Touch of the Demon Read online

  Morning sun slanted onto the bed through the broad windows, waking me. I groaned and rolled onto my side, then blinked, suddenly fully awake.

  That didn’t hurt.

  Sitting up, I tugged off the blanket to look at my leg—my unsplinted and undamaged leg. Relief flooded me, near dizzying in its intensity. Mzatal must have indeed followed the ilius into the room and completed the healing. Whether he had a change of heart or had simply been fucking with me, at this point I didn’t care. The important thing for now was that my leg was still there and, apparently, as good as new.

  A quick assessment of the rest of me revealed that not only was everything else healed up, but I was also clean and wearing different clothing.

  “Now that’s a nice health care plan,” I murmured, sliding a hand over the spot on my torso that had so recently housed a tree branch. Not even a scar remained to show it had ever happened.

  I startled as Jekki and Faruk burst into the room without knocking, carrying a mug and a plate that they placed on the side table. “Eat! Drink! Leave soon!” they burbled in unison, and then were gone in a swirl of blue fur and tails.

  My smile faded and my gut clenched at the thought of going to Mzatal’s realm, but I went ahead and drank the chak and ate the—. Okay, I had no idea what it was and thought it might be better that way. It looked like a plate of cat turds drizzled with mustard, but had a texture like biting into a grape and a meaty taste with a zing of sweet spice. Totally weird but yummy. As soon as I was finished, Gestamar stepped into the room, almost as if he’d been waiting.

  “It is time,” he said, deep voice resonating. If I hadn’t known better, I might have thought he was trying to sound ominous. I obediently followed him down to the entry corridor where Mzatal waited. The lord gave me an up and down assessing look but said nothing. I didn’t know if he was checking out his healing skills or what. The lord confounded me, running cold to lukewarm, though the undercurrent of I-can-kill-you-any-time-I-want-to sort of put a damper on anything beyond cold.

  Gestamar kept a hand on my upper arm as we headed through the south doors and outside. What’d they think I was going to do? Make a break for it? We stopped while Mzatal closed the doors and laid a shitload of wards, then he led the way down the path with long strides. He wasn’t wearing the Armani; today the outfit was black pants, black boots, and a crimson knee-length coat, intricately embroidered in gold around the cuffs and hem. The suit was a good look for him, but so was this.

  We passed the path to the shrine, and I glanced over to see if I could get a glimpse of Turek, but no luck. I felt the grove before we reached the tree tunnel—a subtle rippling touch like a breeze through leaves. Smiling, I entered the shady passage, and the touch shifted to a welcoming caress. Ahead, Idris, Ilana, Safar, and the two faas waited along with three ilius, and the unknown reyza and zhurn who I’d seen playing the strange rock-paper-scissors in the courtyard. To my relief, Safar seemed well recovered.

  Power hummed around us as we stepped farther in. Even though I’d already had the experience of a lifetime in the grove, I looked around in rapt fascination as if I’d been out for a walk and suddenly smelled something amazing and had to stop and find the source. I inhaled as the grove enveloped me; a questing presence that the collar had no power to block.

  Anxiety and fear slipped away as I welcomed the touch of the grove and felt the power of it hum through the white trunks around us. I exhaled in wonder, only distantly aware of Mzatal’s focus on me. Idris moved to the lord’s side and the two exchanged low words, but I was far too entranced by the feel of the grove to pay much attention.

  The grove presence retreated as we clustered near the center. Mzatal crouched and placed his hands on a low smooth knob of wood that reminded me of a cypress knee. He channeled a burst of potency into it, and I understood that he wasn’t powering the grove as much as he was making an offering to it. Frowning, I wondered how I knew that. It wasn’t an Elinor memory or a déjà vu sensation, but I knew.

  He stood and gestured everyone in close. I caught a glimpse of movement in the trees ahead. I felt a dropping sensation, and then between one blink of an eye and the next, we were in a different grove.

  It looked a lot like the one we left, ringed with white trunks, but it was more elongated, had a “flavor” to it that felt different, and the hum resonated lower.

  Mzatal started toward the tree tunnel, then paused as a mehnta stepped out from between the trees. Much like a human woman in form, her full breasts were bare and a loose braid of deep violet hung to her feet. Then it got weird. Her back, hard and shiny green, formed a beetle-like carapace that I knew covered wings packed in like a parachute. I had no idea how such light wings could support her heavy, muscled body in flight. Then it got weirder. Instead of a mouth, she had a dozen or so writhing arm-length tentacles, each ending in its own small, toothless mouth complete with lips.

  I watched uncertainly as she approached, her mouth tentacles waving in an oddly unnerving fashion. I remained perfectly still as she laid a hand on my arm. At her touch, my uncertainty faded away, to be replaced by a sense of comfort and welcome, as if I’d been away for a long time and was being greeted again.

  The mehnta spoke, voice oddly fractured as it came from a dozen sources at once. I struggled to understand, but soon realized she was speaking in the demon tongue.

  I looked up to Gestamar. “What is she saying?” I asked, feeling a strange and desperate need to know.

  He gave a low rumble before answering. “She has bypassed all protocols and asked for your name.”

  I smiled in gratitude, then turned my attention back to her. “I am Kara Gillian.”

  The mehnta kept her touch on my arm and spoke again. Out of the corner of my eye I could see that Mzatal and Idris had stopped and were now watching our odd exchange.

  “She says her name is Lazul,” Gestamar said without needing to be asked. The mehnta made an odd whistling sound, then touched my face lightly with her mouth tentacles—soft and warm, like a myriad of little kisses. In any other situation I’d have probably freaked out, but instead, a thrill of delight and acceptance ran through me.

  The tentacles lingered for another few seconds, then the mehnta retreated and slipped noiselessly back into the trees.

  I exhaled and watched her go, then turned with Gestamar to follow the others up the tree tunnel. The feel of the grove slid away as we exited into the open air, and I swallowed hard against the deep worry that settled back into my gut.

  And then…wow. We stood upon a clifftop, sea below on the left, dark stony mountains and lush green foliage rising to the right. A warm breeze teased my hair, carrying the pleasant scent of sea and wet earth. The sun hung high in the sky. Midday here. It had been morning at Szerain’s.

  The ground dropped into a grassy, rock-strewn depression, then rose to the base of Mzatal’s palace. The path, cut in the native stone, alternated flat and stairs. The structure itself hugged the cliff face, long and narrow, two levels rising above and more dropping in tiers before the cliff. Glass. Lots and lots of glass. Lots—likely the resinous demon-glass. It even comprised the low walls of the long balconies that ran the length of each level and wrapped around the near end of the two above the cliff. Whatever wasn’t glass was the ubiquitous dark basalt of the surrounding terrain. A waterfall cascaded from the midst of the structure, plummeting to the sea below. On a verdant sward behind the palace, a thick, flat-topped column about three stories tall and of the same basalt as the palace and cliffs shone as though highly polished. I’d obviously stopped and stared because it took a tug on my arm from Gestamar to get me moving again.

  Ahead, Mzatal waited, eyes on me, keen and assessing as I approached. “Your affinity for the grove deepens,” he said, as casually as if he’d said, “your hair is brown.” But there was a querying penetration to it, a hint that he fully intended to peel back the why of it.

  “Yeah, well…I like trees,” I said, giving a shrug. What the hell was I suppose
d to say?

  He wasn’t buying my nonchalance. His eyes remained hard on me for a moment, then he shifted his attention to Idris. “Prepare a trancing diagram.” He proceeded to rattle off parameters that I couldn’t understand but that apparently made perfect sense to the young summoner. Idris asked for a few clarifications that also sounded like gibberish to me, then took off toward the palace at a light jog.

  Mzatal returned his shrewd gaze to me. “We will see if this affinity connects to anything.” He lowered his head. “Or anyone,” he added, and there was no mistaking the vehemence behind the words.

  “It doesn’t connect to anything or anyone,” I shot back. “It’s just bunch of damned trees,” I said in a stunning display of brilliance as I jerked my fingers through my hair. “Look, you don’t have to do more fucked up ritual crap on me.” The purification thing had hurt enough.

  “You know—intimately—it is much more than that,” he replied, returning to unruffled calm as he pivoted away, clasped his hands behind his back, and headed up the path toward the palace. “I do that which must be done.”

  “Hurting me?” I demanded, not moving. “You must do that?” Gestamar set his hands on my shoulders to move me along but went still as Mzatal opened one hand behind his back.

  Cold sliced through me at that simple gesture. I knew in that instant that he could pull power and strike before I’d ever sense it coming.

  He faced me. “What I do, I do with purpose.” He stepped closer. “Pain is at times a purpose unto itself,” he continued, black menace flowing through his voice. “And, at times, a byproduct of a greater purpose.”

  Instinct screamed at me to back away from the coiled peril before me, but with Gestamar behind me I had no choice but to stand and face it. “Easy for you to say when you’re the one dealing it out,” I said, even managing to give a lift of my chin.

  “It is easy to say because it is truth.” He turned and continued up the path. “Bring her if she chooses not to walk on her own.”

  I snarled at his back. “I can walk,” I muttered, and reluctantly did so, though fear of the unknown twisted in my belly. Asshole. I hated this. Hated being scared all the time. And I especially hated not knowing what the hell was in store for me. About the only thing I could be sure of was that it would only be harder for me if I resisted. Mzatal didn’t need my compliance. He was being damn near generous by allowing me the chance to cooperate and avoid humiliation or discomfort.

  With Gestamar’s grip firm on my arm, we descended the path from the grove, then climbed the stairs and pathways to the entrance of the palace. Glass from balconies and walls of windows winked above, reflecting the early afternoon sun. The subtle hiss of the waterfall wove a pleasant background to the sweet, throaty songs of what I guessed were birds in the nearby cluster of thick-needled conifers.

  The doorway cut directly into the native rock face, and the filigreed stone and glass double doors opened inward to a rough cut grotto with a broad circular staircase going down. And down we went about a billion steps though it was probably more like three stories.

  The lord stopped a few steps from the bottom. Gestamar’s hand on my arm stopped me as well, but he needn’t have bothered. I didn’t want to be any closer to Mzatal than I had to be. At first I thought he’d stopped to greet the two ilius that coiled in flashing smoke around him, but a heartbeat later a complex sigil coalesced in front of him, shimmering blue and gold.

  I glanced back and up at the reyza. “What is that?”

  He let out a low huff. “Message sigil,” he replied in what seemed to be his version of a whisper. “From another lord.”

  Mzatal touched the sigil. A few seconds later flickers of azure-gold potency shimmered around him, and he visibly tensed. Apparently it wasn’t a cheery Welcome Home from one of his neighbors.

  He pivoted, eyes resting on me for a chilling heartbeat before shifting them to Gestamar. “Leave her with me. Go to Idris. Tell him to abort the trancing and set boundary wards specific to Rhyzkahl on the southern perimeter.”

  Gestamar released my arm and bounded off. I looked after his departing form and then back to Mzatal. “What’s going on?”

  Mzatal closed his eyes and took a deep breath before opening them again. “Rhyzkahl has demanded your release to him.”

  Hope and relief shot through me. He knows I’m here. He’s going to get me out of this shit. His syraza Olihr must have confirmed my whereabouts to him. I folded my arms over my chest and glared at Mzatal. “Well, I am his summoner. Sounds pretty damn reasonable to me.”

  “Reasonable to him,” he replied. “Unacceptable to me.” With a flick of his fingers he wrapped a lasso of potency around my left wrist, then turned and headed down a broad corridor, leaving me no choice but to follow or be dragged. I clenched my jaw tight in fury as he led me past rooms with open doorways; in the rooms beyond, walls of glass looked out over the sea. We reached a central atrium overlooked by mezzanine balconies ringing the five floors above, and he headed up stairs—all the way upstairs, never slowing his pace. By the time we got to the top, I was done, but he was not.

  He threw open the doors and proceeded into a stunning hall that felt the size of a football field, though I knew that was a gross exaggeration. The walls shone with gold leaf, and inlays of sparkling gems traced graceful patterns overall. Five huge arched alcoves marked each side wall, the eleventh sheltering the door we came through. A myriad of glass panes in the ceiling high above scattered prismatic sunlight over everything. The floor was a wonder in itself, a polished mosaic formed completely of clear crystal-like quartz, translucent and reflecting the sunlight from above in its own dance of color.

  With me in tow, Mzatal strode the length of the hall toward a set of doors on the far end. Glimpses into the alcoves revealed sitting areas, doorways, and what I could only describe in the moment as exhibits, not having the luxury to look closer, since Mzatal’s pace had me near trotting to keep up. Even under these conditions, I felt like I was moving through a beam of light rather than a room. Four ilius now followed in Mzatal’s wake, smokiness reduced to a bare haze in the permeating light, revealing the serpentine coils of colorful, translucent demons that didn’t seem to touch the floor at all.

  At the far end of the chamber, we passed through double doors into a summoning chamber seemingly identical to Szerain’s in size, type of stone, and number of walls. He pulled me to the center and dropped the tether, but before I could so much as twitch, more strands of potency coiled around my feet and legs up to my hips, effectively freezing me in place.

  I tightened my hands into fists and glared daggers of white hot hatred at him. He met my eyes, not even a flicker of perturbation in his, as he spoke in demon to the faas Jekki and Faruk, who quickly scurried out. I caught Idris’s name in what he said, but there was no way to tell from his tone or demeanor what the context was. This dude could read Pat the Bunny and make it terrifying.

  My pulse beat a rapid staccato as sick fear clenched my gut. He was going to hurt me again. I had no doubt. I wanted desperately to be tough and strong and not give a crap, but it was pretty fucking difficult considering the circumstances.

  He turned to face me, standing about five feet away. “Rhyzkahl will make an attempt to retrieve you,” he said. His eyes dropped to the mark on my left forearm. “That must be removed.”

  The cold fear ratcheted up another notch, and I struggled for something resembling calm. “You can’t do that,” I said. “You don’t have the right.” I knew it was an empty protest, but I was sure Rhyzkahl’s mark was my only possible lifeline. If Mzatal was truly able to remove it, then how the hell could Rhyzkahl possibly track me and get me out of here? Unless I find my own way to bust out, I thought. But how? Ilana had said only the lords and Elders could operate the groves, and I had zero idea where Rhyzkahl’s realm was in relation to Mzatal’s. I rather doubted it was within easy walking distance.

  “Were it a true and complete mark, perhaps not,” he said with a shake o
f his head. “But it is neither. And I will not honor it or him in this.”

  I scowled down at my mark and then back up to him. “What are you talking about?”

  He traced a sigil in the air and floated it toward the perimeter of the circle, then began another. “Key elements are missing, and its full purpose is shrouded.”

  I watched the sigils as they slowly formed a circle around me. I honestly had no idea if what he said about the mark was true, but I also had no reason to trust or believe him. Not that it made any difference. He was clearly determined to strip it off me. At least he no longer seemed to be quite as eager to kill me, but my essence still clenched at the thought of the mark’s removal.

  The bindings of potency holding me in place didn’t budge as I tested them. “What are you going to do?” I asked, though How much is this going to suck for me? was what I really wanted to know.

  “Unwind it. Forcibly if necessary,” he said, utterly calm as he continued to build the pattern around me. “The components connect him very strongly to you, and you to him. Should he come here,” he shook his head, “anything from extrication to your death is possible.” His gaze met mine, hard and intense. “And I will not allow it.”

  I knew damn well that the only possibility of death came from Mzatal, not Rhyzkahl. I resisted the futile urge to struggle against the bindings again. One of the faas returned and set a copper bowl full of steaming liquid on the low table near the perimeter of the diagram. The cloying scent, dense and heavy like a mass of decaying roses, wafted over me.

  “Why don’t you simply kill me?” I asked with a slight frown. “Why the hell are you going to all this trouble?”

  He laid a tracing directly in front of me, then stopped and lifted his eyes to mine. “Because there is yet potential for you to work with me,” he said. “And, in this moment, I still have the ability to keep you from him, though as long as the mark is on you, that ability decreases with every heartbeat.”

  I could only stare at him for several seconds while I processed his statement. “Work with you?” I asked, incredulous. “Like what? Open a fro-yo shop together?”