Legacy of the Demon (23 page)

Back at the house, Jill returned to the basement to continue her Jontari research while Pellini and I headed for the nexus.

“That whiff I caught at the outreach center of Szerain and the dimensional pocket is still fresh in my senses,” I told him. “I want to take full advantage of it to track down the AWOL four.”

“Pursue every lead,” he said with a sage nod. “It's the only way to determine which one is right.”

“Unless all of them are wrong, of course.”

Rhyzkahl's gaze followed us as we stepped onto the nexus. I gave him a bland look then swept my arm in a broad arc to raise a shimmering privacy veil around the slab. The last thing I needed right now was a nosy neighbor.

Pellini moved beyond the super-shikvihr to his usual position. “Need me to do anything special?”

“Stay close and keep your eyes peeled for weird stuff.” I stepped through the ring of undulating colors to the center of the nexus.

He let out a bark of laughter. “In other words, you're making it up as you go.”

“I'm deeply offended at the insinuation that I don't always know precisely what I'm doing.” I grinned as he rolled his eyes. “For your information, I have an actual plan. Now that I know Szerain and company are in the dimensional vicinity of the outreach center, I can use the nexus to do a more meticulous search.”

“Gotcha. Like how, once you know your evidence is in a specific room, it's feasible to get down on the floor with a magnifying glass.”

“You nailed it.” Time to make the magnifying glass—or rather, a Szerain-finding Dimensional Pocket Detector.

After a brief moment to acclimate to the upward swirling power vortex, I dropped to one knee and pressed my palms against the familiar stone. Beneath them, the silvery inlay of my personal sigils brightened as if welcoming me, and an instant later, raw power engulfed my hands like hot wax.

I commanded more to me, drawing it from the combined reservoir of the nexus, super-shikvihr, and Rhyzkahl. It answered in an electric blue surge of heat and pressure that shoved my hands upward. Tense and focused, I shaped the potency, tamed it until I held a scintillating globe the size of a basketball between my hands. So far, so good. I stood and transferred it fully to my left hand. Now to—

Crimson flashed beyond the edge of the nexus as a whip-thin tentacle of rakkuhr snapped toward the globe. I threw up my free hand to ward it off, but the vile strand wrapped my wrist like a tether ball around a pole. A racking shudder raced up to my shoulder, and I yelped, flapping my hand in the universal gesture of
get it off me get it off me get it off me!
To my surprise and relief, it uncoiled and withdrew, leaving me gasping in reaction.

“You okay?” Pellini said.

“Yeah.” I gulped. “Got a little distracted, but I'm good.” The potency globe began to hiss and shudder, and I hurried to cradle it between both hands and stabilize it. But my gut clenched as I saw strands of rakkuhr merging and snaking on the grass beyond Rhyzkahl's orbit. The globe. The rakkuhr was attracted to it. Cold sweat broke out beneath my arms as old terror whispered of hideous pain.

No!
I pushed down the irrational fear. There was no sentience or malevolent purpose at work here. The rakkuhr moved mindlessly—one form of energy attracted to another. It was
Rhyzkahl's
will and purpose that had delivered agony to me through his rakkuhr-enhanced essence blade. Screw him. I wasn't going to let the Ghost of Torture Past ruin my work.

“Pellini, can you put a simple shielding veil around the nexus?”

“Sure thing,” he said and did so. “It won't last long against the rakkuhr, though. It'll weaken every time the stuff brushes it.”

“It'll last long enough.” The potency tingled against my palms. I recalled the feel of Szerain and the dimensional pocket, amplified and focused it into the globe. My nexus-boosted
senses kicked in to give me a lord's eye view of the potency flows in the vicinity of the outreach center, and with the resonance of the globe acting as magnifying glass and Szerain-detector, I began a meticulous search of the arcane landscape.

After a few minutes, the globe began to vibrate and buzz like a balloon full of angry wasps. Where the common room would be, potency bubbled up like dry ice in water, creating clouds of luminous fog that hugged the ground and coalesced to feed surrounding flows.

I stared, dumbfounded. Why in blazes hadn't Pellini or I seen or sensed
that
when we were there? A second later I gave myself a mental forehead smack. Duh. Same reason I couldn't see ultraviolet or radiation or x-rays. That potency fountain was in a different “spectrum,” one that my lordy supertastic nexus vision allowed me to see.

Around the potency fountain, rakkuhr oozed and pooled like coruscating ruby syrup.
Beautiful in its own way,
I thought then gave a mental shudder. Lava could be beautiful, but that didn't mean I should go swimming in it.

But no resonance match to Szerain or his dimensional pocket. I scrutinized the area to no avail. Three times I conducted a painstaking scan. Nothing. Frustrated, I centered the globe on the focal point of the bubbling potency and stared at the mesmerizing fluctuations. I'd been so sure I could locate him, that this would be the plan that worked. I was getting sick and tired of starting over at square one.

As I stewed in my annoyance, a pattern emerged. Each bubble carried a spark of resonance like a red-ringed speck of crystalline glitter on the surface of distortion.

“I found them!” I shouted in elation. “They're using the turbulence of a potency spring along with a touch of rakkuhr to mask their location.”

“Great!” Pellini said. “Now what?”

I thought quickly. “I'm betting Szerain and Zack shift things up regularly, like changing the combination on a lock. That's what I'd do in their place. But it means the feeling I picked up earlier will likely be obsolete soon.” A decision solidified. “I'm going to try to reach them. Maybe even bring them home.”

“Excellent,” he said. “Tell me what to do.”

As if I was unwinding a ball of yarn, I extruded a strand of potency from the globe and passed the end to him. “Hang on tight to this. It may take both of us to pull them through.” I
continued to unwind the potency until the globe was no larger than an orange. “Oh, and save my ass if I get in trouble.”

He snorted. “That's item one in my job description.”

“Har har.” I reassessed the bubbling potency spring then hurled the ball and its trailing potency strand toward it, as if casting a fishing line into the perfect spot beneath an overhang. Once it settled, I'd send a signal down the line.

With zero warning or the slightest nibble, the line jerked with enough force to send me sprawling. “Hold onto it!” I yelled to Pellini then scrambled up to one knee, wrapped the strand in both fists, and braced against the pull. Szerain's signature resonated through the connection, though with no hint of the others. Breath hissing through my teeth, I tapped the nexus resources and drew the strand toward me, hand over hand. It thinned to little more than a glowing thread yet held strong. Szerain's presence intensified. I almost had—

The balance tipped. I let out a shocked
urk!
as Szerain's aura enveloped me, dragging me forward.

“Kara!” Pellini yelled.

This was
so
not part of the plan. I fought to hold on, invoked the nexus, and anchored strands, all to no avail. This had the feel of an attack. What the hell was Szerain doing? Did he not want to be rescued? Had I been wrong about him this whole time?

Szerain yanked me through what felt like viscous snot loaded with razor blades. Before I could form a mental scream, I collapsed face down on a cool, glassy surface. Blinding golden light flared, seeming to penetrate all the way to my bones before settling into a soft glow. Twinges of pain skittered through my limbs like electrified fleas on speed. I tried to scramble to my feet, but my muscles didn't want to cooperate.

Strong hands gripped my upper arms and hauled me up. Szerain.

While my body refused to obey my orders to struggle, he crushed me in an embrace and hugged my head to his shoulder. “You foolish, headstrong, insane, brilliant woman.”

Whew. Not an attack. Still a good guy. “You forgot pushy bitch,” I croaked. The pain eased, either through Szerain's doing or on its own. I still fell like a ragdoll, though. “Something went wrong. I thought I had you, but—”

“Kara, you did. I mean, you would have if I'd wanted to come through.” He pushed me out to arm's length and eyed me critically. His features were Szerain's, and the gold-flecked
green eyes were the same as Ryan's, though somehow they held more vitality despite the dark circles beneath them. “I reversed your hook and dragged you here.”

“Here” was a golden bubble surrounded by darkness and not much larger than a stall in a public restroom. A dimensional pocket, I assumed.

“But why?” I asked, perplexed. “Don't you want to be rescued?”

“Not without preparation on both ends. We'd be sitting ducks for Xharbek.” He released my shoulders, but kept a supporting hand on my arm.

“No, see, Mzatal turned my nexus into—”

“I know about your nexus,” he said. “We felt it when Mzatal created the link to Rhyzkahl. But it's not enough.”

I sighed as my plan crumbled. “Where are the others?”

“Still in our stronghold. It was safer for Ashava if I came out and met you.”

“How is she?” I gave him a worried look. “Jill is going crazy.”

His eyes lit up as he smiled. “She thrives. She's strong and clever. Smarter than me, I'm certain.”

“Well, so is Fuzzykins.”

Szerain laughed. “All right. Smarter than
Mzatal.
”

“That's pretty smart.” A pang went through me at how much I'd missed this kind of back-and-forth. “What about the others? Is Sonny doing okay? Has Zack recovered at all?”

“Sonny is coping with the situation as well as can be expected, and he dotes on Ashava. They're good for each other. Zakaar . . .” Deep worry shadowed his eyes. “Zakaar continues to fade.” Grief tinged his voice. “We're on alert twenty-four seven, which means he's had no recovery time.”

His bleak expression shouted what he hadn't said: Even spending weeks lounging stress-free in Tahiti wouldn't be enough to save Zack. He needed more than mere time. For the fifteen years of Szerain's submersion as Ryan, Zack had not only been his guard and guardian, but his lifeline to sanity in the inhumane prison. And now it tore at Szerain that he couldn't do a damn thing to save him.

“I'm so sorry.” Without thinking, I pulled him into a hug, same as I'd do for any other friend going through a hard time. And, like any other friend, Szerain accepted the comfort and returned the embrace. “Let's bring him home,” I said. I didn't
add an empty promise that we'd find a way to help him. I held on to hope, but that wasn't the same. “What preparations do I need to make on my end?”

Szerain briefly tightened his embrace then released me. “I can't determine the timing and nuances until I have a update on everything that's happened since Katashi blew the PD valve. However, I can start laying out the basics.” He lifted his hand, and a spiral notepad and pencil appeared in it out of thin air—or, rather, out of a handy dimensional storage pocket.

“You should teach me that trick,” I said. “I need a place to store my summer clothes, plus I could finally clear out the shed in my back yard.”

His mouth quirked into a sly smile. “How can I amaze and mystify if I give away my secrets?” He flipped to a blank page and began to sketch interlocking sigils. “You'll need to create a matching trio of diagrams on your nexus then reach for us, as you did just now, and pull us through. The nexus setup will act as a temporary bunker until we can raise the needed protections to keep Xharbek at bay.” He paused and met my eyes. “In the meantime, Zakaar, Ashava, and I have much planning to do.”

Ashava, planning? I had a sudden mental image of a baby wearing an Army general's uniform, moving miniature tanks and soldiers around a map.

On the other hand, the kid had only been a few minutes old when she kicked serious ass at the Beaulac PD and prevented the valve explosion from being exponentially worse. Maybe Ashava's involvement in the planning wasn't so ludicrous after all.

However, getting him caught up wasn't going to be easy. “You missed a lot of stuff after you and Zack vanished with Ashava,” I said. “For starters, Idris killed Katashi. Except it wasn't really Katashi. A syraza was masquerading as Katashi for who the hell knows how long. And the syraza ended up dead-dead because about eighty percent of the killed demons aren't making it through the void. Right after the blast, an Earthgate popped up in the Ruthie's Smoothies parking lot. Kadir came through it yesterday, but we don't know where he is now. Rifts have been opening—” I stopped, frustrated. Every event intersected with a buttload of other important points without respect to chronology. “This isn't working. There's no way I can give you a coherent and comprehensive summary before we both die of starvation. Just read it from me.”

Szerain tore out the page of diagram sketches, stuffed it into
my hand then sent the notebook back to its interdimensional hidey-hole. “I can't,” he said matter-of-factly. “You've shielded yourself.”

“Shielded
myself
? No, Zack and Helori did it to protect sensitive info.”

“Yes, but it's more than just demahnk tampering.” His eyes went distant as he seemed to ponder the concept, then they flashed with fierce amusement. “I bet it chaps Xharbek's ass that he can't read you.”

I grinned at the very Ryan-like remark. I couldn't imagine ever hearing those words from Rhyzkahl or Mzatal. “My shielding definitely frustrated the hell out of Xharbek at Fed Central when—” I shook my head as his gaze sharpened on me. “See? There's way too much to tell. Can't I let you in somehow?”