Fury of the Demon (Kara Gillian)

by Rowland, Diana

  “Shit.” I sighed. “No, they’re newborns. Better not to move them.” I scowled at the cat. “She knew that too, the little bitch.”

  “Actually the proper term for a female cat is a queen, not a bitch . . .” He trailed off at the look on my face. “And you don’t care about that.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, you still should crash in the guest room—”

  Eilahn burst in and shouldered her way past us, cutting him off. “Fuzzykins! You good girl!”

  “Yeah, what a good girl,” I muttered. “More creatures in the house who hate me.” A weird and miserable pang went through me at the thought. It bugged the hell out of me that this cat—all cats—despised me simply because I was a summoner. The unfairness of it gnawed at me, though I knew my current exhaustion exacerbated my reaction.

  Eilahn continued to coo and ah over the kittens, clearly oblivious to the fact that she sported a black eye and ripped, bloodstained clothing. “Oh, you wonderful girl!” she gushed to Fuzzykins. “There is Bumper and Squig and Granger and Fillion and Dire and Cake!”

  Bryce touched my arm and gave me a reassuring smile. I realized he’d likely picked up on my mood. “Maybe in a couple of days,” he said softly, “after they’ve settled in, and you’ve had some rest, you could see what would happen if you got to know one early on. From the beginning.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “I don’t know. All cats hate me.” I rubbed my gritty eyes. “I’m going to go crash on the couch or something.”

  “Kara, use the guest room,” he insisted. “You need some quiet.”

  I watched Eilahn fuss over the kittens, unsettled by the weird feeling that I’d lost her, too. I knew it wasn’t true at all, but right now everything felt off. Why hadn’t I even tried to call her? “Yeah, okay.” I turned and left my bedroom, walked down the hall, and into the guest room. Then stood in the middle of the floor and looked around, confused. I’d thought I was home, but no. Guest rooms were for guests. That made sense. I shook my head at my lapse.

  I heard Bryce curse and pivoted to look questioningly at him. He stood in the hallway outside the door with his phone to his ear. His critical gaze raked through me as though finding me lacking, and it left me unsettled, shaken.

  An overwhelming sense that I’d forgotten something vital slithered through me, something barely beyond my reach. My mind scrambled to figure out what was missing, and the sensation increased, as if once again I stood on a tilting plain of smooth glass with nothing to hang on to. “Bryce?” I choked out, struggled to dig in, grab on to anything. This was wrong. Une. Due . . . Due . . .

  Or maybe I was just tired? Tired and imagining things. Yes, that was it. Simply tired. I looked over at the inviting bed. Everything would be better once I slept. I’d feel like a new person.

  “Kristoff? Thatcher here,” Bryce said tersely into his phone, eyes never leaving me. “How far away are you? Kara’s slipping. I’ve never seen it this bad.”

  Who was he talking about? Should I be worried about her? I wondered distantly.

  He shoved his phone into his pocket, moved in and gripped me by my shoulders. “Kara!” he shouted at me and gave me a sharp shake. “Your name is Kara!”

  I sucked in a breath, surfaced. Kara? A flare of sick dread gave me something to hang on to, though it too threatened to melt away. “R-right. Kara.” I reached up to cling to his upper arms, looked into his face, my eyes wide in panicked desperation. “Bryce, this is bad. Don’t let me go. Please.”

  “I have you,” he said with fierce reassurance, and comprehension suddenly bloomed on his face. “That’s why Mzatal left me behind,” he murmured to himself, so low I barely caught it. He shook himself and returned his entire focus to me. “Kara. Mzatal is going to take care of Paul, and I’m going to take care of you. Kara.” He shifted to grip me by the upper arm, then led me out and toward the living room.

  I didn’t resist. “Yes . . . yes. He’ll take care of Paul. And I’m Kara.” That was right. Wasn’t it? I felt my eyes squinch in doubt, looked up at him as we walked. “You’re sure?”

  “I’m damn sure,” he told me. “Rhyzkahl did this to you. You’re Kara Gillian. Summoner. You have Mzatal who loves you. You have good friends: Zack, Jill, and Ryan who’ll be here in less than a minute. You’re Kara.” He sat me on the sofa, dropped down beside me, and kept hold of my arm. “You have an aunt, uh, Tessa, and a demon guard Eilahn. You rescued Idris a little while ago. You are Kara.”

  I gave him a jerky nod. “Sure. Okay.” I looked around the living room. Eilahn crouched a few feet away, eyes on me. Why was she tracing sigils, and why did she look pissed and intense? “Kara,” I echoed, but the name felt strange on my lips, and the familiar room didn’t seem as inviting as it had a moment ago. “I don’t feel right.”

  “I know, Kara.” Bryce shifted to face me more, shook me a bit. “It’s the sigils, the scars. It’s Rhyzkahl and his fucking implanted virus.” His gaze flicked to the door then back to me. “I hear Ryan’s car. We’re going to take care of you.”

  I clung to his words. “I trust you,” I said and held his arm in a death grip. “You’ll take care of me.”

  Ryan burst through the front door. “Kara!”

  Distress spiked as I heard the name. I released Bryce, twisted to face my friend. Yes. Ryan was my friend. “Ryan! Something’s wrong.” He would help. That much I knew. “I don’t know what, but it . . . it is.”

  Ryan moved to crouch in front of me, face a mask of worry. “Shit,” he breathed. “Kara. Kara!”

  My brow furrowed at the shout. Was that my name? It didn’t seem right.

  Bryce scrutinized us, jaw tight. “You two are going out back,” he commanded, then stood and pulled me to my feet. “Let’s go.” He jerked his head at Ryan. “Now.”

  I offered him a tremulous smile. I trusted these two men, and that absolute certainty helped ease the churning disquiet. Obviously distressed, Ryan led the way down the hall to the back.

  “This is a nice house,” I murmured as we passed through the kitchen. Ryan shot a startled look back at me, and Bryce’s hand tightened on my arm.

  “It’s your house, Kara,” he insisted. “Your house.”

  Fear twisted my gut as I struggled to process that. I looked around for anything that clicked as personal, as mine, but found nothing. How could this be mine? None of this made sense.

  Ryan took my other arm as we stepped off the back porch, and together the two men quick-walked me to the mini-nexus. As soon as we crossed the boundary of the power focus I dragged in a shuddering breath, feeling as if the curtain obscuring my Self reopened a crack. I clawed my way up, clung with everything I had to that slim awareness. “Kara,” I gasped out, tasted it, fought to reclaim my name. “Ryan. Bryce. I’m Kara.” I wrestled against the uncertainty and panic that threatened my tenuous hold. But how long could I do so? For now I held fast to the sloping plain of glass, but if it tipped more . . .

  The converged potency of the mini-nexus seeped through me, threw the curtains wide and added power to my grip. Yet I knew it could only delay my descent. The instant I lost the potency, I’d be gone. Kara would be gone. Forever.

  Fuck no. Not while I have breath in my body.

  I drew from the mini-nexus, called up all of my internal reserves. “I know who I am. I know what I am,” I said through clenched teeth. “The instant I leave the nexus I’ll lose it, but I’m not fucking giving up yet. I’m going to beat this shit,” I looked from one to the other. “We’re going to beat this shit.”

  “You’re goddamn right,” Bryce said fiercely. Ryan gave an equally determined nod. Eilahn crouched a foot beyond the perimeter of the mini-nexus, still tracing sigils, teeth bared and eyes glowing with relentless focus. They had my back. Always had. My posse.

  Kara’s posse.

  The scars on my torso abruptly flared white hot, then quickly subsided to a billion tiny ant b
ites of prickling heat. Shit. No way was that a good sign. I drew measured breaths—in through my nose and out through my mouth, with a silent “Kara” each time.

  Ryan released his hold on my arm, shifted to face me, expression intense. Without warning or preamble, he seized my dress at the neckline and ripped it from me, leaving me in nothing but bra and panties. I knew why he’d done so, but Bryce jerked in surprise.

  “Shit! What the hell?” He lifted his free hand to intervene, then paused as comprehension lit his eyes. “The sigils,” he murmured.

  Ryan yanked my bra free and cast it aside to fully reveal all of the patterned scars. I focused on his face. No. Same hair, same eyes as Ryan, but now with subtle differences in the features. Not full-fledged Szerain, but headed that way. And far more stable than ever before, perhaps because of the potency from the node at the plantation combined with that of the mini-nexus.

  A pinpoint of heat ignited over my sternum, much the same as when Jesral attacked me earlier. An instant later, it diffused and Mzatal’s sigil crawled with fire. I sucked in a gasping breath. “They’re waking up.” I swallowed hard. “Not good. Last phase.” In through the nose, out through the mouth. Kara.

  Szerain squeezed his eyes shut. “Zakaar,” he breathed. He needed Zakaar, needed his support. I now saw that the breaking of the ptarl bond had shaken Szerain as deeply as the other lords, and was made even worse by Zack’s absence.

  “No!” I put every bit of power I could into the word. “Zakaar can’t be here,” I snapped out. “It’s only us four, and it won’t even be me much longer if you don’t pull yourself together.” I leaned closer. “Szerain! Right here. Right now. I need you.”

  His eyes flew open, the uncertainty of a moment before replaced by fixed intensity. In a slow, deliberate move, he laid his fingers on my sternum where the invisible arcane fire crept upward. “Mzatal,” he pronounced. The first to be carved by Rhyzkahl, the sigil sucked away the heat then writhed like ice beneath my skin. A wave of vertigo hit me, and I swayed, yet Bryce’s firm grip on my arm kept me upright. A soft buzzing drone set my teeth on edge, as though a dozen voices hummed out of tune.

  Szerain slid his hand up to rest beneath my collar bone. “Rhyzkahl.” Then to my side. “Kadir.”

  With each name, ice twisted beneath his fingers, and the hum grew clearer as though a voice found a harmonious note. Mzatal. Rhyzkahl. Kadir. The exact order Rhyzkahl had carved their symbols into my flesh.

  Heart pounding, I seized Szerain’s wrist. “You’re activating the series. Why?”

  Bryce shifted his grip on my arm. A quick glance at him revealed a shimmer of doubt in his eyes, though his face revealed nothing. Eilahn stopped tracing sigils and stood, watching us intently.

  Szerain twisted from my grasp. “Rhyzkahl began the process when he struck you with the virus,” he told me, almost growling the words. “Jesral completed it when he drew the rakkuhr to your chest earlier. Now the series activates, as was Rhyzkahl’s intent, and I can’t stop it. But I can complete the circuit before the virus does.” He leaned closer, face intense. “Kara, I don’t have a backup plan.”

  I took that in. “You complete it, and then what?”

  “I keep you from losing yourself.” He said it with calm assurance, but the droplet of sweat that slid down his cheek betrayed his tension.

  A feather touch of heat brushed my chest through the ice, and the hum wavered—Rhyzkahl’s activation breaking through while we stood debating.

  “Do it,” I said quickly, pulse slamming. If I thought about it any longer I’d lose my nerve. And myself.

  Szerain touched his hand to my belly. “Jesral.” Ice answered him, and the hum steadied. He moved around me. “Seretis.” One by one he activated the sigils.

  “Vahl.”

  “Vrizaar.”

  “Rayst.”

  “Elofir.”

  With each, the harmony steadied and the cold fire increased, like ice encapsulating the heat of rakkuhr. His hand rested on my tailbone. “Amkir,” he said with particular vehemence.

  Only one sigil remained. A single note of the hum whined out of harmony like an insane mosquito. The horrible icy ache penetrated to my bones. Szerain laid his hand flat against the sigil on my upper back, and I closed my eyes, braced myself for the next level.

  I felt a tremble go through him, yet he said nothing.

  “Szerain.” I named the sigil for him, my voice tight and hoarse. “Szerain.”

  A sob choked from him. “Szerain,” he echoed. The searing ice receded, leaving only phantom echoes. The hum shifted to soft harmonious tones, eerily familiar.

  He slid his hand to the small of my back, rested it on the twelfth sigil—the one meant to unite the other eleven, but never ignited. The scar blossomed with heat under Szerain’s hand, and I jerked in shock. I’d never felt anything in that sigil. The tones cut off and the world abruptly dipped and swayed. Only Bryce’s hold on my arm kept me from falling.

  “What’s going on? Szerain?” Blood pounded in my ears. “What did you do? That’s never been anything but a scar!”

  He drew his fingers over the sigil in swirling patterns laced with fire. “Kara, it has never been a mere scar. A scar can be resolved to unblemished skin.”

  Mouth dry, I fought to balance the rising apprehension with my trust of him, of Ryan. “What are you doing to it?”

  “I am using it to stop what Rhyzkahl started,” he told me. “Now I need Vsuhl.”

  Numb shock seeped through me. “No, Szerain,” I said, voice shaky. “I can’t do that.”

  “Yes, you can. And you will.” He wrapped his arm around me and pulled me back against him. “I have activated the unifier. I need Vsuhl. Without it, I can’t finish what I’ve begun, and the sigil is nothing more than a detonator.” He spoke close to my ear, confident, uncompromising. “When the virus reaches it, you don’t lose yourself—you die. I need Vsuhl. Now.”

  Eilahn gave a cry of anger even as Bryce’s grip tightened to pull me away.

  With a sweep of his free arm, Szerain raised a transparent barrier of shimmering blue along the perimeter of the nexus to block Eilahn. In the same motion, he slammed Bryce away from me with a hammer fist of potency, snaked arcane bindings from the ground to hold him fast where he stood.

  Fear wound together with fury to rip through me. “You fucking piece of shit.” I said through clenched teeth. “You turned me into a ticking time bomb to make sure I didn’t have a goddamn choice.” And I didn’t. I had no fucking choice. I held my hand down at my side, focused, called the blade to me.

  “You would have made the wrong choice otherwise.” He held me tighter, his arm locked around my waist. “Kara, give it to me. Now,” he commanded, voice fierce.

  Eilahn railed at him in demon, screamed kiraknikahl, oathbreaker, over and over along with a few other words. In my peripheral vision, Bryce cursed and struggled against the bonds, jaw clenched and eyes riveted on me.

  Vsuhl coalesced against my palm, whispered. Rakkuhr heat crawled up my chest and down to my side, igniting Kadir’s sigil. Szerain had no reason to save me once he had what he wanted, I realized, hating the feel of him against my back. With grim resolution, I connected to Vsuhl, felt it and wondered what an essence blade would do buried in the heart of a lord.

  Teeth bared, I shifted my grip on the hilt, slammed my foot onto Szerain’s instep, and twisted in his unwelcome embrace. “Take it, chekkunden!”

  Vsuhl sang as it bit into him, low on his side, but Szerain caught my wrist and wrenched it hard. I lost my grip on the hilt, and the world tipped crazily as Vsuhl tumbled to the ground.

  With a harsh cry, Szerain wrapped his hand in my hair and threw me face down on the grass. Air whooshed from my lungs as he planted his knee over my shoulder blades. As he reached and claimed Vsuhl his aura smothered me, subtly powerful, covert, and tinged with chaos.

>   Breathing heavily, Szerain spoke in demon, the cadence like an invocation. I struggled for air, scrabbled for purchase in the grass to throw him off. A line of thin fire lashed through the twelfth sigil. Vsuhl, drawing my blood, tasting me. Three more swift cuts, and then Szerain shifted to straddle my thighs and pressed both hands against the small of my back.

  I sucked in a desperate breath, felt the flare of the restructured sigil.

  “Vdat koh akiri qaztehl,” he pronounced with precise clarity while I struggled vainly beneath him.

  The rakkuhr answered him like a dog called by a beloved master. Where it had crawled through the first three sigils, it now raced across my body, igniting one after another. It paused at my upper back, in Szerain’s sigil, coalesced in a fiery mass of red heat, then dove down my spine to the twelfth beneath his hands.

  Silence like the void engulfed us.

  Szerain stroked my back, trailed his fingers over the sigil and wove the rakkuhr with disturbingly familiar ease. Into the silence he spoke a word that made all else pale.

  “Rowan.”

  “No!” I screamed. “Szerain! What have you done?” My foundation tilted, and I again found myself on a glassy plain with nothing between me and oblivion. “I can’t hold on!” I cried out in horror as I began an inexorable slide into the void. “I’m Kara!” I’m . . . Kara?

  Eilahn let out an inhuman shriek and dove at the barrier, crashed against it. Bryce fought the arcane bonds, shouted my name.

  Szerain moved off of me, gripped me by the arm, and dragged me to my feet. He shifted his grasp to the hair at the back of my head, leaned close, his face a hard mask.

  “No,” he snarled. “You are Rowan.”

  The name ripped through me like a mass of spinning razor blades, severing me from my Self. I mentally clawed for stability, but this time there was nothing—nothing—to cling to. My Self fell away until it was little more than a tiny, distant pinprick of light in the void.