I stepped back, came up against the balustrade. “You want it, you come to me.” No reason to make this easy for him and, dreamspace or not, I didn’t like the idea of sitting on the chaise lounge with him one little bit.
Rhyzkahl hauled himself to his feet, lurched toward me. I turned away and gripped the balustrade. I control this, I told myself. I can end it whenever I choose. He moved in close behind me, one hand finding support on the stone beside mine while the other snaked over my shoulder to flatten against his scar on my chest.
My arm twitched with the reflexive urge to drive my elbow into his gut, yet that desire faltered as a wave of arcane flowed through me. I sucked in a breath, aware that Rhyzkahl did the same. Othersight leaped to life, and my perception of flows and sigils and warding sprang into vivid clarity. “How? I don’t—”
A deafening riiiiip drowned out my words and thoughts. High between the terrace and the grove, blazing light as if from a hundred lurid sunsets poured through a gash in the dimensional fabric. An anomaly. A huge one. My heart slammed in terror and awe at the sight. “We have to do something!” I gasped.
His breath hissed close to my ear. “We walk in dream, ghosts to the world. We cannot touch it. I cannot touch it even waking.” Essence-deep frustration infused his words.
Demons bellowed and squawked from the walls of the palace. The leaves of the grove rippled with potency, flaring like glowing gemstones.
Mzatal appeared on the grounds below the terrace, teleported there by his ptarl, Ilana. Immediately, he called his essence blade, Khatur, to his hand and began to dance the shikvihr. Ilana launched herself into the air. More demonic lords blinked in with their demahnk ptarl. Amkir, Vahl, and Vrizaar, and seconds later Rayst, Seretis, and Elofir. No sign of Jesral or Kadir. Mzatal shouted directions, orders that I felt in my essence more than heard. The other lords responded without hesitation to form a large circle and commence dancing their shikvihrs.
Gaps in the circle stood out like jagged defects. Four missing lords. How could they hope to do what was needed without a complete pattern? Yet even as I drew understanding through Mzatal, Rhyzkahl spoke. “A shikvihr must be laid in for each qaztahl, present or not. The lack delays the anomaly repair.”
Jesral and his ptarl appeared. The fox-faced lord looked pale and drawn, but he moved to fill a gap in the circle. Seconds later Kadir arrived with Helori and—to my utter shock—Paul. Helori took to the air while Kadir strode to his place in the wheel with Paul by his side.
Luminescent green clouds boiled into existence in the sky like an unholy time lapse of radioactive ooze. “No,” Rhyzkahl whispered, the single word both denial and plea for mercy.
“What?!” I asked, and the clouds answered.
Droplets of flickering yellow-green fire rained down in a nightmare torrent of destruction. Though wards protected the terrace where we stood, the outer surface of the balustrade burned and pitted with the arcane fire. Horrified, I shrank back against Rhyzkahl even though my head told me the fire could do me no harm. Yet an instant later I flung my hand toward the grove as it writhed under the deluge. A scream-not-a-scream resonated through me, and within a heartbeat its leaves vanished as if sucked into the branches. A sob of agonizing loss wrenched from my throat at the sight of the once-glorious and vibrant grove now standing eerie, skeletal, and bone white.
Sickened, I dropped my gaze to the lords. Fire laced their flesh, yet still they danced, igniting their shikvihrs as one on Mzatal’s command. I pressed both hands to my mouth, tears streaming at the destruction. Paul moved in bizarre counter-rhythm beside and with Kadir. Though protective wards flickered around him, charred and blistered scores marked his shoulders and back like those of the lords. The stench of burnt flesh rose in a nauseating tide, driven by the wings of the demahnk ptarls. Their iridescent forms swooped and rose in flight around the anomaly as they wove complex patterns of potency.
It is not enough. The thought, not mine, flooded me. Mzatal’s assessment. Yet he continued to dance and call out orders, never wavering even as a droplet seared over his face and one eye.
Rhyzkahl gripped me close, shuddering against my back as the anomaly savaged his realm. “Awaken me. Awaken me!”
Perhaps he knew a way to help counter the anomaly, even in his diminished state? Or maybe he simply didn’t want to be helpless and asleep on the terrace in the midst of catastrophe. I gave a jerky nod and prepared to withdraw then froze as Mzatal spun and met my eyes, touched me. Through him, I saw what he saw—the ghostly vision of me on the terrace with Rhyzkahl at my back. My heart leaped as I reached for him and connected, gaining in an instant complete awareness of the situation.
A heavy tremor shook the realm and knocked me from my feet. Rhyzkahl sprawled beside me then struggled to rise while keeping his hand pressed to his mark. With single-minded determination, I kept my eyes on Mzatal even as he pulled his attention back to directing the lords and the shikvihr wheel. A craaack of stone accompanied the crumbling of a twenty-foot section of the balustrade, and I scrabbled back with Rhyzkahl. “No, I can’t wake you yet,” I shouted to Rhyzkahl over the din. “I need to stay!” I had no idea how I could help, but surely with Mzatal I could—
“GILLIAN!” The word ripped through the dreamscape, shredding it to leave me gasping for breath and devoid of the arcane in the chill of a smelly holding cell.
Chapter 32
Mouth dry and hands shaking, I blinked to focus on the guard who scowled at me from the door of the holding cell.
“Wake up, Sleeping Beauty,” he ordered. “You got yourself a visitor.”
“Yeah, I’m awake,” I said, wobbling as I stood. The jarring shift from hellacious destruction to industrial beige concrete and steel had me reeling, physically and mentally, and it took me several seconds to regain my equilibrium.
A clock high on a wall told me I’d slept less than an hour. The only person who I figured would visit me so soon was Pellini’s lawyer guy.
I was wrong. When the guard opened the door of the interview room and escorted me in, it was Boudreaux who occupied the chair on the other side of the table.
Oh, hell no. I planted my feet and shook my head. “I’m not speaking to anyone but my lawyer,” I told the guard, nicely but firmly.
The guard shrugged. “Makes no difference to me.” He took my arm to lead me back out.
Boudreaux stood. “Gillian,” he said. “Kara, wait.”
“Give me a break, Boudreaux.” I shot him a withering look. “I know how this works, and I know how good you are at interrogation. Sorry, not falling for it.”
“I’m not here to interrogate you about the case,” he insisted. Stress wound through his words, but I’d seen Boudreaux put on that act before.
“Nice try,” I said with a smirk. I had no intention of letting the “frazzled cop” information gathering tactic sway me.
“Give me two minutes,” he urged before I could move toward the door. “Please.”
I regarded him. His bloodshot eyes were shadowed with distress. That much wasn’t faked. “Fine,” I said. “Two minutes. For you to talk.”
Boudreaux sat again. I dropped into the chair across from him, remained silent while the guard unlocked the cuff on my left wrist and snapped it closed around a thick eye-bolt set into the table.
The guard left and locked the door behind him. Boudreaux fidgeted and rubbed the fingers of one hand together as if he wanted a cigarette in them. He glanced at me then away while his heel tapped a nervous staccato on the floor. I adopted my best bored expression, leaned back and resisted the urge to break the awkward silence—yet another effective interrogation technique. At this rate, the two minutes would be up before he said word one.
“She’s gone,” he finally said, voice low and strained. “My mom’s gone.”
Damn. Boudreaux could be sneaky and underhanded when it came to questioning, but I was sure he’d eat broken glass before using his mom as an interrogation trick. I chose my words with care before speakin
g. “Do you know where she went?”
He jammed a hand through his hair. “I don’t know,” he said, voice cracking. Uncertainty skimmed over his face. “No one knows. She just . . . vanished.” He shot to his feet, sending the chair skittering back several inches with a screech of metal on tile. “There was surveillance on the house,” he continued as he began to pace. “They saw her go inside last night, but she wasn’t there this morning. No one saw her leave, nothing shows on the videos, and her car is still in the driveway. They even checked for a tunnel!”
Anger roiled my stomach. Catherine McDunn pulled an amazing disappearing act—as if by magic!—and did so after she dropped the information that led us to the nature center ambush. Yet my anger fizzled after only a few seconds of consideration. Katashi had coerced McDunn, so why not Catherine as well? My gut told me she was with Katashi, either as his guest or his hostage—an insight I needed to keep to myself or risk opening a godawful can of worms. Boudreaux eyed me with the desperate expectation of a starving dog in a butcher shop. Regardless of his mother’s complicity in Katashi’s schemes, his distress was genuine. I couldn’t remain pissed in the face of it. Even so, I couldn’t drop my guard. The interview rooms had video and audio recording, and anything I did or said in here could potentially be used against me. “Why are you telling me all this?” I asked.
He spun to face me. “You talked to her yesterday. What did she say?”
“She told me she was filing for divorce,” I said. “She said that she hated McDunn for what he put her and you through, and that she couldn’t forgive him. Said that he’d called her wanting money, then again asking her to trust him.” Nothing the cops didn’t already know. “She told him she hated him and to not call her anymore.”
The nervous twitch in his fingers stilled. “You don’t believe it.”
“Sure I do,” I said. “I heard her say she hated him on the recording.”
“She cooperated with the police. I know my dad . . . stepdad,” he corrected with an unmistakable note of grief, “would never hurt her.” He rubbed his hands over his face as if trying to wipe away his unhappiness then sat heavily. “Where is she?”
“Everything isn’t always as it seems,” I said. Surely Boudreaux deserved a shred of comfort. It sucked to take a hit in a game he didn’t know he was playing. “She might have faked everything and gone willingly.”
Ice flooded my veins the instant the words left my mouth. Where had that come from? It hit too close to a truth I hadn’t intended to voice under surveillance or to Boudreaux, and with that one injudicious remark, I’d blundered into a minefield. The last thing I wanted was Boudreaux sniffing around the Katashi connection. My pulse galloped as I fought to keep my reaction hidden from the camera. Maybe Boudreaux wouldn’t use his mom as an interrogation tactic to solve Farouche’s murder, but he would do anything and everything in his power to find her. He wasn’t an ally, and I didn’t owe him any information or comfort. How had I forgotten that? “Your two minutes are up,” I said, throat dry.
The calm gaze he leveled on me felt as if it penetrated to my essence. “It’s my mom, Kara.” His voice slid through me, soft and persuasive. “What do you know?”
“I think she’s—” Shocked to my core, I clamped down hard on the rest of the sentence. Son of a bitch. I yanked my eyes up to the camera. “I refuse to say another word without my lawyer present.” Too little, too late. Though I hadn’t said much, it was way more than I’d intended.
Boudreaux placed his hands flat on the table. “Kara, please,” he said, voice a whisper of desperation. “Help me.”
I bit my tongue and shook my head, mentally recited the state capitols and avoided eye contact.
His shoulders slumped, and he blinked as if only now seeing me as a prisoner shackled to the table. “Sorry,” he muttered. “I shouldn’t have come here.”
The heavy clunk of the door’s lock saved us both from the minefield. The guard stepped in.
“Hey, Boudreaux,” he said, grimacing. “Her lawyer’s here and pissed that you’re talking to her. I told him she agreed, but you know how it is.”
“Yeah, I do.” He stood and came around the table. I braced myself for a parting shot, but he simply dropped his eyes to my shackled wrist, exhaled and left the room without a word.
Before the door fully closed behind Boudreaux it opened again. A forty-something black man wearing a green t-shirt, khaki shorts, and sandals strode in, plopped a binder on the table and dropped into the chair.
“Always so much fun when I visit a client and they’re talking to a detective,” he said, pairing the remark with a sour look.
“I was careful,” I said and tried not to squirm. Not careful enough.
“I’m sure you were,” he said in a tone that put the lie to his words. He began to pull papers out of his binder. “And I’ll be requesting a copy of the recording so I know what to brace for.” He glanced up and gave me a tight little smile. “Just in case, you understand.”
Great. A typical defense lawyer. In other words, a jerk. But a jerk I needed. “Yeah, I understand. Pellini called you?”
“That’s right.” He stuck a hand out. “Anatoly Gresh. Call me Tolya. You got any objection to me being your lawyer, say it now so I can get out of here in time to see if your arrest made the ten o’clock news.”
Suppressing a sigh, I gave his hand a perfunctory shake. “Call me Kara. And I’m cool with you as my lawyer.”
“Good, because I’ve been busting my ass, and I hate doing pointless work.” He pulled out a yellow legal pad already covered in scrawled handwriting. “I contacted the judge and filed a motion for an expedited hearing for preliminary examination along with a motion to reduce bond.” He tapped his pen against the pad. “And, I asked to have a subpoena issued for Detective O’Connor to appear at your bond hearing. The DA objected, but the judge overruled him.” Tolya smiled tightly at that.
“Why do you want O’Connor there?” I asked, perplexed. I’d never been to a bond hearing for one of my arrestees.
“It’s a chance to poke at his probable cause,” Tolya said. “It’s shaky, and that might help get you a lower bond.” His smile turned vulpine. “More importantly, it’s to our advantage to get him on the stand when he isn’t fully prepared—because anything he says is locked in as testimony.”
Comprehension dawned. “Which you can later use to highlight inconsistencies in his case.”
“Precisely,” he said. “I also explained to the judge that you’re a former law enforcement officer with a sterling record. I threw in that you’re the investigator who stopped the most infamous serial killer to ever terrorize this parish.” His eyes skimmed over the writing on the pad. “Not to mention you have family roots in this fine community that go back over a century. Lowers the chance that you’d be a flight risk.”
I kept my expression immobile. My exile was ready and waiting, and even though it was a last resort, fleeing to another world to live out the rest of my days would still be better than prison. If that other world didn’t succumb to yet another cataclysm.
“In addition, I pointed out the incredible danger to your person should you be put in the general population of this jail—with so many of the same upstanding citizens that you put here.” Tolya’s mouth twitched. “I heard about your little altercation with that woman in the holding cell. I confess, a part of me wishes you’d taken a punch,” he said. “That would have been a lovely bit of evidence to show the judge, but I completely understand your reluctance to get slugged. Then again, the fact that you actively avoided physical confrontation may work in our favor as well.” He leaned back and gave me an appraising look. “I must say, I do wish all my clients were as upstanding as you appear to be.”
“Looks can be deceiving,” I said. “But thanks. And I have to admit, I’m impressed with everything you’ve done.” He hadn’t exaggerated the busting ass part one bit.
Tolya nodded at the compliment. “Vince called me while you were still b
eing handcuffed and gave me the salient points. He knows what info I need and didn’t waste time bleating about innocence or guilt. Doesn’t matter at this stage of the game anyway.” He flipped to the second page of his pad. “That said, I think I have a good shot at getting your bond lowered. I figured you’d appreciate that since the bond for principal to murder usually runs somewhere around a quarter mil.”
I blanched. I’d known the bond would be high, but hearing an actual figure made it horribly real. My house and property were probably worth that much, but the idea of putting it up as security—and risk losing it—left me queasy. If I used a bail bondsman I’d only have to put up twelve percent, but that was money I’d never get back. Thirty grand, gone. Not that I had thirty grand in the first place. “I’d like a lower bond very much,” I said, nice and calm.
Tolya wasn’t fooled. “Don’t be scared. The majority of their evidence is circumstantial, and I know what I’m doing.”
Right. What about terrified? “Who’s the judge, and what did he say?”
He gave a dry smile. “Judge Laurent. He knows you. He likes you. That doesn’t mean a damn thing, which of course you know. And your hearing is at eight a.m.” He straightened then stuffed the pad and his papers back into the binder. “Don’t worry about tomorrow. I’ll be doing all the talking.”
It was tough not to be buoyed by his attitude, especially since it didn’t carry the usual taint of bullshit most lawyers spewed when they opened their mouths. “When do we talk about your fee and pesky crap like that?” I asked.
Tolya stood, tucked his binder under one arm. “Pellini called in a favor.” He moved to the door buzzer and pressed his thumb against it. “Now you owe him one.” The guard opened the door. “See you in the morning, Kara. Get some sleep if you can.” With that he strode off, sandals squeaking against the tile.
I owed Pellini a favor. And I wasn’t running screaming at the thought. How weird was that?
Vengeance of the Demon: Demon Novels, Book Seven (Kara Gillian 7) Page 30