I wiped a hand over my face and caught Pellini’s eye. “Let’s get the body out of sight. This one would be hard to ex—”
Blinding light blossomed on Katashi’s chest and spread in deep channels over his body. The arm I held shuddered and flared, and I dropped it like a hot poker. Before it hit the ground, the light engulfed Katashi, and he and the arm disappeared with a ripping crack.
We all stared in shocked silence at the empty and discolored patch of asphalt.
I found my voice first. “What the fuck just happened?”
Chapter 39
I stared at the place where Katashi most certainly was not anymore. Even his blood had vanished. “He was a demon?”
“No way,” Idris croaked. “No.” He held up a hand in denial. “That makes no sense. Has to be something else.”
“An implant,” I said, groping for any possible explanation. “Like . . . like one of the lords’ recall implants. Maybe a self-destruct implant set to activate when he dies.” I liked that theory a lot more than one that had him passing through the void and waking up with his allies in the demon realm. So what if my theory had more holes than a colander.
Idris dropped his gaze to the knife in his hand, expression stricken. “We needed him.”
“He’s gone, Idris,” I snapped. “And he’d be just as gone if his ass hadn’t burned up, thanks to a certain slit throat.”
He glared at me, then gave a strangled cry and slammed the knife closed. “I let him taunt me into ruining everything!”
He wasn’t processing info very well. Neither was I, for that matter. Overload much? “Nothing we can do about that now,” I said, striving for calm. “We have to prioritize the shit we can do.”
“We need to get out of here,” Bryce said. He glanced toward Pellini’s truck where Jill remained tucked away in the back seat. “They’ve cleared the main street enough to get emergency vehicles in, which means we can get out once we move the debris blocking the truck into the lot.”
Without a word, Pellini took Idris by the arm and marched him toward the parking lot entrance. I used my shirt to mop sweat from my face. “Good. He’ll center Idris with manual labor.” Emergency workers were starting to set up floodlights in preparation for a long night. “Am I a bad person for wanting to leave when there’s so much to be done here?”
“You’re exhausted,” Bryce said without hesitation. “You’ve had a huge day and are on the verge of collapse. The mass casualty teams have it. You’re more of a detriment than a help at this point.”
I smiled weakly. “Gee, thanks.” But it was true. Every joint and muscle in my body ached, and I felt as if I’d been on sensory overload since morning. My brain was mush.
“What the hell is that?” Bryce said as he crouched and examined a pinkish lump on the pavement.
I bent for a closer look, then prodded it with the toe of my shoe to flip it over. Wrinkly skin and a layer of underlying tissue about the size of my palm. “Oh. Ew.” I shuddered. “I can’t see the arcane part of this, but I bet my sweet dimpled ass that Mzatal’s mark is on that thing, which blocked it from discorporeating with the rest of the arm.” I picked it up with two fingers and then didn’t know what to do with it.
“Souvenir,” Bryce said.
“Maybe it’ll still be useful,” I scooped up a scrap of paper and wrapped the skin in it before sticking the bundle in a side pocket. “Easier to carry around than an arm.”
“Not as much pizazz though.” He squeezed my shoulder. “You keep an eye on things, and I’ll go help with the heavy lifting. We won’t be long.” With that he headed off toward the parking lot entrance where Pellini and Idris shifted rubble. My unassuming hero.
My phone rang, and I snatched it from my belt. Boudreaux. “Hey!”
“Kara! Thank god,” he said, agitated. “You all right? Is Vince?” The connection warbled and clicked, but I could make out his words. “I haven’t been able to get through to anyone.”
“I’m okay. So is Pellini. Cory evacuated the station.” I paused. “It’s a mess down here.”
“I should’ve been there.” Whatever else he said was lost in a burst of crackling in the connection.
“Where’d you go?”
“My mom called from a phone booth,” he said, voice thin and stressed. “Begged me to come for her. Told me she was at Mighty Mort’s, and I had to be there in ten minutes.”
The truck stop was a good five miles away. With or without permission, she’d called to make sure her son was out of the danger zone. “She wasn’t there?”
“No! She left a note in the phone booth. Said she and my dad were okay.” Anger and frustration and exhaustion laced his voice. “They knew, but—”
Poor guy. “Boudreaux?” Nothing. “Boudreaux?” No signal either. Arcane residue interference. At this rate it would end up with its own acronym. Sorry, honey. Couldn’t call to tell you I’d be late. ARI is bad tonight.
I hiked myself onto the hood of a puke green Buick that sported four flat tires and watched emergency crews work with amazing efficiency around me. There were pockets of confusion and misdirection, but that was to be expected when dealing with the inconceivable. As far as I could tell, the workers were all locals from Beaulac and St. Long parish. Made me proud to be a native. They’d done plenty of training, but I doubted if more than a handful had ever worked a mass casualty incident.
Doubt surged through me. Should I have let Cory try to arrest Katashi and his people? If he’d intervened, would disaster have been averted, or would Cory be dead now?
No. I could play the What If game until the end of time, but it wouldn’t change a damn thing. I’d made a decision based on available information. I never could have guessed how high the stakes truly were.
My attention drifted to the triage crews as they moved through the area with rolls of colored tape clipped to their belts. I didn’t envy them. They had to make hard life and death decisions to prioritize the use of available resources.
Green tags were easy. Ambulatory. Those victims could walk themselves to the designated field treatment area.
Yellow. Delayed treatment. That was for victims who couldn’t walk out on their own but didn’t need immediate emergency care. Serious but not life-threatening, such as a broken leg.
The assignment of Red and Black tags was where it got hard. Red meant top priority needing immediate emergency care. Salvageable given the resources available. Black meant lowest priority. For deceased, a black tag was a no-brainer. A lowest priority black tag on a live victim was another matter. The victim was alive but, in the judgment of the emergency worker and an impartial algorithm, too injured to survive given the available personnel and equipment.
I watched as a crew member crouched by Jerry Steiner’s body, checked to see if he was breathing, then placed a strip of black and white striped tape on his shoulder before striding off to check the next victim. “Buh-bye, asshole,” I muttered.
A familiar voice cut through other racket. Marco Knight. “I’m fine! Leave me alone.”
What the hell was he doing here? His clairvoyance must not have warned him of a Giant Arcane Disaster. I pushed off the car and ran out into the street to see the NOPD detective, pale with concrete dust, sitting on a hunk of granite that used to be part of the City Hall façade. A first responder wrapped a red strip around his wrist and trotted away. Blood matted Knight’s hair and darkened the side of his face. He tried to stand, but swayed and sat again.
“Marco, you need to stay put,” I told him.
“I’m fine. Shit.” Knight struggled to fix his gaze on me. “Kara? It’s time. The place I took Pellini. The place I showed you by Ruthie’s Smoothies. It’s time.”
“Something’s happening there?” Fucking hell, like we didn’t have enough to deal with already.
“Right now.” He grabbed my wrist, and his eyes went wide and wild. “Now!”
“All right,” I said and patted his hand. “As soon as we can—”
Naus
ea struck, accompanied by a freaky low-level buzz in my bones. In the parking lot, Idris tumbled to his side and curled in a fetal position while Bryce doubled over. A few emergency workers staggered or puked or clutched their bellies. Pellini stood straight and alert as if listening for a sound as quiet as the whisper of butterfly wings.
Right before I was first summoned to the demon realm, an arcane gate destabilized, causing ten minutes of headaches, nausea, or vertigo for anyone in Beaulac with even a touch of arcane talent. Clearly something similarly big was happening at Ruthie’s—and Pellini with his Kadir imprint didn’t seem to be affected. Can’t we get a break for five lousy minutes?
The nausea stopped as if a switch had been thrown. The buzzing in my bones remained, but retreated to the edge of perception within seconds.
Knight used his grip on my wrist to haul himself upright but collapsed to the pavement before he could fully straighten. I knelt beside him, only now seeing that his right foot was twisted at an unnatural angle. “Don’t move,” I ordered and cast a frantic look around for anyone. “I’m going to get help.”
His fingers dug into my wrist. “The twelfth,” he gasped with an edge of desperation. “The twelfth!”
My heart thudded. “Is something about to happen with the sigil?” I groped my lower back with my free hand. Unremarkable. I hadn’t felt anything with the sigil since the bean tapped it.
“I needed to see her. To talk to her.” Knight tried to look beyond me, toward the valve. Frantic. Distressed. “She was here.”
She? “Hang on. You mean Jill’s baby? The bean is the twelfth?” I tried to make that fit into the larger picture but my brain had put up the No Vacancy sign.
His head lolled. “Tried . . . to get here.”
Four men approached carrying a litter, and I quietly died of relief. “You did good, Marco. Real good.” I gently disengaged from his grip and stepped back to give the pros room to work. “These guys are going to take good care of you now.”
Near the collapsed section of the police station, workers wrestled a rescue litter up through a hole in the rubble. Who didn’t make it out? I mustered energy and clambered over minivan-sized chunks of concrete toward them. Scott Glassman grabbed hold of the litter along with two others and heaved it to the surface. My breath caught. Cory. Strapped to a backboard, head immobilized, and too much blood.
I looked to Scott in horror as they carried him away. “Is he . . . ?”
Scott dragged a hand over his face, smearing soot and grime. “They don’t know. Head injury, and his legs were pinned.”
Acid filled my mouth. This was too real, too close to home. “He cleared the building! I saw him.”
“He and Dustin went back to get the prisoners out. Dustin’s trapped but says he’s okay.”
Throat tight, I nodded. “I have to take care of some stuff. Can you keep me posted? Please.”
“No problem.” His eyes flicked toward the valve then back to me. Now that slaying demons wasn’t a priority, he had questions. Lots.
“Glassman!” the chief called from the still-standing corner of the building. “We need your help.”
“Duty bellows,” Scott said with a We’ll talk later look, then jogged that way. He could ask me all the questions he wanted after I showered and slept for a million years.
“Hey, Kara!” Tim Daniels climbed over a fallen light pole, uniform filthy and face scraped. “I don’t know if you heard.” His face was sad and serious. Aching fatigue settled on me like a lead blanket. I couldn’t handle any more bad news. “It’s your aunt’s shop,” he said with a sympathetic wince. “Everyone got out safely, but the place was completely destroyed. I’m so sorry.”
The lead blanket lifted to be replaced by a chorus of sparkly singing birdies. I slapped both hands over my mouth and did my best to make my hysterical laughter look like sobs. Tim gave me an awkward pat on the shoulder.
“Thanks, Tim,” I finally managed. “She’ll be so upset. I’ll have to think of the right way to break the news to her.” Stripper-gram?
I left the wreckage of the station and made my way back to the truck. Idris gulped water from a bottle, pale but appearing more grounded. Bryce passed the Malibu key to Pellini and pointed down the side street. “It’s parked by the Kwik-E Mart. Can’t miss it.” He looked to me. “We’re good to go.”
“Works for me.” I glanced at Pellini, dismayed to see how bloodshot his eyes were. “According to Knight, something big happened near Ruthie’s Smoothies.”
Pellini straightened. “That’s where Knight and I went the day I left you at the diner.” He winced and shuddered. “Maybe that’s why my bones are itching like crazy.”
“Mine too,” I said, “though not as bad as earlier.”
Bryce shrugged. “Not me,” he said. Idris nodded in agreement with Bryce.
Just Pellini and me. Weird. I pulled my hands over my face, sighed. “As much as I hate to say it, we need to go check it out.”
Pellini held up the key. “Idris and I can handle it. We have to check the node for this valve anyway, and Ruthie’s is on the way to the warehouse. Bryce is heading home in my truck with Jill.” He made a shooing motion with one hand. “You should go with them.”
Bryce spoke before I could argue that Pellini needed a break as much as I did. “Good plan,” he said. “Jill needs the support.” He graciously didn’t add, and Kara is an exhausted mess who’ll be more trouble than she’s worth.
Fine. I knew when I was beaten. “Let’s get out of here.”
Idris slung his messenger bag over his shoulder and headed off through the rubble with Pellini.
“I’ll drive,” I said to Bryce when he opened the back door for me. “I need the distraction. That is, if you’re okay with sitting by Jill.”
He hesitated, no doubt wondering if I was up to it, then climbed in the back. “Get us home in one piece.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah yeah yeah.”
My cockiness aside, it took every remaining shred of my focus to navigate through the affected area. Debris was everywhere, and gaping fissures split the pavement in places. I gave emergency vehicles right of way and spent minutes at a time waiting to drive the next leg After a three block drive that felt as if it took an eternity, we rolled out of the devastated area. Like night and day. No gradual dissipation of energy and destruction as in an explosion. A sharp line of demarcation. Even some buildings were half wrecked and half pristine. Un-fucking real.
I flicked on the headlights though it was only dusk. Too many distracted drivers on the street. What the hell will we wake up to tomorrow? The same scenario played out in at least one driveway of every street—families cramming belongings into vehicles, piling in, and getting the hell away from demonic monsters and bizarre destruction. Panic. Common sense. I couldn’t blame them.
I glanced in the rearview mirror, and a measure of my dark mood lifted. Bryce had his arm around Jill as she dozed against his chest. She needed the attention and consideration that Zack wouldn’t or couldn’t give. Bryce cared.
I found classical music in Pellini’s collection and let the soothing strains of Mozart accompany us home.
Chapter 40
I parked the truck, got out, and opened the door for Bryce. He gave me a nod of thanks then slid out with Jill in his arms and carried her toward her mobile home. No more need for her to stay in the house. She’d stopped being a target the instant the bean—Ashava—was born.
I watched them go, grateful again to have Bryce with us. He would give Jill the care she desperately needed right now. I had zero worry that he’d push anything with her. He was being there for her, and that was enough for him because he loved her, and it wasn’t about what he could get out of the situation. I wasn’t even sure if he knew he loved her, but I did. I wasn’t blind.
The door to the mobile home closed softly behind the two. My own home beckoned, and I hauled myself up the steps and inside. My phone rang with Pellini’s ringtone seconds after I kicked the door shut
behind me. “Hey,” I answered. “Just made it home.”
“Good, fire up the laptop,” he said, tense and rushed and with an underlayer of essence-deep weariness. “I’m emailing you a bunch of pictures. You are going to straight up shit a cat sideways. Idris did.”
“Idris shit a cat?” I flopped onto the sofa and opened the laptop. “Where are you?”
“Sideways. We’re in the Ruthie’s Smoothies parking lot. You remember the bone itch we got when Knight grabbed you?”
“More of a buzz for me, but yeah,” I said. “Definitely caused by something by Ruthie’s? What is it?”
“I don’t know what we have. Pics are in the first email I just sent you. A couple of big crystal things with Kadir’s symbol on them. Force field or wards won’t let anyone close. Except me.”
I opened the email. “Holy . . . shit.” Big? More like humongous. Two clear crystal shards, jagged at the top, six feet in diameter and fifteen feet tall. One in front of the dry cleaners, and the other in the parking lot in front of Ruthie’s with a Subaru wagon perched precariously atop it. “Sounds like the bone buzz has something to do with our connection with Kadir.” That was not a pleasant thought.
“Seems so,” Pellini said. “But that’s the tame news. Check out the video in the next email.”
I watched it all the way through, then again. Watched it a third time as cold lead filled my bowels. Four feet off the ground to the right of the crystals, a crack of white light widened into an anomaly the size of a Frisbee. People screamed, talked, shouted near the camera. Between one frame and the next, Carl—Xharbek—blinked in, worked his hands around it. Shrank it, sealed it, vanished. End video.
No wonder Idris shit a cat sideways “An anomaly.” My voice quavered. “On Earth.” The first, as far as I knew. I had an ugly feeling it wouldn’t be the last.
“Idris said we were lucky it was a small one.” Pellini didn’t sound like a man who felt lucky. “We’re heading out to the node. Nothing else we can do here.”
Vengeance of the Demon: Demon Novels, Book Seven (Kara Gillian 7) Page 38