“Kara! Watch out!” Bryce scooped the cat up and away from me, and I jerked, blinked. “Did she get you?” His concerned gaze tracked over me in a search for claw marks as he expertly cradled her.
Kara? Oh, right. Of course I was Kara. “No, I’m good,” I said, though I checked my arm for blood just to be sure. “Thanks for the save, though.”
Fuzzykins abruptly ceased her growl, shifted to bump her head against Bryce’s chin. He gave a low chuckle and scratched behind her ears. “You silly girl,” he murmured, then glanced to me. “Damn, she really does hate you. I thought she was about to rip your face off.” He shook his head, shifted the cat in his arms then sat again and settled her on his lap. “She seems okay now though,” he said, regarding Fuzzykins with a puzzled frown, then he rolled his eyes as she looked in my direction and gave a bored hiss before snuggling into his lap with a loud purr. “Or not.”
I stuck my tongue out at Fuzzykins. Weird cat. I couldn’t think of anything I’d done to make her go off on me like that. “So, wow, Paul’s pretty amazing,” I said, shifting to a more comfortable subject. “Getting that airport vid was a huge break for us.”
Bryce smiled as he stroked the cat. “He’s a good kid. Got through to me.” His smile faded, and he blew out his breath. “I was the one who kidnapped him in Albuquerque. Sonny and me.”
I angled my head. “How’d you go from kidnapper to taking such good care of him?”
“I got assigned to him twenty-four/seven when we first brought him in,” Bryce said, then chuckled softly. “He grew on me. Farouche saw we had a good rapport, and, since he wanted to keep Paul happy and productive, he put me on as his permanent bodyguard and advocate.”
I smiled. “You two really care for each other. I mean, in a bromance sort of way.”
“Yeah. I think we’re family,” he replied with no trace of embarrassment.
“Does anyone miss him back home?”
He winced, then shook his head. “No.”
“What’s the deal there?” Please please, I thought almost desperately, please don’t tell me you killed them.
“Paul’s mom died when he was ten,” Bryce began, then his face hardened. “His dad, a cop, beat the shit out of him about a year and a half ago. Almost killed him.” Cold anger rose in his eyes. “No siblings. Any other family is distant with no contact or interest. He was on his own in a little basement apartment when we took him.”
“Damn,” I breathed. “Paul told me his dad beat him up, but that’s all.” I scowled. “Why? Paul seems like such a quiet guy.”
He glanced back over his shoulder toward the hallway, spoke quietly. “His dad found out Paul was gay. Lost it. I mean, totally fucking nuts lost it. Whaled on him for a while, left him for an hour or two then went back for more.”
My right hand tightened into a fist. “Where’s his dad now?”
“He got killed,” Bryce said after the barest of hesitations. “I drove Paul to the funeral about eight months ago.”
I heard the edge to his tone. “Got killed how?” I asked, attention fully on him.
Bryce rubbed his eyes, sighed. “A hit. Farouche ordered it. Set up to look like an arrestee recently released from prison did it.”
“You do it?”
“No.” He jerked his eyes to mine, denial firm within them. “No,” he repeated. “Jerry Steiner made that hit. Same guy who took Idris’s sister to get murdered. Paul doesn’t know, and I intend to keep it that way.”
“Yeah.” I gave a slow nod. “I can understand that.” Hard to believe I almost sort of barely agreed in a mildly sociopathic way with Farouche on this particular issue. “He won’t hear it from me.”
“I’ll be honest,” Bryce said. “I’d have pulled the trigger on the motherfucker and not lost sleep.” He let out a low snort. “That’s one of the reasons the hit wasn’t assigned to me. It would’ve been personal, and Farouche doesn’t operate like that.” He picked up the legal pad that had his security camera system proposal on it. “In retrospect, I’m glad I wasn’t the trigger man.”
“Keeps it a lot cleaner between you two.” I gave him a sympathetic wince. “As clean as it can be given the situation.”
The buzz of the gate alarm preceded the telltale crunch of gravel beneath tires. I shoved up from the sofa and tweaked the curtain aside to peer out. Zack’s Impala.
“I need to talk to Zack for a few,” I told Bryce and received a nod of acknowledgment. I headed out front and waited at the bottom of the steps as Zack parked.
He climbed out of the vehicle, keys and laptop case in hand, and quirked a smile at me. “Welcoming committee?”
“Yeah, it’s a new Kara’s Kompound perk,” I said. “Oh, and everyone gets a pony too.”
“I like it,” he replied with a chuckle. “Except for the part about who has to clean up after the ponies.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Okay, maybe no ponies. Anyway, you got a sec? I need to talk to you.”
“I have a ton of case files to go through tonight, but I always have time for you,” he said with a broad smile. “What’s up?”
“The super ultra mega big news is that we know Farouche is holding Angela Palatino—Idris’s mom—at his plantation.” Excitement flickered, but I did my best to hold it in check.
He let out a low whistle. “That’s definitely super ultra mega,” he agreed.
“Right. If we can get her to safety, it takes away much of the Mraztur’s hold over Idris.” I put a hand on his arm. “I was hoping you could give us some special help.”
Zack went still, tilted his head. “What sort of special help?”
“Special help as in going and getting her out.” I gave him a hopeful smile. “Demahnk help.”
In an instant his face slipped from open and relaxed to grim and haunted. “Kara, I can’t.”
My smile melted, and I slumped. Even though I’d known his cooperation wasn’t a sure thing, the pang of disappointment remained sharp. “I don’t understand.”
He shook his head. “I know you don’t. I’m sorry.”
“Can you at least try to explain it to me?” I asked, baffled.
He looked away and remained silent.
My confusion increased. He’d helped us in so many ways before. Even though Zack had initially balked at bringing Mzatal to the warehouse, in the end he had done so. Why was this so different? “Zack, all you have to do is go get her and bring her back,” I said. “What am I missing?”
“I can’t,” he repeated and met my eyes again. “It’s complicated.”
I gripped my head, certain it might explode from frustration. “Would you please stop doing that?” I snapped, far more harshly than I’d intended. Releasing my head, I smoothed down my hair, tried again. “Please stop evading me. Please stop giving give me lame shit like ‘It’s complicated.’ I’m not a child, so could you grant me some basic courtesy and at least help me try to understand?”
I expected him to look defensive or chagrined, but instead his entire posture slumped into apparent weary sadness. “Even that crosses the line.”
Time to regroup my thoughts. “All right, then let’s take a step back,” I proposed. “Tell me what the line is.”
He regarded me for a second, then swept past me to his car. At first I thought he was walking away from the discussion, but instead he yanked the driver door open and dumped his laptop case onto the seat. He closed the door with a little more force than necessary, though his demeanor made me think it was more general frustration than anger at me. He jerked his head toward the back of the house, then briskly strode off.
I followed, though at a more ordinary pace. No way could I match that long-legged stride without running. As I rounded the corner of the house, I saw him heading toward the pond trail. Mzatal sat motionless on the mini-nexus as I passed, and I sensed him deeply involved in the flows. Sparrows twittered their business in the trees as though all was right with the world, and a crow announced its presence with a raucous triple caw. When I
reached the pond a ripple of potency touched me, like a breeze through an open window. On the far side of the water, Zack crouched beside the valve and worked his hands over it in unfamiliar patterns. I felt shifts in the potency, but othersight revealed nothing more than transparent shimmers in the air above the coruscating blues and greens that marked the valve itself.
Puzzled, I slowly made my way around the pond. “What are you doing?” I asked quietly.
“Pulling some potency before I collapse,” he told me with a low sigh that I realized was born of exhaustion. After a moment he looked up. “I created this branch valve. It’s one of thirty-three off the valve trunk in the north of Rhyzkahl’s realm.” A sad, nostalgic smile touched his mouth. “The first full system in place after the cataclysm.”
Zack had to have been in a near-constant state of damage control since that catastrophic event centuries ago, I realized. And now he had the care of Szerain on top of that? No wonder fatigue seemed to permeate his every cell—far beyond any sort of normal tiredness.
He continued to work his hands over the valve. I sat cross-legged beside him, reminded of an orchestra conductor as I watched him move. After a time he brought his hands together, and the rippling potency breeze died away, as though he had closed the window.
He sighed softly, lifted his eyes to mine. “You asked what the line is,” he said. “It’s those ancient agreements, oaths, and decrees that frustrate the hell out of you.”
Decrees. That implied an enforcer. I filed that away. “That’s an understatement,” I said with a wry smile. “I’d like to move beyond that.”
He shifted from the crouch to a sit with one knee up. “You’re right.” He rested his forearm on his knee as he regarded me. “You’re not a child. Not anymore. You’ve grown so much, through betrayal as well as love.”
“I’m not the same person I was a year ago, that’s for sure.” My throat tightened. “Sometimes I’m not sure who I am anymore.” I shook my head, scowled. “And not because of Rhyzkahl’s stupid rakkuhr virus either.”
Zack plucked a long and heavy-headed piece of grass and rolled the stem between his fingers. “No. And I know it’s hard to find your footing.” He let out a soft snort. “My being a confusing pain in your ass doesn’t help.”
“You’re not.” I did my best to smile, but I had a feeling it ended up more like a rictus of pain. “I don’t understand what the rules are, so I feel like I’m trying to find the walls of the room with all the lights off, and I keep bumping into furniture and knocking shit over.”
A dragonfly zipped and hovered around Zack’s head like an iridescent green helicopter. Off to my right a frog croaked and entered the water with a plop. Further into the woods a squirrel chattered its displeasure at some other creature.
“I said earlier that any explanation crosses the line,” Zack said quietly.
My mouth drew down into a scowl. “Right, so my dark room has no light switch.”
To my surprise he shook his head. “The switch is there. But I keep moving it.” He dropped the piece of grass and lifted his hand. The dragonfly alighted on his index finger as though he’d called it to him. “I’ve spent most of my existence walking that line and others, sticking my toes over.” His eyes remained on the elegant insect. “In law enforcement terms, I’d have a rap sheet full of misdemeanors, a fistful of felonies, and be wanted by Interpol.” He gave a light shrug. “I’m a troublemaker.”
“No wonder I like you.” This time a faint smile curved my lips. “How about we back up one more step. Can you explain why there’s a line at all?”
“Explaining that would be like running across the line and shooting the bird at the ones who drew the line.” He raised his dragonfly-free hand with middle finger extended and others folded to clarify that he didn’t mean a sparrow. “I can’t go there. Not now.” He paused. “Not yet.”
“Ones? Not Rhyzkahl?”
“No, not Rhyzkahl. The Demahnk Council,” he paused, looked away. “And others.” The last two words came out as a near breathless whisper.
My frustration degraded to something closer to despair. I could barely comprehend the oaths he had with Rhyzkahl. How was I supposed to understand more beyond that, of the Council and of others he wouldn’t even name? “I don’t know what to do, Zack,” I said, brow furrowing. “Should I stop asking you for help?”
The dragonfly whirred away as Zack snapped his head toward me, gaze sharp. “No!” He drew in a breath. “No,” he repeated a bit more calmly. “Let me see how I can put this.” He closed his eyes, and I imagined him sifting through words to find the least incriminating ones. “It is so very complex. In the convoluted insanity of the agreements and decrees, some interventions—such as using the demahnk ability to travel—carry consequences in certain Earth situations.” True distress creased his forehead. “I know a woman’s life is at stake right now, but I must weigh the consequences against the benefits.”
“What kind of consequences do you mean?” I asked, determined to get some sort of useful info. “Are we talking volcanoes and locusts? Or, you get in trouble and get put in time out?”
“Volcanoes and locusts if I went too far,” he said, expression grave. “Extensive consequences. But every transgression carries personal consequences. Very personal.” He retrieved the dropped stem of grass. “If I extract Angela Palatino, we win the battle, but I cripple myself for the greater war.” He gripped his temples between his thumb and fingers, shook his head. “Kara, this is . . .”
I reached over, gently pulled his hand from his head, and wrapped my fingers around his. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry I’m stressing you out. I don’t understand who has you boxed in like this, but I get that you are. That’s more than I knew before, and it’s enough for now.” I peered at him, smiled. “So tell me how I can help you, other than not asking you to blip out and pick up my dry cleaning.”
Relief eased his features. “You’re doing it right now,” he assured me, then tipped his head back “The other night you said that if a bond isn’t mutually shared, symbiotic, then one party is a parasite.” He cast the stem of grass away like a spear into the water, watched the ripples spread from it. “You’re right,” he continued. “The bond in question was never intended to be mutually beneficial. However the imbalance now is . . . intolerable.”
I felt myself frown. “Whenever I mention breaking the ptarl bond to Mzatal or Szerain they kind of freak.”
“Because it is inconceivable for them,” he stated.
“It’s inconceivable to them,” I said, “but not to you. Why?”
He regarded me, eyes unveiled and ancient. “Any inferences that you make from that are yours, but I can’t go there.” He lifted his hand, middle finger extended, but I didn’t take offense. This was his way to signal that the answer was too far over the line and into shooting-the-bird territory. “And in all fairness,” he added, “it’s almost inconceivable to me.”
I mulled over what little I’d learned so far. Okay, so the bond between a lord and his demahnk ptarl was never intended to be mutually beneficial, but the demahnk clearly weren’t at the beck and call of the lords. So what was the deal? “The demahnk initiated the bonds with the lords, not vice versa,” I said after a moment of thought.
Zack offered no verbal or physical cues of affirmation or denial, and that on its own spoke volumes. “I don’t know if I could do it, even if it is . . .” He trailed off, his voice thick with emotion.
“Even if it’s right?” I asked. I shuffled the bits and pieces of clues into what I hoped was a logical order. “I guess you’d have to weigh the long-term effects of doing it,” I assumed he meant breaking the bond with Rhyzkahl, “against the long-term effects of letting the parasite continue to feed.”
“Plus the short-term effects, and medium-term effects. And if it is indeed ‘right.’” He looked away, exhaled. “Throw on top of that a sincere desire to protect and cultivate the parasite, and it gets more twisted.”
N
o kidding, I thought as I filed information away. Since Zack seemed to have more freedom saying parasite rather than Rhyzkahl, I stuck with the metaphor. “Parasites are funny things,” I said conversationally. “They can be beneficial to their hosts, but the kicker is that it’s only because it’s beneficial for the parasite.” I stood, chucked a stick into the water. “And sometimes there comes a point when it has no further need of its host.” I slid a glance to him. “Then again, most parasites aren’t with hosts who have friends who will stand right by them and pick them up when needed.”
“Very, very true.” He fought for a smile, but his eyes held a fear I’d never seen in him before. His throat bobbed in a noisy swallow. “I wonder what happens to the host when isolated from both the parasite and the other hosts?”
Tidbits of information filtered through his words. Other hosts. He’d expanded beyond himself. The other demahnk? “The other hosts would still be prisoners of their parasites,” I said, then crouched before him. “The free host would be with others who are free.”
He squeezed his eyes shut as though blocking physical sight would block a concept too traumatic to consider. “Not others of its own kind.” He opened his eyes and repeated in a voice as empty as the void, “Not others of its own kind.”
An ache of sympathy tightened my chest. How well would I be able to face a choice that meant isolation from all humans as one of its consequences? There was a reason why solitary confinement was a punishment. “I’m so sorry.” I slipped my arm around him in a cradling hug. He leaned into me as though craving any form of comfort he could get.
“I’m so tired, Kara,” he said. “So tired. I don’t know if I answered why I can’t go get Angela.” He paused. “No. That’s not true. I can, but I won’t.”
“It was enough,” I reassured him. “We’ll find another way.” And we would. Somehow. What good would it do to save Idris if we lost Zack?
He remained still and quiet for a moment. “Kara, this is the part where I’m supposed to strip from you everything that you’ve inferred, surmised, or heard.”
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