Текст книги "Touch of the Demon"

Автор книги: Diana Rowland

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Chapter 7

“Wait! Idris!” I yelled. Had he considered that the tower wouldn’t be safe for him either? I ran after him, then let out a squawk of surprise as Safar grabbed me around the waist and leaped into the air. I yelped and clutched at his arms as we cleared the tower and gained altitude. “Shiiiiiit!”

“The tower is not safe until they seal the anomaly,” Safar said, with a rumble I felt in my bones. “It will not take long.”

“Will Idris be all right?” I tightened my grip on his arms as he climbed higher.

“He goes to the summoning chamber to support the syraza,” he replied, deep voice calm. “There is a small anomaly within the wall of the tower. They will seal it before anything untoward happens.”

A bright flash from above followed closely by a cracklike thunder pulled my attention. But there isn’t a cloud in the sky.“Safar? What was that?”

“Another anomaly. Above.” He snorted and beat his wings harder, gaining altitude quickly. “And a syraza falls.”

I risked a peek down, biting down on a very un-brave whimper upon seeing how really fuckinghigh up we were. I looked back up just in time to see Ilana streak by and up.

“Kara Gillian, turn around and hold tightly,” Safar said as he continued to climb. With his help, I complied, clinging to the trust that he wouldn’t let me slip out of his grasp. As soon as I was fully turned, I wrapped my legs around his waist and my arms around his neck, then hung on for dear life while my heart threatened to pound out of my chest.

Safar abruptly stalled in flight, then did a stomach-churning wingover and began to free fall. “Hold tightly,” he repeated. Yeah, no shit, Sherlock. I was pretty darn solid on that point. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a syraza falling. Ilana and Safar paced him in the fall as they both eased closer.

Safar reached a hand out to the syraza, then jerked as he made contact. His hand dropped away, and a weird dizzying shock passed through me, as if he’d touched a live wire. I nearly lost my grip before recovering and clinging hard again. The reyza shuddered, then went limp, beginning to fall in a very different way.

My gut clenched. “Safar?” I called. I looked up to see him staring and dazed. “Oh, shit. SAFAR!” I gripped as hard as I could with my left arm and my legs, took my right knuckle and twisted it viciously into his sternum. I’d used sternal rubs to wake up drunks before, but it barely made the massive reyza twitch. I reached up and grabbed an ear, twisting hard. “Safar!” I screamed. “Fly, damn it!”

At the ear twist he shuddered and came back to himself, then thrashed to get his wings out to slow our descent and stop the tumbling. He bellowed in pain as his right wing wrenched back, though he managed to get us straightened out. I felt our descent slowing, but a quick glance told me it wasn’t going to be enough to keep us from crashing into the trees…and not just any trees. The splash of viridian and amethyst identified the grove. At this point the best we could hope for was a crash at slower speed, ending up merely mangled instead of a grease spot. I tucked my head into his neck and wondered if there was any chance I’d make it through the void a second time. Either way, this was going to really suck ass.

We plowed into the densely woven canopy with a shriek of snapping vines and breaking branches. I lost my grip on Safar almost immediately, crashing down through the upper branches, instinctively flailing to check my descent somehow. I remembered how tall these trees were. The ground was a longway down. Not that I had much time to think about that. A hundred smaller limbs and vines whipped past me, and a branch smacked me hard on my shoulder. Something caught at my right leg, and I screamed as the twisting snap shot through me. I felt a punch of pain in my left side, then came to a hard stop.

Silence descended, strange after the cacophony of the fall. It took me a few seconds to catch my breath, but when I did, stabbing pain accompanied each inhalation. I was wedged in a tangle of branches and vines, at least twenty feet above the ground. A few yards to my right I could see the open space of a clearing—the center of the ring of grove trees.

I tried to shift, then let out a breathless scream as pain from my side and leg shot through me. The agony from the leg was simple to figure out. Legs weren’t supposed to twist that way, and jagged ends of bone weren’t normally visible through the skin. It took me a few more seconds to process the source of the pain in my side. It didn’t make sense that the branch would protrude from my body that way. The rivulets of blood tickling my abdomen finally got the message to my screwed up head. Ah, hell, I thought dropping my head back against the cluster of vines. This is bad.

I heard a bellow and snapping of branches, then a crash of something heavy falling to the ground nearby. Two faas streaked through the clearing and into the trees in the direction of the crash. A moment later they reappeared, supporting a limping Safar. His right wing drooped, and his normally rich bronze skin had a sickly green tinge.

A shudder went through the tangle of branches holding me. Dizzy, I grasped weakly at the mess of vines, fear slicing through me that I’d fall the rest of the way. As badly injured as I was now, I didn’t think I’d survive a fall of another twenty feet.

A vine by my hand twitched as a low purring vibration filled the forest. The trees around me gave another shudder, and a heartbeat later vines shifted and slid against me. Okay. Freaky. A deep groaning of movement permeated the grove as leaves and twigs broken by my passage fell from above. A vine as thick as my wrist snaked around my torso just above where the branch had skewered me.

I heard running footsteps in the clearing. Turning my head, I saw Mzatal come to a stop near the treeline, eyes on me, assessing. More vines wrapped around me. I struggled out of panicked instinct, stopping as agony knifed through my side and leg. My eyes met Mzatal’s. I tried to call for help, but I could barely get enough breath to breathe, much less speak or shout.

Mzatal’s eyes narrowed. He stepped forward, then stopped as if he’d run into a wall. I watched as he raised a hand, testing an unseen barrier. What the hell?I wondered in barely controlled panic. Had I managed to fall into some sort of carnivorous plant? Yeah, bleed on the man-eating plant. Always a good plan.

Yet even as I fretted about being eaten, a soft ease stole through me, and my panic faded. I felt oddly relaxed…and safe. It occurred to me that if it really was a man-eating plant, it might have released chemicals or pheromones or something to make its prey nice and docile, but I decided it was more comforting to think it was simply a Nice Plant.

Vines continued to shift and move around me. The white trunks and limbs shimmered with heat-wave ripples, though the grove felt cooler than before. The green and violet of the leaves awoke with a luminescent glitter of emerald and amethyst. Mzatal stepped back as the barrier before him took on a barely visible pulsing glow. A wind whispered through the leaves, or maybe the leaves just whispered to me. Mesmerized, I stared up at the shifting beauty.

A leafy tendril touched my face, and the last vestiges of my panic ebbed away. It wasn’t going to let me fall. Everything shuddered again and the vines that had wrapped around me began to lift me off the impaling branch. I stared at the leaves above, mind screaming distantly to expect fresh agony, but it was wrong. Only a little tingle. My new Plant Friend wouldn’t hurt me. Smiling, I watched the pretty dancing lights.

I relaxed into the cradling hold. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Mzatal pacing along the perimeter, eyes never leaving me. He placed a hand on the barrier and tried to push through, then staggered back a step as it repelled him. His eyes snapped to me as he stood, hands clenched at his sides. Way too tense. He needed a Plant Friend.

Whisper whisper whisper. Sparkly. Everything sparkly.

“Kara, can you hear me?”

Whisper whisper whisper.

Shimmery. Sparkly. Shimmery.

Whisper whisper whisper.

“Kara!”

“No need. To. Shout,” I managed, my voice sounding loud and unnatural to me. Vines unwound, pulling away. The pain returned, and I shuddered and whimpered low. Awareness seeped in: not in the tree anymore, on the ground. “How’d I get here?”

Mzatal crouched at my side, carefully looking me over without touching me. “The grove moved you. It was unprecedented, Kara Gillian,” he murmured, gaze flicking from the wound in my side to the mangled mess of my leg. Sudden fear gripped me. Would he even bother trying to heal me?

He looked past me at the retreating vines, then laid a hand in the center of my chest. His jaw clenched and he shook his head, then stripped the collar from me, passed it to Gestamar, and set his hand on my chest again.

“You are badly injured,” he said, in what I thought was a keen grasp of the fucking obvious. He looked up and around, expression contemplative. “The grove has stopped the bleeding.” Shaking his head, he returned his attention to me. “We will stabilize your leg here, then move you.” He pointed to a spot in the center of his forehead. “Focus here,” he said, then sketched a quick sigil in the air between us.

I did my best to focus where he indicated, though my vision kept wanting to fuzz in and out. The sigil rotated in a subtly mesmerizing pattern, and gradually it became oddly simple to focus on that and little else. Mzatal set a hand on my thigh, and I felt Gestamar pulling and twisting my leg into a more acceptable configuration, but the agony seemed to be behind a glass wall. Mzatal traced tethers of potency around my leg, then caught the sigil and placed it on my chest. A soothing warmth emanated from it, like a magic pain patch.

“Gestamar will move you now,” he told me, speaking in a calm, imperturbable voice. I barely managed a nod, feeling strangely distant from my body.

The reyza lifted me with amazing gentleness. Around me the grove shimmered, and I smiled, feeling its touch like a caress.

I must have drifted off for a few minutes, because the next thing I knew, Gestamar was gently setting me on my bed. Mzatal entered, removing his suit jacket and draping it over the chair before rolling up the sleeves of his pristine white shirt. He moved to my side and ran his hands lightly over my torso.

“How…bad?” I asked, the effort of those two words exhausting.

Before Mzatal could respond, Idris entered. He stopped and gave a gasp of shock—inadvertently answering my question of how bad—then flinched at the reproving look from Mzatal. I wanted to laugh, but I knew it would hurt too much.

Mzatal returned his attention to me. “Your right leg is broken. You were impaled through and through on your left side and there is damage within. If you are not healed, you will die.”

“Oh…okay.” Well, he didn’t pull any punches. But at least, at this point, I was pretty sure he was going to do what he could to keep me from dying.

Idris audibly gulped and proceeded to edge around the room and out of Mzatal’s direct line of sight.

A faas hopped in, and Mzatal took the mug that was offered. In a smooth motion, the lord slid his arm under my shoulders and lifted me to a partial sitting position, supporting me fully. Pain flared behind the shielding wall of the sigil.

“Drink, Kara,” he said as he held the mug to my lips.

I suddenly realized how thirsty I was and did my best to drink. It tasted pleasantly sweet and refreshing and felt as if it permeated beyond the physical. It took some doing, but I drained the mug. “What was that?” I managed to whisper.

Mzatal set the mug aside and eased me down to the pillow again. “Tunjen juice. Replenishing both for the physical and the arcane.”

The demon realm version of a super sports drink, I thought with detached amusement.

I watched Mzatal as much as I was able, though between the pain and the sigils he was using to dampen it, I tended to drift in and out. He looked seriously fucking intense as he readied himself to work on me.

“What do you know of the groves?” he asked, placing a hand next to the wound in my side.

I frowned. He was going to get blood on a really nice shirt. And how the hell did he get tailored for a suit that nice in the demon realm? And what sort of cuff links did a demonic lord wear? And had he washed his hands?

“Kara,” Mzatal said with an undercurrent of command in his voice, reminding me of the tone cops used when trying to get and keep attention.

Oh, right. He’d asked me a question. “Trees. Lords travel…” Muzzily, I realized he wanted me to stay awake and interacting. Likely for my own good or something. Damn it.

Mzatal said a few words in demon to Gestamar. The reyza grunted and bounded out.

He looked back down at me. “You have never been in a grove before.” It was a statement, not a question, so I didn’t waste energy trying to answer it. He lifted my shirt above the site of the impalement. “Idris, lay support.”

The young man jumped at the sound of his name. “Y-yes, my lord,” he said, flicking a worried glance my way before beginning to sketch a complex pattern using nothing but shimmering threads of potency. I watched, fascinated, in a dreamy sort of way. This was the first chance I’d had to really see things happening without the collar on.

Idris finished and ignited the pattern. Instantly, I saw it dim as Mzatal drew upon it. A low warmth spread through my side. Now I understood Idris’s worried look. If the demonic lord needed a support pattern for additional potency, that meant I was well and truly fucked up. Then again, it wasn’t news to me at this point.

I pulled my unsteady attention back to Mzatal. His hair was braided in a complex weave that looked like it needed at least seven or eight strands. Did he do that himself? Or did he have a demon valet do it for him? And where did he get the tie that was currently tucked partially in his shirt to keep it clear of his work? And for that matter, where was I going to get new clothes? Especially bras. I knew the one I had on was pretty well soaked in blood.

“The zrilaAnak fashioned the tie, and the faas Jekki braids my hair,” Mzatal said as he slid a hand beneath me to reach the entry wound. Pain flared at the movement, and I hissed a breath. “When we return to my realm on the morrow,” he continued, “the zrila circle will create what garb you require. They are quite skilled.”

I managed a slight scowl. “You’re reading…me.”

Mzatal looked from the wound to my face. “Yes, of course.”

“Rude.” I swallowed, breathing shallowly. “Stop.”

“That I cannot do,” he replied. “It is as impossible as stopping the taste of wine upon my tongue, or the feel of your skin beneath my hands.” In the next instant heat flooded the wound, and I gasped, hands tightening in the sheet. Gradually, it subsided into a warm pulse, spreading in gentle flows from the wound to the rest of my body. I exhaled in relief as the pain faded, noticing that it was already far easier to breathe.

“The sigils fascinate you,” Mzatal said almost conversationally, “but it is clear you do not know many of them. What training have you had?”

“My aunt,” I replied. It was a lot easier to talk and breathe now, but I was as tired as if I’d run a marathon uphill. Not that I had any intention of ever finding out how tiring a marathon was. “She taught me protocols…rituals. I summon demons…to learn…ask questions.” I caught myself drifting and dragged my focus back to him. I didn’t want to sleep. Too much chance I might never wake up. “I’m…getting better?”

Mzatal drew in a deep breath. He looked damn near as tired as I was. He shifted and placed a hand on my solar plexus. “Yes, better,” he said. “Gestamar will splint your leg. I have done much work with the impalement and the internal damage.” He gave me the barest ghost of an actual smile. “You will not die this day, Kara Gillian.”

I smiled weakly, then slid my hand over his. “Thanks,” I mumbled as I allowed my eyes to drift closed.

Chapter 8

I came awake abruptly. “Eilahn?” I called groggily, before realizing where I was and what had happened to her.

“Eilahn is not here, little one,” came a rumbled response. I blinked to focus and saw Gestamar crouched beside my bed, carefully knotting a splint around my injured leg.

“You know Eilahn?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“She was killed on Earth.” My brow furrowed. “Yesterday, I think. Is today the same day as when we fell?”

“Yes, it is the same day,” he replied. “You have been asleep for several hours. And yes, she has returned.”

“She has?” I exhaled in relief, smiling weakly. “I was so worried.”

Gestamar tightened another binding, then shifted and touched my cheek with the back of a claw. “Yes, though Ilana says that she will be in stasis for a time, to recover herself.”

“Good…good. What about Safar?”

“Mzatal tends Safar’s damaged wing now,” he replied calmly.

Pain shot through me as Gestamar shifted my leg. And Safar was messed up, too. Wow. Today was turning out to be an even shittier day than the one before. I hadn’t thought that was possible. And damn it, the fucking collar was back on. It’d been such a relief to have it off during the healing.

“You roused him,” Gestamar said, and it took me a couple of seconds to realize he was referring to Safar. “Neither of you would have survived had you not.” He shifted and returned to knotting bindings.

“Good thing he didn’t like having his ear twisted,” I said with an unsteady smile. The pain was beginning to make its presence known again, pulsing in waves like radio signals from my leg.

Gestamar snorted. “Our ears are quite sensitive. You chose well.”

“And what about the syraza?”

“Olihr. Recovered enough to return to Rhyzkahl by midday,” Gestamar said casually.

That got my attention. What was one of Rhyzkahl’s syraza doing at Szerain’s palace? Hope rose. Did Rhyzkahl know I was here?

“What happened?” I asked Gestamar. “I mean, why did we fall?”

“Olihr is young and eager.” The reyza gave a low snort. “He sought to close the anomaly above on his own and became incapacitated by the backlash energies,” he explained. “When Safar touched Olihr, he received a jolt of it.”

Like touching a live wire, I mused.

A scrape of boot on stone gave me enough warning to be prepared as Idris entered and hurried to the side of the bed. It was obvious he was trying hard to not flutter, but the poor kid was clearly way out of his comfort zone. His eyes kept flicking to the swollen mess of my leg and skittering away, face pale and worried.

“Kara, do you need anything?” he asked, practically wringing his hands. “Water? I have water. Or tunjen? Tunjen might be better.” His gaze shifted to my leg and away as he gulped. “I’ll get you some juice.” He wiped his hands on his trousers, scanning the table for anything that resembled juice.

“Painkiller might be better,” I said, biting back the urge to tell him to find a Xanax for himself. My voice had an annoying rasp to it, and I grimaced. “Any sort of painkiller. That’d be good.”

He stopped fluttering and blinked at me. “Ibuprofen! I have ibuprofen. Be right back!” He turned and headed for the door at a near run, coming to an awkward sliding stop about six inches before barreling into Mzatal.

The lord stood still in the doorway, hands behind his back, as usual, as he gave Idris a hard look. Idris managed to straighten and get fully upright with some semblance of decorum, though the wild mane of his hair ruined the effect a bit. “Sorry, my lord,” he said and hurriedly stepped back out of the way.

Mzatal kept his eyes on Idris for another few heartbeats before continuing into the room and allowing the young man to flee. He moved to the other side of the bed from Gestamar, face expressionless and gaze intense as he took in my overall condition. Even through the collar I had the sense he was probing, likely assessing my mental outlook as well as how mangled my physical body was.

I bit back a cry of pain, hands clenching in the sheets as the reyza shifted my leg. Yeah, my mental outlook was just peachy right now.

Mzatal’s eyes narrowed a hair. He shifted his attention to Gestamar, said something in demon, and received a deep-voiced answer. Neither’s face or manner betrayed the subject, to my deep annoyance.

Mzatal shook his head, spoke again in a slightly more commanding tone. Sick fear pierced through me as the reyza seemed to hesitate. Were they talking about amputating my leg or something extreme like that?

Gestamar gave a huffing snort, replied in demon, then turned and exited the room.

“What’s going on?” I asked as I worked on unclenching my hands from the sheet. “Can y’all fix my leg?”

Mzatal slid his gaze to my face. “I have sent Gestamar to create a particular medicinal blend for you.”

“Please tell me it’s a painkiller,” I said, swallowing. “Or at least an antibiotic.” I risked another look at my leg. I didn’t see any dirt anywhere, so apparently it was cleaned while I slept. “Can’t you do one of those sigil things again?”

“You need not worry about infection,” he continued, tone unnervingly mild. “And yes, the draught will ease the pain. It is too soon for you to tolerate another analgesic sigil. The bleeding has been stopped and the break set as well as is possible.”

As well as is possible?What the hell was that supposed to mean? “Wait…you can heal this, right?”

“It is a serious break,” he said, clearly watching for my reaction. “I will assess it to see what action will be taken.”

I did my damnedest to keep my expression even, but I didn’t think I could completely hide the deep fear that took up residence in my gut. “Can’t you do some healing now? Or just send me home. Let me go to a hospital. They can fix it back home.” I locked eyes with him. “Don’t you let me end up a cripple.”

His gaze remained steady on me. “I have already done some healing,” he stated. “No, I will not send you home or to a hospital. And you will end up as you will end up.”

The wash of fury that swept through me helped to drive back some of the pain, but I kept silent and refused to look away. I fucking hated how completely I was at his mercy, and I wanted him to know it.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Idris come back in. He stopped dead, likely feeling the level of tension in the room, and began to slowly back out, grimacing as the pill bottle rattled. I snapped my gaze to him and held out my hand for the bottle with a give-me-the-goddamn-pills-now expression on my face. He gulped and looked up at Mzatal. He must have received the okay, because he continued to my side.

“Here you go,” he said with a wary flick of the eyes at Mzatal before he set the pill bottle in my hand. “Two hundred milligrams.”

“Thank you,” I managed, fumbling with the top. My hands shook, and I ended up dropping pills on the bed before I managed to get four in my hand. That would bring it up to prescription strength and hopefully put a dent in this pain. “Could I have some water, please?”

“You will not be able to take the draught as well,” Mzatal said, calm and conversational, “and the pain relief will be far less with the Earth medication.” He lifted one shoulder in a graceful shrug. “It is, however, your choice.”

I went still, clutching the pills in one hand. He could have said that before I spent a couple of shaking minutes trying to get the damn pills out of the bottle. He’s fucking with me, I realized. Pushing my buttons.I didn’t know if it was to test me or to torment me, but either way, now that I recognized it, I knew how to deal with it. Buttons got pushed all the time when you were a cop, especially as a female.

Sweat trickled down the side of my face from the pain, but I smiled, replaced the pills in the bottle, and snapped the cap back on. This good lord/bad lord game sucked. Wasn’t it just a few hours ago he was healing me and telling me about how the zrila made his ties? “That’s very kind of you to share that information,” I said, voice dripping with honey and false gratitude. “It warms the very cockles of my heart to know that you hold such a deep concern for my well-being.”

The lord’s face darkened. “You will remember your place, Kara Gillian.”

I gave him my best wide-eyed innocent look. “Oh, I know my place, Lord Mzatal,” I said, and tapped the collar with my middle finger. A crash to my right told me that Idris had dropped the water glass he was holding, but I kept my smile in place and my finger extended.

He narrowed his eyes but then turned and departed without blasting me into several squishy bits. I exhaled as the door closed behind him and dropped my head back to the pillows. Maybe, possibly,I won this round?

“Holy shit,” Idris breathed. “Holy shit!”

“First off, try saying ‘fuckballs’ every now and then for variety,” I said, breathing a bit raggedly as the brief adrenaline surge wore off. “Second, could I please have some water?”

“Oh, water.” He looked down with dismay at the broken glass at his feet, then swung back to the table. A near-comic sigh of relief escaped him as he found an intact glass. He poured water and brought it back to me. “Fuckballs,” he said, trying out the new word. “Fuckballs, Kara, but you’re insane.”

My hands shook as I took the water, but I managed to drink some before handing it back to him. “Idris, at this point, what do I have to lose? If I roll over, I’m dead. Might as well let him believe I have a spine.” I met his eyes. “Remember, fake bravery is better than none at all.”

“Yeah, but…” He shook his head. “I mean, that’s Mzatal!”

I let out a breathless laugh. “And I’m Kara. And you’re Idris.”

He rolled his eyes. “Whatever. I just don’t want to see you get hurt.” He glanced at my leg, grimaced. “I mean, more than you already are.”

“I’m at his mercy, Idris,” I said quietly. “He doesn’t need a reason to hurt me. I might as well show that I won’t go down without at least the semblance of a fight.”

“Yeah. Shit.” He sighed. “I don’t think I could be like you.”

I snorted. “Of course not. You should be like you, but the best you you can be.” I frowned. “Not sure that made any sense, but hopefully you get the idea.”

“It kinda made sense. I guess,” he said, though his forehead puckered in mild confusion.

Gestamar returned carrying a mug. He moved to my side and held it out for me. I took it warily and sniffed the watery green contents. It reminded me of freshly mowed grass but didn’t smell vile or anything, which surprised me. I was certain Mzatal would find a way to make any meds he gave me utterly nasty.

“Thanks,” I said, taking the mug. “I should drink all of this?”

“As much as you can,” he rumbled. “Mzatal requested this amount.”

I took a deep breath and began to chug it down, then had to stop, nearly gagging. Smell was definitely no way to judge. “Holy…gah! That’s like drinking a diaper.”

The reyza crouched. “If you do not drink it, it will not help with the pain.”

I didn’t even bother scowling. This was another test or torment, depending on point of view. Steeling myself, I managed to chug the rest of it down. The nasty shit had better kick the pain’s ass. Shuddering, I handed the empty mug back to Gestamar. “Idris, water, please.”

He pressed a glass into my hand. I drank, but it didn’t seem to do much good. Fuck Mzatal, I thought sourly. What the hell was Idris doing with this asshole?

“If you’re here fostering with this lord, then doesn’t that mean you’re pretty hot shit in some way?” I asked Idris,

He shrugged. “Yeah, I guess I do okay with the summoning stuff.”

I took another drink of water in a futile attempt to clear the slimy vile taste from my mouth, then gave Idris a sharp look. “Wait. You do ‘okay’? Do you really believe that?” I narrowed my eyes at him. “You summoned me, damn it. You’re more than ‘okay’ if you managed that.” I sighed, shook my head. “Idris, it’s okay to be proud of the shit you can do well. Trust me, there are plenty of people more than ready to tear you down. Why give them a headstart?”

He stared at me, then flushed. “Yeah, I did good with that,” he said, smiling with—at last—a touch of pride. “It was hard.”

“Yeah, well, I wasn’t going down without a fight.”

Movement in the doorway caught my eye, and I did a double take as an iliuscoiled into the room. The waist-high demon curled and spiraled within a haze of confusing multicolored smoke. Flashes of teeth, or an eye, or sinuous body appeared and disappeared seemingly at random. I’d summoned an ilius a few times before, finding them very useful as trackers in my police work, kind of like a demon version of a bloodhound. I didn’t know much about them except that they consumed essence as their sustenance and, according to Rhyzkahl, didn’t have a taste for humans. I’d always sated them on nutria as payment for their services, and they seemed content enough. Though the thing didn’t appear to touch the floor at all, it was definitely more substantial and colorful than the ones I’d summoned to Earth.

“Um…Idris? Why is there an ilius in here?” I asked as the demon drift-coiled its way to the balcony.

Idris glanced over at the creature then back to me. “That’s just Dakdak looking for Mzatal. Well, not actually looking for him,” he said. “Since the ilius is here, it means Mzatal will most likely arrive within a minute or two. I don’t mind. It’s kinda like an early warning system.” He grinned.

That was just too damn funny, and I laughed outright, though it may have had something to do with the shit I just drank. “So you’re telling me big bad Mzatal has a pet ilius named Dakdak he hangs with?” I lifted the glass for another cleansing drink of water.

“Yeah. Four close ones actually—Dakdak, Krum, Tata, and Wuki—and a bunch more that just hang out at his place. They’re not pets though.”

I snorted water out my nose, laughing so hard it hurt. “Tata? And…Wuki?” I managed to gasp out. Then the room abruptly tilted. I dropped my head back and clutched at the bed.

“What’s wrong?” Idris asked, aflutter again.

“I think—” I shook my head, instantly regretting it. “The green shit works,” I slurred, right before the world fell away.