Elemental Damage: Confessions of a Summoner Book 2
Page 14
He frowned sharply and spat at me. My fist struck him across the face, and I wiped away the line of saliva, washing away the remnant in the kitchen sink. “I should expect that from you. What else could you do, right? As far as I’m concerned, you’re dead. The question is, how fast do you want to go?”
Zakhar sighed. “When I heard about you, I was told that you were a sensible man. I believed that at the time. I did. But, after meeting you face to face, I fear that I might have been wrong. I can think of some words to describe you, and yet none of them would be even a stone’s throw away from sensible.”
“Who are you to talk about sensibility?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “You threw a boulder of dirt at a grocery store full of people, you psycho. How insensible can you possibly be? Lightning in a public parking lot! Who does that?”
His eyes glared at me, cold. “Tell, Mr. Lyle, just why was I at the store to begin with? Hm? As I recall, I was baited there, was I not?”
“You!” I drew back my hand.
He braced his face to the side, wincing. “A sensible man with a fist. We are so very much alike, you and I…more than you care to realize.”
Those words halted me from hitting him, my fist lowering to my side, though still balled up tight. “You know, people like you really get under my skin. You know why?”
He looked up at me curiously.
“You pretend to have some ethic about you, but you don’t,” I snorted. “Far from it. You kill to get what you want, and then that’s that.”
Zakhar began to laugh, shutting his eyes and tilting his head back. “Do you even hear yourself, Mr. Lyle? Really? People like me kill to get what I want? Think about what you are going to do with me. People like you,” he pointed at me with a nod, “get what you want and then you kill! Where in the name of the earth is that ethical at all? Who is the real psycho in this equation? Me? What have I done that is so heinous? Had you gotten the ankh for me like I asked, then no one would have to die.”
I bit my lip. “Correction. No will is going to die.”
“Correction,” he said firmly. “People will die, Mr. Lyle.” He pointed at each of us with his head. “You. Her. The vampire. The Druid. You’re gone. Count your breaths and cherish them. Write down your last heartbeats, so that in your memoirs people will have something to remember you by. Mother Earth will consume you sooner than you realize.”
“You’re despicable. You’re tied up, and as far as I’m concerned you’re not going anywhere.”
Zakhar frowned deeply. “Understood. However, in your concern, consider this. Humans put animals in cages for what? Not for the animals’ sake. No, Mr. Lyle. For the sake of the people. The people are the ones who are in danger. Not the animals.” He cocked his head to the side. “Remember that when you consider these cables around me.”
“You know what I’m going to miss most about you?” I asked.
“My charming good looks? My sense of humor? Or the brilliant way I make you realize just how demented you are?”
“No,” I said. “I’m going to miss the fear that I see in your eyes, because you know there is absolutely nothing you can do to escape.”
Zakhar said nothing to that, and fell surprisingly silent.
I pulled Umara into the living room against her will, since she hadn’t finished setting up her failsafe snares. Fairy dust puffed out of her.
“What’s wrong with you?” she asked. “Can’t you see that I’m busy?”
“Yeah.” I scratched my chin and looked over her shoulder. “Hey, so those cables and those failsafes, are they—”
“Yes, yes, and yes,” Umara said, running her hand over her golden hair down to the tied knot in the back of her head before looking behind her. “Don’t let him get in your head. The only way he’s getting out is if someone lets him out. So if you’re worried about him getting free, then stop. I think every one of us here wants him out of the picture, probably even more than we realize.”
“And no one knows that we’re here? I’m just trying to cover all my bases.”
She touched my arm at the elbow. “Lyle, calm down. Every device in that kitchen, I designed myself. The lasers were bad because they were enchanted. These aren’t. And just to be sure, I even checked the raw materials to make sure there wasn’t any Illusion Enchants on them. Any Shaman moves that he makes has at least two counter measures. At least two. And they’re fatal measures.”
She put her hands on her hips and glanced back at him again. “What we need to worry about right now is getting the information from him about why he’s here.”
“If everything is good to go, then just leave that up to me.” I sauntered back into the kitchen.
“Ahhh,” Zakhar said, looking up at me. “Back to discuss more philosophy?”
“Actually no,” I said. “Back for another reason.”
I stretched my hand out, and Zakhar cringed, except this time, I didn’t hit him. My open palm latched to his face, and I channeled my Decanter abilities through me. My veins burned as information soared through them like storm-surged rivers. My body began filing away known personalities and forms, shuffling to make room for new forms, until suddenly something electric zapped through my body.
I leapt back, shaking my hand, blowing on it, checking it several times to make sure I hadn’t singed the skin. But the burn was so bad, almost like leaving my hand on a hot stove. Zakhar must have felt it as well, because his jaw shifted and tightened, and he looked suspiciously away from me.
“Umara?” I looked at her.
She was as confused as I was, checking the settings on each of her devices. “They’re all fine. What happened? Did he burn you?”
“I don’t know. I went to decant him, but something like lightning snapped through me. You think he did it?”
“Couldn’t have,” she said, checking her devices once again. “These scanners are electronic, so there’s a possibility they could fail, but very unlikely since I tested them several times before I set them up. But even if they did, the cables are more mechanical. And those won’t fail at all.”
“What did you do to me?” I demanded.
“I was going to ask you the same thing.” He cringed, having trouble even getting the words out.
“Are these the only Shaman snares you have?” I asked, turning to Umara.
Her forehead had beads of sweat on it, and she wiped them away with the back of her wrist. “There’s more in those boxes over there.”
“Set them up too. I think we might need them.”
CHAPTER
SIXTEEN
After failing to decant Zakhar and getting shocked, I took the utmost precaution. While Carter, Stephanie, and Umara conversed in the living room, I sat on the kitchen floor, back against the stove, refusing to take my eyes off of him.
“You stare at me like you hate, Mr. Lyle.”
“Oh, I could think of some other words for it.” I was at my limit with him. “How about you quit stalling and tell us why came looking for me.”
“Stalling is the only thing keeping me alive.”
Rebekah kept her thoughts to herself after that, though her silence seemed undue.
I got up, sighing.
She was quiet inside the obelisk.
My shoulders sagged, and I slouched to the ground, my back against the white wooden column, still eyeing Zakhar through the glass.
My head rested against the column, so many things racing through my mind. Why couldn’t I just release her soul, capture another one, and use that one, instead of hers? Why did I feel the need to keep Rebekah stored in this obelisk?
She said,
That was the hammer. I wanted to say that Stephanie would be fine with it, but I knew better than that. If Stephanie even suspected that I still had feelings for Rebekah, there would be nothing between us for as long as Rebekah’s soul was stuck in this stone.
I shook my head.
I shut my eyes, letting a tear leak down over my lips, but I wiped it away before Zakhar turned to look at me.
I wiped away the last few tears and went inside, not even looking at Zakhar as I past by him in the kitchen. I needed to leave, to just get away, but first I made sure to let the others know that I was stepping out.
When I was out the front door, I heard it open and close behind me.
Umara slid her hands into her back pockets. “Everything okay? You look a little rattled.”
“I’m fine.”
“So now that we’ve passed through the lies, what’s really going on?”
I snorted and looked away from her, making my way into the parking lot and starting up the hill to the road. “Just going for a walk.”
“Looks like I’m going with you.”
“Can’t stop you.”
“Nope.”
When we got to the street, we strolled along the sidewalk as cars passed us going in either direction.
�
�I’m not stupid, Lyle. You had a talk with Rebekah, didn’t you?”
I nodded, lips pursed.
“It was either now or never,” Umara remarked.
“That’s what Rebekah said.”
“Listen,” Umara started, “I’m not your Paranormal Advisor, and you never even asked for one. But, as an advisor, I do know a few things about paranormals and such.”
“Things like what?”
“Well, I deal with paranormals of all kinds. Vampires and werewolves come around the most. Can you imagine what it’s like for them? I mean, being thrown into this lifestyle, because some sicko decided not to finish the job, but to keep them alive by injecting the retrovirus?”
“I thought you’d be all for paranormals.”
“I am,” she said, surprised that I would even assume otherwise. “But to be thrown into this life…it’s not for everyone. Think about it. One day you’re out walking your dog, and then you wake up, and you can’t figure out why in the world you have this insatiable appetite for people! Dealing with that takes a strong person.”
“I guess.” That seemed fair enough. “What other paranormals do you deal with?”
“More than you’d think,” she replied. “Fairies, witches, warlocks, demons, Wraiths. And Wraiths are tough cases too. They come to me, many of them do, and they don’t know who they are or how they even showed up at my doorstep.”
“You meet with demons?”
She nodded, frowning curiously. “Sure do. And you know what I tell them?”
“What?”
“I tell them where they can go.” She pointed down. “A one-way ticket. Better for us. Better for them. Those that don’t listen…well…I give them some extra coercion.”
Judging by her expression, she probably felt the same way about demons as I did. I despised them worse than Wraiths. Always sabotaging people’s lives and not giving a you-know-what. It’s ridiculous.
A car passed us, extended our shadows, shifting them off to the right, leaving us in the haze of the streetlights once it was gone.