intuition thrown in as well. “How many times have hunches saved your or your boss’s ass?”
He waved it off. “I have pretty good instincts in the field, and yeah, it’s been handy.”
“You’re one of the best Farouche has, right?”
“Had,” he clarified. “But yeah, I was one of his best.”
“I think your former boss is trying to load his staff with people who are really good at what they do. Tell me,” I said, tilting my head, “is there anything special about the cook?”
“Hennie?” A fond smile touched Bryce’s mouth. “She’s a great cook. Nothing exceptional though.” He paused and considered. “Except maybe her red velvet cake,” he added with a chuckle. Then his brows drew together in thought. “She’s always on top of people’s allergies and preferences. Like, she never forgets and serves Jerry peas, or lets different foods touch on Carter’s plate. She cares, for sure.” He looked up, shrugged. “But it’s not a super power or anything. I will say she does make the best soup for a cold or flu though. Really does the trick.”
“Bryce, let go of the notion that sensitive people need to be X-Men mutants.”
He smiled wryly. “Gotcha. I guess that’s the picture I had in my head.”
“What about Sonny? What’s special about him?”
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