Touch of the Demon kg-5 Read online

  Still smiling, I looked over to Safar. “What was that all about?”

  Safar rumbled in amusement. “They traded kek. Tokens,” he said scrunching a soft drawstring pouch that depended from his belt—his only article of clothing. It sounded like a bag of marbles, so I suspected it contained a bunch of these tokens. “Wagers,” he said as if that explained everything.

  I was about to ask what sort of wager, but a savory scent demanded my attention, and I turned to the table, mouth watering. The faas had brought food—real, solid food—and that was the most important thing to me right now. I didn’t recognize much of the stuff, but I figured it was safe enough. If Mzatal wanted me dead, it wouldn’t be by poisoning.

  I broke my liquid diet with gusto, though I stuck mainly to simple, vaguely recognizable things: grape-like fruit that tasted of lemon and melon, potato-y things that tasted like…potatoes, which they probably actually were. A creamy sweet cheese that would’ve gotten a five star rating except for its sickly grey-green color. I only tried it because, unbeknownst to me, some of it was stuck to the bottom of one of the relatively innocuous crackery things. It was so damn good even the color couldn’t put me off after that. The experience should have emboldened me to try some of the other questionable “delicacies,” but, um, no. That sort of experimentation would have to wait until I was either hungrier or not so stressed.

  I finally wiped my face and hands, dropped the napkin on the table, then looked to Safar. “You said I could do anything as long as I don’t try to kill myself or leave the grounds,” I said. “Does that mean I’m allowed to explore?”

  He stood. “Unless I say you are not to go somewhere, yes.”

  Bath, food, and a sliver of freedom? My attitude was better already. Might as well find out everything I could before the end, right? I headed out to the hallway, looked up and down. “I’ve never been in a palace before.”

  Safar patiently dogged me as I wandered the lower levels of the palace, but after what was probably an hour or so of examining paintings and statues and poking through empty rooms, I found myself in what I knew, with Elinor’s help, to be the main entry corridor. I stood near a set of double doors at the end of a broad arched corridor that ran at least twenty-five yards to a matching set of double doors. Judging by the distance, I figured it led to the other side of the palace. One of the doors stood half open, so I headed out to see the sights without bothering to ask Safar for permission. I figured he’d stop me soon enough if I went somewhere I wasn’t supposed to go.

  The first thing that hit me when I reached the open air was the sense of spaciousness. I mean, I could look up and see sky like this at home, but it just felt bigger somehow, as if what I could see was only a small part of what was there.

  I stood before the central section of the palace atop a set of three broad steps overlooking a large courtyard. To the left and right, wings of the structure angled out to frame the grounds, the far ends terminating in towers. Déjà vu whispered once again, but this time with a memory of watching the sun set from the tower to the left. Apparently that was west, or whatever the local equivalent was. The west tower rose gracefully above the roof line, but the one to the east was another story. It looked like it had literally melted to half its height, with stone in frozen flows around its base. What the hell could do something like that?

  Walkways paved in dirt-stained white stone curved through ragged grass, sometimes lost in overgrowth. Tangles of weeds flourished in what might have been flowerbeds. In the distance I could see that the courtyard was bounded by what were once likely manicured bushes but were now shaggy lines of wild growth.

  I sighed. Much like the interior of the palace, everything suffered from neglect. What a waste. I guess none of the other lords bother to take care of it with Szerain gone.

  The center of the courtyard was graced by a raised circle of stone approximately twenty feet in diameter surrounded by eleven columns, in an eye-pleasing blend of honey-gold stone and wood, like much of the palace behind me. That was as good a destination as any, so I headed for it. The buzz of insects—or what I assumed were insects—mingled with an intermittent raucous cry that sounded like a cross between a crow and a bullfrog. Untamed vines dripping tiny scarlet flowers snaked up the nearest three columns. As I got closer, I identified them as the source of a pleasant tangy-sweet scent that laced the air.

  Peering through the leaves, I saw that the columns bore subtle carvings that had to be sigils, though I didn’t recognize a single one of them. The whole place emanated a subtle potency that rippled in goosebumps up my legs, and I had the strange sense that it was asleep and…dreaming.

  “Dak bah!” came a loud shout off to my left. I turned to see a reyza I didn’t know and the shadowy form of a zhurn near the wall of the west wing. They were heavily engaged in something that I could only describe as a fast and furious game of rock, paper, scissors, but with a lot more possibilities, and both hands were used. A few minutes of attentive focus taught me not much more, except that the reyza tended to favor a four-fingers-spread configuration, they were pretty damn serious about their fun, and that the kek tokens were passed back and forth periodically.

  A rush of air warned me, and I looked up in time to see a syraza make a precise and graceful landing in the center of the pavilion, its subtly iridescent-pearl skin catching the sun.

  For one brief, heart-stopping moment I thought it was Eilahn, my kickass demon bodyguard. She’d been killed on Earth, which meant that she would, hopefully, return here just as I’d returned to Earth after my death in this world. But even as my hope flared I realized that it wasn’t her. I’d only spent a few minutes with Eilahn in her natural form before she’d shifted into a human guise, but it didn’t matter. I knew this was a different demon. It just didn’t feel like Eilahn.

  This demon stood a head taller than me, long of limb, with bird-like delicacy, paper thin wings, and a decidedly feminine cast to its—her?—features. I truly had no idea how gender worked with so many of the demons. Most of the time I simply used whatever pronoun seemed to fit the best. I had no doubt I’d been utterly wrong a time or three, but so far none had taken insult. At least I hoped not.

  The syraza looked to me with huge violet eyes set in an almost human face, though broader of forehead and much more elongated. “I am Ilana. Fair greetings,” she said in a voice with overtones of delicate chimes and birdsong.

  “I’m Kara Gillian,” I replied, doing my best to hide my disappointment that she wasn’t Eilahn. “Fair greetings. I don’t suppose you’re here to rescue me from all this?” I gestured to encompass the dingy palace and Safar as well. “Sorry, big guy,” I said to him. He merely snorted, but Ilana gave a chiming laugh that wasn’t mean or derisive in any way.

  “I cannot take you from Mzatal’s custody, gentle one, but I would be honored if you would accept my company while you walk Szerain’s grounds.”

  “I would be the one honored,” I replied.

  She looked to Safar, and a heartbeat later he leaped into the air and winged his way to the central tower of the palace proper, high above the double doors.

  The syraza parted her lips and curled them back a smidge in what I interpreted as a syraza smile. She headed for the double doors, and I was about to ask why seeing the grounds entailed going back in, but then decided to go with the flow. It wasn’t as if I had any sort of schedule or agenda. We walked the long corridor toward the set of double doors at the far end. Déjà vu familiarity hummed.

  “You’re with Mzatal?” I asked as we walked. I’d almost asked if she served Mzatal, but somehow that didn’t seem quite right.

  “I am his ptarl. His counselor,” she explained. “The lords bear much responsibility, and each has one of the Elder syraza as ptarl, though Rhyzkahl, Szerain, and Kadir are separated from theirs.”

  Elder syraza. I noted the differences between Ilana and the only other two syraza I’d seen: Eilahn, and Marr, who I’d summoned to pass the eleventh level of summoning. Wher
e the younger syrazas’ foreheads were smooth, Ilana’s had a subtle vertical ridge from high mid-forehead to the top of her head. She also had prominent ridges in her hide, on her back and lower torso, that were absent in the others. I made mental notes of it all. “How many lords are there?” I asked.

  “There are eleven qaztahl…lords.”

  Comprehension dawned. Eleven. Eleven walls. Eleven fissures. Eleven columns. These guys sure as hell put a lot of stock in themselves.

  “Rhyzkahl, Szerain, and Mzatal you know,” she said, and I didn’t miss that she obviously knew about Ryan. “The others are Jesral, Amkir, Kadir, Vahl, Seretis and Rayst, Elofir, and Vrizaar.”

  No way would I remember all of them, but my summoner training had required me to develop pretty good memorization skills that also proved useful in police work. I filed away what I could and figured I’d at least recognize a name if I heard it again.

  As we approached a cross-corridor about halfway down, Ilana laid a long, three-fingered hand on my arm to stop me. “Anomaly,” she said, gesturing toward the passage ahead. I peered toward where she pointed and could barely see a flicker in the air, like a spark that cast light and sucked it right back in.

  “A very minor one,” she noted. “Easily dealt with.” With astonishing speed, the syraza traced a series of sigils and sent them spinning around the tiny spark. A heartbeat later the sigils flashed and a crack echoed down the corridor, not unlike the sound made when I dismissed a demon. “And now it is sealed.”

  “Um,” I said, displaying my amazing intelligence. “What was that?”

  “A remnant of the cataclysm.” She tucked her arm through mine as if it was the most natural act in the world and strolled on. “Left unchecked, rifts in the dimensional fabric can cause much destabilization and damage. Best to seal them quickly, even the very small ones like that, and always the larger ones.”

  I kept my arm looped through hers. Her touch held a deep comfort and reminded me of what I’d felt from Eilahn, though with Ilana it was much more palpable. Perhaps a syraza characteristic? “What if one of those happens way out in the wilderness where no one sees it forming?”

  “Such rarely happens,” she said as we came up on the double doors. “And when it does, the demahnk, the Elders, feel it. They most often occur in or around the demesnes of the lords because those are the areas of the greatest arcane torsion.” Before I could ask even more stupid questions, she said, “Come, I will show you the grove.”

  The reverence with which she said the word told me that this wasn’t going to be a stand of orange trees or anything like that. She opened one of the doors enough for us to slip through. We stepped out into open air again, confirming my déjà vu and observational suspicion that the corridor led from the courtyard all the way through the central palace. Off to the left—east—loomed the barren hills and jagged mountains I’d seen from the Cracks of Doom balcony. I felt as much as saw them, like festering splinters.

  Before us, a swath of grass sprinkled with turquoise wildflowers sloped down into a shallow wooded valley with rolling hills that rose to low, forested mountains. Woods in the full leaf of summer dominated the view, but it was a particular stand of trees that captured my attention. Twice the height of the not insubstantial surrounding forest, they stood in a ring near the verge of grass. Two parallel lines of these giants leaned toward one another, forming an inviting, shadowy tunnel from the ring to the edge of the wood. Their leaves shimmered in sparkling amethyst and brilliant green against white trunks, and I had no doubt this was the grove. A stone-paved pathway ran from the tree tunnel to where we stood just below the tower that held the summoning chamber—a distance of perhaps a hundred yards.

  “That’s beautiful,” I breathed. “What is it?” It was pretty obvious that this was more than just a bunch of really old and awesome trees.

  She cocked her head. “It is difficult to fully explain. At its simplest, it is the locus of an organic network, cultivated and propagated for use by the lords to travel from one to another near instantaneously.”

  “You mean like teleportation?” I asked.

  She spread her wings in an elegant flutter-motion that I had no doubt was a syraza version of a shrug. “The means are far different but the end result is the same. Only the lords and the Elder syraza are able to use them.”

  “It’s beautiful,” I repeated. It felt beautiful too, like subtle waves of peace breaking over me with the sigh of wind through the leaves.

  “Yes, it is,” she replied. “Very beautiful.” She stood with her arm still looped through mine. “Each grove has its own caretaker, a mehnta. A very special union.”

  I nodded, considering that. I’d only summoned one of the bizarre tentacle-mouthed mehnta, and that was simply to pass that summoning level. Their saliva had some antibacterial and antiviral properties, but these days it wasn’t in as much demand as it would have been even as recently as fifty years ago. “What’s it like to travel through a grove?” I asked.

  “When we leave here you will experience it.”

  I tore my eyes from the grove to look at her. “Leave?” Then I realized. “Oh. Right.” We were returning to Mzatal’s realm so that he could take the mark from me. Cold knotted in my gut as I wondered again what that would entail and what the consequences would be. I hated not knowing what was going on, even in the safest of settings. Here it only served to add another layer to the overall stress and fear.

  I lifted my chin toward a cleared area in the forest just this side of the grove. A small stone structure rose from a sea of wildflowers in the clearing. “What’s that?”

  She bared her teeth lightly in a syraza smile. “It is a place very dear to Szerain. One of his focal points. He spent much time there.”

  The coil of incessant fear gave way to deep curiosity about Szerain. The memory rose of that one kiss in the last seconds with Ryan before the summoning took me. So much had been said in that kiss. He’d told me he loved me. And I’d told him I loved him. But what did that even mean? It had felt so perfect, so right at that moment.

  I found myself walking the path toward the structure without even consciously deciding to do so. And how much of Ryan is real? I asked myself for perhaps the millionth time. He’s a demonic lord and doesn’t even know it. How could anything about him be real?

  I was vaguely aware that Ilana had slipped her arm from mine to allow me to continue on my own.

  If this place was so special to Szerain I really wanted to see it. I needed to see it. There was so much I didn’t know. I hurried down the gently sloping path, eager for hints, or answers, or anything else this place might reveal to me.

  Chapter 5

  Unlike the neglected stone of the courtyard, this path glistened in the sunlight, free of debris or traces of dirt as though carefully tended. Thigh-high wildflowers in vibrant shades of blue and rich golden yellow undulated in the gentle breeze, filling the air with an exotic blend of delicate floral and underlying musk. Smiling, I trailed my hands over the flowers on either side as I walked, enjoying the velvety contact with the petals. Small flying creatures that looked like furry hummingbirds on a bad hair day zipped here and there among the flowers with a shooshing whirr.

  The honey-colored stone building ahead was about the size of a two car garage, though lofty, with a peaked roof of overlapping green tiles. Enigmatic carved symbols covered all visible wall surfaces like neat graffiti. Shrine was the word that came to mind. Compact and sacred—not in the religious sense but more as if it held deep meaning for somebody.

  I tried to imagine Ryan here, imagine him creating this sanctuary, but didn’t have much success. I mean, I knew Ryan was Szerain, yet I still couldn’t really get my head around Szerain-the-demonic-lord being the same as Ryan-the-FBI-agent.

  The path led to three steps and a shadowy open doorway that didn’t look as if it had ever had a door. As I passed through the doorway, I felt the prickle of warding like I was walking through an invisible barrier. Illusory shadows
gave way to clear natural light from a skylight, and my arms rippled in gooseflesh from the arcane “charge” that permeated the place, even with the dampening effect of the collar. Humans and demons regarded me from murals, and water burbled in a stone basin atop a waist-high pedestal in the center of the floor.

  The only other furnishings were a low, comfortable looking stone and wood chair with sumptuous green cushions, and an exquisitely carved side table. Definitely a one-lord hang out, I decided. Like the pathways outside, no debris in here either, and not a trace of dust. I wondered if there was some sort of arcane warding to keep it like that. If there was, I sure as hell needed it for my house. I stepped in close to the mini-fountain and turned slowly to take in the murals. The multitude of people and demons depicted came from a wide span of time, judging by the variety of hair and clothing styles.

  My breath caught. Elinor. Radiant, she stood against a backdrop of leafy green, hands clasped with the youth from the statue—Giovanni. I half expected the sense of déjà vu to flare, but no. I frowned, wondering again.

  The light shifted as something blocked the doorway, and I glanced back, expecting Ilana or Safar.

  It wasn’t either one of them. A big-ass demon loomed in the entry, flexing its four wickedly clawed hands and hiss-buzzing in a nerve-jangling manner. I thought it was probably a savik, a second-level demon, yet I’d never seen one so large. It stood a good seven feet tall, reptilian in overall appearance with inky black skin on its belly and translucent scales like flakes of emerald over the rest of its body. Its head reminded me of a cross between a crocodile and a wolf—with the crocodile winning. Even with its mouth closed, gleaming teeth protruded at varying angles. It stood upright, though it looked as if it could be equally as comfortable on all sixes. In fact, the few times I’d summoned a savik, it had spent most of its time horizontal rather than vertical. And damn…not even a quarter of this size.

  I went still then very slowly raised my hands, palms out in an It’s-cool-I’m-not-doing-anything gesture, but apparently the demon either didn’t understand or didn’t care. I wasn’t really surprised. The savik was only a second-level demon with relatively low intelligence. The ones I’d summoned had been a nightmare to understand or give directions to.