A chill ran over my skin. The waitress had gone from hysterical to calm in the span of a heartbeat, seeming to forget everything that had happened. My stomach churned unpleasantly, and I wasn’t sure if it was from the poor meal or from what I’d witnessed. Was it something Ryan was conscious of or just some sort of effect that surrounded him? And has it ever been used on me?
There was no way I was going to return to the office. If anyone asked me, I’d plead some sort of work in the field. Boudreaux and Pellini get away with it all the time, right? Besides, it was Friday. Most of the rank would be gone anyway.
A shiver ran through me. Boudreaux and Pellini. Ryan had done something at the funeral to make them stop being dicks. I didn’t even have to wonder about that. There was no way that their change of heart had occurred naturally.
So had he ever done something like that to me?
I drove to my aunt’s house, passing through the wards and parking in the garage. It was a tight squeeze, but I didn’t want to advertise the fact that I was skipping out on work. After I shut the engine off and punched the button on the remote to close the garage door, I stayed in the car and leaned my forehead on the steering wheel, listening to the muted creak of the cooling engine.
My mood swung wildly between confusion and terror. I wanted badly to give Ryan the benefit of the doubt, but it wasn’t easy. The incident at the restaurant suddenly threw a dozen other things into a new and disturbing light. He’d obviously done something at the funeral. And Kehlirik had called him a kiraknikahl. Too bad I had no fucking idea what that was, but I had to wonder if it had something to do with this ability of his to make people forget things.
And Rhyzkahl said that Ryan wasn’t completely aware of himself. If Ryan can fuck with people’s memories as he is now, what would he be capable of if he knew what he was doing?
I finally got out of the car and went into the silent house, thoughts still tumbling. I had no idea which of us the dog-thing had been after. Maybe it was connected to the consumed essences. Or perhaps it had something to do with Rhyzkahl’s interest in me. Or maybe it was unrelated to any of that.
I took a deep breath. Enough thinking about what had happened; I had plenty else to worry about. I fingered the folded piece of paper in my pocket with my list of questions. There was still plenty more I needed to know.
Like what the fuck happened today?
I gave myself a mental smackdown. Forget that for now. First I wanted to focus on finding anything to do with creatures that could consume essence. I needed to figure out what I was up against, then work out how to stop it. And after that, I wanted to find out as much as I could about summoners allying with demons. The Symbol Man had formed some sort of alliance with a reyza, but I had the feeling that had been more of an arrangement where the reyza was able to stay longer or did not require negotiations for each summoning—perhaps something like the adjustment of the anchor points that Kehlirik had shown me how to do.
But Rhyzkahl was asking for something else entirely. He wanted me to basically guarantee that I would summon him on a regular basis, with the payoff being that I wouldn’t have to risk being slaughtered. Yeah, nice bonus.
I couldn’t deny that having access to his knowledge and abilities was extraordinarily tempting, but having Rhyzkahl around was by no means the same as having a reyza on the string. Rhyzkahl wanted everything I could give him and more. And I wasn’t sure just how much I’d be able to control him.
Okay, not at all was probably the answer to that. Plus, what would I be risking—to both myself and this sphere—by granting him increased access?
I walked down the hall to Tessa’s library, reminding myself that I needed to put some of the library wards back—something that would hopefully suffice until the full moon, when I could summon a demon to do it properly. But first I was going to try to find what I needed, and that wasn’t going to be easy. Tessa’s library was a nightmare of disorganization—at least to me. Shelves covered every inch of the walls, even above the door, and every one was crammed full of books, papers, scrolls, and other odds and ends that defied description. The floor was a maelstrom of tumbled books, and the large oak table in the center of the room was stacked so high that the books were nearly touching the large chandelier that hung in the middle of the room—a crystal monstrosity that looked like it should be in a ballroom.
I sighed. I had no idea how Kehlirik had managed to maneuver in here at all. I set my notebook down on top of a pile of papers on the table and pulled a book off a shelf at random, praying that there was some sort of system to my aunt’s madness.
I woke up with a cramp in my neck and a dry mouth. Blinking to get my bearings, I realized that I’d fallen asleep in one of the chairs, and a glance at my watch showed me that it was five a.m. It was a tribute to my level of exhaustion that I’d passed out so thoroughly. I’d probably managed about four hours of reading and research before falling asleep, and in that time I’d barely scratched the surface of the books and papers in the room, coming to the conclusion that there was no discernible system whatsoever in this library.
After a quick shower and clothing change from the stash I had here, I dug my MP3 player out of my car, stuffed the buds into my ears, then jammed to the Dixie Chicks and Faith Hill while I puttered around the kitchen in a nearly fruitless attempt to locate food. I finally found and consumed some granola bars of indeterminate age, then felt ready to return to the library to make an assessment of what progress I’d made.
Not much was the best answer. I’d set aside a few books for later reading, but I hadn’t found anything that came right out and told me what I wanted to know. Kind of like Aunt Tessa, I thought with a glower.
I couldn’t call it wasted time, though. I’d always loved libraries, and while Tessa’s collection was quite specialized, I still adored sitting on the floor and poring through the musty books and leather-clad tomes. When I was a kid, my parents had owned an old set of encyclopedias—the printed kind with a different volume for each letter of the alphabet. I would spend hours curled up on the couch leafing through the pages, not looking up anything in particular but just absorbing what there was to know. I hadn’t seen printed encyclopedias in years. Such things now came in complete sets on CD. But I always told myself that if I ever had kids, I’d find a set of the printed volumes, because you couldn’t leaf through on a CD in the same way.
I felt the same in Tessa’s library, reading through random volumes and finding all sorts of fascinating nuggets of information. It was almost painful to have to close a book once I knew that it didn’t have the information I needed, and I found myself making a personal promise to come back and browse when I didn’t have such an urgent agenda.
Unfortunately, several more hours of browsing failed to turn up anything concrete, and I’d churned through Reba McEntire, Taylor Swift, Kellie Pickler, and Carrie Underwood on my MP3 player. I found plenty on essences and souls but nothing specific on how to remove or restore an essence. And since there was no rhyme or reason that I could discern to Tessa’s library cataloging system—if there was one at all—I was basically looking for everything on my list in every book I opened. It wasn’t exactly an efficient system. I couldn’t find anything on what could suck out an essence, no more than a stray sentence or two about the relationship between summoner and demon, and nothing at all on what a kiraknikahl was.
I heard an odd sound in the space between songs, and I pulled the earbuds off to locate the source of it, discovering to my chagrin that it was my cell phone, vibrating and ringing on the oak table. I turned the player off, an unfamiliar frisson of nervousness tightening my chest when I saw Ryan’s number on the caller ID. I hesitated, a tiny part of me wanting to let it roll to voice mail. Don’t be an idiot, I berated myself as I pressed the talk button. He wouldn’t hurt me. No matter what else I was unsure of, I felt certain of that.
“Hi, Ryan,” I said in as neutral a tone as I could manage. Pretend nothing happened. Everything is normal. Denia
l is so lovely.
“Kara, would you please unlock the door and let me in?” He sounded aggrieved. “I’ve been knocking.”
“Sorry. I had my tunes on loud. I’ll be right there.” I closed my phone and stood up, brushing dust off my pants, then froze, looking down at a book that was open on the floor. I didn’t remember getting the book off the shelf, and I glanced up, wondering whether it had fallen. It was certainly possible, considering the haphazard way that Tessa had the books stuffed onto the shelves, but what were the chances that a random book would fall in front of me and open to that page?
A wave of goose bumps crawled over my skin as I crouched and picked up the book. For there on the page was a full treatise on summoners forming alliances with demons. I cradled the volume almost tenderly as I quickly scanned the page. It didn’t specifically mention alliances with demonic lords, but it sure seemed to be referring to the same sort of thing. Ryan would shit if he caught sight of this.
Ryan! I marked my place in the book and shoved it into my bag, then hurried to the door. I yanked it open to see Ryan standing on the walk, the troubled expression on his face clearing when he saw me.
“Sorry,” I said. “I suddenly found something I was looking for and didn’t want to lose my place. Come on in.”
The tension on his face faded as he came up the steps, and I realized that he’d probably been apprehensive that I wouldn’t speak to him again after what had happened at the restaurant. “What were you looking for?”
“Oh, I have a laundry list,” I said, evading the question. “But going through Tessa’s library is an adventure in disorganization. How did you know I was here?”
“You weren’t at your house or at the station, so I figured you’d be here.”
My car was in the garage, but he’d known I was here. When he called he hadn’t asked where I was; he said that he’d been knocking. He would never hurt me, I reminded myself, somewhat surprised at how certain I was of this. I turned and headed down the hall, hoping I wasn’t being hopelessly naïve. Just because I felt safe with him didn’t mean it was actually safe to be with him—either physically or emotionally.
“I’m finally able to get into her library,” I said over my shoulder, “so I figured I’d do as much research as I could.”
An awkward silence settled around us as I gathered my stuff up. It seemed like both of us wanted to pretend that the weirdness of yesterday hadn’t happened, which was fine with me, but now it felt like we were in a strange conversational limbo.
I cleared my throat, seeking to fill the void with any noise. “I never thanked you for coming to the funeral with me the other day. I’m … not sure I could have handled it alone.”
He shook his head, looking briefly haggard. “You’re stronger than you give yourself credit for.”
I shrugged, picking up the stack of books that I wanted to read more carefully. “So what are you up to now?” I wanted to ask him why he was here, why he’d wanted to track me down so badly, but I was a bit afraid of the answer. Or, rather, I wasn’t sure I was ready for the answer. Chickenshit.
“Oh, well …” I could see him hurriedly thinking of a response. “I was thinking of raising my cholesterol level at Lake o’ Lard and was wondering if you wanted to get something too. Part of my Kara-needs-to-eat plan.” He flashed a grin, but I could sense the faint edge to it.
I gave him the smile he was expecting. “Can we have a devil-dog-free meal this time?”
He laughed. “What, you didn’t like the entertainment?”
I suddenly didn’t want to play games anymore. I met his eyes. “Are you going to tell me why that thing attacked us?”
His smile faded. “I can’t … truly can’t.”
“Can’t or won’t?” I challenged.
“Can’t. I promise! I honestly don’t know.”
I exhaled and nodded, but a knock out front stopped me from asking my next question, which would have been something on the order of How the fuck are you able to change memories?
“Hi, guys!” Jill’s perky voice chirped from the porch. Ryan stepped out into the hallway with me following, as Jill walked in through the open front door. “There’s a party and no one invited me?”
Ryan gave her a grin. “My God, what were we thinking?”
“Ryan thinks I’m too skinny,” I told her. “We’re going to forage for food. Wanna come?”
Her eyes flashed mischievously. “I don’t want to intrude on y’all’s date.”
“It’s not a date,” we both said simultaneously, then turned to scowl at each other. I looked hastily away, absurdly put out that he’d been so quick to deny the possibility that lunch with me could be considered a date. It was beside the point that I’d leaped to deny it as well.
Jill let out a snort. “Oooookay, I can see that now. Sure, I’m up for food.”
I set my stack of books down on the porch and dug in my pocket for the key, oddly conflicted that Jill would be joining us. There was still a strange tension between Ryan and me, and I couldn’t decide if having Jill there would get us past what had happened in the past couple of days or if I would continue to react like a jealous third-grader every time Ryan looked her way. How about if I stop being an insecure idiot? If he decides he likes her more than he likes me, then … more power to them. They’re both my friends. I can be a grown-up about this.
I just wished my stomach didn’t hurt at the thought.
I pulled the front door closed, then jumped at the sudden loud bang from inside the house. I slowly opened the door again. “That came from the library,” I said. I started to say that it was probably another book falling off a shelf, but an odd ripple of the arcane brushed me, sending a wave of goose bumps crawling along the back of my neck and reminding me unpleasantly of the encounter in the restaurant. I glanced back at Ryan, not surprised to see his gun in his hand. “You felt that?” I asked.
He nodded, brows lowered and gaze on the hallway. I looked back at Jill, with the intent to tell her to stay on the porch, but was shocked to see that she had her gun in her hand too and an utterly calm expression on her face.
“You felt it?”
She gave a small shake of her head. “No,” she whispered. “But I got your back anyway.”
I couldn’t help but grin, even as another bang sounded, this time accompanied by a harsh clatter and the sound of several objects striking the floor. I gave myself a mental smack. My gun was in my car, in the garage. I hadn’t expected to need it inside Tessa’s house. And the only way into the garage was either through the house—down the hallway that ran past the library—or with the garage-door opener. Which was in the car.
I scanned the hallway in search of anything that could be used as a weapon, but the only possible candidate was a flowered umbrella in the corner by the door. No way. But maybe I did have a weapon. I had the ability to shape arcane energy, right? And I’d once seen Rhyzkahl use potency as a weapon. Of course, that was in a dream, but dreams of Rhyzkahl had strong ties to reality. It was at least worth a try.
I took a deep breath and focused on pulling potency to me, concentrating, visualizing it flowing into my control. I cupped my hands before me, sensing scattered energies slowly coalescing, becoming visible as a quivering blue glow in my othersight.
Holy shit. I was doing it. I was controlling arcane power. I felt a triumphant laugh bubbling up.
Then the arcane glow sputtered out. I frowned at my cupped hands, my triumphant laugh dying out as thoroughly as the power.
“Um, Kara?” Ryan said. “What was that?”
Feeling like an idiot, I sighed and dropped my hands, then stepped over to the corner and hoisted the umbrella. “Let’s just say that I’m not going to be flinging arcane fireballs at anyone.”
I could see the deep amusement in his eyes, but thankfully he didn’t laugh outright. Good thing too, because I had an umbrella covered in giant pink flowers in my hand, and I wasn’t afraid to use it.
“You two are seriously w
eird,” Jill murmured.
“And yet you choose to hang out with us,” I countered, starting down the hall, holding the stupid umbrella like a sword. Ryan fell in beside me, covering the area with the mundane protection of his gun, while Jill hung back and covered our collective rears.
I cautiously peeked around the door to the library in time to catch a movement that was almost too fast to follow with human vision. Something small and rat-size zinged across the room from one shelf to behind a book on the opposite shelf. In fact, I probably would have suspected that it was a bird or squirrel, except for the fact that I could clearly see—even without shifting into othersight—a trail like arcane dust in the thing’s wake.
“I don’t think your gun’s going to be much good,” I said softly as I stepped inside the library, trying to track where the creature had gone.
“Yes, your umbrella will protect us all,” Ryan replied tartly, not holstering his gun. “What the hell is it? All I saw was a streak of light.”
“Dunno.” Maybe the umbrella would be more useful opened? Then I could use it as a shield. A very thin, wobbly shield. “I don’t know if it’s dangerous either, but it’s definitely something arcane.”
The thing came whizzing out from behind the book, straight at me. I yelped and swiped at it with the umbrella, missing it thoroughly and feeling like I was back in fifth grade softball. I’d sucked at sports back then, and I hadn’t improved in the intervening years. I got a better look at it this time, though, and caught a flash of teeth and wings in a tiny humanoid form. Like Tinker Bell on crack. But Tinker Bell never had such sharp teeth and sure as shit didn’t have a stinger coming out of her ass.
I heard the whiz of wings again and jammed the button on the handle of the umbrella, snapping it open just in time for the creature to glance off. It wobbled away, letting out a thin shriek that was high enough to be barely audible.
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