Demon's Quest (High Demon Series #4)

by Connie Suttle

  "Including Wyatt."

  "Including Wyatt. I'll miss him, Great-Grandfather. He was a good friend, as well as my uncle. Your tea's here." Ry took the cup from the kitchen helper and passed it to his grandfather. "Dad should be back soon. Send mindspeech to him if you need anything else."

  "Reah healed the core?"

  "Yes. I watched, as did three Larentii. I think they would have said something if she didn't get the job done right."

  "That wasn't what I meant."

  "Then what did you mean, Great-Grandfather? I asked her to come and she came. She's pregnant with Tory's twins, and that might be wonderful, except Tory became angry for some reason and married the first woman who came along. He doesn't care anything about Darletta, but he's stuck with her now. Reah says she's done with Tory. She's walking away and Kifirin threatened to remove his claiming marks. Now, who would take an already tenuous situation and push it past the breaking point? Tory's my brother, and Reah is my sister. She belonged to both my brothers, until a few days ago. I'm renouncing my Karathian citizenship, Great-Grandfather, in front of the ultimate witness." Rylend folded away.

  * * *

  "Erland, I'm not about to tell our son that he made the wrong decision." Lissa accepted a fruit drink from Ilvan, who loved working in the palace kitchen with Radolf.

  "Wylend is about to have a breakdown," Erland snapped. "He loses Wyatt and then our son renounces his citizenship? What would you do?"

  "I don't know," Lissa shrugged. "Maybe think I fucked up somewhere? At least I did talk our child out of jumping into a six-year, full-time sign-up with the ASD."

  "He what?" Erland was about to get furious.

  "I said I talked him out of it. I told him that wouldn't be any different from Tory running out and marrying Darletta. He said that he saw my point and went off to visit Gavril on Campiaa. Erland, we have family dinners and gatherings to look forward to with Darletta. Are you happy about that?"

  "Of course I'm not happy about that," Erland huffed angrily. "But Ry could have waited until Wylend was past the mourning period."

  "I'm not disagreeing with the action, but he could have waited a few days," Lissa agreed reluctantly. "Wylend should have waited, too, don't you think? Before going straight to Tory with only a half-truth, knowing it would likely set him off."

  "Lissa, he's under a lot of pressure," Erland took Lissa's arm and led her out of the kitchen. "He was faced with joining either the Reth or Campiaan Alliance or doing business with the pirates and cutthroats of Giffel, Deandrus or their newly-acquired world of Lidrith. You know what would happen if we didn't join one or the other—warlocks and witches hired out to pirates and assassins, just to keep the trade flowing. Wylend has held strong through thousands of years, and now he's being forced to change. He imagined a slight, that's true, but he's worried that Karathia will be viewed as only one among many, and not nearly as important as it once was."

  "Then why hasn't he spoken to Gavril about this? Gavril sees Karathia as the cornerstone of the Campiaan Alliance," Lissa said.

  "Wylend sees Gavril as a young great-grandchild, who doesn't have near the experience that he does at ruling," Erland sighed.

  "Do you think Gavril doesn't have enough sense to ask if he finds himself in a difficult situation?"

  "Gavril may be one of the most intelligent people I've ever met," Erland admitted.

  "And Wylend doesn't see that?"

  "Wylend is afraid to admit it," Erland said.

  "Erland, there's something else Wylend doesn't see." Lissa said.

  "And that is?"

  "That Reah was correct—Rylend would have been the King Karathia deserved."

  * * *

  "Reah, we got another hit on our warlock and his Ra'Ak." Lendill slid his comp-vid over so I could take a look. Lok was there with Farzi and Nenzi—Teeg had gone home with Astralan and Stellan. He had work to do.

  "Hon, I think it's the crazy Ra'Ak and their slave warlock now. I don't think Zellar ever thought he'd find himself in this position." I set plates of food on the island. Lok watched me, his eyes never missing anything, although he didn't speak.

  "Norian and I think you're right—I can't imagine that he ever thought he might be in charge of those monsters." Lendill bit into his breakfast roll. I scrolled through Lendill's information—three young men had disappeared on Horxx. What was a bit unusual was the oldest one had been twenty.

  "Do you think he's going for older bodies, attempting to get himself out of this mess?" I asked.

  "It's a possibility," Lendill nodded. "If he caught the Ra'Ak not looking, did a quick shift and then released or folded the prisoners away, they'd be scrambling after all of them, not realizing that the one left behind at the hideout wasn't him."

  "And he could slip away if there were enough to go after," I saw where Lendill was going with this. "Do you think we ought to watch for a greater number of disappearances?"

  "Yes." Lendill turned to his food before it got cold.

  I didn't say what else I was thinking—that even if we did find more missing young men than normal, we still wouldn't have the warlock's location, and if his plan succeeded, then we'd have two targets to hunt instead of one. "Has your father ever gone hunting Ra'Ak—or a warlock before?" I asked Lendill, tearing a chunk off my roll and stuffing it in my mouth.

  "He might be able to track a warlock if he had something that belonged to him; something that he wore or something—That's how my father found you," Lendill ducked his head, smiling guiltily.

  "But we've never found anything of his." Lok pointed out. He'd been doing his research. He was right, up to a point.

  "Lendill, does your father freak or gag easily?" I asked.

  "My father could be a Larentii if he were taller and blue," Lendill snorted.

  "I'll take that as a no," I said. "Do we know what they did with those bodies on Bardelus?" I asked. "I mean, Zellar lived in those bodies—at least for a few days. Can your father work with that?"

  * * *

  Kaldill Schaff walked around the body lying on the frigid, steel table. At least the corpse was cold and didn't smell so terribly bad at the moment. Lendill watched his father carefully—Norian stood beside Lendill, staring in a fascinated manner—Norian had never seen an Elf work. Kaldill murmured words that Norian failed to understand; he assumed that they were in the Elvish tongue that Lendill used occasionally, mostly to curse.

  "I have the signature," Kaldill sighed, looking at both Lendill and Norian. "It may take a day or two, at the least, but I will track him after that."

  "Good. We'll have people ready to go as soon as we get a lock on this. Lissa will come, as will Garde, Reah, Denevik and Gavril. Lendill and I will come as well," Norian nodded his thanks to Kaldill Schaff.

  "I do this for my child and his mate," Kaldill nodded at Lendill. "Someday, perhaps my son will know of his worth to his race."

  "Thank you, father," Lendill breathed a respectful sigh to his one remaining parent.

  "I will send the information the moment I have it." Kaldill Schaff disappeared.

  "This will work? How reliable is this?" Norian turned to his oldest friend.

  "You can bet everything you have on it," Lendill replied.

  * * *

  "Have you heard from Tory?" Gavin dropped his shirt on the bed. He'd always dressed well as a vampire—Aurelius had instilled in him the necessity of looking his best at all times. The only times he'd dressed otherwise in the past were when he'd been undercover for the Council and different dress was required.

  "No, honey. And Gavril and Ry are pissed. They can't even get an answer from him. I don't understand this." Lissa rubbed her forehead.

  "I fail to understand it as well. Reah will bear his children. He will not get any with that woman."

  "Gavin, I don't think she's mature enough to be called a woman. Did you hear her chatter? I have no interest in who her neighbors are, or that their son drinks too much."

  "I wanted to place anoth
er compulsion not to speak," Gavin grumbled in complete agreement.

  "Garde told him under no circumstances could he reveal the Thifilathi to her—it's just too dangerous. I can see Darletta announcing that to the entire Alliance. Jayd will have a cow if that happens." Lissa removed her earrings and set them on her dressing table.

  "Jayd is right to hide what Kifirin truly is. Just as Ildevar Wyyld hides his otherness from the Alliance. Some things are better kept hidden." Gavin sat on the edge of the bed and removed his pants.

  "Yes. Things might stay safer, that way."

  * * *

  "Little mate, Larentii can provide energy sex, along with more traditional methods," Nefrigar smiled down at me. "The Wise Ones say that a High Demon will be able to handle energy sex until the final two months before the birth."

  "Really?" I was learning many things from my Larentii.

  "Really." His smile widened. "And as we will have energy sex this first time, I am inviting your two lion snake mates to experience it with us."

  "Huh?" Now I was confused. Farzi and Nenzi sidled into the room—Nefrigar had taken me to Beliphar for what I thought to be coupling. Farzi and Nenzi were now with us.

  "Nefrigar say we have what we never have before, with him and our Reah." Nenzi looked so hopeful. I knew then just how much I loved both him and Farzi. The other six I thought of as my brothers, but Farzi and Nenzi were more than that. I swallowed and nodded at both my lion snakes. Nefrigar made sure we were all comfortable on the bed and then surrounded us with power. I didn't have to do anything, Nefrigar guided me through the entire thing, pulling energy from himself and then from me, allowing it to mix before slamming it back into both of us. The result was a mind-bending climax that rocked the floor beneath the bed, the backwash hitting Farzi and Nenzi, who experienced the first-ever sexual encounter they'd had in their lives. When I woke from the brief faint after the pleasure, it was to find a smiling Nefrigar, watching while two eager reptanoids stared at him and me, fully expecting us to repeat the performance.

  * * *

  "I informed Amara that I will not consider this while she is still upset and in mourning." Belen stared at Griffin. Amara had come to him only the day before, asking to be released from her long life. Belen wisely had refused, recognizing the pain behind the request.

  "Tell me she will come back to me." Griffin was begging the nameless one for hope. The moment Wyatt died, Griffin could no longer see into his own or Amara's future.

  "I will not peer into that future for you, Oracle. Had you or your father listened through the years, you would have experienced a different outcome. Wyatt was meant to be a healer. Would have been invited to join the Saa Thalarr quickly, had things turned out otherwise. Kifirin gave a gift of prophecy to Reah, his child. Yet you and your father chose to punish her after her final gift to you. Wyatt tried to heal the Ra'Ak there at the end—the creature was asking for help. But true to his brutal race, the Ra'Ak turned when Wyatt lowered his shield, poisoning your child."

  "I hope you didn't tell Amara that when she came to you." Griffin wiped tears away.

  "I did not; she is suffering enough as it is. If she comes to me again in a turn, and asks for death again, I will not deny it."

  "Please, no," Griffin moaned.

  * * *

  "Bro, you can do more for me than you think." Gavril sat at his desk, looking at Rylend. "Everything you touch turns to gold, and everybody you meet ends up eating from your hand, one way or the other. You can be Prime Minister or Ambassador, your choice. Neither Dee nor I have much patience with some of our members. You can smooth the way for the Campiaan Alliance."

  "And it will pay very well," Dee added. He was standing beside Gavril's desk.

  "Will I stay here or elsewhere?" Ry asked, his dark eyes going from his brother to Dormas, Gavril's assistant.

  "Ry, stay wherever you like. If you don't like it here, we'll build something just for you. Dee and I have plenty of experience in that."

  "Yeah. I'll find some plans and see if you can put something together for me on top of one of these mountains." Ry sighed softly.

  "You didn't have to renounce your citizenship."

  "Yes I did. I had something to say about the laws of Karathia, and that was the best way I knew to say it. Banishing somebody because of words spoken in private? That's ludicrous and you know it."

  "I can't hear Reah's thoughts anymore; Nefrigar has blocked them to all except the Larentii. Did you know that?" Gavril didn't sound happy.

  "Nobody ever taught her how to shield before, and that's probably our fault. Tory should have shown her how, at the very least, but he just let things go on, and when he upset her when she was pregnant the first time, well, that all came out, didn't it? He knew better. And I'm inclined to agree with Reah a little—he wasn't ready to be a father. Now, with Darletta fucking everything up, he still may not be good father material."

  "I hope that's not the case."

  "We will see that Reah's children are cared for." Gavril blinked at Dee's words.

  * * *

  "Darlie, this is going to be the best thing that ever happened to us," Dantel Schuul offered Darletta a drink inside his private office. Darletta's new husband was moping out by the overly large pool at the back of Dantel's obscenely huge estate. "His mother is the Queen of Le-Ath Veronis, His father is Prime Minister on Kifirin, his great-grandfather is King of Karathia and if my sources are correct, his brother is the founding member of the Campiaan Alliance. Nobody could ask for better connections than that. We'll get everything we can before we start putting the pressure on." Dantel gloated while his daughter smiled and sipped her drink.

  * * *

  "My father says he's gotten a lock twice, but they moved again before he could even send mindspeech," Lendill paced in front of me. We were sitting in Aurelius' spacious home on the light half of Le-Ath Veronis. Lendill had spent the night with me. He was treating me so carefully since he'd learned I was pregnant. In the two weeks since Wyatt's funeral, I hadn't heard one word from Tory. Neither had his parents. He'd made a choice, and it was to ignore his daughters and his family.

  "Not surprising, since Willem said that one of the Ra'Ak could read the Winds." I'd done some research on what Willem could do, in the form of asking Lissa for information, along with Cheedas, the former cook-turned-vampire. Both knew a lot.

  "So, that one is predicting our moves." Lendill raked fingers through his hair in a frustrated gesture.

  "It only makes sense—they've been ahead of us by a step or two, right down the line. I was hoping that their illness would have affected this somehow, but something is keeping them in line." I was as frustrated as Lendill was over this. At least they were taking males now—Zellar's way of covering his bets, I think. Sex was no longer the objective—getting away from his captors was.

  "Yeah, ever since that one attacked your bus on Tulgalan, they've reined in the insanity."

  "Wait a minute," I said. "Nefrigar!" I shouted.

  "My love?" He was there in an instant.

  "You picked up a piece of that Ra'Ak, didn't you—the one I killed on Tulgalan?"

  "This piece?" He held the chunk out to me. It was bigger than my fist.

  "May I borrow this?" I asked.

  "You may have it, I have three more." He was smiling widely at me.

  "Lendill, can your dad zone in on this sort of abnormality?" I handed the chunk over. "There's only four more now with this sort of illness, and they should all be together."

  "Might be possible—would you like to see where my father lives?" Lendill was smiling too. That's how Lendill, Nefrigar and I all ended up in the Elven Kingdom, somewhere a High Demon had never been before.

  "This is fascinating," Kaldill Schaff took the chunk of Ra'Ak dust from Lendill. "I'm not sure I've ever held such as this." We'd been transported to the hidden Elven lands on Wyyld, and stood inside Kaldill's beautiful, private study.

  "You may keep it, Elf King," Nefrigar smiled as Kaldill
handled the chunk of Ra'Ak dust. "Reah may have one of the other pieces if she wants."

  "I don't need it, Honey Blue," I smiled up at him.

  "You know, I think I can place a tracer on this," Kaldill grinned. "It was difficult with the other, since he changes bodies so often. I had to rework the spell every three days, using the essence signature. I won't have to do that with this malady, it will give off a vibration peculiar to the sufferers."

  "How long?" Lendill was almost breathless in anticipation.

  "Two—three days. After that, I can track them even if they're folding from one spot to another."

  * * *

  "I know where Zellar will strike next." Willem had come to Lissa. "The Ra'Ak don't go with him when he gathers his victims, but he knows they'll track him if he doesn't return quickly. Lendill is correct in that he's trying to gather several and then use what power he has left to scatter them, after placing something of himself with each one. What we have to do is give him a surprise when he lands in the next spot, so he'll run back to the Ra'Ak for protection. Then, Reah and the others can be waiting."

  "But I thought you weren't allowed to say things like that." Lissa blinked at Willem in surprise.

  "Kaldill knows my talents. He gave permission." Willem was smiling. "Be ready tomorrow afternoon, around second bell. I will take you where you need to be."

  "You got it," Lissa nodded.

  * * *

  "Is everybody ready?" I looked up at Norian—he was running the command center himself while the rest of us geared up for battle. Drake, Drew and Dragon were coming with us and Teeg stood at my side, a Ranos rifle slung over his shoulder as if he were used to it. My rifle was in my hand and I was checking the charge.

  Gardevik had come, with Em-pah Denevik and two other High Demon males. Rylend was also there, and he gave me a heart-stopping smile from across the room. Farzi and Nenzi hadn't been willing to stay behind—they were coming as lion snakes. Lendill had asked them to bite anything that still appeared human and they'd readily agreed. Astralan and his brothers had offered to come, but Teeg asked them to stay behind with Dee, in case something happened. Dee would carry on with the newly-formed Alliance if anything happened to Teeg. I was determined that nothing would happen.