Текст книги "Fury of the Demon"
Автор книги: Diana Rowland
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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 35 страниц)
Chapter 16
After going through my usual get-clean-and-dressed routine, Eilahn and I headed to my aunt’s house. On the way there, I listened to the recording of my phone conversation with Idris, played it over and over while I fought to catch any new reference or hint, any meaningful cough or hesitation. By the time we reached my aunt’s neighborhood of old, quality, lakefront houses, I’d been through it at least a dozen times, with no new revelations.
I saw Carl’s white minivan parked at the curb in front of my aunt’s house. Carl was her boyfriend, though I also knew him as the morgue tech at the coroner’s office.
It wasn’t until I pulled into Aunt Tessa’s driveway that I realized the last time I’d visited her was the day I was abducted to the demon realm. Everything about her century-old two-story house was the same—white with blue gingerbread trim, carefully maintained landscaping, rocking chairs on the porch—yet it was impossible to quantify how much I’d changed since then. Then again, my aunt probably knew a little something about major life changes. After a decade of living in Japan as Katashi’s student, she’d given up her life there and returned to Louisiana to raise me after my dad died. Not that leaving Katashi was a bad thing, in light of recent events.
I slipped through my aunt’s aversion wards with ease and smiled at the Welcome!sign on her door. It stood in sharp contrast to the arcane protections around her house that would keep any unwelcome visitors from actually making it to the porch, much less gain entry, unless they were exceedingly determined andarcanely skilled.
As I climbed the steps, Carl stepped out of the front door, keys in hand. Tall and thin with close-cropped pale hair, he offered me a ghost of a smile which I took as a huge welcome home greeting from him. “Morning, Kara,” he said. “Doc and I miss seeing you at the morgue.”
“I bet you do. Who else can you torment with the whole needles-in-dead-eyes thing?” From the very first time I’d gone to an autopsy, Carl had attempted to get me to collect the vitreous—a process that involved sticking a needle into the eyeball to draw out the fluid. Hugelysquicky.
He gave a dry chuckle. “At least you finally called my bluff.”
“Damn straight. Are you on your way to the morgue now?”
“I am. Running late.”
“I won’t keep you. Good to see you, and tell Doc I said Hi.”
“Will do.”
I watched him for a moment as he continued to his minivan, then I turned to the door, still baffled at the odd-couple match between my diminutive, whacky aunt and the lanky, taciturn—though seemingly devoted—Carl. After knocking once, I entered. “Hi, honey! I’m home!”
A laugh came from the direction of the kitchen. “About damn time!”
I headed that way, where my aunt immediately enveloped me in as crushing a hug as she could give. Her unbound mane of frizzy blond hair completely obscured my face, but I didn’t mind one little bit. I breathed in the faint scent of lavender touched with jasmine—calm and sweet, totally unlike her personality, yet still completely her.
“I’ve missed you!” she said after finally releasing me.
“I’ve missed you too,” I replied with a smile. “Sorry I wasn’t over sooner. Everything went crazy as soon as I got back.”
She turned and began to run water into the kettle. She wore a flowing gauzy skirt paired with a clinging top of blue and purple gradients, and big dangly earrings that I knew would look absurd on me but suited her perfectly. “Dealing with crazy stuff get you crazy times,” she said. “No doubt about that.”
I pulled myself onto a stool at the counter and made a sour face. “Yeah, and I’m in super mega-craziness right now.” The kitchen itself felt as welcoming and familiar as my aunt—dark granite countertops, wallpaper with subtle patterns of climbing ivy, a deep dusty-rose tiled floor, and stainless steel appliances without a smudge or fingerprint in sight.
She set the kettle on the stove, turned the burner on, then took a seat on a stool opposite mine. “Tell me. What’s going on now?”
“Well . . .” I had to think for a moment about where to begin. “When’s the last time you talked to Katashi?”
Tessa’s brow creased in thought. “It’s been a while.”
“Good,” I said, relieved. At least I didn’t need to tackle a problem in that arena. “Please let me know if you hear anything at all from his people. Anything.”
“You told me Katashi caused some trouble for you.” Her gaze sharpened. “Has something else happened with him?”
I spread my hands flat on the cool marble of the countertop. “You could say that.” I proceeded to fill her in on the Idris situation and the craziness at the warehouse. Tessa listened carefully while I spoke, and when the teakettle began to whistle she got up to pour water into two mugs.
“Crazy stuff indeed,” she said as she dunked teabags into each mug. “Idris. He must be pretty important.”
“He’s amazingly gifted, especially considering he’s barely twenty.” I smiled. “You’d like him. Super nice guy.”
Tessa placed my tea before me, curled her hands around her own mug. “What was he doing in the demon realm in the first place?”
I shamelessly reached for the bowl of sugar cubes and dumped several into my tea. “Training with Mzatal. He was under agreement—it’s sort of like a contract.”
She took a sip, brow furrowed. “Is that what you have with Mzatal?”
“We did,” I said. “We don’t now. I mean, nothing official. He trains me, and we work together. We’re partners.”
Her eyes dropped to the ugly scar on my left forearm. “Is he the one who removed Rhyzkahl’s mark?” she asked, tone abruptly sharp and biting.
I looked down at the ripple of scar tissue. “No. Rhyzkahl did that,” I said, voice expressionless. Yet I hesitated before continuing with the rest, the details of howhe’d sliced the mark from my flesh, and what else he’d done to me. I hadn’t told her any of that yet, had simply left it at “Rhyzkahl betrayed me.” I knew Tessa had seen my sigil scars when she summoned me back to Earth, but she had yet to ask about them, and I didn’t want to push it. Last year, she’d been captured and used in a ritual that left her comatose, her essence lost in the void. After she returned to her body, she’d been fragile. Docile. Completely unlike the Aunt Tessa I knew. She even stopped summoning for months, and only resumed in order to rescue me from the demon realm. Carl had played a significant role in keeping her on track despite the oddity of their match, and I could only speculate that his near-emotionless manner helped to ground her and keep her focused.
Yet even though she’d come a long way in her recovery, a measure of fragility still clung to her. The hideous details of my torture would only upset her, and I saw no need to risk destabilizing her now.
I rubbed the scar, changed the subject. “Back when you studied with Katashi, did you learn the sigil technique called the pygah?” Mzatal had told me the pygah was part of the foundation for all other summoning work, yet Tessa had never even mentioned it.
She set her tea down, brow furrowed as though trying to remember. “Pygah,” she murmured, then her face lit up. “Pygah. Yes, I did. I haven’t thought about it in years. Not since . . .” She trailed off, staring past me with unfocused eyes.
Frowning, I laid my hand on her forearm. “Tessa? Not since when?”
She blinked, brought her gaze back to me. “Not since I found out I was pregnant. I remember clear as a bell doing a pygah then, but,” she shrugged, “I haven’t thought of it since.”
Worry flared hot and bright. How do you “forget” a major arcane tool?I did a frickin’ pygah of my own to help maintain a façade of calm.
“Why did you pygah when you found out you were pregnant?” I asked.
That earned me a raised eyebrow and a withering look. “Wouldn’t you?”
Okay, she had a point there. “You were still with Katashi when you got pregnant?” I asked, oh-so-casually.
“With Katashi?” Confusion clouded her eyes. “It was a fling with an American living in Japan. He left before I knew I was pregnant so, when the baby was stillborn, I didn’t call him.”
Goosebumps shivered over my entire body. Those were almost the exact words she’d used the last time I’d asked, and again I had the disturbing feeling she wasn’t so much remembering it as reciting a story. “Programmed” was the word that came to mind, and right behind that, “manipulated.” Even though I didn’t have a badge anymore, my cop-instinct still worked, and right now it tingled like crazy. I knew in my gut that baby didn’t die. What I didn’t know was whohad made Tessa believe so and why?
“What was the father’s name?” I kept a pleasant and casual smile on my face.
“I had a fling. He was American.” Tessa waved a hand dismissively.
Yeah, well, she could dismissively gesture all she wanted, but I wanted some answers. “Back when you had the, ah, fling with the American,” I pressed, “you were still in training with Katashi?”
A slight frown crossed her face. “I remember we summoned the reyza, Pyrenth,” she murmured as though trying to dust off twenty-year-old memories. “But that was before I was pregnant.”
“I met Pyrenth in the demon realm,” I said. “At Rhyzkahl’s. He was my escort at times.” I leaned forward. “What else do you remember about your training back then?”
“I remember working on this, over and over.” She traced her fingers through the air as though drawing a sigil, and her frown deepened. “What isthat called?”
Sick worry tightened my chest. Tessa had a great memory for arcane structures. “It’s called a durik, for ritual stabilization,” I told her, lifting my hand to trace the sigil. “It’s usually used in combination with a . . .” I trailed off. Not a mere sigil. The durik and its companion were floaters.
Icy coils of dread wrapped around me. The art of tracing floaters could only be learned in the demon realm, and Tessa had nevermentioned or even implied she’d ever been there.
“ Durik. Silly of me to forget that.” Tessa stood and carried her mug back to the stove, topped it off with hot water even though she’d only taken a few sips from it.
My heart hammered at the implications. “It must have slipped your mind, like the pygah. No big deal.” Except that it was. It was a huge fucking deal. “Tessa? Have you ever been to the demon realm?”
Her mug crashed to the floor, sending out a splatter of hot liquid and shards of stoneware.
“Shit!” I jumped up and came around the counter. “Are you okay?” I grabbed at a dishtowel and crouched to mop up the spreading pool of tea.
“A little clumsy, that’s all,” she murmured. She looked down at me, brow faintly furrowed, yet didn’t stoop to help me clean up the mess, which was very unlike her.
I stood, dishtowel in my hand, raked my gaze over her to make sure she hadn’t been cut or scalded. No visible blood or burns that I could see, but she looked pale as death. She pressed her hand over her solar plexus. “I feel strange,” she said, voice thready.
I dropped the dishtowel back on the floor amidst the shards, took her gently by the arm and led her around the mess and into a chair at the kitchen table. My already high worry wound tighter as she went without protest. “Do you need some water?” I asked.
Tessa blinked, seemed to come back to herself a bit. “Some tea would be nice.” Her eyes went to the mess on the kitchen floor, and she winced. “I’d better clean that up.”
“I’ll take care of it,” I insisted. That was more normal for her at least. “Do you want me to call Carl? I’m sure he’ll come right back.”
“Oh no, sweetling. No need to worry him.” She gave me a smile that only reassured me a little.
I quickly readied another mug of tea and set it in front of her, then finished cleaning up the spill and broken mug while I mentally replayed the incident. Once I finished the cleanup I sat at the table with her again. “Are you feeling any better?”
“I’ll be right as rain as soon as I finish this cup,” she said brightly. “Now what were you telling me about your agreement with Mzatal?”
What the fucking hell?Had she forgotten the last few minutes of our conversation? My anxiety clawed higher, and I had to take a long sip of my tea before I could keep my voice and expression composed enough to speak casually. “I said that we have an agreement based on mutual respect. We ditched the contractual one.” I plastered on a smile. “I learn a lot from him . . . in the demon realm.” I watched for any flicker of reaction and saw nothing but honest interest in her face. I hesitated, then jumped in with both feet. “Have you ever been to the demon realm?”
Again she pressed her hand to her solar plexus. Her eyes went wild for a second, then her face relaxed and brightened. “That water hot yet?”
My hands tightened around the mug. “Your tea is in front of you.”
“Oh!” She looked down. “So it is.” She smiled, lifted it, and took a sip.
This wasn’t some sort of dementia, not with this odd programmedfeel. It was something far more sinister, more deliberate. Mzatal would be able to get to the bottom of it but I had another day before I summoned him again.
I took a breath and calmed myself. This had been with her for twenty years. Another day wasn’t going to harm her. “I’m summoning Mzatal again tomorrow,” I told her. “I’d love for you to meet him.”
Tessa’s mouth tightened. “This one must be quite different from Rhyzkahl.”
You can say that again!“Yes, he’s very different,” I said. “I care about him a great deal.”
Worry shadowed her eyes. “I don’t want you to get hurt,” she said.
I reached to give her hand a light squeeze. “I know. It’s why I’m training with him. I need to get really damn good at what I do so that I won’t be as vulnerable.”
She opened her mouth as though to speak then jerked her head up to look at the clock. “Crap! I need to go. I promised Melanie I’d close at the store tonight.” My aunt owned a natural food store in downtown Beaulac, and after her hospital stay last year hired her ditzy nurse, Melanie, as a full time worker.
“That’s cool. I’ll call tomorrow.” I stood as she did. “I want to bring Mzatal over to meet you, since I’m shacking up with him and all that.” I faked a grin as I added silently, And since it’s obvious someone has messed with your head.
“That’ll be good,” she said, belying the flicker of disapproval in her eyes. “I should meet him.”
I kept the fixed smile on my face. “You mind if I use your bathroom before I go?”
“As if you need to ask?” Tessa rolled her eyes. “Go for it. I need to scoot. Lock up when you leave, please.”
With that she hurried out and to her car. I surreptitiously peered out the front window, watched her drive off as anger and sorrow wound together in the pit of my stomach.
Someone had manipulated my aunt.
I intended to find out who and why.
Chapter 17
I quickly slipped into my aunt’s bathroom, retrieved a handful of hair from her brush and dug a used tissue out of the waste basket, then left the house—making very sure to lock up behind me since I would neverhear the end of it otherwise.
Eilahn dropped from an oak tree in the front yard, landing with impossibly graceful ease. I had to wonder what the neighbors thought of a beautiful woman shimmying up a tree but doubted Eilahn gave a crap about what they thought.
She moved to me, brow creased. “You are disturbed.”
“My aunt. She’s . . .” I drew a breath in a doomed effort to steady my voice. “She’s either having a stroke or she’s been manipulated.”
Concern narrowed Eilahn’s eyes. “If she is having a stroke, does she not require medical attention?”
Scowling, I sat down on the step. “She’s not having a stroke. That would be easier to deal with.” I gave her a quick recap of my conversation with Tessa and the associated weirdness.
Eilahn pursed her lips. “A manipulation to avoid focus on time in the demon realm as well as to fabricate the death of a child. This is indeed a grave matter.”
“No shit!” I exclaimed. “But why the hell would she need to be manipulated about thatand by who?”
“This I do not know.”
Frustrated and worried, I returned to my car and retrieved a pre-addressed padded envelope from the back seat. I placed the used tissue in a plastic bag, then carefully selected about a dozen hairs with the root follicle still attached. I tucked those into another bag and slipped both into the envelope to join the others containing Idris’s hair and his toothbrush.
One way or another, I’ll know for sure.
I sealed the envelope and headed to the post office, where I nearly ended up in a knock-down-drag-out fight with Eilahn over our apparent need for several hundred stamps with pictures of kittens on them. I finally talked her down to a slightly more reasonable eighty stamps, which was still far more than I could possibly need, and would no doubt last me until the next century. I paid the too-cheerful postal employee for the stamps and the overnight shipping charge for the envelope, then quick-stepped back to my car with Eilahn while she made delighted noises at each and every stamp.
She abruptly cut off her rapt perusal, lifted her head, and went demon still.
Alarm crept in. “What’s wrong?”
“Wards have triggered at the house,” she told me, voice serious as she continued to assess. “Intruders at the perimeter near the fence line on the west side. Multiple people.”
I surged toward my car. “Shit! Does Zack know?” Though as soon as I asked the question, I knew the answer. “Never mind. Of course he does.” Zack had set the majority of the wards along the new fence line. If Eilahn felt the alarm wards trigger, Zack surely had as well. “Can the intruders get through?”
“Unless they have a demahnk or a qaztahl with them, they will not pass.”
I stopped and wheeled to face her. “They don’t, do they?!” The most likely culprits were Katashi and his summoners, which meant it was sickeningly possible they had one of the Mraztur with them.
“I can only sense presence, not the specifics,” Eilahn replied, which did nothing to ease my anxiety. “Zack may know more. Is Ryan at the house?”
“I don’t think so,” I said as I yanked the car door open. “He had to go to the office.” My phone rang. I snatched it from my pocket, checked the number. “Zack! You’re at the house? Eilahn said someone’s trying to get onto the property.”
“I’m not at the house,” he said, utterly calm. “I was calling to let you know about it. They’ve withdrawn now, but it was a serious, focused attempt.”
“Do you know who it was?” I jammed my key into the ignition, cranked the engine.
“I wasn’t there to see,” he said. “I’m heading that way momentarily.”
“Any sense that Rhyzkahl or one of the other assholes was there?”
“No. They definitely didn’t have a qaztahl with them.”
I exhaled in relief. “All right. I’m heading home now too.”
“I’ll see you there,” he said and disconnected.
As I drove home my thoughts churned back and forth between Tessa’s manipulation and the attempted intrusion. It was only when Eilahn reached and touched her cool hand to my shoulder that I realized I’d been muttering under my breath.
“All will be well,” she said with such solid conviction that I found my anxiety slipping away.
“Thanks,” I said and gave her a grateful smile. The syraza was a kickass bodyguard, but she also did a damn good job protecting my mental health.
I made the turn onto Serenity Road, a narrow two-laned affair with deep ditches on either side. My dad had died on this road—killed by a drunk driver when I was eleven—and I’d avoided it for close to a decade afterward even though the road offered a significant shortcut into town, shaving the travel time from forty minutes to the thirty it now took. When I became a cop I began to use it again, and the first time I drove it I couldn’t even find the place my dad was killed. The tree he’d been crushed against had long since been cut down, and even the tight curve had been straightened and graded in the intervening years. I probably could have located the exact spot from the accident report, but what would have been the point? Sometimes the past was best left in the past.
“Kara!” Eilahn shouted, but I’d already seen the dark blue Lexus sedan swerve into our lane and had my foot jammed hard on the brakes. For an instant I weighed whether going into the ditch would be worse than hitting the car head on.
Then both options disappeared as the sedan screeched to a stop sideways, blocking the road.
“Shit!” I skidded to a rubber-burning stop, all the while aware that the other vehicle’s move was intentional. Too precise to be anything else. And the location had obviously been carefully chosen. A quick glance in the rearview mirror revealed another car coming to a stop behind us.
“It’s a trap,” I snarled as I threw the car into park. “Bail out!” I hit my seat belt release and shoved the door open all in one motion, yanked my gun from its holster and prepared to dash to the trees beyond the ditch.
I made it two steps before I stuttered to an awkward stop, freezing at the sight of the MAC-10 submachine gun leveled at me. Heart thundering, I extended my hands out to the sides in as non-threatening a manner as possible and kept my gun lowered as I took in the details beyond the muzzle of the submachine gun. A red-and-grey-haired powerhouse of a man in a well-tailored black suit held the MAC-10 as he stood beside the open front passenger door of the Lexus. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Eilahn motionless on the other side of our car, though her stance told me she was poised to move. Ever since she’d been shot she habitually wove protective arcane shielding, but it wasn’t infallible.
I heard car doors open behind me, but I didn’t waste my focus looking. Eilahn could assess with far more ease and accuracy. Besides, MAC-10 guy hadn’t shot us dead yet, which meant the trap had a different goal in mind.
The back door of the Lexus opened, and James Macklin Farouche stepped smoothly out. I’d never met the man in person, but the pictures I’d seen of him did nothing to convey the confidence with which he carried himself. Immaculately dressed in a perfectly-tailored dark suit, white shirt, and a blue and gold-patterned tie, his steely gaze penetrated, though his expression remained one of utter ease.
Slowly, I crouched and placed my gun on the ground, then straightened and gave a nod. “Mr. Farouche.”
Farouche flicked a glance to my gun then to me as he began a slow approach. “Smart girl,” he said with a confident smile, and I had to fight to control a scowl at the condescension. Not such a saint after all. “No one’s going to get hurt as long as you remain smart,” he continued. “I simply want to talk.”
I lifted my shoulders in a casual shrug. “Then talk.”
“You are holding my people, and I want them back.” His voice reminded me oddly of Mzatal—not in tone, but in expectation of compliance. “Where are they?”
Paul and Thatcher. Now I understood. Farouchewas behind the failed raid on my house. “You’re mistaken,” I told him. “I’m not holding your people.”
He was only a few yards away now. “Where are they?” he asked again, voice cool and insistent in a way that wormed itself right into my core.
Tension knotted my back, and I pygahed. “Not on any property of mine,” I answered.
“Indeed true,” he said as though somehow discerning the veracity beyond the words. “Where then? Where are they?”
I sucked in a sharp breath as a sudden and pervasive fear engulfed me like a shroud of frost wrapping around my essence. Part of my mind wondered why I was so weirded out, while the rest of me freaked like a rabbit beneath the eagle’s talons. “Not where you or I can go,” I choked out.
Farouche lowered his head, gaze heavy upon me. “They are returning to you,” he said, and I had the unnerving feeling he’d read it from me. “When?”
The sick fear increased as he took a step closer. I licked dry lips, but somehow managed to stand my ground. How the hell can he read me?“I’m not certain.” It was almost true.
His smile turned predatory as though he knew he closed in on his goal. “They will return in three days?”
Cold sweat pricked my back and underarms, and my pulse slammed an unsteady tempo. “P-possibly.”
Satisfaction lit his eyes. “Sooner, then. Excellent.”
No, he wasn’t reading me. Somehow he could interpret beyond my words, sift truth from lies with glimpses of more. Not that it fucking mattered at this point.
Eilahn let out a hiss, clearly disliking the turn of this conversation. An arcane tingle crackled over my skin as she extended her shielding to me, likely in preparation to make a move. A new rush of fear rolled through me at the thought. “Eilahn! No. It’s . . . it’s okay.”
Farouche flicked a glance at Eilahn, then returned his sharper gaze to me. “You will call me when you have my people on your propertyagain, yes?”
Protest rose within me, followed instantly by a paralyzing sliver of primal terror. I gave a shaky nod. “Yes.”. Immediately the terror faded. Something is seriously wrong,the thought whispered.
“Then we understand one another completely, do we not?” he asked, still holding the predatory smile.
Sweat rolled down my sides. “Yes,” I said. And I meant it.
“Of course we do. I look forward to working with you in the future,” he said with polished confidence. “Have a nice day, Ms. Gillian.” He turned and strode back to his car, slid in and closed the door.
MAC-10 guy kept his eyes and weapon on me for another few seconds, then climbed into the front passenger seat. The car backed, turned and headed away, the crazy fear retreating with it. Sight, sound, and full awareness returned, though I hadn’t realized they’d been diminished.
I glanced to Eilahn, noted her facing the car behind us. I turned, saw the two men with guns still pointed in our direction. One stocky and Caucasian, with an angled face and an expression as hard as the steel of his gun, the other Hispanic, of average height and build with a soft gaze and determined manner. At some unspoken signal they retreated into their car, then drove right past us in the wake of Farouche’s vehicle. I didn’t bother getting their plate number. There was no point. I knew who they were.
Eilahn came around the car, scooped my gun from the ground and put it in the console between the seats. “I will drive,” she told me as she took me by the arm then walked me to the passenger side and stuffed me into the vehicle. “Bad,” she muttered. “Very, very bad.”
“What the hell was that?” I asked after she slid behind the wheel. “I said I was going to call him.” I scowled, shook my head. “Like that would ever . . .” I trailed off as my chest tightened in vague panic. I knew the truth. “Eilahn,” I gasped out, “I’ll call him when they get back. If I even think about notcalling him . . .” I clenched my teeth on a mewling whimper as a surge of terror left me shaking. It passed within seconds, leaving its mark like a trail of slime.
“You will notcall him,” she stated as she drove toward the house. “I will sit on you until Mzatal can assess what has happened.” Her hands tightened on the wheel. “I also felt it, though it did not affect me.”
I rubbed at my eyes, clung rigidly to the knowledge that my current mental state wasn’t right, even though I knew in my gut that accepting the fear as normal would ease it. “Maybe Zack can fix this or . . .” Nausea roiled at the thought of fixing it. “Shit. This is vicious. No, call Ryan.” The fist in my chest tightened, and I gasped. “No.” I shook my head almost frantically. “No, I’m okay with it now. It’s cool.” The fist eased, the nausea retreated.
Fortunately, Eilahn didn’t agree with me one tiny bit. Her face remained locked in a fierce scowl as she drove one-handed and called Ryan on my phone with the other.
“Come home,” she said when he answered. “She needs you.” I couldn’t hear his response. She simply repeated, “She needs you,” then hung up and drove like a hell-bound demon the rest of the way home.
I found myself comparing the bizarre incident to Elinor’s influence, yet where her touch was subtle, Farouche’s overwhelmed. I knew, knew, that if I stopped fighting his influence, relaxed into it, the unnatural fear would subside, but I’d lose all ability to maintain distance. It would become an ingrained part of me. I couldn’t, wouldn’tlet that happen, and so I danced its dance without allowing it to take me home for the night.
The car crunched along the gravel of the drive. Eilahn looked over at me. “Ryan will be here in ten minutes.”
“I told you I don’t need Ryan. I’m cool,” I insisted through clenched teeth.
“He is coming anyway,” she insisted right back as she parked the car.
I managed a nod, flung open the car door and staggered out. I made it into the house and collapsed onto the living room sofa with a groan, ignoring the growl of Fuzzykins as I disturbed her gestational nap at the other end. In the background, I heard Eilahn on the phone with Zack.
“Zack is on the property adding warding to the perimeter,” she told me. “He is coming in.”
I didn’t try to respond. I curled on my side, focused on telling myself over and over that this was wrong. I backed off when I felt the fear about to drown me and pushed more when it receded. I danced the dance.
A few minutes later, Zack crouched beside me. “Kara, I’m here. Ryan will be here in a minute.”
“I’m fine,” I insisted, shivering. “I’m cool.”
“You are sooofine, and the coolest,” Zack said, light tone tinged with worry. “It’s why Ryan is coming to see you.”
I gave a nod. “Yeah. Sure,” I said. “This is wrong.” Terror flared, and I gasped out a whimper. I backed off and did my best to keep dancing.
I heard the door, then Ryan’s voice. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
Zack stood. “Kara ran into some trouble with Farouche,” he told Ryan. “You know how you do the memory shift thing? I think she needs help like that. He’s got some sort of fear compulsion bullshit going on with her. You up for giving it a try?”
My nails dug into my palms as I clenched my hands hard. “Hurry,” I said, then hissed through my teeth and squeezed my eyes shut. This was nothing, nothing, compared to what Rhyzkahl had done to me. I silently repeated that over and over, still barely able to hold on against the rising tide of fear.
